In the video entitled "Red Moon," a Cheyenne man speaks of a self-hatred that permeated his soul even as a child. It went so deep, he wondered if his mother was paying his playmates to be his friends.
His voice sounds serene and calm, yet there is a faint tremble to it, belying the emotion beneath the surface. His words are accompanied by a mosaic of family photos and abstract stock footage: a bodiless beating heart and matadors dodging an angry bull among the images.
After a dark winter as a young man, after some family tragedies, he found himself confronted by a penetrating question: "Do you really want to live?" he says in the video. "I came back from that dark night with a yes, a resounding yes, I do."
"Red Moon" is one of nearly 70 digital shorts through which clients and staff of the Native American Health Center in Oakland, California have told their stories, and psychology intern Virgil Moorehead, 31, believes they are not only a way for Native people to control the narratives about their people but can serve to heal the scars of intergenerational trauma.
His voice sounds serene and calm, yet there is a faint tremble to it, belying the emotion beneath the surface. His words are accompanied by a mosaic of family photos and abstract stock footage: a bodiless beating heart and matadors dodging an angry bull among the images.
After a dark winter as a young man, after some family tragedies, he found himself confronted by a penetrating question: "Do you really want to live?" he says in the video. "I came back from that dark night with a yes, a resounding yes, I do."
"Red Moon" is one of nearly 70 digital shorts through which clients and staff of the Native American Health Center in Oakland, California have told their stories, and psychology intern Virgil Moorehead, 31, believes they are not only a way for Native people to control the narratives about their people but can serve to heal the scars of intergenerational trauma.
Read more at
