We Deeply Value Your Trauma
Chapter 59 of Neophyte: My Life In A Sex Cult
This is a chapter within my memoir, Neophyte, about my time in a harmful cult called the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society. It is not meant to be read as a stand-alone post. To view all book chapters, click here.
The Deer Tribe is a dangerous cult. While they present themselves as a spiritual community offering healing and empowerment, their practices are rooted in manipulation, control, and cultural appropriation. Like many cults, they offer moments of genuine connection and personal insight — but these are strategically used to gain trust and draw people deeper into a harmful system. Readers are encouraged to read the entire book before forming opinions about the Deer Tribe.
Chapter 59
Within minutes, I received my first reply.
It was from Ryan Turner, an upper-gateway apprentice I knew from the drum team. He had been the one to dance chief Sawyer’s Veterans’ Group sweat lodge.
“This is the first I have heard of this,” he wrote. “I am extremely disturbed by what you’ve shared in your Open Letter. I want you to know that I take you at your word, I hear you, and I believe you.”
Later that night, Mary Rivers responded.
“Thank you for your courage, honesty, and for pushing for transparency on this topic, as well as within the entire Path. You are correct that this issue never came before us. I’m so very sorry for your experience and that it has cost you your Path with Heart! I’m grateful for your follow-through. I promise to keep you informed as to what develops.”
Mary was a Sacred Pipe Carrier and one of the SunDance healing chiefs. She had been on the Path for 30 years and ran her own lodge group in Minnesota. She seemed like a woman of integrity, and I felt relieved by her promise.
Later, Mercedes Carter reached out. She was the Red Lodge Year 1 teacher.
“I am reaching out to you as a sister. I understand that there were some poor decisions made by the Q leaders in relationship to you personally, your training and your family. I personally feel that the Q staff owes you an apology and full restitution of all fees, even those where you did an energy exchange. I always feel this is best as ‘what was done cannot be changed, certainly the energy can be restored by restitution.’ I pray that you are able to get solid PTSD support & counseling for any trauma incurred. If I can ever be of any support to you, don't hesitate to reach out.” She signed off the email with her personal phone number.
Reading these emails gave me renewed hope. I found them energizing. The council members who responded seemed to understand the depth of the problem. I felt comforted that they cared enough to write and were willing to acknowledge the trauma I experienced.
I also felt a quiet triumph. The top dogs of the Deer Tribe didn’t want anyone knowing what had happened, yet I had derailed their plan.
The next day, I got the proof I needed.
Irene Lawson responded to my email, copying all the council members in her reply. She was the Quodoushka teacher who had led the weird oral sex exercise at the Q2 I attended.
“I am a senior Quodoushka Teacher. Thank you for your heartfelt communication to the Council of Law. I do not know why your communication did not reach us in a timely manner. This will be corrected so others do not have to experience what you have so clearly shared with us.”
Bingo, I thought. As I suspected, Joanne Nightbird did not change Q policy. Nothing was done in response to my letter. She lied, and Annika and Linda Clarke had covered it up.
I was curious how the Deer Tribe would handle my reachout to the Council of Law, and I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Two days later, Catrina Novak emailed me.
“Thank you for writing. This is Catrina. Your letter addressed to the Council of Law was redirected to the Hereditary Lineage Leaders for handling. That group has now appointed me to be the point person communicating with you on behalf of the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society. I have texted you to see if we can speak over the phone or Zoom. I may not have the right number, so I am writing to you here. I would very much like to speak with you in person, as many nuances are lost in the written language. Thank you for being patient with us as we work on sorting these things out. We take your concerns seriously, and it is going to take a little time. As you know, our organization is based on people who are volunteers.
“We want to be transparent about the steps DTMMS is taking in response to your letter. As an immediate step, DTMMS issued a policy for Q teachers to not allow parents and adult children to attend the same Quodoushka program together. Our proposal includes a re-evaluation of the intake methodology into the Quodoushka workshops to attempt to determine whether intended participants are suited to attend. We also propose to prepare and publish a well-documented complaint process so that DTMMS can appropriately respond to concerns like the one you have raised with a view towards ensuring they are given an appropriate level of attention and are handled with an appropriate balance of privacy and transparency…”
“Catrina,” I wrote back. “I am curious to know—when were these policy outlines initiated? Were they done last fall, as Joanne claimed in her email to me? If so, I find it extremely interesting that Senior Quodoushka Teacher Irene wasn’t even made aware. How can you change policy and not inform the instructors who are affected by the policy? Or did you start this process only after I went public this week? For now, I think email communication is sufficient.”
Two days later, Catrina replied.
“To answer your question, refinements were made to Necea’s procedures immediately after receiving your 1st letter. DTMMS communicated the policy change to all Quodoushka teachers after receiving your more recent letter.
“We are also deeply committed to the sanctity of our Quodoushka teachings and value the healing and beauty they offer. We are invested to review, refine, and upgrade the various areas within the Q’s so that our Spiritual sexual teachings and ceremonies will hold integrity for the next 7 generations.”
I forwarded Catrina’s replies to June.
“These responses are such bullshakka,” June replied.
On Sunday, I received an email from Mary Rivers.
“I wanted to let you know that the Council of Law was formally asked to stand down on your situation. We were informed by upper leadership that all Q matters will now be handled by the HLL. I’m not sure if the HLL has reached out to you yet—I certainly hope so! But I didn’t want to leave you hanging, especially since I promised I would keep you informed. Unfortunately, my hands are now tied, but if I can ever be of personal assistance to you as a medicine sister, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”
Things were moving really fast, and suddenly, I felt nervous. I called June.
“Can they come after me legally for speaking out? I’m feeling really nervous.”
“You can say whatever you want. This is your experience, and you have the right to share it. You can create a blog and post Necea’s photo on it and write about what happened. You can go to her website and leave her a negative review. Don’t let them make you afraid.”
“What about defamation?” I asked her.
“Look, you are telling the truth. You have proof that they lied. You have their emails. Annika intercepted mail sent through the USPS, which is a felony. You have the right to talk about your experience. You hold all the cards here. The Deer Tribe does not want this getting out.”
Feeling emboldened, I sent a group email to three of my closest drum team friends. I briefly explained why I left the Path, and attached my letter and the responses I received. I let them know Annika had intercepted my letter and that I was now taking matters into my own hands by reaching out to the Council of Law personally.
One of them wrote back the next day.
“Thank you for sharing this with us. I have missed you. I feel the coldness of the replies you received and the injustice you experienced, both in what happened and in the lack of follow-up/follow-through. To hear ‘policies have been refined’ without naming what they were, acknowledging the issues you brought up, and the trauma you experienced, is hollow. And you are right that what happened was appalling and should never have been allowed. There was a lack of care and inquiry, again, both in what happened and in the response. I am also leaving the Path. After receiving Naomi’s letter and learning about what happened to you, I no longer want to be part of this community.”
Another friend, a social worker by profession, seemed incensed.
“I have read your letters. I am extremely disturbed by what I read. I’ve been considering leaving the Deer Tribe and this is the last straw for me.”
A third friend, a licensed therapist who had been on the Path for decades, had a lot to say.
“That whole series of experiences sounds extremely traumatizing for you. I only wish I’d known you back then so I could have cautioned you about involving yourself with the Qs and those particular staff. They may be nice enough people, but they have no auspice to deal with the kinds of wounding that inevitably come to them. I went through numerous Q1s in the 1980s when they were taught by SwiftDeer, all the way through Q4 and then a weekend of neophyte training. I’ve never heard of a parent-child enrollment in the same Q before—that’s insane. I could go on and on about how crazy the whole notion of Q was to begin with, and of course, how totally fabricated the tradition was by SwiftDeer. The Cherokee Nation was shocked and horrified to hear of it and disavowed any connection between Quodoushka and the Cherokee tradition. That was around 1991. So SwiftDeer quickly regrouped and then claimed it came from the Olmec tradition, which can’t be verified. I will say too, that my experience with Q4 was so profoundly weird, if I’d had any history of sexual abuse I would have been completely freaked.”
SwiftDeer fabricated the Quodoushka teachings? Anger burned in my chest. Every Q1 workshop began with a long diatribe about the “mystery teachings” of sacred sexuality, supposedly passed down for hundreds of years. The Quodoushka teachers had been lying to us, and I had been foolish enough to fall for it.
This was a lot to take in, but finally I could stop telling myself I was overreacting. I could stop blaming myself. I could stop diminishing my feelings. I could stop criticizing myself for not being strong enough to overcome my trauma using the Deer Tribe's techniques.
Inspired and comforted by these conversations, I reached out to more people: old ashram friends, Red Lodge peers, and SunDance connections. I contacted Tori Sykes, my Red Lodge and pipe teacher, and Ruth, who had played a key role in my healing ceremony. In each email, I included a personal note along with my letter and Annika's and Joanne's replies. I also attached Catrina's and Irene's responses as proof that I had been lied to. Tori never responded.
Despite our rocky parting, I even emailed Silver, apologizing for bringing the Q workshops to his center and pressuring his students to enroll.
He sent me a reply weeks later. “I am unclear exactly what you need or are asking for through these efforts, and I feel it is important for you to ‘get clear’ on that, otherwise this may continue to bring your energy and health down over time. I feel your pain, and that you are hurting, misunderstood, disrespected, and misperceived in all of this, but also feel that you MAY be trapped in deep resentment. Self-forgiveness would be helpful in you creating such a form of learning for yourself again. I know that when I find myself placing myself in these positions, the self-forgiveness becomes my first level response inside myself now, and gives me just enough room to gain other more constructive and positive resources.”
I felt sick reading his reply. I didn’t have resentment; I had rage! In a rush, memories of Silver’s toxicity came pouring in. Once again, he was discounting my feelings, trying to reframe my rage as something “petty” to be overcome. I sent his reply to June.
“I feel like he’s petting your head, like ‘oh, you poor misguided child,’” she replied. “But that’s so Silver. I do agree that self-forgiveness is the key to healing anything. The rest of it? Pass.”
I kept emailing people and eventually created a Facebook account. Within days, I had a few dozen Deer Tribe friends. I began posting about my experience and the cover-up, offering to share my letter and the communications I received from the Deer Tribe with anyone who wanted to read them.
Messages started pouring in. Apprentices and regular attendees of Deer Tribe ceremonies were curious. I created a template email with PDFs of my letter and the replies I had received, allowing me to quickly copy and paste it to everyone who asked. The reactions were varied. Some people never reached out to me again. Others offered weak platitudes, clearly hoping for a logical explanation for the Deer Tribe’s subterfuge. On one level, I understood, for this was their Path with Heart. Accepting the Deer Tribe’s betrayal would be heart-wrenching. For many, it would turn their entire world upside down, forcing them to question everything they believed in.
But many others were shocked, outraged, and disgusted by the Deer Tribe’s actions. A few people suggested they weren’t surprised by any of it.
And then, I began receiving a different kind of message. These were sent to me privately, and nearly all came from women.
“I had a similar experience at Quodoushka. Would you be available to talk?”
Go to Chapter 60.