07/05/2019
Feeling that all too familiar “Indian in the cupboard” kind of way. People passing by all day saying happy Fourth of July! Celebration of independence! Big smiles on their faces... they are my coworkers, my neighbors, my friends, and I love them. Feel joy inside to see them smiling to see them happy and being together. I love them; what do I say in response? How did “America’s Independence” help my People?
On Turtle Island we were independent, we were free in ways most American citizens cannot fathom. I am sad today. I love my friends I am happy they are together and smiling. I want to celebrate too. Something right and just. I want to celebrate the day the United States of America and all the Nations who have not already done so sign and ratify the Articles of the Rights of Nature of Earth. Yakhookay Bolivia and Ecuador for being leaders in this. I’m listening for the UN to continue their works toward this. I am hopeful and I celebrate and give gratitude to those giving there works and their words here.
These are the freedoms I speak of. The right to a natural life. It is hard to imagine that it can be true in this time. But it is possible in all times. It is easier to not do things that are out of balance with nature than to try to control.
Recently I heard a Woman talking about a Man considered a founding father of the United States of America. She said we should be grateful to him, honor him because it is only because of him that we have the right to independence and freedom of thought. As a Human Being that statement is confusing to me, it is untrue, but more it is deeply sad, it hurts. The concept that any one Man could grant the nature of the Two Legged’s brain the right to exist as it does in nature is in itself out of balance of nature. In this particular case, as in so many cases of a Man making a statement to grant the right of nature, it was granted to only a very select group of Two Leggeds. In my confusion, I ask questions and try to make sense of the answers. I was told ‘this form of control IS the nature of the Human Beings.’ No. It is a way. A path. It is not in balance with nature to seek control of nature. It is a way. It is not a sustainable one. It brings with it pain, inequity, unnecessary scarcity, enslavement of Peoples and their Children, unwellness, war, genocide..... To believe that a Man could grant the right of nature itself and to only a very few was the same belief that a Man could deny the rights of nature to nature its self. To deny the River the right to its Water to deny the Land the right to be free of poison, to deny the Plants and their Seeds the right to be regenerative, to deny the Mountain it’s right to stand a Mountain, if blowing it up could give coal......
To discern that a stainable life is one that is in balance with nature is a higher level of thinking. It is an old way, and it is a good way, it is a way for all time, as my Mother would say. This knowledge, this wisdom it is traditional, it is traditionally known from observational science with longitudinal study of 10’s of thousands of years time. It is the way of science of those Peoples living here on Turtle Island and else where. More recently in what is now called the Americas, within universities and centers of higher learning of science there are words in English and courses of study with names like “Sustainable life practices” “Sustainable Agriculture” Green Engineering” “Ecology” and “Earth studies” and many more. These concepts came from generations of sharing by the Peoples of Turtle Island with those that came to live here within the last few hundred years. Some of these Peoples who came listened and learned this knowledge and gave importance to teach it. Yakhookay. Gratitude. I am hopeful.
It is a decision to live, to give words and works in balance with nature. It is a pathway of walking on Earth. It is a choice that is the only one with a future on the planet. In a sustainable life way there is enough for everyone and all of life, the Land and Water clean themselves and their is great health and prosperity. It is not a fairy tale it is recent history.
Sometimes it is maybe good to learn history so that you CAN repeat it.
I was feeling low. I talked to Grandpa Frank and I felt restored in strength and encouraged. It is good to talk to our Elders. My Relatives all over Turtle Island care for the Peoples of Charlottesville. They think about you all and sing for you. They are hopeful. He encouraged me to listen to the IMF director Christine Lagarde. With the booms and cracks of fireworks outside tonight I listened to her. Many talks. Not an easy subject for me, but more and more I understand. She is bringing the traditional way of Woman to global community works. Ethics. Responsibility of all Peoples to have ethics in their works with one another. I am hopeful.
When I was very young a Grandfather asked me “How do you stand really close to someone when you are very different from each other without hitting or kicking, without saying ugly words or taking things from each other?” I knew I did not have a good answer. “I don’t know” he smiled. I knew he would give me time to listen for a good way of understanding this; and it was important to him that I could see in his serious way. Rarely did he say many words. Rarely did he answer my questions if not with more questions to me. This time he did. “In order to ever meet you must walk toward one another, this is the first thing” He and I talked on this off and on for many years. Each time he helped me to better understand. I do not think he was finished teaching me when he left the walking world. And so over and over I think on this and listen for him to keep teaching me.
It is not an easy thing to know what a People need in order to be well and healthy, to feel equity or respect. I can not know what another needs if they have not told me, if I do not ask. Even if I ask and they tell me I may not understand. It is not in how we are the same that we will find peace, that we can know one another. We are not the same. Peoples are different from one another. In how we are the same, in how we can relate, we have no conflict to resolve. We will find peace in how we are able to respect and honor our differentness. How we care for one another’s needs through that understanding that comes from listening to one another. Not in what we think each other need. I am hopeful.
I am grateful to our Mayor and city council of Charlottesville. I am proud of each of them as they take incredible courage and patients to listen to one another and to our citizens as they try to also hear what they are listening too. As important, I see them seeking to share and to understand one another. In this time we need patients for patients. Our words and our works in our time of giving them matter to our Ancestors and to our future generations, our Great Grandchildren. It is difficult to listen to one another sometimes, it hurts sometimes. Sometimes when we are listening to another our own feelings inside ourselves are so that it is hard to hear anything else. It is hard to give patients to hear one another while inside our own thoughts and emotions are so loud. Still it is good to do this. It is good to bare witness to one another’s pain and to care for one another. It is how trust is grown. I am hopeful.
In this time Peoples world wide talk about coming together and moving into the future without racism. It is a very precious time. A sacred time. This openness and courage. There are different understandings as to HOW we move into a future together without racism and different ideas about WHAT THAT FUTURE looks like “what it is” What is not racism? I am hopeful we can keep listening to one another about these answers. That we give time and patients to hear one another and to give to a balanced way with this.
I am resharing a song by Thunderbirds Raised Us.
Be decent America. We can do better. I am hopeful.
