Today most people are celebrating the Fourth of July holiday. For the historically minded, it is a time to celebrate the independence of the United States from Great Britain. For others, it is a time to acknowledge and celebrate our perceived personal freedoms. For others, it is a time to get away from the daily grind of work and spend time with family and friends.
The United States is a land of diversity. While we live in one land we are still very much different people, with different cultures and histories. For the Native people of the land, Independence day is a often a reminder of treachery and deceit. Most native people live on reservations in Third World conditions; the result of broken treaties and genocidal efforts by the United States government. How can one forget that!
Morning fam. & friends. A Lakota elder told me once that people from the American culture talk way too much. Spirit talks softly and subtly and requires that one listen with the deep inner ear of the heart. This requires quieting the mind and stilling tongue. When one gets hit by the cosmic 2×4 it is because they have spent way too much time talking when one should have been listening to the subtle messages that were presented.
There are many ways of working with the energy of the Standing People. One ancient way of honoring and praying with trees is to offer prayer bundles or flags to the spirit of the trees. Take a small pinch of loose tobacco. Pouches of tobacco can be bought at a grocery store. Cut up the cloth into small, 1” squares. Place the tobacco in the squares and pinch or fold the tobacco inside the cloth until you have a bundle. Use a piece of string to “tie” the cloth bundle closed. Traditionally, one would use what is called “a slip knot” to tie the bundle. The teaching is that one does not want the Ancestors to have to fumble to untie a knot to get to the essence of the tobacco. On a practical level, by using the slip knot, one can tie many bundles onto one small stretch of string. Right now, one needs to use the intention of “Dariji” a Yoruba concept which implies that mistakes or errors in procedure are “forgiven” in light of the need to support the greater good.
Take your string of tobacco bundles or tobacco flag (one longer strip of cloth, i.e. 2×12’ with one larger bundle on the end) and tie them onto the lower branches of a tree. Say your prayers as you tie the tobacco into the bundles and release your prayer as you tie your bundles into the tree. Ask that the Spirit of the tree carry your prayer around the world. This, the Tree would do anyway, as their collective energy is united with all trees, everywhere. In this manner one prayer becomes millions. The more things united behind one intent, the greater the probability that intent will manifest in the physical.
Many watched the movie, “Avatar” and walked away wishing they lived in such a magical place. The problem is we have been living in a magical place and have failed to recognize its beauty. “Avatar” was based on the plight of the Indigenous people to save the Amazon Rain Forest; their desire to save the Lungs of the Earth.
In addition to the physical task of breathing for the Earth, trees create a communication network around the earth carried through the roots and passed along their crowns. We call them the “The Standing People”. They carry memories into which we can tap for learning and they carry messages from the other side of the globe if we will only learn to listen.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has had a nuclear disaster after the events of March 11 in Japan.Photograph: Air Photo Service/AFP/Getty Images
We fooled ourselves into believing nuclear power was safe. Now we are struggling with the after effects of the Fukushima Power plant disaster. Ever increasing levels of radiation are being absorbed by the environment. I refuse to give the numbers here, hoping rather that people would look up the information for themselves. We in America want to believe we are safe. Are we? Are we separate from the radiation carried in the currents in the air and sea and foolishly believe that all that radiation has miraculously passed us over? I think not. What is important at this time is that we build our spiritual and physical immune systems to minimize or stop the absorption of radiation in the body.
Righetous Leader of the American Indian Movement, Russell Means speaks on the need to live with and understand the Matriarchy, a balanced system where the leadership of elder women is valued as different but equal. He is clear that in a matriarchy, “…women do not rule” but rather the women teach men how to nurture and create balance. Wonder wisdom from a wonderful warrior spirit.
