I am beginning to read the book We are the Middle of Forever. This book written by Dahr Jamail (of The end of Ice) and Stan Rushworth (author of Diaspora's Children) is their interviews of 20 Native leaders from around "Turtle Island" (21 including Stan who is also Native.) They are interviewing them about how they are responding to being present at this time in history with the changes that are happening to the earth. Story telling is the Native way of teaching and passing down knowledge and so this is the transmission of 21 stories and their wisdom.
One of the things that has already come through is that as descendants of survivors of genocide (past and still present) they have a survivor mindset. They intend to survive. But they have already been living their whole lives with the grief and loss and trauma that many white or settler people are only now beginning to get in touch with. "For the Indigenous people of the world, radical alteration of the planet, and of life itself, is a story many generation long." Stan Rushworth. As we respond with desperate horror to a future that scientists tell us is probably coming they point out they have already been living in devastation. They have already lived through displace, loss of family members, of land and of culture and a complete way of life. This in part offers an inspiring testimony to the persistence of the human spirit and also as a haunting warning.
They also tell of many famous elders from various tribes in different decades who carried from Spirit a warning for all humanity - the struggles to get even 10 minutes before the UN to offer these warnings which most readers remain completely unaware of. They additionally speak of the prophecy's of many tribes that have been passed down many generations - about these times. The prophecy's carry powerful messages about choices we must make in these times if we are to survive.
Stan tells us of a Native leader, Jake Swamp, now dead, who said: "the people had forgotten and could not come to peace and agreement because they had no clarity to see the future. He said that people had lost their clarity because of the blinding tears that blinded them from seeing. and he said that people had lost the ability to listen because of the grief felt at the pain from what had happened. He said people had lost their voices from the grief and pain, so they could not come to agreement. He said the people needed to take the stricken one by the end, and help them to 'raise their eyes to Creation' and find 'the purest cloud to wipe away the tears,' for vision to be restored. Then they should look to Creation again and find the "softest feathers for opening the ears," so they could 'hear the wind, the birds and all the things that make sound in the world'." This of course is why I do Joanna Macy work, is to try to help move people through grief to being able to see the world again and to act on her behalf.
The book is also reminding that a renaissance in happening in "Indian Country". That after a whole generation or two was forced to not speak its language, separated from their elders and forbidden their spiritual practice and horribly abused in the boarding schools - resulting in the death or near death of many Native languages and cultural/spiritual practices, that this generation is reaching to find the fragments and rebuild. They are teaching their language again, working to preserve it, and they are relearning practices of wood carving, boat building, spiritual storytelling, and agricultural and cultural practices of all kinds. They are consciously knowing that this is what will be needed in the challenging times ahead.
It is a reminder of the powerful spiritual practice of Indigenous people in alignment with Earth. Over and over again in climate demonstrations where I have been present with Native leaders, they have drummed, they have prayed out loud, they have expressed gratitude for what Earth is providing us and they have prayed for change. They operate out of a level of belief that I sadly do not see from religious leaders of mainstream churches. It is very clear that they put all of their faith into that action, all other actions are puny in comparison. For a people who have survived the Trails of Tears as well as massacre I can understand that for the survivors it is the Creator who has saved them. As Fawn Sharp (Quinault) says: "When the most powerful country in four hundred years can't stop you, you know it is because of our resources, prayers, and blessing and everything that has been across this land since time began. And we not only have survived, but we are now emerging even stronger."
One of the most powerful experiences I have had was watching (on video) a young native woman crying out, screaming at the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police as they stood in a line blocking the demonstrators, faces expressionless as several beat a protestor while the line blocked the other demonstrators from rescuing their comrade. The young woman screamed at them "Come back into your bodies, come back into your bodies, your souls have left you." I was shocked by how powerfully she was naming the truth. This along side of hearing another Native woman a number of years back describing her time at Standing Rock and the police turning the fire hoses on them in the freezing cold and she just kept repeating: "We know who we are for generations back. They do not know who they are." (And she said this was compassion and shock - not judgement. This I think again was her way of describing people who had left their bodies (and their ancestors and their descendants) because to do violence to others who are doing you know harm - you must be disconnected....utterly disconnected.
I invite others to open their ears and eyes with clouds and feathers to the wisdom in this book.
James town public art
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