We Have Begun!

There is an amazing community hidden out there... you might be part of it... who are unafraid to look right into life and realize it.  In context here we are speaking of ANCIENT LIFE... of addressing it and living it holistically; SPIRIT, MIND & BODY; a life we share of DESIGN & INTENTION!  I have been pleasantly surprised by many people’s recent comments (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtPsjWl4n0dO06oFwIAjy-A) and many times made better of them.  Thank you.     

Archeologically speaking… sociologically speaking… we have begun moving forward covering ground, or if possible uncovering ground. Usually this demands a mind set on endurance. How often have we personally witnessed the payoff of tenacity and patience moving forward in so many facets in life!  So many steps, so any miles... sometimes so many shovelfuls!  Amazing!  For we hope in the energy and life which is in the earth beneath us.  Sometimes this earth shared the clues and traces of millenniums of humanity past!     

What we hope for we are obligated to with patience wait for it. Every day we organize our thoughts, and travel back in time, to conceptualize the artifacts we have found and hope to certainly yet find. Some travel miles on foot, some travel miles in care, some move tons of dirt and some simply do the very best they can.  All hope to find the Indian trace of an incomprehensible dispensation!  Even my own distance running fits into the Nomadic mold.

What is the best way to look at, and feel about, life expressions of more than 200 generations of mankind?  Generations beginning BEFORE 1500AD.  Do we handle their expressions in stone and dare not think of the lives they lived, the people they loved and the honors they kept?  We find the footnotes of the lives of the North American Indian and they speak of the volume of their way.  It is a simple rejoicing.  Cheers!

The Greatest Spirit, Part 2

Welcome back!  We are all running life's distance through... hopefully with heart!  Let's continue with a clean glimpse of the virtue of the utility, relationship and survival the North American Indian lived with through untold millennium.  Let's make this simple... 

Every thought, every action and every tool they had was utilitarian. It had a specific and tangible use. Their thoughts did, their actions did and their tools did. Ours do not. Because they (just as we) were designed as artistic beings, these artistic expressions laced themselves throughout.

Every thought and every action was connected to relationship TO others.  The life they had was supported and revolved around the support they could give others.  The support and encouragement of others was their primary thought.  In American Material Culture never chooses this "way" first.  The North American Indian held the better portion in these regards.

Lastly, the North American Indian had a constant and daily focus on living... on surviving. They accepted ardent, difficult conditions and moved forward resolute that the Great Spirit would provide and supply. Many times, modern man does not.  They, in these demands, were constantly a people of faith. It was demanded of them.  We had rather trust in materialism, industry and technology. I still think they might have had the better portion.

Good thoughts to know who They were!  Be well! 

The Greatest Spirit, Part 1

The strength of our modern environment has effected our insight.  Our perceptions naturally have conformed to the "force" of our social environment.  As it would be, in any environment a child matures in, the influence of that environment will become the reality of their own perceptions.  Whether good or bad, one will be a product of their environment. 

The social influence of our lives is happening immediately and it is usually not perceivable by us. These contrasts and influences MUST be considered when we approach the anthropology of the North American Indian. Our society has grown incredibly fast.  The United States solid social foundation of materialism, industry and technology has been our conditioning. The North American Indian's society was based solidly on utility, relationship an survival.

I must note here that this does NOT make the North American Indian a lessor people than we. Many have believed this.  The very thought of this is a product of our sociology.  The ERROR is to think of any people, "If they do not have what we have, or can do things the way we can or have the ability to manage both, then these are obviously less important people."  Tragically less valuable, less worthy or less deserving.  This mind frame is the cancer of the human race.

Our lives with the North American Indian is a huge unquestionable contrast!  If anyone is interested in understanding the great past race of the North American Indian there is a beginning. The treasure we should daily seek before all things is an ancient mind frame. More appropriately the SPIRIT they were compelled by their environment to live with and through.  It is a treasure within to see the way they saw and interpret life as they did.  To find the real appreciation in humanity requires this.  Can we? 

Without The Benefit of the Ancients

It would seem that with respects to our immediate understanding of the great dispensations of time immemorial here in North America, and our understanding of how the crossing paths of specific sociological adaptations has deeply affected humanity in North America, we might well be too young to grasp such graphic, inevitable changes.  Our understandings are immediately subject to the current Modern Age we are in… without the benefit of the Ancient Age we have changed.

In the brevity of 500 years the sacred land of the North American Indian has been

the basin, the foundation if you will, to the material culture the entire world could not, and will not, do without.  The overpowering influence of electricity, industry, agriculture & technologies alone evaporate the ability to understand the influence of the Majority Race here in North America.  However, a good heart still unfolds mysteries for the benefit of their character.    

Evil & greed were not the materials created, or the technologies developed, BUT evil & greed has been within the hearts of mankind.  This is the substance which has forever hurt humanity... the North American Indians were on a similar line as to all shattered humanity.  However, it has been exclusively Their land, and Their lives (no other peoples in the world) which provided the world with extreme material comfort and ease. The Conquest of North American laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution.  Although many millions have cared for lost humanity (of which I am included), the industry of the world was inevitable.

With that said, catastrophically altering a race of man, the North American Indian, in the space of 200 years cannot give we, who are inside the force of Their change, the understanding we yearn for of Their People.  We remain outside the reality of Their lives… separated by the fate of our own formation.    

So the best many can do (of whom I am one) is study and collect the knowledge of

The North American Indian from every approach possible.  Search the testimonies of the way they lived, loved, dreamed, fought and died; find the tangible trace of  their life-way in tools and art; and the touch their People and bloodline. We can understand more, we should endeavor to understand more, yet will never grasp the effects of this colossal change until we look at it from the other side. All honor and sympathy to the North American Indian, both past and present. Our devotion true. 

A Smile In Sadness

I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to

depend simply upon himself.  Shooter ~ Teton Sioux

It stands to reason that if we stepped back a thousand years into the history of North American; possibly the year 1015 AD; there would be a virtually untouched multitude of people.  The wild and Nomadic tribes of the North American Indian.  Important here is that we understand that "wild" is NOT synonymous with "un-kept".  For in truth it is just as Henry David Thoreau said, "Some are dinning in our ears that we are Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients".  It is these Ancients which we would see and feel, and these Ancients which would trace their own lineage through multiplied thousands of years.   

The lives of the North American Indian, who's artifacts are still found throughout the land, were mobile and mercurial by Nature and by necessity.  The Indians nomadic natural was a compliment to their original Design.  Which is so important to remember in looking at the complete plan for mankind here upon the earth.  

Moving forward... If by chance in 1015 AD there had been no subsequent European influence, conquest or injection of pandemic disease... If the current settlement of these United States, as we understand them to be, never happened in the following centuries after 1015 AD, the life of the North American Indian might well today be relatively unchanged.  We immediately think of this as something negative... for we are "moderns".  However, there is virtue to the contributions of every decent race of man.  

Moving forward this produces one deeply moral and ethical question that needs consideration:  Would it have been better for the world... better for humanity... if the North American Indian was never contacted? 

No. It is one of the saddest answers I might ever consider when one understands the history of the North American Indian after European contact.  Inevitability is a force effecting all of us.  As has been the influence and contact of selfishness, greed and hatred.  With these kindness and decency have readily been placed aside.  I will end this easily for those who have ears to hear... there is hope and He meant what He said when He visited mankind.  He guides me daily with a smile in sadness.     

THEIR LIFE, THEIR LAND, THEIR WATER!

The Wise Man believes profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. 

Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. 

The man who preserves his self-hood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. 

What are the fruits of silence? They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character. ~ Ohiyesa / Santee Sioux

There is a BAD situation we have across these United States.  This land is rich and abundant with respects to archaeology & artifacts!  There is North American Indian trace beneath our land and within our waters... BUT it was NEVER exclusively "OURS".   A BAD WIND has been blowing across these lands since before you and I... a bad wind, long blowing.  

We should have NO tolerance for the ignorance of men which has gone to seed.  We should literally MOVE their persuasions with wisdom, strength & intelligence.  How could a man tolerate living in a Land where the ignorant and presumptuous dictate when we bend over and pick up a rock!  How completely foolish to consider such artifacts “hands off”.  They look to appease their own guilt.  

The substance of Stone Age tools was utilitarian and expendable resource!  It was akin to our own plastic bottles or silverware or a multitude of other tools we use!!!  THESE artifacts are NOT sacred to the People… what WAS sacred to them was THEIR LIFE, THEIR LAND, THEIR WATER!  Think about this...

The same presumptuous people who frown on artifact collection are the ones buried in guilt posing amendments to sanctify broken promises!!!!  They posture protection of Indian “artifacts” while standing on raped land wet with blood they shed unmoved!

May the express Spirit of the Creator touch all men's heart to teach & to learn.  Can we look at the root to legal policies based on greed and self-seeking honestly... can we stand resistance & proud to represent the truth of the North American Indian?  Can we be honest as to what continues to be sacred to them?  

The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the wildness in us dies. 

- Mary Brave Bird / Oglala Sioux