Looking towards that 4th Hill

 

Greetings and many blessings to us all as we embark on this transiting season. As I take a moment to recognize our journey thus far this year, I ponder on the significance that this time of year holds for me. It symbolizes the need for peace. I don't know if everyone feels that similarly, but I yearn for a tranquil time in the days to come. Despite the obstacles we face, as we face the remaining end of our year, I believe we endeavor to hold on to the joys of summer and revive their essence in the waning times we travel in. 

I reflect on my indigenous ancestors and their philosophy towards harmony and peace. During the treaty making era, from an Indigenous perspective, treaty protocol was a sincere act of harmonious and peaceful intentions with the Europeans. For Indigenous people and their high concern for relationship building, it was a sacred contract. Such contract endeavors where considered highly honored, similar to the marriage contract that some of us still respect.  However, European objectives were quite different. 

Through the European perspective, peace methods were only used if it was cheaply obtainable.   If there seemed to be more time-consuming efforts needed for negotiations (which usually involves some costs), then violence and force are the likely means of confrontations. 

Unfortunately, our society has powerfully developed such colonial methods through its dominance. Despite its ubiquity, some of us still desire to practice means of peace and harmony. 

So, how do we create or hold on to the peace from an indigenous perspective in our world today?  Looking at the Medicine Wheel, fall's seasonal position on the wheel reflects the growth cycle of becoming a mature human being. A mature human being is one that is constantly becoming as the medicine wheel continues to turn. Each season offers potential growth and always honors the cycles of birth, learning, maturity, and wisdom. All cycles are beautiful, significant, and profound. They equate to everything in life, especially here on Earth. We can also look at the significance of the life cycle of a human being, the preciousness of new life and the astounding wonder of the newly born being and its innate intelligence of identity from its very beginnings. Its a wondrous experience being in the presence of new life. From a new beginning, if we are fortunate to be born into a community that honors life and its relationships, we can grow and learn with others, experiencing the journey together in love and support. Through bonding, we eventually want to make a clearing on the pathway of life to honor those that have been the way showers to us all in respect.

The admiration and the journey towards honoring the way showers is the road towards maturity. The mantle of maturity reflects this season. It is a transitional season where we readily learn to put aside childish behavior and activities and embrace a place of reflection in the mind and heart. Through vision quests, sweats, ceremony, and seeking mentoring from Elders, we have long established a purpose and meaning to life. It is now a passage of moving forward to a higher plateau of adulthood that honors the Elders. When we are willing, we step into the process to prepare to follow in their esteemed footsteps. 

There are many elders today because of modern science's capabilities to extend life. However, there are few Elders who have held onto the principles and way of life that hold millennium of teachings regarding living hinaak towis hennak a good life on Earth.  Though they are still here, they need the Auntie's and Uncles who are the ones who are honoring them and who also strive to show the way as well. Despite the colonial context, the Aunties and Uncles hold wuskippa (respect) towards their traditions as they support their Elders.  They are the ones working hands-on within the culture.  They are learning to be good examples to the younger generations.  

Anishinaabe Basil Johnson's story in Ojibway Heritage illustrates the four hills of life from a vision he had.  In his vision each hill of life presents many difficulties.  The first hill where our babies and little ones must climb for life reveals that not all make it up to the top.  From those that do, even fewer ones can reach the crest as they climb that hill from childhood.  From those that make it to the third hill, are where we may find our possible aunties and uncles. From this climb, there are even fewer that make it to the top.  The very last hill is by far the hardest to reach. Elders are so honored, for they sustain the principles that the striving Aunties and Uncles value. The Elders are the Aunties and Uncles best advocates and promoters because they want them to make it to the top of their hills to sustain the values and wisdom for those that come after.

My friends who are on the third hill of your life season... Allow this seasonal spirit to help you take on the mantle of your value.  Share your stories, especially to those you hold dear, and who look up to you. Embrace mortality and do what you can to remain healthy for as long as you can, because you are needed. This season is a reminder that we are closer to death than to birth. Therefore, facing its reality brings that truth with maturity that honors each season of life. Remember, most importantly, as we continue to climb, it is less weary when we work with forgiveness. Sure, we can carry grudges through midlife, but do we want to enforce rigidity further through our bones and skin, aging us rapidly when we are sixty and onward?  Such a climb would be like pulling along a heavy rubbish bin with us?  As we let that go, we learn what it means to be a source of blessing and what blessings really mean.  And most of all, climb in sincerity and with earnest. Thus we will understand how to mentor instead of teach. Mentoring is not running things or offering to be a leader.  Mentoring is sincerely supporting and being an advocate.

From an Indigenous Elder, don't wait. Consciously take up the climb and share your journey and celebrate the endeavor.

Blessings Always

Diveena

Mid Winter Season's Reflections: Remembering Relationship

This blog has been sitting in my bones for some time. With midwinter consciousness around me, I want to reach for illumination. I want to write something of promise and with inspiration. However, the rain and dark clouds make it difficult to find motivation and anticipation for the upcoming season here in north coastal California.

Thus, when my motivation wanes and I have a loss of direction and purpose, I can always find an incentive when my thoughts turn towards my ancestors and reflect upon their journey and histories. The seasons always guided my ancestors, just as the seasons direct me to pay attention to the earth’s voices. Unfortunately, most of us in settler society today pay little attention to transitional experiences. We direct our thoughts far ahead of us on our Earth walk. But when I place my attention on the Earth, my thoughts are not ahead of me. They are there in the present moment. I find I am addressing the relationships I have with the land and the immediate environment in which I live. This wisdom comes so much easier when I can explore more on the land, instead of looking out as the winter spirit has a firm hold on all our lives.

So what do I do when I can’t easily connect to the land and Mother Earth? Well, that did not stop my ancestors. The elements were not foes, but part of their lives that they lived. Like our brothers and sisters of the animal kingdom, they are part of the elements. Even with a changing season, many come out to acknowledge and greet it. There was such a different attitude towards change amongst the ancestors compared to our modern humans. Today, it is easy to assess that change is uncomfortable or an unwilling dance partner. Who wants to get soaked to the bone in the cold winter while trying to have a relationship with the land? I must remind myself that a relationship is not just an exalted moment where a merging of energies and consciousness may come together. Relationship is also about working together to build something that has meaning and longevity. Though seasons may seem transient, they never are. They consistently return, and that is a certainty. Perhaps many of us have taken an attitude of being transient and mobile too flippantly that we lose the connections that help us understand the value of what building relationship mean. Therefore, I make myself get out on the land, even though it is pouring rain. I prefer to check the weather for a break during its emotional moments, but I visit the greenhouse. I examine the old planting boxes to determine what maintenance they need and explore for potential new life in areas where perennials live. Most of all, I rejoice and thank all those plant relatives that have returned to be with me. Otherwise I lose the flow of contact and before long I don’t understand what has happened and discover plant relatives that may have needed help on winter’s journey are no longer there. Then, I am deeply saddened and guilt-ridden for the neglect. I don’t like to feel like that.

Transitional awareness, (such as what I have minimally gleaned), directed my ancestors to reunite and place their efforts in intentional consciousness through ceremony. Through ceremony, we gain awareness of what is and what lives in the hearts of all participants.

Chief Caleen Sisk of the Winnemen Wintu explained to me about ceremony:

Well, it brings people together. Getting ourselves ready to show up to represent those things that we heard and feel as our sacred tradition.  I think it comes about within the heart in ceremony that a lot of people realize what they can do.  _ (Sisk)  

Dr. Dan Longboat Mohawk scholar and personal mentor:

Ceremony and storytelling are agents that inspired inner consciousness within our human lives and world, rather than its contemporary value place upon it from the dominant society for the primary use of entertainment and/or propaganda.  _ (Longboat)

In Routledge to Native American Literature Part IV Traditions, in my contribution Indigenous Hermeneutics through Ceremony; I offer a personal experience of ceremony:

I fasted with four other women when I apprenticed with Elder Edna Manitowabi.  All of us participating came into the fasting camp with different intentions and from different communities.  Despite that, when it was over, there was a transformational spiritual link that I do not believe will ever be broken between us. I also believe that the spiritual experience deepens our identity and personal power with Spirit, which incites a rededication or responsibility to the community and to Mother Earth. _ (Marcus)

I provide these insights to demonstrate the enduring significance indigenous peoples attach to ceremony.  Ceremony is a ritualistic event with purpose. Ceremonies have the power to reveal the contents of our hearts, that we often overlook due to our lack of stillness.  Perhaps we do meditate, but most of us meditate to feel better and to help calm ourselves within this highly energetic society in which we live. As in most civilized and highly populated societies, meditation became necessary in order to cope with the industrialization of their environment.  

For most indigenous peoples, there was no need for meditation because their environment and society did not divorce them from a life-force generating Spirit of Mother Earth.  The wonder of life’s spirit was powerful.  Perhaps if we watch the 2009 Avatar film by James Cameron, there is an animated depiction of this idea where the life-force is visible in magnificent colors.  I know some folks can see such a phenomenon.  However, seeing was not as important as perceiving, honoring, and supporting the relationship to all life forces that we are all a part of. 

In a society that many of us live, individuals rely on meditation and prayer as tools to handle social challenges and to find solace amidst the chaos and constant distractions. However, if we turn to an Indigenous perspective, meditation is not to have an empty mind, but to make intentional time to encourage a direct line of connection to the Creators, (and what my Santee/Sioux friend Scott Frasier would say, “the pulse of the universe”), in order that we can take part in the dance of creation on our planet. We are not trying to fight or divorce ourselves from the spirit of the world, rather to co-create with Mother Earth so that we can contribute to supporting all life.

This very participation in procreation brings with it certain responsibilities and understandings that must be maintained, the kinds of understandings that today we call an “ecological compact or spiritual ecology? (Greg Cajete)

If we wish to truly take part, then we must come to it with supplication and reverence or what many of us would refer to as respect. Curiosity does not do it. If fact, once this experience truly happens, it impacts us. We can never return to our previous state of self-centeredness. This change allows us to live by a code of ethics and standards that no other book outside of us can dictate. It is a living truth. People who valued the visions established protocols that embody this integrity as a way of life. For some in indigenous communities across our planet, these protocols and lifeways have lasted for thousands of years. 

Spiritual and intellectual integrity is achieved on Turtle island by the interplay of human and more-than-human consciousness.  (Sheridan and Longboat 365)

We can not be impacted unless we temper ourselves by finding our place of belonging where we are. Indigenous spiritual knowledge originates from the natural world, which is all highly spiritual. This knowledge is inherent within the cosmological indigenous culture. I believe indigenous knowledge is our planet Earth’s code of ethics, and guides us to understand laws of the universe. Hence, reflection and making the time and space for re-cultivating the relationships that give life back to us is imperative for each and everyone’s survival and towards living fulfilling lives. What is that song of yesteryear? Love the one you’re with. It starts where we are, in the presence of living relationships. We may have many social media friends, but do we truly connect? Or are we becoming distracted from connecting to purposeful relations? A question to be asked is what is really meaningful in our lives? Most of us know. We all want to be blessed with living, loving relationships. We want relationships that are experienced in our personal lives that allow our 5 senses (and more if possible) to be shared intimately here and now, in present time and space, together. It is up to our willingness to make actual relationships that help us make choices to cultivate living love in our lives so we can rejoice in living a hinaak towis hennak (a good life). In the eyes of my Anishinabe cousins, it is important for us to battle the Wetiko, the darkness that pulls us away from mental clarity and well-being. Fear in our society takes us away from each other. When we make a commitment to live and seek love first, we make the choice to living now. We can gain clarity and we will have focus. There will be no room for distractions.

Traditional Indigenous people believe we have benefitted from this beautiful world and we are part of its evolution. Much like the spiritual and transformational bond I have with my fasting sisters, we humans have become bonded to each other and to the rest of the non-human peoples in our earthly environment through our living relational experiences.  _ (Marcus)

When we live a purposefully directed life, genuine relationships happen. There is a bond that is completely meaningful and beautiful. I believe that is what we all are living for. In midwinter, many indigenous peoples came together and still do, to honor and celebrate their time here on Mother Earth. We never know when things will change. For my indigenous ancestors, they did not experience wars (until the invasion of settlers), but they had natural environmental challenges. Perhaps the environment must go through changes that may affect our lives. In modern society, our lives can change through economic and social impacts. However difficult it may have been, if we are here now and have some precious ones (vegetable, animal, mineral and/or human) in our lives, we are blessed. We honor those that are still with us as well as those who have been our mentors and have left us memories and legacies. We also look at our spiritual lives and reflect upon the power of the Earth and the divine Great Mystery of the universe that holds together all our lives. Hence, we also reflect and rededicate our life path to hold a stronger bond to our Earth walk and with the commitment to living a hinaak towis hennak, a good life that will enhance our life ways and others.  

I pray these last days of winter may help us come to a place of clarity as we reflect on our connection to the Creators. Ceremonially, may we reflect on what we truly want that cultivates love and meaning. May we make ceremony to come together with our loved ones. May we rediscover family. With such a foundation, the dawn always breaks through the darkness.

Muyye Weyya

Diveena

Citations:

Marcus, Diveena. Indigenous Hermenutics through Ceremony; Song, Language and Dance. The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016

Longboat, Dan. Introduction to Indigenous Food Systems. Trent University, Ontario, Canada. 12 Feb. 2013 Lecture.

Sheridan, Joe & Dan Longboat. The Haudenosaunee Imagination and the Ecology of the Sacred Space and Culture 9. 4(2006): 365-81

Sisk, Caleen. Personal interview. Siskiyou County, California. 18 Sept. 2014.