Sunday, February 17, 2013

A Good Day to Be Alive

Your truth stirs mine. 
Between meetings this week 
with the women and sisters 
in my community, 
I found my self once again 
Stalking Truth 
through the archives 
of colonial obfuscated text 
written by patriarchal men 
I in search for lingering traces 
of my matrilineal relations, 
bought and sold into slavery and servitude, 
attempting to heal and reveal 
the blood stained memories 
of who and when the She's 
who are directly related to me 
were murdered without reason...
huddled trying to hide in the tall toolies, 
or in our homes...
this is the war within, 
I ask to come to an end. 
Do not pity, romanticize or forget me. 
For I will cry 
the sweet rivers 
and salty oceans 
into existence again, 
for I am made of the Alchemy of Creation. 
In the warp and weave 
in the seen and unseen
all my relations in timeless union 
with the Dance that sets me free
to midwife prayers for Beauty Way 
and future generations
I know our Mother Earth will birth again 
for I am winyan. 
Today is a good day to be alive.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Muse's About the Colonial Construct

Yes I acknowledge my anger, the violations and grief I feel, some of it is genetic memory, this life's memory, and memory is not my now, and some of it is now. I remember an older woman who yelled at a young woman "If you do not know what to do, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!, LISTEN AND WATCH!" The woman who was being yelled at had not been raised traditional, and the force of the anger did make the her sit and listen. For many years I saw her do that and because she was not thrown out, she learned. But there is more to the story. The bully pulpit went to far and the young woman who was learning was followed by older woman into the kitchen where younger woman was learning how to feed the People. The older woman began to yell at the young woman in the kitchen. The caregiver of the kitchen, stopped the older woman, and explained that only prayer, song and good feelings were to be around the foods being prepared, otherwise, the People will become sick. The young woman, found love and peace in the kitchen, while she listened and learned. This example is in part what we are saying about the destruction to our Mother Earth - she provides and gives Life. Most people do not know how to live in Mother Earth's "kitchen".  I also think this is why our actions through Dance, Song and Prayer even during our resistance are so important. Understanding how to use the Obsidian Blade of Truth, and then heal and learn in a safe environment is beneficial so as not to cause more generational trauma.

I also remember a time, when a man who was not raised on the rez returned. He was in his 50's and his clan was preparing to give him Rites of Passage into manhood. A young woman went to uncle and said "Uncle he is old, I thought the Rites are for when he is younger". Uncle told her, "We always keep the door open. We do not judge what is in spirit's time. We are happy when our relatives come home, and it is our responsibility to do these things whenever that time is."  I think today that it is time for the keepers of the old patriarchal colonial paradigm to move over, sit down and shut up. And I think that for this to happen, I must stalk first what is in me to recognize the colonial construct and it's imprint upon my own mind, feelings, and ways of being. The insidiousness of the construct comes through willingly adopted (generationally internalized and taught through family) and unwillingly imposed (because of violence) imprints. It also continues through the slavery model of money. The natural instinct to survive and the colonial imprint is genderless and is seen in both males and females, and therefore there is competition.

If I do not decolonize the colonial construct internally, then I can not recognize the difference between what is happening to be merely a regime change, or something that will really lead humanity to Peace and living in balance and harmony with our Mother Earth again. So what really pisses me off right now? When ppl take anyone's words, and intellectual property for reasons of personal gain and prestige because it is done without even the minimum of acknowledgement from whence it came. So while I hear people espouse that the US constitution came from the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee, the reality of US colonialism is so far from that reality...and I have only been blessed to hear 20 minutes of their Great Law of Peace, which I was told actually takes 8 DAYS to hear it All. I know that if this were to be shared along with the totality of the Great Law's Life Ways...it would take the rest of my life and then some just to begin the journey.

Last year a Yarrabah Elder Bob, said that he believes that there are those that are willing to listen and learn today. So the question for me is with 350M ppl in the US alone: Is it better to educate and make allies, or risk http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/5/kill_list_exposed_leaked_obama_memo....because we already know both the fast and slow genocidal actions of the Colonial world, past and current. So I think that it will take great knowing of one's self to be able to know how to teach and lead others without being corrupted in the process.