The current world view of progress and technology has everyone on their knees in awe of the gigantic strides science has taken in changing our daily lives. Most people think this is a good and great thing and buy up all the latest gadgets to learn how to use them. The very rich who benefit from this situation control the media so the message and narrative holds tight to this perception that technocratic progress is great and good for humanity.
The reality of the matter is quite different. Never has there been so much suffering on planet earth. Plant and animal species are disappearing at an alarming rate. Diseases as illustrated by pandemics and the always increasing number of life-threatening pathologies are on the rise everywhere and the medical industry is not healing anything, they are most often putting bandages on the symptoms so as to continue making money off the masses. Wars, nuclear weapons of all kinds, pollution, injustice, starvation, extreme weather events are constantly rising, as droughts, flooding, wind storms, global warming, and the like, I could go on and on. Do you get the picture? All is not right in wonderland. We are heading straight into a planetary extinction event.
This is a cycle that we, holding the Native American traditional history of the past 127,500 some years, have seen happen 3 times already. The last one western society also remembers as described in many sacred texts like the Bible: the great flood and Noah’s ark.[1]
The gist of the matter is that when humanity loses its way, as this is not the first time great harmful technologies have been created on earth, the earth cleanses itself and we go back to living in harmony with nature. Nature, the basic laws of the universe, are eternal. They are always there. We understand and appreciate them when we live close to nature, when our food, clothing and lodging come from our daily labor in harmony with our environment. So very far from where we are today ☹!
Yet, that knowledge, that wisdom, is still there. We do have access to that pristine way of life that is shown to us every day in the world around us. There are several things that hinder our perception and ability to enhance this way of life. First of all, our bodies have lost the ability to adapt. We don’t have the strength or the endurance our forefathers that worked the land used to have. We have less resistance to the cold or the extreme heat or to doing hard work for long stretches of time. We don’t have the same understanding and knowledge of nature. The traditional land dwellers of ancient times could call on countless generations of their forebears for the skills and knowledge of nature in the ways they could generate harmony, food, clothing, and dwellings directly from their environment. We used to live in communities as opposed to modern day societies. The word society actually means living in ASSOCIATION with others in a financial relationship where human relations and interactions are secondary to the financial relationship and power structures emanating for this monetary technology. Thus, governmental policies are rigorously opposed to traditional land-based communities as the genocidal policies and land grabs that have afflicted our Native nations have illustrated ever since Europeans invaded our continent.
How do we reconcile traditional wisdom and community land-based values in this modern world?
It is possible. The solutions are there. Describing this will require more time than what I had put aside to write to you today.
So, I will answer this important question, as best I can, next weekend.
Have a beautiful and heart-full week. Love and Light be with all.
Luke Blue Eagle
[1] For more proof of our oral history and its pertinence today, including the description of these extinction level events, read the great Native academician Vine Deloria Jr.’s book GOD IS RED.
Here is the link to the continued article https://aiglebleu.net/en/2023/04/comment-concilier-modernite-et-valeurs-traditionnelles-la-suite-de-larticle-de-la-semaine-passee/