There is a legacy of privilege and an intellectual and spiritual legacy of entitlement from the first time the Doctrine of Discovery entered the world and became a tool of conquest for the Europeans. This story is pivotal. It was a beginning. Its importance is related to the next killing, the next school massacre, and the next attack on American liberties, and the water wars soon to come. The fact of and the painful presence of millions of Westerners happily ignorant of this simple tale of woe that fed their ancestor's disassociation from what connects one to another was acted out by the careless disregard for life that stumped the indigenous tribes first meeting the whites five and four and three centuries ago. After centuries of murder and taking what has been and is the cost to the soul?
The spirit of a People precedes them, and leaves a mark in the grass when passing from place to place. People from around the world had hunted many a creature, but none as insidious as the one creature lurking within the spirit of a People from across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. The depths of their wounds are incalculable, and all the people of the world suffer from this legacy. How many other planets and life forms are watching this drama outplay itself? It is a useless form of energy, but we all at this time in our collective history have a piece of the the stench, the shit, the weight of this legacy upon and within us. It is like shit on shoes. It tracks in the house where we all live. The questions, the answers to the questions are in the form of the question: "How do we heal? How do we heal each other?"
The white people will never figure out how to arise like the Phoenix from their history and their spiritual past and karmic legacy. There can be no great comfort in the spirit they carried within themselves from land to land for five centuries. Their legacy leaves all of us with previously some unimaginable problems and concerns, and more questions within our collective sphere of concern.
"Does privilege buy contentment and peace of mind?"
"How thick is the veneer of wealth?"
"Is it a shield?"
In 2010 Ethan Couch, drunk at 16 years of age, ran his vehicle into another vehicle killing four adults, and was sentenced in Texas to 10 years probation. The juvenile court in Fort Worth, Texas order the boy into private therapy at $450,000 per year because he was suffering from 'affluenza'! The legal argument was that the boy was a victim of wealth! Affluenza is a psychological malaise supposedly affecting wealthy young people, symptoms of which include lack of motivation, feelings of guilt and a sense of isolation. On the other end of the social spectrum poor inner city youth are engaged in hard street life where many of them live with feelings of guilt, have no motivation, and feel isolated in society. Their feelings of isolation are compounded by being African-American, Native American, Hispanic youth, and poor whites without legal representation from the pricey law firms face serious time for small crimes to high crimes. This social problem is a spiritual problem, and a problem of perception and legacy. What and how you participate in healing as opposed to bitterness?
People of color cannot live without white people and their gifts to the world and white people cannot continue to live as a people known for killing their grandchildren to feed their children any longer. What healing modality should we employ to heal self and each other? Do you feel and see the legacy of a people and how it adversely affects us all at every level of being human? What ceremonies, actions, and conversations will lead us to become relatives again? What prayers will call out our duty to each other? I may be a free man, but my freedom is shackled by another's bondage.
- Gregory E. Woods, Sirmiq Aattuq Wisdom Keeper 12.13.13
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| art from UGallery.com of people walking to and 'fro as seen from above. Nov. 14, 2013 |
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