Hanh mitakuyapi.
I was reading headlines in Yahoo a few minutes ago and found this gem: "Human Activity Affects Water and Dryness in West". It refers to the western part of the US, of course. If this isn't a "duh-uh" headline, I don't know what is.
Humans have become a cancer in the biosphere, with their gross over-population over the past several decades. US humans consume more than any other humans on the planet, per capita, but every human contributes to this dire situation we have suddenly 'discovered'. New babies are no longer 'wonderful'. What each person does does matter. Hugely and with growing impact as time passes without population reduction of humans, along with everyone making heroic efforts to turn this juggernaut around to the degree that can be done, now. There is a 'time of no return'.. and we're just about on top of it.
Given that every blessed thing in the biosphere is limited, this is hardly a surprise, yet humans - especially in the 'advanced countries - continue to deny reality and ask, "is this real?" If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, and has manure like a duck's , I'd say it's about a 100% chance it's a duck. So, "yes, takoszja, this situation is real, and it is really dire, to boot." And there is no way to duck it. We. must. fix. it.
Gadjillion years ago when I was a child, I started hollering that humans were over-populating the earth; that we ITI People would be fighting for our water while the washichu in the big cities were stealing it and squandering it on things like golf course grass and "lawns" before I got old.
My teachers told me to be quiet. Bigots tried to beat me quiet. I got expelled from school for refusing to be quiet about this. It's simple common sense, after all. Obvious to all but the dedicatedly blind or stupid..
Suddenly, we have 'discovered' global warming and that human activity 'affects' the amount of water available to us all on this planet, not just in the US "west". Wow!
This isn't quantum physics, takoszja, although quantum physics studies the limitedness and limits of every physical aspect of life on our Holy Mother, the Earth..
This shouldn't even be 'news'. It is intuitively obvious, physically obvious, and depressingly obvious. Only a culture predicated on selfishness, greed, and brat behavior would call this news.
The question is, what are all you adults out there going to do about it, right now, so there is a tomorrow for the majority of species who share the beauty and bounty of our Holy Mother, the Earth, with us? A world without species other than humans will be not only pretty dull, it will be sterile, and in short order, lifeless except for those hardy survivor species that can survive the coming disasters. And they are coming.
As The Woman Who Dances The Four Winds, I ask everyone,"What have you done, today, to help heal the Sacred Hoop of the Earth, of which you, too, are a part?"
It's up to every one of us, including you. You are each part of the solution -- or part of the problem. There is no avoiding this fact or the repercussions of it. This is logic - not 'news'.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A Response to Another Article about Where we ITI "Reeally" Came From
I am an ITI - an Indigenous Turtle Islander. A First 'American', although in reality, 'America' is a construct made by a self-agrandizing Italian mapmaker, Amerigo Vespucci, who wanted to immortalize himself, not the proper name of this land.
Contrary to popular myth-conceptions developed and promoted by people of European descent, we have been here for far more than the 15,000 years generally quoted - not that it matters. We were here first, by far first and before Europeans made landfall on this side of the Mni Tanka - the Big Water - therefore we are the ones to have properly named it, and we did.
The arrogance that ignorance engenders never fails to amaze me - along with the many forms it takes - about us ITI Peoples. First is the insistence that it 'must' be 'proven' that we 'came here from somewhere else'. Why? Why 'must' this be 'proven'? What prompts this lemming-like rush to make a sea of claims about our 'true' origins? My guess is, cultural guilt. Well-deserved, from where we ITI sit....
After "Why?", we can then ask, "What - if anything - would it 'prove' about our claim to this land if it could be proven that we actually migrated here from somewhere else?" IF we did - and we Elders who are Traditionals, who carry the Creation Stories of our Peoples, KNOW WE DIDN't come from somewhere else - would it prove anything? No.
Would it lessen our claim to this land? No. IF it could be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that we ITI had come here from somewhere else, it wouldn't make a clamshell's worth of difference, because (a) we were here first; (b) we were here first by thousands of years and as a result, the exact number doesn't matter; (c) there is ample evidence that we were here for at least 65,000 years before Europeans came her, should anyone be so backward as to insist on counting the number of years.
And believe me - THAT IS the real reason for the lemming-like rush to 'prove' we ITI "actually came here from somewhere else". It is a sophomoric attempt to try to decrease our claim to this land, so that a rationale can be made for the atrocities committed on our Peoples over the past 516 years or so: The land grabs, the anti-Indn legislation, the outlawing of our Traditional spiritualities and worship forms (with only partial return of our theoretical First-Amendment Rights), the continuing assaults on our cultures and attempts to force us to assimilate, the seemingly-never-ending efforts to terminate our Treaties, our Treaty RIGHTS (not "priviledges") and the US government's / majority culture's concomitant Treaty Obligations, and dispose of our Reservations, and so on to terminal nausea.
Historians try to speak about "The period of The Indian Wars". Listen up, takoszja - The Indian Wars never ended. They are still going on today. Right now. Only the overtness and the form appeared to change. But then, our word for Europeans is "washichu" (wah-SHEE-choo). It can be broken into its root words in two ways; neither of them is a compliment. We give people and things their true names according to their spiritual essence, not some physical characteristic. True names are earned, therefore.
Washichu can be broken into 'washi' and 'ichu' - 'washi' is fat on a body and 'ichu' means 'to take'; thus this means 'to take the fat'. In hunter-gather cultures, fat is a precious commodity, because it is such a concentrated energy source. Fat has twice the calories per unit of mass that protein or carbohydrates do. If you eat a very high-protein diet, as wild meat is, you will starve to death in cold or famine times because you will not put on much, if any, fat. Thus, someone who takes the fat is a greedy, ungenerous person; someone who behaves as if they do not have any relatives. In the ITI Way, this is a huge flaw. Of the few universal threads among our many cultures, to be called greedy or ungenerous is a huge insult.
Washichu can also be broken into 'wa' - snow, and 'shichu' - the conscious fourth of the soul. In my People's Way, the soul has four parts; this is not so for all ITI cultures, of course. Nonetheless, we see it that way, and the word is ours.
Thus you see that we have said this person's sould is that of snow. In every culture in the world, the snow spirits do snow jobs, kill the warmth of the heart, kill kindness, make the path appear to be one way or place when it is another.. It speaks of ungenerousness, deviousness and untrustworthiness.
Over the past 516 years, there haven't been enough members of the majority culture who are no washichu for us to find a new name for them. We make an exception for those who prove they are not entirely washichu, but those are far and few between in our experience.
Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the invading culture over the past 516 years haven't said a whole lot of good about the invading culture or the people who live by it.
Tch, tch, tch!
In my People's Way, when someone does something wrong, the rest of us ask that person, "Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!?" People who are asked this are shamed; and ashamed, if they are not washichu in their heart of hearts..
So on behalf of us ITI People, who have been here since time immemorial, I ask you who continue to insist on trying to 'prove we ITI came here from somewhere else' and therefore have less original right to this Turtle Island than you, so that your culture can somehow try to find an acceptable rationale for the ongoing assaults on our cultures and for your culture's not-so-far-past atrocities committed on us -
Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!? You can quit this nonsense now. That would 'show' respect. Along with fulfilling your Treaty Obligations with no further stupid lawsuits trying to duck your 'word of honor' given when your agents signed the Treaties and stopping your ongoing attempts to destroy our Traditional Ways and our spiritual ways in particular, to mine our Sacred Sites or dump nuclear waste in them, to either force us to take a giant step down and back and assimilate into your culture, or die.. To do anything else is to continue to earn the name we gave you 'way back when - washichu. Tch, tch, tch!
Contrary to popular myth-conceptions developed and promoted by people of European descent, we have been here for far more than the 15,000 years generally quoted - not that it matters. We were here first, by far first and before Europeans made landfall on this side of the Mni Tanka - the Big Water - therefore we are the ones to have properly named it, and we did.
The arrogance that ignorance engenders never fails to amaze me - along with the many forms it takes - about us ITI Peoples. First is the insistence that it 'must' be 'proven' that we 'came here from somewhere else'. Why? Why 'must' this be 'proven'? What prompts this lemming-like rush to make a sea of claims about our 'true' origins? My guess is, cultural guilt. Well-deserved, from where we ITI sit....
After "Why?", we can then ask, "What - if anything - would it 'prove' about our claim to this land if it could be proven that we actually migrated here from somewhere else?" IF we did - and we Elders who are Traditionals, who carry the Creation Stories of our Peoples, KNOW WE DIDN't come from somewhere else - would it prove anything? No.
Would it lessen our claim to this land? No. IF it could be proven beyond any reasonable doubt that we ITI had come here from somewhere else, it wouldn't make a clamshell's worth of difference, because (a) we were here first; (b) we were here first by thousands of years and as a result, the exact number doesn't matter; (c) there is ample evidence that we were here for at least 65,000 years before Europeans came her, should anyone be so backward as to insist on counting the number of years.
And believe me - THAT IS the real reason for the lemming-like rush to 'prove' we ITI "actually came here from somewhere else". It is a sophomoric attempt to try to decrease our claim to this land, so that a rationale can be made for the atrocities committed on our Peoples over the past 516 years or so: The land grabs, the anti-Indn legislation, the outlawing of our Traditional spiritualities and worship forms (with only partial return of our theoretical First-Amendment Rights), the continuing assaults on our cultures and attempts to force us to assimilate, the seemingly-never-ending efforts to terminate our Treaties, our Treaty RIGHTS (not "priviledges") and the US government's / majority culture's concomitant Treaty Obligations, and dispose of our Reservations, and so on to terminal nausea.
Historians try to speak about "The period of The Indian Wars". Listen up, takoszja - The Indian Wars never ended. They are still going on today. Right now. Only the overtness and the form appeared to change. But then, our word for Europeans is "washichu" (wah-SHEE-choo). It can be broken into its root words in two ways; neither of them is a compliment. We give people and things their true names according to their spiritual essence, not some physical characteristic. True names are earned, therefore.
Washichu can be broken into 'washi' and 'ichu' - 'washi' is fat on a body and 'ichu' means 'to take'; thus this means 'to take the fat'. In hunter-gather cultures, fat is a precious commodity, because it is such a concentrated energy source. Fat has twice the calories per unit of mass that protein or carbohydrates do. If you eat a very high-protein diet, as wild meat is, you will starve to death in cold or famine times because you will not put on much, if any, fat. Thus, someone who takes the fat is a greedy, ungenerous person; someone who behaves as if they do not have any relatives. In the ITI Way, this is a huge flaw. Of the few universal threads among our many cultures, to be called greedy or ungenerous is a huge insult.
Washichu can also be broken into 'wa' - snow, and 'shichu' - the conscious fourth of the soul. In my People's Way, the soul has four parts; this is not so for all ITI cultures, of course. Nonetheless, we see it that way, and the word is ours.
Thus you see that we have said this person's sould is that of snow. In every culture in the world, the snow spirits do snow jobs, kill the warmth of the heart, kill kindness, make the path appear to be one way or place when it is another.. It speaks of ungenerousness, deviousness and untrustworthiness.
Over the past 516 years, there haven't been enough members of the majority culture who are no washichu for us to find a new name for them. We make an exception for those who prove they are not entirely washichu, but those are far and few between in our experience.
Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the invading culture over the past 516 years haven't said a whole lot of good about the invading culture or the people who live by it.
Tch, tch, tch!
In my People's Way, when someone does something wrong, the rest of us ask that person, "Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!?" People who are asked this are shamed; and ashamed, if they are not washichu in their heart of hearts..
So on behalf of us ITI People, who have been here since time immemorial, I ask you who continue to insist on trying to 'prove we ITI came here from somewhere else' and therefore have less original right to this Turtle Island than you, so that your culture can somehow try to find an acceptable rationale for the ongoing assaults on our cultures and for your culture's not-so-far-past atrocities committed on us -
Where is your respect? WHERE IS your RESPECT?!? You can quit this nonsense now. That would 'show' respect. Along with fulfilling your Treaty Obligations with no further stupid lawsuits trying to duck your 'word of honor' given when your agents signed the Treaties and stopping your ongoing attempts to destroy our Traditional Ways and our spiritual ways in particular, to mine our Sacred Sites or dump nuclear waste in them, to either force us to take a giant step down and back and assimilate into your culture, or die.. To do anything else is to continue to earn the name we gave you 'way back when - washichu. Tch, tch, tch!
Monday, January 28, 2008
On The Reality of A God-Power - or Not
I'm a shameless read-aholic. I read labels, signs, just about anything that isn't pornographic. I may disagree absolutely with what I'm reading, wonder at the mentality of the writer, but if I don't read what the writer has to say, how can I debate it? If it's dangerous to true freedom, in particular?
Recently, I was scanning headlines, and one of them had to do with the question, "Is There Really A God?" A second one had to do with asking "Is God Dead or Alive?" As an in-the-bones Traditional and one of those females who always has at least one question, I find these two questions uproariously funny.
When you stop to think that both questions / essays were written by so-called leading Christian theologians, it is enough to make me laugh until I can barely breathe even now; more so because they were both serious. To sum up my reaction, it was "hahahahahahahaha-hoo-hoo-gasp-wheeze", with tears running down my face.
I nearly drove my elders to distraction with, "... I have a question" when I was a child. I was raised to work to puzzle out the answers to my questions before I asked for help, so I really have a problem with those two questions. I mean, how can anyone wonder?
The answer is in the Traditional Teachings I was raised on. Our Creation Story teaches that initially, everything existed, but was formless. We call this 'being in the Void'. Suddenly, That Which Is Holy began to wonder what It was really like; what Its parts were; their natures; and so on. In order to find out, It began to separate a piece of Itself out from the Void; and eventually this solidified and became Inyan, the Rock which has, over the eons, become our Holy Mother, the Earth.
"Inyan" is pronounced "EE-yahngh", with the 'n' nasal as in French. Lakota is a nasal - glottal language.
As That Which Is Holy separated out the part that became Inyan, some of Its Power also seeped out and became the disc of the Sky.. The color of this Power is the shade of blue we see in the sky on a clear day. This is more or less, I suppose, why so many of us ITI People consider turquoise to be holy.
This process of separating Itself into Its myriad parts in order to understand what It is really all about continues now, and will until the end of time. What is called "God" by so many is thus absolutely real. There couldn't be a universe without It. And you couldn't exist either, let alone read this blog.
As for "is God dead?" - If "God" were to die, the universe would cease to exist. And you couldn't be reading this. If certain conditions are met, or not met, our Traditional Teachings provide that the world will indeed end.
Since I am the woman who Dances The Four Winds, which is a prayer to heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, it is part of my job to know if that is going to happen in the foreseeable future. I've been trying to get people's attention about human over-population since I was a child. The gross excess of humans on our Holy Mother the Earth these days have thrown her ecosystems into great imbalance. Global warming speaks eloquently to that.
Does that mean the world will end, from my view? Not the entire world. Not the universe, either. Humans have become a cancer in the web of life, and we are facing mass deaths of humans and some other species as a result of human cultural arrogance.
But "God" will continue; there's no question of that from where I sit.
Recently, I was scanning headlines, and one of them had to do with the question, "Is There Really A God?" A second one had to do with asking "Is God Dead or Alive?" As an in-the-bones Traditional and one of those females who always has at least one question, I find these two questions uproariously funny.
When you stop to think that both questions / essays were written by so-called leading Christian theologians, it is enough to make me laugh until I can barely breathe even now; more so because they were both serious. To sum up my reaction, it was "hahahahahahahaha-hoo-hoo-gasp-wheeze", with tears running down my face.
I nearly drove my elders to distraction with, "... I have a question" when I was a child. I was raised to work to puzzle out the answers to my questions before I asked for help, so I really have a problem with those two questions. I mean, how can anyone wonder?
The answer is in the Traditional Teachings I was raised on. Our Creation Story teaches that initially, everything existed, but was formless. We call this 'being in the Void'. Suddenly, That Which Is Holy began to wonder what It was really like; what Its parts were; their natures; and so on. In order to find out, It began to separate a piece of Itself out from the Void; and eventually this solidified and became Inyan, the Rock which has, over the eons, become our Holy Mother, the Earth.
"Inyan" is pronounced "EE-yahngh", with the 'n' nasal as in French. Lakota is a nasal - glottal language.
As That Which Is Holy separated out the part that became Inyan, some of Its Power also seeped out and became the disc of the Sky.. The color of this Power is the shade of blue we see in the sky on a clear day. This is more or less, I suppose, why so many of us ITI People consider turquoise to be holy.
This process of separating Itself into Its myriad parts in order to understand what It is really all about continues now, and will until the end of time. What is called "God" by so many is thus absolutely real. There couldn't be a universe without It. And you couldn't exist either, let alone read this blog.
As for "is God dead?" - If "God" were to die, the universe would cease to exist. And you couldn't be reading this. If certain conditions are met, or not met, our Traditional Teachings provide that the world will indeed end.
Since I am the woman who Dances The Four Winds, which is a prayer to heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, it is part of my job to know if that is going to happen in the foreseeable future. I've been trying to get people's attention about human over-population since I was a child. The gross excess of humans on our Holy Mother the Earth these days have thrown her ecosystems into great imbalance. Global warming speaks eloquently to that.
Does that mean the world will end, from my view? Not the entire world. Not the universe, either. Humans have become a cancer in the web of life, and we are facing mass deaths of humans and some other species as a result of human cultural arrogance.
But "God" will continue; there's no question of that from where I sit.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
To Combat Global Warming -
We all need to pitch in. "Now" is good; "yesterday" / decades ago would be lots better. If we all had been doing everything we could to live in harmony with our environment ("live green") for decades, now, we would not be facing annihilation from global warming now. Never doubt that we are.. Right now.
As the woman who Dances The Four Winds, it is my job to know this. This isn't 'superstition' or 'myth' or 'my personal perception' - it's something my bones know, right along with the rest of me.
There's a myth-conception, takoszja, that "one person's actions don't count". That's a lie. I don't know where it came from, but everybody's cultures have example of one person whose actions not only counted, they counted massively - and they still do. For that matter, there are such people alive today whose actions count, massively.
Historically, the majority culture has Joan of Arc. The English burned her as a heretic; the French got her canonized. 50 million Frenchmen "might" be wrong, but they weren't in her case.
There's Sitting Bull. He had a vision (which is different from a dream) in which he saw blue coat soldiers dying en mass, and sure enough, on June 26, 1876, they did. The majority culture calls it the Battle of the Little Big Horn. We call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Same river, just that the invaders have always insisted on renaming everything; it's part of their effort to destroy our ITI claim to Turtle Island.
There's the majority culture's Jesus Christ; we ITI have Crazy Horse, our Holy Mother the Earth and the Holy Woman Who brought us the Sacred Channunpa that is the center of Lakota spiritual Ways.
Islam has Mohammad; China has Confucius & Buddha.
On the down side, there's Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot; Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer and a host of serial killers. Each of them - good or bad - "just one person" - whose actions had a huge effect on large numbers of people.
If there's no one else, there is your mother and father and one or more teachers, aunties, and uncles.
Dr. Stephen Chu, Nobel Laureate of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has said in speeches that "...global warming is so much worse, and so much bigger a threat to continuation of life on the earth as we know it, than has been published in the media, that every engineer should be working on this problem right now. There is no time to waste."
What can you do? Use cloth shopping bags rather than getting plastic. Find uses for those bags instead of justing putting them in the trash and the landfill. Keep your tires properly inflated and your car's ignition system working properly. Drive diesel instead of gasoline.
It takes less petroleum to 'crack' diesel out of crude than it does to 'crack' gasoline and diesel engines give better mileage than gasoline engines. Otto Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut oil, and while modern diesel engines are more complex than the original, they are also easier to convert to "grease mobiles" and biodiesel than modern gasoline engines are.
Use a solar clothes dryer (a clothesline) whenever possible, rather than a dryer. Be environmentally conscious when you buy clothes.
Think. Think for yourself, and think ahead. Keep in mind the ancient saying of my People, which has come into considerable use of recent years - mitakuye oiasin. It means, "All, my relatives". My language doesn't have words like "are", but you can substitute the word 'are' for the comma. This saying is both a blessing and a reminder of where we Two-Leggeds "really" stand in the Grand Scheme of Things.
Up in New England, there's an old saying that makes excellent sense if we are to stop global warming - "Use it up, wear it out, reuse it, or do without". "Americans" consume entirely too much 'new' when they could recycle. This is a relatively recent development - within my lifetime, I know.
Encourage people to have fewer children. Human beings are not sacred, nor are we the most important life form on the planet. We Two-Leggeds are simply the species with the most capacity to make permanent changes in our environment. As we are seeing, these changes are not always good.
In the case of global warming, it will not be only species the majority culture calls 'lesser' that will go extinct. It will definitely include us Two-Leggeds; us humans. Which, if you think about it, is only fair, since we -especially of the majority western culture - are the ones who made it happen. What's sauce for the goose is still sauce for the gander, after all.
Remember the old story of Everybody, Somebody and Nobody? Everybody thought Somebody would take care of the problem, so Nobody did, and nothing got done to solve or prevent the problem. Everyone is part of that - You are either part of the solution, or part of the problem. There is no middle ground or fence to ride in this. And we are essentially at the eleventh hour. What you do - or don't do - does count. Mitakuye oiasin.
As the woman who Dances The Four Winds, it is my job to know this. This isn't 'superstition' or 'myth' or 'my personal perception' - it's something my bones know, right along with the rest of me.
There's a myth-conception, takoszja, that "one person's actions don't count". That's a lie. I don't know where it came from, but everybody's cultures have example of one person whose actions not only counted, they counted massively - and they still do. For that matter, there are such people alive today whose actions count, massively.
Historically, the majority culture has Joan of Arc. The English burned her as a heretic; the French got her canonized. 50 million Frenchmen "might" be wrong, but they weren't in her case.
There's Sitting Bull. He had a vision (which is different from a dream) in which he saw blue coat soldiers dying en mass, and sure enough, on June 26, 1876, they did. The majority culture calls it the Battle of the Little Big Horn. We call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Same river, just that the invaders have always insisted on renaming everything; it's part of their effort to destroy our ITI claim to Turtle Island.
There's the majority culture's Jesus Christ; we ITI have Crazy Horse, our Holy Mother the Earth and the Holy Woman Who brought us the Sacred Channunpa that is the center of Lakota spiritual Ways.
Islam has Mohammad; China has Confucius & Buddha.
On the down side, there's Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot; Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer and a host of serial killers. Each of them - good or bad - "just one person" - whose actions had a huge effect on large numbers of people.
If there's no one else, there is your mother and father and one or more teachers, aunties, and uncles.
Dr. Stephen Chu, Nobel Laureate of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has said in speeches that "...global warming is so much worse, and so much bigger a threat to continuation of life on the earth as we know it, than has been published in the media, that every engineer should be working on this problem right now. There is no time to waste."
What can you do? Use cloth shopping bags rather than getting plastic. Find uses for those bags instead of justing putting them in the trash and the landfill. Keep your tires properly inflated and your car's ignition system working properly. Drive diesel instead of gasoline.
It takes less petroleum to 'crack' diesel out of crude than it does to 'crack' gasoline and diesel engines give better mileage than gasoline engines. Otto Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut oil, and while modern diesel engines are more complex than the original, they are also easier to convert to "grease mobiles" and biodiesel than modern gasoline engines are.
Use a solar clothes dryer (a clothesline) whenever possible, rather than a dryer. Be environmentally conscious when you buy clothes.
Think. Think for yourself, and think ahead. Keep in mind the ancient saying of my People, which has come into considerable use of recent years - mitakuye oiasin. It means, "All, my relatives". My language doesn't have words like "are", but you can substitute the word 'are' for the comma. This saying is both a blessing and a reminder of where we Two-Leggeds "really" stand in the Grand Scheme of Things.
Up in New England, there's an old saying that makes excellent sense if we are to stop global warming - "Use it up, wear it out, reuse it, or do without". "Americans" consume entirely too much 'new' when they could recycle. This is a relatively recent development - within my lifetime, I know.
Encourage people to have fewer children. Human beings are not sacred, nor are we the most important life form on the planet. We Two-Leggeds are simply the species with the most capacity to make permanent changes in our environment. As we are seeing, these changes are not always good.
In the case of global warming, it will not be only species the majority culture calls 'lesser' that will go extinct. It will definitely include us Two-Leggeds; us humans. Which, if you think about it, is only fair, since we -especially of the majority western culture - are the ones who made it happen. What's sauce for the goose is still sauce for the gander, after all.
Remember the old story of Everybody, Somebody and Nobody? Everybody thought Somebody would take care of the problem, so Nobody did, and nothing got done to solve or prevent the problem. Everyone is part of that - You are either part of the solution, or part of the problem. There is no middle ground or fence to ride in this. And we are essentially at the eleventh hour. What you do - or don't do - does count. Mitakuye oiasin.
Friday, January 25, 2008
On the Reality of Ghosts
There is a picture posted on the Internet in "Odd News" today that shows a ghost, along with the question, 'what do you think it is?'
Someone posted the opinion that it was nothing but a collection of physical effects and some sort of mass delusion. Following is my reply on said opinion:
Given that it is a spirit (= ghost) that makes a body ‘alive’, and its leaving a body that makes said body ‘dead’, it is the height of arrogance and sophomorism to claim there is no such thing as a ghost.
As a Sun Dancer, therefore a Traditional spiritual person of my ITI people, the Lakota, I am best qualified to speak on such things than you are. You need education to end your ignorance, takoszja, from which stem your arrogance and sophomorism.
Atheism has its place, but not as authority on things spiritual. It’s likelier to be a ghost than it is to be a result of some chance coming-together of various effects. There is no such thing as accidental coincidence in the universe, takoszja - there is only the fact of incidents coinciding in time.
Someone posted the opinion that it was nothing but a collection of physical effects and some sort of mass delusion. Following is my reply on said opinion:
Given that it is a spirit (= ghost) that makes a body ‘alive’, and its leaving a body that makes said body ‘dead’, it is the height of arrogance and sophomorism to claim there is no such thing as a ghost.
As a Sun Dancer, therefore a Traditional spiritual person of my ITI people, the Lakota, I am best qualified to speak on such things than you are. You need education to end your ignorance, takoszja, from which stem your arrogance and sophomorism.
Atheism has its place, but not as authority on things spiritual. It’s likelier to be a ghost than it is to be a result of some chance coming-together of various effects. There is no such thing as accidental coincidence in the universe, takoszja - there is only the fact of incidents coinciding in time.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Current Bad Attitude of Employers Shameful
I have been in business for myself most of my life. I got thrown out of kindergarten for having a business signing the other kids' pictures.. "showed too much initiative for an Indian kid". What can I say? I'm a shameless learning sponge - I badgered adults until I got one to teach me to read when I was 3-1/2. Today, that's encouraged a lot more; back then, it wasn't, whether you were white or Indian. What a shame!
Being the independent sort, I've been in business for myself most of my life. But after 9 years alone, I met a man in 2005 & we became 'together' so much it was like breathing. He went for a walk one night, got attacked, had a heart attack & died at the tender age of 40.
I lost interest in pushing our business, which was small jobs contracting. I've done construction of various kinds since I was a kid, thanks to 11 uncles who insisted I learn their skills if I wanted to spend time with them instead of with the women learning the very questionable 'joys 'of diapers and such. I worked for various temporary agencies, always looking for a full-time job in construction. I've done a lot of interviews.
It's winter now, and it's tougher to find interviews or work.
I have been laid off from my last temporary job for a tad over 2 months now, and have continued to apply for work 'everywhere'. I've had many good interviews where the prospective employer said, "I'll be calling you", sometimes even saying about when, and then... nothing.
I thought it was because I'm female and Indn, until today. This is a very 'conservative' state, after all, & 'conservative' equals 'backward'. But then I called a friend who runs a local temporary service, and she told me she has a white man on the roster who is going through the same crap I am. She told me that like me, he has a ton of excellent references, experience to burn, and he wants a job. And he too is "appalled" at the lack of respect shown by prospective employers, too, in that he feels the interviews go well, he is told they will call him & sometimes even give an approximate date, then nothing.
In my first 'substantial' business, I had up to 17 men working for me for 20 years. I lost 6 in all that time; 3 I fired, 2 quit to move away, and 1 quit to start his own business because he 'liked the independence I had shown him he could have'. I always had more applicants than I could use. I'd like to think it was because I treated my helpers with erspect, and every applicant got a call or a letter when we couldn't use them.
In the Indn Way, when we are ashamed of someone's behavior, we ask them, "Where is your respect? Where is your respect?!?" So now, on behalf of men like this one and myself, I'm asking you employers who don't show the courtesy of calling or sending a letter to those you don't hire, "Where is your respect? Where is your respect?!?" As a sometime employer, you embarrass me with your current bad attitude and behavior in this matter.
Being the independent sort, I've been in business for myself most of my life. But after 9 years alone, I met a man in 2005 & we became 'together' so much it was like breathing. He went for a walk one night, got attacked, had a heart attack & died at the tender age of 40.
I lost interest in pushing our business, which was small jobs contracting. I've done construction of various kinds since I was a kid, thanks to 11 uncles who insisted I learn their skills if I wanted to spend time with them instead of with the women learning the very questionable 'joys 'of diapers and such. I worked for various temporary agencies, always looking for a full-time job in construction. I've done a lot of interviews.
It's winter now, and it's tougher to find interviews or work.
I have been laid off from my last temporary job for a tad over 2 months now, and have continued to apply for work 'everywhere'. I've had many good interviews where the prospective employer said, "I'll be calling you", sometimes even saying about when, and then... nothing.
I thought it was because I'm female and Indn, until today. This is a very 'conservative' state, after all, & 'conservative' equals 'backward'. But then I called a friend who runs a local temporary service, and she told me she has a white man on the roster who is going through the same crap I am. She told me that like me, he has a ton of excellent references, experience to burn, and he wants a job. And he too is "appalled" at the lack of respect shown by prospective employers, too, in that he feels the interviews go well, he is told they will call him & sometimes even give an approximate date, then nothing.
In my first 'substantial' business, I had up to 17 men working for me for 20 years. I lost 6 in all that time; 3 I fired, 2 quit to move away, and 1 quit to start his own business because he 'liked the independence I had shown him he could have'. I always had more applicants than I could use. I'd like to think it was because I treated my helpers with erspect, and every applicant got a call or a letter when we couldn't use them.
In the Indn Way, when we are ashamed of someone's behavior, we ask them, "Where is your respect? Where is your respect?!?" So now, on behalf of men like this one and myself, I'm asking you employers who don't show the courtesy of calling or sending a letter to those you don't hire, "Where is your respect? Where is your respect?!?" As a sometime employer, you embarrass me with your current bad attitude and behavior in this matter.
Calling you Gear heads - Who is Jonathon Goodwin?
I will read almost anything that isn't pornographic or which proselytizes for Christianity, so recently I picked up a copy of the November 2007 issue of "Fast Company". The cover story is about Jonathon Goodwin, a motorhead from Wichita, KS. If you can't find a copy, put a comment with your email & I'll send a set of scans. I've been reading this article until I nearly have it memorized and it makes me so excited, I nearly drool.
Jonathon Goodwin has figured out a way to use off-the-shelf parts in new arrangements to get amazing mileage out of engines - especially big ones and diesel - while increasing their power output and radically decreasing their emissions. Intellectually speaking, this is a man after my own heart.
Like many other people, I've always known that the solution to the oil problem - & now, to the global warming problem - is tons simpler than the automakers & the oil companies would like us to believe. Unlike many people, I have the training and experience to know, rather than simply to guess at this. Unfortunately, I haven't had the money & tools to tinker and see what resulted when I had the time. A problem lots of women, ITI, and minorities have, it seems. It costs the world greatly, this waste of creativity, and it will so long as the majority culture's predominant attitude is one of "massas and slaves". That attitude is anti-environment, anti-people, and just plain disrespectful. Maybe blogs such as this one will redirect that. We can hope.
Regardless - Even with training, skills, and knowledge, most of us are just too busy scratching for a living & slaving to hold the ITI / Indian world together in the face of continuing assaults by the majority culture. Luckily, not everyone is in this position, and I'm so0o thankful for that. Jonathon Goodwin is one such.
I first got involved with diesel engines about 4 years ago. The diesel engine is easier to reconfigure (tinker with) than the gasoline engine, was originally designed to run on peanut and other vegetable oils, and puts out more usable power per unit of displacement. In case you hadn't already figured it out, I'm a wrench-wench. Hmm - OK, a granny wrench-wench.
Age is just a number; it doesn't matter how long you've walked the earth or hung around the fort; it matters what you did while you were walking. Joan of Arc, Crazy Horse, and others from every culture prove that. I've always been a 'whiz kid', and I expect to be one until I die.
Regardless - if enough people put their heads together we should be able to come up with simple, workable ways to help him put his discoveries together in a form that large numbers of people can put to work in their own vehicles, and so make a really valuable contribution to a whole list of problems confronting oil use and global warming.
Duwahleh! Now there's a really radical and useful thought!
Jonathon Goodwin has figured out a way to use off-the-shelf parts in new arrangements to get amazing mileage out of engines - especially big ones and diesel - while increasing their power output and radically decreasing their emissions. Intellectually speaking, this is a man after my own heart.
Like many other people, I've always known that the solution to the oil problem - & now, to the global warming problem - is tons simpler than the automakers & the oil companies would like us to believe. Unlike many people, I have the training and experience to know, rather than simply to guess at this. Unfortunately, I haven't had the money & tools to tinker and see what resulted when I had the time. A problem lots of women, ITI, and minorities have, it seems. It costs the world greatly, this waste of creativity, and it will so long as the majority culture's predominant attitude is one of "massas and slaves". That attitude is anti-environment, anti-people, and just plain disrespectful. Maybe blogs such as this one will redirect that. We can hope.
Regardless - Even with training, skills, and knowledge, most of us are just too busy scratching for a living & slaving to hold the ITI / Indian world together in the face of continuing assaults by the majority culture. Luckily, not everyone is in this position, and I'm so0o thankful for that. Jonathon Goodwin is one such.
I first got involved with diesel engines about 4 years ago. The diesel engine is easier to reconfigure (tinker with) than the gasoline engine, was originally designed to run on peanut and other vegetable oils, and puts out more usable power per unit of displacement. In case you hadn't already figured it out, I'm a wrench-wench. Hmm - OK, a granny wrench-wench.
Age is just a number; it doesn't matter how long you've walked the earth or hung around the fort; it matters what you did while you were walking. Joan of Arc, Crazy Horse, and others from every culture prove that. I've always been a 'whiz kid', and I expect to be one until I die.
Regardless - if enough people put their heads together we should be able to come up with simple, workable ways to help him put his discoveries together in a form that large numbers of people can put to work in their own vehicles, and so make a really valuable contribution to a whole list of problems confronting oil use and global warming.
Duwahleh! Now there's a really radical and useful thought!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
On Us Horse-Indns as Mascots
There has been a lot of uproar about Us horse-Indns being used a mascots by majority-culture schools and sports teams in recent years.
People ask me for my opinion of the matter, and are often surprised when I tell them, "It's wrong to use us as mascots. It's rude and it's demeaning because mascotting makes us into cartoons. We are not public figures or public property for any bonehead to use that way. We are living, breathing People - Nations! - and our Traditional cultures are very much alive, however tattered by the ongoing assaults of the majority culture over the last 516 years. It shouldn't even be a subject for discussion. It should be intuitively obvious how wrong it is, and it should stop automatically as a result."
Those who have asked are invariably dismayed as well when I tell them these things, for they had not thought of them before. It seems the majority of people think of themselves as respectful, so it grabs them when they find out that they have wrongly colored themselves.
Here in Dakota Territory, we have two divisions of the area - North and South. In North Dakota, the state's largest university uses my people as its mascot. Without our permission, of course. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of the controversy as my People get active n objecting to being used this way. There has been quite a bit of rancor from the spoiled brats faction of the majority culture, too. They've made tons of money from us over the years, & we haven't gotten one red cent. We mean to kill off their cash cow and they like that as little as they like being forcefully reminded that they have behaved like a bunch of bigots and clods.
We were never asked if we wanted to be used as the mascot for the state's main university.. A university whose slogan includes such drivel as claiming that it exists to educate and to teach people to sift for truth and honor.. We were never offered gifts or any other kind of 'pay' before this practice was begun..
Indns in Dakota Territory exist at the bottom of the economic totem pole, and thanks to "The Custer Effect", the majority seem to think we belong there. Wrong. Just the same, there are a lot of excuses given for not hiring us, as employees or as contractors or otherwise patronizing our businesses.
Excuses given for not hiring us, or for not paying us equally with whites include such gems of stupidity as:
(1) Indns drink; meaning, "always to excess". This is blatant garbage. The majority of Indns do not drink alcohol at all, let alone 'to excess'. So - who are those people in beer commercials, anyway? Not Indns! We're a minority in our own country. We didn't create the problem when it does exist, either.
Alcohol was not made by any of us here before Europeans brought alcohol here when they 'discovered' us. (We'll discuss 'discovered' later.)
(2) Indns are unreliable. They don't show up & they don't call to say they aren't coming. This is not a uniquely Indn problem, either. I've been in business most of my life; if you read business magazine for the past 25 years - maybe more - you will find that The Top Problem discussed in them is "employee absenteeism" and how to stop it.
I'll tell you what employee absenteeism really is... First, it's not an Indn problem. We're a minority in our own land, remember? What employee absenteeism really is is the employees saying in actions, rather than just in words, that they are grossly unhappy with their working conditions. They are saying it with actions rather than words because they've tried words & have been ignored by their bosses every time. Actions speak louder than words..
In the case of Indns, though, there are other reasons for not calling when they aren't coming in. Since we live at the bottom of the economic totem pole, a telephone is a luxury we can't always afford. So there's seldom a neighbor to go to to make a call. Businesses have been UNfriendly about letting us use their phones.. If you can't come in, you aren't going to go to the job site to tell them, are you?
"Emergency" is a regular part of our language for a long time now. Out here, it's mainly because of what I call "The Custer Effect" or "Custerism". We beat the snot out of Custer et al at the Greasy Grass in 1876 and the whites are still trying to beat us up and "get even" for that. Basically, it's a 132-year-old temper tantrum, & its' still going on. People like me, who refuse to knuckle under, and who raise stink about it to 'the outside world' are not the most popular people here. I've been told "how dare you tell them about it?" "Them" is you out there.
Anyway, if you're up to your eyeballs in an emergency, you aren't likely to go looking for a phone to call work to tell them you aren't coming in on time. Besides, we know we'll tell them when we get there.. We are adults, after all.. In the Indn Way, adults don't say 'captain may I', we take care of our problems & then go on. The whites haven't learned that yet.
(3) Indns steal. / Indns are all thieves. I reply, "So who was it whose culture stole an entire continent from US, anyway?" There's always big silence after that one....
While we're at it, guess what is the second-most-discussed problem in American business the past 25 or so years? Em-ploy-ee theft. It's not an Indn problem. Your lot is no more virgin in this than we are, and there are more of you...
While we're discussing theft - let's consider the theft of dignity and self-esteem caused by mascotting. If you've been beaten on all of your life, you are likely to have low self-esteem to begin with. Being seen as a cartoon character isn't going to improve that, is it?
For my own self, I think I'd like to see the UND mascot changed to the Battling Bigots or some such. As for sports teams, there are plenty of possibilities for them that don't include making fun of us Indns.
So - now you know. Hechetu ye.
People ask me for my opinion of the matter, and are often surprised when I tell them, "It's wrong to use us as mascots. It's rude and it's demeaning because mascotting makes us into cartoons. We are not public figures or public property for any bonehead to use that way. We are living, breathing People - Nations! - and our Traditional cultures are very much alive, however tattered by the ongoing assaults of the majority culture over the last 516 years. It shouldn't even be a subject for discussion. It should be intuitively obvious how wrong it is, and it should stop automatically as a result."
Those who have asked are invariably dismayed as well when I tell them these things, for they had not thought of them before. It seems the majority of people think of themselves as respectful, so it grabs them when they find out that they have wrongly colored themselves.
Here in Dakota Territory, we have two divisions of the area - North and South. In North Dakota, the state's largest university uses my people as its mascot. Without our permission, of course. There has been quite a bit of media coverage of the controversy as my People get active n objecting to being used this way. There has been quite a bit of rancor from the spoiled brats faction of the majority culture, too. They've made tons of money from us over the years, & we haven't gotten one red cent. We mean to kill off their cash cow and they like that as little as they like being forcefully reminded that they have behaved like a bunch of bigots and clods.
We were never asked if we wanted to be used as the mascot for the state's main university.. A university whose slogan includes such drivel as claiming that it exists to educate and to teach people to sift for truth and honor.. We were never offered gifts or any other kind of 'pay' before this practice was begun..
Indns in Dakota Territory exist at the bottom of the economic totem pole, and thanks to "The Custer Effect", the majority seem to think we belong there. Wrong. Just the same, there are a lot of excuses given for not hiring us, as employees or as contractors or otherwise patronizing our businesses.
Excuses given for not hiring us, or for not paying us equally with whites include such gems of stupidity as:
(1) Indns drink; meaning, "always to excess". This is blatant garbage. The majority of Indns do not drink alcohol at all, let alone 'to excess'. So - who are those people in beer commercials, anyway? Not Indns! We're a minority in our own country. We didn't create the problem when it does exist, either.
Alcohol was not made by any of us here before Europeans brought alcohol here when they 'discovered' us. (We'll discuss 'discovered' later.)
(2) Indns are unreliable. They don't show up & they don't call to say they aren't coming. This is not a uniquely Indn problem, either. I've been in business most of my life; if you read business magazine for the past 25 years - maybe more - you will find that The Top Problem discussed in them is "employee absenteeism" and how to stop it.
I'll tell you what employee absenteeism really is... First, it's not an Indn problem. We're a minority in our own land, remember? What employee absenteeism really is is the employees saying in actions, rather than just in words, that they are grossly unhappy with their working conditions. They are saying it with actions rather than words because they've tried words & have been ignored by their bosses every time. Actions speak louder than words..
In the case of Indns, though, there are other reasons for not calling when they aren't coming in. Since we live at the bottom of the economic totem pole, a telephone is a luxury we can't always afford. So there's seldom a neighbor to go to to make a call. Businesses have been UNfriendly about letting us use their phones.. If you can't come in, you aren't going to go to the job site to tell them, are you?
"Emergency" is a regular part of our language for a long time now. Out here, it's mainly because of what I call "The Custer Effect" or "Custerism". We beat the snot out of Custer et al at the Greasy Grass in 1876 and the whites are still trying to beat us up and "get even" for that. Basically, it's a 132-year-old temper tantrum, & its' still going on. People like me, who refuse to knuckle under, and who raise stink about it to 'the outside world' are not the most popular people here. I've been told "how dare you tell them about it?" "Them" is you out there.
Anyway, if you're up to your eyeballs in an emergency, you aren't likely to go looking for a phone to call work to tell them you aren't coming in on time. Besides, we know we'll tell them when we get there.. We are adults, after all.. In the Indn Way, adults don't say 'captain may I', we take care of our problems & then go on. The whites haven't learned that yet.
(3) Indns steal. / Indns are all thieves. I reply, "So who was it whose culture stole an entire continent from US, anyway?" There's always big silence after that one....
While we're at it, guess what is the second-most-discussed problem in American business the past 25 or so years? Em-ploy-ee theft. It's not an Indn problem. Your lot is no more virgin in this than we are, and there are more of you...
While we're discussing theft - let's consider the theft of dignity and self-esteem caused by mascotting. If you've been beaten on all of your life, you are likely to have low self-esteem to begin with. Being seen as a cartoon character isn't going to improve that, is it?
For my own self, I think I'd like to see the UND mascot changed to the Battling Bigots or some such. As for sports teams, there are plenty of possibilities for them that don't include making fun of us Indns.
So - now you know. Hechetu ye.
O Hanh! Welcome!
I send a warm handshake and good greetings to you. You will find many things here - satire, sarcasm, humor, puns, outrage, and even sometimes sorrow. I have a very wide range. In the majority culture's bigoted way, if I were male, I would be called a Renaissance man. Since I'm female - & horse-Indn to boot - I'm just called odd, different, or sometimes (rudest) 'weird'.
You will find my perspective, and you will find that I am not your average 'anything'. No one thinks for me and no one ever doubts where I stand on anything; not for more than a few minutes, anyway. I am said to be 'outspoken', by my detractors. Yep, I am. I haven't asked "captain may I?" since I was about 10 in very many instances. You can take it or leave it.. my heart won't cry.
If you've read About Me in here, you know I'm a horse-Indn, not an elephant-Indian, and not a "Native American". I'm anything but politically correct. No one ever thinks or speaks for me. Technically, I'm an ITI - an Indigenous Turtle Islander, me...
I am one of those who has always walked in two cultures - my Indn one (D/Lakota) and the majority culture. While we're here, touching on Indn cultures, let's get something straight. There is not, and there never was, "an" Indn culture. So unless you want me to poke you with the sharp end of my tongue, or maybe even slice you, if you write to me, don't speak about "the" Indn culture.
(My first ex would be the first to tell you that my tongue was made by Wilkinson Sword. Like any other tool, a knife, or a sharp tongue, can be used to do many things - cut away dross, skin a beast, slice n dice to ribbons...)
In the majority culture way, my essence is 70% air, & in 2 dual signs; 20% fire, in their own rulers; and 10% earth, so fire in earth. Sharp wit, lots of range, born an unusual being, moves fast most of the time, tons of tough and endurance, not afraid to tackle practically anything. Yes, we're talking about horoscopes. Another handy tool. One that touches the right side of the brain & speaks with your intuition. (In-tuit-ion - one's inner teacher).
While we're at this part about horoscopes, I'll tell you a true story. For all of my life, the simplest things I've done have ended up in amazing uproar oftener than not. It about drove me crazy, and like so many, I didn't used to put much stock in horoscopes. On t'other hand, I couldn't find any answers via either my culture or the majority culture as to why this is so.
I have a friend who did horoscopes for a living at that time, & finally, I went to her and asked if a natal horoscope could give me any insight. She said, "Sure!" Such a positive response was comforting, so I asked her if she would cast mine & give me a quick-&-dirty assessment. She would.
After she put the needed information into her computer, it kicked out my natal chart. These are uniquely one person's, because they are defined by latitude, longitude, time of day/night, month, day, and year of a person's birth. While it is within the realm of possibility that 2 people 'might' be born in the same city at the exact same time/day/month/year, the odds are pretty small.
Anyway, she looked at my chart for about 60 seconds, then jabbed a finger at it and said, "There! You have your asteroids in your "Nth" house, in Libra. You attract controversy like a lightning rod." I'm not telling you which house because I can't remember if it is the 5th or 6th.
Given that I am an heyoka, & we play with the lightnings on occasion, this was not comforting news. I said, "Loren! Couldn't you come up with a better analogy? I have enough trouble with the lightnings as it is!" and I laughed nervously. She smiled and said, "Ok. You attract controversy like honey attracts bears." I moaned. Then I said, "Big improvement. We've gone from lightning to large powerful things with long claws & huge fangs & vile tempers, that occasionally eat us." We both laughed & she said, "It's how you are, lady. Rosin your seat, sit deep, and get used to it. Your life will always be a wild ride." I've been working on that ever since.
She was absolutely right. It has always been a wild ride. I do the simplest things & chaos comes to visit. I'm not complaining, mind you. More like, I'm giving you notice. If you want a fresh perspective, no punches pulled, and controversy, this is probably the place to find it.
I don't have to try to be different - I was born different. Mitakuye oiasin.
You will find my perspective, and you will find that I am not your average 'anything'. No one thinks for me and no one ever doubts where I stand on anything; not for more than a few minutes, anyway. I am said to be 'outspoken', by my detractors. Yep, I am. I haven't asked "captain may I?" since I was about 10 in very many instances. You can take it or leave it.. my heart won't cry.
If you've read About Me in here, you know I'm a horse-Indn, not an elephant-Indian, and not a "Native American". I'm anything but politically correct. No one ever thinks or speaks for me. Technically, I'm an ITI - an Indigenous Turtle Islander, me...
I am one of those who has always walked in two cultures - my Indn one (D/Lakota) and the majority culture. While we're here, touching on Indn cultures, let's get something straight. There is not, and there never was, "an" Indn culture. So unless you want me to poke you with the sharp end of my tongue, or maybe even slice you, if you write to me, don't speak about "the" Indn culture.
(My first ex would be the first to tell you that my tongue was made by Wilkinson Sword. Like any other tool, a knife, or a sharp tongue, can be used to do many things - cut away dross, skin a beast, slice n dice to ribbons...)
In the majority culture way, my essence is 70% air, & in 2 dual signs; 20% fire, in their own rulers; and 10% earth, so fire in earth. Sharp wit, lots of range, born an unusual being, moves fast most of the time, tons of tough and endurance, not afraid to tackle practically anything. Yes, we're talking about horoscopes. Another handy tool. One that touches the right side of the brain & speaks with your intuition. (In-tuit-ion - one's inner teacher).
While we're at this part about horoscopes, I'll tell you a true story. For all of my life, the simplest things I've done have ended up in amazing uproar oftener than not. It about drove me crazy, and like so many, I didn't used to put much stock in horoscopes. On t'other hand, I couldn't find any answers via either my culture or the majority culture as to why this is so.
I have a friend who did horoscopes for a living at that time, & finally, I went to her and asked if a natal horoscope could give me any insight. She said, "Sure!" Such a positive response was comforting, so I asked her if she would cast mine & give me a quick-&-dirty assessment. She would.
After she put the needed information into her computer, it kicked out my natal chart. These are uniquely one person's, because they are defined by latitude, longitude, time of day/night, month, day, and year of a person's birth. While it is within the realm of possibility that 2 people 'might' be born in the same city at the exact same time/day/month/year, the odds are pretty small.
Anyway, she looked at my chart for about 60 seconds, then jabbed a finger at it and said, "There! You have your asteroids in your "Nth" house, in Libra. You attract controversy like a lightning rod." I'm not telling you which house because I can't remember if it is the 5th or 6th.
Given that I am an heyoka, & we play with the lightnings on occasion, this was not comforting news. I said, "Loren! Couldn't you come up with a better analogy? I have enough trouble with the lightnings as it is!" and I laughed nervously. She smiled and said, "Ok. You attract controversy like honey attracts bears." I moaned. Then I said, "Big improvement. We've gone from lightning to large powerful things with long claws & huge fangs & vile tempers, that occasionally eat us." We both laughed & she said, "It's how you are, lady. Rosin your seat, sit deep, and get used to it. Your life will always be a wild ride." I've been working on that ever since.
She was absolutely right. It has always been a wild ride. I do the simplest things & chaos comes to visit. I'm not complaining, mind you. More like, I'm giving you notice. If you want a fresh perspective, no punches pulled, and controversy, this is probably the place to find it.
I don't have to try to be different - I was born different. Mitakuye oiasin.
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