Dec 20, 2016

Reflecting upon the spiritual context for political struggles



"Research has shown that the smell of humus exerts a physiological effect on humans. Breathing the scent of Mother Earth stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child, between lovers. Held in loving arms, no wonder we sing in response."
                    ~Robin Wall Kimmerer. From the book "Braiding Sweetgrass"

Oxytocin~ the love drug.
Motherly love. Nurturing. Wholeness. Balance.

It has happened.
A demagogue has been elected and he is appointing a cabinet of military-industrial complex lackeys. I do not need to detail the horrors we are witnessing unfold.
Even mainstream media is covering that!
So it must be out there for 5th grade reading level adults to grasp.
That reference is to the fact that USA Today is geared to a readership who can read at 5th grade level...

So many thoughts swirling around in the context of Standing Rock as political and spiritual renaissance...
...from Lyla June and Waniya Locke's urgent quest to regain influence over Native American children's education to teach traditional ways: including language and spiritual practices. 
How deep are the wounds in the children and adults from the legacy of taking children away from family to indoctrinate them at "Indian Schools".  I love that this is coming full circle to empower the traditional values as they are taught to the next generations.
American Public Education has failed. I dedicated my life's work to changing the status quo.
I was deeply influenced by living near Carlisle, Pennsylvania and feeling such sadness around the Indian School policies that forced children to be separated from parents and cruelly mistreated.

I hold that grief and responsibility as a settler and colonizer.
The Haudenosaunee befriended my ancestors- European colonizers. My ancestors 6 generations past, lie in eternity overlooking the Onondaga Reservation.
So how we educate, what we teach and why weighs on me.

For all our children, we need to teach children the richness of languages that reflect the values of respecting the earth and each other. Language learning opens doors of imagination, friendships and life-long growth.
We need wilderness and outdoor schools for children that encourage building relationships in nature with the abundant learning and living in harmony with the earth can really change our future on this planet.
Guiding one child, one person to the stillness and quiet of a place where water falls over a cliff or a river flows by, or even a walk along a muddy stream to hear the plop, plop as turtles splash off their sunning rocks...can change our future.
The smell of humus, rich with moisture - an earthy aroma- that is the pathway for all to come home to earth mother.When we feel that connection, we won't want to destroy her.

We are protectors. Protectors of water, of earth, of mother.

This struggle against Big Oil and the greedy energy conglomerates will fall to the youth today.
How and what children learn matters. 

... to another struggle that rages close to home.
Another link in the chain that is strangling our planet.

In this video below Jordan compares the Trans Pecos Pipeline to the Dakota Access Pipeline as "not just Native American"....missed the point that DAPL is NOT just a Native American "issue".
But otherwise, this is great information.

https://www.facebook.com/TYTpolitics/videos/1792813254299715/



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