REGAINING BALANCE IN A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE

REGAINING BALANCE IN A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE

The internet at times seems like never-never land where boys never grow up. There are discussion lists that have turned into face offs and word wars. There are blogs.

Blogs are the most interesting and have the most potential. Sometimes amateur writers give us more truthful reports of world, national and local events. They are not owned by establishment news syndicates nor do they owe allegiances to any controlling force.

Recently a blogger was attacked by the Portland and Oklahoma AIM chapters and a group calling itself the Oklahoma Red Brotherhood. The subject was child abuse. The groups did not side with or protect the alleged victim. They tried to bully people into silence.

I don’t know if the person in question is guilty or not. I believe children must be believed and protected. For too long we have turned our backs to the silent screams of our abused babies.

We tell ourselves that’s the way that person (abuser) is. Then we leave the child trapped in misery. That baby’s childhood and innocence has been stolen and destroyed. They will miss a big step in their evolution to adulthood. They may revert to their stolen childhood when they are much older and act out. Then we will wonder what is wrong with them. Why can’t they grow up and be responsible healthy human beings?

That child has been deprived of their right to a world filled with wonder and love. Their trust has been destroyed. They may be afraid to love for the rest of their lives. Child sexual abuse ruins a life until steps for healing are taken.

Child sexual abusers may delude themselves into thinking that the abused child enjoys or asks for it. Child rape is not sex. It’s not sex for the rapist either. It is rage and violence perpetrated on a child.

The rapist feeds off of the child’s terror, helplessness, agony and entrapment. It gives him a false sense of power.

A baby and child are dependent on adults for survival, food, clothing, warmth. They cannot run away from abuse and take care of themselves. They must have somewhere to turn. They must have a community of extended family.

We are the only hope our children have. If we don’t stand for them they are doomed. We will have lost them. How did we fall so low?

We all have the teaching that children are sacred. They come to us directly from Spirit. They are still speaking the language of where they had been. Toddlers may still remember the language and are able to communicate with the new human beings. They are our future. They are our legacy.

Our Old People are sacred. They too are closest to Spirit. They are getting ready to return home. They hold all of our teachings and knowledge.

Women are sacred. They represent Mother Earth. They are the life-givers.

Men are sacred. They were given physical strength to protect and feed The People.

These were our places in life when our world was still holy and we strove for symmetry.

Our world began going out of balance on October 12, 1492. Gold doesn’t make us crazy. It makes the white man crazy. He committed genocide for it. That genocide began with the landing of Christopher Columbus that lost Spanish/Italian sailor.

He rounded up the local Taino Indians into a pen. He tortured and killed them for information about gold. They wore jewelry made of gold so he knew there was some somewhere. He would hang Indians 13 at a time. One Indian killed for Jesus and each of the Apostles. He would build fires under them and slowly roast them to death.

Gold was never of great importance to us. Those Ancestors never did know why they died. One story says he opened the corral and the Indians ran for the hills. They climbed over each other and dropped their babies. They left them there with that mass murderer. How terrified would you have to be to abandon your baby to a killer of that magnitude?

We died as surely and slowly as those 13 Indians hanging with a fire built under them. Sometimes we abandoned our children like those parents who dropped their babies and kept running.

The first whites to come here were few and needy. They were not born of our Mother. They had to be taught how to survive with her.

Whites came here for religious and economic freedom. Their numbers grew. Their friendship turned to greed. They wanted our land and resources. They went to war with us.

There were times that our men fought armed mounted soldiers with their fists and courage. They bought with their lives a few precious minutes for women, children, and old ones to escape. Again and again and again they placed themselves between the unstoppable invading force and The People.

The inevitable happened. Our hearts broke as we were placed on reservations. All of our Treaties were broken and our lands stolen. It wasn’t only our Sacredness that was destroyed by the invaders.

We watched as those who gave their lives that we might live were slaughtered to near extinction like us. Buffalo were killed for their tongues. The interlopers wanted to keep salmon strictly for themselves. They invaded sacred hills to dig into our Mother’s body for gold. Forests that were centuries old were laid waste.

We were supposed to die on our reservations, out of sight and out of mind. Weapons were denied to us. We couldn’t hunt. Reservations were the most barren lands. We starved. The new marauders government wanted us dependent on them for our food.

Our men watched us starve and could do nothing. They couldn’t carry out their mandate from the Creator to protect and feed us. Alcohol was deliberately introduced to kill us. We had no immunity.

Some of our great chiefs and our warrior societies climbed into that bottle to hide. Today we see many from our Chief’s families carrying this burden. They still carry the biggest load for us. When they overcome our crucial maladies, alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, child abuse, they will lead us out of this darkness. Then we will once again be free.

In those first insidious days of the occupation of our country we found ways to survive. Some embraced Christianity, the new religion when ours was outlawed by the occupational government. Others took our original faith and ceremonies underground.

Our children, our future was stolen from us and placed in boarding schools. It was here that rage and violence was introduced into our communities. Our babies bodies, minds, and souls were violated. Their sacredness was destroyed. They were beaten and raped.

Old Indian men testifying about sexual abuse in Canada’s residential schools told their stories. They would place the younger boys behind them and form a line. They fought the adult rapist priests to defend the smaller boys who couldn’t fight. They would be overcome. These young boys answered that ancient promise for Indian men to protect The People.

Our baby girls were raped. Some bore children to those priests that had taken vows of celibacy. One youtube account tells of a priest delivering his own baby by a young Indian girl and throwing his minutes old child into a furnace to die.

Once our future was desecrated and crippled they were sent home to plant those seeds of self destruction. Those seeds grew like weeds. They established themselves in our communities where they still flourish.

Domestic violence and rape, and child sexual abuse and beatings still destroy the sacredness of each generation. We have forgotten our accord with the Creator.

It is time for our men to form a line of defense. It is time for our men to say that domestic violence and rape and all forms of child abuse will no longer be allowed within our communities.

It is time for us to once again call forth that sacredness inherent in each one of us. It is time for us to live in a world that is holy and beautiful.

It is a perfect time to do this on Summer Solstice.