A Lament, by Ernest Thompson Seton

A LAMENT
ON VISITING THE OLD WESTERN RANGES

O God of the blue sky and the gentle rain,
O God of the hills in the West;
If only I could ride as I used to ride
And see the white-sterned Antelope flickering across the distant flat;
Hear the Coyotes yapping at dusk and the long soft note of the Graywolf in
the dawning;
If I could see the bounding Blacktail sailing across the upland on his unseen
wings,
As the Woodwale swings festooning through the woods:
But gone, gone, gone, is all I loved,
Gone, gone are the big open spaces and the sweetness of the hills.
As I try to pick my way among the barb-wire fences, the sordid settlements,
and piles of empty tins and fly-blown filth, pestilential with maggots
and crawling bugs, I have no words for my sadness.
Gone are the big beautiful animals – not because they harmed us – not
because we needed the land, but because we had invented weapons so
terrible that the wild things had no chance. And loathsome brutes in
human form destroyed them for the hellish joy of seeing them fall.
How gleefully would they haved used armoure cars, gatling guns and poison
gas, had such things been at hand.

What a glorious West it was – a heritage for the Sons of God.

But the abomination of desolation came to possess it.
The harmless and the beautiful withered away.
Any one that could get a horse and a gun, could kill the Buffalo.
Gone are they, with only an old bone here and there to tell of their one-time
myriad race.
Gone are the elk that bugled so joyously on the uplands.
Gone are the harmless, beautiful Bighorns from the useless bluffs.
Gone are the bannertailed Deer from the meadows.
Gone are the patient Beaver from the swamps.
Gone are the Sage-grouse, too innocent for such a besetting.
Gone are the glorious white Cranes, trumpeters of the springtime.
Gone are the simple Jackrabbits, netted wholesale, and killed with clubs.

Then, ever-intensifying ingenuity mowed down the wiser ones; then the lesser ones.
Then the Wonder-dogs, the Coyotes had to go.
And the coyote gone, the Ground-squirrels multiplied to billions, and
gathered every crop.
Then poison was invoked to destroy the Ground-squirrels.
And it finished its work, but it also killed the ground-feeding birds, so that
ticks, bugs, lice, flies, insect-plagues were trillionized – and still the
abomination stalks;
The very forests are reduced to blackened stumps; till man at least will be
driven forth from the Eden he as ravaged.*

And I – I ride with tear-blurred eyes, and turn back away from the
heritage we have desolated, scorched as with the fumes of the pit.
I seek my own last home, by the little lake in the rocky hills of Connecticut,
and find a measure of joy in the woods, and the wild things I have
loved and saved.

But a black cloud hangs over my joy.
I know that this too will wither – is withering even now.
A wild Deer – the last of its race – crossed my land a month ago, and after
it were fifty yelling curs.
I suppose they killed it. It had no chance.
Then came a few Woodcock from the North,
But a dozen gunners went after each of them.
The brooks are marked, surveyed, to be turned into drains.
I hate your cursed, cowardly dogs;
I hate your loud, shameful guns;
I hate your sordid improvements.

The doom of the trees is impending;
The chestnut is gone; the butternut and the white pine are going; the hemlock
is dying.
The red-oak and the pignut are thratened,
Nearly all with plagues imported by man.
Even now the browntail and the gipsy moth are sending the scouts of their
Sennacherib hosts, marking all Yankeeland for desolation.
The end is in sight.
The desolation sweeps from sea to sea.

I can find some tiny crumbs of comfort in this alone –
That when it comes complete, I shall not be here to see it.
Only in prevision shall I see it – see my people pay the bitter price of their
Greed and carage.

And yet farther yet my soul-view reaches in the years.
I see only logical completeness of this hell-born mania to
destroy –
This – surely this: the nation possessed of it, will certainly destroy itself.
And when the men of another race, a yellow, or mayhap a red race, shall
discover this unpossessed, broad, Western world, landing on Manhattan,
they shall marvel at the piles of ancient ruins.
And slowly unearthing shreds of proof, and scraps of records, ancient made,
Their chiefs and wiser ones shall know, that here was a wastrel race, sordid,
cruel, sordid;
Weighed and found wanting,
Once mighty but forgotten now.
And on our last remembrance stone,
These wiser ones will write of us:
They desolated their heritage;
They wrote their own doom;
They knew not the things of the Spirit;
They never lighted the fourth lamp of the Woodcraft Altar fire.”**

* This statement directly anticipates by 35 years the theme of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

** This is a reference to Seton’s esoteric fourth principle of Woodcraft that saw the campfire as a place of absolute honesty and brotherhood, a place of the heart and of love on a deep level. Those who light this fire (literally while camping, but figuratively within themselves) can banish the evils of our contemporary society from themselves including the tendency towards random destruction of nature and find union with all humankind.

Video Interviews about Our Tribe's Traditions

Some very short video interviews we've done with Rebekka Bekka Schlichting ( Pete Fee, Louwane Reed, Lance Foster) to talk about our tribe's traditions.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFSax6cJSWZKpNVytX0VdzQ

Bias

"We all tend to believe the stories that support our own views." Check this out (it's a great list of how we only see what we already believe):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

I try to do a few things to keep my own biases down to some extent. My mom always said, "Consider the source." "Left" and "right" are pretty much just "false flags." I already know that media, whether "left" or "right" is trying to convince us of certain biases that company has (and even deeper, what its owners and sponsors want you to believe), whether MSNBC or FOX. So I tend to immediately put a warning flag for myself for anything I see on TV or hear on the radio, because there are very few real reporters anymore, they are mainly demagogues (trying to whip people up to believe what they want them to believe, for whatever reason: power, influence, money, etc). Mainly they manipulate facts to elicit emotions, because one you get into someone's emotions, they tend to stop reasoning and can be made to do whatever.

I watch them all pretty much: FOX, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, PIVOT, the old three networks, etc., in order to cancel each other out on their biases to some extent. It is a start. When FOX and MSNBC agree on a fact (something that happened, like Benghazi, or that so and so won an election, it probably happened, but then the SPIN comes from both sides, and I separate the SPIN from the event itself. The reality is, unless I was there, or have a primary source, it will take some real analysis to try and tease out what the truth might be.

There is so much thrown at us constantly, who has the time to sort through it all? So mostly I remember to always remember my own biases, try to see it from the opposing point of view, and really think about it. And if I don't have the time to do so, I realize I am ignorant, and can be manipulated as much as anyone else.

The Man's Reply

The Man's Reply

I would do so, my Good Folk

But there is no toadstool ring
Only a asphalt lot in front of Walmart

There is no Clootie's Croft
Only a monocrop of GMO corn

There are no standing stones
Only a subdivision of McMansions

The Oak is cut for flooring
The Elm cut for imagined disease
The Hill sliced open for an interstate

My song dried in my throat for shame
Because I do not sound like Beyonce
My spells left to the Internet's cold light

I have no fields, just a cul-de-sac, one of thousands
I have no herds, just a package of coldcuts
I offer only Pizza Hut and Captain Crunch

I do not forget you my Good Friends
I see the world wither and curl
The veil hard and cruel
I do invite thee
But my voice is dry from shame

My loins are empty, spent
The land is eaten by cold greed
I cannot see any children
They promise helix promises
of designer genes

I call thee back, Good Friends
Save us from the madness
Save us from the barrenness

But how can you save us
If we do not raise our own sword
And erect our own Wicker Man
Let us raise our blades as one
And burn the Man to ashes

And call thee back
The life of the land
and the hearts of our children
To arms, Good Folk!

Gods and Goddesses

I believe in God. I do, but I am not dogmatic about things. I believe in God the way most people meant in the old days when they said "I believe in God." That (God =the Creator) doesn't cause any friction between my Ioway beliefs (God = Ma'un = Earthmaker) and my Catholic beliefs (God = the Father, Son and Holy Ghost). It doesn't, not for people from the older generation I was brought up around. You believe in God, do your best, avoid doing bad things, treat people the way you want to be treated. That's how you live.

When I was little, I fell in love with Greek mythology. The first thing I ever remember drawing was a Cyclops, from the Ulysses movie starring Kirk Douglas ("More wine! hahaha!"). The book I remember is D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths; it formed my mental pictures of the Greek Gods and it still does. The Greek Gods were as real to me as a little child as Gumby and Pokey, and God, and my stuffed animals that also were alive, and the clouds that sent down lightning. And the dark things under the bed and in the closet that moved around at night and caused nightmares. The knotholes in the walls' wood paneling were the eyes of trees that had been killed, accusing one of the crime.

It was only as I grew older, that I learned that I was to believe only in some of these things as "real." And older than that, I learned that I couldn't believe in both the Greek Gods AND God with a capital G. And then when I went to Catholic school, things got even more complicated. I had known about God for a long long time ("Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...") but now there was Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and Mary. And I took it all in stride and believed in them as well. And I wasn't allowed to believe in anything other than these new additions to my understanding.

But there were problems. They said only humans had souls. But that was untrue, as I knew my dogs also had souls...I could see it in their eyes, their souls. And the idea of hell. I didn't like it. It made me even more scared, adding hell to those dark things that roamed around at night. I knew EVERYBODY I knew was going to heaven when they died ("If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take" wasn't a lie was it?).

So what about the Greek Gods and Goddesses, and the souls of my dogs, and the eyes of the murdered trees in the planks, and the plants that grew and could even grow vines to strangle you at night? And the wind that spoke and rain that seemed to say something to me? Many years passed, and I still wondered about these things. While in Church I prayed to God, and took communion, and wondered about the dark feelings in the Church's basement and the carvings of staring faces on the cathedral's stonework: who were they?

I learned about the theories of anthropology in college, about the development of witchcraft and religion. I learned...

Most of the Gods and Goddesses of Classical Paganism can shown to be, in their essence/origins:

I. Universal Major Elements/Forces
1. Sky Father
2. Mother Earth
3. Winds
4. Storms/Thunder/Lightning
5. Ocean
6. Underworld
7. Ice, Fire, etc.

II. Human Ancestors who went through Apotheosis
1. Fathers and Mothers of an Ethnic Group
2. Direct Ancestors
3. Ancestors who were expert craftspeople or practitioners
4. Ghosts, Egregores, Tulpa, etc. formed by emotions, rituals, memories in the land placed there by ancestors

III. Local Anima Loci "Spirits of Place"/landvaettir
1. Mountains, Volcanoes, Cliffs, and Hills
2. Plants, Groves and Forests
3. Caves
4. Unusual Features (rock spires, etc.)
5. Watercourses: Rivers, streams, springs, ponds, lakes, waterfalls
6. Others..

EVERY God or Goddess I can think of, when you look at the origin myths, has an origin in one of the above categories, even if it was later amalgamated with another category.

Examples:

Odin: Originated as a Germanic ancestor, added features of Sky Father, and craft of magic and cunning.

Shango: Originated as a great West African chief, added feature of amalgamation with thunder and fire.

But many of the polytheistic pagan faiths also had a distant "Creator" god that made all things but didn't get much involved in human affairs. For my tribe, we believed in Earthmaker (Ma'un), but when you went out to get a vision or made sacrifices, it was to one of the Persons created by Ma'un...it was THESE Persons (Thunder, Bear, etc.) who became one's Helper in a Vision Quest.

So whatever path we take for ourselves, it is okay to believe in "God" (however one wants to think about "God", as an old white-bearded man, Zeus/Deus, or "the Force" or whatever) but the day-to-day business of living is tied to one's local natural forces and places, animals and plants, as Persons, and also to one's Ancestors and the ancestral practitioners of one's craft/way of making a living.

And so, I still struggle to make sense of all this.

I have never had God tell me anything. Nor Jesus, nor Odin, nor Mary, nor Apollo. Not so I can tell without second-guessing myself. A couple of times I have had dreams in which it seemed angels talked to me. But those were only dreams. That came true, even if it was decades later.

But I have seen the souls of dogs in their eyes, and the hair rise on my neck in a dark place in the woods where I know I am not wanted, and the lick of a butterfly that landed on my hand, and the blessing of a cold drink of water. I know these exist. I KNOW... I don't have to believe.

Ends

I see people as driving around in little cars known as "bodies." When the car is new, they get around, can wave through the window or roll it down and say hello. When one hits a bad bump, or gets into a fender bender, or the car gets rusty, you can't get around anymore, maybe you can't roll the windows down and chat, or the windows fog up and you can't really see each other clearly. But the driver is still in there. Until the car just won't start-up anymore.

I have been thinking about loss of knowledge when societies come to an end. My tribe faced that, and now all we have are scraps of info collected by an ethnographer and artifact collector, collected after the society had already lost most of its ancient ways.

When I worked in Hawai'i, people were always interested in offering their mana'o. The office and its staff were always saying, "we would like your mana'o" on such a matter. There were flurries, blizzards, of mana'o. I used to think mana'o meant "insight," but then realized all it meant in reality was "opinion." But what I needed was not mana'o in most cases, but 'ike, "knowledge." Everyone would offer their mana'o, but when I asked for 'ike, all fell silent, but for the VERY few who knew what they were talking about...and had the experience to prove it. Of course some poor folks inevitably confused their mana'o as being 'ike.

Too much mana'o, not enough 'ike. Sounds like a Hawaiian proverb almost!

Archaeologists, living history folks and re-enactors are always researching lost knowledge. Stuff you can't even imagine that was once commonplace, but that now we don't even suspect existed. The Hawaiian renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s revived much of a culture which was almost gone. The Hawaiians showed the rest of us what was possible: traditional navigation, canoe construction, healing, agriculture, fish pond restoration, language revival, and more. 'Ike kahiko -- the knowledge of old.

Some people say, big deal, things change. Get over it. What if you didn't have the money for a dentist and you had a toothache? Lots of people have lost their jobs this last year. No money for such things. Teeth rot and fall out-- and the pain and suffering is horrible. What is worse, rotten teeth affects the rest of your health, and can even kill some folks with existing heart conditions or other ailments. What if not only could you not afford a dentist-- there weren't any more dentists, period? Would you know what plants to apply for pain and swelling? How to properly pull an infected tooth? How to care for the bleeding gum afterward to ward of infection and provide for proper healing? Neither would I.

Our culture is soaked by hubris today. The idea that we know it all, and our knowledge and civilization will continue forever.

The Romans thought the same thing, and we still had a thousand years to get through the Dark Ages before we began to recover much of their knowledge. The Library of Alexandria was burned to the ground. People could not read the Egyptian hieroglyphs until the last century and only within the last decades are people really beginning to understand the Mayan glyphs. There is so much knowledge lost-- we don't even know about all the things archaeologists find in medieval contexts. So much of our own society's knowledge is based on digital media (and we can't even read some of that from the Apollo space program!) or pulp paper that rots very quickly (unlike vellum, parchment, clay tablets, etc.).

We cannot sustain hubris. Knowledge of the most common things is lost all the time. Including the most taken-for-granted knowledge of today.

That's because societies and empires collapse-- without exception. Including our own. The Native Americans are often quoted as saying, "Only the Earth and Sky last forever." And the geologists and cosmologists dispute that as well!

What knowledge, skill, art, would YOU conserve? One place to begin thinking about such things is the Cultural Conservers group, and there are others who smell the winds of change and who are beginning to prepare in their own ways, so that all will not be lost.

Extinction Ethics

"For those who do not resort to a vicarious extension to their own existence, near-term extinction is not different from ultimate extinction. Such persons can base their actions on rational anticipation rather than on expectations. In the absence of both elation and dejection there is true hopelessness which has nothing to do with thwarted expectations. It includes kindness and compassion to all, which in its perfection includes no others, since then there are no “others”. Some may manifest such characteristics even in a Mad Max scenario. Let’s hope that each of us is one of them." http://guymcpherson.com/2014/06/extinction-ethics/