Kipuka

Snow last night and this morning, about 1-2 inches.

Kipuka. kee-POO-kah When Pele does her thing in Hawai'i and the lava flows out across the land, wiping out forests, it flows around places that are a little higher in elevation, leaving islands of greenery in a sea of lava. After the lava hardens and cools, these little places, called in Hawaiian "kipuka" (a puka is a hole) serve as seed banks to, over decades, over hundreds of years, to re-seed and regenerate the land. 

 That's really all we can do in cities and land that has been devastated by the actions of human beings who destroy forests and the natural places. The lava of development and destruction, of pavement and buildings can be interrupted by kipuka you establish and maintain in parks, in backyards, in vacant lots, in waste places. These can be seed banks, kipuka, for when the Land takes back, and re-establishes itself. 

 No city, no farm, no development lasts forever. The Land does, though it may sleep, it may get sick. Tend your kipuka.

TV Show

Looks like I am going to be on a TV show in about a month. My interview on the Ioway story about the Shunka Warak'in will air on the program "True Supernatural" on the Destination America Channel at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, January 2, 2015. That is 8 pm Central and 7 pm Mountain Time. Yikes!

What Goes Up

"What goes up, must come down
What must rise, must fall
And what goes on in your life
Is writing on the wall

If all things must fall
Why build a miracle at all
If all things must pass
Even a miracle won’t last

What goes up, must come down
What must stand alone?
And what goes on, in your mind
Is turning into stone

If all things must fall
Why build a miracle at all
If all things must pass
Even a pyramid won’t last

How can you be so sure?
How do you know what the earth will endure?
How can you be so sure
That the wonders you’ve made in your life
Will be seen
By the millions who’ll follow to visit the site
Of your dream?

What goes up, must come down
What goes round, must come round
What’s been lost, must be found"

Self-Portrait, October 2014

Facebook Group

Are you trying to find a way to connect spirituality and science, in a connection with the land, with the place where you live? No churches, no leaders, no money, no power over you, just a way to see the beauty of the world we live in and finding meaning in the craziness we all live in now, as the world totters?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bioregional.animism/

Towards a New Religion

Our tribe gave up much of our indigenous religion under the pressure of Christianity, but there are still some of us who practice some of the old ways along with the best parts of Christianity. yes, some is incompatible, like belief in the spirits and sanctity of nature (the old ways) and the belief that only people have souls and everything else is fallen/demonic (Christianity). But much is still compatible.

I have always thought it would be interesting and a good direction to combine the following elements into a religion of some kind:

1. Indigenous spirituality with a three-part focus on
a. various deities and/or powers of nature (with recognition of the Great Mystery that is unknowable beyond even the gods),
b. one's ancestors and families,
c. the land where you live that you must care for)

2. The religion should (must) be consistent with what is known to be true through science (evolution, the scientific method, physics, astronomy, etc.) to be consistent with truth and rationality as far as possible (short of being nihilistic or dogmatically atheistic). Superstition is to be avoided, however mythic thinking is necessary too...

3. While knowing the physical aspects of existence are best explained by science, the religion must be open to mythic thinking, to account for our needs that cannot be met otherwise, as we are not only rational beings but we are irrational creatures as well. Art, storytelling, myth, ritual need to all be part of it as well.

4. The religion should combine universals of ethic systems such as treating another as you wish to be treated (golden rule), the best of such systems as Stoicism (endure and accept, and deal with whatever happens) and Epicureanism (smell the flowers while ye may and drink wine for tomorrow we die) both with equanimity (my tribe feasted when there was food and fasted tranquilly when there was not). Hospitality and a warrior's code to defend the community should be incorporated because of what will happen during a collapse, as our society seems to be hurtling towards.

Finally, it should be flexible enough to allow for people of different backgrounds to come to some kind of understanding… "men of goodwill"..whether Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or whatever, to be able to focus on the common ground (ethics, golden rule, honesty, family) rather than the focus on the differences, which keep us always in religion-based warfare and conflict.

WAKON'DA

WAKON’DA

 An invisible and continuous life

 was believed to permeate all things,

 seen and unseen.

 This life manifests itself in two ways.

First, by causing to move;

All motion, all actions of mind or body

are because of this invisible life;

 Second by causing permanency

of structure and form,

 as in the rock, the physical features

of the landscape, mountains, plains, streams,

rivers, lakes, the animals and man.

This invisible life

is similar to the will power

of which man is conscious

within himself—

a power by which things are brought to pass.

Through this mysterious life and power

All things are related to one another

and to man, the seen to the unseen,

the dead to the living,

a fragment of anything

to its entirety.

This invisible life and power

was called Wakon’da.

(p. 134, The Omaha Tribe, by Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, 1911,

with passages as set in poetic form by Robin Ridington, 1992)