March A Issue
ROSALIE FISH Silence No More
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SPECIAL Silence No More REPORT NATIVE AMERICAN ISSUE
26 Silence No More: interview with Rosalie Fish
68 88
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38 Ayahuasca and the Amazon 48 Mitakuye Oyasin: All My Relations 52 Unveiling the Sacred Headwaters of the Amazon 60
Climate Justice Activating Compassion for People, Wildlife and Environment
68 Uýra, The Walking Tree
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80 The Prophesy of The Eagle and The Condor 88 The Haunting REDressProject
52
94 The Protection of Indigenous and Tribal People
80
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ROSALIE FISH Silent No More Rosalie Fish Interviewed by Liane Buck
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
MARCH A EDITION
OMTIMES MAGAZINE
Rosalie Fish is an 18-year-old member of the Cowlitz Tribe and a competitive runner from the Muckleshoot Reservation in Auburn, Washington. She graduated this year from the Muckleshoot Tribal School, where she represented her school in the Class 1B Washington State Track Meet, earned three gold medals, a silver and a sportsmanship award, and used that platform to raise awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW). Her passions include running, youth empowerment, indigenous visibility, upholding and practicing native traditions, as well as uplifting and advocating for native communities and native women. She is excited to share her work on MMIW with the TedXYouth @ Seattle community because, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute, Seattle leads the nation in MMIW cases. Recruited for her running ability and proven leadership Rosalie will attend Iowa Central Community College in the fall where she will continue her athletic career and her activism for MMIW.
OMTIMES: Rosalie, you became the face of awareness for Native American women nationwide and a symbol of international struggle. What motivated you to step up and bring awareness to the front stage? ROSALIE FISH: As a Native American, my own existence and the existence of my community are perceived as political. My ancestors and my grandparents are survivors of genocide and boarding school violence. I was born into a family and a community of activists, and therefore I was always aware of the various socio-political challenges Indian Country faced. It was Jordan Marie Daniel who made me realize that I could take my beliefs and my passions further than pipeline protests and conferences- Jordan showed me I could use my platform as an athlete to expose non-Natives to the issues of neglect that Indigenous women face. Jordan showed me that I can demand acknowledgment by putting my feet on the ground and racing.
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OMTIMES: Why are Native American women vanishing? What do you think people should learn about the plight of Native American women here, and worldwide? ROSALIE FISH: The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic is an epidemic that has occurred for centuries. One factor that makes Native women especially vulnerable to violence is encompassed by the intersectional experience these women face. Many of the women and girls being affected are already living difficult lives. Native women and girls are exponentially vulnerable to violence through a lack of Indigenous acknowledgment and stereotypes. Indigenous women are in situations where factors such as poverty, domestic violence, different levels of ability, and trauma are present. When an Indigenous woman is attacked or goes missing, there is little to no accountability when the local police refuse to act on the case. Local police forces found it completely acceptable to wait extensive periods before beginning to look for the missing woman, or assuming that missing woman was under the influence of drugs/alcohol, or even refusing to file an official missing person report. It is the violent situations of historical trauma that Indigenous women are surrounded by, paired with the prejudice and stereotyping from local police that makes this epidemic extremely dangerous.
OMTIMES: Why do you think other young people like yourself didn't step up as you did? We see a tendency for silence and resignation from other older generations of the Native American Community. Do you think your generation is silent because it is also feeling hopeless? Or is silence a coping skill? ROSALIE FISH: I personally believe this generation is a generation of unapologetic resilience. My great grandparents are survivors of residential boarding schools. Multiple lifetimes of trauma were inflicted upon our elders that are still here today. These elders were expected as children to "get over" their traumatic experiences and live healthy, functioning lives. This is an expectation that is unrealistic for anyone who would have endured the physical, sexual, and psychological violence of boarding schools. Our generations of elders may understandably not have had the strength and the courage to stand up toward their oppressors. In this age of technology and social media platforms, it is much easier to spread word freely. I believe it is a combination of healing and opportunity that allows Indigenous youth today to speak out upon the issues that have been affecting our communities and families for generations.
OMTIMES: What should the government be doing to assist the Native American communities, especially girls and women? What do you think that ordinary people outside of the Native American communities can do to help?
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ROSALIE FISH: Government agencies such as city and state police departments need to be held accountable in their role in collecting and taking action on the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. While the Urban Indian Health Institute identified 5,712 cases of women and girls, only 116 were logged into the Department of Justice Database. This means that when cases are reported, not only are they neglected from the action, but the cases are not even being recorded for research purposes. It took the research and investigation of an Indigenousoriented institute to explore and discover the actual amount of cases that are spread across Indigenous communities. OMTIMES: Have you felt a difference in your community and seen awareness of in response to the violence, after you spoke out and started the conversation about the issue of violence against Native American women?
ROSALIE FISH: I have absolutely noticed a difference in the amount of visibility MMIW has in Indigenous communities as well as the dominant culture. Various conversations have sparked regarding MMIW due to the efforts of Indigenous athletes, artists, activists, educators, students, and government officials. OMTIMES: How do you think Indigenous women can heal and go back to their rightful place in their communities and society without the fear of being sexually abused, assaulted, trafficked, and killed? ROSALIE FISH: Indigenous women, like all Native people, are extremely vulnerable to trauma. Native women who have intersectional experiences like low income, adaptive-abilities, and/or LGBTQ are more likely to personally endure the systematic discrimination that comes with identifying in multiple minority groups.
These women and their experiences can often make them more invisible to dominant cultures. Tribal communities that have the resources to fund domestic violence shelters, substance abuse recovery centers, economic/career opportunities, girls' homes, and trauma-informed psychological care for tribal members will create safe spaces for Indigenous women and girls to heal and find pathways to healing. OMTIMES: Why are Native American women and girls viewed differently, even from other minorities? How can we change this perception? In your opinion, what do you think can be done to restore and empower Native women? ROSALIE FISH: As a race, Native people endure a wide variety of fetishization, tokenism, and casual racism that other races do not necessarily experience. When larger, non-Native communities participate in things such as dressing up as an "Indian" for Halloween, celebrating with "Indian" sports mascots, and excluding Indigenous history in education, it contributes to the erasure of Indigenous people. These are examples of the methods used to illustrate Native people as historical, or no longer present or active. Indigenous women are targeted in this by being especially sexualized. We change these perceptions by demanding respectful and accurate media and academic representation. OMTIMES: Is there a connection, like there is in Canada, between the child welfare system and the epidemic of missing Indigenous women? Do you think that our system purposely contributes to the vulnerability of these women?
ROSALIE FISH: Indigenous children make up less than 1% of the U.S. population yet account for 2.1% of children in foster care. The Indian Child Welfare Act ensures that the child's tribe gets exclusive jurisdiction over the placement of the child. This lowers the chances of a child experiencing a cultural disconnect. In Canada, however, there is no Indian Child Welfare Act, which allows for Indigenous children to be displaced in nonNative communities and therefore lose their ties to their heritage and their culture. OMTIMES: In Canada, there is a national inquiry about the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women. Although that is not enough by itself, it is a step towards bringing healing to the families. The inquiry examined the systematic causes of violence against indigenous women and girls made recommendations on how to make them safe, but it has yet to become a national plan of action. You have inspired so many with your voice, have other activists reached out to you to expand your voice and action to bring justice for these women? ROSALIE FISH: I have been reached out to by a large amount of other Indigenous women and activists that are also using their voices and platforms to advocate for change. Just as I was empowered by marathon runner Jordan Marie Daniel, young athletes have since seen my example and have taken it into their own hands to raise awareness in their areas. As Indigenous people, our strength and courage inspire one another. We have created an influential cycle that will not lose momentum.
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OMTIMES: Do you think we should have a similar initiative here in the USA? What would you expect from such a program? Why do you think we don't have one yet? ROSALIE FISH: The U.S. does have other protections in place that Canada does not, for example, the Indian Child Welfare Act. For the U.S., what needs to be addressed is the effect jurisdiction that discludes Indigenous women who live in urban areas and experience sexual assault from protective legislation. There also needs to be a level of accountability put into place for the various state and city police departments that neglect the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women that are reported.
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Health & Wellness
Innovative new approaches to Healing as well as holistic methods for dealing with health issues and personal growth
Ayahuasca And the Amazon
It is a common belief in the global ayahuasca community that the medicine – “the vine of souls” – is intelligent
The Asháninka are rainforest people, once hunter-gatherers, who number 70,000. They live between the border of Peru and the Brazilian jungle state of Acre, along tributaries of the winding Juruá river. They cluster in modest settlements near water, on small clearings where children play among the chickens and dogs, dotted with stilted houses shaded by palm-thatched roofs. For hundreds of years, semi-nomadic communities intentionally incinerated swaths of forests, leaving behind dense black carpets of ash. In a few years, this charred matter transforms into fertile soil. These people, often indigenous communities, return to this land and temporarily settle, cultivating crops such as bananas, cacao, and peppers. As loggers, miners, and farmers expand into the forest, semi-nomadic Communities lose the expansive territories they require to continue their traditional lifestyle.
Tapirs, monkeys, and deer vanish along with their predators, like a jaguar, as once-pristine habitats are destroyed. In some cases, governments brutally force forest and riverine communities out of their ancestral lands. Other communities are edged out slowly, as new pressures accumulate around them. Formerly nomadic groups are forced to settle on plots of land where they must radically adapt, transitioning to an unfamiliar, sedentary way of life. When groups like the Asháninka find their future uncertain, they do what they’ve done for generations: they consult ayahuasca, seeking spiritual guidance and wisdom. That is what the Piyãko bothers, Moisés and Benki, did when they realized the integrity of their community was threatened.
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One morning at dawn, Moisés and Benki Piyãko strode into the forest. They gathered the glossy leaves of Psychotria Viridis, a bush of the Rubiaceae, or coffee family. They walked further into the jungle until they found a twisted vine, a woody liana, twirling in spirals up into the rainforest canopy, Banisteriopsis caapi.
For hundreds of years, seminomadic communities intentionally incinerated swaths of forests, leaving behind dense black carpets of ash.
The brothers carried the ingredients to a small solitary structure where a palm fiber hammock hung near a pile of ashes. Here, they prepared the ingredients to make what they call kamarãmpi – their term for ayahuasca – layering the leaves upon pulverized vines in a metal pot. For hours the leaves, the water, and the vine cooked over a carefully-attended fire until it boiled down to a frothy brown liquid by sundown. Wearing their kushma tunics with their faces adorned with the red pigment from the seeds of the urucum plant, and woven-reed crowns punctuated with the long red plumes of a scarlet macaw, they sat upright in their handmade chairs and drank the brown brew as their ancestors have for generations. With eyes closed, they entered into the other realities. In his visions, Moisés walked by a river and heard a voice. A spirit being was waiting for him. “I want to show you something,” it said. He saw an unusual structure there, a spaceship hovering over the water. The voice spoke again: “There’s something I want to show you if you want to learn how to teach.”
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The spirit brought them back to the forest, where Moisés noticed how the bees work diligently to pollinate fruits and trees, then return to the hive to make honey. The bees care for each tree, every fruit, so it can bring nourishment and color to this world while taking care of their own community. “This was the lesson ayahuasca showed me,” said Moisés. “Each of us has to do our part so that the world can be perfect.” The vision told him that humanity could organize itself as a harmonious collective, much as bees do. But Moisés recognized another layer to the lesson: the bees had a gift to offer the Asháninka as they struggled with accelerating modernization and the dislocation it was bringing to their lives.
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He stepped into the light-craft, and they floated to the samauma tree (Ceiba genus). Inside, Moisés saw a tiny buzzing metropolis where myriad small yellow creatures were moving about, absorbed in their tasks. He realized he was peering into the highly organized world of the “bee people.” “Here you have an example of the world in harmony,” he was told. “He showed me all of these bee people working together for the same goal: They take care of our lives as they take care of each other. Everybody has to be the same.”
Since that time, the Asháninka have become beekeepers. They keep wooden boxes in trees to house colonies. The bees pollinate the local fruit trees, creating orchards in the jungle. With their new beekeeping initiative, the local jungle has become a luscious oasis again – a regenerative food forest – all thanks to Moisés’ ayahuasca vision.
Perhaps the message from the rainforest, transmitted by this ancient medicine, is that we need to figure out how we coordinate our individual actions for the greater good, just as the bees do.
It is a common belief in the global ayahuasca community that the medicine – “the vine of souls” – is intelligent. As one European-descended jet-set shaman, running ceremonies between London, Ibiza and Byron Bay, put it: “Ayahuasca represents the intelligence of nature coming out from the rainforest to transform human consciousness in this time of crisis.” According to this narrative, ayahuasca's purpose in leaving the jungle is to communicate with modern civilization and offer us the opportunity to transform our perception and our way of being, in harmonic alignment with nature’s principles.
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Over the past few decades, as ayahuasca snakes across the world and twines its way into the cosmopolitan centers of industrial civilization, increasingly it is embraced not just by rogue anthropologists, botanists, and hippies, but by wealthy elites, software engineers, entrepreneurs seeking a competitive edge, and members of the creative class.
About the Authors: Daniel Pinchbeck is the bestselling author of Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of the Quetzalcoatl!. He co-founded the web magazine Reality Sandwich and the online platform Evolver.net. His essays and articles have appeared in a vast range of publications, including The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and ArtForum, and he has been a columnist for Dazed & Confused. Sophia Rokhlin is an anthropologist and nonprofit organizer working with human and environmental rights organizations. She coordinates a permaculture program with the Chaikuni Institute and directs the regenerative ayahuasca initiative at the Temple of the Way of Light in the Peruvian Amazon.
Simply Spiritual To perceive reality from a different perspective is to open oneself to the wonders and unlimited wealth of creation. Simply Spiritual offers the opportunity to visit new places, new methods, and different ways to perceive the vast human knowledge of our Universe.
BY
Mitakuye Oyasin All My Relations. “Mitakuye Oyasin.” “All My Relations” is a greeting from the Lakota (Sioux) people reflecting their worldview of oneness, interconnectedness, and harmony with all living things: people, animals, plants, even wind, rocks, and rivers. To most people, a "relation" means a family member—a blood relative. It would be a stretch for most of us to extend the concept to include entities other than humans.
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However, if we chose to follow the wisdom of the Achuar in the Amazon jungle, it could transform our outlook on life forever. Loving and honoring "relatives" in this broader sense means caring about everything on Earth and throughout the Universe. For the Achuar, everything that exists has a consciousness—an energy. Everything that exists is "alive" on some level. Dreams, ideas, feelings, thoughts, buildings, organizations, etc. are alive. They hold energy; they have purpose. What a concept! Let's sit a bit with the Achuar and ponder their concept of TRUTH.
Everything is related because everything emanates from one Source and everything has one purpose. All belief systems whether indigenous philosophy, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, or Islam are "related." TRUTH can be found in each. One can experience indigenous customs and rituals and find Buddha. One can study Buddhism and find Jesus. We can meet Mother Nature and find ourselves. Understanding indigenous spirituality—how our native relatives perceive themselves as part of Pachamama (Mother Earth)—has allowed me to experience a spiritual bigness I never know existed. After meeting the Achuar, I have a new way— their way—of relating to and communicating with Pachamama. "All My Relations" is spoken at the beginning and end of native ceremonies to thank and invite our ancestors, those who recently passed to those who crossed in ancient times, to join us in celebration—in praise of Pachamama. Let us pray...
Aho Mitakuye Oyasin! We greet “All Our Relations.” Thank you for coming to join us! Pachamama, we honor and thank you for your Circle of Life that surrounds and supports us within your sacred, spinning wheel of Earth and Universe. Thank you for molecules, minerals, and membranes that build our bones and become the framework of all life on the planet. Thank you for plants that breathe healing and wellness into our bodies and spirits. Thank you for animals that sustain us physically and emotionally on our journey through life. Thank you for humans who share a consciousness that allows us to reflect on our common path and purpose. Thank you for Arutum, Spirit, your energy of life itself that lights our path and connects our past to present and future as you guide our journey through space, time and all ages.
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We are your Circle of Life, co-existing, co-depending, co-creating a single destiny, each one evolving from the other, each one dependent upon the other, each one as important as the one above, the one below, and the one from side to side. All of us are a part of your Great Mystery—all interconnected, all related, all one. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin. We honor “All Our Relations.” Thank you for coming to join us. Shamans in the Amazon rainforest commonly boil Chacruna leaves with the ayahuasca vine to make the ceremonial, visionary, healing brew. The illustration by Rebecca Patterson-Markowitz shows Chacruna leaves held in sacred space by the encircling ayahuasca vine which symbolizes the creative, healing womb of Pachamama (Mother Earth).
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JOURNEYING INTO THE SACRED
Headwaters of The Amazon By Anita L. Sanchez, Ph.D.
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Every summer, I have the honor of taking a group of journeyers into the depths of the rainforest of Ecuador in South America – what we call the sacred headwaters of the Amazon.
Every summer, I have the honor of taking a group of journeyers into the depths of the rainforest of Ecuador in South America – what we call the sacred headwaters of the Amazon. We go to visit two of the 25 indigenous nations living in their ancestral homes, spread across 75 million acres of rainforest. We step out of the tiny plane onto the dirt airstrip surrounded by dense green jungle, and everyone in the village, young and old, comes out to greet us. The Achuar, an indigenous tribe, are strong warriors and loving people who have lived for thousands of years in harmony with the rainforest. As I look into the Achuar’s calm, clear eyes, I see a people who have never been infected by the illusion of separateness, people who have lived in community, knowing the connection of the people, earth, and spirit.
One of the first things that the journeyers notice and say, “What is that? I feel physically different.” And I get to tell them, “It’s the gift of true abundance, an abundance of clean oxygen. The rainforest, the heart and the lungs of our earth, is cleansing the air, and creating this high level of oxygen that is nourishing us.” In a marvel of earth’s abundance, the mists and clouds that hover over the headwaters contain more life-giving water than is contained within the Amazon river itself, from the Andes to the ocean at the edge of Brazil. These clouds, floating rivers as they are called by scientists, impact the weather around the world.
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When we awaken at four o’clock in the morning, it’s dark. We join the Achuar tribe who start every day together with their family, and from the littlest ones to the elder, they share their dreams; based on their dreams, they decide what they are going to do that day. My journeyers’ mouths drop open, seeing the power of community. As the days continue, the journeyers begin to hear and listen more deeply to the different sights and sounds of the trees, animals, birds, and water. The diversity is remarkable: 2.5 acres of rainforest contains a wider sample of tree species than are contained in the whole of the United States and Canada. And that diversity of life is talking to its inhabitants. what the boy is saying: “When we see the frogs and toads moving en masse from the river, we move away from the water, too, for we know the flooding is coming. We listen to each other.
We appreciate the animals, the birds, as well as the frogs and toads, who set off the alarm so that we can be safe and live.” Journeyers are amazed by this reciprocity: animals helping people and people helping animals. Totally attuned in the world. Intimately inter-connected. We make our final stops in the last few days of our journey, as we join another tribe, the Sapara. Again we Journeyers are awed by the richness of the knowledge that they have of using trees, plants, minerals, and insects to cure fevers, aches, wounds, and life-threatening diseases. The Sapara provides their treatments to anyone for their healing because the treatments are gifts of the earth and are meant to be shared by all of us. We continue to hike for miles; the Sapara shows us how they travel widely to cut down individual trees from different places to build their homes.
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They tell us, “We don’t cut all the trees from just one spot, because we must maintain and honor the rainforest and the strength of it. For the forest provides for us, and we provide for the forest.” What becomes so increasingly clear is that the Sapara and the Achuar do not live in the forest, they are part of the rainforest. The rainforest and they are one, inseparable. When the journey ends, every one of us has been changed; we can see the amazing gifts within the circle of life. We are more able to understand the joy and responsibility of maintaining harmony and connection with all beings. This responsibility is ever more important in the modern world, where the illusion of progress remains a constant threat to the ancestral wisdom of the rainforest. Our relentless and continual mining and oil extraction stem from a simple failure to understand the importance of Amazon’s people, medicinal gifts, and natural bounty for ourselves, our children, and the children of other species. OMTIMES
We don’t have to travel thousands of miles away to understand, to live this connection, because it is already inside of me and it is inside of each and every one of you. o To learn more about and to give support to the Sacred Headwaters Initiative Contact: Fundacion Pachamama/ Executive Director: Belen Paez, belenpaez74@gmail.com Pachamama Alliance: Bill Twist, CEO, btwist@pachamama.org Sacred Headwaters Initiative / Director of Global Strategy: Atossa Soltaini, atossa@sacredheadwaters.org Amazon Watch: Kevin Koenig, limate/Energy Director, kevin@amazonwatch.org
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OM Living For those living a more Conscious Lifestyle
FEATURE
Climate Justice ACTIVATING COMPASSION FOR PEOPLES, WILDLIFE, AND OUR ENVIRONMENT By Sarah C. Beasley In my recent book, Kindness for All Creatures: Buddhist Advice for Compassionate Animal Care (Shambhala 2019), I highlight the special relationship between people and animals. After all, we human beings are animals too. The interdependence of humans, animals, and the habitats we share form a triad of compassion on this beautiful blue-green planet Earth. This is indisputable. Without engaging in acts of compassion that consider each of these three aspects, we risk losing everything. Women, children, and animals are at high risk of violence and socio-environmental injustice. The economically disadvantaged are often literally marginalized—relegated to geographical areas at high risk of floods, fires, famines, and landslides. In other places, their lands are rich in resources and are therefore stolen, plundered, poisoned. For example, in 2016, I helped with logistics for the Standing Rock Sioux Nation's protests against the oil pipeline slated to be built through their lands, endangering their water supply and impinging on their sovereignty.
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Indigenous peoples represent 5 percent of the global population, yet they protect more than 80 percent of the world's biodiversity. Their voices must be at the forefront of the fight to protect forests, water, air, and our Earth against climate change and pollution. From Standing Rock in the Dakotas to Indonesian lands taken for palm oil production, to Amazonian forests being burned and razed, the few are taking action to protect the many.
Eco-anxiety is a relatively new term coined in 2011, although I just learned it today. The feelings can be crushing, born from the realities behind the term, and the seeming relentless destruction that "progress" has brought with it. Friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, fellow writers, and environmentalists are among the many people I know who are feeling increasing levels of eco-anxiety, depression, and even panic.
There are many ironies inherent in this. Indigenous peoples have no choice but to defend their lands for the sake of us all. We are at a crisis point for choosing whether to turn away or turn toward bodhisattva action, however big or small. n Biodiversity has been shrinking, and extinction has been on the rise for decades.
The fires raging in the Amazon are one of a multitude of current crises for the environment and the climate. I read today that the acreage burning now is irreplaceable, even if we tried to replant it. As with ice melting in the Arctic, these fires bring irreversible damage to our planet. OMTIMES | MARCH A NOMADIC
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Our heart knows what our mind has forgotten it knows the sacred that is within all that exists, and through a depth of feeling we can once again experience this connection, this belonging. LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
This causes many reactions, including panic, anxiety, depression, rage, fear, sadness, and for some, a sense of helplessness. Yet warriors are rising up all around us—the most obvious to me at this moment are the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Especially important are the women who are taking to the streets to protest and raise awareness of even their very existence. They embody true resistance. Women and children are at the forefront of the protests of the pipeline construction in the Dakotas, and elsewhere. Teenage activist Greta Thunberg has been leading groups of schoolchildren across Europe and the world to approach these crises from another angle. She has been crossing the ocean by sailboat to avoid using fossil fuels, dedicating her life now to educating and inspiring, motivating and activating others, especially school-age children, to strike, to wake up the adults who can effect change in government and policy. She knows and shares with others that we cannot lose more habitat, for all is connected in this triad of interdependence. OMTIMES | MARCH A
Indigenous peoples are not vulnerable per se— they are targeted. In fact, they are incredibly resilient, except in cases where suddenly introduced diseases have devastated their populations in remote areas of the world. They know intuitively the deep meaning underlying scientific facts such as, "The Amazon Rainforest is home to 427 mammal species, 1,300 bird species, 378 species of reptiles, and more than 400 species of amphibians. Some of the animals that live in the Amazon Rainforest include jaguars, sloths, river dolphins, macaws, anacondas, glass frogs, and poison dart frogs. One in 10 known species in the world lives in the Amazon Rainforest as do one in five known bird species." (World Atlas) "It is believed around one million indigenous people from up to 500 tribes live within the Amazon." (news.com.au).
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The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing ... Only when our feet learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, and our hearts hear the real music of creation, can we bring the world back into balance. LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
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"Indigenous rights are guaranteed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that indigenous groups have the right 'not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture' or be imperiled by 'any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources.'" (Pacific Standard) This, however, is completely disregarded in cases where greed and corporations plow under whatever they wish for shortterm gain. In many cases, it is women who lead the way in the movement to preserve habitat, wildlife, and human rights and lives. Yet it is no coincidence that women are such fierce defenders of life and land. "On 13 August, more than 2,000 indigenous women leaders from across Brazil staged a mobilization in the nation's capital as part of the country's first Indigenous Women's March. Titled 'Territory: Our Body, Our Spirit,' this historic gathering responds to escalating violations of indigenous rights under the Bolsonaro government, as native peoples and their lands fall increasingly under assault." (Amazon Watch).May these brave, wise women and children lead the way for all people to realize what needs to be done and overcome the intense greed and shortsightedness of the corporate mentality that is quite literally bringing destruction to our planet and all her inhabitants. Â Sarah C. Beasley (Sera Kunzang Lhamo), author of Kindness for all Creatures: Buddhist Advice for Compassionate Animal Care (Shambhala 2019), has been a Nyingma practitioner since 2000, a Certified Educator, and an experienced writer and artist. Sarah spent close to seven years in traditional retreat under the guidance of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche and Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. With a lifelong passion for wilderness, she has summited Mt. Kenya and Mt. Baker, among other peaks. Her book and other works can be seen at
www.sarahcbeasley.com.
Personal Growth & Development
We grow as individuals as we face challenges and overcome life’s obstacles. This section is dedicated to helping you chart your course.
DNA
The Eagle The Condor
BY SISTER JUDY BISIGNANO
"The Eagle and The Condor" is an ancient prophecy shared by many indigenous people in South America's Andes and Amazon River Basin that calls all of Earth's people to mend the "Y in the road" that took us in separate and conflicting directions. "The Eagle and The Condor" is more than a prophecy. It is an autobiography of Pachamama—Mother Earth. Her disturbing story continuously repeats itself as it is played out by avaricious participants refusing to work together for their common good. Eagles are predators, hunters, at the top of their game and food chain. Condors are equally large birds, but they do not hunt. They don't need to. They are opportunists—gatherers who salvage life from death as they complete the food web.
People are eagles and condors. Eaglepeople soar high, drive hard, and take all they can regardless of their needs and the wants of others. Condor-people are content with staying close to home, gathering, and using only what they need so others can also have enough. Many Eagle-people live in sprawling cities to the north. They strive to know and understand things outside themselves. They seek Pachamama with their MINDS. They KNOW her and want her to KNOW them. She does. Many Condor-people live in isolated villages to the south. They strive to understand things from within. They seek Pachamama with their HEARTS. They LOVE her and want her to LOVE them. She does.
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Knowing and loving is not the same thing. To seek Pachamama with your mind is to think you know her and understand her. To seek Pachamama with your heart is to realize you know each other, you understand each other, you love each other. You are one. Eagle-people will not understand Pachamama's dream—her intention for the planet—until they stop thinking with their heads and start feeling with their hearts. We must learn that love matters.
THE EAGLE AND THE CONDOR" IS AN ANCIENT PROPHECY SHARED BY MANY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN SOUTH AMERICA'S ANDES AND AMAZON RIVER BASIN
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Five hundred years ago, in the 1490s, Eagle-people became so powerful they threatened the very existence of Condor-people. This was painfully apparent in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Fortunately, the Aztecs— also Eagle-people—had the wisdom to see where their inventiveness was headed. They returned to a more sustainable, equitable way of living in smaller communities rather than hierarchical power structures. Such clarity of purpose did not exist for the Eagle-people who colonized North America. In the subsequent 500 years—up to and including today, they repeatedly imposed their oppression and annihilation on the indigenous people and minority immigrants.
We had not yet learned that love matters. Earthlings are at a tipping point in history. The eagle represents the mind's intellect that exhibits masculine power and inventiveness— creative consciousness. The condor represents the heart's wisdom that exhibits feminine power and compassion—sympathetic consciousness. These two competing forces must work together to ensure the continued, balanced existence of Pachamama. The prophecy states that during this present 500-year period, beginning in the 1990s, the opportunity will arise for the eagle and the condor to come together, to fly peacefully and cooperatively in the same sky, to create a new level of consciousness for humanity. It is up to all people of planet Earth to make this story a reality. Pachamama (Mother Earth) has commissioned us, her Pachapeople, to create a new, sustainable consciousness for ourselves, our planet, and the universe.
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Indigenous elders throughout the world bequeathed the story of "The Eagle and The Condor," so their next seven generations of kin would remember and learn from the successes and mistakes of their ancestors.
By the turn of the 2000 millennium, the Achuar, living in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, saw the outside threat of colonization and its negative effects of logging, farming, cattle raising, and oil mining on their ancient, pristine land and life. The Achuar dreamed—initiated the possibility—that Eagle-people from the north would wake up and help them protect and reinvent Earth and recommit to its enormous potential. They asked the world to limit its ravenous global consumption of natural resources that threaten not only the Achuar's land and culture but the health and prosperity of the entire planet. Awakened Pacha-people banded together. The "mind" of the modern world stood with the Achuar to protect their land and culture. The "heart" of the indigenous world educated and inspired people all over the planet to embrace sustainability that promotes continuance and unity. Pacha-people finally learned that love matters! Pachamama can meet the diverse needs of multiple beings. In fact, diversity is key to her and our longevity. What she cannot tolerate are hoarders—those living unsustainably while consuming far more than they need with little awareness or respect for the needs of others.
According to the prophecy, we are at that moment in time and space and history when the eagle and the condor must come together to fly in the same sky. The Eagle's Mind and the heart of the condor must unite as one being to ensure the balanced continuation of all Pacha-people and the planet. To actualize the prophesy told by our ancient ancestors, we must accept the notion that we are the people we have been waiting for. We are the keepers of the dream— the fulfillers of the prophecy. Our space and time are here and now. We are one planet and one people. Let's get after it together, with gratitude and praise to Pachamama! Sister Judy Bisignano (a.k.a. Sister Jaguar) gleaned an understanding of The Eagle and the Condor Prophesy through oral history while listening to and talking with Achuar elders and Sandra Morse, ecotour guide, during five trips to Ecuador's Amazon rainforest between 2009 and 2015.
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Pachamama does NOT expect us to claim residence in the jungle; to become hunters and gatherers. She does, however, request that we listen to indigenous people who consult with their ancestors as they seek balance and sustainability. She insists that we pay attention to the wants and needs of all her people. She demands that we stop the mindless consumption of her limited resources.
When you look at the view of Earth from space, you are immediately in awe of what you do see: the incredible beauty of Creation. It is not until you look closer that you realize what you do not see. You do not see lines partitioning countries. You do not see separation between races. You do not see division between religions. You do not see the walls people build to isolate themselves from each other. There is only One Planet. There is only One Humanity. This section is dedicated to introducing thoughts and ideas to foster a greater understanding of Humanity’s interdependence.
World Vision
THE HAUNTING
REDress PROJECT OMTIMES | MARCH A
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The Haunting Call of The RED ress PROJECT The violence against Indigenous Women is appalling. The U.S. sexual assault statistics, Indigenous women, Native American, and Alaska Native women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than other women in the country. In the rest of the States, one in three women are survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence. The government tends to think this is a criminal problem, not a social-economical one. The Native communities feel a sense of urgency but at the same of hopeless. Because of such disregard for the Native American Women's rights and vulnerability that the artist Jaime Black created The REDressProject. The REDress Project a public art installation that was created in response to the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) epidemic in Canada and the United States. The REDress Project is an Aesthetic Response To the More Than 1000 Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women in Canada. The Art Project began in 2010 and honoring and memorializing the missing and murdered indigenous women from the First Nations, Inuit, MĂŠtis (FNIM), and Native American communities by hanging empty red dresses in a range of settings. The project has also inspired other artists to use red to draw attention to the issue of MMIW and prompted the creation of Red Dress Day.
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"People Notice There is a Presence in The Absence." JAIME BLACK Founder and Creator of REDress Project
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More than 400 dresses have been donated by women across Canada. Families of missing or murdered women have contributed dresses and attended some of the exhibitions. She says: "So (red) is a way to calling back of the spirits of these women and allowing them a chance to be among us and have their voices heard through their family members and community." The artist has also advocated the color red "relates to our lifeblood and that connection between all of us," and that it symbolizes both vitality and violence. The dresses are empty so that they evoke the missing women who should be wearing them. Jaime Black has said: "People notice there is a presence in the absence." Some of Black's art installations have been done indoors, but the ideal space for the installation has been on the outdoors. Outside, the dresses interact with nature, evoking an eerie element, and drawing the eye of onlookers and introducing them to the Jaime Black chose the MMIW issues ( Organization color red after Missing and Murdered conversations with an indigenous friend, who told Indigenous Women) through information panels. her red is the only color the spirits can see. Created by the artist Jaime Black, The REDress Project attempts to create a dialogue around social and political issues, mainly through an exploration of the body and the land as contested sites of historical and cultural knowledge. The artist Jaime Black identifies as MĂŠtis, an ethnic group native to parts of Canada and the United States of America, which traces their descent to both indigenous North Americans and Western European settlers. Black was working at the Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art gallery in Winnipeg when she attended a conference in Germany where she heard Jo-Ann Episkenew speak about the hundreds of missing and murdered women in Canada. Jaime Black says the image of an empty red dress hanging outside came to her while listening to Episkenew speech.
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THE REDress PROJECT In 2011, Jaime Black installed the first REDress exhibition in her own city at the University of Winnipeg. Since then, the critically acclaimed REDress project has been installed in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, in the National Museum of the American Indian, and various campuses across the United States. Jaime Black is part of the Organization Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, an international coalition movement working against violence towards First Nations, Inuit, MĂŠtis, and other Native American communities. Learn more about the Red Dress Project at http://www.redressproject.org/
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The Magic Of Conscious Relationships Try Ascending Hearts.Com For Free
By Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
The Protection of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
For many years, indigenous and tribal peoples were the forgotten stepchildren of the intergovernmental organizations dealing with human rights
While both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives, only the first is man’s vocation. This vocation is constantly negated. It is thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression, and the violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost humanity. Paulo Freire The United Nations General Assembly has set 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages with UNESCO as the lead Specialized Agency. There is a renewed emphasis on the rights of indigenous people to develop their own cultural traditions, languages, religious practices, and way of life. Language plays an important role in the selfidentification of a group. There is a need to find the most appropriate balance between the conservation of indigenous languages and knowledge and the use of a common language of the wider community.
However, the term ‘indigenous’ is ambiguous since, at some point, nearly every group came from somewhere else at an earlier time. Thus, when the first UN effort was undertaken in the International Labor Organization in 1957, the ILO Convention (N°107) was called the “Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention.” It is not always possible to say who is ‘indigenous,’ but it is usually easy enough to know if a group has a tribal structure. For many years, indigenous and tribal peoples were the forgotten stepchildren of the intergovernmental organizations dealing with human rights. Yet they needed protection at least as much as those on whom the political limelight had focused.
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For hundreds of years, seminomadic communities intentionally incinerated swaths of forests, leaving behind dense black carpets of ash.
The world community is filled with many different types of collective actors: clans, tribes, castes, ethnic groups, cities, races, social classes, religious organizations, nation-states, multi-state alliances for military or economic goals, transnational corporations and associations. Some types of collective belonging are more easily left than others. One can move relatively easily from a city and take on the character, the values, and the goals of a new city. Social mobility can produce changes in social class, and even caste lines become blurred. Persons change nationality or acquire new nationalities as frontiers are modified. The race is less easily changed, but definitions of what constitutes a race do change. Ethnic identity is often associated with birth, but parents can belong to different ethnic communities, although the child is usually raised as belonging to the more dominant group. However, the socialization process of group identity goes to the level of sub-conscious behavior and is not easily set aside. Today, the nation-state claims to be the dominant collective association – setting the boundaries of loyalty and identity. The state claims the right to set out the major collective goals and values. Through laws, the state claims the right to set out the rules by which Other collective entities may pursue their goals; through taxation, the state draws the resources to further the goals it has set, and the state claims to have the only legitimate use of violence to punish those who break the laws and rules it has set.
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Today in many parts of the world, those most excluded from power within state institutions are people living in alternative structures of authority, goal setting, and rule-making: persons living in tribal societies. Tribal societies predated most of today’s nation-states. A tribal society usually has all the same functions as the nation-state: it sets out the membership, loyalties, common goals, and rules of behavior. It has sanctions against those breaking the laws of the tribe. Tribes are, in fact, more realistically “nation-states.” If one defines a nation as a common language, a common history, and a common will to act together.
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There have always been tensions between these collective groups for their spheres of goal-setting and value-setting have overlapped. Thus there have been tensions between religious organizations and the state as to who should set what goals and the means to achieve these goals. There have also been tensions between classes and the state when it was felt that the state was dominated by another economic class who used its power within state institutions, not for the good of all but only to advance class interests. The same is true of other collective units – races or ethnic groups – excluded from power within state institutions.
Thus, because the tribal society is the closest in function to that of the nationstate, it is also the most feared. Tribes are institutions with whom it is difficult to compromise because they have the same presumptions as to the state.
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It is relatively easy for a government to offer higher wages to the industrial worker or higher prices to the farmer as social classes do not claim to carry out in an alternative way the functions of the state. It is more of a challenge to the state’s image of its role to allow tribal societies to set out a land policy or fishing rights or trans-frontier trading rights because these activities conflict directly with the functions that the government has set for itself. Thus, there has been a long history of the state destroying alternative institutions of governance on its territory.
The nation-states of Europe were built upon the ruins of feudal institutions as much of Asia was built on the destruction of local rulers. We see the pattern today as we watch traditional chiefs in Africa lose their authority to the heads of state and the military. In the Americas, many of the indigenous tribal societies were destroyed. Others were pushed into areas– the “reservations” – of Canada and the USA. In Latin America and Asia, there is still an active struggle going on between those trying to preserve their tribal institutions and homelands and the state which claims complete authority over all its territory and who often wish to put new settlers on tribal lands.
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The amount of violence and suffering is considerable. Slowly the fate of tribal societies has come to the attention of the United Nations. The UN was set up to facilitate relations between nation-states. However, because widespread violations of individual rights had been the consequences of the Second World War, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1948. The purpose of the Declaration is to assert the rights of the individual; that was the philosophy of the drafters.
The rights of collective bodies with which the drafters were familiar: trade unions, churches, professional associations are also protected. However, tribal societies were not particularly thought of as one sees by reading the drafting negotiations leading to the 1948 Universal Declaration. Thus, the Universal Declaration protects the rights of all individuals – including, of course, individuals living in tribal societies – but there is no direct recognition of the functions of tribal societies. It was not until the first World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, held at the UN in Geneva in August 1978, that certain aspects of discrimination against indigenous populations were included in the Program of Action. In 1983, the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations started meeting in Geneva, which led to the growing attention being given to indigenous and tribal peoples. There is still much work to be done as the process of humanization of those now oppressed and marginalized will come about only through radical changes in the outlook of those now holding power and authority. OMTIMES | March A
Books
Sister Jaguar's Journey
A Nun's Ayahuasca Awakening in the Amazon Rainforest Sister Jaguar's Journey, a book by Sister Judy Bisignano and Sandra C. Morse, is the fiercely honest story of Sister Judy Bisignano, a Dominican nun, who after spending 68 years looking for God in all the wrong places, finally found the peace and divine connection she was looking for in the Amazon rainforest. It all starts with a simple invitation from Sandra Morse to visit the Achuar community in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. Here in this place, with these special people, using plant medicine, she was propelled onto a new path. Guided by the indigenous wisdom of Pachamama (Mother Earth), and the sacred rituals of the Achuar people, she confronts and lets go of her turbulent, abusive, angry past, ultimately discovering that her life's purpose was not to be an American educator, author and nun but rather a compassionate human being. In many ways, Sister Jaguar's Journey is the story of one nun’s transformational passage from self-rejection to self-acceptance, and from self-blame to self-love. It is, perhaps, the journey of each of us as we search for peace in this life and beyond. The Achuar call her Hermana Otorango - Sister Jaguar, and so will you....
For more information, or to purchase the book, click the cover or visit:
Amazon.com
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