I emerged from shafts of the first sacred corn:
From Me,and My Husband
Kanati the Hunter
People are descended.
I return again in each ear of corn.
I dance in the summer fields
I dance the sun and the earth
I dance for all children
I dance for the rainbow
I dance for you
by Christy Salo
It takes courage to be crocus-minded.
...I'd rather wait until June,
Like wild roses,
When the hazards of winter are
Safely behind and I'm expected,
And everything's ready for roses.
But crocuses?
Highly irregular.
Knifing up through hard-frozen ground and snow,
Sticking their necks out
Because they believe in spring
And have something personal and emphatic to say about it.
...I'm not by nature crocus-minded.
Even when I have studied the
Situation, and know there
Are wrongs that need righting,
Affirmations that need stating,
And know that my speaking out may offend,
For it rocks the boat -
Well, I'd rather wait until June.
Maybe later things will work themselves out,
And we won't have to make an issue of it.
Forgive me.
Wrongs won't work themselves out.
Injustices and inequities and hurt
Don't just dissolve.
Somebody has to stick their neck out;
Somebody who
Cares enough to think through
And work through
Hard ground,
Because they believe
And they have something personal
And emphatic to say about it.
Me - Crocus-minded?
Could it be that there are
things that need to be said,
And I need to say them?
I pray for courage. Amen
In their eyes I see
back to the beginning.
To the creation of peoples
on this "Turtle Island".
In their eyes I see
the truly brave qualities
and fierce determination
that has allowed them to endure.
In their eyes I see
the struggle to comprehend
the greed and destruction
of their sacred lands.
In their eyes I see
a truth,
a truth as true
as the Natural world.
In their eyes I see
the harmony
and connection
to all living things.
In their eyes I find
the inspiration for what I do.
In my drawings and paintings
I honor them.
In their eyes I see,
Myself.
From James Oberle's Website Turtle Island Images
Turtle Island is a image in a Native American story about the creation of the world, it has become a way a large number of Native Americans refer to North America.
Listen! Listen to what others have to say.
There is wisdom in all you meet.
Listen to the sounds of nature.
It speaks and sings and makes music
For those who pay attention.
Listen! Listen to the impulses of your spirit.
Take time to hear your inner yearnings,
That still, small voice drowned in the raucous shout.
Listen! This is a noisy world.
Perhaps, this year, we will listen.
"Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also." Matthew 6:21
Based on CIA data the world spends over $750 billion a year on military preparations. The official budget figures for US military expenditures for fiscal year 2004 was 400 billion. Thus the United States spends more than half of total world expenditures. We all this huge financial the Defense budget, but the U.S. military has much capacities that go way beyond defense, this is a budget intended to project U.S. power and to enable the U.S. administration to coerce nations who would wish to pursue policies contrary to the wishes of the administration.
More than half of the U.S. budget goes to maintain this coercive military presence in the world. Countries that have advanced economies and do not spend their treasure on war and preparation for war are able to afford excellent education programs up to and including higher education, to provide an universal health care, to maintain and renew their infrastructure, and invest in restructuring their economies for the future. But the people of the United States are being reduced to debtors, working long hours to maintain a modest standard of living and watching our nations transportation system, energy grid, and water and sewage system fall apart. Agribusiness is feeding us junk food and we are treating the resulting obesity with more medicine.
To put it gently, our priorities are wrong. The heart of our nation has been seduced by power and we have become addicted to unsustainable ways of living. If the Hebrew prophets called the people back to the covenant, then what is our promise?
I suggest we look at the Constitution of the United States as a covenant document. While not perfect, it is like all committee compromises a reflection of the tensions of the people and the time in which it was constructed. But it provides a good place to begin a conversation, where is our heart?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Ohiyesa wrote: The First American mingled with his pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that his power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over "dumb creation"; on the other hand, speech is to him a perilous gift.
He believes profoundly in silence -the sign of the perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit.
The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were,astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining poo - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life . . .
Silence is the cornerstone of character.
Ohiyesa (1858-1939) was a Santee Sioux who was given the Christian name Charles Alexander Eastman.
Dear Oran,
You have inquired about the ministry.
I need not describe the perils, since you have observed the staring into space, heard the late-night calls for help, read the cranky letters, and been affected by a thousand funerals. I thank you for never complaining.
Oran, I imagine you are considering the ministry because you know my secret. Yes, I love it.
I love the church with the scent of the ages in the air, with the light filtering through colored windows, with the music and the mystery of eternity echoing off the stone walls.
I love the challenge of going deep down into the cave of the heart, of soaring above the obvious, of stretching every nerve and fiber for truth and understanding.
I love the people, as they are the source of religious inspiration, as they are the mentors of human courage, as they are the bearers of joy and forgiveness. The saints are in the pews.
Yes, I love the ministry.
But whatever you choose as a career, it will be a form of ministry, sicne you have been blessed with a sensitive spirit. In the end, we are all minisers to each other, witnessing in our won ways to the ties that bind. Every task is holy when the heart is employed.
In the meantime, For God's sake, get a haircut.
Sincerely,
Dad
Below are some quotes that help reveal the less visible aspects of racism.
Today, racism is far more camouflaged than it was [before the civil rights movement.] It is buried in institutional practices. It is hidden in coded language and subtle messages some people get when they shop, or look for a place to live or for a taxi, or have dealings with the police.
Project Hip-Hop, 1997
Racism is so universal is this country, so widespread and deep seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.
Shirley Chisholm, 1970
If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is most nice, nonhating people who perpetuate racial inequality.
Ellis Cose, 1997
Black people know that sometimes their greatest enemy is. . . white people of power who would never utter a racist sentence in public, yet who quitely and privately do everything they can to keep black people as the slave class in this society.
Carl Rowan, 1991
We have long since grown accustomed to thinking of Blacks as being "racially disadvantaged." Rarely, however, do we refer to Whites as "racially advantaged," even though that is an equally apt characterization of the existing inequality.
Harlon Dalton, 1995
As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see the corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism does affect them because they are not people of color: the do not see "whiteness" as racial identity.
In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
Peggy McIntosh, 1988
Whiteness in a racist, corporate controlled society is like having the image of an American Express Card. . . . stamped on one's face: immediately you are "universally accepted."
Manning Marable, 1997
Leadership is crucial, but as Paul Robinson reminded us, leaders derive their power from a much deeper source.
The faces and the tactics of the leaders
may change every four years, or two, or one,
but the people go on forever.
The people - beaten down today,
yet rising tomorrow;
losing the road one minute
but finding it the next;
their eyes always fixed on a star
of true brotherhood *, equality, and dignity
- the people are the real guardians
of our hopes and dreams.
Paul Robinson, 1952
* for a reading I would substitute "true solidarity" for "true brotherhood."
Image was created by the subject and shared with the MoveOn library of photos for the budget fight back.
