Tag: genocide

Energetically Speaking

The mysteries of energy – what it is and how it works – are largely beyond me.

Personally, I know when I have an abundance of it. And I really know when I don’t.

I accept that energy is all around us and supports us and all other living things. Naturalists might interpret that universal energetic flow as god at work.

But beyond that superficial understanding and my reliance on electrical outlets to power up whatever device I need to use, my understanding of energy is scant.

Eastern religions have a deep and complex understanding of energy. They understand how the energy in us is connected to a larger energetic system.

Some Westerners have clued in and try to apply the knowledge of those belief systems to our own philosophical frameworks.

From this, many Westerners have adopted and follow the dictates of balancing their chakras and pursuing a yoga practice. In Far Eastern culture, internal energetic pathways in the body are called meridians which are the channels through which chi (life energy) flows.

This belief system attributes a lot of suffering and illness to blockages in energy flow. Acupressure and acupuncture evolved as methods to unblock the meridians. By doing so, the body’s own healing energy can take over and bring it back into balance, or a state of wellness.

It all seems like delicate balancing act to me to achieve and maintain a state of wellness in ourselves and on our planet. Many capitalists don’t think this way. Nature is seen strictly as a resource to exploit.

We are all paying a high price for that attitude with climate change and increasingly extreme weather events around the world.

Likely, we have all heard the analogy of how the butterfly flapping its wings can impact events on the other side of the world.

I will rely on this quote by Catherine McKenzie to better explain where that philosophy comes from:

“They say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian rain forest, it can change the weather half a world away.

Chaos theory.

What it means is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s come before it. Every breath. Every thought. There is no innocent action.

Some actions end up having the force of a tempest. Their impact cannot be missed. Others are the blink of an eye. Passing by unnoticed. Perhaps only God knows which is which.

All I know today is that you can think that what you’ve done is only the flap of a butterfly wing, when it’s really a thunderclap. And both can result in a hurricane.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10523011-they-say-that-if-a-butterfly-flaps-its-wings-in

That would appear to put an enormous amount of responsibility upon individuals to consider and monitor how their actions could affect outside events.

I believe there were great cultures that did do that as part of their inherent belief system. First Nation tribes believed spirit was in every living thing. They treated the Earth they lived on and the animals that were sacrificed for their survival accordingly.

I think it is a fair comment to say that sensibility was eradicated at the end of the nineteenth century as effectively as First Nations people and the buffalo were.

All to say, I superficially understand the dictates of maintaining my own energy supplies. I pursue practices and activities that I believe support that effort.

Mostly I have taken up certain practices through a zig zag process of traia and error over the years.

Yoga helps unblock parts of my body that are tight and tied into knots, essentially by tying itself into knots. No wonder so many Westerners think yoga is weird.

I have had acupuncture when no other modality seemed to improve that nagging bursitis in my right scapula. I don’t well understand how acupuncture works, only that it has and does. That is sufficient to my purposes when I am in chronic pain.

They say that the more you know, the less you know. Or as more accurately expressed by Aristotle: “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”

Regarding life energy, flow, Spirit and interconnectedness among all living things, that is precisely my experience. I know a little bit about a lot of things.

I am in a chronic state of tension as a result. I realize I will never reach that carrot of fully understanding the fundamental mysteries of life: where life started, what life is and what keeps us and life constantly moving forward.

I do know I appreciate the unrelenting quest and happily sacrifice a fair amount of my life energy to seek answers to those multitude of things I do not understand.

I pray for the sustained energy to keep me pursuing that quest for as long as Nature/Spirit/god permits.

The American Buffalo

I’ve never seen a Ken Burns documentary I didn’t like. Burns’ epic two part, four hour documentary on the American Buffalo that aired last week on PBS was no exception.

I sometimes delude myself there is nothing new for me to learn. That is because I have no interest in learning astrophysics or nuclear fission. But this documentary surprised me.

It turns out there was tons I didn’t know about the history of the American Buffalo in North America. More important, I didn’t fully realize how intimately intertwined the fate of the buffalo was with the indigenous peoples who relied on them.

There used to be millions of buffalo roaming free on the open grasslands in North America back in the mid-1800s. Millions. The indigenous peoples who hunted them for food, clothing and shelter, had a deep and mystical connection with them.

Buffalo were so embedded in the life and well-being of indigenous peoples, it would have been hard for anyone to imagine they could disappear. But the American Buffalo was nearly wiped out. The tale of how the buffalo was nearly eradicated goes hand in hand with the cultural and actual genocide of many native American Indians.

Ken Burns’ documentary ostensibly starts out to teach us how the greed and violence of Europeans decimated the great North American buffalo herds. His story inevitably explores the concomitant demise of indigenous peoples who lived here first. It was shocking to see the parallels drawn so clearly.

I, like nearly every other North American kid, grew up witnessing depictions on film of the struggles between white Europeans and Native Indian tribes as a fight between good and evil. And in that order.

There was an Indian reservation quite close to a friends home in the little town I grew up in. I still remember the solemn warnings of my friends mother. “Stay away from there. The Indians are known thieves and rapists.”

Couldn’t think of a much more effective way to strike terror into the hearts and minds of two pre-pubescent girls. Even if we didn’t quite get what rape was, we knew it was very bad and we didn’t want it to happen to us.

Sadly, the buffalo didn’t have anyone to protect them. They were shot and killed in the millions by greedy white hunters. Only selected parts of the buffalo were taken as trophies or to cash in on whatever body part was in demand – their coats, or tongues, or heads. The rest of the corpses were often left on the Prairie to rot.

So we white folk – as the now predominant culture in North America – depicted the Indians as cutthroat savages who would kill us as soon as look at us. It seems ironic that white folk under similar threats – which European settlers and military battalions certainly were to them – such action was not only expected, but lauded.

History is written by the winners. If winners is the right word to describe the victors in widespread murder and land theft. It is understood that indigenous peoples did not understand the concept of private land ownership. I understand they believed themselves to be part of and stewards of the land they lived on – not owners. This lack of discernment cost native people dearly.

I watch the mealy-mouthed machinations of the predominant white culture now trying to make amends with indigenous peoples’ for the wrongs of their ancestors’ past. Canada’s truth and reconciliation commission generated an apology from the sitting government and a national day in honor of the horrific treatment of Canada’s First Nations people, especially in residential schools.

It’s something I guess. But that’s the thing about winning. The sharpest operators know it is better to beg for forgiveness, instead of asking for permission beforehand. What’s done is done, we say.

Possession is nine tenths of the law when it comes to property ownership. Conveniently, that law came into being long after the bulk of indigenous North American Indians were pushed off the lands they occupied for thousands of years. New game. New rules.

It’s little wonder indigenous peoples are working hard to reclaim what they once had and lost. They are creating a new game with their new rules.