"What we most need to do is to hear within us the sound of the Earth crying." Thich Nhat Hanh
My heart aches today. Chi'chil Bildagoteel, called Oak Flat, will receive its death sentence tomorrow (8/19) when the United States transfers this land to the multinational mining corporations. I know many others who have joined the fight alongside the Apache Stronghold feel this pain today. The monster of greed that many native people prophecy warnings about looks to devour more of our Mother Earth threatening all people. You can read this powerful warning from Robin Wall Kimmerer of what her people called Windigo:
"Windigo tales arose in a commons-based society where sharing was a survival value and greed made one a danger to the whole. But in a profit-based society, the indulgent self-interest that our people once held as monstrous is now celebrated as success. Americans are called on to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable."
Dr. Wendsler Nosie, Sr. of the Apache Stronghold has also shared a prophecy from his people that warns of the evil of greed that will one day destroy the earth with fire unless the people are able to finally see through their tears the suffering being caused and choose to stop the evil. Both Wendsler and Robin say it is possible to choose another way to learn to belong to Mother Earth and one another as family, to care for and love one another. Wendsler tells us:
My home place is here in Arizona. The Apache people were the last to be taken over. And so I speak from reference, you know, I speak from what our elders and the ones before us have witnessed and have prophesied. This is what we are worried about. We are at a point in time where we need to make the right spiritual decisions. A lot of people will be put to the test. And from what they have prophesied about it seems like today we are in that moment and time. It is going to take all of us in this spiritual way of connecting of reconnecting to what is the spirit.
My people speak of a prophecy of a time when the people will start to cry. My mother taught me that this prophecy came from the 1800s when a medicine man had a vision. It was showed to him that a time will come when people different from us will come and they will fly in the air like birds and bad things will happen. But my mother also taught me that the prophesy also said that when the people begin to cry it will be time to speak because they will listen. My mother told me to be ready to speak because that time to speak is almost here and you are to be that one who speaks. We see that time is here. We see people beginning to cry.
As I travel around the country speaking with many non-natives and natives and, you know, people who have moved here that are immigrants, I hear them crying and talking about this very thing. They don’t have food. They don’t have clean water. They are trying to survive. They are disconnected from the land. And the holy place at Oak Flat where we are defending and what we are fighting for has an abundance of medicine plants and an abundance of food. And so we see the suffering occurring in Phoenix and Tucson, all this hunger, but yet the earth can provide all this, meals and all of these medicines. Think about what God gave the world. But who is keeping us away from it? Who is suppressing who so that nobody learns it? This is the deception. This is the lies of colonization and capitalism where corporations control it. And as long as we are on this road of capitalism it will not take us to learn about these important things. It has detached us from the spiritual way. And so some of us people we see from the spiritual way the best gifts from God, from the creator, you know, for the people of the earth.
I tell people that I thought reservations were bad, but I find that life in cities and towns is really bad. They are like reservations themselves where the people are kept within boundaries. I tell white people that there is a big difference between you and I even though there is no difference on the human side of us. The difference is that I feel that chain leading me in one direction and then leading me back but for you. You have become accustomed to that chain. What we are trying to do is to help you see the chains that you live with and these boundaries you live with – that it is capitalism. Like it or not, that is what has been done to all of us.
Is it too late?
Are there enough tears?