 |
We
are at the Crossroads!
September 15, 2001
Mitakuye
(my relative),
I,
Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nation, would
like to ask for this time for you to understand an Indigenous perspective
in reflection of what has happened in America, what we call “Turtle Island”.
For the past six years, my work has concentrated on an effort on uniting
the Global community, through a message from our sacred ceremonies in recognizing
a day of World Peace and Prayer on June 21st as a time to unite spiritually,
each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator. We have been warned from
the messages, passed down from Ancient Prophecies of these times we live
in today, but also a very important message of a solution to turn these
terrible times around.
To
assist you in understanding the depth of this message involves the recognition
in the importance of Sacred Sites. It is important that you realize the
whole interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the
continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.
I have been learning about these important issues of Sacred Sites since
the age of 12, upon receiving the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle
and it’s teachings. Our people have strived to protect Sacred Sites from
the beginning of time. There needs to be an understanding in the concern
of the protection of Sacred Sites that goes deeper than just the issue
of Shrines built by humans. Our people have built similar objects and Shrines
to identify and to remind the significance in the power of the Sacred Site.
We have also witnessed them being destroyed for many decades, but we also
realize it is what is underneath them that is important. These places have
been violated for centuries and have brought us to this predicament that
we are in concerning the unstable Global Level thus far. Look around you,
our Mother Earth is very ill from these violations and we are at a brink
of destroying a healthy and nurturing survival for generations to come,
our children’s children.
Our
ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred Site from the continued
violations called the Sacred Black Hills in SD, “Heart of Everything that
is”. Our ancestors never seen this site from a Satellite view, but now
that those pictures are available with modern technology, we see that it
is in the shape of a heart and when fast forwarded it looks like a heart
pumping. The Dine have been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver
and now that the coal is depleting, we are suffering and going to suffer
more from the extraction of the coal and poison processes used in doing
so. The Aborigines has warned of the contaminating effects on the Corral
Reefs from Global Warming, which they see as Mother Earth’s blood purifier,
our sacred water is being polluted. The Indigenous people of the Rain Forest
relay that the Rain Forest are the lungs and need protection and now we
see the Brazilian Government approved the depletion of 50% of this Sacred
Site. The Gwich’in Nation has an issue of oil drilling in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to the Gwich’in as ‘Where the
life begins!’ The coastal plain is also the birthplace of many other life
forms of Animal Nations. The death of these Animal Nations will destroy
Indigenous Nations in this territory. As these destructive developments
continue all over the world, we will witness many more extinct Animal,
Plant and Human Nations, because of the misuse of power that mankind has
made and their lack of understanding the “balance of life”. The Indigenous
people warn that these destructive developments will cause havoc globally.
There are many, many more Indigenous awareness’s and knowledge of Mother
Earth’s Sacred Sites, connections (Mother Earth’s Charkas) to our spirit
that will surely affect our future generations. These people are still
suffering from this contamination and their livelihood is being destroyed
as I write this to you. There needs to be a fast move toward other forms
of energy that are safe for all Nations upon Mother Earth. We need to understand
the whole picture in the type of minds that are continuing to destroy the
spirit of our whole Global Community. Unless we do this, the powers of
destruction will overwhelm us. Our Ancestors foretold that water would
someday be for sale. Back then this was hard to believe, since the water
was so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition and spirit.
Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the nutritional minerals
have been taken out; it’s just empty liquid. Someday water will be like
gold, too expensive to afford. Not everyone will have the right to drink
safe water. We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out
the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them, as if Mother Earth were
simply a resource, instead of the Source of Life itself.
Attacking
Nations and having to utilize more resources to carry out the destruction
in the name of Peace and elimination is not the answer! We need to understand
how all these decisions affects the Global Nation, we will not be immune
to it’s repercussions. To allow continual contamination of our food and
land, is now affecting the way we think. A “disease of the mind” has set
in World Leaders and many members of our Global Community, with their understanding
that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will bring Peace.
In
our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the Crossroads, either unite
Spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases
and tears from our relatives eyes.
In
times of disasters it is sad to say that it is the only time that we unite
spiritually, but we must not taint it with anger and retaliation. We are
the only species that is destroying the Source of life, meaning Mother
Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources and ownership of land, using
methods of chemicals and warfare that is becoming irreversible, as Mother
Earth is becoming tired and can not sustain any more impacts of war. I
ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the Peoples of all
continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together
as one at their Sacred Sites at that sacred moment of what is known as
the Summer Solstice of June 21st, to pray and meditate and commune with
one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and
achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace. As each day passes
bringing us to this day of concentration together, I ask the Global Nations
to begin a Global effort, in knowing that each and every one of us are
making a daily effort in waking to a gratitude of another day, that is
gifted to us and begin to remember to give thanks for the Sacred Food that
has been also gifted to us by our Mother Earth, so the nutritional energy
of medicine can be guided to heal our minds and spirits.
This
new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end
of life as we know it. Starvation, war and toxic waste have been the hallmark
of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium.
To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility
of turning back the powers of destruction. We have come to a time and place
of great urgency. The fate of future generations rests in our hands. We
must understand the two ways we are free to follow, as we choose—the positive
way or the negative way…the spiritual way or the material way. It’s our
own choice--each of ours and all of ours.
You
yourself are the one who must decide. You alone—and only you--can make
this crucial choice. Whatever you decide is what you’ll be, to walk in
honor or to dishonor your relatives. You can’t escape the consequences
of your own decision. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
You must decide. You can’t avoid it. Each of us is put here in this time
and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think
the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible
danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that!
Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately
needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here
for something less?
In
a Sacred Hoop of Life, where there is no beginning and no ending!
Mitakuye
Oyasin,
Chief
Arvol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo
Calf Pipe.

|