Native Wisdom...or Some Twisted Version of It

Good morning kiddies. Welcome to mister hawks neighborhood. Today’s lesson? The urban confused. Blissed out crystal twinkie members of the love and light brigade. Idjits who couldn’t find a traditional understanding if it were their ass and they used both hands and a road map. Those to lazy or so egotistical going to where tradition is crosses their minds only as a commodity. But they know. They have all the answers and cannot wait to vomit their interpretations all over everyone they meet. Traveling, meeting many of these full blown wack-a-loons, some of what they come up with staggers the mind. Mostly I just look at them, wondering if they really believe the crap coming out of their mouths and how they hell they came up with it.

Individuals like that you cant talk to. They know it all already. Every time, without fail, what they prove is how much they don’t know. Blinded by their own ignorance, content in their paint by numbers hallucinations. Not long ago I was attempting to have a conversation with one of these patience testing self deluded. Exasperated, I had them contact a very traditional Grandmother. Within seconds that Grandma was so pissed off, she impolitely listened to this dumb ass, hung up the phone and promptly called me. The gist of the conversation was if I ever, ever let that fool call her again she wouldnt speak to me for the rest of my life. Talking with a 90 year old grandma, raised in the traditions, knows the traditions backwards, forwards and sideways, and this fool is telling her all she knows. That Grandma was thinking, (she told me after ripping me a new one), if you know so much, what the hell are you calling me for?

They are everywhere. They want it, so bad. Starving for something, anything. Desperately seeking a direction. Any direction, to add definition, some substance to their lives. Understanding the church has been lying to them for years. Coming to that hollow empty place within themselves. Needing, craving, an all encompassing hunger to fill the abyss that is their soul. These fools show up at traditional places, ceremonies and gatherings. The first thing they do is walk up to an Elder and spew forth their made up name. Usually some mystically stereotypical hollywood interpretation. Next comes all the wisdom granted unto them from the great beyond. Instantly one of two things happen. The real Elders, who could have helped these fools had they had the sense to shut the hell up, turn their backs and walk away. How could they help some one who knows it all already? The other scenario is the predator. The second these goofballs started talking the first thing they heard was ch-ching!

Understand something. No one can teach anyone how to be spiritual. There are no apprentices, no acolytes. No one studies under someone for “x” number of years and becomes whatever. Doesn’t work that way. Never has, never will. Usually the fools who are doing this are being instructed by those with just enough knowledge to run a game. Or those so full of themselves if they were to walk onto a rez, into a traditional gathering, the Elders would verbally stomp them into hamburger. These fools don’t dare show themselves around real traditional people. Instantly they are shown to be the charlatans they are. Their goes their standing in their “indian club”. The only way to learn this is from the other side. If the other side chooses to teach you. The Elders are there as advice and counsel, because they have already live through it. Too many spend too much time telling the spiritual all about the human. Preconceived opinions and ideas about what everything is. Imaginations making up the most outlandish of bullshit, then spreading that manure everywhere they go. The only thing they are fertilizing is another crop of useless weeds.

The excuses they come up with to defend their hallucinations is nothing short of incredible. Stupendous feats of mental gymnastics. Defending their ignorance tooth and nail. Making absurd statements like, “spirituality isn’t only on the rez.” Um, where they hell do they think it began? Out here, in urban society? Some things did. Reiki, Wicca, witchcraft. That horseshit started out here. Traditional First Nations understanding? No, you have to go to it. Where it is. To find traditional understanding, you have to go to the traditions. They aren’t coming to you. Much like learning a language. You can go almost anywhere to learn a language. But to know the language, the nuances and texture, you must go to the language. To where the language has always been. To where it lives. To those who know it, live it, have retained it for generations. Otherwise what you are learning is some bastardized bullshit version created to sooth some deluded fools ego of being special.

Of course, there are those who do come out here. The vast majority of them, 99% of them, are coming out here because of the fools. They are all to well aware of the needy, and are coming to fulfill those needs. What they are bringing holds no substance and has zero value or basis in truth. Having grown up in the traditions they know just enough to run the game, and those out here are simply too damn stupid to know its happening. Leave the rez, become a god. Someone portrays themselves as Jesus or Napoleon or Hitler and they get locked up. A full blood makes up an organization, hangs a title on themselves like headman or medicine man, and folks line up. While they are patting you on the back and imparting wisdom with as much substance as a hollow chocolate bunny the other hand is firmly planted on your wallet. After they have taken everything they can, they leave. Then those who have been jacked either never return to the spiritual way of life or worse yet take the illusions they were shown and try teaching them to everyone else. And some folks wonder why most traditional people think urban mix bloods are idiots. Do I need to get the crayons?

Also, I'm am not even vaguely interested in the defense of those things I mentioned above. Yeah, yeah, yeah you are tapping into the universal energy of all reality to provide healing love and light. Excuse me, I need to vomit. If these fools met a real healer, saw real power, the majority would run home screaming. Yet they will defend the delusion with blood. Argue to the point of frothing at the mouth. Reiki began in 1922 and is an adapted version of Buddhism. The key word being adapted. Revised and reformed to fit whatever the hell it is today. Much like the christian bible. A Judaic text translated into English under Puritan influence. How close to the original do you think that is? Gerald Gardner popularized Wicca in the 1950's and look at it today. Witchcraft, as many of you Puritan descendants know would have gotten someone hung. Typically witches, or those accused of being a witch were practitioners of folk medicines and remedies. Most were seen as a threat to the religious fanatic. Murdered because heaven forbid someone didn’t follow someone else's interpretation of what they initially had no freaking understanding of in the first place.

For those who truly want to understand, to learn, the first step is “I don’t know”.. Those three little words scare the crap out of some people. God forbid they should ever admit they are simply children and like all children, need to be instructed. Sometimes harshly, sometimes gently. Go to where the traditions are. Not that local indian group down the street run by chief fluffy ass. They know as much as you do, if not less. Guaranteed most of what they are doing is made up in their minds, or were taught to them by someone who made it up or by a predator who worked them over like a well used mule. When you get there, sit down and shut the hell up. Let the traditions teach you. That Elder, by themselves not saying anything to anyone, usually with a smirk on their face? Yeah, that’s who you should be listening to. The one who has everyone gathered around them, practically bowing before them with their collective noses shoved so far up his/her ass they will never get the stain off? Walk away. You are about to be bent over the table. Simple rule of thumb. If the title enters the room before they do, they are full of shit. Real healers, medicine people will never tell you they are. You will only learn they are from others. Who usually speak of them in hushed tones with an undercurrent of awe. People who get what they do is a burden and carries a heavy price tag. Those who understand what was given was given for the People, not the person. You cant buy it because they give it away. Not until you listen to the silence will you begin to hear. Or keep listening to the idiots. Keep feeding their ego, helping them convince themselves of how special they are. Now who is the dumb ass?