FROM WITHIN

In a sense we have become trapped by our own hands and the expectations of others – we are caught up in promoting a romanticized version of who we are-of meeting the expectations of others.

Expectations that we live individual and communal lives wrapped in spirituality-that we are in tune with all forces large and small…and nothing could be further from the truth.

Crime is rampant, gangs, alcohol and substance abuse are as well.

Rape and the abuse of our women and children are off the charts, and it all results from breaking with tradition-a trend that is growing as our beliefs become increasingly corrupted and commercialized.

There are a lot of good people among the nations, but there’s  also our share of sorry sobs, our share of thieves, drug dealers, and con artists.

Our communities are generally smaller and lack the “conveniences” that others have and consider a given. You don’t have to worry about your electricity being cut off when you have none to begin with.

Or your water either if you collect it in a bucket.

You don’t have the option of discount shopping or looking for a bargain when there’s only one or two stores colluding to price fix.

With this reality all the negatives that exist outside the rez such as crime, or abuse in it’s varied forms are exacerbated within ours, their presence and impact is felt by all, not just in the “burbs” or  the “inner city”.

Law enforcement is woefully understaffed and inadequate-and historically when it has come to matters of federal jurisdiction for the most part indifferent.

We are burdened by the expectations of the non indigenous, whether they be confined to this hemisphere or global in nature.

And predictably some will play to this expectation as though it is some kind of cure all or escape from the reality.

We are burdened by all the new age crap that seeks to infuse itself into the core of who we are, and likewise burdened and betrayed by our own who seek to capitalize from it.

We are in a very real fight to survive, to be who we are and were created to be-no one can deny we have been victims, but to victimize ourselves isn’t going to change anything.

Neither will waving a crystal around, talking about “ascended masters,  reincarnation, sacred chalices, or getting caught up in the expectations of others who know nothing about us or lived so much as a single day of the life.

We’ve got people who haven’t a drop of the blood calling themselves pipe carriers, giving themselves laughable names and going on about how they were instructed in the “sacred teachings” by a medicine man or elder- that’s bs from front to back, and any who buy into it and get separated from their wallet deserve it in my opinion.

Worse than that, we have people who are of the nations calling themselves “chief of chiefs” and selling everything that is ours except for the clothes off our back-and if they can figure a way to do that they will.

We’ve got con artists calling themselves leaders, liberators, and patriots, who contrive to profit in any way possible off of every misery known to us.

We’ve got ignorant punks undermining the very communities they live in calling themselves warriors and strutting about like peacocks.

Men who father children and abandon them-women who birth them and leave them with another to go party and get passed around.

We are in trouble regardless of all the high talk-serious trouble-everything we have and are is threatened. YT videos, the expectations of others, and talk isn’t going to change any of it.

The change must come from us-from within. We cannot dance to anothers tune, or attempt to mimic their behavior and values.