#indigenous wisdom

I am the granddaughter of two Holocaust refugees from the AustroHungarian Empire and two midwestern American farmers of earlier provenance from Western Europe; daughter of two hippies who met in a time of great possibility in the fragrant valleys of the Okanagan; mother of a Pakistani-descended child; spouse of a musician who will always have an undomesticated soul. I also have an adopted family that I have accompanied for the past thirty years for greater and shorter spells of time, a family of Tzotzil Mayan Indians living in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. I began to learn their language (Tzotzil) starting at the age of 18. For the last 15 years I have been an interpreter for speakers of this indigenous language in various US courts and some other contexts. I will use stories from my own experiences living with and interpreting for Tzotzil folk to illustrate some of my points as I go.

I am writing this blog because it is clear to me, as Martín Prechtel has said repeatedly, that modern culture has gotten onto a pretty bad track. I have always felt since my preteen years that something is missing from western culture, the “culture” (if we can even call it that) that has now been exported around the world as the pinnacle of progress, development and civilization. I have spent the last 40 years studying cultures, driven especially to learn everything I could about living (or until recently living) indigenous cultures all over the world. That there are now books authored by indigenous and aboriginal writers is a joy and benefit I cannot praise enough. The writers and speakers I love most are not academics, but rather outside of the mainstream as I myself have been, and they are therefore not squeamish about including profound observations about spiritual health and spiritual disease as they see these. I would reference here Pat McCabe, Ilarion Merculieff, Yuria Celidwen, Johnny Moses, Virginia Beavert, and Tyson Yunkaporta, in addition to Martín Prechtel. It is time to bring these ideas into popular awareness, for we can no longer afford to pretend that the spiritual health of our world is not directly connected to the knowledge and lifeways that our indigenous ancestors have always protected, knowing that such practices and ways of being protected, in turn, the source of life herself.

Hold on to what is good, Even if it’s a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe, Even if it’s a tree that stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do, Even if it’s a long way from here. Hold on to your life, Even if it’s easier to let go. Hold on to my hand, Even if someday I’ll be gone away from you.

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Chief Crowfoot (Isapo-Muxika) (c.1830–1890) Blackfoot

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Long before the rivers learned their songs and before the stars found their places in the sky, the Great Spirit divided the medicine of love into two forms.

One became the Black Jaguar. - She carried the mysteries of the night. The moon knew her name. She walked unseen between worlds, gathering wisdom from shadows, dreams, and silence. Her eyes held galaxies, and her heart carried the weight of ancient prayers.

The other became the Golden Jaguar. - He carried the medicine of the sun. The dawn rose at his footsteps. He brought warmth to forgotten places and courage to those who had lost their way. His roar awakened sleeping forests and reminded life to bloom.

Though they were created from the same light, they were born on opposite sides of the sacred forest.

For many lifetimes they searched.

The Black Jaguar followed moonlit rivers, sensing a presence she could never quite touch.

The Golden Jaguar climbed mountains and crossed valleys, hearing a distant call carried by the wind.

At times they passed one another without knowing.

At times they met briefly, only to be separated by fear, timing, or the lessons their souls still needed to learn.

The forest watched patiently.

The stars remembered.

The Earth waited.

Then one night, beneath a golden moon, both jaguars arrived at the Sacred Waters.

The Black Jaguar came carrying the wisdom of every darkness she had survived.

The Golden Jaguar came carrying the light of every fire he had tended.

They looked into the water and saw not two reflections, but one.

For the first time they understood.

They had never been searching for someone to complete them.

They had been learning how to become whole enough to recognize each other.

The Black Jaguar taught him how to rest.

The Golden Jaguar taught her how to trust the dawn.

Together they became a living prayer.

Sun and moon.

Fire and mystery.

Strength and tenderness.

Neither leading.

Neither following.

-Ruth H. Hopkins (Burns)

Wetiko does not experience relationship. It experiences resource.

This is not merely a political critique. It is a description of a genuine psycho-spiritual pathology — a way of being that cannot recognise the intrinsic value, consciousness, or right to exist of anything outside itself. The forest becomes timber. The river becomes a resource. The animal becomes protein. The indigenous community becomes a problem to be solved. The human body becomes a unit of labour or, when unwell, a pharmaceutical market.

When wetiko logic turns inward — which it inevitably does, because the self is also ultimately a resource to be optimised and extracted from — it produces exactly what we are witnessing. Bodies depleted by constant productivity demands, running on cortisol and caffeine, disconnected from the rhythms that would restore them. Psyches fractured by the impossible demand to perform wellness whilst embedded in a system designed for depletion. Ecosystems dismantled by the same logic that dismantles communities and inner lives.

The World Economic Forum’s own Global Risks Report has now identified biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as among the greatest threats facing humanity in the coming decade. Half of global GDP — roughly fifty-five trillion US dollars — is estimated to be moderately or heavily dependent on the health of natural systems. Even within the extractive logic it has built, civilisation is beginning to confront the consequences of consuming the very systems that sustain it.

This is wetiko eating itself.

By Marc-John Brown

There was a time when the Divine Feminine was deeply honored in cultures around the world 🌿