Into The Territory of The Mind of War

When I was visiting my son this past spring, there was this young group who had read Robin Wall Kimmerer's book and were meeting at a yoga studio down the road. The youth that I know today give me the best vision into the bright future.

Sometimes my dreams take a look and a turn into places not unlike Mordor. How many generations will it take to turn the tides of a war riddled culture? Tolkien knew the importance of companions. Let us take courage and quest to shift from this habit of mind twisted from the idus of war . There is The Fellowship of the Land: with some companions to keep the tide at bay, some companions to shift the grip of spirit of that one ring, some companions are Activists who walk through fire, past the hecklers and gossip and scorn, and some companions are Seers, into the form of the bright future.

Slowly attitudes of war leak,  becoming common practice in homes, schools, churches. We become forgetful."Once they were kept in containers marked with skull and crossbones; the infrequent occasions of their use were marked with utmost care that they should come in contact with the target and with nothing else. With the development of the new organic pesticides and the abundance of surplus planes after the second World War, all this was forgotten."
Silent Spring (copyright 1962)
Rachel Carson

"Today the land where the Peacemaker walked and the tree of Peace stood isn't land at all, but beds of industrial waste sixty feet deep... Onondaga is a rarity in the United States, a Native nation that has never surrendered its traditional government, never given up it's identity, not compromised it's status as a sovereign nation,"

On March 11, 2005 the Onondaga Nation filed a complaint in federal court, so that they may once again exercise their caregiving responsibilities..They did not call their suit a land claim. Their intelligence as a people knew, and continues to know they're companionship to the sustainer of life. They did not call for relocation of residence, nor ask to set up a casino. They sought legal title that would enable them to steer a thorough cleanup of the sacred lake.
"In spring 2010, the federal court handed down it's ruling... The case was dismissed. In the face of blind injustice, how do we continue?"
Braiding SweetGrass
Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teaching of Plants (Copyright 2013)
Robin Wall Kimmerer

We must live into the brighter stories and join in a Fellowship of this Land.