Jeff Aitken left me a comment with a useful framework for inquiry form Apela Colorado. These are principles of indigenous science:
1. The indigenous scientist is an integral part of the research process and there is a defined process for insuring this integrity.
2. All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus an active research partner.
3. The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance.
4. Compared to Western time/space notions, indigenous science collapses time and space with the result that our fields of inquiry and participation extend into the overlap of past and present.
5. Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all the senses including spiritual and psychic.
6. Indigenous science is concerned with relationships, we try to understand and complete our relationships with all living things.
7. The end point of an indigenous scientific process is a known and recognized place. This point of balance, referred to by my own tribe as the Great peace, is both peaceful and electrifyingly alive. In the joy of exact balance, creativity occurs, which is why we think of our way of knowing as a life science.
8. When we reach the moment/place of balance we do not believe we have transcended — we say that we are normal! Always we remain embodied in the natural world.
9. Humor is a critical ingredient of all truth seeking, even in the most powerful rituals. This is true because humor balances gravity. (1994)
2. All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus an active research partner.
3. The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance.
4. Compared to Western time/space notions, indigenous science collapses time and space with the result that our fields of inquiry and participation extend into the overlap of past and present.
5. Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all the senses including spiritual and psychic.
6. Indigenous science is concerned with relationships, we try to understand and complete our relationships with all living things.
7. The end point of an indigenous scientific process is a known and recognized place. This point of balance, referred to by my own tribe as the Great peace, is both peaceful and electrifyingly alive. In the joy of exact balance, creativity occurs, which is why we think of our way of knowing as a life science.
8. When we reach the moment/place of balance we do not believe we have transcended — we say that we are normal! Always we remain embodied in the natural world.
9. Humor is a critical ingredient of all truth seeking, even in the most powerful rituals. This is true because humor balances gravity. (1994)
I’d like to suggest this as a framework for thinking about inquiry within a bodhisanga that takes its cue from the relationships between humans and the cosmos and the divine.
I was saddened to learn today that Bernie Whiteford – Wap-Pisk-Ki-Kakiw Isqueo (White Raven Woman) – passed away on April 28. Her obituary at RedwayBC mentions a short illness.
Bernie was a strong advocate for the rights of Aboriginal women in BC and was the executive director of the Helping Spirit Lodge Society.. Helping Spirit Lodge is an organization on the front lines of stopping violence and creating healthy families and communities. It is an important part of the Vancouver Aboriginal community and Bernie was a key voice in that community. I knew her from various community events I facilitated and work I did on child welfare over the years. She’ll be missed greatly.
Today Dave Pollard reprints a recent speech by Bill Moyers in which he implores the world to use its heart to see what is unfolding around us. Moyers ends the speech thusly:
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: ‘How do you see the world?” And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: “I see it feelingly.'”I see it feelingly.The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist, I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free – not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called ‘hocma’ – the science of the heart…the capacity to see, to feel, and then to act as if the future depended on you.
This capacity to see from the heart lies at the core of what it means to sense the emerging future. And seeing from the heart means sensing the patterns of our emergent future in the grains of sand that are our present, right now, right here.
Johnnie Moore put it nicely yesterday when he asked “is your future in your present?”
In talking with Sonny Diabo last week, I learned that recovering this capacity to see may well be the one emerging Aboriginal leadership capacity that distinguishes 21st century leaders from those who have gone before. The utter domination of scientific materialism (along with the empirical measurement craze of the last couple of centuries) has relegated this ancient skill to the bargain basement bin of divination and idealism. The result has been a civilization where we shut off our human responses to the world and trust our senses only if they are confirmed by some mediated third party
Seeing the future in the present consists of two parts I think. It first means “seeing feelingly” or apprehending the truth of the world as it appears in front of us. All of the forces and the obstacles and the obfuscations that stand between our eyes and what is really happening. Seeing with the heart is the only way through this mess, to truly sense what is upon us.
Second, the capacity for seeing involves what Sonny describes as “getting my foot in the door.” In other words, there is a subtle ability to discern opportunity in all of the mess of the world. Sonny’s work these days consists of being and Elder to several processes across Canada that are purporting to make a difference for First Nations people. Among his two pet projects are Aboriginal Head Start, and long term care. He decided to throw his commitment into these projects because being born and dying are our deepest connections with the spirit world and the experiences of the first and last years of life are the most important for defining what it means to be Aboriginal. He sees this clearly, and sees the processes he is working on like doors that are opened a crack. He sees those cracks as potential, which he can help realize by supporting them as an Elder. And for him, once he has sensed this “”rightness” he sticks his foot in the door and does not let it go. For to simply witness these opportunities coming and going is not his game. He is there to extract the most he can for Aboriginal people. There is no decision to be made – he simply stays in the knowledge and belief that holding space and keeping it open allows the potential he sees to become manifest for everyone.
At the Art of Hosting workshop last week, my dear friend Toke Paludan Moller had a realization that he shared with us. It is that at every moment we are together as humans, collaborating, creating and enjoying ourselves, we are embodying something of the future we want to see. In our very act of being with one another, we are saying “this is how it should be.” Toke asked the question “what if the way we are together is the future?”
Questions like that force the eyes and heart open to seeing the world feelingly, in a way that allows us to see where we are and to seize the future contained in the Now, to seed it and grow it.
Elder Sonny Diabo, (Mohawk, Kahnawake)The group I was working with in Montreal this week is assisted by the man pictured above, Sonny Diabo, an Elder from Kahnewake, a First Nation across the river from Montreal. Sonny is a marvelous and generous teacher, and is invaluable to the group.
In the contemporary world, we don’t always get time to spend with Elders and so when I have the opportunity, I try to take advantage of it by asking about teachings in certain areas of my life that I am currently thinking about. Recently as evidenced here at the Parking Lot weblog, you will have noticed that I am preoccupied with how we know our truths, how we discover those things and what practices and teachings are out there that serve to instruct us in this subtle art of introspection.
I had a chance to speak with Sonny for about an hour on this and he related a teaching about wayfinding based on this diagram:
This represents how people move through their lives. The path is straight and true, and several Elders have related that there is an ideal life path that we attempt to follow. For those familiar with Eastern philosophy, think of the Tao.
One of the ways we know if we are on the path is by our rites of passage. Through rites of passage we engage in introspection on our lives and we also get community confirmation of our true path. In traditional communities, this might include things like naming, whereby an Elder confers on us a name that helps to set our path.
Sonny talked to me about two ways we deviate from this true path, and he described them as right side and left side paths, although he didn’t know why these specific terms are used. Evidently, this teaching is based on the patterns on a turtle shell (as is the I Ching by the way – more Taoist parallels), so the shape might be explained that way. Right side diversions are those, like addictions, which are so easy to take that one hardly knows one is out there until one’s life intersects with one’s true path again in an experience which can be as traumatic as it is healing. It is traumatic because it makes one realize how far one has strayed from the path, but it can be healing to finally “come home” to one’s true nature. Sonny used the example of a long time alcoholic who sobers up and who suddenly realizes how far he has strayed. This experience sometimes coincides with a rite of passage, such as becoming a parent or a grandparent, or perhaps grieving the death of one’s father. All of these situations throw one’s true nature into the light.
The left side diversions are, unlike addictions, full of obstacles that we are forced to struggle against. Sometimes we know we are off our path when we hit a wall and it seems impossible to move without introspection and retreat to find our path again. Shifting jobs from something you hate, with no prospects to something you love and is full of possibility is an example of these struggles and how they can return us to something truer if we take time to reflect on what they mean.
Sonny therefore advocates an approach to life that he calls “two steps forward and one step back.” There is an implicit distrust of easy progress, requiring one to ensure that one hasn’t strayed into a right hand side diversion. Building in periods of reflection serves to confirm progress and also make retreat easier, should that need to happen. It’s a prudent approach.
Sonny alludes to this in his openings to meetings, and also frequently during the meetings themselves. He invites people to work slowly and carefully and not to rush things. “Whatever we don’t finish today,” he says, “we can finish tomorrow or do another time.” This has the duel effect of focusing people on what is really important while at the same time seeming to expand the time available for completing tasks. This is even true in a situation like the one we are working together in, where there is a short deadline for the work to be completed. Especially in a situation like this, it pays to be sure that what you are doing is the right work, because there is no time to correct wildly divergent mistakes.
The approach is all about conserving energy, which of course is the secret to working with spirit. Elders and others who help us on the spirit and energy level are there to ensure that we spend our energy wisely, that we don’t burn out and that we stay focused on what really matters.
It’s a great teaching.
Notes on Dreaming, inspired by the Sunday Open Space at gassho…
In the Ojibway teachings I have received, all the animals at creation were given a gift. For humans, our gift was to dream.
According to Elder Basil Johnston, although we can all dream, dreaming – more properly, visioning – is said to be most important for men. Women are said to have been given the gift of self-fulfillment through creating life but for men, we need to find self-fulfillment through a vision quest.
And so, as has been the case from time immemorial, young men under the tutelage of an Elder, go to live in the forest for four nights, deprived of food and amenities, to invite their vision. On Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, one of the most significant spiritual places for Ojibway people, there is a large rock outcropping called “Dreamer’s Rock” which is a place for young men to go a receive their vision. On the top of the rock is a little impression in which many bums have sat while the vision is revealed. The view from the top looks off over a maple and birch forest and it is so high up that one can feel the coolness of the air at altitude and imagine oneself to be aloft.
I’m increasingly thinking that when we start looking for visions, whether in organizations, communities or in our personal lives, we need to begin by digging deep for cultural imperatives that compel us to dream for a bigger reason, not simply to increase profits or make the community successful.