For The Wild - LYLA JUNE on Resistance and Forgiveness in the Final Years of Patriarchy ⌠ENCORE⌡ ⧸126

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00:00:23.700 Hey, for the wild community, it's Ayanna here, and we are about to share with you

00:00:27.980 an encore episode of lila june on the final years of patriarchy while we get ready for our

00:00:34.820 in the field episodes which i am so excited and have such a full heart to share those with you

00:00:41.080 i have been traveling up through cascadia to alaska for the last few years and recording

00:00:48.340 some incredibly intimate conversations with people on the front lines who are dealing with

00:00:52.880 some of the most massive resource extraction projects in the world so stay tuned for the

00:00:58.460 in the field episodes dropping soon they say that history is written by the victors

00:01:05.760 but how can there be a victor when the war isn't over the battle has only just begun

00:01:12.840 and creator is sending his very best warriors and this time it isn't indians versus cowboys

00:01:21.300 No, this time, it is all the beautiful races of humanity together on the same side, and we are fighting to replace our fear with love.

00:01:34.400 Today we are continuing our conversation with Lila June, poet, scholar, and frontlines activist.

00:01:42.440 You can find part one of this episode on forthewild.world.

00:01:46.600 I'd like to kind of transition the conversation and talk about resistance and you know I saw that

00:01:55.720 you were just at Standing Rock and that's been such a powerful movement that has brought so many

00:02:02.180 people together and and specifically right now I'd like to talk about women and resistance and

00:02:08.800 the meaning of that for you women have nurtured the earth and new generations for thousands of

00:02:16.160 years even as patriarchal culture has attempted to spread a wave of shame and silence over us

00:02:23.740 through violence and oppression we continue to heal and protect life and I would love if you

00:02:30.620 wouldn't mind sharing your thoughts on how the history of women as nurturers and life givers

00:02:35.440 holds deep significance within the environmental resistance and activism movements that are taking

00:02:41.820 hold? Wow, that's a beautiful sentiment and a beautiful question. Well, I can't really answer

00:02:53.040 this question completely without explaining why women are so central to sustainability

00:03:01.620 and how my personal life has taught me that. As a young woman, I experienced a lot of abuse

00:03:09.440 in ways that women should never be abused, and it didn't really take the form that we

00:03:14.240 conventionally think of when we think of sexual abuse. I guess we think of drugs being involved

00:03:21.860 or forcefully holding someone down or something like that, but oftentimes my abuse was more

00:03:28.320 subtle than that. It was more guilt-driven, like, if you do this, you'll make me happy, or

00:03:34.720 if you just would do this, you will prove your love to me, or things like that, you know.

00:03:39.440 So it wasn't really like I was fitting the conventional definition of rape, but it was 0.75

00:03:44.780 rape nonetheless.

00:03:45.360 I also experienced the drugging kind of rape too, and probably every different kind you 0.59

00:03:50.720 could experience.

00:03:52.280 But growing up, that desecration, you could say, of my body really impacted me and it

00:04:01.460 impacted those around me because I thought that to be desecrated was to be desacredized as if

00:04:10.620 your sacredness could be lost. And it took me a while to realize that there is nothing anyone

00:04:16.500 can do to my body. And for that matter, there's nothing so horrible that I could do

00:04:21.740 that would make me unsacred and that I am sacred. I'm still sacred. I always will be sacred as the

00:04:29.400 day I was born. You hold a baby girl in your arms and if there's anything, even in this sacred-less

00:04:37.100 society, you can tell that she's sacred. Something about this baby is sacred. And to know that I

00:04:44.560 still have that same sacredness after all people have done to my body was really helpful to me.

00:04:50.480 And the way that people around me were affected, well, the men, they want the women to be safe.

00:04:57.860 They want the women to be happy. The little boys, you know, they come into this world oftentimes with a very fierce love for their mothers and they want them to be safe.

00:05:10.340 They want them to be happy. And if they watch their mothers get hurt or their sisters get hurt, oh, there's nothing that could incense a man more than that.

00:05:19.940 And what's even worse is when he blames himself for it. Like, oh, I could have done this. I should have done that.

00:05:24.120 I could have locked the door. I could have called the cops, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I could

00:05:27.220 have beat him up. And same way that a woman says, oh, it's my fault. I got raped. I should have done 0.99

00:05:33.320 this. I should have done that. I should have said this. I should have said that. And so we question

00:05:37.800 ourselves. And if we have fulfilled our duty as either mothers or fathers, and so, and if I've

00:05:47.080 been raped and I cooperated with that rape, then I've disgraced my body somehow. And the men say, 0.67

00:05:53.620 if the women got hurt and I cooperated with them getting hurt somehow by not being a good enough

00:05:59.700 protector or being good enough this or that, then maybe I've lost my humanity. And the moment we

00:06:06.260 believe we've lost our humanity is the moment that we implode as an individual and we don't allow

00:06:13.520 the greatness that wishes to come through us to come through us. We don't allow ourselves to shine

00:06:21.220 and to bloom and to sing out the song that was written into our dna each and every one of us

00:06:28.680 and so it's like a human walking at 10 because if you believe you've lost your humanity which

00:06:35.760 i did believe you don't allow yourself to fully speak at 100 fully walk fully think fully express

00:06:45.540 your truest most beautifulest self because there's so much shame you think how could someone like me

00:06:51.820 do this and so rape is a very profound tactic of oppression because it kind of killed two birds

00:06:59.300 with one stone you take out the woman and you take out the men who love her because they feel

00:07:03.900 like they've made some mistake and so like even when I talk to my my male family members about

00:07:10.820 what happened to me they just get so oh they just don't want to believe it happened because even

00:07:15.440 though they weren't even there they still feel like it's their fault and so when we heal the

00:07:20.660 women we conversely we feed two birds with one scone because we're feeding the woman and we're

00:07:27.820 feeding the men who love her and we're uplifting the woman and we're indirectly uplifting the men

00:07:33.620 who love her so with the women being healthy and whole and they start to see how precious they are

00:07:41.080 how beautiful they are, they can start to express their gift. As I was lucky to be able to get sober

00:07:46.980 and to heal from the rape, which I didn't really need to do anything to heal. I just kind of needed

00:07:52.080 to realize that there was nothing wrong with me. And boom, I was healed. Then I was able to truly

00:07:59.880 be all that I am. And so if we help the women, we help everything. And the Cree have a proverb that

00:08:08.000 says a nation is not defeated until the hearts of the women are on the ground because they knew

00:08:14.300 that ultimately it was the women who were the pillars of the society and what you have then is

00:08:22.860 you have a converse of that which is a nation can be restored if we uplift the hearts of the women

00:08:28.140 off the ground and obviously you get into a lot of philosophical debates about gender binaries there

00:08:34.560 And I haven't quite figured out how to tackle that debate, even though I myself believed I was gay for a long time, but kind of realized that that was me wanting to be male because I thought being female was a curse.

00:08:48.400 That's a whole nother story. But I don't want to avoid that conversation, that debate of the gender binaries.

00:08:54.060 And is that accurate? Is that right? Blah, blah, blah. It's an important question. I don't know how to answer that right now.

00:09:00.340 but anyway forgive me for not interrogating that issue but if we go back to sort of this

00:09:06.980 world where womanhood and manhood which to me doesn't mean skirts and lipstick or monster

00:09:14.620 trucks and big muscles or anything like that it means more like can you birth a human being out

00:09:19.900 of your body that's how I define woman do you have that ability and even if you don't maybe

00:09:26.300 you had a hysterectomy or something but you came to this earth ready and willing to try you know 1.00

00:09:32.300 that makes you a woman in my eyes whether you want to wear baggy pants or a skirt is a whole

00:09:37.420 other thing but so in terms of women being leaders of the resistance if you will by and large

00:09:47.900 women this is a big generalization generalization warning women lead with their hearts

00:09:56.040 and women have a very intimate connection to the children not only their own children but

00:10:06.620 because they've raised children or they have ability to raise children a propensity to

00:10:13.260 raise children they also feel the needs of other children as well and so if our movement 0.99

00:10:18.820 is designed to create a hospitable world for the next seven generations, then the women is probably 0.53

00:10:26.700 who we should be talking to because they have an innate and intimate connection to when children 0.99

00:10:32.560 need to use the bathroom, when they're hungry, when they need to sleep, what they're going to

00:10:37.200 need to grow up into adults. They have a very keen understanding of this, especially the grandmothers

00:10:43.060 because the grandmothers have not only seen it happen for them they've also seen it happen for

00:10:49.040 their children's children and they're in that phase they're in that grandmother's lodge as

00:10:54.840 my mother calls it where they have a very longitudinal understanding that is a very

00:11:01.840 long-term understanding of what it means to raise a generation from the earth and so if our movement

00:11:11.880 in other words is about creating hospitable planet for our children then we should probably

00:11:16.620 be talking to the women and moreover we should probably be talking first to the grandmothers 0.99

00:11:21.580 and that's how it was in the old days the grandmothers were the leaders of the society 0.87

00:11:27.660 because not only did they have that motherly nature but they also had just been here for a

00:11:36.400 long time and seen a lot of things and learned a lot of things through experience. And so they

00:11:42.300 were the ones who chose people to take certain positions of leadership. They were like the

00:11:48.360 leaders of the leaders. And so it all comes back to life. It all comes back to the fact that we

00:11:56.040 are here sitting, breathing, opening our eyes, seeing, and that this miracle that we call life

00:12:02.460 is enabled by the woman's sacrifice to carry and birth us which if you've ever been in a birth

00:12:10.320 it is not easy it is not easy if you've ever birthed someone or been around someone who birthed

00:12:17.560 someone when they birthed that someone you will have a profound respect for all mothers because

00:12:23.880 that act of birthing is hard it's difficult it's painful but it's worth it because at the end of

00:12:30.960 it, you have life. And so if our movement is about life, then we probably should be talking to the

00:12:38.580 ones who bear life. Having said this, some movements aren't about life. Some movements

00:12:45.800 are about revenge. Some movements are about winning a race. Some movements are about winning

00:12:53.740 a game. And maybe that's why those movements are not led by women, because at the end of the day,

00:13:00.600 they're not about life and we need to be careful to not slip into that because the no dapple

00:13:07.880 movement is about water which is about life water is life and so if we slip and we stop fighting for

00:13:15.560 water and we start fighting against the police against the governor of north dakota against trump

00:13:22.960 against the oil industry, if we start to fight as a sense of revenge or a sense of we have to win

00:13:31.520 this one for our own pride, for our own reputation against Trump, against the police,

00:13:37.620 that's a different movement. We need to be very careful to not fall into that because it's hard.

00:13:45.900 You can slip from a movement for life to a movement for revenge very quickly without noticing.

00:13:51.060 And so we need to remember our movements are about life. It's about growing life, sustaining life, building life, and protecting life, honoring life, cultivating life, diversifying life, enjoying life.

00:14:09.500 And so when we remember that that's what we're really here for, we remember that it's time to turn to the life bearer.

00:14:15.920 What an incredible understanding of resistance and life and revenge and nonviolence and leading from the heart and womanhood.

00:14:28.140 And it seems that in this resistance and this movement for life, there's a place for honoring connectedness, for honoring people's unique gifts, honoring beauty in the resistance, not coming out of this angry, vengeful, violent, destructive place.

00:14:49.400 But like you said, it's for all of life and how that just completely transforms the energy behind the work and the movement and just how people are present.

00:15:06.240 I have one hope and one question.

00:15:09.500 Seek one light and one answer.

00:15:11.980 Will this life take us to greater heights or will the illusion of unworthiness grip us forever?

00:15:18.160 I am asking you to put on your turquoise, the peace collecting dust behind the altar.

00:15:24.180 I am asking you to step into the sunshine, the golden rays you said you didn't deserve.

00:15:30.220 I am asking you to remember who you were before the wreckage.

00:15:34.040 I am asking you to remember that you are that person still.

00:15:39.160 I am asking you to ignore the forked tongues that clamor in your mind. 0.99

00:15:43.780 I am asking you to trade them in

00:15:46.380 For your favorite memory

00:15:48.140 Of a time that you felt alive

00:15:50.920 I am asking you to trade them in

00:15:53.540 For a time that you knew

00:15:54.680 Without a shadow of a doubt

00:15:56.500 That you are sacred

00:15:58.180 Only in such truth

00:16:00.820 Will you ever be able

00:16:02.360 To complete your mission

00:16:03.580 For a warrior will not stand

00:16:06.100 If she does not believe

00:16:07.240 She is worthy to fight

00:16:08.760 Like the child of a deity

00:16:11.500 You were born to guard the sparrows

00:16:14.060 Like defenders of the crashing waves

00:16:17.360 You were born to protect the cycles

00:16:20.060 What is true will lift you higher

00:16:23.420 What is false will leaden the mind

00:16:25.780 And if that voice feels like fear

00:16:28.280 Then it is the siren's lie

00:16:30.520 What is true will lift you higher

00:16:32.920 What is false will leaden the mind

00:16:35.020 And if that voice feels like fear

00:16:37.420 Then it is the siren's lie

00:16:39.260 We are children of exquisite love

00:16:42.380 Let no one tell you otherwise

00:16:44.920 Finery deserves only finery

00:16:47.700 So take up that mantle once again

00:16:50.420 The one masterfully beaded by the creator's loving hands

00:16:54.640 I am asking you to remember who you are

00:16:58.400 Trust that life is all you hoped it would be

00:17:02.260 And then it will be

00:17:04.860 You are not imagining that lightning cracking in your heart

00:17:09.780 You are not imagining that whisper

00:17:12.860 Urging you to sing, to paint, to sculpt, to build

00:17:18.060 It is not what you do

00:17:20.740 It is who you are

00:17:23.320 And no matter what is done or said can ever take this away

00:17:27.260 I am asking you to wear your white shell

00:17:31.420 The one that they laughed at you for

00:17:34.080 The one that they said was too clean for you

00:17:37.640 The one that reminds you who you are

00:17:41.300 Clear the cobwebs from your dreams

00:17:44.720 Rekindle all that was deemed impossible

00:17:47.620 Spreak free the truth that lies caged and burning in your soul

00:17:53.220 This is not arrogance or folly

00:17:56.620 If it is done in prayer for the dying

00:17:59.560 The beauty of your talents is antidote to disease

00:18:04.760 The wild and untamed expression of our God-granted gifts

00:18:09.760 Is the key to those ancient prisons of hopeless mediocrity

00:18:15.040 Reclaim your right to be all that you are

00:18:20.800 And watch the captives run free

00:18:23.620 Unveil your glistening heart to the world

00:18:28.760 Not in lust for fame

00:18:30.920 Not in lust for money

00:18:32.820 But for the love of your people

00:18:35.320 And for the love of this land

00:18:38.220 You are worthy to pray for these things

00:18:41.680 You are worthy to sing for these things

00:18:45.440 Practice liberation

00:18:48.240 Of self and of others

00:18:51.160 And watch your old self burn

00:18:53.980 Like sweet grass in the air

00:18:56.920 Practice fighting for a life

00:19:00.060 For something that you love

00:19:02.760 And no activity provided by the world

00:19:06.140 Will ever again compare

00:19:08.480 I have only one hope and one question

00:19:12.260 I seek only one truth and one answer

00:19:15.200 Will this life take us to greater heights

00:19:18.080 Or will the illusion of unworthiness grip us forever

00:19:21.380 Children of the deities

00:19:23.700 You were born to guard

00:19:26.760 the sparrows.

00:19:52.120 I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the background of the uranium mining

00:19:56.340 and the extraction, the strip mining in your region

00:19:59.400 and work that you've been doing in your homeland

00:20:03.840 and what the mission is of the Nihigal Bey Ina movement

00:20:09.660 and the role of prayer and ceremony within the resistance.

00:20:16.040 Nihigal Bey Ina means our journey for life.

00:20:20.660 So there you have it.

00:20:22.160 Again, that word Ina, which means life.

00:20:26.340 which coincidentally means mother in Lakota.

00:20:29.640 But INAH is really our movement for not just to sustain people

00:20:37.320 in the face of uranium pollution, but also fracking, coal mining, alcoholism,

00:20:45.240 anything that obstructs or destructs life,

00:20:47.900 of which we have no shortage on the Navajo reservation.

00:20:51.240 It's the largest reservation. It spans three states.

00:20:54.240 we have a massive population i think we're the largest tribe and we're lucky enough to be released

00:21:01.400 from a concentration camp where 9 000 of us were held for four years and i think about 2 000

00:21:09.020 survivors were allowed to go back home after four years and the idea was that if our ancestors

00:21:15.080 worked this hard to get back home from that concentration camp and prayed this hard so that

00:21:22.320 we could be here, then why are we destroying our homeland? So, and obviously it's not just

00:21:29.420 Navajo people, it's a lot of corporations that predate on our easily corrupted government and 0.99

00:21:35.020 our easily manipulated, impoverished population. But we as Diné youth, Navajo youth, must take

00:21:44.040 some kind of responsibility for the future of our community and our people and our culture and our

00:21:51.220 language so we started walking from sacred mountain to sacred mountain we have four mountains so we

00:21:56.940 had four journeys one each season each one lasted anywhere from a month to a month and a half in

00:22:02.680 total we walked 1400 miles as a collective and brought our staff around the circumference of

00:22:08.120 our homeland and to not only expose what was threatening life but to also nurture what

00:22:15.480 nurture life. And so uranium mining on the Navajo reservation has been going on for,

00:22:21.620 I think, at least, I want to say 60 years. The uranium that was mined from our southern

00:22:27.520 sacred mountain was a primary source for the Cold War proliferation of nuclear weapons.

00:22:34.880 And so we have actually been sort of the minions for the United States nuclear weaponry artillery 0.85

00:22:43.860 And Navajo people mined the uranium because we had next to nothing. 0.98

00:22:49.020 And when someone offers you a job and you're having a hard time feeding your family, you usually take that job. 0.92

00:22:54.760 So we mined this sometimes with our bare hands.

00:22:58.860 A lot of our fathers, uncles, grandfathers are dead now from cancer, from radiation exposure.

00:23:05.280 But the main ultimate understanding that I think people need to have about uranium is that creator put uranium there for a reason.

00:23:13.860 And there's also uranium in the Black Hills. A lot of sacred sites have uranium. Is this a coincidence, or is this because uranium has a special spiritual dimension to it, where uranium, being that complex element that it is, and that very high-powered element that it is, helps us to do our ceremony.

00:23:32.600 just like silver helps to conduct electricity our ceremonies involve a kind of electricity

00:23:38.660 and if we can find the physical spaces that house and facilitate that electricity

00:23:45.260 what we call the spirit then that's where we pray we want to pray there so when we break something

00:23:52.080 that creator has made there are consequences when we break the mountain that we've been praying on

00:23:58.080 for centuries or millennia rather then there will be consequences there will be death there will be

00:24:05.140 not because creator is punishing us saying oh you broke my mountain now you have to die but more

00:24:10.400 because creator made that mountain to help us live and if we break what helps us live then

00:24:17.840 we're not going to live we're going to die so it's not a punishment but it's just the nature of

00:24:22.940 things the world was set up perfectly to help things live and so if we break that system then

00:24:29.380 it's going to be very hard for us to live and so that's what we're seeing around the globe is that

00:24:34.140 people are breaking what creator put in place to help us live very beautiful intricate complex

00:24:41.300 systems that help us live and we're just breaking them like they're nothing we're breaking things we

00:24:47.020 don't even understand and so essentially we went on this walk to expose these things

00:24:53.420 and to to let our people know we're sorry you have cancer we're sorry you know we prayed on

00:24:58.680 these lands we prayed as youth about 20 youth walked and we helped our people know that they're

00:25:05.620 not unseen their suffering is not unseen we're witnesses to the suffering we prayed for them we

00:25:10.900 helped them and we also learned ourselves through this process what we're dealing with we were like

00:25:18.440 scouts modern day scouts scouting the land seeing what's going on and so in terms of prayer and

00:25:25.160 ceremony you know that was a obviously an integral part of our movement it was a prayer the movement

00:25:32.460 was a prayer it was one big year-long prayer and our ancestors taught us that prayer is not

00:25:40.260 meaningless mumbling of words to like the air and you're not just mumbling to yourself in the

00:25:46.120 middle of nowhere prayer is a a way of connecting with worlds unseen and the scientist only believes

00:25:56.540 in what he can measure what he can see but our ancestors understood there's a lot out there that

00:26:02.940 we can't measure there's a lot out there that we can't see and so similarly the scientist is

00:26:09.960 missing out on quite a bit because he's only observing what he can observe he's only believing

00:26:17.000 what he can observe but there's certain things you can't see with your eye but you can feel with

00:26:21.260 your whole body and prayer if you do it if you practice it if you experiment with it just as

00:26:26.640 the scientist experiments with thermodynamics you can feel yourself become a battery and the charge

00:26:34.560 starts to flow and so that flow is enabled by prayer and no one can ever prove this per se

00:26:42.380 although actually they have found some interesting electromagnetic studies with prayer and stuff but

00:26:46.640 it's more something that's meant to be felt not something that's meant to be proven or

00:26:51.960 explained you can tell someone that you love someone but you're not really going to know

00:26:58.920 what that means until you are in love and so similarly we could talk about prayer and say

00:27:03.660 oh yeah we're going to pray blah blah blah blah but no one's going to really know what that means

00:27:08.260 until they are in prayer until they are in love with the world then they'll start to feel and

00:27:14.780 again we've been so desensitized that we can't even feel sometimes the charge that's running

00:27:19.440 through us but through practice and experience trying experimenting you start to feel the

00:27:26.060 importance of prayer and i don't think it's a coincidence that all of the most successful

00:27:30.400 movements around the world take gandhi's liberation movement or martin luther king's

00:27:34.840 civil rights movement or nelson mandela's movement in south africa all of these movements that are

00:27:39.940 or dalai lama or no dapple all of these movements that kind of punctured the ceiling and went to a

00:27:47.400 whole another global level i don't think it's coincidence that they were all guided by prayer

00:27:52.900 Every single one of them. And so it makes you wonder, are these movement leaders just idiots who think they're praying to something that isn't really there? Or do they maybe have something going on that we should consider, think about, and practice ourselves? 0.99

00:28:10.440 Because in our way of thinking, in Dene way, prayer allows you to create the impossible.

00:28:18.480 Prayer allows you to inform yourself of things that you could not learn any other way.

00:28:25.120 And so prayer is a constant practice.

00:28:28.860 And every morning when you get up, you ask the spirits to move through you, to speak through you.

00:28:33.540 Because we understand that we can be merged with bigger spirits through prayer.

00:28:39.440 and they can work through us and even european medieval cultural understood that through the

00:28:44.240 word genius genius has the root word genie and genie means spirit so the genius was not really

00:28:52.460 someone who was so great but rather they were someone who could get out of the way enough to

00:28:57.760 allow the genie to move through them so you have mozart is considered a genius he wasn't just

00:29:03.360 writing those songs by himself the spirits were moving through him and so mozart actually said

00:29:08.980 a lofty degree of intelligence is not the making of genius. Love, love, love. That is the soul of

00:29:17.200 genius. And so he understood that love enables the spirit. Love enables creation. And so what

00:29:26.320 is prayer other than the act of loving someone? When I pray for my grandma and say, may you help

00:29:33.260 or have a good day today created that's an act of love and so love and prayer are synonymous in my

00:29:39.120 brain and so if our movements are motivated by ceremony and prayer they're going to be much

00:29:46.060 more effective because we're merging with spirits who know more than we do who see more than we do

00:29:51.540 and who've been around longer than we have and they're going to help guide us it's also kin to

00:29:57.200 surrender prayer is kin to surrender if we surrender and refrain from doing what western

00:30:03.660 doctrines have taught us to do which is to pretend like we know everything and if we don't know

00:30:08.500 everything then there's something wrong with us or we're lesser of a person but to say you know

00:30:13.580 what i don't know everything and i need your help spirits i need your help creator then you are

00:30:19.040 boosted to another level because now you get to enjoy the knowledge of the creator the knowledge

00:30:24.960 of the spirits knowledge which none of us could really know in this state as a human being and so

00:30:30.780 we get to benefit from all that ocean of knowledge and they see things from a bird's eye view so we

00:30:36.620 get to partake in that really incredible knowledge and that's what makes our movements that much more

00:30:42.980 affected. Indigenous people, shine your light, we are equal. I remember the days when our prayers

00:30:57.820 were illegal. I remember the days when being Indian was lethal. Yeah, we had a rough past, 1.00

00:31:08.600 but get ready for the sequel get ready for the glorious comeback of our people oh yeah rise up

00:31:18.920 all you warriors of love all you answer our ancestors from above i can feel it in my heart

00:31:25.240 can you feel it in your blood i can hear the seventh fire calling us to wake up wake up

00:31:31.200 All nations rise, rise up cause now's your time We don't have to hide anymore cause now's the time

00:31:45.200 All nations rise, rise up cause now's your time We don't have to hide anymore cause now's the time

00:31:59.200 Forgiveness as my bow and my prayers as my arrows

00:32:02.360 Pull them back and let go I watch them fly like sparrows

00:32:05.920 Have hope, yeah I have hope

00:32:09.820 With compassion as my shield and faith down to my marrow

00:32:13.240 I will walk the pollen path even when it gets narrow

00:32:16.980 Yeah, yeah, I resurrect, yes you can bet 0.99

00:32:23.620 That we've seen the single mama raising children on the res

00:32:27.560 We've seen domestic violence tear apart what we have left 0.94

00:32:31.060 We've seen the alcohol take it all and leave us dead

00:32:34.400 We've seen the children take their lives when they can't take the dread anymore

00:32:38.900 It's a war

00:32:39.940 Can't take the dread anymore

00:32:42.740 It's a war

00:32:43.540 No, we can't take the dread anymore

00:32:46.500 It's a war

00:32:47.480 No, we can't take the dread anymore

00:32:50.360 It's a war

00:32:51.480 It's a war, but we've seen it all before

00:32:54.500 And now we know we can change it, cause that's why we were born

00:32:58.100 We know we are the ones that we have been waiting for

00:33:01.660 We are the ones Grandma has been praying for

00:33:05.020 So rise up, all you warriors of love

00:33:08.580 All you answers to the prayers of our ancestors from above

00:33:12.120 I can feel it in my heart, can you feel it in your blood?

00:33:15.780 I can hear the seventh fire calling us to wake up, wake up

00:33:19.740 Pueblo hermoso, levántense, es nuestro tiempo, no tienes que esconderte más, ahora es nuestro tiempo.

00:33:33.220 Mujer indígena, tú eres tan sagrada, traigas medicina de tu suelo todavía, a pesar del abuso de tu cuerpo y tu tierra, respetamos tus ancestros y la suya cultura.

00:33:46.960 Hombre indígena, tú eres honorable

00:33:50.240 Y yo veo la fuerza que todavía sobrevive

00:33:53.780 A pesar del abuso de tu raza venerable

00:33:57.400 Yo respeto tus ritos, tus danzas, tus padres

00:34:01.120 Somos guerreros del amor y guerreros de la paz

00:34:04.880 Sí, no vamos a escondernos más

00:34:08.100 Somos guerreros del amor y guerreros de la paz

00:34:12.080 Sí, no vamos a escondernos más

00:34:15.520 they say that history is written by the victors

00:34:20.400 but how can there be a victor when the war isn't over

00:34:24.640 the battle has only just begun

00:34:27.480 and creator is sending his very best warriors

00:34:31.520 and this time it isn't indians versus cowboys

00:34:35.940 no, this time it is all the beautiful races of humanity

00:34:40.980 together on the same side

00:34:43.160 and we are fighting to replace our fear with love and this time bullets arrows and cannonballs won't

00:34:51.780 save us the only weapons that are useful in this battle are the weapons of truth faith and compassion

00:35:00.280 what a mental journey that was in a journey of the heart

00:35:10.680 when you were speaking i kept seeing this division between people that were open to this resistance

00:35:22.240 of life and this way of being in love with the earth and working from that place and then the

00:35:29.920 other group the desensitized group that's so shut down from what's been happening in the world they

00:35:35.460 can't quite see but that that's even available to them it brings me to this through no fault of

00:35:43.260 their own right of course thank you for saying that and so I'm kind of in this place right now

00:35:49.600 of thinking about cultural healing at a large scale in order to then move through to the next

00:35:56.660 step of being able to fall in love and have this deep connection and I know that much of your work

00:36:02.440 specifically writing for peace and the taos peace and reconciliation council

00:36:06.800 seems to stem from this place of deep love and compassion and in the wake of a political system

00:36:14.300 founded on and continually feeding off of the division and oppression of different cultural

00:36:21.680 groups it's inspiring and comforting to envision a future where forgiveness and reconciliation are

00:36:29.780 within reach and form the base of our cultural relationships. The pain and the anger and trauma

00:36:37.000 stemming from a violent colonial history is not easily reconciled and I'm wondering how you

00:36:44.420 navigate this and how attainable you think cultural healing and decolonization are on a large scale

00:36:50.960 and if you have any guidance for people to cultivate this type of healing within

00:36:56.880 their communities yeah I mean being a hybrid a half European half Native American woman 0.69

00:37:05.640 which I used to see as a curse but now I see it as a cross-pollinated being and plants with 0.99

00:37:11.680 more genetic diversity are they're strong so now I see it as a blessing I'm kind of a tough

00:37:18.480 little plant now. And so my hybridity, my hybrid nature has really given me the ability to see

00:37:28.260 things from both sides. And obviously what characterizes my work is the interplay between

00:37:35.600 indigenous cultures and European American cultures. And obviously that interplay has not

00:37:41.160 been very fun to say the least. It's been bloody. It's been horrific. It's been sad to say the least.

00:37:48.480 But there's also other interplays that I honor, which is the interplay between African-American culture and other cultures, Asian-American, Muslim-American.

00:37:59.140 I try my hardest to honor the fact that we're all dealing with our own challenges and our own oppressions.

00:38:06.660 I think that if we want to go out and create more peace, more sisterhood and brotherhood and kinship in our communities among divided peoples who judge each other and who oftentimes degrade each other, humiliate each other, and then reverse humiliate each other.

00:38:32.480 I think we just have to go back to the fact that love is the answer, no matter what the question.

00:38:40.020 Is someone coming to you bearing flowers and chocolate?

00:38:43.640 Well, love them in return.

00:38:46.060 Is someone banging on your door with an eviction notice telling you that you have to move because you can't pay the gentrified rent rate?

00:38:55.560 You love them.

00:38:56.700 Again, the answer is still love because two reasons.

00:39:00.820 Number one, it's productive.

00:39:02.480 When we love, we are creating the opportunity for them to see their own behavior as what it is.

00:39:12.760 And we're giving them an opportunity to feel love, which they might not have felt.

00:39:19.260 And not only is it productive, but also in an external sense that we're productive in spheres outside of our own.

00:39:26.480 But it's also productive within ourselves because when you love and you are in a state of love, you are returned to your natural state of being and you are no longer fettered and chained by and burdened with the weight of hatred, which is so painful to feel.

00:39:50.000 and so oftentimes I've done forgiveness ceremonies where I work really hard to forgive something that

00:39:57.040 was painful and in doing so I can literally feel a weight lifting out of my being and as I mentioned

00:40:06.360 I've been pretty thoroughly abused as a woman in my day and in order to heal my mentor told me

00:40:12.860 forgive I said what she said yes every single one of them forgive every single one of them

00:40:19.800 So I went back in my mind and I looked at what they really did to me.

00:40:24.440 And I said, you tried to destroy me, but I love you and I don't hold it against you.

00:40:30.680 If you can do that, then you can actually free yourself.

00:40:34.620 And obviously I didn't tell that to them in person because they're not actually safe to be around.

00:40:39.960 But in my mind, from a safe distance, I forgave them and I prayed for them.

00:40:46.160 And said, I don't hold it against you.

00:40:48.180 I want you to be free.

00:40:49.800 That's a whole crazy medicine that liberates both the oppressed and the oppressor.

00:40:56.860 So that's important.

00:40:58.300 Understanding that if we see someone's hatred toward us as an inhumane, despicable thing,

00:41:08.080 then does it not also logically follow that we are dehumanized when we slip into hatred towards them?

00:41:15.500 Or is hatred for a perpetrator okay?

00:41:19.000 you know is it permissible or is it even right or desirable these are all questions we have to

00:41:26.060 answer for ourselves but my whole argument these past few years has been our hatred for them

00:41:33.620 is no better than their hatred for us it's the same hatred because they're seeing us as enemies

00:41:40.000 when really we're brothers and sisters and so if I go into that same delusion that we're enemies

00:41:46.200 And I'm just as deluded as they are. So when we respond to an enemy type of behavior with a sister type of behavior or a brother type of behavior, we're reinstating the facts. We're reinstating the truth. We're dispelling the delusion. And we're reminding them that, no, no, no, I'm not your enemy. Remember, I'm your friend. I'm your sister. I'm your brother.

00:42:10.120 And sometimes they snap out of it. Sometimes they don't. But it's better for one of us to be snapped out of it than neither of us. And so that's important. Forgiveness and approaching a world that thinks it's a pool of enemies and affirming that we are family is very powerful.

00:42:30.460 and every time someone does this the whole world shudders the whole world it's rendered speechless

00:42:36.700 for a time they can't even understand it like all Mandela did was say no I'm not going to put you

00:42:43.300 in the same jail you put me in and everyone was like oh my god how did he do that he's winning

00:42:48.740 prizes and all this stuff the whole world's just like what or the Dalai Lama says we must pray for

00:42:54.520 the Chinese army and the whole world's like what the whole world just gets rocked the whole model

00:43:00.140 of punitive quote-unquote justice starts to come apart at the seams and the whole understanding of 0.96

00:43:06.800 eye for an eye and revenge is just is exposed as the nothingness that it is and we are reinstating

00:43:15.300 the truth that love is the answer no matter the problem no matter the question love is the answer

00:43:21.540 and so when we operate in this paradigm where it's very constructive not only within ourselves

00:43:28.260 to heal ourselves but also outside of ourselves okay the last thing i want to say on this question 0.58

00:43:32.720 is i was raised to believe that european americans were arrogant privileged heartless 0.98

00:43:42.040 fools i'm sorry to say that i know these aren't easy words to hear and i don't believe those are 0.97

00:43:48.940 true but that's what i was raised to believe as a native american half native american who was 0.97

00:43:55.980 raised all Native American, I guess you could say, in terms of custom and worldview and belief. 0.96

00:44:02.520 I was raised to believe that, that they were heartless. And of course, that's the form of 1.00

00:44:08.140 racism, because you're putting all European Americans in one box and saying they are this.

00:44:14.680 And those types of generalizations are very harmful, because they're not true. And so

00:44:20.280 then I started to dig deeper and say, wait a second, I'm half European. There's got to be

00:44:25.320 something going on there it's got to be something that I need to understand about who and what I am

00:44:31.520 so I started to dig deeper into the history of Europe and I was blessed to discover that

00:44:39.800 there are great wealths of wise cultures in Europe and earth-based cultures cultures that were

00:44:48.700 extremely connected to themselves and to the earth and who were matriarchal actually and who

00:44:55.720 placed the goddess center stage and we think of europe as 1000 a.d and after that pretty much

00:45:04.720 dominates our understanding of what europe quote unquote is you know napoleon king louis the british

00:45:11.380 crown blah blah blah all these things right but those things are so recent that past is so recent

00:45:17.580 And if we scratch the surface, we find that Europe was beautiful, had beautiful, incredible cultures that thrived off of the nurturing of the earth and nurturing of women.

00:45:30.560 And we also find that in German soil, they found a 40,000-year-old figurine that was of a woman.

00:45:42.020 And you find these all over Europe, of the goddess, honoring the goddess of the earth.

00:45:47.580 and the fertility of the earth, and again, the life, the life-bearing ability of the earth and 0.98

00:45:53.320 of women, because she always has a big stomach and big breasts to feed her children, a pregnant

00:45:59.560 belly, you know, so they're honoring life. 40,000 years old, this is how long European cultures have 0.69

00:46:08.160 been honoring the earth. Now, there's a very important stage in European history around

00:46:14.200 the year 1000 up to about 1500 you see a lot of major shifts and the most important shift that i 0.97

00:46:21.740 always bring up is the destruction of european indigenous women because they estimate and the

00:46:29.060 burning times that about six to nine million european women were burned alive drowned alive

00:46:36.600 dismembered, alive, raped, beaten, or tortured, or multiple of those at once. And so it's really

00:46:46.460 important to understand that just like they tried to destroy the women of our communities in America

00:46:52.280 as a war tactic, so too did they try to destroy the women of Europe as a war tactic. Because when

00:46:59.220 you destroy the women, you destroy the whole thing. So it's very important to understand that 1.00

00:47:04.220 capitalism is a expression of the pain of the destruction of indigenous European women

00:47:11.600 and that these indigenous European women were so brutally treated worse than Native Americans were

00:47:20.780 by far believe it or not that the men who loved them went insane and the only way to try and

00:47:29.340 relieve that insanity was to try and compensate in other ways, to find meaning in the accumulation

00:47:35.380 of wealth, to find meaning in becoming a high reputation, to find meaning in domination.

00:47:43.200 And so we have to understand that capitalism and colonialism are a direct outgrowth of the abuse

00:47:50.580 of the women of Europe. And once you understand that, it's much easier to forgive. It's much

00:47:56.740 easier to honor the fact that, you know, Europeans didn't just wake up one day and say, hey, I think 0.72

00:48:02.160 I want to commit genocide on a whole continent of people. You know, that didn't happen. People

00:48:06.340 didn't just say, oh, I would love to just destroy millions of people today. That is a form of

00:48:13.160 psychosis that only comes from deep intergenerational trauma, a deep, painful wound in the 0.63

00:48:22.860 side of Europe, which is the destruction of the women. And so if we understand that, we can have

00:48:28.740 compassion as Native Americans. We can have understanding as Native Americans. We can have

00:48:35.200 forgiveness. We can have kindness. We can have a prayer even, a deep prayer for European Americans.

00:48:44.560 And all of a sudden, they don't look like such a winner anymore, do they? They don't look like 1.00

00:48:50.040 they're the ones who came out on top do they they look like they're the ones who were so brutally

00:48:56.660 beaten that they forgot what they were and so brutally beaten that they were brought to a state

00:49:04.700 where they felt okay with murder and destruction this is not being on top this is not being on top

00:49:13.020 this is being on the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom and we need to help them back

00:49:18.540 up. We need to help all of our brothers and sisters back up to the state of love. And how do

00:49:25.200 we do that? Forgiveness and education and articulation of these hard truths. And for that

00:49:33.440 reason, a lot of my music and poetry has been honoring the indigenous European women lately.

00:49:38.020 So that's a very long-winded answer to your question, but that's how I see it.

00:49:43.620 that was a very deeply explored articulate response to my question thank you and i'd actually

00:49:52.440 love to end on reading a quote from a new article that you just released called dismantling

00:49:59.680 colonialism a treatise on forgiveness quote only when we love in the face of hatred we are liberated

00:50:08.020 from that same hatred only when we love in the face of hatred can we loosen the screws of the

00:50:14.380 machine of oppression for who stands unfazed in the face of grace only the expertly numb

00:50:22.100 the rest of the world the majority trembles in the best of ways they are shaken they are inspired

00:50:30.780 they are transformed they are forgiven end quote

00:50:35.840 i just i just i am in awe and appreciation of you from this interview from reading your work from

00:50:50.140 learning more about who you are on this earth what you are bringing to humanity and all the

00:50:58.140 species and the waters and the lands. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me

00:51:04.720 and for opening up these channels. Thank you, Ayanna. I really appreciate it. And I have to

00:51:12.640 honor the fact that a lot of these words and a lot of these writings are not my own, but are a

00:51:17.660 collaboration between a lot of spirits that really want to help the world, that really want to bring

00:51:22.600 healing to the world. And so I have to give them some credit and say thank you for guiding me.

00:51:27.340 And also, just thanks for taking the time to formulate these questions, and I hope that they can help someone somewhere.

00:51:33.660 The music you heard today was the percussion voice of Edley Natai,

00:51:59.840 Lila June's own works

00:52:01.900 Born to Guard Sparrows

00:52:03.560 and All Nations Rise

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00:52:10.300 peek at the bonus content

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00:52:18.400 where you'll be able to find action points

00:52:20.320 for each of these episodes

00:52:21.540 We're so happy to have you with us week in

00:52:24.340 and week out as we grow

00:52:26.380 and learn on how we can be the best

00:52:28.520 Earth stewards as possible together. All right, until next time.

For The Wild - July 03, 2019

LYLA JUNE on Resistance and Forgiveness in the Final Years of Patriarchy ⌠ENCORE⌡ ⧸126

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