00:07:06.740So therefore, there cannot be a savior mentality.
00:07:11.420Now, you see how the Western mind, I can tell you
00:07:14.820the Western mind tries to take all of what I just said and put it into the box of, I need to find
00:07:21.900the answer to why is this? We need a reference. We need something so that we can learn how to,
00:07:28.720as if how to was a manual to do something. And what we've forgotten is that Mother Earth is
00:07:35.840always listening to us. Mother Earth is always teaching us lesson. There's not one time in human
00:07:42.480history that humans can teach mother earth any lesson you see and so that's our arrogance to
00:07:51.020think that we can control the earth we can you know do what we want to the earth what we want
00:07:56.160to the earth and even save the earth and so in that sense you know the western mind the euro
00:08:03.400western wants to be at the top of the heap so that they can i don't know what it is reward
00:08:10.260cause and effect and taken reward or given reward type of mentality, a dualism. And you see that
00:08:17.980mother earth is not like that. It's very many, many qualities of communication she has. So
00:08:23.300I guess that's a long way of understanding or trying to answer the question of what is savior
00:08:28.600mentality. Thank you for that. Yeah. It's something that was coming up for me was maybe
00:08:36.940it's about control and that need of control potentially stems from some type of fear
00:08:43.360you know it's it's interesting because I have really been stepping away from the idea of
00:08:50.700solutions or savior mentality although I know I was very wrapped up in that you know back in my
00:08:57.160just honestly a few years ago and so it feels relieving to challenge the savior mentality and
00:09:04.520challenge that frantic need to be dominant whether that dominance is coming from good intentions or
00:09:13.100not yeah so it's really helpful hearing that response and similarly I think about non-indigenous0.57
00:09:21.380folks hyper fixation with climate collapse in terms of end times rather than thinking about
00:09:27.980this moment as being a part of the earth cycle and because all of the data on warming temperatures
00:09:33.820There's depleted soil, loss of diversity, and I understand why so many of us struggle
00:09:39.180with this, but speaking for myself, the more I've learned about climate collapse, the less
00:09:45.100prepared I feel, like the less I know, and that makes sense because if we are mired in
00:09:52.020a spiritual problem, then of course the data isn't going to do much for us, so I wonder
00:09:57.880if you could speak to that space between education and wisdom as we try to wrap our minds and hearts
00:10:04.680around earth's transformation. Again, another good question. In 1492, you find that Bartholomew
00:10:13.000de las Casas, the priest who went with Columbus and followed up a few years later about how the
00:10:19.680the native peoples and those islands saw the the comers that newcomers and and what the difference
00:10:28.300was in how they denied the earth how they conquered the earth how they did this possession ceremony0.51
00:10:36.820on one of the islands and stuck a staff and into the earth and claimed her in a sense you know so
00:10:46.100there was a patriarchy coming in with about 2,000 years of that same language of domination.
00:10:52.240It's in basically the language and the behavior, all of the explorations, all the domination,
00:10:59.300all the colonization before they got here. So what we're saying, what I'm saying is that the
00:11:04.720climate denial has been since we noticed it back then. And we've been saying this for a long time,
00:11:11.500native peoples have noticed this and we've been telling people all along so it would make sense
00:11:18.340to me well if we've been saying these things for 500 years why aren't they listening to us
00:11:26.040you know because we're listening to the earth as much as we know that the earth is listening to us0.61
00:11:31.280and this is why we don't want to take too much or even apply theory which a lot of indigenous
00:11:37.000language don't have in their original base languages there's no need to theorize no need
00:11:43.880to show like a theater and put on an act or a play it's really about what is practical mystery
00:11:51.780mystery is the energy at that transformation so when we see the earth changing we want to
00:11:58.460you know because we're uncomfortable and then we we tend to blame ourselves which is partly true
00:12:05.340it's only blaming ourselves as far as we don't want to take responsibility for what we are still
00:12:11.940doing to ourselves as well as the rest of rest of life but you see we always have faith in the earth
00:12:18.440with the earth because that's where our language comes from the earth doesn't lie so therefore our
00:12:24.260languages do not lie and so when we speak directly that's called rude that's called no manners that's
00:12:31.320called, you know, everything that it doesn't fit the pretension of manners in the Western
00:12:37.620European mind, because they've been corralled into speaking a restrictive language, a restrictive
00:12:44.220thinking for that long, until they got here 500 years ago. And so you think about how that began
00:12:50.820way back there in Western democracy. And when we think about the climate denial, you know,
00:12:56.040people were trying to leave the earth even then you know and then once they they were able to
00:13:01.720achieve some amount of civilizational success then that's when they start denigrating those
00:13:09.360peoples who still have and had and lived with the consciousness of earth so basically they had
00:13:16.020peace with earth these other ones were mental justice seekers and so all the laws even today
00:13:23.440in the u.s government any government is to control the human mind through man-made or human-made laws
00:13:32.720because it's all about mental justice it's all about keeping you away from the the earth justice
00:13:39.940the the true justice that is with the earth and so yes education becomes somewhat of a secondary
00:13:46.620environment becomes somewhat of a secondary thought and because we can be educated about the
00:13:52.760earth and as you said said earlier becomes all numbers and measurements and weights and what
00:13:59.300what good is it to us so yes i think part of this climate denial that we're just so hyper on is that
00:14:06.720we we have this thing that's halfway true that we listen to it says trust science but we don't know
00:14:14.240what we're saying with with the etymology of the word science and we could we could look at that
00:14:19.700And that's why I asked others who speak this language better than I do to look at their, their etymology. And what are they basically spelling? You know, what is their spell that they're putting on themselves as others? Because you, this language we speak doesn't go that far back or back that far.
00:14:39.120Um, so it's, it's, it's, it's this, it's too big for, for this mind of, of, uh, restrictive thinking. Um, but our hearts understand that there's something going on. We couldn't, our hearts never say it's wrong or right. It's our minds who follow the rules and regulations and don't want to believe others because we, we have been schooled and educated that we are right because we have the measurements right here.
00:15:06.580And that science always changes because that science is controlled by Earth, if I could use the word control. Every time the Earth changes, those numbers and statistics and weights and predictions and whatever, forecasts, everything changes because, you know, half of that is 50-50 chance anyway.
00:15:26.640But you have these so-called uncivilized primitive native people who've been kind of impractical all this time. And as my uncle says, you know, in sort of a metaphorical way, you can't take it with you, so why take it now, you see?1.00
00:15:44.120And so when we look at this, is that what's going on now? Are we trying to save the earth to take with us? Or are we trying to leave a legacy and see the work within our time so that we're proud of ourselves and take credit for us?
00:15:58.960because I have a piece of paper that says I know something
00:16:02.060because I followed the rules and regulations of that dualism.
00:16:06.520And when it comes to the practicality of that,
00:16:09.640I could not really apply any of that education
00:16:12.520to the work that is required by the earth
00:16:16.180because that education always taught me,
00:19:32.460But yet, if you're speaking the languages of the earth, like I said, earth doesn't lie.
00:19:37.700And so your languages are along the complexities of the earth.
00:19:41.480And you see how many, so much variance of species and how to deal with the weather and all, you know, all of that is to not think that we're in control of it or even that God made this for us, you see.
00:19:57.820And so once we let go of those domination thought processes, that more than two dimensional thought processes wake up and they come and you're like, wait, now, we can't know all of this.
00:20:12.040We're spending our time gathering information without ever experiencing it.
00:20:16.260So we are stuck with the ideas of information and knowledge, and then we refer to, well, someone who's tenured in an educational process is wise now because he's tenured, he's older, she's older, and so they're wise, and yet those textbook knowledge keepers are not ever experienced, so they may go out and study here and there,1.00
00:20:42.080But when you have indigenous peoples always in the rhythm of the earth, they're not educated. But yet, in a sense of taking this concept of education and trying to put it on native people, it's like injecting them with something, right?0.98
00:20:58.920And they're not ever going to understand it because they're already too far ahead of education that this system requires in order for you to get ahead.1.00
00:21:08.680But with the indigenous processes of Earth, it doesn't need education.
00:21:14.900And that way, we spend all of our times trying to reinterpret something that we can't wrap it around our minds, and we're stuck in the same cycle of cause and effect.
00:21:28.040And that is the point of privilege that we come from, is that I have a question, you answer it for me, and you tell me how to do something so I can take it easy the rest of my life type of thing.
00:21:38.900But yet, we avoid the suffering, we avoid the pain, we avoid the grief, as you said.
00:21:45.080so i think one thing to to know is that that energy that we all have every one of us even
00:21:52.300other life forms is that because every moment there is no question that every moment we live
00:21:59.940in innocence now without the ties or the tethers to guilt you know so every moment is innocent and
00:22:08.200then it's true it's not because you're a child that you're innocent and then you become guilty
00:22:13.080and you know dark and all these things it's no every that energy is the same it's innocent it
00:22:19.100doesn't matter if you're 85 or you're one year old that energy is still the same it's just how
00:22:25.440you are living with this as you see children are living with the energy but because of the
00:22:31.220programming a system we get away from living with the energy and we start using reality rather than
00:22:37.360living reality and so that energy changes until we run into people's hell i've never really left
00:22:45.140that energy and the acknowledgement of the continuum of just being in the present all the
00:22:50.140time rather tied to the past rather than being you know in anticipation of a future the hope process
00:22:57.980you know because we have the education therefore our technology is going to save for us
00:23:03.020save it for us. And I think part of that is understanding inclusivity, your relationship,
00:23:09.060rather than connectivity or exclusiveness, you see.
00:31:40.200without science but the science is in it living with the culture of the earth and understanding
00:31:46.320the mistakes that we made now especially with this western education that helps us to lose
00:31:53.400how we live with the earth in other words that land was that we lived on was taken away from us0.58
00:31:59.100so we start losing that experience with her we start losing the language and start losing the
00:32:04.960culture and we start making the mistakes of the western what education accepts and so once we
00:32:12.200have that we get a little bit further away every year with every generation and we want to hurry
00:32:17.720up and and let's let's get it now let's get it back because that's what the earth is doing and
00:32:22.820that idea comes from from the western mind but when i say let's do this in a hurry before
00:32:28.700before the earth takes the land back for itself from all of you is that in the beginning again
00:32:35.800we need to lose the idea of ownership and stewardship because that's one and the same
00:32:41.600it's very dichotomous and these these uh any thinking people would understand that the
00:32:48.880answers are already provided of how we cannot ever own the land and i know it sounds like i'm
00:32:54.780rhetorical here but it's it's an idea of uh so into the intelligence that's been given to you
00:33:03.660by all the four elements it's given to you and it's it's not that we own that it's a gift and
00:33:11.440that gift keeps on giving so to speak if we have the respect and not try to ownership not try to
00:33:18.680own not try to steward and not definitely not try and try and try to dominate anybody or anything
00:33:25.860that already has a connection already is relating to that so if anything this is more of a statement
00:33:32.320to the western world that yes give the land back to us because we'll know what to do with it even
00:33:38.180if we made our miss make our mistakes by saying it's free to everybody and now everybody else
00:33:44.080owns it but the difference is ayana that we as native people are still home we may be landless
00:33:51.600but we're still home and that means that tie can never be severed severed no matter what the system
00:33:57.840does or what the people thinks that we should be civilized yet civilizes the civilization is what's
00:34:04.720killing with ownership stewardship the education i can just go on and on and say what's wrong with
00:34:11.280the western hemisphere i mean it's western thought process but in the western hemisphere that the
00:34:16.800thought process is so deep that consciousness no matter who brings this new type of education onto
00:34:24.220it that education will never work with it because it doesn't know how to it comes from over overseas
00:34:31.820where they put everything on and dominated and kings and lord and feudalism hierarchy and you
00:34:38.720know they use the language of war and so this language of war is really now against the earth
00:34:43.820that's why we have to we think in in dualism's enemy or friend and right now it's like we're
00:34:51.000using science to really try to save ourselves from what earth eventually will do it's imminent that
00:34:57.320that she needs to change because we're the ones that are suffering from lack of or loss of
00:35:03.560connection to the earth the earth is not suffering from connection to us she's always relating to us
00:35:10.280you see so what's the first medicine is to doka hey makaina is to to think of the earth first
00:35:16.920in the heart and the water in the morning you get up you're doing a ceremony all together with with
00:35:23.340water right and and the next thing is what you look for food and you look for for for warmth
00:35:29.780And you look for these things that earth is giving to you, but where is our appreciation for that?
00:35:35.760So, and that, the more we appreciate, the more we understand that we have to give back the land to the earth, you know, because it's herds anyway.
00:35:45.200So let her do, let her restore with us trying to stop trying to put fertilizer into places she doesn't want it.
00:35:51.560because we're only adjusting, we're adjusting the earth to our needs
00:35:55.840rather than ourselves being needed by the earth, so to speak.
00:36:00.720You know, we don't have to do that anymore.
00:36:35.720You're so beautiful, you're so beautiful.
00:36:42.420I do want to bring back into the conversation something you were speaking earlier about.
00:36:48.600the noun-centered languages versus earth languages. And there's a few questions I wanted to bring up
00:36:56.380here. One, I wonder if you could share how languages become noun-centered and why this
00:37:02.660specific delineation matters so much. And then, you know, is it possible to un-noun or denoun the
00:37:10.300languages that we have? Like, is that even possible? Because I think many of us know the
00:37:16.500limitations of the english language for instance yet we continue to speak english its dominance is
00:37:22.120all around us and then the question becomes do we deconstruct english in english yeah it's kind of
00:37:29.740like um i i hear you it would be more difficult i think for a native person to to try to decolonize
00:37:41.280Yeah, in that sense of decolonizes, I mean, we have to not speak that language. So because it throws us off from the many dimensional effects that are naturally within us, tied to the earth or with the earth, and it puts us into a two, three mode of thinking, three dimensional mode at the most.
00:38:03.100And then we tend to think out of that restrictiveness. And so we want to control that. So we make, we title everything, we noun everything, we subjugate everything, we objectify everything. So we think of essentially thingify everything materially.
00:38:20.560and so we think we can do that to all life on earth other people you know other worlds and so
00:38:27.740there's no uh respect in that now what what I've done is try to reinterpret what I've been told by
00:38:36.680the Lakota elders that I talk with and just kind of coming to an understanding oh yeah this is what
00:38:42.440they mean you know is that if we turn if we're able to to think and i use this three three words
00:38:50.660in two different ways is if we think peace with earth rather than peace on earth one means
00:38:59.380domination one means relational so the relational language is found within english and how do you
00:39:08.240relate so in the original way to understand this language indigenous language and is that
00:39:16.520what we do is describe the energy and then we describe the motion of the energy and that way
00:39:24.040it makes makes everything alive so everything is alive to us everything is sentient
00:39:30.740and now we can you know like oh but my mind says that pen that i write with cannot think
00:39:40.120but yet you see what comes out of it you see that it puts symbols down it writes so it's in our
00:39:48.440language you call it we chasel you know the energy of of wood that comes from the sun so to speak
00:39:55.320So it's a consciousness of the sun, the wood, and that's what we come and we put it down in thoughts.
00:40:03.000And so we're always in relationship with motion.
00:40:07.560And so when I think about what happens in English is, okay, this pen is no longer a pen.
00:40:14.920It's penning, you see, or that cup you're drinking your tea with.
00:44:00.040And so I do question the connection between language and condition, at least for English speakers. So maybe you could respond to this or elaborate a bit further on the idea that language exists beyond speech and how we need to think about language as action.
00:44:16.380yes wow okay that that would probably take longer than my answer which would when I would teach at
00:44:25.340Yale when I was talking to grad students and people looking for their PhDs and and you know
00:44:32.340I'm like who am I to be teaching all these peoples who are you know have these ideas that1.00
00:44:38.560they're coming to extract from this indigenous person about how to further their their um I1.00
00:44:45.760don't know, prestige in this society, because it's based on information of what they took from0.99
00:44:50.780other peoples. So I go back to, and this probably has something new with it, tell me if it doesn't
00:44:55.660or not. So it's a little story that I read way back in the 90s about a young person who had
00:45:02.140a grad degree and had gone and studied cultural anthropology. And he was able to get a grant and
00:45:10.940go to Zimbabwe, I think it was, and notice, and live among, his grant was for usually
00:45:19.68020 years, I think it was, and it was a good grant, and at the end, he was supposed to0.99
00:45:25.460make this book, right, write this book, so he lived among the Bushmen, the Bush people,0.85
00:45:32.400the tiny ones, for 20 years, and he would write every day, and he got into their cultural
00:45:38.660moors and you know what usually happens is that they understood what he was doing and so that he
00:45:45.120lived among them or at least close to them and he had to come back to england once in a while to
00:45:51.860verify what he was doing and so he would go back and he would miss them so much and then later on
00:45:59.440in his years he began to understand that my time is up you know 20 years and i'm gonna run out of
00:46:06.580money should i ask for more they had mountains of information and all that time he's seen
00:46:12.920transitions of indigenous generations maybe two three generations come and go and he stood
00:46:20.360understood all that whole process of how they accepted death so well because they were actually
00:46:26.740living without thinking of need and so once they he saw these bushmen he on his last very last day
00:46:35.880he had sat on a on a hill with an incline sloping down to a valley and so he was looking down his
00:46:44.960valley he looked up and he saw this most beautiful sunset you could ever see in Africa and he thought
00:46:52.780why did I miss this 20 years and then I didn't pay attention until now I got a lonely heart and
00:46:58.640I see these things and so he kind of romanticized that a little bit and he saw these sat you know
00:47:05.860down it was kind of in the evening watching the sunset and he saw this little chimpanzee kind of
00:47:12.520walking on three and this one arm and two legs and in one arm he had a little melon and in that
00:47:20.180melon he was kind of walking with three and then down below him and his chimpanzee kind of he's
00:47:26.480watching his chimpanzee and the chimpanzee kind of glanced up at the sun and then stopped and
00:47:31.340looked again and he just kind of looked at the sun he sat down basically in front of the man who
00:47:39.540the cultural anthropologist who was watching the little chimpanzee and a chimpanzee sat there
00:47:45.960and looked at the sun the same way he was looking at the sun and then a little chimpanzee took the
00:47:52.720melon stood up on his hind legs and held it above his head to the sun as long as he could because0.90
00:47:59.860you know they can't stand very long on their hind their feet as long as we can so and then
00:48:06.360he stood there for minutes and and then finally he put the the melon down and then he left that
00:48:12.780was his offering to the sun and and that cultural anthropologist cried because it was the first time
00:48:21.460he realized that he didn't know a thing he thought he knew everything because my traditional western
00:48:27.920education taught me that I'm supposed to know everything as much as possible.0.75
00:48:33.200And so he told his helpers, the Bushmen, who had his packages, his papers all packed up,