In a future trial to affix blame for the collapse of world culture that began in the year 2020, my two previous blog posts could be “Exhibits A and B” for the prosecution. Because although I was responding to private requests to write something that would help people understand the ways Indigenous worldview could help people respond to a challenging time like this one, those two blog posts and the “memes” that were their centerpieces wound up expressing — smack dab center-fire — the very culture that’s causing the problem. Because as I wrote those words and started to share them, lots of people (not just one or two) told me, “It needs to be shorter,” and “It needs to grab people in one or two sentences,” and “It would be good if it was funny, or at least cute.” Those two previous posts were the results, and there were several more lined up to go out after them.
But I am not going to do that this time. I woke up at 2 o’clock in the morning and the realization of what I’d let happen with those posts was rising up inside me like the lava dome inside Mt. St. Helens. And it was every bit as hot, steaming with the power of the Land itself, molten and alive. So I am going to write words in response to what I have been asked, but I am not going to be dragged onto ground that people insist must be stood upon in order to communicate. I am going to stand my ground as a Native woman, and I am going to say what actually needs to be said. And if people refuse to hear it because it doesn’t have a funny picture with it, all I can say is: My god, if hard things cannot be heard at such a time as this, if no one can be bothered to sit down long enough to take in more than a sound bite or a funny picture . . . then we are done for. It’s that simple. Because it is this impatience that is going to kill you.
Yes: you. All of us with you, of course. But my understanding right now is that this doesn’t carry nearly the weight it should. So I tell you: it will kill you. Worse, it will kill your precious children and grandchildren. This is simply true, not a threat. It grieves me as much as it grieves you; I have no wish to see it happen. But I’m not the one insisting that the bad news can only be entertained if it’s literally also entertaining. And these deaths are not going to happen in some unimaginable future hundreds of years from now when you will be gone and not know about it. If you don’t sit down and pay attention and really change some things, these deaths will happen in your own lifetime, and be the thing that brings an end to that lifetime. And it won’t be a happy or peaceful end, either.
Now: I have not said we’re all doomed. I have said we’re all doomed if you don’t change your ways. And one of the most insidious of “your ways” is to insist that you only have time to read 200 characters (or whatever it is) and look at a quick picture and then be off to the next thing. I realize you’re busy. I realize you’re anxious right now, and distressed, and upset, and very stressed. Which is all the more reason to sit down, calm down, and knock it off.
Just stop. You can. I am 100% positive. Just stop and sit still for a while and you’ll see.
It’s the perfect time for it. In fact, the times demand it. In more ways than one.
–to be continued, tomorrow — Meanwhile, a word from our sponsor . . .
Cliff in Left Hand Canyon where golden eagles nest, near Boulder, CO. Photo by Jo Belasco.