On Divine Economics...

Penny Image: U.S. Mint

Divine economics recognizes the value of the penny above that of the dollar. A penny is the weight of gold. A dollar is one, a penny one hundred. E pluribus unum! There is big power in the least of divisible objects.

David Davidson
03/25/2010

The Devil in the Vatican

Good and Evil Angels by William Blake

This past week when more dirt surfaced that the Vatican concealed their molesting Irish priests, the Pope said he was, “Sorry,” and the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Rev. Gabrielle Amorth, acknowledged that, yes, their priests “needed true repentance… and changing their habit structure is in the public interest.”

The Pope, “God’s ‘representative’ on Earth” was “sorry” that the very innocence of young lives had been, and continues to be, contaminated by his immoral Brotherhood, priests who have taken the spiritual foundation away from their congregations. Not surprising this coming from an ex-Nazi youth member. Maybe he was too young to know anything then, but this wholesale corruption by his church’s priests he has known about long enough. Pope Benedict XVI and his cronies continuously hide these perverts, insinuating them in communities that are unaware of their connection with sexual abuse allegations. In any other business these predators would be thrown in jail, or as in Argentina, chemically castrated.

ENOUGH is ENOUGH! God says, “Not In MY NAME!”

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind."

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The same is true of the IMAMS who foster Hatred and Violence. NEVER is hatred and violence encouraged in the Koran. This spiritual perversion belongs SOLELY to these miserable Hypocrites who call themselves men of God [may they rot in Hell], and who spew their own tortured evil upon their faithful though sometimes ignorant flocks.

ENOUGH is ENOUGH! God says, “Not In MY NAME!”

And Israelis, Jews, some of whom suffered the most heinous of discrimination throughout the world, millions who lost their lives and properties to the madness of Hitler and his butchers. Why are you now eating up lands that should be shared, and why inflicting mayhem instead of bringing peace? Is land more important than your children’s future in peace?


You and your Arab neighbors are brothers, the two sons— Isaac and Ismael— of your Prophet Abraham. You once had dignity and wisdom. Where have they gone?

ENOUGH is ENOUGH! God says, “Not In MY NAME!”

WE say “ENOUGH is ENOUGH!” The future we all seek is Life-giving, higher and most excellent.

Ora Abel-Russell
03/22/2010

TASHIYAGMUNKA

Western Meadowlark by Kevin Cole
Source: Wikipedia

TASHIYAGMUNKA
The Return of the Meadowlark

"Omaka teca yelo!" is the refrain sung by the meadowlark as it arrives from the south of Mexico each year. There are other phrases to his songs but this is his favorite tune while in Lakota territories. The lark is more intent in producing the uplifting sounds which he is prone to do, singing while sitting or chirping while flying in the air. Actually his complete lyrics in the opening line is "Oiyokipiya Omaka Teca yelo!" which is translated, "The joyous season of the New Earth is here!" in the lark's discernible Lakota. In the ancient Lakota program, the meadowlark is the forerunner who announces a new season, a new earth and the beginning of the Lakota New Year. And a Happy New Year to you, too! Omaka Teca denotes literally the new earth which connotes the New Year at the spring equinox. In the Lakota time sense, the new year begins at the wetu or spring season, when Grandmother Earth is at its most freshest, its green grass most resurgent. In verbal and symbolic Titunwun Lakota history, the medicine wheel built of large boulders in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming and the other sacred circle built near Sioux Valley, Manitoba, Canada show carbon-dating at 20 to 40,000 years old of man-made structures. Thus this new year is Lakota Year 40,010 as most nearly the correct annual record of our Titunwun Lakota history in this region of the world. In the alternative star knowledge and in the sacred Lakota language, the Lakota people and the tashiyagmunka have always been here. Infused with complexity, then, the meadowlark is of two species in North America, the eastern and western. The easterner's domain is from eastern Canada to Brazil, while the westerner's is from western Canada to Mexico and maybe even into Central America. The easterner makes a simple four-note whistle while the westerner generates more intricate notes with fluting. To call or to sing, the westerner makes a more vibrant and colorful tune than the easterner. The lady lark builds grass-domed nests to hold its white eggs with red dots, hidden among the roots of thick grasses. If approached too closely when nesting, it feigns injury as it flutters away looking as though it may not be able to get off the ground at all, luring any predator farther away from its brood eggs. In size, the lark grows to 8 to 11 inches long plus five inches of the tail. Its coloring is upper parts are brown to brownish-white markings. Its wings and tail are transversed by dark-brown bars across and brightly it is yellow breasted with a black crescent. It has a powerful flight and is the finest singer of the open regions of Lakota prairies.

The lark also has a sweet double call while circling upon fluttering wings, enjoying its field of play in the middle ground in the best of all possible worlds of the spring season. There are those above and below his order such as the Arctic Tern who is the greatest traveler covering 11,000 miles each way from his breeding grounds in the Arctic to his winter home in the Antarctic; the Ostrich who is the largest bird at 8 feet and 300 pounds fully grown; the hummingbird who is the smallest bird at 2 inches and weighs 1/10 of an ounce; but the goose family are the highest flyers, some able to fly over mountain ranges 25,000 feet high, even the Himalayas. Thus the tashiyagmunka the smartest bird stays within the regions where it is always springtime and that is why without the meadowlark there would not be quite the same omaka teca.


Wicahpi Wanjila - Leroy C. Curley
03/22/2010

Alcohol Aya (Habitual Drinker)

Life's Circle Continues
Source: www.firstpeople.us

*Note From The Editor: Greetings, Dear Reader, and thanks once again for visiting the One World In Concert blog.

The following post (submitted by the esteemed Lakota elder and regular OWIC blog contributor, Wicahpi Wanjila - Leroy C. Curley) is at times painful and at times empowering. A few weeks ago, One World In Concert had the unfortunate task of relating to you the enormous suffering of the Lakota people resulting from a devastating snowstorm. Among what seems an endless string of challenges facing the Lakota people (with little or no assistance from fellow Americans), their spirit and resolve persevere.

This post itself a brilliant case in point. Consider the efforts invested by Leroy in carefully conceiving his words on a typewriter in marginally comfortable conditions (to say the least) in America's poorest community (recently devastated by a blizzard). His thoughts are then carried by mail to our offices where they are carefully transcribed in his original voice to this blog. An exceptional effort in our age of modern conveniences, yet to what end?

Possibly the only truly immediately available value of these extraordinary efforts is your readership, your consideration, and your hopeful and pragmatic efforts to improve your life and those of others. Leroy's words and efforts are given selflessly on the heels of generations of humble endurance.

We commend Leroy for addressing the subject of Lakota alcoholism in this forum. Alcoholism is no doubt among the greatest obstacles facing the Native American community as a whole, yet it is also undoubtedly symptomatic of a larger, relentlessly self-absorbed society which places so little value on the contributions of so many. So with these thoughts in mind, and with great respect for all Creation struggling toward a better day, OWIC proudly presents, "Alcohol Aya (Habitual Drinker)."

My viewpoint, in relating my experience with so-called "alcoholism," is different: that we must accept non-native ideas about addictive behaviour as our own, in as much as others cannot think our lives and never will. The thinking, however well-intentioned of other people, conceals their intended or chance effect of their dominance and our subservience. And it is the job of thinking Lakota people not to be on the side of servility.

Preamble aside and post haste, the theme is here asserted that "alcoholism" is, if anything at all, a misnomer in its common descriptions.

Thus the subject of this firsthand report is C2H60, the chemical symbol for fermented and distilled liquors for which it is agent. On the whole though, alcohol has to be characterized as a neutral provocateur - sometimes mainly benevolent as solvent and antiseptic in hospitals.

Here my interest is in beverage alcohol and its harmful effect amongst some Lakota people - and certainly others - and why this is so.

And from the question of why? The focus moves to center stage to the problem drinker, as the intricate area where answers may be found. Then at the outset, the problem is singularly decided not to be the chemical, for a glass of wine cannot ever reach the mind and resulting consequences without the guzzler's help. Leave a glass of beer on the table and it will evaporate while you can go on triumphantly.

Thus the drinker's personal-social problems should be considered in the causative forefront as statistics show drug abuse being prevalent three times greater among jobless people. And in this painful situation of job-money scarcity, the drinker is a forced seeker of psychoactive drugs and analgesia.

Even then, information of the right kind and of the hazards of excessive drinking will convince most early drinkers to stop abusive drinking. So, the problem-drinker's situation must be the starting point to any resolution - as to why he is failing to adapt and why he is in a weak position.

The ideas considered up to the present, dealing with subject of drug abuse, have been ineffective to do the job of freeing people from misuse of alcohol. But this paper maintains that this is just the beginning of native views and is presently discussed about the individual's thinking in his cultural meanings.

Discussion follows: the following quotation by Dr. Terrance Sloan of the Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service is a good place to begin - "The Lakota are not a diseased people nor is alcoholism a genetic disease." In this way Lakota language constructions are called up to get a better view. The Lakota continuum when something is hecetu, hecetusni, nupinyan hecetu, and unmani hecetunsi is like the English constructs when something is, is not, both is and is not, and neither is nor is not. In either language, the first statement would read - alcoholism is a disease and so on to the last which is another restatement for this paper: Alcoholism neither is nor is not a disease. Lakota language will clear this up.

In reaching the conclusion herein, I have used both idealist and materialist positions although, in the main, employing hard experience and a 100% Lakota language world view. That is to say, I have to see both the individual and the group, especially its institutions, as bearing some responsibility and needing some fine-tuning, to put it mildly.

At long last, to begin the stages of resolution is to reintegrate the Lakota personality into a new Lakota society.

To do that one needs to take a brief look at recent history. Up until very lately, the Lakota Language was suppressed for several generations and therefore the Lakota identity became enfeebled. Furthermore, this took away his bearings and his sense of control.

Fortunately in my own experience, I did just the opposite. Speaking fluent Lakota ideas, I recreated native identity, which I doubt I ever lost, strong in self-direction, with the thought of addiction out of the picture. And the epitome of what I believe now is this - that the Lakota Spirit is greater than beverage alcohol. The symbolic equation is written in the following way: LS>ba.

Thus, I am in full measure to receive from native cultural practices in complex spiritual meanings what alcohol formerly covered up ineptly. Where the Lakota inner life had been almost snuffed out, the Inipi (life renewal) and the Canupa Opagi (sacred Pipe of Peace) ceremonies rekindled to its brightest and strongest expression. Moreover, the concepts of being a kola (friend) and wacantognaka (love) is united in the sacred phrase - Mitakuye Oyasin (all my relatives) - the ending for all Lakota prayers.

This presentation all started with a dream some years ago and in the dream-vision, a prominent Spiritual leader's voice is asking me a question. And this paper is the result of the working out of the answer in my life. However, I will wait until an opportunity arrives for me to relate in the spoken tradition.

A partial list of the Lakota ways to overcome alcohol abuse follow:
The Lakota vision quest can help me regain understanding and stability.
The way is to believe in the natural Lakota Way without alcohol and drugs.
I admit to power over alcohol, that I can discipline myself.
I need to overcome my weaknesses and frailties.
I expect, through ceremonies and Lakota prayers, to overcome my shortcomings.
I aim to improve all relations.
I seek only the Lakota Way, proven 100% without alcohol. The Lakota Way is spiritual - ourselves beginning to live this proven, native way.

Other conclusions are the following: Alcohol and drugs are not the problem; they are a result of the intense brainwashing our people have had to endure for the last one hundred years or more in Lakota Territories. But it is now time to come to our senses, to the tiospaye (extended family), the tiwahe (family), and to our Lakol caje (Lakota name of who you are) and to admit to who we truly are - as members of the Titunwun Lakota Oyate.

We have a worldview extending historically to approximately 40,000 years and certainly longer. And most importantly, Wakantanka Tunkasila Iyotan Wakan is the One Creator we worship, pray to, depend upon, for the preservation of our lives and the Lakota Way. Wakantanka Tunkasila in English translates Grandfather Great Spirit, showing that the Lakota Oyate knew the Supreme Creator for the longest time.

I myself respect all religions of the world and beyond, and the thought of trying to convert non-Lakota is never in my thoughts. I wish other religious adherents would show the same respect. Those who do missionary work in trying to convert others exhibit a lack of confidence in their own beliefs, a great uncertainty underlying all of these types of activities. World History and my personal history proves that trying to convert others is a waste of time, energy and monies.

Here, I am simply expressing my beliefs and my faith, with the Sacred Pipe of Peace and with the Seven Sacred Rituals as the guidelines. In this spirit I have stated my belief in the natural way of healing with Sun Dancing, life renewing, the four winds singing, praying in the original Lakota twice daily at daybreak and at sundown, and remembering the four sacred colors of man. Finally, I conclude in the words of a song called, "The world can't change me!'

Wicahpi Wanjila - Leroy C. Curley
03/15/2010

Orderly Letters of Lakota... and English

Kaleidoscope by Sam English
Source: www.firstpeople.us

At the interface of Lakota and English communications since their historic international meeting about 100 years ago, technical comparisons show similar but diverse ways of getting their meanings across to the other which is easier said than done.

When one is bilingual, sometimes no will appear yes, and yes no, both remaining reasonable believe it or not. To illustrate, to negative questions in English and Lakota, observe the following changes in comparative answers. First the following example is in English Q and A: Didn't you understand? No, I didn't understand. Or... yes, I did understand. Whereas secondly in Lakota replies to the same question, notice the different functions of yes & no: Didn't you understand? No, I did understand. Or... Yes, I didn't understand. A Lakota no to no in the negative question results in a positive as in: Didn't you understand? No, I did understand. In contrast, an English no to no to the same question results in a negative statement as shown earlier. In this snippet Lakota will seem directly easier than English and puzzling it is until one becomes familiar with both conversational modes where either is correct. Yes, we have no prosperity - is easier to understand when you're fluently Lakota and bilingual.

And thus as we await the bona fide dialogue, we hear the lone voice speaking, day after day, with only the echoes from the canyon walls returning to the speaker. How distant is the person of one language who may be capable only of selfish soliloquies? We wonder if only a person of two languages is near enough to say something - and only bilingual people can respond. In a multilingual world, to speak two languages is to break through the walls of separation and perhaps the only way to open, informed discussion of all issues.

And as we continue to learn two languages, letters in scientific yardstick of "one sound = one letter" show English having in linguist John Malone's words, a "dumb alphabet." In that, English has 40 phonemes which are smallest sounds, but writes in 26 letters to communicate laboriously. English 26 letters does not match the 40 sounds in the spoken English. In distinction Lakota letters employing the same yardstick uses 41 copyrighted letters to cover completely the 41 distinct spoken sounds. English letters confuses having to learn unnecessary rules and expensive in time, energy and monies to teach spelling to the children. Through comparing speech sounds, 22 identical sounds in spoken Lakota and English resound clearly. So, would it be true to say that one half of the English language is Lakota and vice-versa?

Presently, Lakota orthography can see no improvement unless English, with cluttered-up ABC's in a gridlock of e-c-k-s-x letters, is lettered more accurately. However, with this 28th anniversary year of the 41-letter Lakota alphabet with half- and full-moon configurations of circular designs in line-angle differentiations, no other alphabet is like Lakota in 2010. Because, this creation signifies re-unification of the D-N-Lakota speakers in one alphabet with the sounds of D and N included - usable by both Dakota and Nakota speakers and writers besides the Lakota.

And also simultaneously with Lakota 41 letters, the ten symbols assigned to the formerly oral but now written names of base-ten Lakota numbers is of signal development and a gracious gift of the Wakantanka Tunkasila.


Parallel studies in both letters and numbers produced sets of symbols in each area at the same time in 1982. But the question is whether I discovered or invented these symbols. Anyway, a graceful privilege or the creation it was for me to make these contributions for the whole Lakota Nation.

And now for the meat of the discussion on the meaning of the Lakota language, time sense should be up front as we ponder the year 2010. Here, information is emphasized; native way of alternate thinking about the world is sorely needed. Where it is commonly accepted as the year 2010, other's time sense may show the year 12,010 as indicated in Lakota ideas and materials. "Okama Teca" in Lakota denotes "new earth" which connotes the "new year" at the spring equinox, clearly earth at its most freshest, its green grass most resurgent in Lakota Territories. Also a day begins at zero hour at midnight in European belief. Whereas, Greek, Jewish and Roman times, it began at evening. In contrasting Lakota experience, a new day begins at dawn. A stronger case for the overall time frame of native culture may be inferred from the "Medicine Wheel" built of large boulders on top of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming, the wheel dated at about 10,000 years old. So instead of 2,000 years, we are looking at a time span of 10,000 years or more of verbal and symbolic Lakota history. Here a quote is in order from Mr. Stanley Looking Horse now deceased who is headman of the family entrusted with the care of the Sacred Pipe at Green Grass: "When our grandfathers came onto the reservation they had three things: Two hides and sticks. One hide was a star map. The other hide was an earth map marked with hills, rivers, and buttes. These two maps were the same because what's on the earth is in the stars, and what's in the stars is on the earth. The sticks were for time, measuring time..."

Time requires space and in truth Grandmother Earth in its circles is considered in its essential meanings. The phrase "Maka kin lecela tehan yunkelo" says "Only the earth long endures" perhaps the most proper attitude of all. Further, time in the old way plus numbers yields the simple accounting method of the land-food-shelter-people equation where anyone hungry or unsheltered is an unnatural condition. In other words, the natural price of a free man was food and shelter, gained directly from the earth only, moneyless but rich in the real values of the world. In contrast, today's reservation area is restricted in terms of the flow of money and creation of jobs. And money - with its defects in such questions as who defines, prints, controls, and circulate money at what amounts under what conditions - is given far too much importance in comparison with how the immensely rich natural world works.

In this manner earth is recalled in its full seasons paying tribute to it's 'sister' states, the red daystar, the stars and our very own intermediate position. Here, highest homage is paid to the most significant celestial body in the Lakota Sundance as more than companionship. Thus the roots of Lakota foundations are recognized much more expansively than a duality of up-down earth and sky, perhaps the view being more multi-directional in origins.

And as we continue to fill a vacuum in bilingual communications yet this is a very brief outline to say the least only covering the highlighted overview of Lakota philosophy in brief. The power of ideas is now here where change is permanent although we haven't even begun Lakota dialect. Later, wicowoyake, oral history, and wicohanpi, established institutions, will be thoroughly discussed. Then too to be covered are the Lakota elan vital of the ceremonies, songs, rituals, spirituality, prayers in fluent Lakota and hopefully a new vigorous language as well.

Then, when talking in Lakota and English is about to begin, what would two people of bilingual ability be talking about? Makuki, my cookie? A whole lot of puns to be sure but some common ideas, too. In the past they had been acting toward each other overwhelmingly without any knowledge of each other. In the interim, the statement that about half of the sounds of Lakota and English are the same is indication that about half of the basic ideas of both languages should be the same. That would leave unknown ideas, in some proportion to each. As each didn't know what they both knew - in time, they together will know what each never knew.

Thus, here are the 41 symbols of the Titunwun Lakota Alphabet. Not copying any other alphabet in the world, the letters are authentic and original.

Wicahpi Wanjila - Leroy C. Curley
03/11/2010