Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Indigenous Soul


Luna Moon Rising by Mara Friedman, www.newmoonvisions.com



Martín Prechtel writes: "Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind."


I have always struggled with the notion of a "soul", and the attribution of an adjective such as "indigenous" makes the grasping even more intangible. The word "spirit" is more appealing, less dogmatic. I appreciate that historians, anthropologists, writers, philosophers, healers, shamans all derive deep meaning from cultural and earthly connections, given the rich evidence unearthed by study of civilizations and cosmologies such as those formulated and perfected by Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Aztec, Toltec, Incans, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Moors, Ottomans (and more) at the zenith of their Empires. Who wouldn't sense an innate "soul" underpinning such powerful displays of human ingenuity and grandeur? But do Empires derive build on a collective Indigenous Soul, do they imbue it, or do they depend on manipulation of such a Soul as a means of exercising tight central control?


Do we - born English, Irish, Canadian, American, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Australian - have a "soul" that is attributable to our homeland? Most of us are certainly proud of our nationality that bestows us with part of our personality. Yet these modern states are surely but fabrications, transitions drawn on a map and evolved from deeper, more indigenous entities, like the Vikings, Native Americans, Aboriginals, Celts, Slavs, Iberians that preceded us, and that we subjugated with our "guns, germs, and steel"! Yes, some of us are direct descendants of these proud peoples, but many of us - in North America, for example - are not. Some of us are unwillingly uprooted refugees, some live in self-imposed exile. Our "civilization" attempted to tame, even wipe out the "indigenous soul", so that our morality could take its place. And the battle is ongoing around the world to this day, as native peoples are threatened, marginalized, and have their "soul" (their homes, their lands, their very means of survival) stripped away from them by violent force. The soul is laid bare and goes underground, is exterminated, or co-opted by the conquering culture or religion.


Many of us try to seek a connection back to where we came from, whether it be through our family tree or the histories of our heritage. I am readily reminded of my own indigenous spirit when I recall (buoyed by nostalgia) endless playtime in the woods, bluebells, country walks, seaside holidays, chalk cliffs, folk music, Morris dancing, church choirs, village pubs, Saplings, Mill Lane, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire (the physical soil into which I was born and became rooted), football Saturdays, cricket Sundays, foggy mornings, rolling countryside, downlands, grey drizzle, light and bitter ales, mischievous banter, a laugh and a giggle, Mum & Dad, my sisters ..... Childhoods anchor us to a semi-mythical past.  Now my world has been flavoured by Canadian, Chilean, and German influences. Stories written, visual, and oral help us in filling out our sense of self as we pore over books, art, sculpture, symphonies, faded photographs, utilitarian objects, myths, legends conjured up by ancestors of ours. And we go gallivanting around the world in search of meaning in exotic and far-flung cultures alien to our own. There is, perhaps, after all, "soul" everywhere, whether indigenous or not, and we end up picking up smatterings from all over. Modernity, mobility, mutability have blurred the lines and created a soup of ever-changing mores and cultural practise that is richly entertaining and edifying, yet ultimately unsatisfying in finding a new home for our soul. We are in large part the creation of where we came from; we have set down roots in places along the way, and we know not what the future holds. It is up to us to seek out our spiritual home, dig in, nourish those roots, plant more seeds, tend our garden, and keep looking.  The perpetual quest for love, beauty, connection, and perhaps even "soul" continues and deepens.


Francis Weller writes: "The indigenous soul lives close to the ground, to moss, river and loon. It moves in springs and wind, is close to the breath of coyotes. It is scratched on rock walls around the planet, is seen dancing around firelight and is heard in stories told under the canopy of stars. The indigenous soul is the thread of our humanness woven inextricably with the world. Where all things meet and exchange the vitality that is life, there is soul."


If we strip away human depredations of war, greed, conquest and overreach that are poisoning and collapsing our societies, we are left staring at raw Nature, true Earth soul. This is the foundation for human or "indigenous" soul.


Weller continues: "The recovery of the indigenous soul is imperative. We are in serious trouble as a people. Nearly every biological system is in peril: our watersheds, oceans and topsoil are experiencing rapid deterioration. We face a future that will be seriously impacted by radical changes in our climate. We are also witnessing the daily loss of the wild as we encroach ever further into wetlands and forests. We have forgotten our place in the world. And this woe is not confined to us alone; it extends to the others with whom we share this world. Many species find themselves threatened by these changes: grizzlies, blue fin tuna, spotted owls, coral reefs, Atlantic salmon, autumn buttercup, golden-cheeked wood warbler, Baker’s cypress. This list goes on and on. There are 2,269 endangered species in the United States alone. They are caught in a cascading net of sorrows, powerless to change or adapt. We must reconnect with this ancient ground of being that is our indigenous soul and recall that we are all of the earth."


Martín Prechtel likes to incant a blessing common among the Tzutujil Indians of Guatemala: “Be blessed with long life, honey in the heart, no evil, and thirteen thank you’s.”