This text was written by Aubrey Marcus. I do not take credit. There is a small but loud minority of individuals I encounter that take offense to anyone celebrating, utilizing, or promoting the customs/habits/rituals/dress of a culture that is not their own. While their indignation may be righteous, it is not only deeply counterproductive, but perhaps rooted in the biggest cause of suffering ever to afflict the history of humanity. For millennia we have operated under a system of closed tribalism and belligerent nationalism. Wars are fought to protect imaginary borders and the idea of “us” being different or better than “them” has been the justification for countless wars, genocides, crusades, enslavements, and displacements of people. Think of the greatest atrocities committed in history. The Holocaust. The Rape of Nanking. The enslavement of African people. The genocide and forced displacement of Native Americans. The Hutu’s vs the Tutsi’s. The list could continue indefinitely. All of this is possible only because of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ paradigm. What if instead of ‘Us and Them’, we held in our hearts the platinum rule--That all people were simply us living a different life? What if instead of killing others based on the area/tribe/border we were born in, we looked at people of all cultures as teachers, contributing their unique piece to the tribe of humanity? A tribe not seeking to homogenize, but celebrate the differences with welcome and appreciation? Take the United States as an example. What if when the European ships arrived they embraced the sentient beings that lived here before us, and sought to learn from them? How would environmental policy have been different if we had appointed a circle of native american elders to ensure industry was caring for the land? How would factory farming policy been different if we had trusted the Lakota to set standards for utilization of animals for food? How would our nation look if there were no ‘Indian Reservations’ but the first nations people were an inexorable part of our culture? Martin Luther King had a dream, and his dream is coming more true every day. I want to add my voice to his dream. A dream that extends beyond the black and white of the 1950s. It is a dream that all beings are not only treated equal, but treated as self. There have been great wrongs committed to a great many groups of people. It is fair for there to be anger. But we cannot go back in time. Right now the world is sick. The climate is changing. Despite ample resources, people are more depressed than ever in human history. Wealth is hoarded at unprecedented levels. To fix all of the ills of the world, we need all of the medicine that can be found in the world. All the song, all the dance, all the ritual, all the plants, all the dress--All the medicine. Who better to experience a sun dance ritual that connects you to the soul of the land than an oil and gas executive destroying the earth fracking for natural gas? Who better to experience an ayahuasca ceremony than the head of a pharmaceutical company pushing dubious and ineffective drugs? Who better to experience a conscious buffalo kill ceremony than the CEO of a fast food burger chain? If we shame people from experiencing the medicine from all cultures because they are not their own, we doom the world to a deleterious plight. If we discourage people from celebrating the dress, customs, dance of people that are not their lineage we will never view those people as self. We must as a whole have the skill and heart to see the difference between reverence and trivialization. So much of what is happening now illustrates the cliche, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Whenever we make verbal, litigious, or social distinction for any group we are enforcing the us vs. them paradigm. It is not the blacks, the gays, the jews, the muslims, the conservatives, the liberals. It is just humanity, in all the beautiful colors and facets of the spectrum. My great great grandparents moved to America from just outside the Black Sea. But my DNA carries the lineage of the Roma people, the Finnish, and the Navajo. I would not be who I am if it were not for the practices of the the Peruvian curanderos, the Bwiti medicine men of Gabon, and the Native American wisdom keepers. My outlook on life is rooted in a Toltec ethos, Buddhist principles, and western pragmatism. I find few things more inspiring than the Maori Haka, and few sounds more pleasing than a Tuvan throat singer or the Australian didgeridoo. I owe my success, my sanity, and my happiness to all the cultures of the world. So this is not just a rant, it is a call to action. I call for those native keepers of wisdom to forgive the terrible sins that have been committed against them, and open their medicine to all who are sick. I call for those people of wealth and privilege to use their influence to bring awareness and intelligent support to the world’s diversity of people. I call for all humans to stop the practice of labeling others by the group they were born into, and recognize their freedom to choose what they stand for. I call for one tribe to rise, arm in arm, with heart forward, head up, to protect this planet and all it’s living inhabitants. I call for one code under which all laws must follow... Para El Bien De Todos: For the Good of All.
dailybridgerton
yousharknotpass
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