#trudell

[solace-philosophy]

Crystal clear tears of salt Come when my heart talks with sadness The tears flow my emotional rivers It’s no damn use to pretend Pain will not rise again

Crystal clear tears of salt Help my heart to feel for something When I do not want to Clear my vision see my peace Men don’t cry Indians are stoic I tell that to my heart to my eyes They just laugh at me and sometimes When my spirit hurts they make me cry

Crystal clear tears of salt Purify my memory help me understand This is not the beginning nor the end

— The Cleansing/ Red Earth Song, John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

Young ones listen Remember who we are Remember where we are Do not take the word of America

Listen to them as in caution Live among them as in surrounded Live not as they live Live to appreciate

Seconds ago in eternity Ancient ones decided Way before wounded spirits Dreams shattering under aggression

Earth is Mother, we are children The protection is our innocence Seconds ago it was decided We are the middle of forever

Look for your medicine With backs turned on children and elders They do not even care For air or water or land or life Too confused to care is no way to live

Young ones listen Remember who you are Remember where you are Remember why you are

— The Cleansing/ Red Earth Song, John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

They have no medicine With backs turned on children and elders They do not care For air or water or land or life Too confused to care is no way to live

— John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

We have to out-think what it is that we are challenged by that oppresses us or whatever it is. The first act of freedom and liberation is the act of taking our intelligence back, taking our imagination back, our ability to think, that is the first step towards conscious liberation.

-John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

Machine, money, progress is the cause of our common abuse.

— John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

Industrial Slave,

capitalist, communist, imperialist, smiling with false faces, beckoning us with their lies about progress, wanting us to enjoy the rape of earth and our minds. — John Trudell

[solace-philosophy]

Falling down,

Falling down,

Society a broken promise,

Economies war citizen whores,

Political pimps leaving us flat on our backs,

Trading today waiting for the promised land,

Roles playing roles covering every day's fear,

Going off to work,

Having the job done on us.

— John Trudell (Voices Catching Up)

[solace-philosophy]

This is how you’ve been imprinted to use your relationship to power—to use it against yourself. Every day we create reality based on what we’ve been programmed to believe. So we spend most of our lives not really thinking clearly and coherently—not initiated thought. We spend a great deal of our lives not really living, but existing in programmed, reactive belief that we call thought.

We can blame the oppressor, the predatory mindset, we can blame it forever and it doesn’t mind. It doesn’t care.

We need to use our energy, our intelligence in an alternative way to the way we have been using it.

— John Trudell