K. Mark Demma
Religion, Nature, and Environment:
Paper #1
Not too long ago, the dominate culture of our society portrayed the native inhabitants as more or less "savages". The general feeling towards native peoples of North America have most certainly changed since the time of Little Big Horn, and most would say that it has improved. I have to wonder, however, if native peoples are any more understood now than they were back then. Today, native art, jewelry, culture and names seem to be an "in" thing. We name cars "Cherokee" and "Navajo". We buy dream catchers and rain sticks. We clamour to buy books by some very important "medicine man" who is the descendant of Crazy Horse or Agronomy or both. In the rush to commercialize and glamourize the native culture, I think that many have completely missed coming to any understanding of native thought, culture or outlook. Like so much in our modern commercial culture of faux pearls and vinal siding, we now have native culture that is "in the style of..." that can really be a poor substitute for the real thing. So we go to Earth Day and recycle and think that we are all "in tune" with the native way of life.
I remember a pagan festival that I once attended in which I was talking to a friend about how I has sick of rain sticks and native peace love and happiness... My friend turned very white and I realised why when then I heard a voice behind me which belonged to the biggest, sternest looking Lakota bull dyke (hey, I can say it, I'm allowed) fully equipped with a large axe strapped to her side. "So, what do you mean by that?" she asked. Without missing a beat I replied, "I am sick of the peace love and happiness I am one with the bunnies portrayal that has been lumped into all native tribes. This is bull, it fails to recognise that tribes like the Iroquios and Aztec were about as bloodthirsty as they come and that there were several brutal realities that many tribes had to face, like ones in which the very old simply went off to die rather than become a burden on the rest." A long pause followed, and after a moment, she nodded her head and replied, "I can live with that." This lead into a long conversation about views toward native culture. Later that night, around a campfire and drumming, I sat and talked with some of the crones of her group. I asked about some one that they knew and they told me that they did not speak of him and had written him off. I wondered if there could be a way that he could be helped to overcome doing what he did in the future, and I remember the oldest crone looking at me and saying, "Kestrel, there are some people who are broken, and just can't be fixed." She told me a story about a boy who went off for his vision quest. He stayed out on top of a mountain shivering until he had his vision that told him what his place would be in his tribal culture. He was very excited and wanted to rush to tell his tribe. When he went to grab some skins he was wearing, he noticed a snake beneath them. The snake pleaded with the boy not to leave him there to freeze, but rather to carry him down to the base of the mountain. "But you will bite me!" exclaimed the boy. "Oh, no I promise not to bite you if you will carry me down the mountain," replied the snake. So the boy took the snake down the mountain and when he got to the bottom and he was about to put the snake down the snake bit him. As the boy lay there dying, he asked the snake desperately, "why did you bite me, you promised!" "Sssssssssilly boy," said the snake, "you knew what I was when you picked me up."
Perhaps that story is not exactly to the point of what was asked in the assignment, but then neither where Ted Williams stories either. I chose to tell the story to illustrate how my thinking (lets get the guy some help, therapy maybe...) contrasted with their attitude of "he is broken and cannot be fixed." If anything I have noticed about native peoples I have known, it is that they seem to cut real quick to the barest essential reality of a situation. Attitudes of "if I can't do anything about it, I wont fret over it" (particularly when talking about the past) or "well, this needs to be done, so I suppose I had better do it." The story illustrates that there are some things in life that are not pleasant and pretty, but you just have to do it.
Compost toilets are not pretty, and they are by no means pleasant. Quite frankly, I don't know that I could use one for very long before I went nuts and put in a regular one. Lukewarm showers are not fun. Gosh durn it, when I take a shower I want to be thrown against the wall by scalding hot water. From the discussion after the trip, we all seemed to focus on the "not pretty-ness" of the general area around the center. I have to wonder is what we were seeing was all of the waste products that they had produced over the years, none of it being hauled off to some other place. We are so accustomed to having the unpleasantness of life taken away from us, whisked away to some other place far away and buried so that we do not have to deal with it anymore. What if rather, we had to see our junk, know that there was not another magical place that it all would disappear. That we would have to figure out something to do with it eventually.
When we think of environmental stewardship, we probably think of going to earth day and listening to someone sing about loving the earth while sipping on a soda that says it is all natural and making sure to recycle our stuff. Of course, this stuff is also whisked away to some magical other place too. Do we realise that much of the stuff we send to get recycled just sits around also? Are we really willing to start doing more?
When I had my little flat in Richmond, I thought I was doing my part to help. I rode a bike rather than a car. I didn't buy sodas but rather got bags of tea that I would throw into the same tropicana orange juice bottle for 2 years. I kept the same laundry detergent bottle for 3 years that I kept refilling. But I have to wonder if what I was doing was enough. Was my level of commitment to living in an ecologically sound way really enough?
The spirituality of many native tribes provides an atmosphere in which it is hard not to think of these concerns. Yes, there may be some Christians that say that environmental stewardship is important on occasion or Buddhists that will make it a concern, or Muslims that think that Allah has willed us to take care of the environment. But when you think of the types of services that are typical for most of the worlds religions, environmental stewardship is really just a side note. The emphasis is really honestly on something else to be honest. Whether it be Jesus and salvation, or attaining enlightenment, the focus seems to be for yourself and your personal concerns. The earth is in all of these religions a creation of some higher power. Environmental stewardship is centered around the idea of "lets not mess up this pretty planet god gave us".
How this contrasts sharply with a religion that sees the earth as a living thing, as our mother. How this contrasts with a religion that takes the time to give thanks for each part of the web of life that sustains us. It contrasts sharply with a religion in which we are merely a strand in the web of life. Had we grown up listening to the earth being referred to as our mother and the mountains our grandfather and all the living and non living things around us our relatives how differently would we feel about the environment? How would our attitudes be different if we had grown up hearing our elders give thanks to all the elements that make up life in our religious ceremonies? It is interesting to note that you rarely hear talk of afterlife in most native myths and stories. The concern is for the here and now, for what is around us. When the future is spoken of, it is spoken of not in relation to your personal stay in heaven or attainment of enlightenment, but rather is spoken of in terms of what can we leave for those who follow us.
As awareness of earth-based religions like native spirituality increases, it is my hope that people will see more than fluff and dream catchers. I hope that we will all also see the compost toilets. Our western civilization left these "primate" religions that saw trees and rivers and mountains as being alive behind long ago. Perhaps if we are to survive, we should reconsider them once again.