Lexie Carroll > Recent Status Updates

The religious system has a glitch: it splits the world up: this space, and then other spaces. The sacred, and then the secular. What you believe, and then how you actually live. The “called”, and the ‘not called’. Spiritual life, and then the rest of life.

Jesus answers almost every question he’s asked with another question. “What do you think? How do you interpret it? What do you say about it?” This Is the opposite of brainwashing. This is the opposite of ‘just believe and don’t ask questions’. He keeps inviting people to think critically, to examine, question, doubt, test. To own it for themselves. There’s a line in the NT: “Test everything.”

Being loved exactly as we are, belonging without pressure to change, produces a strange paradox, where it actually motivates us to then live into that love and belonging. “How does surrendering something cause that thing to be way more likely to happen? How did not requiring me to do something more produce in me a nuclear desire to do more?”

No matter how well documented/noble our cause is, it won’t be helped by our feeling aggression toward the oppressors. Nothing will ever change through aggression. When we hold onto our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we simply add more aggression to the planet, increasing violence & pain. Cultivating non-aggression is cultivating peace. The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy.

Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. In a culture of gratitude, everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again.

It is not just changes in policies that we need, but also changes to the heart. Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seeds for abundance, & is a powerful antidote to Windigo psychosis. Gratitude celebrates cultures of regenerative reciprocity, where wealth is understood as having enough to share- being rich means having mutual relationships.

An abundant alternative is the Indigenous teaching of “One Bowl One Spoon” which holds that all gifts of the Earth are to be shared together. In an economy of the commons resources fundamental to our well-being, like water & land & forest, are commonly held rather than commodified. Properly managed & tended with respect & reciprocity for the benefit of all, the commons approach maintains abundance, not scarcity.

“Modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples.” (Marshall Sahlins). The storage is due not to a lack of resources but to how goods are circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and consumer.

A type of fire that needs to be tended everyday is inside us: our own fire, our spirit. We all carry a piece of that sacred fire within us. We have to honor and care for it. YOU are the firekeeper.
Remember that fire has two sides, both very powerful. It can be a force of both creation and destruction. Just as on land, your own fire can be used for ill too. We humans must respect both sides of this power.

Respecting nature doesn’t (always) mean staying away from it and letting it be. Humans were given the responsibility to care for the land, which means PARTICIPATING. The natural world relies on us to do good things. You don’t show your love and care by putting what you love behind a fence. You have to be involved. You have to contribute to the well-being of the world.

What if we could fashion a restoration plan that grew from understanding multiple meanings of land? Land as responsibility. Land as sustainer. Land as teacher and healer. Land as identity. Land as grocery store and pharmacy. Land as connection to our ancestors. Land as community. Land as moral obligation. Land as sacred. Land as self.

“Native spirituality is the heart that guides the head & hands (western science & technology) of restoration. Cultural survival depends on healthy land & a healthy responsible relationship between humans & the land. Ecological restoration is inseparable from cultural & spiritual restoration, & is inseparable from the spiritual responsibilities of caregiving & world-renewal.”
-Indigenous Environmental Network 1994

How we approach restoration of land depends, of course, on what we believe that “land” means. If land is just real estate, then restoration looks very different than if land is the source of a subsistence economy and a spiritual home. Restoring land for production of natural resources is not the same as renewal of land as cultural identity. What does LAND mean: Capital? Property? Machine? No. TEACHER & HEALER.

Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it- grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes. We have to put our hands in the Earth to make ourselves whole again.
Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the Earth. Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair.

R.J. Clifton (psychologist): “Suppression of our natural responses to disaster is part of the disease of our time. The refusal to acknowledge these responses causes a dangerous splitting. It divorces our mental calculations from our intuitive, emotional, and biological embeddedness in the matrix of life. That split allows us passively to acquiesce in the preparations for our own demise.”

Creation stories offer a glimpse into the worldview of a people, of how they understand themselves, their place in the world, and the ideals to which they aspire. Likewise, the collective fears and deepest values of a people are also seen in the visage of the monsters they create (like Windigo). Today, indulgent self interest and overconsumption that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success.

Some ppl equate sustainability with a diminished standard of living, but the aboriginal people of the coastal old-growth forests were among the wealthiest in the world. Rather than to greed, richness of the land here gave rise to the great Potlatch tradition in which material goods were ritually given away, reflecting the generosity of the land to the people. Cedars taught how to share wealth, and the people learned.

If we don’t listen to the teachings of lichens (symbiosis & mutual cooperation under stress), they will ensure long street we are gone. “I imagine they will cover the rocky ruins of our time long after our delusions of separateness have relegated us to the fossil record, a ruffled green skin adorning the crumbling halls of power.” Let us listen to their mutualistic wisdom of their marriage.

“In a colonist society, the ceremonies that endure are not about land; they’re about family and culture, values that are transportable from the old country. Ceremony for the land no doubt existed there, but it seems they did not survive emigration in any substantial way. I think there is wisdom in regenerating them here, as it means to form bonds with this land.”

We have set ourselves up a strange dichotomy between loving people & loving land. We know that loving a person has agency & power, it can change everything. Yet we act as if loving the land is an internal affair that has no energy outside the confines of our heart.
Ceremonies focus attention so that attention becomes intention. If you stand together & profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable.

What does it mean to become Indigenous to place? First: familiarity. Names are the way we humans build relationship, not only with each other, but with the living world. Learn the names of the other-than-human living world.
Understand that to carry a gift also means carries a responsibility. Giving should be second nature to taking.
To live & take care of the land as if all our lives depend on it, because they do.

The honorable harvest asks us to give back, in reciprocity, for what we have been given. Reciprocity helps resolve the moral tension of taking a life by giving in return something of value. A responsibility as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do this through gratitude, ceremony, through land, stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of reverence.

The Honorable Harvest:
Know the ways of they who take care of you, so you may take care of them. Introduce yourself, ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer. Never take the first, nor the last. Take only what you need & only that which is given. Never take more than half; leave some for others. Give thanks for what you have been given. Use it respectfully, never waste. Share. Give a gift in reciprocity.

Maples contribute to the community: firewood, lower energy bill for the school (shade), breaking snow drifts (less plowing), maple syrup for families & fundraisers, civic beautification, air & water purification, habitat. The ecosystem services are far more precious than the economic value we calculate for timber & syrup. The maples donate these free services, doing their share for us. But how well do we do by them?

The Three Sisters: corn, beans & squash. Grown together they yield more food than if you grew each one alone. Together as food they provide balanced nutrition: carbohydrates (corn), protein (beans) and vitamins (pumpkin). Their reciprocity and symbiosis remind us of their message: respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all.

Many people have deep love & respect for nature & the land, but are dumbfounded at the idea of the Earth loving them back. But what if it did? “You wouldn’t harm what gives you love.” Knowing that you love the Earth changes you, activates you to defend & protect & celebrate. But when you feel that the Earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.

Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other any reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am bound to support its life. An integral part of human education is to know & perform those duties. Thanksgiving reminds us that duties & gifts are two sides of the same coin.

The Thanksgiving Address “reminds you every day that you have enough. More than enough. Everything needed to sustain life is already here. When we do this every day, it leads us to an outlook of contentment and respect for all of creation.”
- Frieda Jacques, clan Mother & teacher at Onondaga Nation School

“You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving address without feeling wealthy. And, while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness.”

Meditation is a totally nonviolent, non-aggressive occupation. Not filling the space, allowing for the possibility of connecting with unconditional openness – this provides the basis for real change. When we cling thoughts & memories we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we touch& let these go, we discover a space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. All compassion & inspiration come from that.