Welcome to front and center, from political battlefields to cooperative playing fields. This is the second of two review show videos produced to help us better see where we've been and the difficult journey all of our ancestors have traveled. With this understanding, we can see where we need to go. If you haven't seen the first video, this one will make more sense if you watch that one first. So please go back and watch that first one. You'll remember that our previous guest, Shawna Blue Star Newcomb introduced the reverence code as the antidote to the domination code. And she acknowledged that this pattern of domination has wounded all people everywhere. And that brings us to the Lost People.
The Lost People, a few months ago, I found a remarkable piece written by talk show host, Thom Hartmann back in the 1990s, that addressed something that's not often discussed the disconnection of European people from their own indigenous culture. So we begin with Thom presenting this idea to a Native American elder, who wondered why young white people are so attracted to the indigenous culture.
Imagine Frank, and imagine if you had no connection to your ancient ancestors at all, if you had no way to understand, you know, to look at a wampum, or any of the old ways of recording things, and you and you just had no idea what any of it meant. And and I said, Can you imagine, you know, what, how you would feel if that had happened, and he was like, that would be devastating. It would just be an overwhelming horror. And I was like, Yeah, and that's what happened to my people. You know, this, this is what happened to my people, three successive waves about 1000 years apart in Europe first, the Celts, then the Romans, then the Catholics, just scrubbed Europe of any semblance Europeans have any semblance of connection to their ancient past, we now refer to that as pre history as if it doesn't exist. We are a people who have been disconnected from our tribal roots.
Thom goes on to describe a conversation with an Aboriginal elder named Jeff, who suffered terrible abuse at the hands of white folks in Australia.
So I'm sitting here with Jeff, you know, after I've gotten to know him fairly well, and and I'm like, you know, don't you hate these, you know, that guy who bought you? And he's like, No, he was raised in that society, he was probably treated the same way. And I'm like, well, don't you hate the society that, you know, that separated your mother from you? And, and, you know, putting these racial barriers? And he's like, No, that he says, The people here, the white people here were prisoners, they were brought from Australia, from England to Australia. They were, they were themselves, the oppressed, and the oppressed frequently become the oppressors. And, you know, it was a real lesson for me, I'd never met anybody who had such a deep understanding and so much compassion for the people who had, you know, just totally screwed up his life. The integration of ancient wisdom, with modern life is something that we really need to have happen. And we need to do it in a way that isn't just another new age cliche. Or another new, you know, cafeteria religion, I'll take a little of this and a little of that, you know, but instead is is a deep dive into what humans have learned through painful experience. In some cases, you know, society ending experiences over the over the millennia. We got a lot of work to do, guys.
Thanks, Thom. For that perspective, the phrase loss people has two major implications first, a people whose deep history has been lost to them. And second, this loss has left them us really lost on hinge from spiritual and cultural foundations that linked us to the web of life. And the web of love, made us susceptible to fear, manipulation, and even greater separation.
Our next guest Glenn Aparicio Parry, is the author of Original Politics. He tells us that for 150 years prior to the formation of our country, and then for the next 50 years afterwards, the European settlers were living side by side with Native Americans, natives and settlers were very much interacting together on a nation to nation basis. This interchange with our native tribes was critically important to the founding of the country in many ways. Whenever you have cultural interchange, it's a two way process. The native people showed a very different kind of way of living to the European settlers.
When Ben Franklin was invited to become the Indian ambassador to the Haudenosaunee (a name translated as the “People of the Long House”), or more commonly known as the Iroquois, and he was asked to be that because it was really critically important that the British government establish a military alliance in the French and Indian wars. And that's where everything shifts. Ben Franklin becomes the Indian ambassador to the Iroquois Confederacy. And because of that, he he forms a friendship with Chief Canasatego. The Onondaga chief, and that friendship alters the whole path of history. Because it's, it's, it's, it's the Onondaga chief kind of stego, who addresses the colonists on July 4. It's interesting, it's July 4, July 4 1744, exactly 32 years before the Declaration of Independence is signed. And he tells the colonists that they should unite like the five fingers of one hand, that they should never fall out with one another, that they should form a strong Confederacy, as the Iroquois had. And in fact, the Iroquois Confederacy by some estimates was as old as 1132 ad. So it had been enforced already for more than 500 years before this event happens. And so Chief Canasatego urges the colonists to unite. Ben Franklin is really the pivotal player in the in the whole formation of the nation, really, Ben Franklin proposes that they form a government that's based similarly to the Iroquois government.
Did you know that about July 4? I sure didn't. Glenn's study of how the natives and the college interacted, led him to recognize that the United States has a sacred purpose.
Our sacred purpose as I see it, anyway, inspired by Native America was unity in diversity, unity and diversity, the acceptance of different points of views, the acceptance of the integrity of the difference. Sometimes I like to use an example of sacred mayonnaise, if you will, you know, mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is an emulsion, it's an emulsion. And so everybody knows that oil and water can't mix we say. But in fact, in certain emulsions, oil and water are held in a balance, so that the integrity of the difference is respected. The same thing has to apply for women and men, for Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, Native Americans and Euro Americans, and all the other Americans that have come to inhabit this land, as we embraced our sacred purpose of unity and diversity. Increasingly, over time. I will give the Founding Fathers a lot of credit for the phrase in the preamble of the United States Constitution, which speaks of moving toward a more perfect union.
Hmm, sacred mayonnaise. I have mixed emulsions about that. Now seriously, Glenn is also pointing us to the next level of reunion, balancing wisdom, with action.
It's super important to have wisdom leading. a lot of Native American tribes had a balance between wisdom and action that often had the Women's Council where the Wisdom Council and the Men's Council were the, were the, were the, the ones that enacted action in the world. Well, that to me seems like is a real really good balance, you know, it's a really good balance because you need wisdom to come first. And then you need action on the world, we really need to see the wisdom of women and then, and men need to be able to operate from that wise perspective, the core of it, it has a lot to do with reuniting feminine wisdom with masculine wisdom, and recognizing that that holistic approach is what we need to bring.
Now how to actually help create that balance, and bring it into action? And this is where our next guest, Joan Blades, exemplifies how we can begin doing just that. Joan went from partisan activists to trans partisan pioneer.
Yep, she moved on from MoveOn, to start Living Room Conversations.
My experience at MoveOn, persuaded me that grassroots engagement around allowing people at the community level to really connect is the foundation of a good democracy. So Living Room Conversations is a effort to make it possible for anyone that wants to have a good conversation to have a good conversation with people that they don't necessarily agree with. And it's, they're structured in such a way that it's really a listening practice. And it's a great way to start to come into the space where you grow connection and understanding. And from there, good things can happen. When I started talking about Living Room Conversations, I was talking about how important it was for us to be able to work collaboratively. Because you need everyone's best ideas in the room and you need the agility that comes with being having good relationships and being able to talk something through and change things, things that are working, you stop doing things that are good, you do more of. And when you're in perpetual conflict, that doesn't happen. I started talking about it as peacebuilding about four or five years ago, which is not, not how I was originally thinking about this, but people from outside this country, people that do look at societies that fall apart are starting to look at us with concern. And that's deeply troubling. Yeah, when we start seeing other people as less than in some way, we are losing our capacity to be with each other. And, you know, respect the dignity of everybody that is at the core of this practice. And when you talk about the folks in the middle, I, I'm not sure I even call it the folks, the people in the middle there. People throughout the political spectrum, that hold that space that we have to be treating everyone with dignity. And I can be you know, on the left and whatever I am still really care deeply for someone that has very different viewpoints. Since when have we not been able to do that. Prior to the election, I work with the Peace Alliance to promote a an agreement that had right left pairs, condemning violence around the election. And violence is local. So if you can create a local container that says we don't do this here, that's highly effective. And I think we need to do that create a lot of local containers of we all belong here. And we are making this a community that is the kind of place that we all want to live. This that's the tool that I dream this is and as our community as our smaller community becomes more and more healthy than it will see how it's connected to the community adjacent and adjacent. That's my light at the end of the tunnel.
You know one thing that emerges from our conversation with Joan is the need for compassion. and mutual respect, all the more important when we recognize that pretty much our entire species has been traumatized by domination. And it is that peace building movement, where we re humanize one another that could very well be the light at the end of the tunnel.
For us at front and center, Steve and i, this is just the beginning. Our first guests have given us a foundation that acknowledges the human condition and the human conditioning, with the understanding of our ancestral trauma. Let us be grateful for the opportunity to end this 5000 year period of separation and domination, and begin the age of reunion. For when the people come together, the solutions will be found for the significant challenges we face. From Political Battlefields to Cooperative Playing Fields. It is a long journey worth taking. We hope you will join our Front and Center community so we can take this journey together. Thank you