Just a Thought

I realize that all too often the internet, world wide web, social networking/media has become the Truth. This Truth is only as viable as the one that produces it by whatever processes they choose. In some cases a scary proposition.

Then I remember that I too have a blog, actually 3 blogs, where I could/should/would be creating the Truth.

Time is on your side

Many things shape the cultural landscape of Injun Country - most of which are unknown and unconscious to those living there. Oh, I know there is language, tradition, culture and least of all - history, to shape and preserve Injun culture.

But who am I to say that - Time slips away!

Video Taping

Broke a rule on August 26 concerning doing a video for Dakota Wicoha that is not in my direct control. I made a vow a few years ago while working in NYC for the Episcopal Church as the Officer for Native Ministries and Gospel Based Discipleship never to do press interviews. It only leads to bad things and outcomes. I let the Canon for Communications of the Episcopal Church in MN do a recorded interview about the implications of the 150th Anniversary of the Dakota Conflict of 1862, the Convention, and it's location at the Lower Sioux Indian Community.

Footnote: it never was posted so forget anything posted above or anything I might have posted beyond the above. Just saying - eh?

What the heck - I'll post this old draft, just to get things started.

Myths and Mythology

Um, the past few months have been spent thinking about, listening to, creating, discerning myths in Injun Country. Injun cultural warriors, Injun tribal experts, Injun tribal courts and Injun tribal historians have provided countless resources for this myth and mythology activity. Sometimes the irony of the statements, actions, processes of the various parties named and alluded has created hours of levity and sadness. And that's not even the irony, I was considering until I wrote the sentence - see how complex this is?

Another irony is that one of the comforting resources for me has been a book written by a white guy from one of the societal, culturally weirdest places outside of South Dakota, I know of - Bemidji, MN. Kent Nerburn's "Neither Wolf nor Dog" confronts, engages many of the issues of the current issues of myth and mythology in Injun Country. Is it definitive - of course not but compared to the diatribes in most Injun press, Injun academics, and Injun journals it at least made me think of the elders that have been in my life and reality.

Oh well, old age does change ones perspective on the myths and mythology of the past, present and future.

Trying again

Here is an attempt to recommit to writing or more appropriately reflecting through the blogs: Native Mission Ministry Reflections, Bishop Whipple Vicar and dakotarez. I have discovered that the social networking environment has a stratified atmosphere that again I do not or will not understand. I think that if I go to blogging school, pay attention and do my homework - my blogs maybe the way to go.

Why?

Let me count the ways. First and foremost, is that the blogs are under my control: it is my content, it is my opinions, it is my response to myself and the stimuli that I encounter, and only those that want to read them, will read them. Second, is the fact that I am only accountable to myself which is more than enough. I do not have to explain, justify, qualify my posts to anyone but myself since I am the only one that reads them anyway. Third, I am not responsible enough  for public discourse. Fourth, I am lazy and do not want to change my evil ways.

What are the blogs and their intentions. Probably the most benign is Bishop Whipple Vicar where I will post, reflect on, discuss things about Bishop Whipple Mission/St. Cornelia's Church. The content is based on the local context of the Vicar of an historic Episcopal Church mission to the Dakota people remaining and residing in the Lower Sioux Indian Community of southwestern Minnesota along the ancient River Warren now known as the Minnesota River.

A little more self reflective and antagonistic but still focused on Indian country Christianity is the blog Native Mission Ministry Reflections. This is the beginning of the explanation of why I will never make it to heaven - I definitely have an us/them, me/you, mine/theirs view of the world where names are used and processes accused. Sometimes self-righteousness is the dominate attitude in the posts in this blog but done with sufficient sarcasm, irony and Dakota pessimism to make it readable and tolerable. Anyway, that is the intent of the content.

Last but not least is the loosest of the three blogs dakotarez , where it is a blog free for all, full of free flowing, stream of conscience type of content about anything Indian, Native American, American Indian, Amerind, Indigenous, First Nations, First Nations, Fourth World, People of the Land, First Peoples, Aboriginal, etc. It is a blog full of personal, tribal, cultural contradictions, contraindications, inflammatory commentary, and delicate philosophical ditties about all things spatially contextual. Metaphorical conflicts of epic proportions flow across, through the posts - totally out of context and place. Nothing is sacred but all is filled with spirit. It is my favorite blog without a purpose.

So there you have it - so long social networking, its been fun to know ya.

Another Day Another Way Another Thought About Crime, Punishment and the Indian Way

So I sit wondering about the Indian Way. I have been thinking about this ever since I can remember thinking. I remember the backseat of cars heading back to MN from SD and trying to put together the worlds in which I lived. In front seat Ma and Pa would be talking about who was who at the gathering at grandma's house. Pa would say so and so was a cousin to so and so, Ma would ask, "a cousin in the Indian way?" If Pa said, "No, white man's way," then the conversation continued. If Pa said, "Cousin in Indian Way," then Ma would say, "How (not hau)?" Then the conversation would take on the telling of stories, explanations, and "Let me see, how does that go."

As a kid and into adulthood, Indian Way always meant stories and explanation. When I was younger and was being edumacated, I always thought the explanation would justify me, my family and my Indianness. You know fact, reason, and rationale; the life blood of modernity. It is sad when we let the myths of others and our own myths create, define, and defend who, what, and why we are as individuals, families, people, and tribes. Especially, as I came to realize as I was really edumacated that some how myths become facts used to create more facts which are really myths. Now we have our own blood quatum mythmakers telling the TRUTH all over the academy and Amazon, the book seller. I am glad that explanation is alive and well.

I was going to talk about story but got side tracked by explaning myself again.

I find that living in the midst of sovereignty is confining and hopeless. Pick a definition of sovereignty from any "expert" in Indian country and they are ALL lies. Sovereignty is singing the songs that YOU dance to from your soul, your being, your essence without words, translation, or definition. Create a constitution, a set of by-laws, a bill of rights, a definition of tribal membership and you have no sovereignty, no tribe, no culture, no reality. What you have is an institution, a government, a legal entity.

Tonight, I was lied to by my wife, told to mind my own business, asked for a BETTER solution over or concerning legal, institutional sovereignty. All I said was that goons are goons and not following the constitution is the issue for a tribe that has become a legal institutional government and not a group dancing to their own songs that they could sing. I am hurt and saddened by the reality that has been created over the past 25 years by my own relatives (by marriage) and others in Native America by believing our own myths and stories about tribe and culture.

I don't believe that TV, hip-hop, books written by "real injuns", laws, blood quantum, enrollment, BIA, NIGC, casinos, trust land, language, feathers, ceremonies, pipes, sweat lodges, long houses, totems, resolutions, constitutions, lineages, family trees, descendency, litmus tests, or anything else but soul, land, prayer, and spirit make you an aboriginal, native, Indian, indigenous or person of the land. Oh how nice it would be if all one had to do was go to the tribal office and get a card to be an enrolled member of the tribe. OOOPS thats ALL one has to do. Sorry I was confused for a minute that being aboriginal, native, Indian, indigenous or person of the land meant something more than a card to carry in my car that plays hip-hop on my way to the party.

Help me to understand what being Dakota means in the first decade of the 21st century. I guess being in power through force and entitlement is part of the answer... Being in relationship to each other and land is not being Dakota, even if we allude to it as a nice ideal but not what we do.

I love living on the DakotaRez..... don't you?