OF WHAT AUTHORITY DO WE JUDGE ANOTHER? by Parisha Taylor

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OF WHAT AUTHORITY DO WE JUDGE ANOTHER? by Parisha Taylor

(A response from Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha when challenged by others for
teaching non-Natives, of her Native Grandmother’s ways.)

There is only love. Man is basically good. Hear that before? What does
that mean to you? How is that in your reality? Today we can look
around and see the hate breeding violence, prejudice and indifference
for human life being addressed daily by groups and organizations that
insist there is a better way. The past disregard for Mother Earth and
her environment is prime news with lots of great options now.

The newspapers and media daily are quoting statistics on wars. People
are starving while our garbage cans overflow. Our city streets are
filled with the homeless. Does that mean anything to you? The little
children are raped and beaten, even sacrificed by school budgets. Have
you

personalized any of that? Human dignity and animal rights are
disregarded. Are you having a bit of resistance to that? Human
potential is wasted. How much focus do you have on further education?
Our forests are rendered into barren wounds of the earth without any
consideration of the future. Trees give us the oxygen we breathe; do
you know that?

Are we ignoring love as a possibility? Love is the only alternative.
Love will work. We will need to change the antiquated minds that are
too sophisticated and see love as romantic trash and idealistic
nonsense that has no scientific base and is anti-intellectual. Let’s
look beyond

all that and accept love in our life, and allow the most powerful
force of unity and good to be accessible to all who want it.

It is then and only then that all things become possible. Only then
will we discover that love is the power that lays aside petty behavior
that separates us and will reveal that our enemy is someone like
ourselves with a face and a heart. What we can’t understand scares us
and when we are fearful of anything, we kill it. Love seeks to
understand: with understanding, all things are possible!

At this time, in the now, we need to really look at what we are doing
and what we are saying. Why do we focus on race and differences? How
will that help us all? My Grandmother and Elders taught me to be a
bridge and, as we all are children of Mother Earth, we must extend and
reach past cultural boundaries and heal our Great Earth Mother. We are
of this time and this soil, and we must all make peace with the Spirit
here on Turtle Island (North America). No one people owns Spirit or
the Truth. It is for all who can hear and whose hearts speak for hope
and the love of Great Spirit.

Because this is a fact, my Grandparents and all the generations before
them, opened all they had to assist and share with the Europeans who
came over here. It is the Way: To give-away and renew. They healed and
taught them how to grow food. The sharing was how they believed. It
was right and good.

Grandmother said that today bitterness has replaced the happiness of
our people. The Earth Mother is being harmed, not loved and cared for.
She told me that there are those who are blaming the white man for all
of it. This, she said, is not true. Our people don’t honor Earth
Mother anymore. We leave the land and go inside the houses and the
cities. We forget to listen to the spirits and the voices of the land,
the trees, and the stones. We forget they are energy and all energy is
Spirit….We humans are the Earth Keepers. We must awaken and remember
to teach others how to keep the harmony.

Today the magazines and papers are filled with opinions of who is real
and who has the right to teach and so on. The hate and bitterness take
strength in this. They feed it. Truth is for all who will hear it,
respect it, and live by it.

When I am with my Native family on the reservation, most don’t know
their clans or religion anymore. Many are registered and many are not.
But all dwell on past injustices of the government who took our lands
and herded us onto the reserves. My T’saligi (Eastern Cherokee) family
took to the mountains long before the government did this. The Spirits
told them to go. Grandmother said in that time you could not tell your
own people where you were, because it was risking being rounded up and
moved. So they cut themselves off from it all and watched. There was
much pain, she said, for everyone. Many from both sides died with
diseases of bitterness, hate, and greed. All forgot that everyone is a
child of the Earth Mother and that we all need her to remain healthy
and beautiful. She is of us and we are of her. Our body is hers and
must return to her.

Grandmother said when I grow tall and strong I must go tell them the
Truths, to assist peace and balance. She never hated anyone. There
were those she knew not to trust because they did not live in truth.
But all who came to her for assistance and healing got it. She taught
me that our only difference was how we think and that people can
change how they think. Truth is strong and brings wisdom. Teach them
to think in truth and all will balance; wisdom frees the mind. No one
can make another an Indian. You are or you are something else. All
this is decided before we pick up physical matter. It is important to
be the best of whatever you are. No matter who you are, you are
already fulfilling your purpose in life, because you are alive.

It is time to stop destroying each other. In all colors and races of
people there are the few who know and hear. It is to that group of
people I speak, and I speak of that which is mine to give. No one owns
Great Spirit. A teacher of the old ways picks and knows who to give
their

wisdom to and who will keep it alive. When I see native people
circulating a list with names on it as to who is and who is not
qualified to teach native teachings and which questions another’s
experience, I know that list is a lie, a direct and misleading act and
statement. This is

Natives judging Natives. These Native people know that they cannot go
to another clan or Medicine Person to check the teaching out. Their
list is completely unjustifiable with no real power to decide who
should and should not teach. One Native group cannot rule and does not
speak for all of us. The prejudice grows and keeps destroying the
balance. This is the disease of the Mass.

When the Native People suffered the overtaking of the homelands by the
mass of Europeans, it was not strong enough to destroy all of our
roots. Some, very few, but some, still have a pure lineage of truth.
Anyone who lives on this land must learn it again, be they red or
white or black or yellow or brown. If you are truly in the Way of
Medicine, you know this. And you also know you do not denounce
another’s right to Great Spirit or the Way. You may protect and you
can care for it. You wait for the time that the land will return to
its fresh good state again, and she will. As Earth Keepers, we have to
help her by coming forward. The war is over; our warriors could not
stop the masses. But as Grandmother said, “The past is too far back
and too long ago to dwell there.” Now – what are we doing now? Whose
politics separate us now? Yes, it is true that many are now drawn to
the Native Way – our beliefs and religion. No, they will not become
Indians, but if they have ancestors buried here in our good Earth,
they are Native to her, and she will teach them all as her children.

Our rituals and ceremonies belong to Creator, and our cultures are
still here. The eagle lives. Love does not die. We are loved. And
beloved Native family, I betray nothing and I will not withhold wisdom
that was given to be given. I stand responsible for all I teach and
share with

others. And I do not need, nor seek, any man’s permission to serve and
speak the wisdom of my ancestors. I question all who question my
blood; this is not the way of Wisdom Keepers. Anyone who does this is
not of pure anything except ignorance, nor do they know of any wisdom
of our Indigenous way. We hold sacred all people and life.

© 1990 Pa’Ris’Ha

Reprinted by permission from the Yunsai Society Communications Letter:
October 1990: Vol. III, No. 6

Source: http://parishataylor.com/of-what-authority-do-we-judge-another-by-parisha-taylor.html