Hi everyone! I want to share some thoughts that the founder of OLCERI, Bryan Deans, shared with many of us. I've just returned from a deeply connected week at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I was attending the Oglala Lakota Indigenous Wisdom and Permaculture Convergence (IWPC) hosted by the Oglala Lakota Cultural and Economic Revitalization Initiative (OLCERI) Ecoranch. We spent 5 days at OLCERI learning traditional ecological knowledge, gathering in ceremony, deconstructing our own ancestral relations, engaging in cross-cultural dialogue, and envisioning a future where we may live in harmony with each other and with the earth.
Each decision should take into account the 7 generations to come.
Live by a 300 year plan.
There are 7 basics tenants to live by.
- food
- fire (energy)
- water
- shelter
- earth
- spirit
- self
Things work when people are planting trees that they will never live to enjoy the shade of. We need to plant trees for the 7 generations to come, even if we do not live to benefit from those trees.
Leadership in traditional Lakota society is based on the leader being the servant and moving the herd from the back rather than from the front.
If someone isn't moving in the 300 year plan with the rest of the community, then that person strays to the outskirts of the herd where they are vulnerable to attacks by wolves (wall street, ect).
How do we collectively come up with a 300 year plan? Start by getting to know your neighbors
Create gardens
Feed one another
If you dam up a swamp, it kills everything by becoming stagnant. If you release the waters, it becomes a riparian zone and creates new life.
In the same spirit, the federal reserve makes money and then big banks and corporations are hoarding that money and daming up our financial flow. This wealth hoarding stagnates human energy and kills communities. Energy is being controlled and stopped by these top hands rather than being organically cycled around.
Cancer occurs when cancerous cells forget that they are part of a larger body and take over, staying in the illusion that they are separate from the rest of the body and can survive without the survival of the whole.
- Many humans believe they are the only conscious creations on this Earth.
Hope is elusive on Pine Ridge Reservation.
- Life is hard
- Thoughts need to be committed to
- Consistency is key
- There is hope if you create it
If you feel called to donate to OLCERI and the continued efforts of the convergence, you can do so here, and many thanks for reading : https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/pine-ridge-permaculture-iwps-convergence