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Etched in The Soul
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history, Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster……The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
— Milan Kundera
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“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
— Pema Chödrön
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From the moment my mom announced her pregnancy, my grandparents and aunts were singing prayers with her, to align us with the spiritual frequency of the sacred natural order of the universe. Everything was sacramentalized during my birth, which happened at home. There was azílya (smudging) throughout the space. My grandma selected a woman to reach into my mouth symbolically; this was to open the portal of the Creator’s breath. My grandpa held me and prayed to the six directions, introducing me to water, wind, light, sky, flowers, trees, the four-leggeds; the stars. He gave me the name Matȟó Wakhéya (Bear Looking After His People). My mother nourished me with sacred…
