Manifest destiny & globalism

[tama]

Greetings, friends. Yesterday I was participating in a swet lodge ritual at a local ecocommunity, guided by a Mexican temazcalero visiting Finland. It was beautifull, wholesome, healing experience. Experience of sharing, sharing our common wounds, our common joy. We had four rounds of sweating, each with different theme. The theme of the last round was gratitude.

We, those living at the ecocommunity, others that came to the ritual and the Mexiacan temazcalero, had good conversations, communications, before, during and after the ritual. Not excluding but especially shared silence - which is beautifull and peacefull, though I know silence can be difficult and discomforting to many Americans and Europeans. Silence and listening. There is too much competition around for us people to feel comfortable, at peace.

One form of competition is who among us hurts most, is wronged most. It's a personal competition...
...I'm trying to find the bridge to the topic of this post, maybe it's there here somewhere, let's wait a moment.

Yeah, the bridge involves also my own personhood - as well as my character. My own anger, frustration, judgementalism. My sorrow and worry. I'm between. Born into language and culture that has been conquered by Europeans ages ago, long before Europeans conquered America. Nearly fully homogeniced by European imperial ways, forgotten our own roots and identity under the oppression of our masters and especially under the oppression of our "most trusted convicts", the so called our own "leaders".

I've studied the roots of European culture - one side of me -, learned and felt them deeply, when I studied Greek and then became a translator from Greek to my native language. I loved and love Greek poetry, both classical and modern, love translating it. So I too became a poet, of sorts. But the funny thing,

when I was translating ancient Greek poetry into my native language, I could do that only by learning about the roots of my language, starting to hear them, letting the roots vibrate in a shared music. My language is not Indo-European language, though through these centuries of military, cultural, mental etc. occupation also my language and culture has become largerly europeanized, homogenized. But when I looked into the roots of my language, I learned and heard that we didn't, for example, have separate word for 'poet' and 'poem', just one word that didn't make any such distinction. So if I am a poet then I'm also a poem. And if I am, then each of you readers are too, poems. In my view...;)

We and pre-European peoples of America share much similar trauma, of course. And not only us "other people" but the whole planet is hurting, the heart of our common home, the heart of Earth, is heavy from sorrow and disstress because of ways of European/Capitalistic imperial monoculture and universalism - ways that some people call totalitarianism ;).

So as you can read and hear from these words, there is lot of blame. For what Europeans and Euro-Americans have been doing and are doing. But not only blame, of course there is anger too, but more than blame: worry, sorrow. Worry and sorrow especially for those people who are unable to phase the roots and consequenses of their own cultural (and individualistically cultural) behavioral patterns. Their roles in the big chains of causalities.

Their guilt. Our guilt. My guilt. The unbearable guilt. Like I said, I'm between, I belong to both worlds, hating the other and feeling guilty by participating in it. My other side, which is more at home or rather, on a way back home - on way to treating our common Planet like our common home not only in theory but also in practice, as much as as fast can be delearnded and relearned. But what I've been thinkin and feeling also, is maybe there has been some hidden purpose to the European "manifest destiny" of globalizing and universalizing - it has made us all more interdependent both in good and bad. So,

enough of blather, now I want to say what I really wanted to say:

I forgive you.

If my forgiveness helpes anyone.

Divided in two (and then some) I forgive myself.

Only by forgiving the sense of being whole, sense of belonging (instead of separation) starts coming back, growing.

And what I found yesterday in the sweat lodge, forgiving and gratitude are the same.

So I thank you all for being you, being here, sharing this planet, as you are.


Aho

[Chulanowa]

1. We've forgiven too much

My mother always said, "Sorry means you won't do it again" - Similarly, granting forgiveness hinges on the assurance that the event being forgiven would not happen again.

every time my people have forgiven, someone else comes along and repeats the problem. It starts getting hard to forgive after the first hundred years or so.

Ah well.

Nice having you around :wave: My first serious girlfriend was suomi. Those would have been some awfully mixed-up kids! :rofl:

[tama]

2. Forgiving

I fully understand what you are saying. And I'm very much aware how difficult real forgiving is - it's a practice that can be only started by practicing, not by wating results. Yeah, it's faith. But certainly not only Christian faith - from our point of view Xians are among those hardest to forgive. And yet, original Christian way of life is not different from the way of an ecocommunity, it is exactly the same.

The core or our problem is separation. I or we feel victimized by this or that group or system, and by no means these feelings should be denied or depressed, not pushed into subconsciouss (where it festers and comes out as bitterness and anger etc.). And if there is no forgiveness but only guilt and blame games, what in our (self)destructive ways is going to change, to transform?

We have ability to be aware - to be consciouss of our feelings as they happen and even the reasons - the whole bunches - why whe feel as whe do. Being aware does not necessarily mean ability to fully analyze and vocalize these reasons, it can also be just awareness, feeling and openness.


So there is a reason why practice of forgiving can only start with self-forgiving. Because only in self there is no real separation between "me and them" or "us and them" or "subject and object", just larger and larger (and deeper and deeper) layers of inclusive being. But I'm talking too much and too fast. First and foremost the practice of forgiving and gratitude - for all that makes each of us as we are - is just a practice that makes us feel more at peace with ourselves, feeling better, feeling healing.