On this day, in years past, I’ve more typically chosen an eagle, or similar imagery, as a meditative focus. Despite the fact that the so-called actual day, however chosen, is now two days past, the dominant culture must have its three-day weekend, and so today we are treated to a patchwork of labels: one honoring a colonizing invader who committed genocide, and one honoring those of us whose ancestors survived the best efforts of his kind. It makes for a very special sort of cognitive dissonance, one that has been fundamental to “America” since long before its formal “founding.”
And it tends to spark, in our peoples, a desire for the imagery of defiance, of resistance, of warriors and their guiding spirits come to inspire like bravery in our own souls.
But there is more to it than mere battle. It’s easy, when under the boot of a colonial occupation, to become focused on the fight to the exclusion of all else. In this twenty-first century of the institutions of global colonial tradition, we cannot do that literally, of course; we all must walk in two worlds, and often more, and we know more about what is required to navigate and survive them than those who imposed their bonds and borders ever will. But in that part of our spirits where the fire burns and the drum beats and the song sings itself, an image like the War Eagle helps us tend to our commitment.
And so little time is left that we too often fail to notice what it is we’re fighting for, what the object of our bravery and the focus of our resistance is, and must be.
It’s to ourselves, of course, to our ways and traditions and the words that we speak, to the spirits and the ancestors and the generations yet to come. But it’s also to that of which we are a part, but as neither center nor overseer, only as one element among many: to the land, to earth and sky, wind and water, fire and light; to the four sacred directions and the center of all things; to the mountains and the trees now changing fast and the snows that are soon to come.
This image, of the last three spirits (for there was snow behind that veil of clouds that shrouded the peaks, albeit beyond the reach of human vision or vantage point) dates back to this very season some seven or eight years ago. It’s always been one of my favorites, both for the subject matter, and for the mood it evokes. The mountains of my homelands would barely qualify as foothills here at the Dragon’s Tail, but the clouds and colors are all home to me. And in the days leading up to my birthday, I find myself unconsciously seeking, and finding, too, those connections: season and storm, shade and spirit.
And in my home now, my life here, the mountain itself serves as a marker, too: that very same strength the the eagle embodies is present here, too, in earth piled higher, carved deeper, having breathed and lived and thrived longer than the faintest echo of human memory. This is our Earth, and our earth, one of the cornerstones of our world: not a boundary so much as a center, heart and lungs, blood and the very breath of life itself in this place.
The earth breathes; even colonial science is now being forced to acknowledge this truth that ours have always known. The trees, too, breathe, and sleep; they are sentient, understanding far more than we know, capable of ordering their environments in ways that those not Indigenous to them never even suspected until recently. This land mass, the one we call Turtle Island, is a living, breathing body, one now abused at the hands of too much of humanity, but not yet in full heart or respiratory failure.
We are its children, its limbs and organs, too:; Like the cottonwood trees, we branch out from it, seeking to reach beyond our roots, beyond the place where our feet are planted . . . and if we touch some invisible bit of sky, we can never quite be sure of the accomplishment.
This is the season when the world beings to wind itself down, to discard its lush green robes for one last bit of celebratory fire before offering up its bare bones to the elements. There is no permanence in it, even for the most ancient of these elders; they will pull water from the soil around their roots, pull the breath of the sun from the sky, and leaf again next year, lush and green and seemingly new.
And so will we.
Because no colonial invader, no occupying purveyor of genocide knows this land the way those born of and for it do. The mountain is as old as our very world, and the land spread out at its feet, too, in one form or another — and while humanity’s “forever” is less ancient, we have belonged to these lands for the length of our own “always.” Our hearts beat with the drum of its heart, its breath rises and falls with our own. The dance of its seasons lives in our spirits as surely as the song of its light is scribed upon our skin.
And this season, whether passing beneath cold clear skies or clouds heavy with early snow, is proof of our promise: As the land remains, so do we . . . alive through every storm.
~ Aji
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