The New People

As I take a good look around at the condition of my people, I can't help but to be overwhelmed by the feeling of alienation, for why can't I find comfort in ignorance and delusion? Why must I be haunted by the constant displeasure of our ancestors in what we have allowed ourselves to become? Is there others like me besides those few I have had the fortune of finding by the grace of some divine power? Or do our ancestors rejoice in the courage and strength we have found and developed to care for our people? This torment of being 'aware' is not what it is all cracked up to be. Should I feel ashamed for admiring others for their ability to find bliss within ignorance? I called this burden upon myself to be attuned to those that most of us have the ability to forsake and abandon. Why must I suffer through the criticism of the skeptics and naysayers polluting our community? Where has all the hope and strength gone that preserved our people up until us? Because I can't identify that strength in too many of us any more, defiantly not in any of our leaders. The strength of our ancestors has abandoned us to our own failure to adhere to the corruption we have assimilated ourselves into becoming. We have allowed ourselves to be perverted into these functional wretches drudging about as those that find comfort in our toil and suffrage dictate our every action. Our reservations have become misery factories, supplying society with the adequate amount of internalized oppression to justify ignorance in even the most consciously aware of minds. Patience wears as we rebel against each others compassion, and as we take out our frustrations upon one another, I keep my composure and struggle past every insignificant conflict consuming the energies of our people, because I have my eyes on the prize. The liberation from these chains tangling us to this oppression slowly consuming all those unfortunate enough to be born into this struggle known as being 'Anishinaabeg.' Being Anishinaabe comes with a great responsibility, their isn't many of us left compared to the world at large, and our world is getting smaller and smaller by the day, will we free the people from these poisonous ways of thinking before its too late? Or will we die trying? At least I will teach my children to be Anishinaabeg, and no, I don't mean snaring rabbits and ricing in birch bark canoes. I'm talking of honoring our teachings and applying them to everything we must endure and tolerate, to renew and revive our teachings to utilized them to be the most effective Anishinaabeg we can be in todays world. Why must so many sacrifice their integrity for progress and stability in the white world? There is ways of honoring and respecting the strength of our heritage and integrating it back into all the aspects of modern society, I know this because I do it every day. Most of us are abandoning the wrong things for the wrong reasons just to allow ourselves to constantly come up short as Anishinaabeg. We are disconnecting ourselves constantly with the virtues that give us strength to be Anishinaabeg, most of us don't even have the right to consider ourselves Anishinaabe anymore in my opinion. Dancing and singing at a pow wow for money doesn't make us anymore Indian then those manipulating the weak hearted through the lodge of our ancestors. Most people going through those lodges don't deserve to be considered "mide." For these people remain directionless, these people go through for status and grandeur, not to be attuned to our ancestors and manidous. I pursued initiation to the lodge just to find out its over-rated and a waste of time, don't get me wrong, there is a few genuine people trying to provide direction within those lodges, but they are greatly out numbered by those abusing its teachings. Many of our lodges have lost their energy do to the selfish greed of those tending and attending them, too many have lost sight of the miigis, so that is why I have chosen to become one of the new people that is still guided by the old voices. Not to desecrate the sanctity of our teachings, but to honor them in a more effective way that isn't hindered by the obsolete ideals of the ones preventing us from fulfilling our destinies in a good way as Anishinaabeg, we are not to be these shallow, superficial people giving way our significance to the thinking of the white man. We need to become the Anishinaabeg once again, the Anishinaabeg before the miigis and the migration and the lodge, we must come together to show the world how to honor and respect what was gifted to us before it is lost forever. First we must remember who we were before we had to become the people of the lodge. We must show those too scared to listen to their hearts that they must start thinking for themselves for the benefit of our people. We must all recover from those corrupted ways of thinking the church has poisoned our lodges with, because too many of those medicine men and women have become reminiscent to the priests and charlatans of those churches that stole our strength from our ancestors, taking advantage of those seeking direction. Those that are genuine are few and far between from those that use the lodge and its teachings to be corrupted as a tool for them to manipulate others, I know these things because I listen to my heart, and if anyone tells me my heart is wrong, they better be prepared to have differences with me. Having the courage to listen to our hearts is not easy to come by these days,yet we all have this gift to listen to our hearts, but there are those that find pleasure or material gain in manipulating others into not listening to their hearts, and these people who think they are powerful or of great stature are in reality; very pitiful. Anyone that doesn't allow you to adhere to your inner voice of your heart should not be a person to look to for direction, for they will only mislead you from your path and use you to their advantage. The lodge has its use, but now that use is leaving most of us, and that is in our prophecies as well, and those that claim their tending to the strength of our lodge for selfish reasons are the ones who are scared of losing the power they think that lodge has given then. They refuse to follow the miigis any longer and ignore our prophecies all together, and that will prevent us from ever lighting the 8th fire. Pleases don't take offense in what I have said, I don't claim to have all the answers, I only know what is good for me. I don't claim to be able to provide others with direction, but this is what my heart feels, we should all find the courage to listen to our hearts for direction once again. There is no gain in trying to over complicate matters by over-investing thought into things we know feels right within our hearts, I just know I will not waste my energy fighting what I know is right within my heart.