Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Berrycamp and Vision Quest

Getting back into camp over a month ago, I came back fresh and with still lots to learn. We spent time at the Ft. Hall Pow Wow setting up early with our unique set up. Finisia set up the two tarps up into a crazy lean to, that kept the shade on us all day and didn't get blown down by the wind that blew over three porta-potties. We had dug camus root at the last largest camus field near Fairfield, Idaho, mile 130 on highway 20. The owner of the property had been put on the spot and now people are free to go there and dig up the camus, providing they replant it where it will grow.

The camus need water, but the owner of the property had built a drainage pipe to take out the water out of the land to dry it up for growing hay for his cattle. So the Camus plants days are numbered. Finisia figures another 3-4 years at most for their still being alive. This is cultural genocide to let these plants die as well as an ecological disaster.

The camus root are edible, and have been a native food for thousands of years, and they are getting wiped out in the last 150 years of European occupation. It isn't people from European dissent that are the problem, it is the behavior and cultural mindsets that has destroyed what was a viable hoop. It just happens to wear a European pale face to it now.

The hoops in the East have been wiped out, and here in the West, Oregon, some of Washington, Idaho, Nevada and some of California, still have some viability, but only if people act to protect it. A lot of me hopes that it isn't true about the East, but I'm here in the West where I can take action.

Well, Coyote camp took these roots in big bagfuls to show the Native peoples at the pow wow, and many copies of the map on how to get to the prairie. This hopefully inspired more natives to take action to save their cultural inheritance. I acquired the Native name of Terrible while I was there. I was left with a lot of respect for Finisia's long association and intelligent interactions with the Native people.

Leaving there we headed up to healing country of the Berries. Berry camp is located up around McCall, Idaho, and it changes every year depending on where the berries are to be found. The sweetness of the berries is accented by a wonderful family that holds space up here that Finisia has known since the adults were children. There is one new beautiful baby in camp that has been the bright moments of everyday when at the spread. I made a great new friendship with a dog and new people to respect and aspire to their confidences.

Here is where some rubber needed to hit the road. I became acutely aware of my civilized behaviors that have become a danger to the camp. Not physically, but spiritually. Coming out of civ, I came with my clipped wings, and ways to survive in a backwards society where what is sacred is a shamed, and what is held up and honored as holy is put in the biggest building (the church)and only one person has association with the holy, which even in their bibles, it is not supposed to happen. Of course money coming from killing life is also honored and sacred, and the image that has stuck with me came from David Suzuki the Canadian geneticist, who took a walk with an accountant, the accountant had an outburst and pointed towards a green evergreen tree, stating that it wasn't worth anything until it was chopped down and processed into something people could use. I don't see why he couldn't see that we were already using the tree, since it produces so much O2, which none of us can live without.

What I mean is I've got to claim my own relationship to mother earth and father sky. I've got to reclaim my birthright to be a sacred being along with the sacred forest, sacred animals and plants that the whole complex creation that was the garden of Eden, that we are all inheritors of, but have been trained, mind-f*cked into believing this world is of the devil, along with all our natural desires, urges.
Like being in camp; digging, building fires, cooking and eating wild plants, singing and dancing, having heart felt discussions about what mattered have been part of what I'm reclaiming as natural urges.

A big part of my set of backward lies is my victimization patterns. Having been put into counseling really early, I found lots of excuses and stories to explain away things that I just needed to change. Sure, I've been hurt bad by other human beings, but nothing compares to the violence I have perpetuated against the Earth and her still faithful children, that have been slaughtered in our name to provide money, in a backwards economy that says we have to destroy mother earth in the name of "resources". I have killed many children in my purchases of a home, heat, light, food that has been grown elsewhere. The list can go on quite long. So, when I got into this helplessness, fearful or weakness posture, that is a violence to my group.

This is what I have to overcome before I come back into camp. My group needs my brain to work, and it just doesn't work in fear. Tall order, but I have to do it.
I think I can, if I think about the divinity we are all supposed to inherit. If I can't get on board with the miraculous creation, I can just die in this murderous way culture I am jettisoning.

There will undoubtedly be more insight when I come back into camp, since this is a vision quest. I may just need to be more aware of my conditioning so I can know when to isolate myself and take care of it. Meanwhile I'm headed out on the road today to see what will come of my life and self image and esteem.

I sure would like to see some comments so I can know there is life out there of some sort. I'm creating a lot here inside of me in this effort.

1 comment:

  1. Very interesting... Spending time, living in the great wide open. Living in sync with nature. It is something I would personally love to do. Obligation and duty to this modern age has its bindings wrapped tight. Good bindings mind..., Though I often look back to the simple yet tough nomadic lifestyle I instead push myself forward to rise above the Earth and through advanced technology and learning to live in the most remote and hazardous regions off-world, I yet may help to improve Mother Earth from what I learn beyond in space. Maybe somewhere, sometime the groups in the Great Basin and in other parts of the world and groups advancing towards the other extremes can meet.

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