Thursday, December 26, 2024

the Indigenous

 

I seek wisdom


where I like to meditate in the mountains faces east, and the creek,

the day again comes into being to bring light to the world

and the renewal of starting over, 

Indigenous people lived within an "I-Thou" reality

where the seasons and the cardinal points sang to them to teach them,

the new day born again to the East,

the finality of the old day flaring to the West,

foreshadowing each of our individual passings on,

the daunting challenge of that from the North,

the gentle comfort of that from the South

the cycles of bounty and of lack,

the rhythms of the year 

that gave humans rules by which to live

within a game we played but did not control,


the modern world works hard to insulate us from Nature,

it's good to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer,

to have fresh greens and fruit year-round,


it's also good to periodically open ourselves

to what the world knows

of what Nature can, and can't, do on its own,

and of how much we are still a part of a larger whole,

where every rock and every leaf has a lesson to teach us.


by Henry H. Walker
December 22, ‘24

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