During the week I came across this message and was so moved by it that I felt it deserved a posting just for itself.  Below are the transcribed words the Hopi elder speaks:

When the Europeans first came here. Columbus. We could drink out of any river. If the Europeans had lived the Indian way when they came, we'd still be drinking out of the water because the water is sacred. The air is sacred.

Our DNA is made of the same DNA as the tree. The tree breathes what we exhale, when the tree exhales we need what the tree exhales so...we have a common destiny with the tree.

We are all from the earth and when the earth, the water, the atmosphere is corrupted then it will create it's own reaction. Mother Earth is reacting.

And the world has become 'a market' and it's this market that we have to deal with and it's this idea of boundless and endless resources. And when you say resources you're talking about our relatives, you're talking about our family. These are our family, not a resource...family. And it requires all of our respect.

The structure of the world itself is such that it functions on natural law, and the natural law is a powerful, regenerative process. It's a process of regeneration that continues and grows and is endless, absolutely endless...if everyone agrees to the law and follows the law. But if you challenge the law and you think you're going to change the law, then you're bound to failure. And in that failure will be a lot of pain, because the natural law has no mercy. It is only the law.

The Earth is all powerful. It wasn't made for human beings, we're part of it. But we don't have to be here because the earth has it's own process. And if it comes to the point where you destroy yourself as human beings and you destroy life and finally leave this earth, the earth's not going to disappear. There's not going to be an end of the world. That's really a very interesting concept story. No the world won't end. People with life on it will. So it's not the end of the world you're talking about, it's the end of us. And the world, no matter what damage you think you've done to it, will regenerate, will regreen, will redo everything that was here at one time, except there won't be any people. Because...it's got all the time in the world.

As you're coming down the final stretch and you're racing towards the finish, and there is the stone wall and you're not pulling your horse, you're not stopping, you're not...you're in fact accelerating. That's the way I see the use of what you call resources.  You're using them faster than they're reproducing. And you're headed for that disaster and none of you are pulling your horse. And everyday that you don't do what's right, is a day when you've lost an option. And you're losing your options everyday.  

No tree grows by itself. A tree is a community. Certain trees, certain plants will gather around certain trees, and certain medicines will gather around those certain plants. So that if you kill all the trees, if you cut all the trees then you're destroying a community, you're not...just destroying a tree, you're destroying a whole community that surrounds it and thrives on it, and that may be very important medicine for people or for animals. So you've lost a community and if you clear cut, which is happening in America and Canada a great deal these days and I guess around the world, then you're really a very destructive force. And simply replanting trees is not replanting communities - you've lost a lot in the process. If you don't understand that, you will. And that understanding comes in a very difficult manner.

And of the hundred dominant economic units in the world today, of the hundred largest economic units - and this is the word they use, units - forty-nine are countries and fifty-one are corporations. Now... digest that for a second. What does that mean? It means that corporations are the driving force of decision making today. And corporations are not concerned with human rights, they are not concerned with human life, they are not even concerned with the proper wage for the people that are working for them...so what kind of decisions are going to be made on our behalf by this economic power? These corporate states I call them. Oh, there's going to be hell to pay - as they say - for some of the things that are going on now.  

So I think that people have to become aware and become awake and not...and power is always in the people's hands, and first they need to come of one mind and they need to challenge the values that are being shoved at them today, because they've really become a consumer society that's driven by economics, it's not driven by common sense. You know it's not good sense to follow somebody just because why? You can't give me answer why you follow him but if you are going to do something like jumping off a cliff, then would you follow him? Would you do that? Use your sense. Use your common sense. Everybody should be their own leader. In other words do your thinking for yourself.

And we look about, we look about for allies and we look about for friends. We look about for people who will understand and agree to those mandates for peace. And we are now placing in your hands...all life. And it is your responsibility and it is your duty to look after all life. And so when he was speaking like that, he wasn't talking about our aunts and our uncles and our cousins and our fathers and our mothers. He was talking about all life. He was talking about the trees, he was talking about the fish, animals. Everything that grows. Everything with life. Because it is...a family."

Originally published on Paradigms Bend July 15 2011