Southwest Sierra #108 – Hope in the Face of Fear

The audacious writings of my youth ~ This being the week of July 4th, I have mustered the courage to share the introduction to a booklet that I wrote in my 20s when I was caring for my mother. The writings were triggered by my newfound awareness of political division and the heartbreak that came with this knowledge. I wrote an essay a month for about a year, then put most of them into a self-published booklet. I found a few errors in the layout and text of the booklet and intended to revise it, but Mom died, I got a full-time job at the 16 to 1 Mine and life sped forward.

I know that many of us feel alarmed at the current political climate in our beloved nation. The words of my great-great-great-grandmother Mary E., as shared in SS#100, feel eerily familiar: “Our Government was Divided as their Political views those days was sad and it made sorrow in every home.” Compared to when I wrote the Hope Essays in the 1990s, political division is more pronounced. Perhaps it is time to revisit the essays? This older version of me has taken the liberty of editing for accuracy and clarity wherever it feels pertinent, and yes, the audacity of my youth now makes me blush.

Introduction to Hope in the Face of Fear – A Guide to Peaceful Revolution

Like many Americans I feel a deep loyalty to the ideals presented in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. Also, like many Americans, I can see that our present system of government resembles more closely what the founding fathers fought to be freed from rather than what they envisioned as the ideal form of government.

I realize that ideals are open to interpretation. One person’s idea of the “American Ideal” may be very different than another’s. This booklet reflects my interpretation of these ideals. I consider these ideals to be primarily spiritual ideals. I don’t interpret “spiritual” to mean “religious” though. Religions deal with spirituality, but I don’t consider spirituality to be limited to religion. I respect that each person has a right to follow his or her own personal beliefs. I see this as one of the ideals upon which our nation was founded. I have no intention of trying to get others to adopt my personal spiritual beliefs. I share my personal beliefs purely in the spirit of sharing, and as a means of illuminating my perspective.

The booklet is a compilation of a series of essays that I wrote at the rate of approximately one a month beginning in August of 1994. It is like a packet of seeds: both a culmination and a potential beginning. My main goal is to help people get in touch with their own conscience and to inspire some independent thinking. Another part of my goal is to help people see that there is a middle ground which “We the People” badly need to cultivate.The “seeds” that I offer here are intended for just such a middle ground.

To close this introduction, I will share a version of a legend which to me represents one of the seeds of our nation. The five Nations in this legend are: The Mohawks, The Oneida, The Onandagas, The Cayugas and the Senecas. The story took place in the late 1400s.

Long, long ago the five Nations were at war with each other. This warring was the cause of much grief and suffering. A holy man named Dekanawideh, (the determined man), saw the grief and suffering and felt a great pain in his heart. He made a vow that he would master himself to help his people. Dekanawideh went away by himself. One day he was sitting near a fast-moving stream of clear water. A great white eagle spirit came and landed in a tree near him. Dekanawideh did not see the eagle spirit, but as he sat gazing into the water the eagle spirit helped his thoughts form. Dekanawideh envisioned the five Nations together under the branches of “the tree of peace.” He saw that each nation had its owncouncil, but a great council was formed with members of every nation. Dekanawideh thought he should have a symbol to remind him of this vision, and he saw an eagle feather lying on the ground. He decided that this would be the symbol to remind the people of his vision.Dekanawideh returned to his people and shared his vision.

Hiawatha was so inspired by this vision that he went from Nation to Nation sharing it. It was Hiawatha who organized the first great council. This was the birth of the Iroquois League of Nations, one of the great Native American Confederacies which provided the idea for the later Confederacy of the United States of America.

Source: The Native Americans, an Illustrated History, copyright 1993, Turner Publications (page 98), paraphrased and combined the two versions in the book.