Julius Caesar and Crazy Horse

Julius Caesar (Crazy Horse) (Babble)

I believe the assassination of Julius Caesar was one of the most cowardly and disgraceful acts in the history of the world. Just an observation. The Boss of the Stupid People is generally another Stupid Man.

When the white man’s religious leaders came to North America they ordered and enforced with every means the end of sacred fires, ancient songs, sacred tribal objects. Today the Chinese are doing, indeed have nearly completed, the destruction of the sacred objects, temples, schools, and sacred earth of the people of Tibet. The silence of the world as the Chinese government murdered Tibetan Monks and raped and destroyed its culture is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of the modern world. In many ways the same “white man” who killed Julius Caesar, carried his assassins knife to the North America people, and later, disguised as a Chinese Government, slashed with that same knife the sacred societies and ceremonial teachings of Tibet. Is there a trend here? From the pointed blades that ripped the flesh of Jesus, from the same blade with which Muslims cut off the heads of nameless people for nameless crimes, the same blade which straps bombs to mentally ill women and explodes them in a crowded market by remote control, and the blade of corruption and greed which spilled the blood of Julius Caesar over the stones of the Roman Forum…the hand of government, the government of the church, sanctioned and blessed with something they call the sacred will of God. Call it what you want, it smelled all the way to heaven.

When I was a child I felt my first strong connection to the spirit of Julius Caeser. In my room I quietly read as many of his writings as I could find. I also read a lot of historical fiction which had fantastic stories taking place around this time. Talbut Mundy was my particular favorite. In all his forms from which his spirit has survived,his spirit impressed me very much.

Some people like to fight. They will fight you for the right to do what they want. I remember one man who was thinking of breaking a promise he had made. I reminded him of his promise but really did not care what he did. Usually I would have said nothing but a third party was involved and I felt protective of that person. After a long silence he erupted into anger, accusing me of telling him what to do. He yelled and acted out a bit and then stormed off. Never seen him since. I told him he was free to do whatever he liked but that made no difference as his anger response was based on his assumption….anger does not leave much room for adjusting one’s response. The murder of Julius Caeser was an act of the kind of anger called envy and self-righteousness. His killers put their interests above anyone else’s in the entire world. Western civilization has been paying the price, we call it “doing time on this crime", ever since.

When the Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Germans and Russians, and all their neighbors came calling in the land we call Turtle Island they killed damn near everybody and everything they could see standing. Indians right now are still alive in every state of the North America. While most of what remains of the “savage” behavior which so mortified the historic “pilgrims” and “settlers” has reached subtle plateaus indeed, a handful of strong original teachings remain scattered and bruised among the tribes. It is our hope that this work, these documents, will help in some small way encourage a continuing dialogue on these subjects. The abscence of thoughtful discussions on these matters in my opinion contributes to the decline and degradation of tribal sacred teachings. While many tribal people are quick to cry out in anger when their ideas are stolen, they are never as determined or as sure in carrying them out for themselves. There are very, very few inter-tribal dialogues. The indifference of western society to Indian people has created a new generation of Indian people indifferent to themselves.

The severe absence of much good material on this subject has lead to the hesitation I felt for some years to start this writing project. For no other good reason than old-fashioned racism and starry-eyed fantasies of both Indian people and modern people, one man of mixed ancestry working in the world of these sacred ideas is not very much to offer. I am that man. We used to talk about it like this, “you are the one who is there at that time”, or “he was the one who was there holding his life in his two arms”. Over these years I have been the one who was there holding this life in my two arms. It would be great if I could hold a great body of previous work in this area in my arms as well. I cannot. It doesn’t exist. There is a mountain of prior work, and for more than 30 years I have shoveled through it, like Hercules cleaning the stables of the sacred horses.

I guess it has been a downhill run ever since the first throat was cut and the first pistol ball fired in the new lands you all call America. While tribal populations, tribal bodies, remain standing in nearly every direction, their situations raise many questions. Most are still bleeding from the wound. Many of the them have not a clue in the world.

These days even a modest ceremony of 100 people or so taxes most tribal resources. The Kiva Tribes have big village-wide ceremonies and have the most experience. It takes a lot of resources. They say the big Crow Fair, which is an art, social pow-wow, about the largest, has had as many as 1,000 tipi’s.Imagine if this same space and organizational experience could be used for a few weeks of inter tribal ceremonies.

History makes a lot of mistakes, to coin a phrase. We call these days, such as 2008, the “correction ceremony”, as many of the actual ceremonies are involved in making corrections rather than in their original purpose. Believe me there was a difference between what Sun Dance People were doing before the modern people came, and after. This is true for all the tribes…some more so than others. What the world was doing while Julius Caesar dreamed his dreams is very different than what the world has been doing since his blood was spilled on the pavement of the Roman Forum. We live in a bubble of light. What we have dreamed we have done has changed everything, over and over. Making corrections, over and over.

We cannot bring back the rivers running free, the broken promises or the lost opportunities. The only correction we can make is to our response. My response has been the World Journey of the Four Directions Unity Bundle. Not anger.Not pimp-slapping every white man I meet (much as I would like to sometimes), but medicine, teaching, patience, Mystery Life News...Show me the bones of time, I will weep the rivers and fill the clouds with rain and flow over the boiling sands. In the mean time I learned to keep my one good eye open for the knife. There is nothing in all this that makes me angry. It is just a strange sensation to see how western society is still paying for its sins from long ago, and how little things have changed. It is a situation where if you learn nothing, you just keep acting out your defeat over and over. And over. Until you figure it out.

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