ceremonies
There are four conscious elements of living beings that make up the consciousness of both ceremonies and the constituent of the human being: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.
Four conscious elements
Western educational schools are offering a very primitive, often alienating process of teaching curriculum that has almost nothing to do with life-Earth. It de-indigenizes reality to a point that we have to "use reality" rather than "live reality”. The language the dominant culture uses rationalizes a default form - i.e. “lacking of” philosophy. The branch of languages being used originate from the Proto Indo European (PIE) model of needy, extractive, binary and dependent languages as if they were starving and thirsting for sustenance and conflict.
Western compulsory education has taken its toll and has educated the wisdom out of the Indigenous mind, and most minds in general. It has exposed a rationale of foreign concepts unrelated to the lands it pretends to have conquered. And yet, the experience of Indigenous peoples who are the living voices of Earth encounter the paradigm of Western logic based on denying the thinking process of Indigenous peoples, and we have had to endure the systematic indoctrination based on the disenfranchisement of the lands, and consequently the cultures disappear.
This is an attempt to explain each of the Four Consciousnesses that give life to the Being called human. All four elements are contained in Lakota thought, not theory, not superstition, not religion, not hierarchy, but in continuing and sustaining creation as close to perfection as humanly possible through the Beings –– the four elements of intelligent consciousness.
There needs to be a dialogue about different ways of thinking, especially the way we so easily kowtow to the standardized conceptual model of rationalist intellectuality. Basically, we need to be critical of and re-think the core precepts of science, religion, governments, and “culture” at large (e.g. the memetic viruses that dominate books, films and art). We willingly validate and give approval to what and how the dominant culture operates; we see everything through “Westernized” perceptions of unknowing felon de se (crimes against self).
The Western model of knowledge divides. It creates pyramids of it’s own stand-alone hierarchical theories. It debases differing models, especially those rooted in egalitarianism, which it considers “speculative philosophy” and quite often dismissed as archaic and not applicable to the pyramid of Westernized evolution.
Exoneration doesn't replace what is still true. The land still belongs to Indigenous peoples - we did not ruin it and try to become immune to it through science and religion.
In many Indigenous worldviews, science, spirituality and philosophy are in a circle surrounding reality. They draw from a hoop and a wheel of sacred life, rather than from a line that has a beginning and an ending.
In the Western world, especially here in the United States, there is a root strategy to win, win, win at any cost. Rather than “winning” they are sterilizing themselves and are making Westerners immune to Earth’s language, calling and dialogue with human beings.
One cannot continue the thoughts of entitlement and continue to take without ever being affected by the consequence of those actions. Yes, we have been given the token tidbits of knowledge as in recycling plastic, replanting trees etc. However, the status quo of liberalism is one of the main obstacles to true liberation that remains intact.
Although Native peoples remain attacked, under-resourced, under-funded, etc. one thing remains true: we remain Earth-based, community-based thinkers/practioners in line with a more natural way of being and living.
The system of capitalism is not working for any of us - colonialist settlers or Indigenous peoples. It is ironic that anything to do with not following the mainstream system is labeled “alternative”. The true definition of an “alternative” way of living is that “alters the natural”, making capitalism the most “alternative” and unnatural mode of existence.
There must be open, public dialogue about other ways of knowing, being and thinking. We must examine how we so easily accept the conceptual model of intellectual rationalism, materialism and reductionism. We need to re-think the science, religion, economics, politics, culture, and even the psychology and spirituality of the dominant mode-of-perception that sees everything through the Western gaze of colonialism, consumption, and cannibalism.
