DO YOU THINK LIKE A COLONIZER

Greko Roman Europeans call their land the Fatherland.

Indigenous peoples across the world call it the Motherland.

That alone reveals a worldview. One centers possession and patriarchy. The other centers birth, nourishment, and relationship.

Greko Roman Europeans call their ancestors Forefathers, even in the language you can feel whose line is honored and whose line is minimized.

Indigenous people say Ancestors, because we do not cut the mother out of memory. Maternal and paternal are both sacred. Both are carried. Both are honored.

Greko Roman Europeans say after the third or fourth cousin, everyone else is distant, almost like a non relative.

Indigenous people do not cap family at a number. All blood kin are relatives. All kin are family. And it does not stop with humans. Plants are family. Animals are family. The waters are family. The winds are family. The heavenly bodies are family. That is why we move differently in the world. We were not taught to see life as objects. We were taught to see life as relatives.

Greko Roman Europeans often claim their future only as far as they can see it with their own eyes. Grandchildren. Great grandchildren. Generations close enough that you might still be alive, still involved, still benefiting, still able to put your hands on it.

In other words, if you cannot be present to enjoy it, you struggle to care about it. Seven generations ahead is too far for a mindset trained in immediacy. If you will not be there, then in that mindset, who cares.

Indigenous people plan seven generations ahead knowing we will be long gone before even the fourth or fifth generation is born. That is the entire point. Planning for what you will never personally touch.

That requires selflessness.

Selfish is only thinking now.

Selfless is thinking future.

Greko Roman Europeans say we will be saved through technology.

Indigenous people say the way technology is being used will be humanity’s downfall.

And it looks like Earth is agreeing with us. Climate instability. Greenhouse emissions. Oil spills in land and water. Plastics and chemical contamination in our waterways. PFAS and forever chemicals in animals, gardens, wells, and bodies. We warned. We protested. We explained. And the response was always the same. Ignore us. Bulldoze anyway. Call it progress. Call it jobs. Call it safe.

Then years later, everything we said would happen happens.

Standing Rock was not an isolated story. It was a pattern put on full display. Every pipeline leaks. Every pipeline has leaked. Water protectors told the truth from the beginning.

Europeans believe in defacing sacred lands to carve your faces into mountains.

Indigenous people protect sacred places from being violated.

The Black Hills are sacred Lakota land. And what did the conquering Greko Roman occupiers do. You carved the faces of your forefathers into the sacred hills, towering over the people as a permanent reminder of conquest, dominance, and humiliation.

In Rhode Island you steal land and build a major university on it and name it Brown.

In North Carolina you drive farm equipment over our burial places and plow through the remains of our ancestors. This happened everywhere you stepped. You did not just occupy the land. You violated it.

Indigenous communities honored elders. Older people carried authority, wisdom, and responsibility.

In the Greko Roman modern mindset, older people become inconveniences. A burden. A nuisance. Ready to be shipped away.

Now let me be fair and honest. The modern system has been engineered to make it difficult to care for yourself, raise children, work nonstop, and still fully care for aging parents and grandparents. In some cases, rest homes become necessary for medical support.

But necessity is not the same as culture. The deeper issue is how the elder is valued. In one worldview, elders are the foundation. In the other, elders are treated like something to be managed.

Indigenous and European views of world, politics, family, and sustainability are as different as Coca Cola and orange juice.

They are both drinks. They both contain acid. But one acid comes naturally from the orange. The other is manufactured.

One comes from a plant that is a building.

The other comes from a plant that grows from Earth.

One heals.

The other kills.

The white man tells the Indian relocate and live or we will take the land and you will die.

The Indian says being disconnected from our land is already death.

The white man says death is when your heart stops beating and you are put six feet under.

The Indian says as long as the drum beats, my heart beats. As long as we sing and dance, my heart beats. As long as Earth Mother lives, my heart beats. And nothing truly ends. It transforms.

The white man says you do not believe you can die, Chief.

The Indian says of course I can die. I agreed to this life. In battle there is always the chance of death. If you kill me, it is because I agreed to go. But remember this. I will be back.

The white man says you are crazy.

The Indian says that is the difference between circular thinking and linear thinking. We are part of the circle of life. When you put us in the ground, our heartbeat transforms. It synchronizes with Earth Mother’s heartbeat and with the universal consciousness. We do not die. We multiply.

And yes, maybe I am a little crazy, because my mind wants to believe you can change, but my heart knows you often choose not to.

The white man says think about your children and your grandchildren. They will die if you do not relocate. Just give up the land. You cannot win.

The Indian says we always think of our children and grandchildren and the seventh generation ahead. To only think of ourselves in the present is selfish, kind of like the way you think.

We think of our elders, our mothers, our babies, and our people, not out of obligation, but because it is right.

And our proof is in the fact that we are having this conversation right now. We still exist because of our thinking and our way of life.

Indigenous people think circular.

Europeans think linear.

We dance in a circle. Counter clockwise and clockwise. Movement that flows.

You square dance. Angles. Corners. Blocks. Energy that gets trapped instead of moving.

You greet each other with what you fear most. Hello. Hell is low.

We greet each other with peace in our various tongues because peace is a discipline, not a slogan.

Europeans explore by looking outward. Your evolution is built on the backs of those you label inferior.

Indigenous people explore by going within so we can better understand without.

Your word is only good on paper. Contracts. And those contracts are contraps because they trap people inside a system of invisible slavery.

Our word is good when spoken.

And the power of our word is proven through action.

Your words have often been lies.

Your actions, deceit.

So with your history, you expect me to accept you as the authority on race, spirituality, religion, democracy, and righteousness.

I do not think so.

Your technological advances and engineered foods have weakened health and lowered morale. People are sick, stressed, and disconnected.

You think you need a building to be in the presence of God.

Walls. Confinement. Permission.

We only need presence. Our building is nature. Our place has no borders and no walls.

You want women silent.

Indigenous women are leaders of nations and speak when they are ready to speak.

You say babies are born without instructions.

We have instructions. Clan systems. Great Law. Elders. Community responsibility.

Again, our relatives are limitless.

Yours become distant after a few generations and you label them strangers.

You waste food. Restaurants and grocery stores throw it away while people starve.

Indigenous people do not waste food. It is disrespectful.

Banks shred money to print more money while people suffer.

Indigenous people do not teach wealth as paper. We teach value in words, deeds, and actions.

You take what is free and abundant and charge for it. Water. Air. Life itself.

You take a sacred plant like tobacco, call it deadly, then poison it with chemicals so it truly becomes deadly, then charge outrageous medical costs to treat the harm you created.

Indigenous people have plants.

So do Europeans.

But the difference is this.

Our plants are medicine.

Your plant is a factory that manufactures pills and calls them medicine.

Earth Mother produces our plants with roots and leaves.

Man produces your plants, buildings that pollute, destroy soil, and poison the waters our medicine depends on.

A real human being lives in harmony with nature.

Being one with nature teaches you how to protect nature.

It is the snake’s nature to strike.

It is the scorpion’s nature to sting.

It is the wolf’s nature to bite.

It is the bear’s nature to protect its young.

And it is human nature to understand the nature of all things so we can become responsible protectors of life.

You come from lands across the water where domination became normal.

You owned women, people, and land.

Women became property. Given away in marriage. Bought and sold through dowry, literally treated as merchandise.

You owned generations through enslavement.

You conquered and claimed land that was not yours.

And you justified it by quoting Genesis about subduing Earth and having dominion over everything living.

The Indian does not own living things outside of himself.

He owns his words, his deeds, his actions.

That makes him responsible.

You even tried to own Creator by giving the Great Mystery a gender and making Creator look like you. That is not universal truth. That is your projection.

Indigenous people say Creator is the Great Mystery. No one can claim what they do not fully know. We know we are part of Creator, connected through the great circle, through the four directions, through constant flow.

Creator can speak through anything in the circle. Animal. Insect. Plant. Wind. Water. Dream.

Today man made plants, factories, systems, and industries are terraforming the planet and reshaping all living beings.

Minds are being mined.

Bodies are being manufactured.

Modern man is not acting like a real human being. He is man fractured, unnatural.

Earth is for natural beings. Stewards. Caretakers. Cultivators. Protectors.

Unnatural people poison air, water, land, and bodies because if you cannot own it, you would rather destroy it so no one can have it.

Indian says to the white man, you are truly a master at conquering everything.

When you finally conquer your ego, we will talk again.

To turn an unnatural being into a natural one, ego must be conquered first.

Then you must recognize the spark inside every human being.

A pilot is a flame.

When your flame is low, give it a blow. Oxygen feeds the flame.

Pilot is leader.

Flame is fire.

Fire is life.

Indigenous people say fire gives life.

Europeans use fire to take life.

Bombs. Atomic fire. Nuclear fire.

The solar plexus is fire, center, balance.

The heart is the harmonizer.

When fire and heart are aligned, a human becomes coherent, responsible, and powerful.

Be who your ancestors created you to be.

Aspire to inspire.

Keep planting seeds, mentally, spiritually, physically.

And learn to become a responsible human being.

Learning is a process required to evolve into better human beings.