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EVIL COMES FROM WITHIN
Čwé·?n relatives,
Family, hear me clearly. Much of what we have been taught about life, about ourselves, about spirit, about one another has been incomplete, distorted, and full of holes. That confusion did not happen by accident. It has shaped how we see the world, how we see each other, and how we see ourselves. And if we are honest, it has created a reality that many of us are deeply unhappy living in.
But understand this. The power to change that reality is not outside of us. It never has been. It is in our hands. It always has been.
Most of what we were taught about religion and spirituality comes from one dominant lens with a few close relatives. The Abrahamic faiths Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, with Christianity being the most dominant here because it arrived with colonization. These systems were not born from this land. They were brought here.
Traditional Indigenous peoples practiced what today is often labeled animism, a word that has been intentionally made to sound primitive, savage, or damned. In truth, it is a way of life rooted in relationship. Relationship with land, water, animals, wind, ancestors, and spirit.
Many people struggle to reconcile these worlds. If you practice one of the Abrahamic faiths, it can feel difficult to understand Indigenous spirituality. If you are a traditionalist rooted in Indigenous ways, it can be difficult to extract wisdom from religious systems that were once used as tools of domination.
Before colonization, none of our people practiced Abrahamic religions. We did not read scripture because there was none. That was not our culture. Our colonial era grandparents lived under Christianity because the colonizers were Christian. Scripture governed their lives. But our pre colonial grandparents read something else entirely.
They read energy. They practiced divination. They listened to the leaves in the wind. They watched animals. They observed patterns in nature. When you live in relationship with the natural world, you learn to read signs and symbols the same way animals sense danger before humans do. Animals flee while humans hesitate. And often the so called inferior beings survive while humans stand still and are consumed by what they failed to notice.
After invasion, many of our families adopted Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Sometimes by choice. Often by force. That means most of us carry both lineages. Pre colonial grandparents rooted in nature based spirituality and colonial era grandparents rooted in religion.
If you truly honor your ancestors, you do not choose one grandparent over another. You honor them all. But to do that properly, you must first resolve the conflict within yourself. A divided spirit cannot honor a whole lineage.
Personally, I call myself a born again primitive. I am relearning nature. Becoming one with it. Not seeing myself as superior to it or beneath it, but as part of it. This is the foundation of the Thanksgiving Address. Gratitude, balance, relationship.
My existence is my resistance.
On this Red Road, this new journey, you must leave old baggage behind. Whatever you messed up, whoever you offended, whatever you failed at, this is your chance to do better. Will you mess up again. Yes. Without question. But how you respond is what separates who you were from who you are becoming.
Growth requires mistakes. Evolution requires discomfort. Do not chase perfection. Strive toward it. Having goals and a plan is what allows abundance to show up in your life.
I will be honest about my own evolution. I used to dislike gay people. Some white people. Some Black people. Some Indigenous people. Wealthy people. Republicans. Democrats. In other words, I was a typical American. A product of a culture where everyone is taught to fear and hate everyone else.
America is a death culture. Since its founding, this country has known peace for only a small fraction of its existence. The rest of the time it has been at war, externally and internally.
Which wolf are you feeding.
In the past decade I have met many people who appear white but carry Indigenous blood. I have embraced cousins of fair complexion just as I have embraced those of African lineage connected to our bloodline. Because it is not about admixture. It is about mind, heart, intention, and action. The good mind, as we say.
Around 1989, I began to see the world differently. But it was not until 2009 to 2011 that it truly clicked. That shift took me through metaphysics, Buddhism, Eastern philosophies, African spirituality, Hoodoo, Moorish science, Islam, Judaism, Kabbalah, Gematria, Sufism, Yogic philosophy. And all of that brought me full circle back to what my mother, grandmother, and father shared with me about our Indigenous roots.
It also gave me a deeper understanding of the role the church played in the 1800s and early 1900s. The church was survival. The Underground Railroad could not have functioned without it.
Many so called Negro spirituals were coded messages. Moses was Harriet Tubman. The Jordan was the Ohio River, the Mississippi, and for us the Cape Fear. Wading in the water was about timing your escape. When you understand this, your view of the church changes.
This path led me deeper into land, water, Creator, and the sacred circle of all beings. And through that, I came to know myself. A better version of myself. One my ancestors would recognize and my children can be proud of.
We have been programmed to hate based on color, hair, belief, politics, and identity. Hate does not belong to one group. It is a human pattern. But unlike other species, we can choose.
You can choose narrow mindedness or you can expand your consciousness. Expansion will take you out of your comfort zone. Growth always does. The goal is not domination. The goal is harmony with nature without destroying the world in the process.
World power structures chose power over humanity. Their survival depends on manipulation. Division is their fuel.
Indigenous cultures understood gender and sexuality differently. Those who carried both masculine and feminine energies were recognized as purposeful beings. Not mistakes. Not abominations.
Yes, population control agendas exist. Yes, food systems, war, chemicals, and manipulation are real. But do not confuse Indigenous understanding of spirit with political exploitation. When you lack understanding, everything becomes mixed together and misdirected.
Nature was the religion of this land long before America existed.
I share this not to convince, but to offer perspective. These words are not mine alone. They align with how our ancestors understood creation as one. That understanding lives in the Thanksgiving Address.
The address reminds us to bring our minds together as one. To honor Earth, Water, Fish, Plants, Food, Medicine, Animals, Trees, Birds, Winds, Thunderers, Sun, Moon, Stars, Teachers, and Creator. To remember that nothing exists in isolation.
So stop judging people based on sexual orientation, religion, or politics.
Stop judging through a colonial lens of race.
Good and evil exist within everyone.
Stop assuming you know everything. That leaves no room to grow.
Stop gossiping and redirect that energy into building, teaching, and creating for your children.
Stop being full of yourself. Empty your cup so something new can enter.
This is not all about you.
Preparing the way for the next seven generations means understanding that you matter, but you are not the center of everything. Responsibility is.
Learn your responsibility to humanity, to your family, and to yourself. Everyone is born with gifts. But gifts come with responsibility. That teaching was given to me by elders across nations and by those who walked this path before me.
Honoring responsibility is service to self, ancestors, and Creator.
Rah: Ga Wah neh
Lovell Eagle Elk
