How Much Do You Value Freedom?

Strange. Very strange indeed. Strange that on this day of politics and voting in America I have not heard a candidate or reporter mention freedom, especially for the Native Americans. I haven’t watched news all day, nor have I seen more than a few minutes of the initial results.

It’s not necessary to know that nothing has changed for the Native American situation in their own land, at least nothing the media or any candidate found worth mentioning. As far as I know, the cursed pipeline is working ever closer to the Missouri River, and the water protectors seem to be standing helplessly by. As far as I know, some heartless legislators in Utah are still seeking to make theft of 100,000 acres of Ute land a legal proposition. (A classic tactic, by the way, of passing a law of unrepresented people or insufficiently represented people and then accuse them of breaking the law when they don’t agree. If that happened on a national level, it would bring about war.)

Yes, I’m thinking about freedom this evening, as I did this morning. And sovereignty in the sense of freedom from control. The power elite, that scheming, engineering, self-deceived oligarchy understands it. They know when they steal the ability to make any kind of change from people, when they suborn, cajole, and deceive people into being so dependent that they cannot make changes for themselves, that they cannot do anything to determine the course of their lives, then they have enslaved people in the most powerful way. Because they eliminate the necessity of people having to work to live their vision and mission, they have stolen the freedom of thinking, of spirit, of seeing any value in responding to their own Heart and creating their own Purpose.

This is the history of the treatment of indigenous tribes for over 500 years, well, at least after outright annihilation failed. They steal freedom. Candidates and parties and patriotic sounding twits can talk about freedom, all the while either oblivious to or uncaring about what has been done and is being done in plain sight to minorities.

True freedom is predicated on choices a person makes to know Self, follow Heart, and live a life Purpose. If it’s of the Heart, life Purpose contributes to the welfare of others as we live our love for Self (which is Spirit) and love for others. Anything that a government does that directly or indirectly and purposefully hinders our desire and ability to live in freedom by living Heart wisdom and precepts is enslaving.

However, government and its politicians are not necessarily the ones calling all the shots. Powerful, wealthy, influential oligarchies have sensed, known, and chosen to take away the freedom of people and societies because the oligarchs rejected their own hearts and chose Ego to allow them to control, plunder, manipulate, subjugate, and even eliminate any who stand in the path of their designs for obtaining wealth, power, and dominion — all ego, all self, no other reason.

American Indians have recognized this, perhaps more acutely than any others. Sitting Bull, Tatanka Yotanka, of the Hunkpapa Sioux in an interview with a journalist who was invited into his tepee, talked about all the things that the Whites had given the Sioux, but in the giving, they took, took away their land, and something more: “They gave us meat, but they took away our liberty…the white men had many things that we wanted, but we could see that they did not have the one thing we liked best — freedom.”

Are we willing to give up some wants in order to gain the most precious commodity, freedom? Sitting Bull was: “I would rather live in a teepee and go without meat when game is scarce than give up my privileges as a free Indian, even though I could have all that white men have.” That was in 1882.

In 1967, Clyde Warrior of the Ponca tribe spoke about what really held the Indian in poverty and defeat. He said that “our old people felt rich because they were free. They were rich in things of spirit. But if there is one thing that characterizes Indian life today it is poverty of the spirit. We still have human passion and depth of feeling, which is something rare today, but we are poor in spirit because we are not free, free in the most basic sense of the word.” (All previous quotes from Great Speeches by Native Americans, Blasidell, ed.).

Here is my ultimate point tonight. The loss of freedom can occur gradually and when it happens on a large scale is done purposefully. Those who perpetrate slavery, even of spirit, operate based on Ego, having willfully rejected Heart, neither hearing nor heeding it. They can change. I hope they do.

Until then, we should all recognize that a government that makes us dependent on it takes away our spirit, takes away the desire to know Self and create a life Purpose. That is true slavery, loss of freedom, and poverty. Such conditions have characterized oppressed minorities in America for 500 years. It is shameful, and until strides are made to encourage people to live according to Heart principles, there is little to boast about as a nation.

The hope for any of us, whatever tribe or race we belong to, is to listen to our Heart voice, discover core Self, and create life Purpose. We can still do that with great latitude and live a pleasurable, significant, fulfilling life, but we may be letting power elites rob us of that. We need to stand with the oppressed, because if we don’t, we will become the oppressed.

​Yes, freedom of mind and soul through Heart offers our best hope.