Indigenous Wisdom
By Shirin Taleb-Beigi Hunt
“The revealers and healers were the best cared for by the tribe, always fed and warm, the tribe understood their value. We’ve turned too much to science and too far from indigenous wisdom.
In the modern world, people are valued by how much they have, in the indigenous world, you’re valued by how much you give away.” —Kenji Hunt aka Anushke’e’
We are living in unprecedented times. We are hearing this over and over again. What has the world come to? We are told so many lies from so many directions that we don’t know who to believe and what is the truth. The world as we know it is teetering and we all feel the chaos. In order for any system to change, it must experience chaos. So, what is the change we are aiming for? What is the change we are experiencing? My teacher Ka’chi told us the new word for change is reset. Resetting the world we live in. What does that look like? How does it feel?
America is going through its reset. I see America—and I don’t mean the Indigenous America that is held sacredly by Native Americans, I’m talking about the 4th of July America, the young one—I see it as a young boy who is showing all his wounds. This little boy is running around in utter chaos and all his wounds and scars are right there on the surface for all to see. The open wounds of injustice and racism, the pain of divisiveness, us against them, being bullied, being a bully, feeling unprotected and unsafe. It’s unknown if this little boy can be trusted or if he can trust anyone. There is no sense of security or peace and this little boy needs help. The mother needs to embrace this boy with all his wounds, see and recognize them all, then begin the healing process.
The mother of this country is Mother Earth first, then all the Native Americans who have spoken and cared for the Earth of these Americas. Here in the Hawaiian islands, the same is true for Native Hawaiians as is true all over the world for all indigenous peoples. We moved forward so fast and regarded intellect and science so highly that we forgot the value and importance of our indigenous peoples. We shifted out of balance and, when combined with the energy of greed and the want for more and more all the time, we walked further and further away from the respect of our Earth and the value of her beauty and generosity with us as her guests.
My husband is an enrolled member of the Chicamagua (Echota) nation. I’ve learned so much from him in ceremonies throughout our 30 years of life together. The first ceremony I experienced with him was in a sweat lodge. Kenji was running the lodge and I’m forever grateful for my brother being the bridge that brought us together, so this young Persian girl could experience her first Native American ceremony. Kenji described to me that when you enter a lodge, you crawl on the Earth, respecting and honoring Mother Earth, being humble upon her. As I heard his words and felt the meaning, I began to crawl on the Earth in ceremony, it was as if I could hear the Earth speak, feel her energy rising into my body. It was as if I could kiss the Earth, I was closer to her than I had been for a long while. I was busy at the university after all, going after a degree because that is what society values; it isn’t important if you are crawling on the Earth to communicate with her because reading textbooks is more important and getting that better grade and having a better résumé and so on.
I was born in Iran, the youngest in my family. My dad was very scholarly with two Bachelor’s degrees, a Master’s degree, and a PhD in economics. My mom was a very sharp businesswoman and they both created successful businesses together. I remember my childhood times, sitting in their office, which was a room in our big house, and listening to them handling business and being busy in their world. Then I would go outside in the yard where we had a weeping willow tree whose branches reached the ground. As I would part the branches to go inside, it was like entering through a magic curtain. I would sit under that willow tree and commune with nature and I could see my spirit friends and visit with them in our own little magical garden. I was always fascinated by the mystical world and loved playing in it.
My family and I moved to the United States when I was 12. I experienced a huge culture shock entering junior high school and trying to adapt to a new culture where I barely even spoke the language. This was the time when being Iranian was very tough. I was called a terrorist and told to go back home repeatedly in school, as I tried to acclimate to a culture that seemed to hate my country and my people. I became a loner, very quiet, and stayed to myself. At home, my parents and siblings would have regular strong disagreements and fights over beliefs and I learned quickly how divisiveness works to tear families apart and create separation and weakness. As a result, I became even more quiet and went inside myself and opened up my world of imagination more. There were multiple long car rides where I would stare into the wilderness, tune out the talk in the car, and tune into all the Native American ceremonies that had taken place in those lands. I could imagine seeing the elders and the ceremonies being offered and I would imagine being in those ceremonies myself. I had no idea how this would ever be possible for a little Persian girl like me living in the middle of California with no access to anything Native American, but I continued to imagine being in these ceremonies and that someday I would marry a Native American man. Now mind you that at this point, I had actually never even met a Native American person and my only experience was watching cowboy and Indian movies dubbed in Farsi in Iran, but I was always rooting for the Indians in those movies when I was little.
The story of how I met my husband Kenji is a whole story on its own; it was a case of dreaming a dream and witnessing it all come to reality, from manifestation to our actual meeting in just 23 days. We met in January of 1990 and throughout our time, I have learned volumes and experienced many ceremonies with Kenji, our teacher Ka’chi, other elders with integrity, Kahuna Ed, to name a few. The common thread in all my indigenous learnings is the respect and appreciation for Mother Earth—to hear her, to respond to her calling, to live in a manner that leaves a world that can support the next seven generations, to have reverence for all life. Humanity must shift its focus and pay attention to the indigenous peoples of the world, as they all hold the very fabric of life and have passed down knowledge from generation to generation, keeping the magic alive.
Our teacher Ka’chi revealed the importance of bringing in new codes for this new paradigm that we are in, ways to live and create the world we wish to live in. We must pay attention to our indigenous wisdom keepers to have a possibility of transcending all the chaos we are experiencing and live in harmony with one another and our Earth. We have all the solutions amongst us all, if we come together and focus our attention.
I share this as my deep and respectful letter of gratitude to my husband Kenji and to all indigenous peoples of the world. Thank you for keeping the thread of life all throughout time.
