Mitakuye Oyasin
Mitakuye oyasin. It is a Lakota prayer that roughly translates "we are all related/all my relations".
The news out of New Orleans and all over the Southern Gulf Coast just breaks my heart. While this is mainly a forum for American Indian issues, it is foremost a forum for human being (and four-legged) issues. The news reminds me profoundly the simple fact that we are all related.
Please take a moment to help those of your brothers and sisters, the two-leggeds and the four, who desperately need your help.
Humane Society: http://www.hsus.org/
Noah's Wish: http://www.noahswish.org/Donations.htm
(Noah's Wish is a not-for-profit, animal welfare organization that works to keep animals alive during natural disasters.)
Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/
Volunteer, donate, or offer space to the homeless iin your home:
New Orleans: http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
Mobile: http://mobile.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
Baton Rouge: http://batonrouge.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
The news out of New Orleans and all over the Southern Gulf Coast just breaks my heart. While this is mainly a forum for American Indian issues, it is foremost a forum for human being (and four-legged) issues. The news reminds me profoundly the simple fact that we are all related.
Please take a moment to help those of your brothers and sisters, the two-leggeds and the four, who desperately need your help.
Humane Society: http://www.hsus.org/
Noah's Wish: http://www.noahswish.org/Donations.htm
(Noah's Wish is a not-for-profit, animal welfare organization that works to keep animals alive during natural disasters.)
Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/
Volunteer, donate, or offer space to the homeless iin your home:
New Orleans: http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
Mobile: http://mobile.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
Baton Rouge: http://batonrouge.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina_cl.html
posted by The Marigold Trail at 4:29 PM
3 Comments:
Or some of them were too poor and too alone and had either nowhere else to go or no way to get there.
Havent you noticed that the people left in the city are overwhelmingly black and poor, with a few poor whites as well?
I think you are ignoring the obvious issue of class in this whole thing by reducing it to "oh, well, the mayor said leave". Yeah, and if you don't have a car? If you can't afford gas? If you don't have anywhere else to go? What then?
What could have prevented a lot of deaths/assist the survivors would be if Our Glorious Leader was paying attention to protecting his people in a way that had something to do with reality instead of, oh, I don't know, continuing to enjoy his vacation? What a crazy idea that would be!
At least now the rest of the world knows that Bush's relative blindness to the tsunami disaster had nothing to do with it not being about America. He's equally willing to ignore devestation at home. Who says he doesn't believe in equality for all?
I,like my of my brothers and sisters, traveled from great distances (I from Ohio) to assist in the relief efforts immediately after Katrina struck. I knew that was where I needed to be. Six of us, doctors and nurses were assigned to the 6th district N.O. Police Station set up in the entry way of a looted Wal-mart.
My reason for telling this, and for putting it down in writing for the first time, is not to extol myself, but rather to explain and give thanks for what I learned this summer in Pine Ridge SD.
Earlier this year I listened to a talk at my Christian church about a mission to build a house on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a native couple in desperate straits. Although I've never participated in such an mission before, I felt like I was being drawn, or called, to this.
While on the reservation I worked very hard, but more importantly I learned. What I learned, what became part of me is that deep faith expressed in Mitakuye Oyasin. The simple, basic truth of our common creation and the respect and honor that we owe to all of the gifts the Creator provides.
The people of Pine Ridge, the people of all the first peoples, have given me the guidance to continue my journey.
What I did in New Orleans is just another step in my journey to learn to walk in beauty every day.
Thank you, my friends, my relations, for this lesson.
Mitakuye Oysin
Bob
Post a Comment
<< Home