
|
"Happiness needs unhappiness.
Joy goes hand in hand
with sorrow.
It is
thanks to the shadow that we exist.
We must not dream of
an absurd abstraction.
We must guard the bond that links us blood to earth.
We are a
great mixture.
We are more than we believe."
Henri
Barbusse
In the case of sickness (physical, mental, or
social) or other such needs for regeneration or restoration, symbolic burial
can be the equivalent of baptismal regeneration and its appeal to rebirth
symbolisms.
Breaches in the moral, ethic, or social order can be mended
in the earth.
"... a Scandinavian belief a witch can be saved from
eternal damnation if she is buried alive, seed is sown over her and the
resulting crop harvested." - Mircea Eliade
Initiation rites among
many indigenous tribes
include some sort of
burial from whence a "new man"
emerges.


0 woe, woe,
People are born and die,
we also shall be dead pretty soon,
let us act as if we were dead
already.
Ezra Pound

"I asked my grandfather once
if he could tell me what truth was.
"I don't think I've lived long
enough to know that," he said, "all I know is that without truth
Iktomi, the Trickster, would be the most powerful
being."
Having lived more than half a century, I think I'm just
beginning to gain some insight into my
grandfather's reply.
Truth is often difficult to distinguish.
Truth can be a gift or
a burden; it can be
kind or
cruel.
Truth
frequently eludes our grasp and we find it
difficult to describe.
Truth can at times
hide so well that we can't find it to save ourselves, or it
disguises itself so
skillfully that we walk all over it without knowing.
In the next instance it
becomes plain as day, whether we want it to or not.
In the end we learn we can't live without
truth.
"Truth is the marker along
the roads we travel in
life," my grandfather said.
The Red Road, the good or straight way,
has many markers.
If you choose the
Black Road, there is
only the illusion of
truth.
We can be
influenced by truth or by illusion.
Two chieftains met on a plain
while their two armies waited.
"I have ten thousand warriors, skilled
with weapons and seasoned by battle. Victory will be mine," said the first
chieftain. "What do you have?"
"Only the truth," replied the second
chieftain. "This war has decimated my people so I face you now with an army of
children.
This truth will either destroy you or glorify you."
The first chieftain returned to camp, where his army stood ready for
battle.
He ordered his army to put aside their weapons while
he went into seclusion to
ponder the truth his enemy had spoken.
With the new dawn he sent
his chief aide with gifts of
food and an offer of peace to the army of children.
The chieftain
then returned to his homeland and stood to be judged before his countrymen,
fully expecting to be dishonored for his weakness.
Instead the
people fell down on their knees praising his good sense.
Truth is
also like sunrise and
sunset.
We see the sun come up over the
eastern horizon in the morning and then
disappear behind the western horizon
in the evening.
From
the perspective
of our existence on a spinning
sphere, the sun appears to "rise" and
"set."
In reality the sun
does neither.
Reality is what is, first and
foremost, to be reckoned with on Earth.
Lakota know
four seasons cycle in precisely the
same order year after year.
Reality is lakes
freeze in winter and thaw
in the spring.
All living
things die, that change is
inevitable.
Truth is the result of
the trials and errors of life.
"Without evil, goodness
would be harder to recognize."
"The first casualty of war is
truth."
"A bird in
the hand is worth two in the bush."
Some lessons rise out of
the illusions we have
acquired.
"Good will always prevail
over evil."
Some truth is subjective and subject
to change with new
understanding.
"Man was not intended to
fly."
If there is
a universal human
weakness it is that we want static answers.
Truth consists of two parts.
That which is given and that which is
accepted.
We Lakota have heard Iktomi sing several times.
Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851
As thousands upon thousands
of white emigrants made their way along the Oregon Trail from Missouri to
Oregon and passed through Lakota territory, the US peace commissioners told us,
"They are only passing through and need only as much room as the width of their
wagon wheels."
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
Establishment of
the Great Sioux Reservation - the entire western half of the current state of
South Dakota - for "as long as the sun shall rise, as long as the rivers shall
flow, as long as the grasses shall grow."
We are survivors.
We took on the worst our
"conquerors" could throw and are still standing.
The cognitive illusion is
that we are part of the past - something
to be studied, analyzed, measured, dissected, and ultimately
judged.
The truth is
we are still a viable culture with traditions, customs, and
values.
 The idea of death is avoided and
most feared by American society.
Death, an American taboo, is the
standard against which all is measured.
References to death are made in
hushed and apprehensive tones.
Visit
a cemetery and confirm the
general state of denial about death.
Funeral directors sell coffins to
"protect your loved one for ages to come."
Stone or cement crypts and
mausoleums are used for the same reason.
Logically, we are at least
apprehensive about anything we don't know.
People fear death when they
fail to understand the reality of consciousness.
The truth about
death is simple. It will happen.
Nothing is more inevitable, no matter
how vigorously we deny it or fight it.
We can fight to live, but we
will always lose the fight against death.
A profound and reassuring
truth about death is that it is a part of life.
Life begins with
birth and ends with
death.
Death is the great equalizer connecting all living
beings.
Iktomi, on the other hand, presents
illusion as truth, and always will.
Beware of Iktomi."
adapted from Joseph M. Marshall, Keep Going: The Art of
Perseverance |
|

 |
This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational purposes only.
 This website defines a new
perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
forged a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has
been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their
agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race.
Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious
practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This
web site marks the founding of a system of philosophy named The Truth of the
Way of the Lumière Infinie - a rational gnostic mystery religion based
on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme
leader, no church buildings and in which each and every individual is
encouraged to develop a personal relation with the Creator and Sustainer
through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the
spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The
Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie are spelled out in detail on
this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their
religious beliefs in America is considered a "hate crime."
This web site
in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the
violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels
desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already
controls the world economic system, corporate media worldwide, the global
industrial military entertainment complex and is responsible for the collapse
of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of
global ecosystems. Civilization is based on coöperation. Coöperation
does not occur at the point of a gun.
American social mores and values
have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international
cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to
deceive the populace in general through corporate media by pressing emotional
buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior
corporate media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction
of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to
the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction
and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been
directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
All
views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of
individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the
capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular
thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be
true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which
may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and
thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to,
re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been
throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with
the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to
the reader in the present time.
Fair Use Notice

This site may contain
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our
efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, human rights, political,
economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe
this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for
in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for
research and educational purposes. For more information see:
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted
material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
Copyright
© Lawrence Turner All Rights Reserved |