Though I am fairly busy, and need to spend more time and energy on
projects and activities apart from NativeNet, I want to attempt to
articulate some ideas for some new endeavors and ways of focussing
better on some of the important issues that have been talked about
via postings on NATIVE-L and the other NativeNet mailing lists. I
will likely set up a new area on the NativeNet Web page which I will
use for the purpose of trying to describe my ideas, and will just
inform subscribers when I have added something to which I would like
to draw the attention of those of you who are interested in working
with me in this effort, rather than burdening all of you with these
essays. I want to set up a mechanism, again via the Web - as some-
thing of an experiment in how effective the Web can be as an alter-
native to mailing lists by which we can all have dialogue about such
matters.
Before closing, I want to mention briefly that a couple of articles
on the subject of the "Navajo-Hopi land dispute" topic were submit-
ted to the NATIVE-L list during this past week between two major
holidays, when I expect that many subscribers are in "holiday mode."
Feeling that the ramifications of the contrary opinions expressed in
these two articles are very important relative to some of the thoughts
I've been having about what we've been doing with our mailing lists
and how we might want to re-conceive our activity, and wanting to
attempt to outline in writing what I see some of those ramifications
to be, I've held on to these articles temporarily, largely since I
wanted my response to be as reflective and thoughtful as possible,
and to try to frame the issue in a large enough context to promote a
useful dialogue about some of the issues raised by the disagreement
expressed in these two articles. I hope to relay both of them, along
with my own comments, within a few days.
I hope that the new year is a good one for all of us and for what I
see as being our troubled world. I hope that somehow we can manage
to contain, and maybe even resolve, at least some of the strife that
seems to threaten to do so much damage to our ability to undersand
and live and work harmoniously with one another. I hope also that
a greater consciousness of what humans as a species are doing to the
planet, and that we can find ways to halt, and maybe even to reverse
these alarming trends which, from all the evidence I've been able to
collect, threatens to do what I can only consider to be long-lasting
and largely irreversable damage to the biosphere as a whole. I want
to find a way to establish a dialogue specifically on these issues
by means of the NativeNet system and to work with you all in various
ways to do what we can to combine our efforts in common cause aimed
at slowing, stopping, and even reversing the direction in which we're
now heading. Without engaging in romantic misconceptions about Native
peoples, I think it is fairly safe to say that there is much that the
knowledge and wisdom of indigenous peoples can offer in the way of
providing a basis on which the kind of reversal of trends I'm thinking
about might be achieved. And it feels to me that if we can each under-
stand the literal truth of what is sometimes expressed in the Lakota
words "Mitakuye Oyasin," that each of us is connected in a very real
way not only with one another, but with all other things in our world,
both living and non-living, and that we have certain responsibilities
toward everyone and everything which we evade and avoid only at our
own very direct and immediate peril, we can and will "make a real
difference."
It is my hope for the new year that we can each strive to get a better
sense of our own inter-connectedness and that we can seek out and find
ways in which we can, both individually and collectively, work to carry
out effectively, and "with a happy heart" those responsibilities we
discover along the way, and that our example will help to inspire others
to do likewise.
Best wishes to you - and to us all.
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,cdp}!gnosys!gst