“Only humans have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist. They don’t use their brains, and they have forgotten the secret knowledge of their bodies, their senses, or their dreams. They don’t use the knowledge the spirit has put into every one of them; they are not even aware of this, and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere — a paved highway which they themselves bulldoze and make smooth so that they can get faster to the big empty hole which they’ll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up. It’s a quick comfortable superhighway, but I know where it leads to. I’ve seen it. I’ve been there in my vision, and it makes me shudder to think about it.”
— The Lakota Shaman Lame Deer
Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
8 thoughts on “Flashpoint”
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one asphalt, one world. That’t the old joke.
Hey A, that’s cool. Have you seen the lines that look like criss-crossing highways versus the “signs” ones of animals, etc? There is a set of lines that look more like an airport – paved highways/roads leading to (nowhere).
I find it curious/interesting that throughout human/planetary history we can find such signs and whether they lead to salvation or ruin is up to the one experiencing.
Such a lovely quote! Thank you for reprinting herein. I first heard the paraphrase of this from my local friend, Michael Special Deer, another Lakota Shaman.
I feel we are all trying our best, no matter which side of the coin we believe we are on, or are perceived to be on by others. Either way, frustrations run high and can envelope beyond reasonableness. I know I for one will not ignore the information I receive in dreams or from my body. I take action, immediately, and I could learn to do so in a less frenetic or confrontational way with myself, others. I’ll keep trying. But, I will always let my throat release what my heart feels is true. And, I know my truest friends are those that allow me to change as my awareness shifts.
Funny, as in interesting, when you go see the NAZCA lines in Peru too…
Hope your evening is as lovely as the sunset fixing to occur here complete with dove coos!
Half De Witte – yeah, thanks for explaining, before i posted 🙂 i didnt realize he was being literal with the actual paved highway. surely there has to be material they could use to make roads that are environmentally conscious, but considering the country is already paved, this wouldn’t be feasable anytime soon…
when he refers to the “quick comfortable superhighway” is this the ignorant, overly intellectualized path which general modern man leads or specifically with technology? certainly, it’s possible to have technology and still respect nature.
yes, unfortunately the truth of the native american civilization is unknown to most white people as what is taught in schools are mostly lies. it’s so terrible. my best friend is native so i get to hear these things first hand. before i met him though, most of it i was not aware of.
“a paved highway”
There we have the picture to be embedded in our mind’s eye.
Roads are symbolic of the ideology of ‘civilisation’. What *man* imposes upon the earth – not treading lightly.
What’s the difference between paved highways and leather sofas, exactly?
The ‘fruits’ of the paved highway we adorn and they adorn us.. as *hidden* chains.
Our pathologies of living are like Giant Redwoods that attempted to grow through these civilising structures, only to be encased, petrified in concrete or suffocated in tarmac.
Shall we regress ourselves? Can we appropriate Lame Deer when lame, for us, is normal? Have we truly understood change at the core, as not merely psychological? What cost shall we bear?
Oh Wormwood, what have you not polluted?
Yes, your body has every answer if you are faceless enough to hear it. When my consort would go spinning off into confusion, I would ask him to hold the phone down over his solar plexus, and I would tell his belly everything. Everything. I would hear him sigh somewhere up in the facezone, and soon his voice would drop into the space just below his navel, and I’d hear what he heard.
For me it is a little different. When he lifts the cover on a sketch pad and puts the first line down, it appears under my skin. There’s not a touch, a color, an erasure that doesn’t wind up in my flesh.
This is the only ‘foundation and the only fountain.’
I read that book, “Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions.”
And one thing I discovered in the months after having attended my first sweat lodge in very early 2007 is the horrific history of our country and what our ancestry did to the Native Americans. I had no idea… felt so ignorant… and so ashamed.
PBS has been running a new series entitled “We Shall Remain”, which is about Native American and American history. It’s been honest and truthful, though maybe not completely so (I think that might be too shocking for a family program!). A Native American directed one or two of the episodes, and that was itself I think monumental.
You can watch the episodes online.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/