Yahtaeo, Understood

Where is Yahtaeo? Geographically less so - more so temporally; spatially in our consciousness.

Yahtaeo is where the path untaken at the great fork in this nation's history led to. When notions of this nation's possibility as an independent society were being formulated, there was one clear option - and one option obscured. This nation chose at that time the clear option - the option to attempt to create a better Europe, a better Britain, a better Commonwealth. A path that led through Roman law, Christian philosophy, and English socio-political theory... cobbled together to attempt to create a system that would (finally) work. A system done right, in lieu of the many perceived failures that lay in the wake of European ships racing westward to disgorge their human payloads onto the continent.

But the obscured option. What of that? When the thought leaders, innovators and movers coalesced around the desirability of independence, why did they choose not to also sever their ties with the metaphysics, philosophies and social artifacts that they felt had failed them in their exercise in the real (as subjects of the British constitutional monarchy)? Around and amongst them were a myriad of models well and truly removed from the taint of history - the taint of tyranny - the taint of failed utopian dreams turned to human misery.

Imagine a national mentality that had concluded two hundred fifty years ago that the root of the problem was not merely political independence; that it was truly cultural independence that would set them free. One that had turned to integrate the perspectives and sociocultural norms of the First Peoples into the Great Experiment, instead of seeking their continued genocide and defilement.

What a turn would be there! How radically redefined would have been the historical development of Those United States of America. Or perhaps Tribes? Or Compacts? What sort of land would this be now? What sort of world would resulted from the impact of such a choice?

The Federal Republic constructed by this nation to govern the country is reaching a crossroads inevitable to every Republic in European civilization. They are inherently unstable creatures that seem to thrive on empire more in its acquisition than its administration. Redefining the political realities of this nation though place us back at that crossroads that others faced two hundred and fifty years ago. Build on the known, or look to the novel?

Perhaps if this nation has any real future, then it may very well lay on the path untrodden. Instead of These United States of America, perhaps instead there is a new name yet to unfold. A new story taken from an old one unwritten.

Yahtaeo?

-Three Feather

To What End this Great Struggle?

We are in the midst of what may potentially be an unprecedented event in the history of the human species. A global, spontaneous, decentralized uprising against injustice, tyranny and destruction. One that has slowly meandered across Eurasia, through the Middle East, breaking out in Europe and that has now moved into the United States. But while we may know the face against which we strive, do we know for what we fight for?

To what end should we exert ourselves? What does a world in which there is triumph look like?

To those that currently lead the efforts for change - and to you, reading here, perhaps one of tens of thousands leaders who do not yet even know they will be called to lead, let these words be submitted to you. Let them be kept under consideration during these times that are upon us, and the times to come in which to build, and rebuild, in the wake of the change that has already begun.


Will there be real triumph while our laws protect those that exploit us, our communities, and our nations?

Will there be real justice while our waters are being poisoned, our soils and farms defiled, our air filled with toxins?

Will there be real peace while institutionalized secrecy is used to keep us fearful, weak and divided?

Will there be real freedom while the laws meant to protect all only apply to a few?

Will there be real prosperity while the few are still allowed to impoverish the many?

Will there be real government while the whole of society is not expected to participate in its own governance?

Will there be real community while consumerism is advocated as an alternative to connection?

Will there be real wellness while disease is seen as a means to make profit?

Will there be real openness while expressing the truth is punishable?

Will there be real hope while our ability to discover for ourselves is suppressed?

Will there be real progress while those developments that could improve our lives are attacked, repressed, lied about or actively destroyed?

Will there be real economy while we sacrifices tomorrow's NECESSITIES for today's GLUTTONIES?


Will there be a real chance for our children, grandchildren and our great grandchidlren unless we have genuinely, compassionately, collaboratively and wisely addressed these questions?

-Three Feather

Occupation transformed into Liberation

Today is a day filled with messages about occupation, invasion, protest. Citizens of the American Republic pouring into the streets, onto bridges, into lobbies by hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands. Creating a show of force and solidarity against...what?

What is it that they seek? Control, power? A desire to conquer institutions and suppress forces that they fear, don't understand, feel powerless against? When we take away subterfuge and misconception, is it not the case that the citizenry wants to bring these instruments of power under their demense, or even to end their existence - and therefore the power (perceived as a grave threat) that they have over their life?

Good. A noble effort. But is this the best course of action?

Let something else be considered as an outlet for that effort, that passion, and our collective NECESSITY.

The issue that underlies the problems with these instruments of power is the desire for control; for the desire for the centralization of power towards the benefit of the few at the expense of the rest. The psycho-cultural symbolism of occupation is ultimately no more than an attempt to replace one set of masters for another. If the citizens of the American Republic desire earnestly to no longer be mastered, overlord-ed, enserfed, then they must confront their own collective impetus for tyrannical power that they currently strive against.

The things that you own ultimately take possession of you. Changing the guard at the top of a institutionally corrupt and destructive system of power only perpetuates the crimes it commits - it does not amend or end them.

The only way to end the cycle is to confront the cause. Fear is what breeds the insecurity that, in turn, breeds a desire for safety that channels into a quest for power and domination that terminates in the violent struggle for total control.

If instead we strive to heal that fear, we suddenly and radically alter the outcome of the chain of consequences. Those that have made peace with their fears (and fear is a natural response to the very complicated world we live in) through honest confrontation and engagement with them do not, as a result, possess a desire for Total Control. Or perhaps, it is much better to say, they are not themselves possessed, owned, controlled by that desire.

They are Liberated. FREE.

If our focus was peace - and our focus was not upon fear - we would not seek to control or destroy what IS. We would accelerate the transition to what CAN BE. We CAN have a community, a nation, even a species that strives not for Occupation, Domination, Conquest.

Rather, we CAN have a community, a nation even a species that strives FOR Liberation, Empowerment, Emancipation. We CAN focus on our energies on fostering the seeds that have already sprouted even here in the seemingly impenetrable asphalt of the mainstream American Republic socio-economic "consensus" - rather than battling it out over rotting, faltering, dying institutions.

We have the strength, the vision, the compassion, and capacity to help one another BUILD something better then what we have been led to believe we have. But creation is never the product of fear and anger. It is the product of love, of hope - and of peace.

Has not the time come to create anew?

-Three Feather