To be good human beings, we must not continue with the pattern of take, take, and more take. We must address the fact that over fifty million Native American men, women, and children have died as the result of the European invasion force in the last five hundred years. Yet, there is no memorial in Washington, D. C. as there is for the Jews who lost their lives to the Nazi holocaust, or for the Americans who died in Vietnam. Ours is a collective denial of historical genocide and it contributes to our reluctance to address the oppressive forces directed against Native American sovereignty today.

Forces such as a 1990 Supreme Court decision (Smith vs. the State of Oregon) that threatened the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion by allowing states to deny members of the Native American Church the right to use the sacrament of peyote in their services.

Forces of oppression such as the fact that: religious sites used for millennia by Native people--mountains, deserts, rivers, canyons, forests, the equivalent of our temples, churches, mosques, and synagogues--are increasingly being lost to civilization's progress. That is, they are paved over, logged, polluted, made into tourist spots like Disneyland, of fifty-five years old among Native people all testify to the efficacy of the genocide and oppression still active today. It is vitally important that non-Native people, especially those who feel they have been helped by Native American spirituality, become educated and involved in working to rectify these conditions of injustice, discrimination, and oppression. To not do so means we are in collusion with continuing the historical rape and pillage of Native peoples--taking without giving back while their lives and land are destroyed for the sake of greed and power. We need to join together with all oppressed peoples of the Americas in creating a society that respects the integrity and intelligence of indigenous wisdom ways while simultaneously protecting their sovereignty, sacred rites and ways of worship.

This is not to deny that the ancient historico-cultural roots of nonindigenous peoples of America have something to offer in the way of earth-based spirituality. There was a time when we all sat around the fire, singing, praying, and shamanically dancing with the spirits of animal, plant, wind, sky, sun, and moon. But it is important to recognize that those wisdom ways did not evolve here on this land. Just as the human body emits different electrical charges at its different anatomical points, so, too, does Mother Earth put out different energies at different parts of her body. These energies are part of the spiritual identity of a specific place and location. As such, they convey guidance on how to live in harmony with the forces present in that specific locale. The creation stories of aboriginal people, the very language they speak, are manifestations of these energy forces, which are themselves forms of intelligence, moving through human biological systems instructing them on the dynamics of right relationship.

Thus, it is vitally important for immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere to honor their ancestral religions, but it is also vitally important to pay sensitive attention to the "instructions" from indigenous peoples on how to live in ecological balance with the places of power that constitute the spiritual heritage and "working order" of these lands we call North and South America. The sacred places of power, the spirit of the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, the forests, the rocks, the animals, the play of the seasons--they all are the manifestation of cosmic intelligence and they all communicate their teachings to those who have ears to hear and hearts to feel. They open not by command or through force or manipulation, nor can they be bought or bribed by material gifts. They open themselves up to sincerity, to heartfelt prayers, to humility and patience, and to a genuine willingness to listen with respect, along with commitment to act on what is given for the well-being of the full circle of life.