WiserEarth UK

Submitted to New York Times April 6, 2008

New York Times

The Public Editor

Clark Hoyt

I request your attention and invite you to explore Maka Si Tomni (Lakota language meaning Surrounding the Universe) and its mission Bringing Forth a Thriving Lakota Language & Culture.  My invitation is to create an exploratory conversation of possibility on how the New York Times can support our endeavor to make a positive shift in this 1st nation community of Americans and maybe our world simultaneously.  So please bare with me as I attempt to ground the fundaments of this endeavor in a concise explanation in modernity.  I am totally absorbed by this three paragraph editorial today entitled “When Protection Vanishes” and offer a reflection based in new biological awareness, cosmological research and a living community the Lakota People. I am not a Lakota Indian and I am a friend.

Maka Si Tomni 1st global event is the Little Big Horn Victory Celebration.  This is an historic event and is the largest gathering of 1st nation people on the Greasy Grass Battlefield in 132 years.  On June 25th 2008, at the Little Big Horn National Monument in Montana that is dedicated to “Peace through Unity” the Maka Si Tomni Council on Pine Ridge Reservation intends to have over 500 horseman (80% children), runners, walkers, elders, singers and dancers celebrate the victory on June 25, 1876 and film a sacred documentary entitled “The Lakota Ride Again” that tells the true Lakota Story of this battle and the Lakota People.   We need some gas money we already know how to fast in a depression!

I request you pass this monograph on to others at NYT who may be interested or maybe there is even a blog on the Internet dedicated to saving the wolves.  My assessment is it’s not the wolves that are in trouble its human beings and it’s time to explore how to save us by designing a new world together where there is legitimacy-in-coexistence in social relations with All Life as an “Agreed Upon Standard Practice of a Global Civil Society!”

“When Protection Vanishes”

I appreciate the New York Times and read their selected editorials via the Internet everyday. Today’s editorial "When Protection Vanishes"discussed the wolf being released from the endangered specie list at midnight on March 28^th and the immediate response of open season to kill wolves by hunters and ranchers in Wyoming.  This event is especially poignant and discloses the gravitas of our human condition, emotional contradictions of our public policies and intentions, and the insanity of attempting to design agreed upon standard practices in modernity.  “When Protection Vanishes” like the “Nuclear Test Band Treaty” “Habeas Corpus in Prosecution of Enemy Combatants” and “Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners” we have went far beyond the concerns for the legitimacy-in-coexistence of wolves.  Truly, we have entered a barbaric moment in human history where a declaration of “War of Terrorism and Civilization” is now operating globally through the leadership of the United States of America.

 The wolf at one time in our history, approximately 8,000 years ago, lived with us, ran along side small tribal migrating families, never attacking humans and only eating the sick caribou. And on the other hand the wolf is a social loving animal: there are more than 50 cases of feral children, kids living like animals in the wild, that have been reported, wolf children included.  The best-documented case of wolf children involves the two girls found in 1920 by an Indian missionary named J.A.L. Singh. The two, later named Amala and Kamala, were found huddled with a couple wolf pups in an old ant-mound in the jungle near a remote village. They'd earlier been seen with adult wolves; two of these ran off at the time of capture and a third (apparently the mama wolf) was killed.

Two legged’s and wolves shared the same food chain, the caribou (elk and deer), and lived in legitimacy-in-coexistence, a social relationship of respect, friendship and surprise with one another.  All the dogs in the world are descendants of the wolf and just look at the diversity in creation that has emerged in a very short period of time by caring, feeding and nurturing this wolf specie. I have a friend who invited a wolf into his domesticated household and it never ate a baby.  Most humans experience more kindness with their dogs than with other humans in social relationship.  And we can’t wait to kill the wolf because it will possibly eat one of our livestock or provide us a skin to hang on the wall. 

Mankind somehow has misinterpreted the social relationship with the wolf and created a mythological “shadow” story from man’s own self-deceptive fear of survival, lack, or delusional interpretation of superior self-importance.  The “monkey mind” in it’s illusionary fears creates a story, a mythological interpretation and projection cast out around the campfire at night maybe by mother, called “Little Red Riding Hood” and the big bad wolf is coming to eat you! Do you remember the fear you experienced as a child when you first heard the story, read it or watched it on TV?  Maybe the first act of patriarchy (distinctions of exclusion and appropriation) started by excluding the wolf from it’s natural food chain and appropriating the caribou as “two legged’s” property which has now turned into a source of justified killing to protect the right of ownership of livestock, income for self-survival or just entertainment as a way of living?

This exploration with the wolf is an emotional contradiction worthy of exploration that may provide an insight into our global ecological ethical problem of living in legitimacy-in-coexistence with the biodiversity within earth’s biosphere?  Are human beings superior to ants or wolves?  Are we really celestial gods with a manifest destiny in the universe?  Or are we biological mud people in deep shit living in absolute ignorance to being glorious, responsible and free? Is there any perturbations occurring in this post-modern reflections capable of disclosing the linguistic fundaments to energize the “Great Turning” producing the experience of realization in living to humanity?

Patriarchy

This relationship with the wolf may be the beginning of Patriarchy in human experience where the primary distinctions and fundaments of exclusion, appropriation, and power arose in our culture thousands of years ago.  Cultural exclusion and appropriation in human behavior is like rowing a boat, and we all know how to do it.  We do it for survival, self-importance and entertainment.  We have been doing it for so many generations that it’s the paradigm through which we see ourselves; others and we believe it is the only way to take effective action.  We are blind to our own responsibilities: way of being and living in patriarchy.

We now experience a global patriarchal culture of power, competition and aggression in modernity representing a taken-for-granted (paradigm) premise of aggression as being the hard-wired biological fundament of human nature itself.  No lie could be further from the truth concerning the loving nature of human beings.  I have questioned this patriarchal belief system since I parachuted into this mess at birth.  The personal cost of questioning its authority is spanking, hospitalization, incarceration and termination.  My only solace is Job in the Bible, who through all the suffering in God’s bet with the devil, remained faithful, trustworthy and confident about the creative generative principle that constituted, sustained and maintained all life.  Job proved that no matter what the condition of illness, circumstance of hardship or situation with friends that the devil and God could possibly create; he was ethically virtuous at heart as a human being.  And he was indignant within his circumstances.  So I have more than hope, I have Job!

American leadership today is acting in pure greed for power and “don’t care what the American people think.”  We now have patriarchs in education, government, religion and commerce who know the “transcendental infallible truth of reality” and what is “morally good” for all of us.  And we are just the ignorant mass incapable of understanding the mystery, complexity or meaning of how to organize life in a meaningful way.  The mass of humanity now lives in front of a TV being entertained by future projections from Hollywood depicting us as living in a future somewhere between the “Terminator” and the “Matrix.”  We are becoming mindless digital robotic rats who run endlessly on the treadmill of self-negation under the demand-for-obedience, serving tyrants we despise.  What an emotional contradiction to live in everyday as a way of being.  No wonder health care is so expensive and on Monday morning there are so many heart attacks! In our current social global reality I feel like Albert Finney in Network “I’m madder than hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  And my hero’s are non-violent courageous men.  Martin Luther King isn’t a holiday, he’s a legacy that propels me to dream of a reality so big that time and space disappear, a commitment worth dying for, and maybe an opportunity to start living in freedom again.

Each of us have a choice in this moment: do we wake up ancient our hearts’ desire that has been conserved throughout history and reflect upon our true human nature based in human experience, or do we continue to sleep in the shadow cave and live with the illusory monkey mind dualistic belief system of power, competition and aggression?  Do we choose to stop the self-negation, self-deception and arrogant belief of self-importance, and confront ownership of the monkey mind creations of duality?  Do we choose to live in social relationship within a spectacular universe and respect all life in the domain of social relations: friendship? Can we agree to respect the wolf in legitimacy-in-coexistence once again?  I have questions and questions need care, feeding and nourishment more than the rational psychological reflections of certainty in an already failed patriarchal paradigm.

To see clearly this choice and the blind cultural patriarchal paradigm operating within our current global situation, biosphere, bio-diversity and ecological circumstances in the 21^st century, one only needs to watch the 22 minute presentation of the 2007 Ted Prize Winner: Harvard Professor, OE Wilson’s wish for an “Encyclopedia of Life.”  We are destroying our home planet earth with ingenuity and furious energies now!  By the end of this century we will have destroyed enough living systems (bio-diversity) to have created an ecological disaster that will take 5 to 10 million years to recover from and at the peril of the human specie, itself.

America has experienced 200 years of unprecedented creative entrepreneurial ingenuity in the unfolding industrial modern age.  Now developing nations like China and India are following our existential mindless Newtonian industrial practices and recipes: the patriarchal scheme in competition for planetary natural resources and growth.  Everybody wants a car, washing machine, TV in every room, and a lot more toys and entertainment to comfort this deepening loneliness of the human spirit. Bicycles are being discarded for highways and everyone in the world is promised the American Way and Dream in the War on Terror, the Iraq War.  A war we Americans can even sustain financially.

Never mind the emotional contradiction that American’s currently consume 65 pounds of natural resources a day unconsciously and don’t know how to deal with poverty in their own community. The American technological religious mantra of consumerism is “better, faster, cheaper” and it is really going to “make you happy” and you don’t need to know where you are going, we tell you, by keeping you so confused that its beyond questioning.  The problem is we are going to need four planet earths to meet this planned dynamic inflationary growth in the world.  If you think the Iraq War was mismanaged wait till you experience this upcoming economic disaster.  And never mind simple people like the Dali Lama; he will have to find another planet to live on where legitimacy-in-coexistence with all live is joyfully celebrated as a way of being and living.  Who cares not Coca Cola we are a brand and have money to make to make in China?

The biosphere is already in severe distress: global warming, militarism and terrorism, degradation of bio-diversity, population explosion, pollution of basic water, air, land, sea, and is poverty growing at an unprecedented level, and of course, over harvesting every natural resource available on the planet like a plaque. 

Humanity must slow, slow, slow down not speed up the inflationary growth freight train already going a 1,000 miles an hour that has already left the precipice and heading for an absolute disaster. We must embrace stillness, silence and sacredness in the moment and release the “monkey mind” fears of survival and death.  No one is going to get out alive and death is a permanent feature of living in the universe.  We can grow up and get over the “Little Red Riding Hood” story we invented in the cave.

The question of reality is fought over in wars based on fundamental regressive transcendental ideologies and belief systems that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  The global financial casino based on Return of Investment Capital is the primary for coordinating daily living in our world and growth and return on investment capital is committed to shortsighted accumulation of wealth for no other purpose than pure greed. How do we change this digital cognitive robotic nightmare and deal with this desperate loneliness and instinctual survival as human beings? 

We don’t look at the past clues in our biological roots of human understanding operating in our nature nor are we interested in exploring the unknown “doing” in the biological diversity of our biosphere.  Cultural patriarchy is running on blind faith, failing hope and a cynicism that will kill us and the wolf will somehow survive to live another day.  We have broken and fragmented the light of wisdom in the tree of life, at our own peril and death, and now we live in a dualistic belief system of life and death, sick and health, black and white, rich and poor etc.  We can continue to look outside to the Tree of Knowledge for our security, safety and happiness and miss the opportunity in our expanding universe to begin the exploration of the ultimate frontier: the interiorization of human consciousness and experience in our ways of being and living. 

We can observe the patriarchal culture operating in diverse leadership currently on the tyrannical playground of global relations.  The US administration is taking unilateral actions in every domain of human concerns in a reckless disregard for the dignity of life.  I never thought I would see the day as veteran of the USA where people in our government would be charged with war crimes and its about to happen.  We lost the Iraq war at Abu Ghraib on January 13, 2004 when an ethical soldier came forward and submitted the pictures of the inhumane punishment administered by the CIA and US Military.  No high level U.S. officials has taken responsibility or been brought to justice for these crimes against humanity. The patriarchal culture is to busy consuming the present resources like a plague on the earth, developing new weapons that only kill human beings and leave the real estate intact, and planning the next offensive move in Iran.  Yes “When Protection Vanishes” it is time to wake up to the self-realization in living that this is our creation not the Administration in Washington, DC.  And even more important my foreign friends are beginning to wonder “who I am” to allow such reckless disregard for dignity and human life to occur, so its turning personal and individual.

Our current situation must be the hell Dante refers to as the “ever narrowing inferno” depicting the grand patriarchal culture of modernity.  All the patriarchs are leading the way.  We have entered a period where no one is accountable for anything; humans are a mistake in creation so every decision has an excuse, and every lying cheating thief in the world can act with impunity.  I remember Lee Iacocca begging the Federal Government to save Chrysler and it was a National Debate.  Now, the recent $30 billion bailout of Bear Sterns by the government, a member of the corporate privileged elite plutocracy, is the new standard practice of the arrogance of patriarchy in modernity. We don’t ask, we don’t debate, we do whatever we want, and we don’t care what you think!

“When Protection Vanishes” in our American notion of benevolent leadership respecting the heartfelt desires of people is a farce and an emotional contradiction.  We feel it and the good news is, 81% of the American people assess we are headed in the wrong direction. The government’s social ethical responsibilities have become a promise of a future blank check to the citizenry and social security is a pipe dream.  It is going to take every elder, householder and child’s commitment, transcending generations, race, ethnicity and gender to address the catastrophe at hand.  Human poverty, racism, sexism and fundamentalism is the problem and nothing short of having “human dignity” for the wolf is acceptable in the new world order emerging in this global civil society. 

We are experiencing death and terrorism, not in Iraq, but in our living rooms, at work, in school, in our communities, in the Ut-Most faith of insurance promises, and in the trust and dignity of our national treasury.  We have lost contact with who we are and how to be ethical.   We are creating the shadow dream of Armageddon like the “Little Red Riding Hood” story with the wolf.  We need to wake up, not in rage, anger or violence, rather absolute indignation and whole-hearted commitment to transform the current standard practices of patriarchy in our culture.   And we need to wake today not tomorrow.  We have all the time in the world and not a moment to waste!

The most devastating action of this current administration happened before 911 when the United States government withdrew as a Principle from the “Nuclear Test Band Treaty.”  Nuclear proliferation is the greatest threat to our humanity and it is also our greatest opportunity in reclaiming our dignity as global civil society acting in solidarity and committed to designing a world together and ending patriarchy once and for all.  We have the opportunity as a nation to reverse this wrongheaded direction driven by a mindless military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us of in the 1950’s.  The USA is now spending more on global militarism than the entire world combined and it is destroying our future as a peaceful friend, compassionate partner and creative nation developing solutions to the problems of humanity.   It is time to apply all our creative ingenuity, entrepreneurial skills, and research and development into bringing forth peaceful coexistence with all life.

Hope is not enough.  It is a shallow Christian belief system in a world to come.  As American’s we can know, meet the challenge in mood of joyful concern, and take our place in the stars of the universe. Just pull out an American dollar bill and look at the Eagle on the United States of America Great Seal it is facing the ‘olive branches’ not the ‘arrows.”  If there is any “Manifest Destiny” to way of being and living it is as “peacemakers” not “warriors.” In the Tao the powerful do not exercise strength but wisdom like the water of life. War is obsolete in modernity and the history of war started in ‘Iraq” and must end in ‘Iraq.’  It is time for a new beginning, a brave new world that embraces our terror of death and creates a future for all life in dignity.

Breakdowns in our historic transparent beliefs do eventually bring liberation and the possibility of designing new worlds together. Breakdowns demand waking up and require us to reflect on what is it we do, when we do, the things we do?  At some point we need to honestly reflect on our own self-deceptions, self-absorption, self-importance and be remorseful of our ignorance, lying, cheating, blaming and own the experience of our circumstances.  After we wipe-away-the-tears we can deliberately commit to a new way of thinking, being and living, and begin to explore new standard practices in designing a world together. We can decide to move beyond shallow hope and become conscious and responsible for every word that proceeds from our mouths.  And understanding for the first time we live in natural law: we always already experience our own creations and what we have created with our “monkey mind” we can also discreate with our “conscious mind”!

“The View from the Center of the Universe”

Recently Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams wrote an inspiring cosmological outlook based on in-depth state-of-the-art scientific research in physics, history and philosophy entitled "The View from the Center of the Universe" that is especially interesting as we encounter this meltdown in human understanding, coordination’s of coordination’s in human communications, and the meaning of ethical action to a host of global problems arising simultaneously.  Newtonian existentialism has created a mood in humanity that is either "resignation" or "despair" because we appear meaningless in the scheme of things.  What we are discovering in cosmology is the opposite we have our being and living at the Center of the Universe.  We have the opportunity to wake up to our human role in this divine play unfolding not as gods but as human beings in a mood of joyful concern “Building the Earth.” We are not moral beliefs systems rather dynamic temporal architects of creation itself hardwired to be “social loving animals” in natural law living ethically in virtues flowing from our hearts in friendship. We are all stardust and precious priceless glorious creations that can live in wonder and surprise in the future worlds currently being disclosed.  A world where the Dali Lama isn’t special and can always be respected and offered hospitality.

I especially liked the closing chapter and the reference to what "Grandfather and Grandmother" means to 1st nation indigenous people and the possible new metaphor it can be to this “post modern” world in this moment as we begin to transcend time and space as an enlightened planetary civilization arises.  Grandfather fire was the original light and we honor the Grandmother growth alive in Earth.  From the point of view of experience we can bridge this incomprehensible generational gap between where we are now and our 14 billion year source.  What an exciting moment for humanity?

I am very thankful to my Lakota friends for sharing their creation stories and language.  I thank to the New York Times for the inspiring editorial “When Protections Vanish.”  I thank Joel and Nancy who inspire me to believe in the notion that new metaphors can take root in the postmodern world.  I especially thank seminal biologists Humberto Mataurana and Francisco Verela (Theory of Autopoiese/Science of Structural Determinism/Cognitive Science Research) for their courageous effort in beginning to explore the new biological cosmology of the “Observer” or “Love - legitimacy-in-coexistence.”  Many teachers that are helping to bring it all together and empowering “Human Beings” to grow up and be glorious in this wonderful moment of our humanity humble me.  But no one has had a greater impact than my father and in his honor I offer to leave you an insight by Thomas Berry based in the scientific and theological work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

“If the molecular dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the earth – if the same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought man into being and guided him safely through a turbulent history  - there is no reason to believe that this same guiding process (autopoiese) is precisely what has awakened in man his present understanding of himself and his relation to this stupendous process.”

Maka Si Tomni (Lakota: Surrounding the Universe) 

The Lakota People are taking a stand on June 25th 2008 and you are invited to participate in developing a national and global presence for this victory celebration event.  This event transcends histories, petitions, declarations, treaties, and litigation and discloses the Lakota Paradigm, an old viewpoint of living within the earth in a sacred manner.  The Lakota Paradigm offers a radical new interpretation of reality that is grounded, integrated, and balanced as a social worldview based in the biological awareness of natural law and a cosmology that addresses current concerns of globalization, nuclear proliferation, militarism/terrorism, climate change, technology, biological degradation, social justice and the ethics of virtues in the emerging global civil society.

The Lakota People are brave hunters/warriors like the mythic "Crazy Horse" and proud of their ancestry and heritage.  The Lakota People are capable of speaking as "American Veterans" on the meaning of war and especially in the current "Iraq" conflict as an American 1st nation people who are still treated as secondary citizens living in the confinement of a hostile reservation with no socioeconomic infrastructure in modernity.

American 1^st nation Indians have served the US military with honor 181,000 veterans currently still living, 21,947 on active duty, 3,868 deployed in theater, 47 killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The “Code Talkers” from World War II are still alive and the first Lakota Congressional Medal of Honor was just awarded to Woodrow Keeble on March 15, 2008.  In the Lakota tradition an “eagle feather” is a medal-of-honor and recognition of service to the people.

The Lakota won their litigation in the US Supreme Court and refused monetary settlement and claim the Black Hills as a spiritual responsibility of their cultural heritage based on an ancient creation story and “Not for Sale.”  There history is the conservation of the human heart in social relations in an ancient oral language.  Friendship, respect, freedom, beauty and surprising humor are their daily experience in living within the Lakota language together.  They may have been conquered and oppressed but they were never captured, and have refused to participate in the melting pot of modernity. They are also experiencing the chaos, confusion and degradation of social systems occurring in modernity.

The Maka Si Tomni Council consists of Pine Ridge Reservation community members: Mel Lone Hill, Wilmer “Stampede” Mesteth (Chief's who have led the Little Big Horn ride for the past 14 years), Bamm Brewer (Headman for the Crazy Horse Ride the past 10 years), Jhon Goes In Center (a respected scientist that has worked as a Principle Investigator with the National Science Foundation through the Sinte Gleska University in Rosebud SD), Tony Brave (Executive Director of Maka Si Tomni Productions working currently with the Oglala Lakota College) and Darrel Mesteth (descendant of Bull Bear band, 19 years in US Military), and Danny Carlson (Northern Cheyenne Tribal Councilman).  

Our objective is to offer a new 3^rd party administrative role assisting the revitalization of the Lakota language in education, development of cultural linguistic stability and sovereignty, and inspire an economic infrastructure as a nation based on a thriving Lakota language and culture.  This 1st Nation American community deserves the right to thrive in respect, freedom, friendship, prosperity and happiness.  

Any assistance that you can provide personally to further the public conversation, participate in the project directly or facilitate networking opportunities you may have in developing in this global event "Peace through Unity" on June 25^th 2008 among all people is greatly appreciated. 

Basic Background the Greasy Grass Gathering June 25, 2008

The Little Big Horn Victory Celebration in Montana, on June 25, 2008 is “Sovereignty In Action.”  This is the 15th anniversary of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors’ ride and is the largest gathering of 1st nation descendants of the Battle of Greasy Grass in 132 years.  Over 500 Lakota horseman, elders, walkers, singers and dancers, will be participating and 80% are children.  It is 1st nation people reclaiming their dignity, respect and spirituality by revitalizing their language and culture in action.

The Lakota People are a strong indigenous 1st nation culture based in a grass-rooted democracy.  In the 1800’s they defended their freedom in living and ways of being by resisting colonialism’s repressive attacks and massacre of women and children.  The Lakota settled constitutionally twice with the USA government in 1851 and 1868.  The USA broke the 1868 treaty in 1876 and attacked the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne native peoples on June 25, 1876.  Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed along with 242 men in the 7^th Calvary and 28 Medals of Honor were distributed among 48% surviving members of the 7^th Calvary.  The US 7^th Calvary was defeated and 14 years latter in 1890 struck the last blow of US colonial aggression to the Lakota People at the Wounded Knee Massacre.  The Lakota People have endured the oppression and indoctrinations of government, religion and educational systems through the Department of Interior managed over the years by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that has totally mismanaged the financial trusts of 1^st nation peoples.  Yet in the midst of harsh prejudicial racism, severe economic degradation and poverty, and inter-generational trauma of political, religious and educational aggression: their language, creation stories and culture are alive.

The Lakota language constitutes their sovereignty and identity as a nation and people.  Maka Si Tomni is a non-sectarian, non-denominational, non-governmental, non-partisan grass-root organization dedicated to the revitalization of the Lakota language and creating a thriving spiritual culture based in natural law. The Lakota People face the same challenge and predicament as the Dali Lama in Tibet with the Chinese government. The Lakota language (at least 12,000 years old) is a precious priceless sacred language that is connected to living the mystery of life, water is sacred, the family and social relations is the altar and center of existence, and rocks, stars, plants and animals are legitimate-in-coexistence in daily living.  The wisdom of this way of being "as a social loving animal (two legged)" was pass down orally from grandparents to grandchildren for generations. What is amazing is that the Lakota creation stories have remained intact, not one stone has been removed, changed or violated.  They have no word for animal or good-bye, and there is no profanity in their language, its based on respect for living systems within the Web of Life.  Living was based on living in virtues: respect, generosity, knowledge, courage and wisdom.

The Lakota People have a special responsibility for the “Black Hills” of South Dakota through their creation story “The Great Race” which is very relevant in this moment of global history and the predatory chaos present in the current cultural technological globalization of the planet in modernity.  The Great Race offers a positive beginning for the deep-rooted meaning of "being human" at the end of patriarchal story of exclusion, appropriation and power!  

The Great Race Story!

The Lakota legend describes the formation of the Black Hills to the Great Race, a tremendous earth-shaking event to which all the animals of the earth were summoned for a competition to establish order out of predatory chaos.  Gathering on the prairie, the animals joined in a race around a course laid out to them.  The earth shuddered and groaned beneath their weight and pounding hooves until the ground subsided, causing a majestic pile of rocks to the inside of the track – Paha Sapa – the Black Hills.  The blood from all the wounded feet left a band of red encircling the Hills.  The Buffalo was running the fastest and as he neared the finish line, the Magpie who was riding on his back jumped off, crossed the finished line first; thus winning the race for the two-legged beings.

To support and participate:

1) Circulate this email to your social network of friends, family and associates, and introduce Maka Si Tomni to organizations who may have an interest in supporting this global project.  Educators can receive a free Lakota Ride Again DVD to utilize in a classroom setting to build a bridge between children worldwide and the Lakota culture.

2) Donate $50 and receive a copy of the Lakota Ride Again DVD: introducing the Lakota Paradigm by Jhon Goes In Center, introduction of the “Little Big Horn Victory Celebration” by Oglala Lakota Chief Wilmer ‘Stampede’ Mesteth, and presentation of the Lakota Little Big Horn and pictures of the riders.                 Maka Si Tomni website http://www.makasitomni.org

3) Join the open Wiser Earth network and the Maka Si Tomni group as an active participant or volunteer http://www.wiserearth.org/group/makasitomni

4) Be a major contributor to the “Little Big Horn Victory Celebration” by becoming a “Rider Sponsor” for $300 or “Event Sponsor” for $1,000 through the Maka Si Tomni Clearinghouse 501 (c) 3 http://www.makasitomni.org

5) Join the Maka Si Tomni Advisory Board and become a long-term participant in supporting the mission of Maka Si Tomni in bringing forth a thriving Lakota language and culture in the 21^st century.  Email: mailto:tomni08@gmail.com

To explore and learn more:

1)Watch the Lakota Paradigm by Jhon Goes In Center at Maka Si Tomni Pod casts on the Internet:                     http://makasitomni.org/mst/Maka_Si_Tomni/Media/lakota-paradigm-1.mp4

2)Watch Wilmer ‘Stampede’ Mesteth presentation regarding the 2008 “Little Big Horn Victory Celebration” at the Maka Si Tomni Pod casts site on the Internet:                    http://makasitomni.org/mst/Maka_Si_Tomni/Media/wilmer-lbh-battle.mp4

3)Begin to learn about the Battle of Greasy Grass at Little Big Horn:                              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

4)Watch OE Wilson’s, Ted 2007 winner presentation "Encyclopedia of Life" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/83   

5)Read Paul Hawkins "Blessed Unrest" book and the phenomena of global grass-rooted organizations dedicated to indigenous people, social justice and environment. http://www.blessedunrest.com/video.html   

6)Read the deeply inspiring cosmological exploration "The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos" by Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams that explains the possibility of this moment in history from a cosmic sense based on leading edge discoveries in astronomy, physics and cosmology. http://viewfromthecenter.com/

7)Read Humberto Maturana and Francisco Verela seminal writing “The Tree of Knowledge: Biological Roots of Human Understanding.” Or Francisco Verela’s “Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition.”

Thank you for your time and attention in this regard!