By gkisedtanamoogk,
Among many Indigenous Nations, Quietness, Peace, Darkness are to be honored; honoring such acknowledges the realms of Knowledge and Understanding; embracing such, illuminates the relationship of Consciousness to the Universe.
For Indigenous Peoples, the Quiet Dark remains the Origin and Home of the Sacred. Everything physically known to humanity originates in Darkness, as perhaps revealed by Genesis and certainly within Indigenous Creation Narratives. The Physical Cosmology acknowledges that approximately 95% of the universe is Dark Energy; 85% is Dark Matter; 99% of the Universe is in Darkness—looking at the night sky may be a truth for consideration.
One cannot refute the great evil arising in humanity from time to time, such as greedy self-interests underpinning intentional ignorance, accentuated by the “I don’t care to know” temperament, and resulting in injustice and harm to social life, the normative social casting of People, religious intolerance, the ever-evolving despotic nature of Democracy and Governance, the economics of unconstrained wealth accumulation, and power imbalance, to name a few. But linking “evil” and “ignorance” with the “dark” and “darkness,” as Christianity and some other traditions do, has not helped in combating these evils.
A deeper Knowing, far beyond socio-religious limitations, is the certainty principal of the Metaphysics of Consciousness and Existence, that is, the Reality of Life flowing through our veins and breath. For the Wampanoag, the abyss of the evening sky, full of billions of stars and billions of galaxies, defines the Universe as the fractal nature of You and i in the same moment. This illumination is simultaneously the immeasurable profundity of the Dark that is every woman's Womb, exemplifying the fractal resonance of and reverence for the Universe as the Womb of Existence, thus, Holy, thus Sacred.
gkisedtanamoogk, is from the Wampanoag Community of Mashpee located on cape cod south of boston, massachusetts, married to Miigam’agan. Together they have three Children and three Grandchildren. He was one of five Commissioners on the Maine Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission and taught for 10 years at the University of Maine. He has shared several presentations with the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. gkisedtanamoogk resides with his Family at Esgenoôpetitj on the Burnt Church Reserve; he would say that Mi’kmaq Homelands are occupied by the province of new brunswick and canada.
Stars photograph from NASA website.