I found this link to Shelly Keck’s story, Dying to Get Well, which sounds incredibly like my own, although she does not base her fibromyalgia on heavy metal toxicity.

I don’t agree with everything she writes about in her story, but her journey through idiot physicians, Big Pharma, and the worn-out “It’s all in your head” sure sounded familiar.  Incredibly, physician after physician denied that the depo-provera was causing her pain!!

Happily, she found her cure without pills, but food.  Food is medicine!

Over and over again, Big Pharma has tried to play God, and failed miserably.  I just don’t see how anyone can cause people pain, illness, job loss, homelessness, and greedily make money off of it.  Feeding the Dark side.

This video should put to rest who the violent ones are.  If I had heard ANYONE threaten a police officer or act in a threatening manner, I would have walked away from the protest.  Instead, I prayed with soulful people in a very moving moment.

In the first minute of the video, you see an officers with assault weapons.

Do you see any protectors with assault weapons?

When she talks about offering tobacco, she is referring to the Native way of offering tobacco in prayer to God.  So the officers were actively interfering with peaceful prayer.

And the officers and DAPL workers  were standing on graves, plowing the earth.  Imagine how you would feel having your loved ones graves treated in such a manner?  Or having police walk into a church, destroy the altar or chalice or other religious objects?

How can police just pick someone off the street, take them to jail, and when they refuse to strip naked, are attacked and violated by the very ones who are supposed to be protecting them?

She makes an excellent point of asking them to name any officers or DAPL workers that were assaulted.  They can’t.

(Just wanted to note that I made a couple of additions to my prior post on Women as Equals. Women as Prophets.)

Okay, so you might recall that there was an issue with the wild horse sanctuary that the owner apparently became overwhelmed and the horses were not cared for as they should be.

So my idea was to give these horses to the poor so that they could have transportation that was sustainable.

This morning, they come on the radio saying that the state wants to charge the owners of these sanctuaries if the state has to move in and take over.  Apparently, it cost the state $200k to feed the horses they took away.

Okay…color me stupid, but I don’t understand the problem…

Why don’t they take these horses down to Mission, South Dakota, where there is a need for transportation, especially by women of domestic violence whom have escaped a bad situation, but have no way to get around??

Surely, all the money directed towards supporting these horses kept in pens could be spent to help these women?  Having a horse would be therapeutic for them, as well, and would give the horse a permanent home.  It would be a step towards independence for the women.  And Native folk have been known for their care of animals, especially horses.  Indeed, it was Native folk who taught white folks that they could tame a horse without force or breaking its spirit.

There’s a solution here if they would just act upon it.  No-brainer.

(This is taken from an earlier blog, with some additions and editing.)

I don’t recall much being said about the women prophets in the Bible in either the Presbyterian nor Catholic Church as I grew up nor as an adult.

The most striking memory I have growing up is the women of Salem who were accused of being witches.  The girls accusing them would fake convulsions or other behavior and then claim these women were “causing” them to do it.  And no woman was safe — one woman was a regular church goer who lived her Christianity as Jesus did, and yet she was accused and convicted solely based on the nasty girls’ word.  Apparently, the girls had forgotten the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” nor the “Thou Shalt Not Covet Another’s Things” (a judge accused a man of witchcraft — and had the man slowly crushed to death with stones laid upon his chest.  After the man was dead, the judge acquired his property.)

Women in the Middle Ages were persecuted and drowned by the Catholic Church for heresy — the Church wanted to punish them for being independent and not obeying their authority.  For all the church knew, these women were close to God and did not need the Church to tell them what to do or how to live their lives.  **edited to add:  I realized that I made it sound like the Catholic Church was the only one guilty of bloodshed.  EVERY church has blood on its hands for persecuting those that chose another path, including Presbyterians and Jewish.

Most churches did not allow women as priests/pastors while I was growing up.   And for the Catholic church, that has not changed due to some perceived deficiency.  I was really appalled when the Pope had visited the U.S. a couple of years ago and the nuns were walking behind the priests holding umbrellas over the priests’ heads.  These women are just as spiritual as the priests, yet they were relegated to servant status.

For me, personally, I could not get past the Confession.  Even though I joined my (ex) husband’s church, I truly did not realize what it fully meant.  The Confession, to me, was a barrier.  Nothing can be more personal than to acknowledge one’s sins/errors to God and then ask for forgiveness.  The Confession removed that close connection in my view.  And it also placed the priest in a position of power not only over the parishioner’s spiritual life, but their cultural life, as well.

Having said that, I can say that the Catholic Church at least acknowledged the extreme sacrifice Mother Mary made.  Although they stopped there, at least there was some acknowledgement of a woman of great spirituality.  That comforted me while I was a member.

Too bad they portrayed Mary Magdalene as a whore and prostitute…when there was no evidence that she was *ever* a prostitute.  And the way they went about correcting this smear campaign was by what some have referred to as a “page 11 retraction” in the newspaper.  That is, they went to great lengths to portray Mary Magdalene as a prostitute as if it were front page news, but then they further denigrated her by quietly saying she was NOT a prostitute by burying that news so that even today, people still believe she was a prostitute.

In fact, the more I learn of Mary Magdalene, the more I see that she had Jesus’ back.  She truly “got it” and that is why she was included in Jesus’ inner circle and she was the first person to see him rise…but again, the churches ignore her significance.

And not only was Mary Magdalene part of the inner circle, but Jesus and the Nazarenes were more egalitarian.

Mother Mary was not only Jesus’ mother, but she also was a prophet.  This bit of information I’ve just uncovered in recent months….and it’s one of those slap your head moments where you think *of course* she was a prophet.  She had to be.

I found a couple of good pages on women prophets:

Rediscovering the Prophetic Role of Women.

As I point out in my book, What the Bible Says About the Holy Spirit, “The principles of 1 Corinthians 12 show the importance of the gift of prophecy. There it was emphasized that the Holy Spirit wanted to use the individual to bless and build up the whole Body. He wants us to grow up into Christ, for only as the whole Body is fitted together and united, with every part receiving a supply from the Head, does the Body grow to the upbuilding of itself in love (Ephesians 4:15,16). The love of 1 Corinthians 13 will also lead us to strive for prophecy above other spiritual gifts because it does more to edify the Church.”¹ The gift is “available to any member of the congregation…. In fact, because of the edification of the Church through this gift all are encouraged to seek it.”²

 

—————-

Some Native American tribes believed that women were closer to God because of their ability to give life.

And they do not denigrate women’s menstruation as Christian and Jewish churches do, which claim that women are dirty and the blood is a curse that God gave them because of Eve.  I personally feel that if God truly wanted to punish women, the gift of giving life would have been taken away.

Traditional Native girls have a ceremony to celebrate their first menses.  There are some social constraints, however, and women on their “moon” are not allowed to prepare food or participate in some activities.

This, for me, also ties into women being given the gift of prophesy.  If God considered them  *less than* men– I don’t see that God would have given them the gift of prophesy, as well.  So clearly God sees women as equals.

Before the European invasion, women were treated as equals in the Native tribes.  Those women who were prophets were given the same respect as Medicine Men.  It was only after the missionaries came and destroyed the women prophets’ respect in the community that they lost their equality.  What is really bad is that some Native men of today will claim that there are no medicine women!

**edited to add:  In the Native tradition, the women and men prophets were not treated any differently than the rest of the tribe.  That is, they weren’t put on pedestals and dressed in gold and fine cloth.  They were just ordinary people who were given a gift by God.

I was thinking about a childhood friend who had her “come to Jesus” moment many years ago.  I was still in my questioning mode of whether there was a God, so I didn’t understand something she told me:  she said that she put God first, her husband second, and her child last.

This bothered me because I thought children should be equally as important as a spouse.  It felt like to me that she was putting the children’s needs last.  This is especially important to acknowledge when a husband is jealous of the children.  I can see the children’s needs neglected to satisfy a husband’s immature expectations.

Looking back, I still feel the same about the children, but now with wisdom of years and prayer, I see exactly what she meant in putting God first.  The connection with God is a woman’s own.  It’s her strength.  It’s her source of courage to stand up for what she knows is right even though men are telling her differently.

What a bombshell of an article!  So I was right in my belief that they were spraying Agent Orange over forest fires!  Holy crap.

What is really upsetting is the I-don’t-care attitude of those in charge — whether it be on the Apache reservation or not.  It is nothing short of evil to watch people get sick day after day and claim that everything is okay.  You’re either really stupid or getting $$ for looking the other way.

And once again, people in this land are being sprayed with substances that are known to cause health issues…

You know, I barely know my own family’s history.  We just didn’t talk about it.  It was as if we just *poof* started our story with our parents…but here we have Native Americans who know their family’s history.

Reading this story, as I read the first couple of paragraphs, tears came to my eyes…ashamed of the massacre of innocent people who were different.
And the greedy ones used them being different to drum up hatred of them so they could massacre them without too many people condemning them for it. But I guess the real reasons the Cabal wanted to kill the Indians was because they stood in the way of gold…trees…oil…uranium…you name whatever riches the earth has, the Native folk have fought against taking it out. I mean, you can see that every place that the Native folk ended up…oil or some other resource was discovered…and suddenly the Natives were a “threat” and had to be moved. I am ashamed to say that I once owned Black Hills gold…before I read about what happened and how the Hills were captured under bloodshed.
Perhaps lumber is the only one that is renewable resource, but that was taken without consideration of all the life that trees support: oxygen for all living things on earth; shelter for the winged ones; food for both the winged ones, four leggeds, and humans; and shade from the sun. It was only recently that lumber companies were held accountable for that. I look up at the beautiful Spearfish Canyon and the mountaintop looks like someone with patches of hair missing.  There are significant patches of bare land where trees were cut down.
I was in Wyoming and listening to the radio as I drove along the beautiful prairie state, and the announcer came on and warned that it was not a good day to go out if you have breathing difficulties. I’m wondering why because there is no smog here. I walked around a National park there and realized that I was affected by low oxygen after I returned home. Wow. It hit me how serious the situation is — the lack of trees producing oxygen can cause the same difficulty as chemical pollution. They have cut down so many trees that the oxygen supply is seriously low. Wow. Just wow.

Back to Ladonna’s story –

I read her passion of the Cannonball river and her relatives and her own history with the place, I know what she is talking about–

There was a place in Indiana, a Presbyterian camp called Geneva that is a sacred place (the picture at the top of the blog is a campfire at Geneva that I roasted marshmallows and hotdogs at as a child). I tried to tell a few of the Presbyterian church members that they needed to keep it the way it is, but alas, they have decided to make it a money-making venue. It’s like charging for God’s gift.

I don’t believe it is the only place in Indiana, or the United States, either. If you destroy the environment, they destroy the special places that God has given us for life and for connecting.

You know, when I was at the Spearfish Canyon public meeting on the land grab, many of the folks who spoke against the land grab mentioned that they had been here for generations — some as many as five generations. They looove this place. I thought of the Native folks, who said the exact same thing when defending their land from the Europeans.  I wonder if the folks whom have been here for generations understand and empathize with the Natives, who truly loved this land and its connection to their families?

In my prior blog, I mentioned seeing strong, but nurturing women at Oceti Sakowin.  But I neglected to mention the men, as well.

The traditional native men were portrayed as fierce warriors by whites.  Which was true, but not the extent of their character.  They were also nurturers, as well.  The way that I was raised we believed that fierce warriors were incapable of nurturing or tenderness.  This is not so.

I was at a remembrance service for Wounded Knee on December 29th.  The children of victims of the massacre gathered around the grave where their ancestors were thrown in, one on top of another.  They spoke with passion.  A Lakota man wept as he spoke of his ancestor.  His grief was as real as if they were killed the day before.  He was not ashamed of crying, as white men are taught.

Another day, a Lakota father gently brushed his son’s long hair and braided it.  I had to get past my “white” filter of seeing a man nurturing his child as weakness.  How did we get to this point where we see strong women as “uppity” and nurturing, by either sex, as weak??

The war machine, perhaps?

Glad you have rejoined the ranks. Being a Boomer, I have a mature perspective of abortion that I didn’t have when young and seeing the women’s movement in full bloom. I’ve come to realize that there are women who are strong, but nurturing and they don’t believe in abortion. The women’s movement has been taken over by aggressive women who marginalized other women who valued their ability to give birth and valued staying home and nurturing children. It is sad that the women’s movement has twisted women’s nurturing to equal weakness. But I have finally been made aware of women who are strong, but nurturing, no thanks to feminists. Where did I see and observe these women? At Oceti Sakowin.

LAND STEWARDSHIP PUBLIC MEETING

Jan. 26, 2017 Spearfish Park Pavilion
It was a cold evening – temperatures drop rapidly in the winter after the sun goes down.

As I walked towards the park pavilion, I could see vehicle after vehicle going towards the park. In Indiana, you could only get this kind of attendance on a cold winter’s night for a basketball game. And very few care about what is happening to Indiana’s environment…mercury being dumped into Lake Michigan by BP being one of them and the other being 15 million pounds of toxins being poured into the waterways every single year…
..but I digress…
Needless to say, I was surprised and delighted at the over 400 persons in attendance.

People care!  People care!

Briefly, the governor of South Dakota along with Senator Thune want to make Spearfish Canyon a State Park. In order to do this, they must first exchange some land so that it can then be turned over to the state. Right now, Spearfish Canyon is in the National Park System and the Forest Service is in charge of it.

Joleen, a member of those proposing the Spearfish Canyon land exchange, gave a canned speech about how good it will be to take this land away….so the state can make it more accessible and clean it up. What a joke. This is the most natural of spaces and what it needs is to be let alone without more human interference nor more human and vehicle traffic to spoil the ecosystem.
Joleen didn’t get very far into her spiel before a member of the audience spoke up about how she was trying to steer the conversation away from what the audience wanted to talk about — the land grab — er, I mean the “land exchange”. They like to use nice words when trying to pull a fast one, don’t they?
She immediately characterized what this man said, who spoke with passion but not hysteria, as “very emotional”. They also like to put down anyone who speaks with passion as “emotional”, which in Freud’s psychological misogyny, that characterized women as emotional, and emotions equal weakness in Freud’s view. I thought I should bring that up for those unfamiliar with subtle communications ploy of attacking a person instead of attacking their argument. Ad hominem is what it is called.  It is a sly way of portraying someone as weak, so no one will listen to them.
Katie was the next speaker –I believe she is head of State Parks. She also characterized this land grab, er exchange, as “emotional.” Why are people upset? Because Governor Daugaard was trying to slip this by the Dakota public without giving them the opportunity to voice opposition to it.
A member of the audience got up to say that Daugaard had introduced legislation, SB114, the night before (1/25/17) as “emergency” legislation. Where’s the emergency? Is the land going to get up and walk away..? /snark
Katie went on to say that this was at the D.C. Congressional level. Several in the audience were surprised at that. Later, a member got up to state that the federal land is much harder to get rid of by politicians…they want the land returned to state control because the people in the state have no say in what happens to the land. Federal land, however, belongs to the American people. They get a say in what happens to it.
Another audience member stated she had worked for the Forest Service for 30 years, and they have devalued federal land to zero so that the land will not show as a loss to the American public. Sneaky.

Katie went on to say how ten years previously, the State had improved Spearfish Canyon by enhancing access. Enhancing and enhancement are words the land grabbers like to use. However, a member of the audience got up and stated that a 16 foot bridge that helped the disabled to enjoy the park had been washed out some time ago (2014) and it still had not been replaced. He said they went to all the trouble of spending money on making a sign saying that the Dakota State Parks could not afford to replace the bridge. He asked how they could manage Spearfish Canyon if they couldn’t manage a bridge? Lots of audience applause.

Next, Katie stated that Sen. Thune introduced legislation in 2016 that proposed the land grab, but it died before getting to the floor.

Now it appears Thune’s legislation is back again.

Katie went on to say that they were in talks with the Forest Service. Several people spoke out and said that was untrue. One asked if the Forest Service was here to confirm what she was asserting? She said no.  (Also not true)

People were grumbling about that and a man came to the microphone to address it. He said that the Forest Service was involved with the litigation, and they were under gag order because of that. I looked across the room, and I could see several National Forest Service employees in attendance. It was clear to me that they were interested in what was happening, but were not allowed their constitutional right to free speech as American citizens. Several people would say that they supported the Forest Service and that they were pleased with the job they did taking care of Spearfish Canyon.

They went on to say that the Native tribes were also being consulted for their input. Yeah, riiight….

A member of the audience spoke out “Like they were consulted at Standing Rock…?” Unfortunately, some jerk in the audience told her to shut up. She had as much right to speak out and call them on it as the others did.

They kept emphasizing call elected officials — that they were accepting and monitoring comments. Yeah, it’s the word monitoring that made me sit up. They’re not interested in the public will, but who in the public is speaking out. I have to say that as I walked towards the building, I was struck with the thought “at least there are no officers here dressed in riot gear” like at Standing Rock. And a gentleman at the end of the public comments voiced the same thought — but methinks he is too complacent in that he thinks it won’t happen.

Every thing they have done to the most vulnerable– such as the poor, the Natives, the children, the soldiers (forced vaccines) and on — is a dress rehearsal for what they have in store for white people. Up to this point, white folks have been insulated from the turmoil going on. But they will be challenged. They won’t be able to sit on the sidelines when the fit hits the shan. They will have to decide whether Spearfish Canyon is worth fighting for — for standing up to police in riot gear and being maced and being shot with water cannons and so-called non-lethal bullets. I have no doubt it will come to that. The greedy want this beautiful land.  They want to placate Native folk by making them feel included, but they also know that the traditional Natives are willing to lay down their lives for this land.  They looove this land. Daugaard, Thune, and Co. don’t want them too much involved because of their passion for this land.  Native folk see it as gift of the Creator and that demands respect and living sustainably in harmony with it.
Katie went on to say “We don’t know it all, but we will find out information for you.” To me, “we don’t know it all” sounded like a backdoor for them to escape responsibility. They can always say they didn’t know when people start calling them on their shell game.
Inclusion is another word they like to use. And she emphasized they had organized “focus groups” and “stakeholder meetings”. Both of those terms are loved by the neocons/neolibs to take away a person’s right to represent themselves in public discussions.

This is exactly how they got the land away from the Native folks. See, in Native society, they did not have “representatives” or electoral votes. They voted for something and they had to have 3/4 agreement before it would be accepted. This meant that each individual had a vote that mattered and no one person got to say they represented the whole tribe.

The Black Hills was seceded by Red Cloud but he did not have the authority to do so, according to Native law. Three-fourths of the natives did not agree with giving away the Black Hills, which they consider sacred. But the greedy ones got Red Cloud to agree. They deemed him as representative of all native folks and that is how the land grabbers got the land away from the native folk.

The thing is — the native folk were the best stewards of the land. They took care of this land for over 10,000 years. It was beautiful and lush and provided all their needs of housing, clothing, tools, and the most important — spiritual connection to God, the Creator.

Several folks also mentioned the Creator and how God designed it just fine without interference.  It should be left alone. Period.

Public comments are as follows:
Man: Government did not seek public opinion BEFORE introducing legislation. State Parks are acting like it’s a done deal.
He emphatically opposed the land exchange and against bringing in more human and vehicle traffic. Increased traffic along with paved roads will degrade the creek.

Man: Do not want more traffic in the area. State land is not protected like Federal land. State land is subjected to politicians. I don’t trust my politicians.

Man: Keep it as God created it. We don’t need it “improved” or asphalted.

Man: I don’t trust the system.

Man: Government was saying everybody agreed with land exchange. He asked everyone there who was against the land exchange? Nearly everyone there (400+) raised their hand.

Young man: The land acquisition is for Spearfish Canyon, LLC, which would give them a monopoly. That’s about as un-American as one can get.

Young man: He greeted everyone in the traditional Lakota greeting. Nice. He asked for more than token comments and asked for recognition of brutal history of the land acquisition.

Man: Spearfish Canyon is a land grab. Why didn’t they ask us? Because they don’t care. let’s make them care.

Woman: Make sure everyone knows what is happening. Across this whole state — let everyone know, because when East River goes on vacation, they come here.

Nancy Helding of the local Audubon Society stated that they were against the land acquisition. She stated that the Thune Bill (SB3254) would value the land at agricultural prices, not its true value. (This is another way for the greedy to acquire land without paying fair prices for it. Again, this is what they did to the Native folk. The Native folk did not see the Earth as something they could sell. They did not create it, therefore, they had no right to ask for money for it. They actually thought the English were crazy for wanting to sell land. The concept was as unfathomable as what we feel now for someone wanting to sell water.)

Foreign lady: This is an attempt to privatize. They grab this piece, and then come back and grab more. (BIG applause)

You might recall that was my feeling, too.  I could not shake the feeling that they were going to privatize the National Parks.

Another related feeling that I can’t shake is something I learned at Wind Cave National Park last summer–they once used those caves for fallout shelters against nuclear bombs during the 1950-60s.  Are they going to privatize them so that they can use them as bomb shelters?  Remember, Dick Cheney was linked with a nuclear missile that disappeared from an Air Force flight somewhere between North Dakota and Louisiana.  He popped into my head when I read of the caves being used for bomb shelters.

Here’s the fart book page for the effort against the land grab: facebook.com/Spearfish-Canyon-Land-Grab-1624952284478168/