Post by Okwes on Jul 19, 2006 15:03:09 GMT -5
The following excerpts are from a Native woman's point of view from
the book called,
The Woman Who Watched Over the World: A Native Memoir by Linda Hogan
"As an indian woman, I have always wondered why others want to enter
our lives, to know the private landscape inside a human spirit, the
map existing inside tribal thoughts and traditional knowledge. It
is a search, I think, for a sense of meaning and relationship.
Others seek us out to find answers to questions minds and bodies new
to this continent haven't yet even asked. I want to speak to these
silences because they rise up in this part of my life as if i can lay
a human history out before me and hold a light to it, and in that
light is the history of a continent as well. Self-telling is rare for
a Native woman, but when i work on reservations with young people
they want to know how i survived my life. I wish i could offer up a
map and says "this way." But it is not so easy. There are no roads
through, no paths known, no maps or directions.
The cairns and markers have been taken away and broken. Who knows
where to step, how to find wholeness? It is not that we have lost the
old ways and intelligences, but that we are lost from them. They are
always here, patient, waiting for our return to thier beauty, their
reverance for life. Until we do, we will have restless spirits"
She also goes on to say:
"Memory is a field of full of psychological ruins," wrote French
philosopher Gaston Bachelard. For some that may be true, but memory
is also a field of healing that has the capacity to restore the
world , not only for the person who recollects, but for cultures as
well. When a person says "I remember," all things are possible."
I recommend this book to everybody, it started out about a book of
pain and became of book about love .
the book called,
The Woman Who Watched Over the World: A Native Memoir by Linda Hogan
"As an indian woman, I have always wondered why others want to enter
our lives, to know the private landscape inside a human spirit, the
map existing inside tribal thoughts and traditional knowledge. It
is a search, I think, for a sense of meaning and relationship.
Others seek us out to find answers to questions minds and bodies new
to this continent haven't yet even asked. I want to speak to these
silences because they rise up in this part of my life as if i can lay
a human history out before me and hold a light to it, and in that
light is the history of a continent as well. Self-telling is rare for
a Native woman, but when i work on reservations with young people
they want to know how i survived my life. I wish i could offer up a
map and says "this way." But it is not so easy. There are no roads
through, no paths known, no maps or directions.
The cairns and markers have been taken away and broken. Who knows
where to step, how to find wholeness? It is not that we have lost the
old ways and intelligences, but that we are lost from them. They are
always here, patient, waiting for our return to thier beauty, their
reverance for life. Until we do, we will have restless spirits"
She also goes on to say:
"Memory is a field of full of psychological ruins," wrote French
philosopher Gaston Bachelard. For some that may be true, but memory
is also a field of healing that has the capacity to restore the
world , not only for the person who recollects, but for cultures as
well. When a person says "I remember," all things are possible."
I recommend this book to everybody, it started out about a book of
pain and became of book about love .