HOW TO BECOME INDIGENOUS DURING LOCKDOWN (Part 1)

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A traditionally trained Native American friend of mine was, as a young girl, told to watch the TV as politicians spoke, but with the sound turned off, so that she could learn to tell when they were lying.

An English friend had been living with the NAs for many years, and she told me they learned to read people very quickly after meeting them: and you can see why, because one's safety could depend on it.

Most of us no longer have those skills. So we are easily taken in when someone is sincere. The politicians and others who believe what they are saying are the ones who will convince people. They are not lying in the obvious sense, but they are arguing from a very partial place, and being (unconsciously) selective with their facts. And it is important to be able to see and feel that, even when, especially when, we like their message. Sincerity is very seductive, it is often enough to convince, and others may see you as the perverse guy for not buying into it.

Maybe another way of putting it is that you can often see when someone does not know deeply who they are, so what they say needs to be treated with caution.

So people are hoodwinked left, right and centre by plausible presentations. 

There is a story of an American farmer who was proud of his prize bull, and laid bets on it in a fight against a much smaller wild bison. The prize bull was all might and no sense, and it took one swerve and casual swipe from the bison's horns as they charged to disembowel the bull.

Many of us too are domesticated and have lost that innate knowing. I see people attempting it frequently, they will know something 'in their gut', but it may easily prejudice, feeling the world is the way they want it to be. We often don't know any more which feelings to trust and which not to trust. There is no simple path to sorting this, often we have to come unstuck, maybe painfully over many years, before we can know what to listen to in ourselves - what is genuine knowing, and what is the voice of the child, or even the wounded child. All the faculties need to come together - mind, body, feeling, intuition - gut instinct alone is not enough. We would not have these other faculties if they were not needed for knowing.

So this is maybe a lockdown exercise. Study those people you find appealing and plausible, maybe turn the volume off, create a fine awareness. Study also those politicians you have come to see as awful people, get a sense of them as simple humans, a sense of where they are really coming from. Re-wild yourself.