Recognize, Acknowledge, Forgive and Change

By Don Coyhis

We’ve talked about the coming-together time which is happening throughout the whole planet now.  Representatives from the four directions, the red the yellow, the black and the white, are coming into contact as never before.  But it is also a waking-up time.  Communities across the country are awakening at this time.  They know something is not right and they know what it is.  Communities are getting sick and tired of being sick and tired.  There are small circles of people in our Indian communities who are saying, “This is enough.  We have enough suicides, we have enough children dying, and we have to do something about it.” We need to do community-wide work at the community level.  This is in keeping with the healing forest concept which says if sick trees are taken from a sick forest and healed, they will become sick once again when they return to a forest which is not in active healing.  Part of that cleaning-up process is dealing with boarding school issues, dealing with abuse, and being willing to admit that sexual abuse is still going on in our communities.  We also have to admit that domestic abuse and violence is going on in our communities.  It might look like things are getting worse, but when you own something, when you admit that we have a problem, then we can begin to work on it. 

There are four steps or four directions to working issues like these.  They are to RECOGNIZE, to ACKNOWLEDGE, to FORGIVE, and to CHANGE.  We have to begin to recognize community dysfunction at the community level.  You have to know what unhealthiness looks like and feels like.  I think that’s where the community is right now; we are able to recognize that.  The second part is to acknowledge.  You have to say, “This is us.  This is a true picture of how it is and what is going on in our community.” We must recognize that we need sober leadership and acknowledge that we are off track.  The next part of the healing process is to forgive or to let it go.  Many hurtful things were done to us as individuals, families, communities and nations.  But we can’t take the healing journey until we let go of the grudges we carry.  Then we must change back to our culture, to begin to bring back the culture.  That is how we see the movement in our communities at this time.

We know that in communities which are bringing back the culture––the spirituality, the songs, the drum, and the ceremonies––positive change starts to happen.  Across the country, communities are in various stages of recognizing, acknowledging, forgiving and changing.  Now we are using the words healing and Wellbriety.  There are many movements now supporting the original sobriety movement.  It is getting deeper than it was before.

I also think that we are building healing infrastructure.  For example, AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society), NANACOA (Native American Association of Adult Children of Alcoholics) , AIHEC (American Indian Higher Education Consortium), White Bison, and the many individual Indian trainers who are working in Indian communities, as well as Indian publications and other organizations, all provide our communities with healing opportunities or information.  A few years ago those organizations and individuals were all separate, but we’re starting to see a coming together, they are starting to form a big circle made up of little circles.  The movement now is towards unity.  As that comes together I think we’ll see an acceleration of healing take place.

White Bison uses the Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers to help in the healing of communities.  The Hoop has been to hundreds of communities or gatherings where it brings the gifts of healing, hope, unity and forgiveness to the people.  White Bison’s new mission is to have 100 communities in healing by the year 2010.  Each one of the feathers on the Hoop will be assigned to a community which goes into healing.  We’ll be using the Hoop to accelerate healing and look forward to hearing from your community so it may find its role in the Wellbriety movement.  (The Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers came to Red Lake Nation on the 23^rd of March, 2007, the Red Lake Day of Healing.)