Issue 44
In this issue:
1) Welcome Letter by Sibyl McLendon
2) The Minor Arcana, Aces by Eagle Dancing
3) Perfectionism Is Too Much by Rhoberta Shaler
4) When Religion is a Weapon of Mass Destruction by Terri Jean (part1)
5) The Power Of Music
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Welcome Letter
by Sibyl McLendon
Yá'át'ééh! Welcome to MousePages. I have some very important news! I
am moving MousePages to a new newsletter service. This will eliminate a
lot of the ads that you see here, which are placed in the newsletter by
Topica. Some of you have already confirmed your subscription to the new
server. If you haven't yet, you will have to do this, or you will not
continue to receive Mouse Pages. This is the last issue that I will
send out from Topica. You received an email, asking you to resubscribe.
If you didn't, or deleted it because you didn't know what it was, you
will have to go to
http://www.thebrownmousemedicineco.com/my_newsletter.htm
and
resubscribe. Or, you could just send me an email, and I will resend the
opt-in email to you. navajomouse@hotmail.com.
This is all just to
serve you better, and to make a nicer MousePages to read. I thank you
for your patience!
We have a shortened issue this week, because of the length of one of the
articles: When Religion is a Weapon of Mass Destruction, by Terri Jean.
Most of you are familiar with Terri Jean from past issues. This
article is just as informative and well-written as her others, but I do
have a warning for you. Some of this article is very hard to read. It
tells of brutalities perpetrated on American Indians in the name of
religion. I think that it is very important to read this, because it is
reality and truth. If it is hard to read, all the better. Aboriginal
people had to live it.
I want to let you all know that Michael Lynn, who wrote the wonderful
stories I have included the last few weeks, has a site now. You can
read her stories on line, and check back often because more are coming!
http://medicine-woman-writer.aaanativearts.com
I stuck my keyboard in my mouth last week when I said that September in
Tucson meant that it would be under 100 degrees now.... it was over 100
every day this past week, and even hit 104 one day! Now, I know to keep
my weather-quips to myself.
Be sure to check out the links to the two contest that are included.
You could win a cool sweatshirt, or a psychic reading from Eagle
Dancing.
So have a great week, everyone. It's all good.......
You can get in touch with me at navajomouse@hotmail.com
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The Minor Arcana
The Aces
by Eagle Dancing
We are going to start going through the minor Arcana cards now. We
start with the Aces.
General Meaning:
Aces signify beginnings, and impulse. They express energy and moving
forward.
Ace of Wands
Career opportunities and new directions. Creativity is flowing, and new
ideas are coming. There may be a new job, or even a pregnancy.
Reversed: Creativity is blocked. You feel frustrated and impatient.
You may be trying too hard. It may be time to change your direction or
focus.
Ace of Pentacles
Money is on the way. Can mean a windfall or inheritance. Productivity
is increasing, and you have contentment in your life.
Reversed: Money will be lost. A new job may be making you unhappy.
Bad investments. Poor money judgment.
Ace of Swords
Powerful forces are at work. Fresh ways of thinking, logic. Can mean
Karma, for good or for bad.
Reversed: Delays, misunderstandings, mental stress and imbalance.
Ace of Cups
Joy, happiness, love and creativity. You are about to be inspiried.
You may meet the perfect partner, or your relationship is going to a new
level. Babies conceived, friendships strenghened.
Reversed: There will be an emotional upheaval. Love could be ending,
creativity is blocked, there may be a deep need for love.
Eagle Dancing can be reached at http://www.eagledancing.com
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CONTESTS! You can enter to win a free sweatshirt at
http://www.beyondnutrition.net
and a free psychic reading by email at http://www.eagledancing.com
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PERFECTIONISM is TOO MUCH!
© Rhoberta Shaler, PhD
www.SpeakingAboutWork.com
Do you strive for perfection? Many folks do and it is such a burden
for you and for those around you. Nobody's perfect but you sometimes
feel a constant pressure to do things exactly as they
"should" be done every single time.
If this is a pattern for you, it is well worth the time to examine it
carefully and consider breaking the mold. You'll be much happier, and
much more attractive. In my psychotherapy
practice, I was once talking with a woman who also enjoyed doing
cross-stitch as I do. She told me that she sometimes would take out
hours and hours of work for one imperfect stitch. As we spoke, it became
evident that there was no area of her life where she could relax and
relieve herself of this pressure to do things perfectly. Her
relationships were fraught with the tension of
being "nice", being "proper", being "liked", being
perfect. Mostly her
life was ruled by the impossibility of succeeding. Why? Because she
was doing difficult things for the wrong reasons
and tying herself up in knots in the process.
Perfectionism has its roots in the desire...and need...to be accepted.
Perfectionists have been trained to approach everything they do in ways
that will impress the people they care about.
They want to impress them so much so that those people will want to take
them to themselves and never let them go. Rather than being taught to
accept themselves, they were trained to make
themselves SO socially acceptable to others that that is their only
focus.
Parents play a primary role in creating this drive for acceptance in
you. The desire for acceptance is normal but the drive for acceptance
is excessive. That drive comes from the idea
that you must never fail to impress those who are important to you. For
some folks, that is generalized into wanting to impress every single
person...important to them or not. Commitment to this tireless and
endless effort stand in the way of knowing that most folks are lovable
and acceptable just because they breathe!
Perfectionism is rooted in the foolish and futile attempt to do the
impossible for dubious reasons. It creates anxiety and makes each day
stressful. In the extreme, some folks feel that making a
mistake should be punishable by death! It wastes time and energy. It
is very difficult for a perfectionist to create a close relationship
with anyone. When you are never satisfied with
yourself, you can never rest. You may even resent the folks you are
trying so hard to please. In the final result, the lives of
perfectionists are run by other people--people who may approve of
them if they are perfect enough.
Imagine the disarray in a relationship when a perfectionist wants the
approval of a controller. No matter what the perfectionist does, the
controller keeps moving the marker, wanting a little more perfection.
What a nightmare! What a great relationship to leave!
If you find yourself in a constant state of anxiety, spend a few
moments examining your degree of perfectionism. Sure, it's a great
thing to have occasionally but it is a destructive way to live
constantly. Are you beating yourself up for not being perfect?
© Rhoberta Shaler, PhD All rights reserved worldwide.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Rhoberta Shaler is a keynote speaker, consultant and seminar presenter
who works with organizations to improve workplace relationships, build &
strengthen teams and manage conflict,
anger, and difficult people. Call her at Speaking About Work in
Seattle, WA, toll-free, 1.877.728.6464, or email her directly at
mailto:R-@SpeakingAboutWork.com
. Her press kit is available at
www.SpeakingAboutWork.com Free ezines.
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When Religion is a Weapon of Mass Destruction... there is no Freedom -
Part 1
by Terri Jean
"[Education] cuts the cord that binds [Indians] to a Pagan life, places
the Bible in their hands, substitutes the true God for the false one,
Christianity in place of idolatry…cleanliness in
place of filth, industry in place of idleness."
~ 1887 Superintendent of Indian Education Annual Report ~
When Religion is a Weapon of Mass Destruction
In the United States, the concept of religious freedom has long been a
founding creed seemingly uniting all citizens together. But freedom of
religion is not the same for all Americans. Prejudices and self-imposed
proclamations of cultural superiority have long enabled certain groups
to use religion as a weapon AND an excuse/justification for mistreatment
of people they deem inferior
to themselves.
In the last few hundred years, the United States government has done all
that it could to force this continents first people to assimilate into
"civilized" white culture. Religious persecution was
felt time and time again when policy after policy was passed authorizing
the taking of children from their families and placed in "white"
boarding schools, ceremonial dances and practices were outlawed, leaders
were placed in prison for refusing to conform and convert to
Christianity, and entire Native nations were placed in dirty, designated
confinements - living as wards of the government and of the armed
services.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The original draft, written by
Madison, read: ''The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account
of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be
established, nor shall the full and equal rights of
conscience be in any manner, or on any pretense, infringed." Yet it
wasn't until August 11th of 1978 did the US Congress recognize the
Native American peoples freedom to believe, express, and exercise their
native traditional religions. This act stated that ...henceforth it
shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for
American Indians their inherent right to freedom to
believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American
Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited
to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the
freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rites."
It is evident that the United States has a catastrophic record of
religious suppression and the attempt to eradicate Native culture,
religion and communities. Treating indigenous nations as godless pagans
in need of conversion - and therefore denying them of their religious
freedom - has long been a TRUE founding American creed ... a tragic
legacy of Christopher Columbus, the Puritans and others who claimed to
be doing their work in the name of God and country.
" ... [W]e bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic
kings and princes,... champions of the Christian faith ... to invade,
search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all... pagans whatsoever, and
other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and ... to reduce their
persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate ...
possessions, and goods, and to convert them to ... their use and profit
..."
~ Romanus Pontifex, January 8, 1455 ~
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The Spanish Invasion
The attitude of the invading Spanish towards the indigenous people of
the western hemisphere in the fifteenth and sixtieth centuries was that
of conquest, domination, subjection and slavery."Indians" were
considered uncivilized savage beings in need salvation and conversion to
Christianity became a `Do or Die' option. Those who did not comply and
pledge their allegiance to Spain and to the Pope would be subjected to
forced baptisms, incarceration,
beatings,humiliation, torture, the loss of limbs, the waging of war and
even death.
Christopher Columbus
The Taino Indians were generous and hospitable to Christopher Columbus
and his crew in 1492. Columbus himself reported that the Tainos were "So
tractable, so peaceable, are these people, that I swear to your
Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their
neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle,
and accompanied with a smile..." Though hailed for their unbelievable
kindness, Columbus also stated, "I could conquer the whole of them with
fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."
During his second voyage, Columbus laid out his self-righteous plan for
control of the "New World" by stating "I certify to you that,
with the
help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your
country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we
can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and
of Their Highnesses. We shall take you and your wives and your children,
and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of
them as Their Highnesses may command. And we shall take your goods, and
shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who
do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict
him."
All of this, Columbus asserted, was done in the name of the Church - and
to people who he knew to be peaceful, loving, and kind.
What Followed....
Salvation soon became synonymous with cruelty, destructiveness, and
callousness. Spanish missionaries raided and collected individuals from
distant villages, forcing them to submit to Spanish rule, BRANDING them
with religious symbols, and demanding the "converts" to work as slaves
physical and even sexual slaves.
The Spanish were known for their torturous cruelties. In the name of
Christ Our Savior, they hung thirteen Natives just above the ground and
tested their swords against their bodies; cutting some completely in two
and gutting open others. Some were burned alive, used for target
practice, and even babies were hung from trees while hungry dogs ate
them piece by piece. A Dominican fryer recorded this event, "Some
Christians encounter an Indian woman, who was carrying in her
arms a child at suck; and since the dog they had with them was hungry,
they tore the child from the mothers arms and flung it still living to
the dog, who proceeded to devour it before the mothers
eyes."
The acts of Columbus and the entourage that soon followed caused the
death of over 4 million people. Though many died of disease, others
perished either by the hands of the Spanish or from that of their own -
since suicide seemed the only option for many.
"[T]he changing of the language of a barbarous people, into the speech
of a more civil and potent nation that have conquered them, hath been an
approved experiment, to reduce such a people unto the civility and
religion of the prevailing nation."
~ Daniel Gookin~ New England, 1674
The Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the inhuman Pagans
In 1620, the Pilgrims first came to the Americas. 10 years later, the
Puritans arrive and lay claim to land in Massachusetts. Both sects came
for religious freedom (with the Puritans believing they were on a
mission from God to create the perfect Christian society.) The Natives
were considered the children of Satan by the Puritans, and they
celebrated a smallpox epidemic of 1633-35, which devastated the
aboriginal population, by claiming it to be "a remarkable and terrible
stroke of God upon the Natives." Using their God as a rationalization
for death and the theft of land, the white invaders of the seventeenth
century celebrated the murdering of men, women and children - some of
which were burnt together while trapped in village homes and buildings.
"It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the
streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and
scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave
the praise thereof to God" ~ Governor William Bradford ~ Plymouth
The birth of the Plymouth Plantation, the first permanent English colony
in the Americas, was the birth of American contradiction and religious
racism. Those same people who sought religious freedom in the "New
World" denied the right for others to live unlike themselves.
"How inhuman it was in those wretches to come into a country where
nature shone in beauty, spreading her wings over the vast continent,
sheltering beneath her shades those natural sons of an Almighty Being,
that shone in grandeur and lustre like stars of the first magnitude in
the heavenly world; whose virtues far surpassed their more enlightened
foes, notwithstanding their pretended zeal for religion and virtue. How
they could go to work to enslave a free people, and call it religion, is
beyond the power of my imagination, and out-strips the revelation of
God's world. Oh, thou pretended hypocritical Christian, whoever thou
art, to say it was the design of God, that we should murder and slay one
another, because we have the power."
~ William Apes (Appes, Apees) ~ January 6, 1836, Pequot Indian.
Religious Subjugation and Manifest Destiny
The first two centuries of European exploration and colonization brought
forth manipulation and prejudice to the indigenous people - with no
regards to the lives of millions who rightfully inhabited this continent
for thousands of years. The Spanish had no regard for the life of the
innocent people they were slaughtering, and the Pilgrims and Puritans
felt it was their godly right to murder those who thought differently
than themselves. Both groups used their religion to achieve what they
wanted: total domination of people and of land. Human lives were of no
consequence.
In the 1700's, Spanish aggressors located land they deemed valuable,
built forts to protect their people, laid claims to the property, sought
out Natives for conversion, and once the people were
herded together where they could be captured and controlled, a work
forced was commandeered by the Europeans who then used the Natives as
slaves.Those captured were forced to convert to a "civilized" faith
and
then forbidden to return to their people. Harsh penalties were received
if they tried to escape.
"The establishment of Christian missions should be encouraged,
and their schools fostered… The religion of our blessed Savior
is believed to be the most effective agent for the civilization of
any people."
~ Board of Indian Commissioners Annual Report ~ 1869
"He is ignoble--base and treacherous, and hateful in every way. Not even
imminent death can startle him into a spasm of virtue. The ruling trait
of all savages is a greedy and consuming selfishness, and in our Noble
Red Man it is found in its amplest development."
~ Mark Twain ~ "The Noble Red Man," 1870
Eventually government policy shifted and the sentiment of the growing
European settlements pushed towards "taming" the indigenous
communities
with Christianity. Missionaries set out to
"civilize" and assimilate, therefore remaking the Native population in
the image of their white dictators. Missionary schools were established
and children were forced to leave their families and
reside at a military-type school; forbidden to speak their own language
or practice their own religion, the Indian children were given civilized
names and civilized instructions as how NOT to be an Indian. Parents
were kept from their children so their involvement could be kept to a
minimum, many children were given difficult, laborious "chores," and
hash punishment was dispensed to
those who disobeyed. The goal was to erase the "Indian" from the
Indians... therefore turning "dirty savages" into presentable
civilized
people. In 1869 the Board of Indian Commissioners Annual
Report concluded that "The legal status of the uncivilized Indians
should be that of wards of the government;the duty of the latter being
to protect them, to educate them in industry, the arts of
civilization, and the principles of Christianity…"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
" The missionary authorities have an entire race placed under their
control, to treat with in accordance with the teachings of our higher
Christian civilization."
~ Columbus Delano ~ Secretary of the Interior, late 19th century
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Native Truth
A column dedicated to historical truth and human rights activism of the
American Indian
Editor/Historical Activist: Terri Jean
Director of The Red Roots Educational Project
Contact: the_nati-@yahoo.com
Established year 2000
To subscribe to this group send a blank email to:
native_trut-@egroups.com
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The Power Of Music
A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes
Music & Lyrics: Mack David, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston
A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you're fast asleep
In dreams you lose your heartaches
Whatever you wish for, you keep
Have faith in your dreams and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling thru
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
The dream that you wish will come true
So dream...
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