Tiokasin Ghosthorse – The Intuition of Earth

Tiokasin Ghosthorse: A good way to begin is [Lakota Language].

Basically saying that the grandfathers are looking this way, the old ones are looking this way. And as an individual, without being an individual, I’m asking to be looked at in a good and humble way that the people will live and that the grandfathers are always taking care of us. Grandmothers as well. I’m also saying, “Greetings,” and, “Good day.” And welcome, my relatives. I shake your hands with a good heart and it’s good for all of us to be here. And that necessarily does not just humans, we look to the forever ones who were here first. And let’s acknowledge that relationship with all of that, all of those, the life-giving force of the sun, the moon and the stars. And it’s time we wake up.

Today will be a good day and I’m here in a humble way, not representing myself. I’m a common man, an ordinary man of Earth, and I’d like to bring that to honor you in this circle of life with me. And I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you, Thomas, and all the peoples that are joining and hearing us including the ones we don’t see. We’ll look at this in a very non-anthropocentric way because if we only talk about humans, we are leaving out the rest of life that is also listening. And thank you.

Thomas Hübl: It’s so beautiful, so very warm welcome from my side. It touches me, and it touches me to hear your language. And it creates a deep resonance and it’s brought me very close to you, to listen to you. So, thank you. And thank you for joining us here.

I think you said already so many things that are important. First of all, that we have especially in the western worldview, like male, white worldview, like a human-centric worldview versus what you just opened up is a much, much bigger frame. And maybe you want to speak a little bit to that wider frame, what we see, what we don’t see, how we open ourselves up to also what we don’t see, and to include more of the ecosystemic part of ourselves. And so, let’s start there for a moment and then go deeper from there.

Tiokasin: Okay. I want to say that acknowledging our interrelated, this is Mitakuye Oyasin in the Lakota language. The word that we have for prayer, which is really not the word for prayer, is wocekiye, which means acknowledging relationship to everything. So we are acknowledging relationship, not connectivity. Acknowledging relationship you’re involved and living with. And so we want to thank the mineral nations, and the plant nations, and the animal nations, the human nations, the spirit nations, the four winds, and the change and growth in the circle of life. One is not more important than the other, one nation is evolving from the other, yet we’re all dependent upon each other. And as a tree grows two ways, up and below, is that we all are becoming this mystery. So, I’d like to say that we aren’t part of Earth.

We aren’t Earth. We aren’t… People say we are Earth or we are part of Earth, but that’s too subjective for me to hear that or objectified. We become things, part of something. So if I say we are coming into this dimension, from this place of light to energy, without going New Agey, this is the way it’s been before people came to the Western Hemisphere. We have to reinterpret this into English. So if we come into this dimension with this energy, we’re coming here to be formed by this form of human. And what happens is that we’re learning how to walk, talk, eat, see, smell, hear, feel. Just the mechanics of just living here and trying to find the gifts of putting that all together, that these are what babies do. And so, we are becoming Earth. We’re becoming Earth.

We are not part of Earth. We’re becoming, in a constant continuous way. And then as we are in the middle, growing as we are, we’re still doing the same thing as babies. We are still becoming Earth. We’re eating, drinking, being and laughing, and doing all those things babies do. And then when we’re at the end of the spectrum, we’re doing the same thing, we are becoming Earth. People call it dying, we’re becoming Earth. But you see on both ends of the spectrum is that when babies come in, they learn to walk and talk and they see special friends, make-believe friends. Everybody goes through that to a certain age, then they tell them about reality. And then you get to the other side of the spectrum, and the old people are seeing friends that they experienced in life. They’re seeing their ancestors.

This is an Indigenous way of being, without inducing medicine, to stop that transition into the next dimension. You’re greeting your future because your ancestors have gone into the future. So, this is who we are. This is why in a lot of Indigenous Peoples, we respect the elders because we know that they are in the future. And if we are looking to the future, then we understand that very well. Viscerally, with a full-spectrum body, basically it’s our marrow. When we are transitioning on the other end of the spectrum from the childhood to baby to infant child to the adult to the older adult, and then when we’re ready to move on to the next dimension through either Alzheimer’s or dementia, the people who are traditionally involved naturally are allowing this to happen. That the elders are seeing and talking and conversing with those who have already gone into the future, their ancestors, our ancestors, so that the transition is more normal.

But in the western society, you’re given psychoactive drugs to prevent that because it’s not normal for the society because that’s viewed as diseased. So there’s a difference in how we view natural as to compared to a civilized human being, how we work with the mechanics of how a person gets old and they are non-productive. But we constantly are in continuum with the elders who have gone into the future, and that’s why we treat the elders as much as we can in an honorable way here because that’s basically our library, our treasure of how we would like to go. They’ve set the example just as the Earth has set the example, because as you know, they’re our oldest ancestors, and we must treat those older ancestors as our elders, which is Earth.

Thomas: Beautiful. Lovely. And I love this what you said before is that we are not just on the planet. There’s this kind of mechanistic worldview that that’s as a human being on the planet but it’s a whole system. This was beautiful. And maybe staying a little bit with the elders, what’s your or what are practices through which we can be in relationship? And maybe, in communication with the elders and the ones that went before us. Maybe, there are specific practices or ways how to establish that kind of inner connection or relationship.

Tiokasin: I am not a shaman or a fortune teller or a spiritual guru or any of these things, Thomas. But I do realize there inherently in all of us, our DNA is of those same elders. So to deeply see within when you close your eyes, as you know, it’s a vaster universe than when you open your eyes. When I say ancestors, I can actually see ancestors in the trees, in the rocks. The context of communication is the older language you have with Earth rather than technology. You’re able to understand the intuitive values of what the Earth is saying rather than instinctual values of what technology brings to you as survivorship. One is living, one is surviving. So, we develop this panic-driven language to treat trauma. But on the worldview of Indigenous folks, and I don’t speak for all, my experience is that the piece is within the Earth, and that piece has always been changing. Always. And where we need to be, and we are in the rhythm with Earth. So, we know the elements of Earth are communicatable. They have communication always.

There’s nothing that needs to be proven because we’re not here to solve the mystery. We’re here to accept it. And the differences between how we view is to solve the mystery in one end, and that’s driving people crazy because there never will be an answer, and science and religion and politics and whatnot try to do that. Where many Indigenous Peoples or the indigeneity of all of us, indigeneity in all of us, understand that the intuition, the intuitive value is actually the communication. The means of communication of intelligence. And that’s what all the others non-anthropocentric beings are. They have this value of being able to speak to us through those ancestors. And so the ancestors that we described, if you say that Native Americans, they do everything in circles. That’s kind of true but yet it’s a colonial view because a circle means revolution around and around.

But if you understand even deeper this value of what a spiral is… Because we could see, we clench our fist and we have a spiral. We know the spiral on top of our head, even our fingertips, everything seems to be a spiral. And so, there is no beginning and no ending in that so-called time concept. There is no beginning and ending. So we are on that, and through a friend of mine who said that we are on that continuum of a spiral and we’re walking into the future backwards. And once we walk into the future backwards, we understand that these ancestors, our ancestors, are gone into the future first. And we trust that. So we have trust in the future, not anxiety or angst that things are going to turn out bad or good, but because you can see where you’ve been when you’re walking backwards into the future.

The ancestors are always holding you. And the ancestors in this case, to me, is the Earth. Earth holds you, gives you, cares for you every second of your life without question. Always giving, never sharing. Always giving to all life, not just to human beings, you see? And I think that is what we need to change the thinking that… To take the human out of the center. Because from what I’m hearing, if we put the human in the center, it’s all indicating that we are lacking something and we’re looking to extract those ancestors that have power because we’re missing that same recognition.

Thomas: Beautiful. And you said something very lovely, many things. But one thing that stayed with me especially was, “We are not here to solve the mystery but to accept it.” What a beautiful sentence, wow. It’s lovely. I love that. So much resonates with me. It’s lovely how we put ourselves on top of the mystery by trying to solve it versus to bow down to the mystery and let us be taught by it. This is very lovely.

So, what’s this time for you? What about the times that we are in? It seems like there’s a lot of stress showing up, there’s a lot of change. There’re a lot of things that are scary for many people, I think right now, including climate change and many other crises that are happening. So, how do you look at this time? How does this… And also maybe, what’s the prophecy for this time, if there is? Just anything you want to say?

Tiokasin: I want to just prepare people to say the prophecies that I’ve been told are very hard and that we need to prepare, but I’ll get to that a little later here. In a lot of Indigenous circles, there is no such concept for time. It’s impossible to apply that to the mystery. But to be in the moment, as we say, is [Lakota]. To be here, always here, and to be always awake. [Lakota], I mentioned it. When I said that, it’s to wake up. And that means to know that every minute, every moment that you are in is innocent. There will never be a repeat. And that innocence doesn’t have to do with guilt or anything like this.

What I see, the angst in people’s is because they don’t trust the future. If we are not present, where are we? We are not here. Between you and I, who goes into the future and who goes into the past? So, we are never here. We’re always thinking about being a better human being, a better planet, a better civilization, something better. But we don’t want to recognize why we are here, who we are here. And so through this is that what I do is to be in the present of this great action, this great being called Earth, is that she’s always consciously in the present. She’s not in the future or the past. She’s here. And if you’re in natural rhythm with Earth, she teaches you. She shows you how to be present consciously, intuitively. And your thinking comes the same way that your language no longer becomes denatured but you speak more of Earth first because every part of you comes from Earth, and is Earth in that way.

We’re speaking a denatured language. That means we eventually begin to speak a biophobic language. So when we speak a biophobic language, we’re only speaking about the human frailties, of how much we miss and how much I need to heal. And these words, I, me, my, mine, and ours are prevalent in the language because we’re centered on ourselves as human beings. But again, Black Health from the Lakota talks about that the center of the universe is everywhere. It’s not one place or the other. And I think when you feel that, you know that, there is really no language for that. I often talk about the indigeneity in all of us and I would say lately, a lot of these prophecies… And I was just looking at some prophecies the other day, especially with the Book of the Hopi. Others that I’ve heard through the times I’ve grown up and heard in later ones, these generations, that these times that we cannot date but in this society, we tend to date the generations of Generation X and Y and Z, the Joneses generation, the Boom, the Baby Boomers generation.

And so, we’re dividing the peoples already and we classify them. But from what I know in the Lakota way, every generation is the 7th generation. It doesn’t begin here or end here. It’s a continuum. So if you’re in the present 7th generation, you always understand that what you do in the 7th generation affects generations behind and ahead. We’re present with intuition, and intuition is the consciousness of Earth. The communicative value that we are missing is intuition. Because before, any thought processes of humans who were here is intuition. In other words, if you skip ahead, there is no such thing as artificial intuition. There is artificial intelligence but artificial intuition can’t ever exist because it’s always intuition. It was here before we were. It can’t be packaged, it can’t be put into any spiritual value, it cannot be put into religion, science, or even governments. It can’t be. Trees communicate through intuition, not artificial intelligence or intelligence, because that communicates how much of this are we missing by not being present with them or into the future because we’ve been away from the natural rhythms of Earth.

Thomas: When you speak of intuition, you also speak about the synchronization or an alignment with the natural rhythm of Earth.

Tiokasin: Mm-hmm.

Thomas: Is that what you just said? Yep.

Tiokasin: Yes. And there’s many things that we do that are, for myself, I would do. There’s these ceremonies. These ceremonies don’t require smoke and feathers and all of the things that we are stereotyped to do as Native People. It’s a simple recognition. Like I said before, it’s more like acknowledging relationship. Acknowledging relationship that you go outside and you go to nature, but it’s not that that… You notice nature, you acknowledge nature, but if we forget… Because we’re so human-centered, we forget that nature is already acknowledging us. Nature. Those trees know we’re there already like a horse knows we’re there already, scanning us, knowing us. But we don’t have that because it’s all about us. We’re supreme beings. We’re the only ones who can think. We’re the only ones who can build a bomb.

But these other beings are not doing that. I think that the Earth and the world as it is is changing over. We are also living out our prophecies. That we need to change inevitably but we need to let go of this, how would I say, deteriorating dimension is deteriorating and this other world is here in the prophecies of the Hopi, the 5th world, and many Native People are already in the 5th world. And the thinking, the feeling is there. So the language that we are using today, Thomas, has to change and go back to the… Not go back, but understand the etymology of culture. The etymology of this language we’re using to make it less scientific, less academic, and more simple so that even other human beings who can’t afford academia can understand what you’re talking about.

Thomas: Wow. So when you talk about the 5th world, can you say a few more sentences about the 5th world?

Tiokasin: What I’m told, the 5th world has no nouns. It’s one of energy, one of a language that cannot be interpreted. And in this world that you and I are talking about, the modernity is speaking primarily out of nouns, subjective, and objectifying domination of the Earth. Who has not been dominating the Earth is, we can say human beings, but Indigenous Peoples aren’t dominating the Earth, we’re living with the Earth are still attempting to do that while this domination of a supreme being instructing us how to live here. So our questions are not how to do something instructively, it’s understanding that we don’t know anything until we experience it. Then we can state out of, “This is our experience. This is our story.” So the story goes that if we are using already a verb-based language as Indigenous Peoples do, that’s the transition, not the transformation. The transmitting, the transition into that world that we talk about.

The stagnation is that the top, the cream of the crop in this society in the western way of thinking is quantum physics. Physics is stagnated with nouns, so it can’t go anywhere. But in the other languages that have quantum physics encoded in these Indigenous languages are verb-based, and they are moving constantly and we’re describing energy and the motion of the energy. And you could do that. Anyone could do that today if we just slow down and understand that the language that we are using now, the language of non-presence or biopresent phobia, present phobic language, biophobic language. We’re using these languages to not be here. And all it is a simple, “Be here,” and understand this moment because maybe we don’t like who we are. So the prophecy that I talk about or you can say they’re written, what if they were not written as the western mind tends to think that has to have proof?

Where the Native People in sustainable language and sustainable living, not something new that we don’t even have the words for sustainable because you’re living them. Not practicing living, not practicing meditation, not practicing yoga. How could one practice living when you are living, right? So, we’re not taking time sequences out to practice something that we should be living. So, it’s a different way of being. And I always think about, is there room for Native People in this language that we’re talking in? In English, has there been room for Native People’s ideas? If we’re speaking dimensional languages into a binary language, dual-stick language of right and wrong when in the old Lakota, there were no opposites. There were no such thing as opposites, but we tend to work in it because it works in the society. Right and wrong, good and evil, up and down, supreme, inferior, cause and effect, beginning and ending. These are all opposites. But in more natural settings, in languages that speak no opposites, that’s hard to put into a container so that the West can practice it.

Thomas: For me, it speaks a lot to the liquification of language or the crystallization of language. What I hear you say is also when I… Because I work a lot or I do work a lot on trauma and collective trauma, it feels to me like that part of the world’s frozen and then we look at the world as if we were separate from it. And then when we liquefy it and when we are much more in flow with things, so then… What I often call the large language model that we are sourcing our language from, already prevents a lot of things that we don’t even know that we are preventing them. And when I listen to you, it…

Because in a way, when we look at the inner process of either frozen life or liquefied fluid life like energy and flow, then naturally, I believe we start to use again more verbs and less nouns because it’s not a contraction or like a tension in my body. It’s actually tightening up. It’s not numbness but it’s numbing. And so, a lot of the externalized nouns actually become again processes. And when I listen to you, this feels to me very… It resonates in me as flow and as movement. You’re constantly participating in the movement. That’s beautiful.

And so, what do you think or what do you feel into it are the qualities that we need at the moment as living in this time or dealing with the current situation of the world? How are we more of service? What’s helpful? How do we unify, or at least, become aware of the separation that we created? This dualistic separation from the world, and then objectifying the world and seeing it as a resource we can extract. Maybe, you can speak a little bit to this whole.

Tiokasin: Yes. Let me begin with that in our language, there’s no concept or word for domination. That our language is relational. Not connective, not connecting. But I hear a lot of that because we don’t want us to be in relationship with Earth because we own Earth and we’re on top of Earth. We dominate Earth. So if we take the domination away, what does that indicate? Lack of control. There is no authority. But in the western world, it takes 12 years, said by John Gatto who won an award, a Teacher of the Year in New York state saying… On his retirement, paraphrasing him, he said it takes 12 years to learn how to become reflexive to authority.

And so you’re looking at the one God, the mayor, the doctor, the lawyer, those who are in authority. But if you remove domination from that, who are they? And so, this… Well, if I were a Westerner, that would be hard to understand. There is things that we have to leave behind in order to move, keep moving, not into future progressively but something that it’s maintaining living. Who’s maintaining living but Earth? And to take an answer and say, “Here, here you go, Western people. From the Indigenous Peoples, here’s your answers.” We can do that because the knowledge and the common sense is sourced-based, not resourced. So in a good way, it’s reality. Using reality is basically waiting for the package of being saved.

We speak in saviorship language instead of… See? This is how I speak because I’ve really simplified my language and it’s almost too direct sometimes for people, is I was told there is no hope. Because without hope, you have to do what’s required. We don’t speak a survivor language, we speak a living language. We’re not afraid of not having because we’re grateful for what we do have. I think that by the language of being present, if you’re present, you’re not afraid of scarcity. You’re not afraid of not owning. You’re not afraid of not dominating because there’s no such thing. And to have these ideas of domination, say that you as Indigenous Peoples need to save us is kind of absurd because we are allowing Mother Earth to save us. That we know that we can’t save Mother Earth because we don’t own Mother Earth. We can’t prescribe subscribe to Mother Earth saying, “Here’s what you need in order to save us.”

So it’s more like, if you’re in balance and you’re living with Earth, you’ll already be in the medicine, in the movement and motion of Earth. If you’re in a motion with it, you’re not afraid of not having… In the old Lakota language, there’s no word for rich or poor. See? Those are the very dichotomy opposites. So if you don’t have words for poor or rich, then what is there? Because the poor or rich are based on ego. You say economics with egonomics. When we say that, then there must be a good giving as Earth gives only gives, and the generous cultures of the world are always giving and without expecting in exchange.

I think that’s how Earth lives. She gives and gives and gives. And some people say she takes away, but no, she’s always creating. That’s giving without expectation. But I think one thing that we forget, Thomas, is I’m very respectful of this language. I try to use it in the most direct way as I can because of the way the Lakota language is, it doesn’t beat around the bush. You see? We need to… Because Mother Earth is requiring that now. Mother Earth is not hoping, a tree is not hoping. They’re being and requiring what they’re made to be required for, if that makes sense. They’re conscious of why they’re here.

Thomas: It touches me very much to feel your… Like, how much awareness you brought to the language and how much you own the language. Because I think the language and how we use language is very important. And the awareness of not only what words we use, but what’s connected to when we speak. And when I listen to you, it feels very… I can resonate very much with the quality of awareness that you bring into language. That feels really beautiful, so thank you for that.

And also thank you for reminding us to reflect on how we use language and what we are actually saying when we are saying certain things, and how important it is to fixate the world or to open a world, to not be locked in that world that we are speaking from. That’s beautiful, so thank you. And then did you bring the conversation back again and again to the generosity or the giving dimension of Earth and how you reframe the domination. That actually, the flow comes from a different direction as we often see it in a very human-centric worldview, and that reconnecting or saving the planet is already something to examine this language. And just underlining a few things that I heard, I think, that are very important to bring awareness to. So, that’s beautiful.

Maybe one more thing, I see that the time flies and we’re already at the top of the hour, but what’s the role of building community or in having a community of practice? Having a community of ceremony? What’s the dimension of the we-ness? Like, the relational quality including community with all levels of beings and nature. Do you want to speak a little bit to that? Also in this time, because this time especially in the West, this becomes often isolated is loneliness, isolation, separation are qualities that we see. And we also see a strong practice, at least in some parts of society, of relational spaces. More community spaces, more being together and sharing in a space. Maybe you can speak to the whole aspect of community, the resilience of community in times of crisis.

Tiokasin: It’s funny I was just speaking about that to some friends this morning about community. And one is more of a neighborhood, one is a community of people together. But when you go to the Indigenous Nations, it’s about community, the trees, and what people call nature when we don’t have a word for nature. To understand that domination, if you have domination, there cannot be any community because domination gets in the way of intuition. They can’t coexist. And anthropocentrically or anthropocentricity lies at the core of the decolonization. You understand this language is often used to justify bias towards living communities. And over these years, over those practicing decolonization through anthropocentricity is not going to happen because they’re just using, regurgitating the same thought processes. And Thomas, what are we learning here? What did we learn and how do we learn it? I can say this because of coming from knowing one way and being forced to learn another way, saying, “You cannot be Native. You cannot be Lakota. You have to be an American. You have to be a Westerner and get your education this way because that is old value. It doesn’t work anymore.”

So, what did I learn? What am I unlearning and how am I going to relearn? But I don’t want to relearn what I learned in the first place. This is the opening to that 5th world. It’s verb-based for using more verbs. And it’s going to make more sense as this interview, as we go through time, that yes indeed, Earth is a verb, not a noun. And so, we continue with that value of learning what community is. It’s just not humans and our resourcing of Earth and going to church together, going to demonstrations together, going to spiritual retreats together. That’s not community. The value of Earth is a community acknowledging you, Earth acknowledging your humanity rather than humanity defining what humanity is.

We’re leaving out the biggest mystery that can solve our problems by accepting that the intuition of Earth, the intuition can and make it living languages. Don’t speak about survival. And I think communities who are away from living languages or attempting through survival language and angry language, language of lacking, they make up these psychologies to function. Just a short story. A Native leader that I know, I won’t mention any names, tried to grow up in the western society coming from the society of Lakota, and growing up in western society and having all kinds of problems. Not knowing how to pay bills, money, mannerisms, everything, dressing correctly, fitting a uniform. So, he went back to the Reservation and asked, “I’m having all kinds of problems.”

The medicine person said, “While you’re here, you’re not having any problems with us as Lakota, as who you are. But when you go into that world, you’re having all kinds of problems. Why don’t you go to them and went to their psychiatrists of how to function in that society?”

And then he did, and he was able to pay his bills and all of that. But the bigger part of him was non-civilization community, was the community of Earth. So, he sought and he healed from that. And yes, we as Native People can function as this society if we don’t lose the value of being intuitive Indigenous Peoples, the indigeneity in all of us. It’s more of a value of not knowing what you know, Thomas, or your information. I don’t want to know that. I want to know what you’re thinking. Now then, we’re in the present. Because things are going to change, Earth is going to change us. We are not ever going to change Earth, though we’d like to think that. That means you’re not here, understanding that the true change of being present with Earth.

Thomas: It’s so beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Given our time, is there anything you want to leave us with? Any thoughts or something to reflect on? I mean, you gave us so much to reflect on already, but if there’s anything important to you that we didn’t touch on that you would love to bring in, please?

Tiokasin: Yeah, thank you. I would like to say one more thing about domination because I think this is key, is that domination is the crux of anthropocentrism’s self-importance. That domination deadens the feeling of life as intuitive and non-dogmatic. In domination’s shadow, the self becomes isolated. Domination corrupts the rational mind and undercuts intuitive values, senses, and living in balance with Mother Earth. Domination is manipulative, measuring, weighing, possessing, objectification, subjections, subjecting the world to false authority. And we unknowingly fight against our own elemental consciousness, and we try to hammer consciousness into a rational box built on hierarchy, dogma, elitism, class, and race. It’s a box of domination and anthropocentrism and all the other -isms that confine us in that box.

And you’ve heard the people try to think outside the box. There’s many more people living outside that box that understand what’s going on in the box. And the small example is our language in Lakota is so inclusive there’s room for everyone including Earth, but we are confined to Reservations. So to me, that’s saying that English has not room for Indigenous thought and consciousness. And also, an elder… Excuse me, didn’t mean to sigh that much. An elder said that when you all came here to America, to the United States, before it was America or United States, you came here with your own religions. “That’s yours. That’s your people’s. We’ll never touch that. That’s who you are. You came here with your laws. Won’t touch that. That’s your way. We’ll never touch. No one’s going to take that from you.”

He also said this, “But we didn’t see one thing that you came here with, and that was land. We don’t know how the land became yours. You put those laws and religions on that land, and that’s called domination.” So, free the Earth. The concepts, get in our way. And I think there’s a lot more to be said because this needs to be a longer conversation, not just from the head but from who we are, as you know, Thomas. That we are truly coming from this place, call it [Lakota]. [Lakota] is in connection with trees, and Earth and all of that. And of course, a human being, the heart we call it.

So I think part of it is understanding the intelligences that no one speaks for is the stones, and the wind, and the plants, and the fire, and the water. We don’t hear that enough. And when we get that intimately in our language again, we won’t have to use words like environment because we sense it intuitively. We’re living it. I don’t know if this is… I don’t know if that’s what I’m supposed to say but it feels like that’s what I said, if it makes sense.

Let’s start this again. I don’t know if this is what I’m supposed to say but it feels like something said, “This is what you’re supposed to say.” Does that make sense?

Thomas: Absolutely. And I feel deeply or… First of all, I think what you just said, it needs a longer conversation. Maybe we find other chances to have a longer conversation, I would love that. Because I feel deeply within for… When I feel the resonances of your words, it feels deeply connecting or relational or together in a space, and it feels it resonates deeply in me. Not only in me as Thomas, as a bigger me. It touches me also to feel the pain of domination, and I’m very sorry for that, that that’s what happening. And I think if we work together and we have more of this deeper spaces, I think that hopefully, it’s conducive to change and we can be together in the exploration more. I would love that.

And Tiokasin, thank you for joining us. I think it’s great. It’s so, at least for I think Western mind, very reframing and I think it liberates a lot of space.

Tiokasin: Yes, well-spoken. I had a fellow teacher at university here talk about the first time she ever came to South Dakota because her country is rocks and hills. She came in the night, she woke up in the morning and she was driving early in the morning, and then the sun came up and she could see for hundreds of miles, and it took her breath away. That thinking is expansive, not growth but expansive. That’s how much availability is to us, as you know.

So yeah, I think an intuitive mind is missing because as Einstein said, “You’ve taken that rational mind and made it the sacred gift.” But thank you, it’s an honor to be here. I simplified the language so much because we need to live as relatives with Earth. We are actually her children. We need to listen to Earth and not try to be her parent.

Thomas: It’s an honor to speak with you, and thank you for this time. I walk away deepened and enriched from this conversation, so thank you. And I’m sure everybody who’s listening can take a lot of way to contemplate and walk with. I think it’s beautiful. Thank you.

Tiokasin: So much here. Thank you.