fattypatties

WEASEL

I sometimes draw Medicine Cards to help me focus through chaos. Today I was reminded of Weasel's story and how wars by light-skinned people on dark skinned people is not a new thing:

The chiefs sent Weasel to the enemy camp to smoke them for power. "What medicines of the enemy?" the chiefs asked Weasel upon its return. Weasel never failed to give an accurate account of the enemy's numbers, strengths, and weaknesses. It was Weasel who tearfully told the Original People of the coming of the white boat people. "These brothers have strange new medicines," said Weasel. "They will tell us that to live the way we do is wrong. They will confuse us with their talking bark. They have stolen thunder from Sky Father and placed it in their weapons. They have not respect for the animal brothers and sisters, and they make their thunder speak to the animals and kill them. They will make the thunder speak to us also. Their numbers are too many to count, and these white brothers will steal everthing from us but our spirits. The great dark shadow of the ravenous bird of death has fallen over the People." (P. 169, Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams & David Carson, St. Martin's Press, 1999).


Weasel's power is in observing and knowing things that others cannot see or know. It doesn't make Weasel very popular because often telling about the underlying things, the hidden things is a thankless job that makes others uncomfortable. There is weasel power in sociology. That is why I am both proud and weary of my ability to see beneath the surface of the social world.

But in times of war, it is difficult to watch and know the consequences and pain that this effort is creating. There is indeed a dark shadow of a ravenous bird of death falling upon the world right now. I feel it deeply and it aches.