Braided: Anishinaabe Heart Truth Meets Western Science

To “braid” means to interweave separate, independent strands to make a new whole. The heart truth essays--my own personal heart truth, from 20 years of braiding body, mind, heart, and spirit on the Anishinaabe Land of Abundant White Clay--that follow are an attempt to interweave traditional spiritual observations and Western scientific teachings. A braid doesn’t absolutely have to be formed with identical strands. But it is helpful if the strands are approximately equivalent in breadth and strength. Modern Western science has never considered any indigenous observational pursuit to be an equivalent effort. This is regrettable. Indigenous “scientists” have been observing the world far longer than high-tech digital rationalists or low-tech renaissance experimentalists. A braid typically requires at least three strands. With one from science and one from traditional indigenous teachings--inherently spiritual teachings, but nonetheless based upon actual-life observations--we have only two strands. What is the third? I can’t prove I have a clue! So, allow me to give a tip of the hat to modern Western science’s naming miseries and suggest that the third strand will be some kind of “dark synergy,” in the same empiric necessity as that of naming "dark matter" and "dark energy." This book is about the fact that modern Western science and traditional, inherently-spiritual, red-road life-ways can be reconciled and do complement each other. But that reconciliation and symbiosis require a third strand of empirical protocol--and a bit of humor, too--to integrate and synchronize the two seemingly-clashing strands of truth. The third strand, I hope and believe, is evident in these short essays--it’s there, but all you may easily observe on the surface is the empty space it occupies! Our world needs a humble antidote for hate; one that will turn out to actually be a missing, essential spiritual medicine--manidoo-mashkiki--to heal the lethal empathy-deficiency diseases that threaten 21st century existence and persistence. I hope third-strand synergy, whatever it turns out to be, will acknowledge that Western science is great at describing, measuring, and curing; while traditional observational life-ways are great at understanding, motivating, balancing, unifying, and healing. I am also trying very hard, here on these pages, to point out that the sometimes-forgotten indigenous eighth direction is toward “The Unknown.” It is in that eighth direction that our continued human survival lies. As the reader will soon realize, I believe any hope for a third strand synergy originates with a higher power. For me, that higher power is Gichi-Manidoo, Wakan Tanka. These essays were originally written for teens in Anishinaabe recovery-group traditional therapy. I’ve decided not to be stingy--so here they are for everyone sharing the seventh generation.