By Laura Patsouris

Today I want to honor all those heroes whose struggles for freedom, justice and equality have given us the tools to carry our own struggles forward. Their bravery and eloquence lights the way:


"I think that an objective analysis of events that are taking place on this earth today points towards some type of ultimate showdown. You can call it political showdown, or even a showdown between the economic systems that exist on this earth which almost boil down along racial lines. I do believe that there will be a clash between East and West. I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."

"If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary."

"We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."

-Malcolm X


"I'm just a human being trying to make it
in a world that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being human."

-John Trudell


“Do you see law and order? There is nothing but disorder, and instead of law there is the illusion of security. It is an illusion because it is built on a long history of injustices: racism, criminality, and the genocide of millions. Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to.”

-Mumia Abu Jamal


“The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.” 

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

-Che Guevara


“The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.”

-Wilma Mankiller


We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can bequeath our children a sustainable world that benefits all.

-Wangari Maathai


“We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be
respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism. 

-Rigoberta Menchu


As our conquerors pray to exert religious dominion over us, let us not forget that, despite 500+ years of oppression and slavery, the indigenous mind continues to think and plan, the indigenous heart continues to heal and to love and the indigenous spirit may be bloodied but it is unbowed. Though they would like to take my freedoms and my choices away, today I choose NOT to yield to their pressure and manipulation. Today I choose to honor the faith and the strength of my ancestors and their sacred ways. Today I will NOT pray to the God of my enslavement.

Today I will honor my dead and I will honor the spirits of the land I walk on. I will honor my sacred stories, sing the songs of my grandmothers and pray to my Gods for the strength and the will to walk on this Earth with integrity, respecting the rights of all the inhabitants of Turtle Island. Today I will pray for the healing of Turtle Island herself…she has been brutalized and exploited and abused.

Today I will tear away the filter of Conquest and stop seeing myself as my oppressors would define me, but rather I will know myself as the walking embodiment of all the power of my ancestral lines. The time for silence is past. We owe it to ourselves, to the ancestors who gave us this life and to the next seven generations to stop this political and spiritual juggernaut of Biblical fascism that threatens all freedom loving people on this hemisphere.

"On 11:11:11, another group of thirteen Elders will arrive in LA from the Mayaland to come together in a Gateway Event that will be highlighted by the performance of the Mayan Crystal Skull Ceremony. The Elders, whose traditions have always been kept within their inner circle, have been instructed to perform all of their ceremonies in public from this point on; for this reason, the Ceremony of the Thirteen Crystal Skulls, a ceremony that was last performed 26,000 years ago, will be open to the general public.

Enroute from New York to Los Angeles the Elders will stop at specific power points to fulfill a prophecy which states that the time has come to reawaken the Spirit of the North American Continent so that it can reclaim itself as the sacred ground in whose soil would be sown the seeds for the enlightenment of all mankind. At each stop along the way ceremonial gatherings will be held to open the ground and raise the ancient energies that will fuel the Gateway Event in Los Angeles on 11:11:11. All of these gatherings will be open to anyone who feels called to participate." [emphasis mine, US]

Very interesting and powerful process highlighted here - and powerful timing/synchronicity....please visit the link to read more:

http://www.chromographicsinstitute.com/2011/10/itinerary-for-pilgrimage-of-mayan-elders-crystal-skulls/#.TppEbk6mQfE.facebook

P. Sufenus Virius Lupus, founder of the Ekklesia Antinou and a devoted follower of the God Antinous graciously sent me the link to a recent post he made on his own blog, discussing not only the Turtle Island Initiative, but also the DC40 fundamentalists and their particular antipathy to Goddesses (at all but most especially) who bear the title "Queen of Heaven." I still intend to touch up on this ingrained misogyny spiritually and otherwise in upcoming posts, but for today, i wanted to leave you with Lupus's post, which in the face of such insanity, points to a most unusual weapon at our disposal:

http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/the-song-bug-bites-again/

Check it out and give his words some thought.

While sitting with two sweet friends at Occupy Boston this past week, we talked about the necessity of grounding, of being in connection to our Earth Mother, to acknowledge and live the spiritual legacy of the indigenous soul, the spiritual imperative of oneness, the resonance of what and who we are as energetic humans with the energetics of the Earth and the universe - a very powerful and loving connection. 

While we sat there on the earth, what earth we could still find there in Dewey Square, the Occupiers guiding the General Assembly began to speak of indigeny, of statements of solidarity with indigenous peoples and with the original (and current) inhabitants of the place we now call Boston and Massachusetts.  They were speaking truth and acknowledging the need for reconciliation at a time when many misguided organizations and people in the world were busy engrandizing a criminal named Columbus who would usher in two of the world’s most tragic holocausts, one which included the enslavement of Africans and the dismemberment of their cultures.

This discourse on indigeny and the issues of colonization and settler-colonization are key to joining and creating change in, on and beyond Turtle Island.  One cannot suggest that they are searching for economic, political, social or environmental justice without engaging the dynamics of colonization, capitalist European exploitation and the systems and structures that have grown out of such dynamics.  To do any less would be to subvert the stated messages of “freedom from tyranny” and to reentrench the locus of liberation back to the privileged “49%”, the benefactors of white privilege (which includes that cursed 1% that everyone is talking about with such vehement and correct disdain) and the world of liberal/conservative politics (ultimately not so different since both have for so long actually been moderate and regressive protections of the dominant system of exploitation in the interest of the now-decreasing European settler majority).

John Bird, in his Indian Country Today Media Network article, sees light and possibilities in the deepening political root that is the Occupy movement.

“I feel like i have been waiting for this moment an entire lifetime.  More like a hundred lifetimes when I count the 500 years and lifetimes of all our indigenous ancestors who went to their graves wondering if justice would ever again prevail on Turtle Island.” (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/ict_sbc/why-i-am-occupying-wall-street/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=why-i-am-occupying-wall-street&utm_campaign=fb-posts)

Bird puts into perspective a socio-political and historical reality that many not directly involved in the Occupy movement are ignorant of or unwilling to engage due to capitalist/colonialist collusion and/or confusion.  Even many who are doing this neo-occupation are not aware of and/or willing to engage this larger, deeper conception of justice and liberation, one that illuminates the very underpinnings of the creation of the United States of America as a stable, though vicious settler-colony, sharing many similarities to the Republic of South Africa and it’s own creation.  Voortrekkers are not so different from the Laura Ingalls Wilders and Ben Cartwrights of the festering anti-spirit of manifest destiny that swept across Turtle Island like a disease of viral homo sapienity.  But there is and was always hope that that virus could be identified and healed like every other.  Bird goes on to say the following:

“”For me the OCcupy Wall Street movement is that new hope.  What I see in the Occupy Wall Street movement with its focus on economic justice which is entwined with social justice, growing and strengthening and merging with the environmental movement is the beginning of new hope.  not just for Native Americans, but for all Americans and all citizens of the world.  Our indigenous philosophies have always told us we are all related, we are all connected, we are all in this together.”

John Bird calls us to look at the ultimate unity of humanity through the clear lens of critique of the larger system of exploitation which has sent so many young and old, red and blue, union and non to the streets and parks across Turtle Island and beyond dissatisfied with the promises of a shallow and blind freedom that so many have accepted as truth for so, so long, in the face of all of our Ancestors who knew and know better and calls us to see and act upon the same.  Bird sees possibilities that resonate with the words of those General Assembly members who presented the resolution on solidarity with indigenous people here and outside of Turtle Island.

Recently, as posted on the Occupy Boston website, the United American Indians of New England put their support behind the Occupy Boston movements saying the following (in part):

“We are deeply moved and encouraged that Occupy/Decolonize Boston, as one of its very first actions, issued a memorandum in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. We have been the victims of corporate greed for centuries. If you seek to re-imagine a new society free of corporate greed, then we would ask that you learn all you can about the past that has carried us to this place.

We fully support the right of the Occupy/Decolonize Boston encampment to expand from Dewey Square to other parks and open spaces in the city, without the necessity of permits and without fear of police reprisals.“ (http://occupyboston.com/2011/10/14/united-american-indians-of-new-england-uaine-supports-occupy-boston/)

The UAINE, that regularly organizes the National Day of Mourning at Plymouth, MA each November, adds to the growing, but often tenuous support coming from Indian country and indigeny in general.  In Minneapolis, the Anishinabe, American Indian Movement and Meshikas of Mexico and central and south America came together to “reoccupy our sacred Mother Earth”, as voiced by Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of AIM and Anishnabe chief. He went on to say the following:
“We will join together as one on this day of national mourning of the genocide of 120 million indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, as American and the world celebrates the pirate Columbus.” (http://www.theuptake.org/2011/10/11/drums-dance-and-rain-occupy-peoples-plaza-in-minneapolis/)

Bellecourt’s words again give resonance to that larger challenge to the new Occupy movement, but call it into clarity about upon which and whose land they now Occupy and physically occupy in the name of democracy and freedom from economical, social and environmental injustice and exploitation.  Indigenous peoples here on Turtle Island and the Africans viciously transplanted here know all too well the largeness and nature of the challenge ahead.  It is particularly this awareness that gives many people of color and indigeny pause even as many see those rays of hope emanating from the current movement.  Vine Deloria, Jr., in his classic “Custer Died For Your Sins” laid out some of the differences in outlook and action on issues of civil and human rights, land and freedom as he explained what conditions existed that separated many Native Americans from the civil rights movement and European-dominated anti-war and burgeoning environmental movements.  His critique is important in facing some of the persistent barriers that exist between the multiplicitous cultural and political, let alone spiritual, interests that have come to coexist here on Turtle Island, however exploitatively and uncomfortably.  The Europeans that are dominating the discourse and presence in these Occupations must come to clarity and set a tone for inclusion that allows them to see that they are, in fact, joining a much older process, not simply creating something new that has no historical precedent.  But that is beginning to happen as workshops on race and white privilege are being organized and planned with multi-cultural groupings  forging ahead into the known/unknown of historical and future reconstruction and reconciliation.

In a Lenape response to the Occupy Wall Street effort, the call for deeper perspective and acknowledgement of indigeny comes through:
“As you ‘occupy Wall Street,’ I ask you to reflect: You are on the island upon which our Indigenous ancestors lived and thrived for thousands and thousands of years. Please take a moment to recognize that we, the Original Nations, still exist here on Turtle Island. We have the right to exist as free and distinct nations with full self-determination.” (http://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/)

As I sat on the sacred earth with those two wonderful, conscious people, a reactionary, though lone, voice of white privilege rang out through the crowd giving voice to some very widely held fears and confusions around even the idea of indigenous peoples’ rights being acknowledged and manifested where so many offspring of the original colonizers have stakes in seeing the status quo maintained.  The Occupy movement in Boston and beyond, on Turtle Island and beyond will have to come to serious grips with the issues being raised and heard in their General Assemblies and from the villages, cities, reservations, bantustans and ghettoes of the world.  The success of the Occupation is dependent upon how deeply the neo-Occupiers engage and reconcile the stories and realities of the original Columbian era occupation and holocaust/enslavement/colonization/settler-colonization.  To fall short in this area would be tragic to those who still see, like this writer, that there is hope in the possibilities of what the Occupy movement represents for not only this settler-colonist country, but the world as a whole - current global capitalism would clearly have been a recurrent wet dream of Criminal Columbus, if you get the multi-suggestive drift.

In addition, the engagement of Columbia as a goddess of this settler-colonial reality can not be just another reactionary spiritual dynamic relegating it to the coming dustbin of predatory christian missiological and spiritual exploitation.  The Occupy movement and the responses to the DC40 initiative must be principled and ideologically clear.  The DC40 initiative is a spiritual and political blight on the populace, particularly those of us who support religious and spiritual pluralism and a logical return to the indigenous basis of human relationship to the physical and energetic world in solidarity and unity with the indigenous peoples who are still here, still strong and getting stronger.

John Bird ended his article as such:
“The window of opportunity to bend the course of history back towards justice is once again opening.  It will not stay open long.  Let us, Native Americans and all others who have not given up hope for a world based on real economic, social and environmental justice, not squander this opportunity.  IT MAY VERY WELL...BE OUR LAST.” [emphasis mine, US]
Much is at stake with regard to the DC40 and TI42 Initiatives and the promise of what they and Occupy movement and decolonization movement(s) mean and represent for all of humanity at this important juncture in human and earth history.
May we hear and heed the voices of our indigenous Ancestors loudly and clearly...and may they hear and heed our clearest voices of true freedom, justice and liberation for ALL.

~~~~~~
Additional INTMN article in review for Part 2:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/10/vatican-releases-tantalizing-glimpse-into-papal-documents-about-columbus/

By Laura Patsouris

What is freedom? During these days of contemplation and prayer, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of freedom. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in our society. The folks who started DC-40 use it in the context of being free to fully express their religious beliefs. I would posit that freedom in that context is anything but…as it is predicated on eradicating the religious pluralism upon which our society was supposed to have been founded. Now, in practice, that religious pluralism has often fallen short. Where was the respect for the religious freedom of Native peoples to practice their ancestral faiths when their children were forcibly sent to missionary boarding schools in an attempt to force assimilation?

There can be no free society without full inclusion and the right of all its citizens to freely practice their faiths. That seems like a no-brainer, but it is a hard concept for the missionary mindset to accept. For them freedom means being free to eradicate all opposing paradigms from politics and the public arena. In their world religious pluralism and a “free market” of religious ideas is anathema. I say it is time for them to suck it up, put on their big-kid panties and deal with the fact that freedom isn’t a privilege reserved only for white Christian male property owners. It is an inherent right endowed to all of us of all colors, all faiths, all branches of the human family and all genders.

If nature has a lesson, that lesson is diversity. Life will find a way to be colorful, messy and evolve in new and surprising ways. The spirit is a force that cannot be confined to one box, one paradigm and no “one size fits all”. My freedom to practice my indigenous ways is inherent and inborn and no person has the right to remove my spiritual choices because they may offend. I was not put on the Earth to make the DC-40ers comfortable. Separation of Church and State is a good thing: it protects ALL of us. So as these spiritual fascists pray to take away every choice they disagree with and plot to take away our rights as free human beings, I will pray that every person living on Turtle Island will remain free with a full range of choices.

Yesterday, Montana had the dubious fortune of being the focus of the DC40 campaign and today it's South Dakota. Pour out an offering to the Gods and ask that such spiritual poison gain no foothold and no purchase in the hearts of those who dwell in those states. Be strong, Montana. Be strong, South Dakota. You're not alone. Resist. Resist. Resist.

This campaign goes well beyond simple proselytizing. It is blatant attack on spiritual freedom. It is the use of spirituality as a weapon. I read a story today in the news about Air Force Cadets who feel so pressured by fundamentalist Christians that they are forced to hide their faith and pretend to be Christian. You can read that story here: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/10/13/111125/16.

Reading this made me sick to my stomach. This, dear Readers, is terrorism pure and simple. It is spiritual terrorism. This is the type of thing that we are committed to fighting and this is precisely the type of thing that you would never find within an indigenous world-view.

We are charged, each and every one of us, with reclaiming the filter of our indigeny. What does that mean exactly? Well, for starters, American "secularism" isn't. It's a very Protestant Christian Weltanschauung and over the past decade has grown more and more reactionary and fundamentalist. The filter of monotheism, rooted as it is in that reality, is far older. The filter of monotheism has its roots in colonialism and conquest. it is a lens through which our every interaction in the world is filtered. It colors everything. It breeds intolerance, fear, hatred, and poverty--physical and spiritual (the first corporation, as I was recently reminded by one of my students, was, after all, the Church).

The filter of indigeny is different. It is rooted in a glorious multiplicity of ancestors and Holy Powers, of an awareness of the sacredness of the land and our interconnected relationship with all life. It is rooted in responsibility and respect. You may see conquest within indigenous cultures, but you'll not see the type of religious totalitarianism that you find with the history of monotheism; and everyone has indigenous roots. Every single person born on this earth, if they go back far enough comes from an indigenous culture. He or she has a tribe. Those of us coming from European descent have just forgotten that.

I maintain that the genocide and conquest of the Americas could never, ever have happened if Europe hadn't first been overrun by monotheism. The spread of monotheism across Europe brought with it a cultural and religious destruction. It destroyed our native traditions and then, in some sort of cultural Stockholm Syndrome, we fell into line and came across the ocean and did the same thing to others. It's time to wake up and realize what we lost the moment we laid down the threads of responsibility, obligation and connection to the ways of our ancestors. It's time to reclaim our traditions.

This is a frightening thing. It means first becoming aware of the filter so many of us wear. It means confronting privilege (white, Christian privilege), it means being willing to tear that filter off and step away from that and look at the world in a whole new way. It means questioning everything. But you know what? It needs to be done. Our ancestors are crying out. our world is suffering. The alternative is the poison of spirit, heart, and mind proferred by the DC40 and folks like them.

Our ancestors did not suffer, they did not fight and die, and sacrifice and hope and dream and work hard to see us walk willingly into spiritual slavery. THAT is not the legacy they left for us. Fight that filter, even when it's difficult--most especially when it's difficult. In this we must all be warriors.

David Dashifen Kees and Literata have kindly posted the initial press release that went out about the Turtle Island 42 Project on their own site. Theirs was perhaps the first organized inter-denominational Pagan response to the DC40 threat. Their site, and the press release may be found here:

http://hailcolumbia.us/the-turtle-island-42-initiative-press-release/

We're still catching up from a server outage on Monday. I realize that Criminal Columbus day has passed, but I didn't want to omit this particular article. It was sent to me by an interfaith minister with the hopes that it would raise awareness. There are some good suggestions there, even if it's not Columbus day. thank you, C. Anderson, for this submission.

Indigenous Peoples Day

Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to fully understand the legacy of Christopher Columbus, just as it calls us to respect and learn from indigenous peoples and support their struggles for social justice and religious freedom. Join Unitarian Universalists across the United States in celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day.

History of the Holiday

"Indigenous Peoples Day" reimagines Columbus Day and changes a celebration of colonialism into an opportunity to reveal historical truths about the genocide and oppression of indigenous peoples in the Americas, to organize against current injustices, and to celebrate indigenous resistance.

The idea of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day was born in 1977, at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on discrimination against indigenous populations in the Americas.

Fourteen years later, activists in Berkeley, CA, convinced the Berkeley City Council to declare October 12 a "Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People." Henceforth, there has been a growing movement to appropriate "Columbus Day" as "Indigenous People's Day"; states such as South Dakota, Hawai’i, and Alabama have changed the holiday’s name and many more cities have taken similar action. Read more about the history of Berkeley’s Indigenous Peoples Day.

Ten Ways to Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day

1. Craft a Sunday service around Indigenous Peoples Day. As you plan your service, invite those within your congregation who are Native people to participate in the planning and the service itself.

You might also want to check out worship planning tools from Multicultural Growth & Witness.

2. Find out whose land your congregation’s building was built on.

We are worshipping on stolen land. Who was yours stolen from? How has it changed hands since the colonization of North America? Local reference librarians, the staff at state historical societies, and professors of state history at local institutions of higher learning can quickly point to the best sources in your state or area.

3. Build and strengthen connections to nearby Native communities.

Make plans to attend an event hosted by a Native group or organization. Find out how your congregation can be of assistance regarding the issues nearby groups are working on or struggling with.

4. Take action to rename Columbus Day "Indigenous Peoples Day."

South Dakota, Alabama, and Hawaii have renamed Columbus Day. Other states (New Mexico, for one) have come close. Use the web to discover if anyone has tried to change the holiday in your city or state, and form a congregational task force to start or join the movement. Check out Denver’s Transform Columbus Day Alliance for more info and resources.

5. Provide age-appropriate education on Native lives and cultures as part of your congregation’s religious education programming. Take active steps to counter the dominant message that Native peoples are history by offering examples of present-day American Indian life, art, etc. Check out the books Through Indian Eyes and A Broken Flute. Go further by creating a task force to find out what your children learn about Columbus in school. You can use Lies My Teacher Told Me and Rethinking Columbus to evaluate textbooks and offer suggestions.

6. Hold a movie screening with a discussion afterward. There are a plethora of films that can generate rich discussion. Check out VisionMaker Video, a video catalog by Native American Public Telecommunications of films by and about Native folks (see, for example, the film Columbus Day Legacy). You can also make use of the video loan library from Multicultural Growth & Witness (look under "American Indian Issues").

7. Host a congregation-wide common read and book discussion. Just a few possible titles include A Little Matter of Genocide by Ward Churchill, Off the Reservation by Paula Gunn Allen, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, Reinventing the Enemy's Language edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird, The Woman Who Watches Over the World by Linda Hogan, and Soul Work edited by Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones. Check out (and support!) Native booksellers such as the North American Native Authors Catalog. You can also find books on the particular tribes in your area—check out this listing of books by tribe from Native Languages of the Americas.

8. Engage with "Immigration as a Moral Issue," the 2010-2014 Congregational Study/Action Issue. Indigenous peoples of Central America are a big part of today’s desperate wave of migration to the United States. Find out how the United States has continued Columbus’s violent legacy of colonialism against Central American peoples. Check out the study guide from Multicultural Growth & Witness.

9. Begin Building the World We Dream About, a transformational Tapestry of Faith curriculum on race and ethnicity. This program allows participants to take concrete steps to heal, individually and as a congregation, the ways in which racism separates us from one another and spiritually stifles each of us.

10. Take action for the rights and needs of Native peoples! Visit the Take Action web page in the Justice for Native Peoples section of our website for ways to take your celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day outside the congregational walls.

Over this past weekend, the DC40 focused their prayer war on Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. Today, they turn their attention to Washington State, what they are calling 'the Whirlwind State.'
 
Let us offer prayers to our Holy Powers, our ancestors, the spirits of this land, and most of all to Turtle Island Herself that their prayers may be unsuccessful, that their energies might be expended for nought, and that Washington, and every other state that they target might be protected and free from their ideological and spiritual poison.

Let our prayers and the power of Turtle Island surround Washington state like a whirlwind, and cleanse away the taint of their poison. May their spiritual arrows miss their mark. May their ideological hooks find no purchase. may all their efforts be as one screaming uselessly into the void. In the words of a great leader: we *shall* overcome.

 The DC40 Initiative concerns us all.  It concerns the policy makers that the initiative hopes to influence.  It concerns the potential victims of the initiative should this its proponents get their way.  It concerns the safety and abilities of minority religions, including Jews and Muslims, to practice as they see fit, should the deeper goals of the DC 40 Initiative prevail.  Should those goals prevail, the rights of atheists as well as other denominations of Christian (like Catholics), will be in question.  

The DC 40 Initiative seeks "to change the atmosphere over the city of Washington D.C. through our worship, preparing the way for our legislators to function on a different playing field as we release 40 days of light over the city".  Off-hand, this does not sound all that threatening.  For the more naive it could be dismissed as a bunch of people gathering to pray for the good of the country.  It could be easily dismissed as a bunch of kooks gathering in various states to pray at people.  After all, by-and-large, that's what the movement is.  What's the threat of a bunch of small-sect Christians gathering to pray in the states' capitals?  What could be threatening with Christians seeking to influence their elected representatives through prayer and religious exaltations?

It would not be half so threatening if members of such movements, including this one, did not hold the ears of many prominent politicians.  It would not be half so threatening if Christianity did not so often form a silent litmus test for office.  It would not be half so threatening if such movements fell on deaf ears, or were only heard by a minority of our elected representatives.  Such is not the case.  The  threat of these movements are the momentum they're building behind themselves to generate the changes they seek.  The threat of this movement is in the final ends it seeks, even if its ways of getting there seems hokey or foolish to outsiders.  What starts as prayer meetings and prophets in small churches, prophesying from their God that "This is the year of the signet ring; during this season God has raised up warriors. You have great authority!" (1) can and has become, in short order, a rallying cry to change the nation into a theocracy.  

The primary progenitor of this movement is Prepare the Way Ministries, the Reformation Prayer Network led by Cindy Jacobs, and the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network led by John Benefiel.  Any cursory look at the Prepare the Way Ministries' website will reveal many interesting insights into what the end-goal seems to be of this Initiative and its members.  From the triumphalist imagery of a roaring lion above the Capitol, a cross covering the Statue of Freedom (2), the symbols these Christians use is clear: the usurpation of our nation's Freedom for their Cross.  One of the three prayers of the Prepare the Way Ministries' website directly states the following: that "Our assignment at Prepare the Way is the Heart of America", that they will "bathe their strategy sessions and policy choices with intercession, praying the wheels off of any anti-Christ agenda and asking God for anointed thoughts and ideas to manifest."(3) and "Let us pray that this group of men and women will govern beyond themselves.  May a spirit of righteousness reformation overtake them."(4)  The reformation that they seek is explained by Dr. Marlene McMillan, one of their supporters:

The Bible is the first book of law, government, history, economics and education. We need THE GOSPEL; the HEALING of the brokenhearted, the proclamation of LIBERTY to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and the bound set FREE. We need You.

This is NOT about keeping the status quo. It’s NOT about saving the economy, electing a new leader or having a religious experience. It’s NOT Sunday morning churchianity, it’s a lifestyle. It’s about being transformed into the image of the Son.

It’s about returning to YAHWEH. The prodigals are coming home. (5)

They do not seek cohabitation; they seek others' submission.  They do not seek respect; they expect conversion.  They do not seek compromise; they seek their Will imposed on the world around them.  They see anyone outside of their spiritual locus as captives.  They see anyone not of their way as blind.  They see anyone not of their way as brokenhearted.   They may be a minority in this nation, but they are loud, and well-heard by the politicians who seek their vote.  As C. Peter Wagner, of Global Harvest Ministries has written, 

Religion, Family, Education, Media, Arts and Entertainment, Government, Business.  If we are to see sustained social transformation, each one of these cultural molders must be changed       simultaneously.  We must have Kingdom minded and Kingdom motivated leaders at the top of  each mountain.(6)

Although he claims he is not directly involved with the DC 40 Initiative, he has said to NPR that: 

I must say that both John Benefiel and Cindy Jacobs are very close to me. They're both aligned apostolically with me, so I am part of what they do and they're part of what I do. I have not been    part of the development of these 40 Days Over D.C., but because I'm so close to Cindy and John,   I have given my tacit affirmation to what they're doing, and I still do that.(7)

They do not simply seek control of the government, they seek nothing less than total domination over the major facets of American as well as other societies.  They seek to bend indigenous peoples, Pagans, Heathens and other minority faiths to their Will, to wipe out their cultures and subvert whoever they can to their religion.  Dominionism is not just some catchy buzzword, it is a description of their entire philosophy.  This is why I stand with the Turtle Island Initiative.  This is why, as a shaman, and a Pagan priest, I cannot be silent about this.

They make war upon us as people, and they make war upon our Gods and spirits that we hold dear.  Whether or not we ask for a war, we have one.  Whether or not we would like to deal with this threat, they are doing everything in their power each and every day to deal with us.  We need to bring our courage to face them, to present others the truth about them: these are people who would take our rights and in their place give us an edict that we must all follow their way.  They do not want to live in harmony, but as masters.  Our Gods, and our spirits are threats to them.  They seek to 'cast them out', to exorcise them from the land.  Even the land spirits, the landvaettir, they seek to cast out.  They view people of indigenous cultures, minority religions, and atheists as the enemy.  

We need do nothing more than exist for them to see us and treat us as enemies.  We need raise no voice, no hand, no spell, no cry to our Gods or spirits, no message of solidarity against them.  We exist, and we believe differently from them, and that is enough.  So I invite each and every person of good will who believes in  rights of those who follow religion and those who do not alike, in the rights of indigenous people to follow their cultures, religions and pathways, in the rights of people to follow their faith, in the right to one's gender and expression of that gender, for people to love and marry who they will: Stand up and make your voice heard, or pass this along, or do your part to be sure your rights and your person are kept safe. 

Bibliography

 

1 Prepare the Way Ministries, International .  (2011).  Prophetic insight.  Retrieved from http://www.ptwministries.com/prophetic/5769-2009.htm

2The statue of freedom.  Architect of the Capitol, 2011.  Prayer.  Retrieved from http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/freedom.cfm

3Prepare the Way Ministries, International.  (2011).  Prayer.  Retrieved from http://www.ptwministries.com/teaching/prayer_9.htm

4Prepare the Way Ministries, International.  (2011). Retrieved from <http://www.ptwministries.com/teaching/prayer_9.htm> 10-10-2011.

5 Centruth.  Declaration of dependence.  (2011).  Prayer.  Retrieved from

http://centruth.com/DeclarationOfDependence/

6Prepare the Way Ministries, International .  (2011).  Prophetic insight.  Retrieved from http://www.ptwministries.com/prophetic/5769-2009.htm

7Gross, T.  (Interviewer) & Wagner, P. (Interviewee).  (2011).  A leading figure in the new apostolic reformation.  [Interview transcript highlights] .  Retrieved from NPR.org  Fresh Air Website: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/140946482/apostolic-leader-weighs-religions-role-in-politics