Keeping the Dream

These are some of my favorite moments. There’s no humidity in the air. A soft cool breeze and a warm summer sun. I can hear birds singing in the background to leaves gently brushed by moving air. Life is everywhere and the feeling of hope is palpable.

My youngest daughter, nephew, and oldest grandson through marriage celebrated my grandson’s birthday yesterday with a sleepover, after a great party at Tumbletown. I enjoyed bouncing on the trampoline with one of the young guests. We pretended we were birds and I stretched out my shawl like great wings.

I love the feeling of flying. When I was a child it was on swings or sitting in the highest branches of the tree.

Now, I fly on the wings of hope. Even when they tire, they can lift me to great heights when I stop struggling and trust the currents to glide me.

Sometimes there’s just not that much to hold on to. Maybe that’s the time to let go.

We are a curious species, but I love the human race. For all our foibles, we can be so magnificent…and often in ways we least suspect. If we only slowed down enough to see…

No matter how often I find myself speeding through life, frantically trying to get this done or that done or accomplish this or succeed in that, I always find myself coming back here.

Right smack dab in the present moment.

Last night while exploring, I found this wonderful sight, Save Our Tribal Youth or the MySpace site, http://www.myspace.com/saveourtribalyouth.

The children, and issues concerning them, have always been of paramount importance to me. It seems to me that while every child is important - and I recognize no boundaries among countries that would lessen the value of any child - it does seem to me that we often overlook our “own” children.

All children are ours, but if that means we don’t lessen the value of children of other lands, it also means we should not lessen the value of children who live in this land.

Native American children have the highest suicide rate among children living in this country. They lie forgotten amidst other more popular campaigns, which isn’t surprising, since the entire Native American culture is pretty much invisible - except as entertainment, mascots or the focus of the latest New Age Pseudo “Native American Spirituality”.

I’m not against people finding inspiration among different cultures or finding something that works for them. I’m just against trespassing and harvesting the wealth, spiritual or otherwise, of a culture with no regard for that culture. It’s another kind of imperialism.

But anyway, getting back to the children, I do feel while looking at the needy children around the world, and rightly so, we don’t become farsighted and forget to address the suffering of children right in front of us.

And they are there. Silent tears are just as wet. Native American children are crying, but like other abandoned children, they have learned that their tears are often unheeded and hopeless. There are people trying to make them realize that’s not true. Nothing is hopeless, and there is hope for each and every beautiful child…just because.

I want to be a “just because”. I hope you will too.