Tibetanportraits site

Tibetan female elder
Photo credit from Instagram via Tibetanportraits

As I have stated before, I am very interested in the global community of Indigenous people. I am also very much focused on finding the parallels that exist between those cultures and my own Indigenous desert tribal people of the Navajo and Hopi people.

 

Via social media sources I have been able to do my visual research on this topic. Of the many pages on Instagram one that is high on my list of favs is Tibetanportraits - which features the Indigenous people of the Tibetan region.

 

I recently found this image above which was posted by Tibetanportraits. This photo by far is fantastic. When I first saw this image I immediately recognized this elder, or should I say she very much reminded my of my own Navajo matriarchs in New Mexico. I love this image for many other reasons too, for one she eludes pure happiness and joy, how wonderful to see an elder smiling! Also I can see she is dressed in her cultural regalia and is holding some type of necklace or maybe a prayer necklace.

 

I continue my research on this topic of the similarities that exist among world cultures.

 

Blessings.

Dear Warrior Water Protector

Prayers at the Animas River for
those at Standing Rock.

Dear Warrior Water Protector,

I write to share my support and blessings and above all my prayers with you.  I share my words with you from the desert homeland of New Mexico and I burn sage for you and pray those old prayers for your health and protection. Please know that though I don’t know you and may never meet you in person, know that I love you.  You are our beautyful ancestors in pure color, living and breathing and fighting for OUR Indigenous people.

You bless OUR lives with what you have chosen to do at Standing Rock.  You are my hero(es), you are a blessed nation of warriors. Creator God knows your plight – please know that OUR divine Creator is always with you - in your sadness, hurt and in your triumphs HE knows. For HE knew you before you were born. HE made you beautifully and wonderfully and He listens to your prayers. Please don’t stray from Him. Please don’t be discouraged during this terrible time you are going through, for Indigenous peoples are all going through with you. Keep your spirit strong and your head up, you are meant to be just where you are, it has already been written in the stars above.  You were born for this moment in time, to be the Water Protectors, to be that child of God that wears His armor of Hope, Faith and Love….. YOU make me proud, you make all of us humble by your actions. Tó eí Iiná.

I am a humble artist, and I do my best to speak for OUR sacred lands and for OUR elders, but I cannot be there with YOU at the front lines and for this truth I am sad and discouraged.  I currently care for my maternal grandmother and cannot leave her side, but I have told her about YOU and your brilliant and brave efforts.  She said to tell you she LOVES you ‘grandchildren’ and she will pray her desert prayers for you. I send you my LOVE and above all my full support for what you are amidst of there TRUTH! – I can only share my humble words of encouragement at this time.  I think of you ALL daily, and send you all the good ways and good thoughts.          BLESS  the PEOPLE.

In love & prayer,

V. Yazzie - New Mexico USA

By Venaya J. Yazzie 2016

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

V

Bless the Water Protectors

Credits for song screenshot found at Butchie Eastwood channel on YouTube

Relatives I am at a loss for words.

The situation in Standing Rock has hit a terrible low, my Indigenous Brothers and Sisters are being mercilessly attacked with brutal force and evil violence.  Last night the North Dakota Sheriff and his hired goons used water to attack the Water Protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation lands. The temperatures in ND are in the low teens and so the intentional use of water as a weapon was done so to do harm - in ensuring the people would get cold and literally freeze while out there.  The military-style enforcement was also were firing concussion grenades at the People, those Water Protectors...some of whom were physically hurt.

This event has gone so far beyond just so called "guarding" the pipeline construction, for this is plain racism and about pure hate.  Such tactics are dehumanizing and blatantly acts of violence against Creator God's beautiful Indigenous children.

Many of us Native artists are feeling the pain on a spiritual level, I have been in a type of mourning all day, my heart is heavy and I just cry tears for my people... This moment in time is at a turning point - my Indigenous people in America are being terrorized just because they are wanting to ensure the waters of the Missouri River are not going to be contaminated from oil mining and oil production.

Since the first europeans arrived here, on this ancestoral Indigenous land - They have had ill motives, we heard the accounts from living relatives through oral history and now as 21st century Indigenous ancestors we are seeing the truth of the hate They have for us.

 I pray I pray I pray I pray  - for protection of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. In the end Goodness outshines evil. So I share this Lakota Prayer Song and dedicate it to the warriors in ND.

(Credits for song found at Butchie Eastwood channel on YouTube.)

Prayer Song

Bless the People.