MEXIKAYOTL, OUR RED ROAD
Mexika Tiahui-y-Aího. We offer each of you blessings and prayers for continued growth, safety, love, and truth in your life. We invoke the spirits of the four directions with our conch shell, Tlalok (east), Huitzilopochtli (south), Quetzalkoatl (west), and Tezkatlipoka (north), to provide you with wisdom, guidance, love, and humility as you each continue on your earth journey towards a Mexika and Universal Consciousness.
The number of letters that you have written as well as all the beautiful artwork you have sent indicates the profound need to form an educational and spiritual program to offer you. By education, I mean learning who we are. This means going inward to the soul and spirit, where the only true change can occur. We can then learn the history (not only ours), philosophy, spirituality, and indigenous customs and traditions. But we must also learn to take better care of our bodies, as our ancestors did. Walking the Mexikayotl Path (Red Road) is not just a matter of boasting about the beauty of our history and ways. It's not just about going in sweat lodges, smoking the sacred pipe (canup;pa), or smudging oneself down. It is about using all of these ways to be a more humane and caring individual.
The US Prison Industrial Complex continues to build the largest reservation system in the modern world, now housing over 2 million people- about 25% of all inmates in the world, yet the USA has only 5% of the world's population. You can see what is happening, and we are assisting them by abusing one another. How are we going to stop this madness? How do we ensure that our children and their children will not have to face a life in prison?
Boys need to be initiated into manhood, but not in the manner in which it is done today. Drinking a 40, smoking a blunt, or shooting a gun does not make you a man. And neither does impregnating a girl or driving a car. Boys and young men have to be shaped and nurtured by the skills, wisdom, and love of the Elders. Yes, we can blame many people for the current state of the world. After all, it took many generations to get like this. But we can't ignore what is happening to our young people and families.
Addictions to drugs and alcohol affect our people in larger numbers. Look in our neighborhoods and count how many liquor stores and taverns there are. Count how many vatos are selling drugs. We have become our own worst enemy. It's true that we don't bring the drugs in, and we don't manufacture the alcohol and guns--someone else (Power Elite) does that for us. Their motives are to keep us trapped in our own misery and suffering. Their motives are to assist us in killing each other and fighting one another and filling their prisons. It's their job security. We treat each other very inhumanely, and we abuse one another, yet we get angry only when THEY abuse us.
We are entering a time of profound change because our young people are being sacrificed and destroyed due to our own neglect and loss of indigenous memory. The changes that are coming have been prophesied by the Hopi, the Maya, the Tsalagi (Cherokee), the Lakota, the Dine, the Apache, and of course the Mexika, among others. We have been guilty of neglecting and abusing our children and women. It is time for change and for purification. We don't look at this time as an end of the world or a doomsday, but rather as a time to rebalance ourselves with the universe and learn to live properly and humbly again on the surface of Tonantzin Tlalli (Mother Earth). But it will not come without suffering and without sacrifice. The earth has to purify herself for all the abuses committed against her over the centuries. And we are all guilty of these abuses.
You have to take the time to eat right, sleep well, exercise, and offer prayers (in whatever form works for you) at least twice a day at sunrise and at sunset. On occasion a fast (1 or 2 days long) should be included in your monthly plans. These simple practices will form the foundation for your mind, your body, and your spirit. For some of you, this advice will sound foreign, but this is what walking in balance with the natural world is all about. These are OUR ways. That balance with the universe and the natural world is how our ancestors lived and existed. Children and youth learned at an early age to respect the words (wisdom) of the elders. And if the children or youth made a mistake, they were not cast aside and put behind bars. Instead, they were brought before the elders, who then decided what form of lesson they wanted to teach that youth. That ensured the strength of the Kalpulli (family clan) and circle. If one individual did a good thing, it brought joy to all and the entire Kalpulli was that much stronger. If an individual made a mistake and dishonored him/herself, then the others in the circle also felt that negativity. In today's world, that is no longer true. We tend to judge and criticize one another for even the simplest mistakes. We all make mistakes in our lives, and that is how we learn. No one is beyond making mistakes or making wrong judgments, so no one is perfect. But we all have to practice to "walk the talk," not just "talk the talk."
Stop the wars in the streets and in the homes. Reach out to ALL young people, not just those in your own family. Respect the Elders and their teachings, even if you don't agree with them. That is the Native way. Don't argue over traditions, religions, or philosophy. Learn them all, but learn them by seeking the similarities, not the differences. Everything has a truth to it, but we humans have distorted that truth, usually in the name of our Creator and spiritual or religious traditions. If this is too much to ask of you, then it is better to return to the life you are currently living. Walking the Native path is not easy, but neither is watching our young people and Elders being sacrificed.
As we age and get older, change is more difficult, but not impossible. You all had choices, and you all did what you had to do. Some of you ended up in prison, and that is a place most of you never want to return to. For others, prison is all they have and will know for the rest of their lives. Do not let the prison administrations, officials, and guards imprison your soul or spirit. Many of you face inhumane and brutal treatment just for being who you are and for the color of your skin and the color of your clothes. There is no immediate cure for this disease of inhumanity, so I urge you to assist and support each other in those times of need. Learn ways to deal with the anger that surfaces when you are treated inhumanely. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you will learn how to escape the place where you are (our medicine people and curanderos know how to do this). Think of it this way: they can have your physical body, but they will never take your spirit prisoner.
Mexika consciousness can lead to self-realization. Self-realization can lead to a universal consciousness that all life and energy are related. That is what our ancestors left for us. We are all related. The Lakota have a saying, "Mitakuye Oyasin," which means "to all our relations." When you're in the temazkal (sweat lodge) or in a pipe ceremony, that is what you are praying for, to everything that exists, to all that is. Try and grasp that concept--"We are all related"--if indeed you are walking the Mexikayotl Path or Red Road.
It is against the spiritual laws to claim ownership of any lands and ownership of spirituality. Where did we get the idea that we can own anything but the physical bodies that we entered this world with? For the many of you who have asked to learn the ways of our people, begin by going into your soul and spirit to see if that is really what you want. If it is, then you must start living and acknowledging that we are all related, that everything in the universe has energy and spirit, and that we are all connected by that. Every living, breathing thing is our relation.
Every year, thousands of Indigenous people offer their blood and pain to the Tree of Life at the many Sun Dances held throughout the continent. These Sun Dancers make a commitment to dance, fast, and suffer for 4 days, and then they pierce their skin and offer their blood to the Creator, to the people, and to themselves. The Sun Dance teaches that we have to give back for what we have received. It is a time for purification and rebirth. It is a time for healing pain from the past. It is a time to honor all our Elders, youth, and Medicine people. And it is a time for change with an eye on the future.
Today, we face many obstacles as Mexika and Native people. But our future is in our hands if we each work on ourselves and then on our families and then in our communities and neighborhoods.
Chikahua Moyollo (stay strong your heart)
Tiahui,
Tekpatltzin
Teopizqueh and Tlatohkan for
Kalpulli Yetlanezi-Tolteka Mahtlaktli ihuan Yei
Chicago-Aurora-Teotihuakan