As the timeline of my second vision draws to a close, I wouldn’t be surprised if the final chapter wasn’t just around the corner – the “emergence of the police state” and restrictions on interstate and international travel. If that were to happen, the effect would be much greater than many might realize. Practical considerations aside, America as a nation developed in regard to open-space, room for everybody and the freedom to go wherever, whenever. And while correct in a sense, those pioneers were soon to find was already occupied by its Indigenous inhabitants. Yet, the conundrum presented was more than mere coincidence, as it was linked to Jeffersonian agriculturalism and “Go west young man; go west!” It extended well back into the prehistory of North America, when the ancient civilizations of the New World were parcel to a vast, interconnected trading empire which spanned the width and breadth of the Americas.
This ancient panorama, which was already in decline by the time of the first European explorers, was subsequently given new life with the arrival of Spanish equistidors and their remudas. This in itself says something about the people already living here, as the land and open-space had formed them. Accordingly, they knew a good thing when they saw it, greater mobility. And seizing the opportunity they wasted little time in availing themselves of Spanish negligence. Mounted warriors now, with a disdain for farmers, this land which stirred the imagination, not only prompted people to travel, but to do so just out of curiosity. Yet the European explorers and those entrepreneurs which followed were motivated by a much different agenda; not commerce per se, but greed. Which, being part of their essential nature, put them at odds with a millennia of Indigenous peoples whose motivations were beyond the ken of the conqueror.
People came, from here, there and everywhere, first with their wagons, and later, with their cars. Ancient tracks became established trails, which eventually became railways and roads. Consider then, if all these thoroughfares we’ve become accustomed to were suddenly without cars. It wouldn’t take long for the weeds to sprout in the pavement. And, while the phrase, noxious weeds, was once used to describe American Indians, viable seed from the Indigenous past might prove more illustrative. As having lain dormant for centuries, it wouldn’t take long for that seed to sprout and break through every crack in the pavement. In time, another species might emerge; a people who would “…make the road by walking,” (Klein 2019). Yet that road would be a spiritual one, plain and simple, and with it a chance to start over if not to begin anew.
CoupStick Chaplain 