Love Does Not Imply Pacifism.

Many Indians Have Told Me That The Most Basic Difference Between Western And Indigenous Ways Of Being Is That Westerners View The World As Dead, And Not As Filled With Speaking, Thinking, Feeling Subjects As Worthy And Valuable As Themselves.

I Wondered What It Does To Each Of Us To Spend The Majority Of Our Waking Hours Doings Things We'd Rather Not Do, Wishing We Were Outside Or Simply Elsewhere, Wishing We Were Reading, Thinking, Making Love, Fishing, Sleeping, Or Simply Having Time To Figure Out Who The Hell We Are And What The Hell We're Doing.

There Is A Language Older By Far And Deeper Than Words. It Is The Language Of Bodies, Of Body On Body, Wind On Snow, Rain On Trees, Wave On Stone. It Is The Language Of Dream, Gesture, Symbol, Memory. We Have Forgotten This Language. We Do Not Even Remember That It Exists.

All We Want, Whether We Are Honeybees, Salmon, Trash-collecting Ants, Ponderosa Pines, Coyotes, Human Beings, Or Stars, Is To Love And Be Loved, To Be Accepted, Cherished, And Celebrated Simply For Being Who We Are. Is That So Very Difficult?

Slavery Was A Central Concern Of Governance Form The Time Of The First Nation-state. The Code Of Hammurabi, The Earliest Know Set Of Laws For Governing An Empire, Prescribed Death For Anyone Who Harbored A Fugitive Or Otherwise Helped A Slave To Escape. The Relationship Between The Law And Bondage Goes Back Even Farther: Indeed, The Oldest Extant Legal Documents Don't Concern The Sale Of Land, Houses, Or Even Animals, But Slaves.