The Seventh Fire
Spiritual Messages from The 6th Annual “Gathering of
All Nations” Maniwaki, Quebec, August 2001
The Annual Gatherings of All Nations with Grandfather
William Commanda are among those special occasions that shine the lights of
higher understanding into our hearts, and invite renewed reflection on the
nature and purpose of our human journey.
This year, over fifteen hundred representatives attended
the Gathering from all walks of life, from Canada, the US, Europe, and Central
and South America. We were treated to the rich tapestries of their traditions on
all levels of ‘being’—spiritual, environmental, emotional, social and
cultural. Grandfather, as is his custom, provided an open-air banquet for all
attendees, financed from his personal Old Age cheques.
His vision for ‘A Circle of All Nations’ came to him in
1961 when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given weeks to live. He
experienced a profound spiritual awakening. Now forty years later, a healthy and
vibrant 88 year old, he tours the world teaching about the ‘Red Road of
forgiveness, love, compassion and reconciliation’.
According to their traditions, which are similar to those in the Old Testament,
Seven Prophets came to Anishnabe in ancient times, and left seven Prophecies,
known today as ‘The Seven Fires’.
The first three Fires, dealing with their early history,
will not be covered here. The Fourth Fire prophesied the coming of the
Europeans, the ‘light skinned’ race, to the North American continent.
The Fourth Fire was given by two prophets:
One said, “You will know the future of our race by the
face the light skinned race wears. If they come wearing the face of brotherhood,
there will come a time of wonderful change for generations if they carry no
weapons, and if they come bearing only their knowledge and a handshake.”
The other said “Beware if they come wearing the face of
death.... Their hearts may be filled with greed for the riches of the land. You
shall know that they wear the face of death if the rivers run with poison, and
the fish become unfit to eat.”
The Fifth and Sixth Fires, covering the period from 1600
until today, told of a period when their children would be removed from their
families and from the teachings of their Elders. They would face the loss of
their ancestral lands and burial grounds. They would be forced to hide the
ancient sacred scrolls and ceremonies, lest their culture be destroyed and lost
forever.
Now is the time of the Seventh Fire, when Mother Earth is
in trouble:
It is at this time, that the ‘light skinned race’ will
be given a choice between two roads.
If they choose the wrong road, then the destruction that they brought with them
will come back at them, and cause much suffering and death to all people.
If they choose the right road, then the Seventh Fire will
light the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal Fire of Peace, Love, Brotherhood and
Sisterhood.
The ‘wrong road’ is generally interpreted as the Path
of Technology. Notwithstanding the many benefits of scientific progress, this
Path denotes the irresponsible harvesting of Mother Earth’s resources with
ever-increasing efficiency, and increasing pollution. It leads directly to the
destruction of the biosphere and the extinction of humanity.
The ‘right road’ is interpreted as the Spiritual Path
where all life, created by the Great Creator and connected and sacred, is
nurtured, restored and held in sacred trust for the generations yet to come.
We sat as speakers from Canada, the US, Mexico, Guatemala,
Columbia and Brazil, including Elders from Mayan, Hopi, Aztec and Amazonian
traditions, told of the poisoning of their rivers, the desecration of their
forests and the loss of their lands. They then expressed their visions that the
‘light skinned’ race would have the wisdom and foresight to choose the
‘right road’, creating a world with a nobler future. This includes higher
and more responsible relationships with each other and with our Planet.
The Algonquin view all creation as sacred and
inter-connected. In secular terms, the entire bio-system is assumed to be a
dynamic global system. The recent mapping of the human genome, which has shown
that we share more DNA with worms and insects than we are comfortable with,
supports their spiritual worldview.
Their spirituality is more proactive than this, and can be
summed up in the birch bark canoe.
The shape of the ribbed body of the canoe represents in its
smaller manifestation, the ribcage containing the heart and lungs of life
itself. It is infinitely expandable to encompass all physical and spiritual
universes.
The canoe has the same shape at both ends; one pointing
backward to our origins in the Universe and our roots on Mother Earth, and the
other end pointing forward to our future.It floats on the water of life. We are
the present paddlers.
Grandfather notes: “Surely, when the Great Creator looks
down on the Earth, He sees all of His children playing together from the Red,
White, Black, and Yellow Races. He does not see the superficial differences. He
sees the beauty of each one of His Children.”
We should do the same.
The ‘Red Road of forgiveness, love, compassion and
reconciliation’ recognizes that the past cannot be undone. Instead, it calls
for forgiveness for the pain we have inflicted on each other and on Mother Earth
and asks us to mend our ways, and fill our hearts with love and compassion.
Grandfather notes, “We have to work together, because we
have to live together.”
Thoughtful, I sat at the end of one of the campfires. The
full moon came up over the lake. Loons were calling. And the stars were out. I
looked up into the heavens.
I began to compare what I had just heard with much of the
material that fills the TV programs and the tens of thousands of daily
advertisements.
These would have us believe that we are not good enough
unless we embrace everlasting consumption as the ‘be all and end all’ of our
civilization. ‘End all’ because the materialistic worldview, narrowly
focused on the corporate bottom line, has difficulty seeing beyond the next
quarter’s financial profit.
Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 Inaugural Address came to mind:
“The practices of the unscrupulous money changers
stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds
of men…
“Faced by the failure of credit, they have proposed
only the lending of more money.
“They have no vision and, when there is no vision, the
people perish.
“The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to
which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”
We have to ask ourselves “Is there anything noble about
the corporate future we are creating through the World Trade Organization,
genetic engineering and the so-called Global Economy?”
Could it be that the growing ecological, social and
financial debts—as evidenced by what has happened to North America since the
first Settlers arrived; as evidenced in our treatment of The First Nations; and
more generally seen today throughout the Third World—is really a result of a
spiritual deficit in the First World?
Surely our children deserve better. I know mine do.
The stark choice facing the ‘light skinned’ race became
clear:
Do we want a future driven by materialism and short term
profit where our hearts are filled with greed for the riches of the land? or, Do
we want a new Earth and a new future where our hearts are filled with love and
compassion? Can we create a future where there is sufficiency and the good life
for all?
I left The Gathering with the conviction that it is time
for a Call to Action, a call for people of good will to ‘swim up’ to higher
values.
Each one of us has our part to play—the CEOs of large
corporations, stockbrokers, nurses, doctors and healers; storekeepers, farmers,
and above all grandparents, parents and teachers to all our children and
grandchildren.
Let us begin by lighting the Eighth Fire in our own
hearts and in our own families. Then, let us heal ourselves, our communities and
our Nations, and co-create a magnificent and inspirational Millennium for all
generations yet to come.
Jeremy Wright has spent most of
his working life in the Canadian Civil Service, and from 1982 as Senior Economic
Advisor to the Canadian Federation of Labour. Becoming convinced that current
financial and economic systems were contributing to our declining status quo,
he founded the Wellness
Foundation in 1992. He can be contacted at: 181 Maple Lane, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, KIM 1G6; Tel: +1-613-749-3379; Email: wfdn@netrover.com;
www.wellnessfoundation.org
This article was printed in New Renaissance, Vol. 11, No. 2, issue 37,
Summer, 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Renaissance Universal, all rights reserved.
Posted on the web on August 1, 2002.
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