My father is full-blood (but no heart) Cherokee. The little bit of traditional upbringing he did receive as a youngster was thoroughly washed out of his psyche by the mission that raised him (his father, working on the road or for the US Army, didn't take the time to bring his children up in the traditional ways; and his mother passed away when he was only 9 years old). My mother is almost completely of European descent (there is a small amount of Cherokee in her lineage, but all such records have been obliterated by time and Southern racism), and from a long line of xtian fundies. I was raised, little surprise, to believe the xtian fundamentalism that I was brought up under. From a very young age I knew there was something wrong with the teachings I was receiving, but whenever I asked questions I was told to shut up and listen. I was told that my simple curiosity was a byproduct of my lack of faith, and that I was going to be punished for doubting such concepts as "manifest destiny", race and class elitism, xtian teachings (teachings of the church that don't seem to adhere to the words or spirit of the message of the Christ). etc.

Here I am, 30 trips around the sun since my consciousness hit this earth, and my thinking has changed drastically. I believe that the teachings of the church that inundated my rightful ancestry have usurped any good that might have come from the message of the Christ. I feel that my ancestry sold me out long ago, when they rolled over and allowed Western "civilization" to run roughshod over our lands and waters. I feel that the society that this "civilization" has brought to this world is about to collapse and that it is going to take us all with it. I feel like fighting this process, like resisting it somehow. I also feel the hopelessness of planning a resistance that is about 10 generations too late, and has no chance for success. I'd like to at least have some idea of the original path my ancestors were given, but there is no one around who still adheres to it. i want to scream into the darkness around me, desperately searching for a sane voice to come through all the noise and show me a path to a world where atonement for the sins of my fathers and mothers can finally be fulfilled, and I can once again be balanced in the world around me. Until that time, I continue struggling in the madness, trying incredibly hard not to lose my desperate grasp as the currents of life threaten to sweep me away into oblivion. I know my ancestors didn't have the struggle I do; they had their own struggles, but honestly, hunting down food in an unspoiled wilderness sounds like a more enjoyable struggle than slowly dying from boredom and bad diet in the modern world we live in.