re-membering today the wise old saying that truth is the first casulty of war, i feel the call in this moment of eternity when our island home desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, lovers and storytellers to re-visit once again an old legend of the first peoples of this turtle island land which has been passed down orally from generation to generation; it is a legend about a savior named deganawida, the peacemaker, originating over a thousand years ago during the final decades of pre-columbian america at a time like now, a time of pervasive fear and instability in the haudenosaunee world when a young virgin gave birth to a son… she was told in a dream that “your child will be a messenger of the creator and will bring peace and harmony to the people on earth.”…
when deganawida came of age he told his mother, “I shall now build my canoe from white stone, for the time has come for me to start my mission in this world. I know I must travel afar on lakes and rivers to seek out the council smoke of nations beyond this lake. It is now time for me to go stop the shedding of blood among human beings.”
as deganawida began his mission, he first encountered a group of hunters who were fleeing from the bloodshed in the their own village and he instructed them: “Go back to your people and tell them that the Good News of Peace and Righteousness has come to your nation.”
the peacemaker’s mission, as the many accounts of the legend make clear, was to re-establish the natural equilibrium on which the well being of individuals, societies, and the whole of creation depends… deganawida achieved this mission by healing them—by “making their minds straight.” deganawida’s role was not that of a warrior, but a redemptive shaman—a healer… he was quite explicit about the mission: “health means peace, for that is what comes when minds are sane and bodies are cared for.” the peacemaker, like the rainmaker, like all healers and medicine elders, well knows that conflict is born of suffering and the root causes must be addressed for the villages to come back into health and equilibrium where all feel they belong and are cared for and are treated with dignity…
as the story goes, deganawida traveled between each of these warring tribes to spread a message of peace, friendship, and unity, but was not always met with understanding… as the white pine tree was known to them as the tree of peace, deganawida used it as a symbol of his intentions…. auspiciously, the tree was said to have four symbolic roots, the great white roots of peace, which extended north, east, south and west… all the leaders of each nation who agreed to bury their weapons under this tree and be a part of the peace agreement would meet beneath its branches to talk about preserving The Great Peace and be joined together as one…
let us gather under the tree of peace, bury our weapons, breathe deeply together into the sacred space of wisdom and courageously take on the transformative mission of being peacemakers every moment of eternity so that we can create a sustainable world of peace we all desire and demand that our world leaders do the will of the people by acting like adults who come from a place of the onemind…