DISCOURSE, LANGUAGES, AND ART CONTINUED

DISCOURSE, LANGUAGES, AND ART CONT.

... Indigenous cultures incorporate many more meaningful traditions which share the core concepts in this charm. These traditions have been passed down through thousands of years as heritage oral histories and mythologies. These oral traditions employ a discourse that describes and considers the influence of the natural world through a "cyclical" framework, and in this cycle the discorse returns to each new generation.

These oral traditions demonstrate a core value in the First Nations to honor living sacredness in the world by upholding distinct duty to the natural world. In Indigenous worldview, "duty" is a sacred effort which is shared by all creatures. Consider two common examples: the concept of "Guardianship", and the concept of "the Seventh Generation". These core beliefs permeate diverse Tribes and Nations to express living connectedness as a unique lawfulness bestowed to all living creatures by the Great Spirit. This duty or law is a sacred effort made to and by all creatures, elements, and natural forces, and this "duty" functions in a reciprocal relationship, or as a "relatedness". The lawfulness of the natural world extends as the collective duty to care for all relations, such as to live and to die in a good way, to make and keep good promises, and above all to preserve safety and security for all of Earth's creatures.

In the first concept, humans are bestowed by the Great Spirit the distinct role of "Guardians", who have the duty to look after the collective activity of the Earth continuum, and ensure that all "forms of life" thrive and uphold their sacred duty to the Great Spirit. Apart from humans, other creatures have been bestowed different sacred duties, and often in a more localized manner, and these efforts are equally valuable and also reciprocal, but are not the same as Guardianship. In the second concept, "the Seventh Generation", the duty of humans extends as distinct responsibility for the health, wellness, safety, and security of the seventh generation of the future. This is a time oriented perspective that serves to distinguish the strong and continued purpose and meaningfulness of the clan in the present, and to honor its future and the future of all its relations.

The perspectives of "sacred dutifulness" and "living relations" are part of a spontaneously shared worldview in all Indigenous spiritual traditions across the world. Today this perspective has profoundly influenced the global sustainability movement, and national and international concepts of environmental justice, especially on legal terms. This unique discourse considers both how humans may properly ask of the Earth and also how the Earth may properly ask of humans, too. In environmentalism, Indigenous ancestral wisdom describes the activity and core efforts of a worldview that considers the inherent and reciprocal relationship between all life. This distinction of a universal reciprocality extends in the concept of Guardianship as a legal term, and as an integral humanity, and serves as a means by which all Nations may integrate and value social-political environmental policy-making.

This kind of shared or collective consideration promotes the legalease of "reciprocal responsibilities" to append the more common rhetoric of lawfulness as "individual rights". In the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador, for example, the Earth System is referenced as a legal entity, "Pachamama", which is the name for the Indigenous Spirit that is the Earth. The name "Pachamama" communicates how this Spirit lives as a collective, or as a functioning system or "whole". As Indigenous sciences implement a scientific framework very similar to "systems sciences" in the Western world, this legal reference to "Pachamama" is a lawful effort by the governments to bridge the rhetorical gap between these two invaluable worldviews. In these constitutions, Pachamama is recognized as having the rights to clean soil, water, air and biodiversity. Pachamama also has the right to be represented by legal advocates who affirm the reciprocal duty to preserve the Earth System. This world-changing development serves as a foundation for all Nations in the world to develop environmental policy.