Transcriber: Yael Zeligman Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Thank you for that introduction, that was very sweet.
I would say:
[Unangan:] Ungulkingux kusuthax.
Aang waan.
That means: "The evening tastes good,"
"Aang waan" means, "Hello, my other self,"
And,
I just want to say, "Wow!" for all of you die-hard beautiful Homerites
for being here right now.
But you're on the homestretch.
(Applause)
You know, it's very interesting being up here: I can see my picture,
and there's this countdown clock here;
and every time I look at it it's like brain-freeze.
(Laughter)
And then, I don't know, you're sitting there so regally
I don't know if I should prostrate to you, or... (Laughter).
But you're beautiful.
So I figured they're here
to make sure I don't do my wayward Aleut [Unangan] stuff,
so I will try not to do that.
You know,
the Yupik elders in south-western Alaska,
they call this society "the wayward Society"
or rather, not the Wayward Society, "the Inside [out] society"
or "the Reverse Society."
Because we've reversed the laws for living.
And I think that one of the most salient points that we need
to keep in mind it terms of these reversals
is one that says:
"The heart used to tell the mind what to do,
and now the mind tells the heart what to do."
And these and many other kind of reversals like that,
have put the life support systems of this planet right on to the brink.
And so, you know, Einstein said that
- you know, you've heard this refrain many times probably,
those of you who are here -
Einstein said that, you know,
"We can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created the problem."
And that's really true.
And I'm here to share with you, one way,
out of, no doubt, many
of understanding our place in the world.
It's an indigenous way.
And,
it's a way that can be accessible
to everyone;
not just indigenous people.
And so that's what I'm hoping to share with you.
You know, I was born and raised on St. Paul Island
in the middle of the Bering sea.
It's an island that's 12 miles long, five miles wide,
and imagine this: when I was a child
1.8 million fur seals,
2.5 million sea birds,
tens of thousands of steller sea lions,
a thousand reindeer,
and 500 Aleut [Unangan] people.
And
my people have been out in the Bering sea for 10,000 years,
that's 5,000 years before the height of the Pyramid cultures.
And, can you imagine me as a child growing up on this tiny island
with all these animals? It was a magical and mystical place.
And, you know, I had a fully intact traditional upbringing.
And you can see how close to that we lived -
next to the village is right next to the seals,
this is just one of eight rookeries on the island,
And the seals are right behind me, on the sand.
It's pretty amazing.
You know, in this fully intact traditional upbringing,
you know, I would walk in the village everyday
from childhood on to a teenager,
and be affirmed by every adult in the village.
Everyday: [Unangan:] "Aang, lakaiyux exumnakutht txin"
"Good boy!"
I was never ignored. I was always affirmed.
By every single adult, everyday.
And, I was never scolded.
How many of you were never scolded?
(Laghter) Ahah...
You might call it "child abuse" today if you don't scold a child.
But, I was never scolded.
And I could go into anyone's house, day or night,
and I would be welcomed like a long-lost son.
[Unangan:] Aang, kunguthax, ungachithwath, kuk kuthax
"Come in, sit down, eat."
That was a common refrain that I would hear.
And then I had to spend equal time with
the men, the women, the elders, and my peers.
The men would take me out hunting and fishing with them.
And the women would take me out berry-picking with them,
and then they would have me there while they're preparing our wild foods.
The elders would take me out camping with them.
And I would listen to their stories for hours.
Over years.
And to get to know my grandfather, and for my grandfather to get to know me,
I had to be with him 24/7,
for two years, beginning at age four.
Beautiful way.
And I had a traditional mentor called an "Aachaa".
And, you know,
he taught me what it means to be Aleut [Unangan];
what it means to be a man;
what it mean to be in relationship
to self and to others;
the ethics and values of my people;
and reverence for life.
And yet, in the entire time
that he had me under his wing, from age five to age 13,
he may have said no more than 200 words to me.
Imagine that.
Some of the most profound learnings of my life -
200 words or less.
Becausewords are considered superfluous,
and even limiting.
You know, actions and behaviors speak louder than words.
But..
too much words that come from our head
actually dumbs us down.
And I'll talk a little bit more about that.
You know,
I'm thinking about how my Aachaa would teach me,
my traditional mentor.
The adults responsibility was to create space for us to
learn.
Experientially.
I was never given any instructions,
or explanations for anything.
Can you imagine that? Starting as a young child.
Is that child neglect?
Not the way that I was raised.
And so, you know, they would, the adults would always
expect us to watch, listen, and learn on our own.
And they would always,
they would never be condescending because of my age.
They always assumed that I would pick up what I need to pick up in my own way,
in my own time.
It's a pretty amazing way to be raised,
because it allowed a child to , you know,
have all the space that they needed
to achieve their own learning,
to their fullest capacity without the prescription of a adult;
their desire, or their wishes for what it is that we need to know.
The child was free to explore their own senses,
their own thoughts,
their own feelings.
Authentically.
Without anyone coming in and prescribing what it is they are to be learning.
It's a pretty incredible way to go.
And so, we call that way the "way of the real human being."
That's what it's called in all of Alaska.
in all the names: Inupiat, Yupik, Dena’ina, Unangan;
all of these mean "the real human being" or "the human being."
And that's what it means. I've just described it to you.
And today we live in a society, that,
you know,
they have real difficulty trying to grasp this way of self empowerment.
Because most people were raised with constant adult supervision.
and constant
discipline,
and instruction.
So that the foundations -
the children become depositories for somebody else's knowledge
and experience,
not their own,
as a foundation for them to build on.
Yeah, I was really lucky and very blessed to have this way.
My traditional mentor started taking me out hunting
for steller sea lions when I was five years old.
And, you know, steller sea lions are, to us, like the
Bowhead whales are to the Inupiats in the far north;
like the bisons are to the Plains Indians.
And we have a reciprocal relationship where we protect them and they feed us.
And we were joined, usually, when we go out and hunt, four or five hunters,
sitting on the shoreline waiting for the sea lion to come by on the water.
And, you know, I noticed something very magical
about these hunters:
You know,
I would sit there as a child and we'd be out for eight - ten hours.
And the rhythm of the waves,
the smell of the sea air that was so fresh,
and the wind constantly blowing,
put me into a day-dreamy state.
You know, after six or seven hours of sitting there, in one place,
on basalt boulders on the shoreline.
And yet, I noticed the hunters never did.
They never got into a lulled state of mind; they were always alert.
And I wondered how in the heck could the hunters do that.
Then all of a sudden a hunter might say: [Unangan:] "Cowax ukaakux!"
And that means: "Sea lion coming!"
And in the 180 degrees span of water that we had in front of us,
everyone, simultaneously, without anyone pointing,
would look at one spot.
And when I looked, the sea lion wasn't there.
It was still out of visual range.
And then
we just kept looking, kept looking, and sure enough, the sea lion comes up
in that general area that we were looking.
You know, it was still like ten miles away, I think,
when the hunter said: [Unangan:] "Cowax ukaakux!"
Now, I thought that's really magical.
I couldn't imagine how in the heck do they do that.
And so, I figured it out.
I made a connection between the sea birds and the hunters.
And I used to love to go underneath these bird cliffs,
where there's thousands of sea birds,
Can you imagine? 2.5 million sea birds,
then thousands of them underneath the bird cliffs that I would go to,
I would go six miles out the island
from the village, when I was six years old.
And there would be this apparent chaos.
And all these birds:
Red-legged Kittiwakes, black-legged kittiwakes,
thick bill murres, common murres, least auklets, crested auklets,
horned puffins, tufted puffins,
fulmars, gulls;
And they're flying in every direction
you know: diagonally this way, diagonally that way left, right, up, down;
some landing and some taking off.
At different speeds, different heights.
And I noticed something so remarkable about these birds:
they never clipped a wing.
And they never collided
in this apparent chaos.
Can you imagine that?
In this cacophony of sound,
with thousands of birds going in every single direction,
but then never clipping a wing.
And I used to wonder how they did that.
And I finally figured it out.
And I just watched and observed these birds -
I'm six years old,
and I'm thinking in my child-mind,
"The birds don't think."
They're not thinking about the past, they're not thinking about the future.
They're just there, vibrant and alive, now.
Present.
In this field of awareness.
And I'm saying in my child mind:
"OK, I want to be like the birds.
I'm going to be like the birds.
I'm not going to think."
And so, I actually did that, at six years old, I'd sit down there,
and every time I went out there, it got stronger and stronger until I could
not have a single thought in my head for hours.
How many people today can not have a single thought
unless you're brainless?
You know?
But it was remarkable.
And I started to practice this way when I went out hunting with the men.
I would just simply get out of thought.
And lo and behold, I figured out how the men did what they did,
I figured out how they never got into a lulled state of mind,
I figured out how they knew the sea lion was coming before it came.
Because when i suspended thought, and I just embodied my body,
being present, fully aware,
Zoom! I could feel the sea lion coming before it came.
I never got into a dull state of mind again as long as I slipped out of my head
and into my body.
It's a pretty amazing way.
And then I start practicing it when I'm going subsistence fishing for halibut.
You know, by the time I was age 11
my dad gave me the skiff and outboard motor
to skiff out into the Bering sea
for miles away from the village.
How many 11 year olds can do that today?
I'm not bragging, because I'm wanting to share an important piece of information
that I feel we need to know today.
But
I could feel the halibut, near the hand-line, jigging,
and I could feel the halibut before it hits the hook.
And when It's hooked, I can tell you if it's hooked
by the lip or the jaw or the torso.
I can tell you generally if it's male or female;
I can tell you what size it is.
I can tell how it's going to fight on the way up, or not.
Lots of pieces of information.
And then I could also, you know,
I used to wonder how my ancestors could navigate with their 17 foot kayaks,
and go thousands of miles away from their communities,
and then come back without the aid of navigation instruments,
because in the Bering sea we have 20 days of sunshine a year.
It's mostly foggy or cloudy.
You can't navigate by, you know, the moon, or the sun or the stars.
But they did.
And I learned
and mastered this knowledge when I was 11 years old.
And I understood now how
my ancestors would use all of one's inherent intelligence
which is composed of touch, taste - it's all of our senses -
feel, hearing, smell, gut-feel, intuition,
to inform them with 100% accuracy.
I could navigate in pea-soup thick fog for miles to go to a single spot
that I intended, by the time I was 11 years old
without the aid of any navigation instrument.
I could feel the energy of the water.
I can feel the motion movement and rhythm of the water;
I can see the difference in color, I can smell the difference in that.
And then I could see also, you know,
when animals come through the fog, and what kind of birds they are,
they're flying in front of my skiff,
in what relative direction to my skiff,
and what time of day it was,
because we knew where they foraged. and when they foraged.
And that would give me the information I needed
to navigate in pea-soup thick fog
without the aid of any navigation instrument.
Now, these ways are ways that anyone can really access
if they get out of their heads.
You know, today we live in a society,
I'm afraid, that
believes
that intelligence
comes from logic, the brain, and thought
only.
And
the elders say, that, you know,
we must come to know a different way if we are to reverse
our self-destructive path on this planet.
We must be able to access
an embodied way of learning, which we can do.
We all can do it,
And this is a way of - I tell you from my personal experience -
that gives a profound, embodied connectedness and awareness
to self, to life, and all of creation.
And unless we do that,
we will operate with the same consciousness that is bringing
us to the end.
And I choose to be positive about that,
meaning all the people who had listened to this message,
so thank you very much.
(Applause)