Contrasting Deaths Take 2

Scope – Responsibility – Power

In the first of those incarnations, as a pre-Columbian first nations man, the scope of my awareness was vast. There was nothing in my awareness that was off-limits, or no sense of “off-limits”.

My wife had her specialties/skill sets & I had mine. You had asked me if, when I mentioned meeting her gaze while re-entering the village after a night-time hunt, did I go over to help her as she was working a hide. I said no, she knows what she is doing. As I entered the village, I wasn’t carrying the deer I had “taken” predawn. Someone had already taken that off my shoulders (literally). Someone knew to do that & I knew to expect that. The contact between me & my wife was soul-to-soul, not by word or wave “hello”. Linguistically efficient.

NO WONDER THAT FIRST NATIONS TRADITIONAL LANGUAGE IS BASED ON STORY TELLING.

It occurs to me now, as I type, that for me to have gone to her & try to take out a scraper & work with her, that could have been a form of taking control/power from her in her task. It would have resulted in questions, confusion, & she would have likely been insulted. That type of action would have disrupted the beautiful FLOW that was otherwise in every moment.

My scope of awareness also extended to the ancestors. “My people” included them. They were (simply) “before”, us & out of the physical body.

My scope of responsibility WAS my role in the community (village) & to my people: I was a hunter, & so I was a provider of certain material things. The specifics of hunting resulted in the sharpening of my senses, tuning myself to my entire environment, the readiness of a prey animal to leave its body, its sense of OK with the situation (is this the right deer? Is this the right time for this deer?), & our shared perception (mine & the deer’s) of the veil between those in body & those not in body. THAT was my responsibility to my prey. In adhering to the rules of this relationship, I did my part in maintaining a healthy balance in population & grazing/resources for its entire species within my hunting grounds. It helped the FLOW.

In the second of those incarnations, as a father living in a big city, working indoors hurrying home to be indoors once again, the scope of my awareness was small.

This was a scary time, when the politics of people you didn’t know, who didn’t have your best interests at heart, led to very dangerous events. Being noticed by those with power, when you didn’t know what the rules were, well,… you just didn’t go there. You didn’t think about it.

Those with an imagination to see a different future for themselves, or for society, made dangerous waves & tended to get killed, or to get others killed.

The scope of my responsibility was to me & my immediate household/family. They are what I fought for (just not with fisticuffs). Finding FLOW in this lifetime was tenuous. It depended on “minding P’s & Q’s”, keeping one’s head down, not getting caught up in what those causing trouble were doing. My power was SMALL, & I would have lost all of it had I stepped outside of my scope of responsibility. My imagination didn’t even extend to what would happen to my immediate family had I died prematurely, say before my eldest daughter was married & had a husband who could at the very least look out for the rest of them.

Had this been the Medieval world, I would have likely had faith in the church, been a part of a parish/congregation where there would have been spiritual guidance, & possibly real practical assistance for my family. However, this was a time of the breakdown of Order. New structures were not yet in place for the common need & political change focused on WHO had power, & less on what that power should be used for. That would evolve eventually, but not yet.