Water photograph by Julia Sobol
M'Hoq Toq's voice is written this way
Nerida's voice is written like this.
There’s a place across the sea called Standing Rock where a lot of the Indigenous people have come together.
[Softly] My people.
Your people. And I wondered if you might like to send message to them.
[Pause]
They’re coming together in great numbers.
Yes.
And we’re always thinking about them with love.
They can use every support they can get. Every little thing they can get. They are — hmmm — so far, too advanced.
It’s greed and impatience, that’s what they’re fighting against or trying to stand up against. So the place they’ve chosen is quite a good match for that.
[Whispers] Good.
Photo of the water protectors, strong in the snow at Standing Rock by Kim Chee.
Standing together as a rock.
Yes
It will take patience on their side, to be the counterpart of the impatience on the other side. It will take generosity.
Because there is this greed on the other side.
They are dealing with some young souls for whom it is about a fast pace to get rewards. [Sighs] They feel like, because they might have paid some money somewhere they’ve got the right to do it.
Yes.
They might have paid for the right to walk on this land. They haven’t paid for the right to kill our people. No one can pay for the right to diminish humankind in this area. This will be what’s going to happen: they need to get to this insight.
The greedy ones?
The greedy ones. If you pay for something or if you say, (as you use the word), you have ‘bought’ some piece of land, it doesn’t mean you can turn it into something that will make it unusable for following generations.
Yes.
Like, it is fine if you buy land, lease land, to put plants there, get crops to feed the people, to sustain the people there and to leave something usable behind for future generations. This would be ethical.
What they do is look for very quick rewards.
They did not put any energy into the facts of what would happen if there is something like a little accident — which will happen — if they keep going.
Because they don’t care!
They say, ‘We are here for now. We use this. We can have our own aeroplane if we do so. We can do all these things.’
(Which is still not the perfect way of transport. Why would you invest in something like this?)
Why wouldn’t you want to learn more about things — instead of trying to get wealth out of a poor technology? That will never work. It’s unethical.
Every decent human being on this planet should go ahead and support those that were my people.
Yes
And not only because they have been my people.
Of course.
Flag and teepees at Standing Rock. Photo by Kim Chee.
It is for future generations.
We had this old saying that once you realise you can’t eat the wealth you have… Ever tried to swallow a coin? Not very good for you. Eat paper? Nah, not very good for you.
Once they realise you can’t survive on these things… Especially you can’t survive without water! They need to realise it.
They don’t care.
‘Oh, we can buy ourselves a private aeroplane. We just go somewhere else. We won’t need the water there. We came from somewhere else. Because we would never do this to the place where we are actually going to live or where we come from. We go somewhere else.’
You can poison and destroy it only once because after that it’s gone.
They won’t have the powers to bring it back. And actually I have to tell you they are not intending to. They go somewhere else.
‘Who cares what we did over there? Our place is still fine.’Except — one day they’ll come back and live there — at specially that place — to have this experience of what it feels like to live in an area that’s got no water. You can look at it. You can see the reflections of the clouds in it. But it won’t help you survive. It will actually kill you if you try it.
Once it will get into their heads that the future generation is actually us, these angry babies, these upset children will say, ‘How could I get here? How did I end up here?’ ‘I wanted to learn these other things and now I’m here!’
Yes, before you can learn something else you have to get the experience of what it feels like living in that place that you have shut down before.
You think, ‘I don’t care. I live somewhere else’? It’s not true. You will come back exactly to that place because you will need to experience it.
[Pause]
There is still, as you would say, hope. But it will take a long time.
And their opponents, they think they don’t have that time because they want it right here, right now -- so they can go off somewhere else after they have done what they call their job.
A lot of them don’t even think.
‘Oh yeah, that’s what we are supposed to do. We just do it and then go somewhere else.’
Well, if it’s any consolation, they will come back to exactly that place. They might choose something else but there will be that little nudge, that makes them end up being born right in that area, because this is what you’re going to learn first!
So there’s still —
There is still a chance to avoid it.
Yes. But it depends on the insight of the opponents.
It does.
That’s very difficult.
Standing strong at San Francisco in solidarity with Standing Rock. Pic by Pax Ahimsa Gethen.
The ones standing there, as a rock, they don’t need that insight, they have it. They have been there before, they know all about it. And they taught some of the ones that haven’t been exactly there, very well.
So it’s up to them, trying to teach.
We think they are on quite a good path. It’s about teaching, not fighting.
Right.
Convincing. Changing the minds of others.
[Birds call outside]
Some of these others, you know, they are on this path of instant gratification (is the expression we just found in there [tapping Marie’s head]).
Mhmm.
If they don’t get to do it there, they will go and do it somewhere else.
Because it’s about impatience and greed.
Yes.
That’s the biggest trouble they have. And unless that impatience and greed are gone they will do it wherever they go — preferably in places where the people live who have not much power. Well, that’s what they think.
They’ll be up against different powers. They still don’t know about it yet.
These people have connection to the land, to the spirit of the land.The strangers don’t.
They did convince a few of the local people about their ideas because they were into greed and impatience too. You find them everywhere. It’s not a matter of the colour of the skin or where you come from. You find them everywhere.
Yes.
But they need to be taught, taught sometimes in a quick way.
So they might be out of here, having to go somewhere else — in a different physical body — before they know.
(And this should not be mistaken for my people doing something bad to them.)
They will have the spirits of the earth against them because they are threatening future generations.
They don’t care. So, there will be some insight at some stage. This inside, insight I mean, doesn’t come voluntarily.
[Sighs] The earth might just shake them off. ‘Ooh, wow, hooh, we didn’t have the earth shaking in this area before!’ Well, there you go! You asked for it.
Luckily, or hopefully as you might say, it will start in the early stage of them trying to build these things.
[Claps hands] So it’s all been shaken off.
Good.
You thought this is a stable area? You should look at maps. You should read history books. You would know it’s not.
Because spirits have been treated well by the native people.
You upset them, you’ll find out.
You don’t mess with nature. You just don’t. And that’s what they are doing or intend to do.
Yes, both.
Yes. There will be a lot of learning going on.
[Pause]
Because everything has consciousness in nature. You don’t mess with that.
[Sigh]
[Birds calling outside]
Beautiful owl pic by Andy Chilton.
They agree.
[Laughs] They’ve been singing beautifully lately, my totem.
They are excited about the coming change.
Hmm. So are we.
Good.
You can tell my people Earth will defend itself in one way or the other.
Yes.
No one, no one threatens Earth spirits without getting some sort of learning experience — [sigh] which is not always a good one. It tends to be quicker when it’s a bad one.
Yes.
Yeah.
But it is good that they are there. The world needs to know about it.
It’s not like, ‘Oh, you’re just that invisible little group. We can sneak in, try to build that pipeline. No one will ever know!’
There you go. The world is watching you. No place to hide.
You go somewhere else, you’ve made a mess somewhere, [softly] you will be recognised.
No safe place anymore.
[Pause]
Is there anything I can help you with?
I think you’ve spoken beautifully, M'Hoq Toq, I’m very grateful for it and I’ll spread the word.
Thank you. Glad to talk to you.
I’m grateful to see you and I hope it’s not so long until the next time. We’ll think of you when the rain’s coming.
It will. Anything else?
I send you my love and thanks. Until the next time.
Thank you. Until another time, then.