Honor The First

Honor The First

Here in America it’s “Indigenous Peoples Day” where we try to look back and recognize the original caretakers of this land, and the people we fought or united with to create this country.

It is too easy, I find, to willfully forget the history of the lands we inhabit. Be it the small things such as the origin of names for the places we live, or the big things such as how we, as a people, came to live where we are.

We like to say those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, which may be so, but I think forgetting is worse. You forget the struggles, the sacrifice, the achievement and the wisdom won by our forbearers to create the civilization we posses now.

There is a lesson in that, both for a people and a person.

Where are you from? This community, this town, this family, this life? What impact did your first teacher have on you? What impact did their first teacher have on them? We are each a link in an infinite chain of humanity stretching back to times we cannot imagine and we do a grave disservice not to recognize that. To them, and ourselves.

My ancestors learned to fight, and sail, and farm, and build all so that I would have the rich opportunities that I posses today and I try not to squander that by forgetting the trials they endured and the trials your ancestors endured so you could live today and read these words.

So remember the first, honor their children and seek out their wisdom for they lived through times more terrible than our own in many ways and still they persevered to bring you into being. I think that deserves at least a day of veneration.

I hope you have found this enlightening my dear readers. Thank you and God bless;

~S. Wallace