For the second part of Ceremony, where I began to read it was very visually descriptive. “She was wearing a man’s shirt tucked into a yellow skirt that hung below her knees. Pale buckskin moccasins reached the edge of her skirt. The silver buttons up the side of each moccasin had rainbirds carved on them. She wasn’t much older than he was, but she wore her hair long, like the old women did, pinned back in a knot” (Silko, Page 164). I as a reader appreciate the full detailed descriptions because it enables me to envision the story in my head, making it much easier to read. Also, the writing itself is very beautiful and Betonie shows Tayo parts of native American culture and how he is not so different and can be a part of it. I also really like how on page 166 there is an image of Old Betonies stars, this is when Tayo has a steamy encounter with a woman and afterwards he says, “Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time” (Silko, Page 168). In this moment the stars seem to play a very important role, almost as a symbol for his healing process. Most of this time Tayo is working with the cattle, and throughout his time on the mountain he has experiences within nature that also take part in his healing process, for example with the mountain lion. It’s deep when the book ends with a ceremony and the poem “Sunrise, accept this offering, Sunrise” (Silko, Page 244) because it is kind of giving everyone reading it a chance for a new beginning. Overall, I enjoyed the book because the writing was easy to follow.
Question: How can we enable ourselves to experience this book as a ceremony for ourselves?
On page 174, the text reads, “the loggers shot the bears and mountain lions for sport. And it was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken, because they couldn’t stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land.” Laster, when Tayo is searching for Josiah’s cattle, he find them grazing on a white man’s pasture. Initially he is shocked that it was a white man who had stolen the cattle, not an “Indian or Mexican.” He later questions his hesitation to believe that the white man had indeed stolen the cattle. The text on page 177 reads, “He knew then he had learned the lie by heart- the lie which they had wanted him to learn: only brown-skinned people were thieves; white people didn’t steal, because they already had the money to buy whatever they wanted.” Tayo falls ill after the cattle are freed from the ranch out of a hole in the fence, and a mountain lion approaches him. Tayo sings him a song and the mountain lion leaves him be instead of attacking him. Two rangers find him lying there, one is intent on bringing him in, the other wants to leave him there. The ranger who initially wanted to bring Tayo in discovers mountain lion tracks and decides to track the mountain lion instead. On page 189, the text reads, “He lay there and hated them Not for what they wanted to do with him, but for what they did to the earth with their machines, and to the animals with their packs of dogs and their guns.”
Do you think that the Spiderwoman sent the mountain lion to save Tayo from the rangers because of his realizations about what the white people have done? Instead of his former belief that white people were better than the Native Americans?
As the book progresses, Tayo’s physical state doesn’t seem to heal. Although with time, Tayo’s feelings of sadness are somewhat subdued, he still hasn’t found the answers or understandings necessary for his complete character healing. At this point, Grandma suggests that Tayo go visit Betonie, a medicine man in the Navajo region. The ceremony process unfolds through a series of dialogue between Betonie and Tayo, and Tayo learns that Betonie is also of a mixed lineage. It becomes clear that Tayo is not only sad because of grief from the death of Rocky and Josiah, but also because he has been unable to reconcile the conflicting cultures of his identity.
Betonie seems to tolerate the intrusion of white culture into his reservation due to a story which is told about how the character of white culture emerged through the prayers and stories of Indian witchery. “…But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place.” (Silko, 122). The story told by Betonie mimics the theme throughout Silko’s book on the importance of prayer, being careful what you wish for. This is also portrayed in Tayo’s prayer for the rain would end, a prayer which he later blamed for the drought on his reservation in Laguna. The story about the origins of white men helped Tayo to divorce his white heritage which he had always been in conflict with, and embrace the process of the ceremony which ultimately led to his healing.
Question: As Tayo undergoes his experience in the ceremony, and his journey to return Josiah’s cattle to the ranch, Tayo begins to criticize the western culture more severely. In what ways does Tayo attempt to reconnect with the native american traditions as part of the ceremony? How does one’s perceptions of the realities which surround them affect the unique ways in which they are able to find identities or healing processes? (Ex: Emo’s perceptions of the war vs. Tayo’s perceptions of the war). In what ways are these processes shaped by societal pressures and enforced by institutions or cultural/ cognitive reflexes?
Throughout ceremony we have seen the importance of storytelling and nature for Tayo, and his people. When he goes through his second healing with Betonie we learn how storytelling has changed overtime through different life events. On page 116 Betonie says to Tayo, “At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies…The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong”(Silko 116). We see that Tayo feels uncomfortable with this idea of changing.
Do you feel that as society forces change upon them they must change as well or that they should resist and continue on with tradition? (Hard to answer without a real understanding of what it is like, but based off the book what would you do if you were Tayo?)
We also see a parallel with this in the film we watched where in Alaska it seems they use both new ways of practicing ceremonies as well as old traditional ways when called for…maybe one or the other isn’t the question maybe its how do they keep both traditional ways of practicing ceremonies as well as changing with society?
While progressing through Ceremony it is beautiful to see how Tayo’s relationship with the earth and his Native heritage intertwine more intensely even though he is still in conflicting pain. Just by the story of Spider woman it is obvious to see that these cultures are more in touch with the natural world. The concept of a non-human non-male intelligent creator creates a different type of discourse than western colonial societies, allowing for more respect, admiration, and symbiosis of the natural world. Betonie tells the story of how white people came to be on Native lands through Indian Witchery and explains to Tayo “at one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies…The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong” (116). This made me think of Homeland, the short stories we watched in class on Tuesday. The Gwich’in peoples have to continue to grow, work and fight a long with the white people, while also living their traditional lives just to keep their land, waters, communities, and animals safe. The ceremony of hunting the caribou with their elders connects them all to the earth, just as many things like the white plaster rubbed upon Tayo’s hand connects him to the earth.
My question is, is it nessacary to for western societies / white peole to adopt or have our own ceremonies and storytelling to connect us to the earth so we can begin caring and stewarding her in a just way?
I really enjoyed the excerpts from the film we watched in class. It only further emphasized the point of how significant nature is to these indigenous tribes. The example of the Gwich’in people and caribou reminded me of Ceremony in the sense of Tayo’s relationship with nature. The Gwich’in people were willing to do anything to protect the caribou’s mating ground from oil companies. They relied on the caribous’ meat in order to get them through the winter therefore protecting them was of the upmost importance. Tayo begins to get better the closer he is to nature. In a sense nature grounds, him and helps him heal from everything that he has endured thus far. His vivid descriptions of the dragonflies, horses, and frogs (page 87-88) give insight into his respect for nature. This reminds me of the level of respect the Gwich’in have for the caribou. They are more than just animals to them. Though Tayo is merely a character in Silko’s novel he is still a good representation of native attitudes towards nature and the film only further expanded on that point.
What are ways in which we can help here in Boone in order to ensure that native lands stay with who they belong and are not exploited?
When Tayo travels to visit the medicine man, Betonie to heal himself as his grandmother suggests, he feels uncomfortable in this new town. The ceremonial grounds built by white men and leaders to house tourist shows featuring paid Indian dance groups and Indian craft booths make Tayo uncomfortable because his culture is being treated as a commodity. He sees the combination of these two groups as nothing besides destructive and toxic. When Tayo meets the medicine man, he is wary of him but yet very curious so he shares with him about his experiences. The medicine man listens and then tells Tayo he must undergo the ceremony, a cure the white doctors stopped him from exploring. When Tayo opens up to Betonie, he sees that Betonie’s relationship and view of the whit world is much different from his and is new to him. This helps Tayo to finally start to view the white world as a part of the Native American world, instead of an opposing one. Betonie’s unique perspective brings Tayo much assurance and leads him to be more secure in his identity.
Tayo, very understandably, struggles with his identity quite a bit throughout this story. Betonie’s view that the white ways and traditional Native American ways do not completely differ from another and have the potential to support one another, gives Tayo hope and security that he needs.
Tayo’s insecurities seem to stem almost completely from his view of himself as disloyal to his people because of his actions and less because he looks different from his people. Do you believe most people in this sort of situation would be most insecure about appearances or actions?
On page 172 it says, “The white ranchers called this place North Top, but he remembered the story Josiah had told him about a hunter who walked into a grassy meadow up here and found a mountain-lion fun chasing butterflies; as long as the hunter sand a song to the cub, it continued to play. But when the hunter thought of the cubs mother and was afraid, the mountain lion cub was startled, and ran away. The Laguna people people had always hunted up there.” A recurring theme is Tayo turning back to nature or his traditional beliefs over his modern ones to find healing and the good life. Tayo remembers stories from his grandmother and Josiah and those would equate to his traditional native beliefs. For Tayo, these stories are more valuable than the science hes taught or white man’s knowledge. While it’s important to not be ignorant to science and facts, I think there’s more to be learned looking at things in this way as well. This relates to SD by allowing us to remember the native peoples and the power in their stories. We must take and work with them and not dictate and tell them what is best for them.
Question: is there merit in taking a story over traditional beliefs or what you are taught in school?
One of my favorite things about the way Silko writes is how she parallels Tayo’s medical health, both physical and mental, with the state of Laguna Pueblo people and land, as well as how she displays the differences between the White medicine and Betonie’s “traditional” methods. This can be seen when early in the book, Tayo is suffering from dehydration as the lands also suffer from a drought, which is also reflected in how as Tayo heals, the rain returns. The relation between health and connection to their traditional culture is also shown through Tayo’s relationship with Rocky. Rocky, a full blood Laguna Pueblo native, who fully assimilates into Western culture, dies in the war, while Tayo, who we are constantly reminded is of mixed descent suffers from as he becomes increasingly disconnected to his peoples culture, and through the help of Betonie, who is also mixed, is able to eventually able to heal and reconnect with his culture.
On the topic of Betonie, is Betonie’s role as a medicine man a continuation of this metaphor? Does Betonie, as someone who seems to adapt the traditional methods and cultures to the new Western world they live in, also represent the relationship between culture and health?
After the audience learns the history of the Ulibarri cattle, Tayo’s life-journey begins to focus on them heavily. The cattle, and all the events connected with them, encompass many aspects of Tayo’s life, from his romantic relationships to his rich past with his uncle to his hope’s for redemption by successfully bringing them back to his ranch. In fact, during his endeavor to retrieve the cattle from Floyd Lee’s property is when Tayo has the epiphany about “the great lie” and how “the liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other” (177). This realization causes one of the biggest changes in Tayo, allowing him to stop blaming himself, his people, and white people (as much) for the current state of the world. Going back to the cows, however, my main question is: Why are they the focal point of Tayo’s healing process? Is the relationship of the cows to Tayo similar to the relationship of the to the caribou to the clip of the Gwich’in? Why might Silko have chosen to write about this different breed of cattle specifically?
I am interested in the ways in which Tayo is described by Silko in how he has been healed from PTSD and the death and destruction of war. On page 204 Silko writes, “The dreams had been terror at loss, at something lost forever; but nothing was lost; all was retained between the sky and the earth and within himself. He had lost nothing.” I can see how Tayo has recovered from war, and how his connection to the land and his Laguna heritage could be considered to have been restored through his experiences with ceremonies and even with the hunter’s wife known by the nickname Ts’eh, who Tayo clearly has a strong attraction to. Silko also portrays a great hope for Tayo, indigenous people, the land and humanity in the way that describes how love has the power to overcome all evil. There is something real, of true value in the way love is described, “They logged the trees, they killed the deer, bear, and mountain lions, they built their fences high; but the mountain was far greater than any or all of these things. The mountain outdistanced their destruction, just as love has outdistanced death.” How do you respond to the quote above? The love in Tayo’s family endured despite how they endured the dark, cruel realities of war and settler colonialism over the years, whether the Bataan Death March or the infiltration of alcohol and white blood into their lineage. The Ceremony is ever-changing, yet so is the pain and hurt in the world. However, there is a greater love that can overcome the darkness, and the story of Tayo sheds a light on that. I think there is also a much deeper context within the text that can be analyzed as well. The creation story, in the beginning, Thought Woman, the spider, was thinking of a story. Ceremony is the story she was thinking. What kind of real message is put forth to you through this book? What are we going to do with this understanding?
“He cried the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together—the old stories, the war stories, their stories—to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.” (246)
A pivotal moment in Tayo’s journey towards self-acceptance can be seen in the quote above, before he saw this “pattern”, how the stories fit together, his memories were painful and a constant reminder of his traumatic experiences. After the realization and clarity Tayo experienced through his ceremony, these memories transformed into an aid in his journey towards a state of inner reflection and an acceptance of his identity. Following my interpretation of what I read, Tayo learned that being Native American should not come with shame as it stems from the colonizing powers as a mode of control and erasure of identity and autonomy. The seemingly obsession of war and destruction among the colonizer culture fueling the Othering of Native Americans, in this case the Laguna people. Shame is hard to avoid, especially when those in power disproportionately Other certain groups of people. Ceremonies, such as the one that Tayo went through, are never-ending as there is much to learn in life, nature and ancestors being a guide, but ultimately it is within that one must learn to understand to develop deep connections to nature and be able to interpret these connections. What Tayo is experiencing is much larger than himself, a form of ailment that has brought havoc to his entire community. Ceremonies and the amendments to these traditional ceremonies can be said to be used to gain more clarity in the shifting world and the issues it brings about. How can communities shift from shamefulness and foster pride in the face of powers that continue to alienate them and invalidate their belief systems?
On page 122 it says “But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witches that made white pope in the first place.”, this really stuck out to me. After watching the documentaries of how the Native American people are trying to protect the lands and animals in the area, they have a large belief in the preservation of the earth even if they are the smallest voices in the room. Overall the idea of forgoing the “westernized culture” not doing what people expect but what they believe in and have learned from there culture. Being able to be above what is “normal” within the white peoples culture.Then relating back the Ceremony and the idea of knowing the stories from the past and being able to see how they related to the present, along with how the stories emphasize the importance of the Native American culture. Then the passages brings me back to the idea that the white peoples culture is nothing without the Native Americans but without the white people the Native Americans still have their culture and belief system.
The importance behind the stories/ceremonies in the Native American culture still stands true but the “white peoples” culture does not have the same values, if we had ceremonies that focused on the betterment of the earth would we take better care of out surrounds? Or would we not have stories that bring more value to the earth and what it provides, would they be focused on the artificial gains that we’ve created?
The importance of storytelling in Native American tradition cannot be understated. Starting on page 122 Betonie describes how white men came from witches. Saying on page 125 “They see no life when they look they see only objects”. This describes pretty well how white men are viewed throughout the whole book. Their medicine and doctors are out of touch when treating Tayo and the soldiers lost their connection to the prisoners of war from earlier in the book. The whole story reinforced these events describing the white men as fearful, and destructive people. This could also be seen in the movie we watched in class regarding uranium mining in the American Southwest and oil drilling in the Arctic. The white men were carrying out the actions described in the story. Destroying the land and killing innocent people through things such as uranium poisoning. The Native American stories capture the instincts of the white man to exploit nature and everything else. Tayo is connected to nature throughout the book in different ways through cattle or other people on the battlefield he has a profound ability to see things very differently from what others around him see. Betonie helps Tayo in struggle through storytelling and ceremony. My question is because of this rich culture and tradition of Native Americans it probably allows them to identify with nature more than others on a spiritual level so are there things we can learn from these teachings regarding our connection with nature?
Throughout the novel, Auntie is bitter and ashamed. She has an obviously close relationship to Tayo, both of them know it, but she refuses to accept him for who he is. Auntie is sticking to an old story, instead of growing and forming a new one. Stories are very important to her; she cares about what others think so much because what the people think is what establishes a history, since what the community says is what will be passed onto generations. Her problem, though, is that she cares too much about other’s opinion about this old story instead of facing reality in a more positive way and formulating a new story. Instead of thinking about the love she should have, and deep down does have for Tayo, she is too consumed with the current stories that claim him an unworthy half-breed.
How can we relate the way of storytelling that Silko engages in, into our own history? What are the stories that we want to be telling about how generation, our current state of things, and the stories of sustainable development? We can choose to follow the story of separation, as Auntie does, a story that says every man for themselves, every man for his own type of man, and they should not blend and mix with any type of human beings. Or, we can tell one that proclaims love is love no matter what the skin or eye color or culture. How can we reverse that story and dissolve the divides among humans, which could then allow us to dissolve the divides between other creatures as well, once we see that we are all species living from the same Earth? We can also choose to tell it the way Emo does, ““We fought their war for them” “Yeah that’s right” “But they’ve got everything. And we don’t got shit, do we? Huh?” They all shouted “Hell no” loudly, and they drank the beer faster, and Emo raised the bottle, not bothering to pour the whiskey into the little glass anymore. “They took our land, they took everything! So let’s get our hands on white women!” They cheered” (55). Although in our case it would be possibly against the evils of capitalism, Emo’s reaction to the evil that was ejected upon the Native American people can be an example of how to unproductively deal with any evils of the world. We can succumb to them and recall how we foolishly played along with them, in Emo’s case, to drink the beer that is meant to numb their opposition, and to sleep with the women meant to distract them and make them think they are still somehow winning. As sustainable development advocators, we can ride along with the pleasures of materialism, endless growth, and selfishness. We can keep screaming and being angry towards ‘capitalism’, claiming all the hate that it has produced. But how should we really be telling this story? What are the stories that will propel us away from evil, instead of producing more of it? How can redirect the story of our history where peace prevails?
Reading and rereading the latter sections of the book, I can’t help but be indecisive. Who IS the woman, Ts’eh? Without a doubt she’s an integral force to Tayo’s recovery, but there have been times when I wonder if she’s really there. Tayo certainly had those thoughts, wondering if it was all just a dream(but a dream he WANTS to keep, vs the white foggy dream state he kept at the beginning of the book p.168), or when he’s with her, not even being able to tell “where her body ended and the sand began (p.206). After first meeting her, Tayo spends a lot of time thinking about and being present in the sunrise. He sang for the sunrise, and its really here that we see him start to become more happy and confident in himself. The dawn is literally a dawning of his recovery, and can be juxtaposed by winter arriving (the death of old sick Tayo?). Ts’eh is definitely an allegory for the land itself, and how the landscape has healed Tayo just as much as the people within it. Every time he interacted with her, she’s taught him valuable lessons with feelings vs numbness, or how to use the surrounding plants. As he explores his world, from messas to canyons, he’s been exploring her and the two explorations seem intertwined. And as spring comes, new beginnings and life, we can see Tayo’s leages better than what he had been. “When he cried now, it was because she loved him so much.” (p.211) He’s in love, with a woman, with his surroundings, and maybe for the first time, with his own life and purpose.
So my question is this: Is Ts’eh real? Or is she an illusion/metaphor for Tayo’s reconnection and reconciling with his homeland?
When discussing the book and after viewing the film, I’m left to reflect on how I and others should percieve this book considering the situation we are in. Most of the classroom is white and our major is predominantly white as well, but that just may be a reflection of the university as a whole. This may not be the direction I should be taking these discussion responses in but the parallels between the story told through Tayo and him being thrown into a white man’s war and the poor assimilation of the Gwich’in people into western culture. I’m not saying there should be some universal understanding of these works. I’m just led to wonder what is unique to our understanding of these works as mostly white people intertwined within western culture? Also beyond discussion in the classroom, where do these works lie with evaluating our own place in western society?
By the end of the book Tayo is going through his last healing ceremony which involves the acceptance that there is going to be an element of loss in his life. He does this through incorporating the abandoned mine as a symbol of lost lands to the white man. Through this Tayo is able to connect with the larger community of the earth which now includes the support of his tribe, the birds, the grass etc.
Through acceptance of loss Tayo is able to receive connections previously unavailable to him. Do you think that growth and healing either emotional or spiritual requires loss? To what degree? Are the new connections Tayo feels to the world a “reward” for his acceptance of sacrifice?
As Tayo goes through his journey of healing he starts with western medicine in the veterans hospitals which doesn’t help him in his quest to heal. But also when participating in the traditional ceremonies he also doesn’t quite find the peace that he is searching for. What he does seem to find peace in is in his sense of place and his connection to the past. On page 87 it discusses how in school the teachers taught him that what his grandmother used to say was wrong when she would say “Back in time immemorial , things where different, animals could talk to humans beings and many magical things where still happening.” It goes on to say that Tayo even though being taught otherwise still felt like this was true. My question is that is indigenous knowledge have a place in western society? Can it be used as a way of connecting ourselves to something or to feelings that we cannot otherwise explain such as the feelings we sometimes get when we are in a certain location?
“At the Dark Mountain, born from the mountain, walked along the mountain, I will bring you through my hoop, I will bring you back. Following my footprints, walk home, following my footprints, Come home, happily, return belonging to your home, return to long life and happiness again, return to long life and happiness.” (p.133, Silko)
As Tayo is guided through the second healing by Betonie and the helper, these words are said over him. I think that it has an important note of healing. It says, follow my footprints and go home where you will know happiness again. In this moment of cultural upheaval, what does it look like for advocates to make footprints leading home? What is home? Is it what was or what will come, if it is what is to come how can we rest there? For people who have never had long life or happiness what does returning home mean?
Betonie tells Tayo the story of the creation of white people and the mass destruction that he believes was actually created by Indian Witcher’s. He talks about natives coming together in a competition for evil. There is a witch who is unidentifiable who unlike the other witches, only tells a story of mass destruction. They predict there will be a species of man who will have no attachment to the earth. They will not see people and animals and nature but instead objects. The other witches actually seem more afraid of this than their own evil creations. This is the one thing in the poem they attempted to wish away. I don’t think Betanie uses this story to let people off the hook for their destruction. I think instead he is attempting to deconstruct the omnipotence of white power. He says that natives have created white people so therefore they can also handle their destruction.
Is Betanies behavior towards white people’s destruction of landscapes and other people somewhat passive? Is acting within the digressing evolution an effective approach to change?
During Betonies healing ceremony he tells Tayo about how the White man was made. He told the story of how a witch made the white man, and how it was known from the beginning that white people would claim and destroy the world (127). Betonie tells Tayo about this because Tayo feels that Indian medicine can’t touch the evils associated with the white people’s war. Betonie’s story puts the power back into native hands, as long as native peoples choose to see the fact that they created white people, and therefore have power over their destruction. At the end of ceremony and the poem on pg.134 it says, “ the rainbows returned him to his home, but it wasn’t over. All kinds of evil were still on him”. Insinuating that the ceremony had some effect, but didn’t fully heal him. This leads me to my question, Could Tayo’s conflict with his identity be the reason it’s hard for him to heal the traditional way? Could his associations with half of his heritage be causing an internal struggle so significant that he is subconsciously fighting the traditional ceremonies?
In the second half of “Ceremony”, Tayo is searching for his uncle Josiah’s cattle. The cattle also fit the book’s dynamics of changing the cultural dynamic. They were speckled Mexican cattle owned by Josiah, bred with the local heifers. After Tayo “rescues” or steals back the cattle, it is symbolic for him coming to terms with his mixed heritage. In fact, it is after he returns the cattle that his old Grandma even fully accept him as a member of the family.
Tayo has help from a woman named Ts’eh, although we don’t ever find out her real name. The woman, a mountain lion, and an unnamed hunter (who I suspect may also be the mountain lion) help guide Tayo on his quest to find his uncle’s cattle, and along the way they help formulate Tayo’s ceremony that helps Tayo with his journey of rehabilitation and acceptance.
Along the way, it was important for Tayo to figure out his perspective and relationship with White people and their culture, and tendency for destruction. That is why the creation story of the whites from the native Americans was somewhat of a transformative idea for Tayo. If the Native Americans created whites, then they can learn to come to terms with them, and their related capacity for destruction.
My question of the week: What would Tayo have done if he could never find Josiah’s cattle, or if they had already been slaughtered?
I am still in shock from the last part of Ceremony by Leslie M. Silko. I really don’t think that the end of the story could have been written any better. When I read that Emo had gone to the police and that they were after him, I was petrified of them forcing Tayo to undergo more of the Westernized treatments that did not work for him in the first place. I was so scared for Tayo when he got into the car with Harley and Leroy, and was absolutely terrified during the scene in the Uranium mine. Reading Tayo’s story really explained the depth of his situation as a half-white/half-indigenous american man; he was confused for a long time after he got back from World War II. Old Ku’oosh and Betonie helped Tayo perform his own ceremony to forgive himself and his comrades for the things they did in the Phillipines. Tayo is performing his ceremony for every life he has influenced and everyone in the drought as well. Tayo learns through this ceremony that he can live through loss, just because bad things happen he learns that he cannot give up in the future.
Q: Why does the last line of the poem repeat itself four times?
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Towards the end of Ceremony there is a tale that explains how the white-man was created by witchcraft. The story goes that there was a gathering of all witches, during this gathering they began showing off their most complicated and evil creations. The processes that take place are vividly detailed and combine graphic and disturbing uses for people and animals. After the witches have shown off their best creations of evil one witch steps into the group but they are unidentifiable and begin delivering a story of the most evil creation ever. The white man and his introduction to society and the destruction that he brings with him is more evil and disturbing to all the witches. More disturbing than the dead babies in their pots and skin from living things lying around.
Does this story of the white man and the destruction he brings apply to the ability of Tayo to understand the horrors he deals with and has seen? Does this tale of how white people embody the purest of evil explain why they are so destructive through colonialism, patriotism and capitalism?
We talk a lot in class about agency and how it is taken away or can be reclaimed. One of my favorite passages in the last parts of Ceremony is on page 143: “…He had never seen a white person so clearly before. He had to turn away. All those things old Betonie had told him were swirling inside his head, doing strange things; he wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence and the existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery.”
Clearly, hearing that story had allowed Tayo some renewed confidence and agency in his understanding of his relationship with his colonizers and oppressors. Reclaiming agency can be done in many ways, significant or not at all. Just this little interaction had quite the effect on Tayo; knowing this information he can move forward and redefine his relationship with history, with the present and with himself. What are some simple, yet effective ways to restore agency to those who have historically faced violence and still do?
Since the 1820’s Indians are expected to flow effortlessly into the civic and political landscape of the united states and let go of their cultures, their homelands, and their identities. With this expectation birthed the myth that “Indians should move on and forget their past”.
In a distinctive and creative way, Silko addresses the many ethnocentric myths surrounding native peoples. Myths and ideas rooted in fears and prejudice stemming from ideologies of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny. Throughout the novel, Silko highlights Tayo’s difficulties within his struggle in self-identity in a country that so polarizes modernity and the traditional ways of Native peoples. Tayo’s difficulties in the story are being mirrored by those of the characters in the poems. Both are struggling with drought, loss, and a disconnect between the way things are and the way they should be. On page 116, Betonie a medicine man within Tayos community suggest that today in a world vexed with the modernity/ traditional dichotomy that it is necessary to create new ceremonies.
“After the white man came, elements in this world began to shift, and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made canges in the rituals. the people mistrust this greatly, but only this keeps the ceremonies strong.” (pg 116)
My question is this: Within this segment of the book is Silko arguing for an embracement of indigenous modernity that requires a different relationship with the past, one that does not seek to go backward but instead attempts to bring the past forward? Do other indigenous nations see this as strengthening the decolonization movement and achieving goals such as land rights and sovereignty?
In this section of Ceremony, Tayo discusses the destruction white people have cast over the earth. Silko writes, “the earth and the animals might not know; they might not understand that he was not one of them; he was not one of the destroyers” (203). We get a further look into Tayo’s conflict about his identity, similar to his confusion about being neither Native American nor white. Does Tayo feel caught in a similar in-between state in this scenario – not quite a part of the earth but also not a “destroyer”? He is separated from both the earth and modern society. He is disgusted with the oppression Native Americans face at the hands of white people – who Native Americans seem to admire despite this discrimination.
It is clear throughout Ceremony that a key element in the novel involves the destructiveness of tribal lands, culture and just the environment in general by those not of Native American descent. Tayo, being both Native American and white is an example of the two cultures coming together and the contrast between the two. Ceremony, through the use of its characters and events writes a story of the reality that comes with living in America while living out Native American culture and practice. We saw this in the film as well, Natives struggling to live in a world where big corporations are running what happens in their own lives and on their land. At the end of the story we see Tayo finally make the connection between the destruction of the land and his pain, seeing that the uranium that was mined on his people’s land was the same uranium used in Japan.
In Tayo’s story we see the struggle as a Native person living in a white man’s world. Today, how can we shift the conversation or language in order to include a better understanding of Native American culture and practice? Would this help alleviate the issue of environmental racism, if there was a better understanding of the relationship that Native’s have towards the land?
Ceremony is a beautiful story that is not only moving and introspective, but also heartbreaking. While reading Ceremony, something I continually thought of were my own ceremonies, both within my family and within the life I have created for myself as an adult. When Betonie tells Tayo that they must create a new ceremony in order to cure him, I thought of the ways that our own ceremonies are often rooted in the ways we have been conditioned to think and see the world. How can we, as citizens of the world, work to create ceremonies that meet our own needs and connect us to the greatness of the world.
Fast forwarding to the end of the story, when Tayo resists killing Emo even though he watched the brutal murder of his friend, we see Tayo ending a cycle of violence through his own ceremonial meditation. My question is how we can work to end patterns of social and systemic violence in our society through ceremony. I don’t mean native ceremonies that are not accessible or appropriate for non-native members, I mean how we can create rituals of respect and equity in a society that is highly individualized and disconnected from common struggle.
Silko’s non linear interpretation and representation of time Ceremony is one of my favorite things about the novel. In Tayo’s world, time and memory are fluid, not confined to the rigid structure of a story told beginning to end. In this novel I saw the role of ceremonies to be, among many other things, a way to mark, mend or bring about moments in time. Ceremonies, like Silko’s storytelling, are the amalgamation of moments in time. Sometimes they are ways to remember and honor times in the past, other times they are avenues to ameliorate and heal them. Ceremonies are not limited to the past, they can manifest things that are coming and reshape the present as well. The concept of loss is directly tied to a linear perception of time. Something can only be ‘lost’ if has ceased to exist in the present or will not exist in the future. Tayo comes to a beautiful realization when he embraces time, memory, and loves fluidity. On page 204, Silko writes “The dreams had been terror at loss, at something lost forever; but nothing was lost; all was retained between the sky and the earth, and within himself. He had lost nothing. The snow covered mountain remained, without any regard to titles of ownership or the white ranchers who thought they possessed it. They logged the trees, they killed the deer, bear and mountain lions, they built their fences high; but the mountain was far greater than any or all of these things. The mountain outdistanced their destruction, just as love had outdistanced death. The mountain could not be lost to them, because it was in their bones; Josiah and Rocky were not far away. They were close; they had always been close. And he loved them then as he had always loved them, the feeling pulsing over him as strong as it had ever been. They loved him that way; he could still feel the love they had for him. The damage that had been done had never reached this feeling. This feeling was their life, vitality locked deep in blood memory, and the people were strong, and the fifth world endured and nothing was ever lost as long as the love remained.”
What can we do, what cultures/ stories/ world views can we explore to give ourselves a deeper understanding of time and memory? If we have experiences , like Tayo’s that show us they are not simply linear, how can we better understand how they work?
For the second half of Ceremony, the tone shifts to a slightly more reflective one, as Tayo begins on his journey with the medicine man. This is really when the theme of drawing your identity from nature really starts coming clear; at one point, Tayo is taking in the sights and sounds of the Chuska Mountains, and the way he describes everything illustrated a sense of actualization, almost like the nature around him was giving him meaning or purpose, and that majesty he was experiencing was something that demanded reverence, as it truly was special. “This was the highest place in the earth: he could feel it. It had nothing to do with measurements or height. It was a special place. He was smiling. He felt strong.” (pg 129) Tayo drew his strength from nature, but there i also the acknowledgement that mankind is always infringing upon it. But more to that, Ceremony also explores how man made constructs can not only affect nature, but even create abstract concepts that don’t necessarily have any concrete value within the natural world. For example, the idea of private property. At one point during their conversation, Tayo mentions to the medicine man that he sometimes sees his uncle Josiah among the faces of the Japanese soldiers he fought during the war. “Thirty thousand years ago they were not strangers.” (pg.114) This quote alone speaks volumes on these man made constructs, these abstract ideas created by society to explain this thing or that, to define this and that, to separate this from that. Had mankind not been taught to be enemies and strangers, whether it be among racial lines or any other parameter, then they would have no concept of being strangers or enemies.
So my question is, is there any situation where a man-made or society-made construct would be beneficial to the world? Throughout the book, these ideas are heavily critiqued and bashed, and not without good, valid reasoning. But are they all bad? What are some circumstances/examples of a man made construct or concept that not only provides value to humanity, but benefits nature to a degree as well?
“…the liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other… white thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white… they tried to glut the hollowness with patriotic wars and with great technology and the wealth it brought. And always they had been fooling themselves, and they knew it.” (Ceremony, 177-178). As Tayo is addressing Josiah’s cattle that were fenced in the white man’s land, he tells how there is a veil that white people use to shield their conscious from the perpetual wrongs they commit against the native people, the land, and themselves. Their lives are unfulfilled by the extractive and harsh practices they live by, and the continued actions that suppress others and uplift their ideals do no justice to anyone or anything, but continue to drive their actions and destruction on others. Silko throughout the book has described how the witchery of white society is a force needed to be attacked, and the treatment towards native communities and sacred land needs to be reconciled. Tayo finishing the ceremony and restoring the land from the drought is crucial to addressing the way whites have changed the lived experience of indigenous people. As Tayo continues with the ceremony at the uranium mine, it is representative of fully addressing the pain and irreversible impacts that whites imposed on them and knowing the ways to move forward. I see Ceremony as a practice of addressing the wrongs and accepted norms and realizing that our life going forward is aware ourselves of wrong, understand the impacts, and move forward with continuous action in reframing our lifestyles. Ceremony isn’t fully finished at one point in time for us, but is a continual revitalization to reconnect ourselves to nature, our society, and evaluating our relationships to earth, people, and ourselves. How can we take our personal ceremonies to addressing destruction and wrongdoings in a way that grows our ability to create larger change in our society and inner peace within ourselves? This is something I’ve thought about before, and how I perceive our actions and the possible reactions we can do individually is something I struggle with.
I was touched by the passage on page 170: “Old Betonie might explain it this way–Tayo didnt know for sure : there were transitions that had to be made in order to become whole again, in order to be the people our Mother would remember; transitions, like the boy walking in bear country being called back softly”. There are transitions, through the drinking, the forgetting, the connecting, the dying, the living, the walking, the sleeping, the dreaming, that must manifest and lead us toward completion and connection, and eventually, home. This home is transitory in nature–a shapeshifter, but it can be found. We can see this simply shown through Tayo’s recounting of going hunting with Rocky and Robert and Josiah, when they were not lost, but the green truck that they arrived in was; they expected to see it on every ridge they crossed, until finally it was there (page 190). Sometimes we must continue on, through confusion, doubt, and false memories to bring us back. Sometimes it is the misdirection placed by, for Tayo, the construction of the white narrative and prevailing colonialist ideals. Through ceremony, Betonie explains, we can see that it is all a construct.
Who would Tayo be if not involved in the war? Do you think that it was a necessary commitment, that perhaps forced him to physically fight in his mental battle?
In this section of Ceremony, the second healing ceremony with Bethany sticks out to me. I see this as one of the great lessons of Silko’s work. Bethany is a traditional medicine man that lives on a hill overlooking immense social and environmental degradation of the Native people in the place where he calls home. Bethany embodies change, and embraces the change he lives among.
The lesson of Bethany is: tradition is changing, but the people’s connection to the land cannot, staying connected is coming to terms with the new reality, the way the land and the people are right now.
For Sustainable Development folks, I think this is an immensely valuable virtue to hold. It is so easy to reflect and wish to revert to the past. When, the world felt cleaner, slower, less dependent on non renewable economics and more so on traditional knowledge and practices. It is easy to see the past as untainted, in rosy retrospection.
But the lesson of Bethany is valuable for this reason. Be with the issues, stay connected to the earth and the people, learn from the present and adapt to the challenges. How can we practice this actively in our lives? Or even, in class discussions?
How do we find balance between learning from the past and being dynamic aids for the future?
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
For the second part of Ceremony, where I began to read it was very visually descriptive. “She was wearing a man’s shirt tucked into a yellow skirt that hung below her knees. Pale buckskin moccasins reached the edge of her skirt. The silver buttons up the side of each moccasin had rainbirds carved on them. She wasn’t much older than he was, but she wore her hair long, like the old women did, pinned back in a knot” (Silko, Page 164). I as a reader appreciate the full detailed descriptions because it enables me to envision the story in my head, making it much easier to read. Also, the writing itself is very beautiful and Betonie shows Tayo parts of native American culture and how he is not so different and can be a part of it. I also really like how on page 166 there is an image of Old Betonies stars, this is when Tayo has a steamy encounter with a woman and afterwards he says, “Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time” (Silko, Page 168). In this moment the stars seem to play a very important role, almost as a symbol for his healing process. Most of this time Tayo is working with the cattle, and throughout his time on the mountain he has experiences within nature that also take part in his healing process, for example with the mountain lion. It’s deep when the book ends with a ceremony and the poem “Sunrise, accept this offering, Sunrise” (Silko, Page 244) because it is kind of giving everyone reading it a chance for a new beginning. Overall, I enjoyed the book because the writing was easy to follow.
Question: How can we enable ourselves to experience this book as a ceremony for ourselves?
On page 174, the text reads, “the loggers shot the bears and mountain lions for sport. And it was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken, because they couldn’t stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land.” Laster, when Tayo is searching for Josiah’s cattle, he find them grazing on a white man’s pasture. Initially he is shocked that it was a white man who had stolen the cattle, not an “Indian or Mexican.” He later questions his hesitation to believe that the white man had indeed stolen the cattle. The text on page 177 reads, “He knew then he had learned the lie by heart- the lie which they had wanted him to learn: only brown-skinned people were thieves; white people didn’t steal, because they already had the money to buy whatever they wanted.” Tayo falls ill after the cattle are freed from the ranch out of a hole in the fence, and a mountain lion approaches him. Tayo sings him a song and the mountain lion leaves him be instead of attacking him. Two rangers find him lying there, one is intent on bringing him in, the other wants to leave him there. The ranger who initially wanted to bring Tayo in discovers mountain lion tracks and decides to track the mountain lion instead. On page 189, the text reads, “He lay there and hated them Not for what they wanted to do with him, but for what they did to the earth with their machines, and to the animals with their packs of dogs and their guns.”
Do you think that the Spiderwoman sent the mountain lion to save Tayo from the rangers because of his realizations about what the white people have done? Instead of his former belief that white people were better than the Native Americans?
As the book progresses, Tayo’s physical state doesn’t seem to heal. Although with time, Tayo’s feelings of sadness are somewhat subdued, he still hasn’t found the answers or understandings necessary for his complete character healing. At this point, Grandma suggests that Tayo go visit Betonie, a medicine man in the Navajo region. The ceremony process unfolds through a series of dialogue between Betonie and Tayo, and Tayo learns that Betonie is also of a mixed lineage. It becomes clear that Tayo is not only sad because of grief from the death of Rocky and Josiah, but also because he has been unable to reconcile the conflicting cultures of his identity.
Betonie seems to tolerate the intrusion of white culture into his reservation due to a story which is told about how the character of white culture emerged through the prayers and stories of Indian witchery. “…But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place.” (Silko, 122). The story told by Betonie mimics the theme throughout Silko’s book on the importance of prayer, being careful what you wish for. This is also portrayed in Tayo’s prayer for the rain would end, a prayer which he later blamed for the drought on his reservation in Laguna. The story about the origins of white men helped Tayo to divorce his white heritage which he had always been in conflict with, and embrace the process of the ceremony which ultimately led to his healing.
Question: As Tayo undergoes his experience in the ceremony, and his journey to return Josiah’s cattle to the ranch, Tayo begins to criticize the western culture more severely. In what ways does Tayo attempt to reconnect with the native american traditions as part of the ceremony? How does one’s perceptions of the realities which surround them affect the unique ways in which they are able to find identities or healing processes? (Ex: Emo’s perceptions of the war vs. Tayo’s perceptions of the war). In what ways are these processes shaped by societal pressures and enforced by institutions or cultural/ cognitive reflexes?
Throughout ceremony we have seen the importance of storytelling and nature for Tayo, and his people. When he goes through his second healing with Betonie we learn how storytelling has changed overtime through different life events. On page 116 Betonie says to Tayo, “At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies…The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong”(Silko 116). We see that Tayo feels uncomfortable with this idea of changing.
Do you feel that as society forces change upon them they must change as well or that they should resist and continue on with tradition? (Hard to answer without a real understanding of what it is like, but based off the book what would you do if you were Tayo?)
We also see a parallel with this in the film we watched where in Alaska it seems they use both new ways of practicing ceremonies as well as old traditional ways when called for…maybe one or the other isn’t the question maybe its how do they keep both traditional ways of practicing ceremonies as well as changing with society?
While progressing through Ceremony it is beautiful to see how Tayo’s relationship with the earth and his Native heritage intertwine more intensely even though he is still in conflicting pain. Just by the story of Spider woman it is obvious to see that these cultures are more in touch with the natural world. The concept of a non-human non-male intelligent creator creates a different type of discourse than western colonial societies, allowing for more respect, admiration, and symbiosis of the natural world. Betonie tells the story of how white people came to be on Native lands through Indian Witchery and explains to Tayo “at one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies…The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong” (116). This made me think of Homeland, the short stories we watched in class on Tuesday. The Gwich’in peoples have to continue to grow, work and fight a long with the white people, while also living their traditional lives just to keep their land, waters, communities, and animals safe. The ceremony of hunting the caribou with their elders connects them all to the earth, just as many things like the white plaster rubbed upon Tayo’s hand connects him to the earth.
My question is, is it nessacary to for western societies / white peole to adopt or have our own ceremonies and storytelling to connect us to the earth so we can begin caring and stewarding her in a just way?
I really enjoyed the excerpts from the film we watched in class. It only further emphasized the point of how significant nature is to these indigenous tribes. The example of the Gwich’in people and caribou reminded me of Ceremony in the sense of Tayo’s relationship with nature. The Gwich’in people were willing to do anything to protect the caribou’s mating ground from oil companies. They relied on the caribous’ meat in order to get them through the winter therefore protecting them was of the upmost importance. Tayo begins to get better the closer he is to nature. In a sense nature grounds, him and helps him heal from everything that he has endured thus far. His vivid descriptions of the dragonflies, horses, and frogs (page 87-88) give insight into his respect for nature. This reminds me of the level of respect the Gwich’in have for the caribou. They are more than just animals to them. Though Tayo is merely a character in Silko’s novel he is still a good representation of native attitudes towards nature and the film only further expanded on that point.
What are ways in which we can help here in Boone in order to ensure that native lands stay with who they belong and are not exploited?
When Tayo travels to visit the medicine man, Betonie to heal himself as his grandmother suggests, he feels uncomfortable in this new town. The ceremonial grounds built by white men and leaders to house tourist shows featuring paid Indian dance groups and Indian craft booths make Tayo uncomfortable because his culture is being treated as a commodity. He sees the combination of these two groups as nothing besides destructive and toxic. When Tayo meets the medicine man, he is wary of him but yet very curious so he shares with him about his experiences. The medicine man listens and then tells Tayo he must undergo the ceremony, a cure the white doctors stopped him from exploring. When Tayo opens up to Betonie, he sees that Betonie’s relationship and view of the whit world is much different from his and is new to him. This helps Tayo to finally start to view the white world as a part of the Native American world, instead of an opposing one. Betonie’s unique perspective brings Tayo much assurance and leads him to be more secure in his identity.
Tayo, very understandably, struggles with his identity quite a bit throughout this story. Betonie’s view that the white ways and traditional Native American ways do not completely differ from another and have the potential to support one another, gives Tayo hope and security that he needs.
Tayo’s insecurities seem to stem almost completely from his view of himself as disloyal to his people because of his actions and less because he looks different from his people. Do you believe most people in this sort of situation would be most insecure about appearances or actions?
On page 172 it says, “The white ranchers called this place North Top, but he remembered the story Josiah had told him about a hunter who walked into a grassy meadow up here and found a mountain-lion fun chasing butterflies; as long as the hunter sand a song to the cub, it continued to play. But when the hunter thought of the cubs mother and was afraid, the mountain lion cub was startled, and ran away. The Laguna people people had always hunted up there.” A recurring theme is Tayo turning back to nature or his traditional beliefs over his modern ones to find healing and the good life. Tayo remembers stories from his grandmother and Josiah and those would equate to his traditional native beliefs. For Tayo, these stories are more valuable than the science hes taught or white man’s knowledge. While it’s important to not be ignorant to science and facts, I think there’s more to be learned looking at things in this way as well. This relates to SD by allowing us to remember the native peoples and the power in their stories. We must take and work with them and not dictate and tell them what is best for them.
Question: is there merit in taking a story over traditional beliefs or what you are taught in school?
One of my favorite things about the way Silko writes is how she parallels Tayo’s medical health, both physical and mental, with the state of Laguna Pueblo people and land, as well as how she displays the differences between the White medicine and Betonie’s “traditional” methods. This can be seen when early in the book, Tayo is suffering from dehydration as the lands also suffer from a drought, which is also reflected in how as Tayo heals, the rain returns. The relation between health and connection to their traditional culture is also shown through Tayo’s relationship with Rocky. Rocky, a full blood Laguna Pueblo native, who fully assimilates into Western culture, dies in the war, while Tayo, who we are constantly reminded is of mixed descent suffers from as he becomes increasingly disconnected to his peoples culture, and through the help of Betonie, who is also mixed, is able to eventually able to heal and reconnect with his culture.
On the topic of Betonie, is Betonie’s role as a medicine man a continuation of this metaphor? Does Betonie, as someone who seems to adapt the traditional methods and cultures to the new Western world they live in, also represent the relationship between culture and health?
After the audience learns the history of the Ulibarri cattle, Tayo’s life-journey begins to focus on them heavily. The cattle, and all the events connected with them, encompass many aspects of Tayo’s life, from his romantic relationships to his rich past with his uncle to his hope’s for redemption by successfully bringing them back to his ranch. In fact, during his endeavor to retrieve the cattle from Floyd Lee’s property is when Tayo has the epiphany about “the great lie” and how “the liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other” (177). This realization causes one of the biggest changes in Tayo, allowing him to stop blaming himself, his people, and white people (as much) for the current state of the world. Going back to the cows, however, my main question is: Why are they the focal point of Tayo’s healing process? Is the relationship of the cows to Tayo similar to the relationship of the to the caribou to the clip of the Gwich’in? Why might Silko have chosen to write about this different breed of cattle specifically?
I am interested in the ways in which Tayo is described by Silko in how he has been healed from PTSD and the death and destruction of war. On page 204 Silko writes, “The dreams had been terror at loss, at something lost forever; but nothing was lost; all was retained between the sky and the earth and within himself. He had lost nothing.” I can see how Tayo has recovered from war, and how his connection to the land and his Laguna heritage could be considered to have been restored through his experiences with ceremonies and even with the hunter’s wife known by the nickname Ts’eh, who Tayo clearly has a strong attraction to. Silko also portrays a great hope for Tayo, indigenous people, the land and humanity in the way that describes how love has the power to overcome all evil. There is something real, of true value in the way love is described, “They logged the trees, they killed the deer, bear, and mountain lions, they built their fences high; but the mountain was far greater than any or all of these things. The mountain outdistanced their destruction, just as love has outdistanced death.” How do you respond to the quote above? The love in Tayo’s family endured despite how they endured the dark, cruel realities of war and settler colonialism over the years, whether the Bataan Death March or the infiltration of alcohol and white blood into their lineage. The Ceremony is ever-changing, yet so is the pain and hurt in the world. However, there is a greater love that can overcome the darkness, and the story of Tayo sheds a light on that. I think there is also a much deeper context within the text that can be analyzed as well. The creation story, in the beginning, Thought Woman, the spider, was thinking of a story. Ceremony is the story she was thinking. What kind of real message is put forth to you through this book? What are we going to do with this understanding?
“He cried the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together—the old stories, the war stories, their stories—to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.” (246)
A pivotal moment in Tayo’s journey towards self-acceptance can be seen in the quote above, before he saw this “pattern”, how the stories fit together, his memories were painful and a constant reminder of his traumatic experiences. After the realization and clarity Tayo experienced through his ceremony, these memories transformed into an aid in his journey towards a state of inner reflection and an acceptance of his identity. Following my interpretation of what I read, Tayo learned that being Native American should not come with shame as it stems from the colonizing powers as a mode of control and erasure of identity and autonomy. The seemingly obsession of war and destruction among the colonizer culture fueling the Othering of Native Americans, in this case the Laguna people. Shame is hard to avoid, especially when those in power disproportionately Other certain groups of people. Ceremonies, such as the one that Tayo went through, are never-ending as there is much to learn in life, nature and ancestors being a guide, but ultimately it is within that one must learn to understand to develop deep connections to nature and be able to interpret these connections. What Tayo is experiencing is much larger than himself, a form of ailment that has brought havoc to his entire community. Ceremonies and the amendments to these traditional ceremonies can be said to be used to gain more clarity in the shifting world and the issues it brings about. How can communities shift from shamefulness and foster pride in the face of powers that continue to alienate them and invalidate their belief systems?
On page 122 it says “But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witches that made white pope in the first place.”, this really stuck out to me. After watching the documentaries of how the Native American people are trying to protect the lands and animals in the area, they have a large belief in the preservation of the earth even if they are the smallest voices in the room. Overall the idea of forgoing the “westernized culture” not doing what people expect but what they believe in and have learned from there culture. Being able to be above what is “normal” within the white peoples culture.Then relating back the Ceremony and the idea of knowing the stories from the past and being able to see how they related to the present, along with how the stories emphasize the importance of the Native American culture. Then the passages brings me back to the idea that the white peoples culture is nothing without the Native Americans but without the white people the Native Americans still have their culture and belief system.
The importance behind the stories/ceremonies in the Native American culture still stands true but the “white peoples” culture does not have the same values, if we had ceremonies that focused on the betterment of the earth would we take better care of out surrounds? Or would we not have stories that bring more value to the earth and what it provides, would they be focused on the artificial gains that we’ve created?
The importance of storytelling in Native American tradition cannot be understated. Starting on page 122 Betonie describes how white men came from witches. Saying on page 125 “They see no life when they look they see only objects”. This describes pretty well how white men are viewed throughout the whole book. Their medicine and doctors are out of touch when treating Tayo and the soldiers lost their connection to the prisoners of war from earlier in the book. The whole story reinforced these events describing the white men as fearful, and destructive people. This could also be seen in the movie we watched in class regarding uranium mining in the American Southwest and oil drilling in the Arctic. The white men were carrying out the actions described in the story. Destroying the land and killing innocent people through things such as uranium poisoning. The Native American stories capture the instincts of the white man to exploit nature and everything else. Tayo is connected to nature throughout the book in different ways through cattle or other people on the battlefield he has a profound ability to see things very differently from what others around him see. Betonie helps Tayo in struggle through storytelling and ceremony. My question is because of this rich culture and tradition of Native Americans it probably allows them to identify with nature more than others on a spiritual level so are there things we can learn from these teachings regarding our connection with nature?
Throughout the novel, Auntie is bitter and ashamed. She has an obviously close relationship to Tayo, both of them know it, but she refuses to accept him for who he is. Auntie is sticking to an old story, instead of growing and forming a new one. Stories are very important to her; she cares about what others think so much because what the people think is what establishes a history, since what the community says is what will be passed onto generations. Her problem, though, is that she cares too much about other’s opinion about this old story instead of facing reality in a more positive way and formulating a new story. Instead of thinking about the love she should have, and deep down does have for Tayo, she is too consumed with the current stories that claim him an unworthy half-breed.
How can we relate the way of storytelling that Silko engages in, into our own history? What are the stories that we want to be telling about how generation, our current state of things, and the stories of sustainable development? We can choose to follow the story of separation, as Auntie does, a story that says every man for themselves, every man for his own type of man, and they should not blend and mix with any type of human beings. Or, we can tell one that proclaims love is love no matter what the skin or eye color or culture. How can we reverse that story and dissolve the divides among humans, which could then allow us to dissolve the divides between other creatures as well, once we see that we are all species living from the same Earth? We can also choose to tell it the way Emo does, ““We fought their war for them” “Yeah that’s right” “But they’ve got everything. And we don’t got shit, do we? Huh?” They all shouted “Hell no” loudly, and they drank the beer faster, and Emo raised the bottle, not bothering to pour the whiskey into the little glass anymore. “They took our land, they took everything! So let’s get our hands on white women!” They cheered” (55). Although in our case it would be possibly against the evils of capitalism, Emo’s reaction to the evil that was ejected upon the Native American people can be an example of how to unproductively deal with any evils of the world. We can succumb to them and recall how we foolishly played along with them, in Emo’s case, to drink the beer that is meant to numb their opposition, and to sleep with the women meant to distract them and make them think they are still somehow winning. As sustainable development advocators, we can ride along with the pleasures of materialism, endless growth, and selfishness. We can keep screaming and being angry towards ‘capitalism’, claiming all the hate that it has produced. But how should we really be telling this story? What are the stories that will propel us away from evil, instead of producing more of it? How can redirect the story of our history where peace prevails?
Reading and rereading the latter sections of the book, I can’t help but be indecisive. Who IS the woman, Ts’eh? Without a doubt she’s an integral force to Tayo’s recovery, but there have been times when I wonder if she’s really there. Tayo certainly had those thoughts, wondering if it was all just a dream(but a dream he WANTS to keep, vs the white foggy dream state he kept at the beginning of the book p.168), or when he’s with her, not even being able to tell “where her body ended and the sand began (p.206). After first meeting her, Tayo spends a lot of time thinking about and being present in the sunrise. He sang for the sunrise, and its really here that we see him start to become more happy and confident in himself. The dawn is literally a dawning of his recovery, and can be juxtaposed by winter arriving (the death of old sick Tayo?). Ts’eh is definitely an allegory for the land itself, and how the landscape has healed Tayo just as much as the people within it. Every time he interacted with her, she’s taught him valuable lessons with feelings vs numbness, or how to use the surrounding plants. As he explores his world, from messas to canyons, he’s been exploring her and the two explorations seem intertwined. And as spring comes, new beginnings and life, we can see Tayo’s leages better than what he had been. “When he cried now, it was because she loved him so much.” (p.211) He’s in love, with a woman, with his surroundings, and maybe for the first time, with his own life and purpose.
So my question is this: Is Ts’eh real? Or is she an illusion/metaphor for Tayo’s reconnection and reconciling with his homeland?
When discussing the book and after viewing the film, I’m left to reflect on how I and others should percieve this book considering the situation we are in. Most of the classroom is white and our major is predominantly white as well, but that just may be a reflection of the university as a whole. This may not be the direction I should be taking these discussion responses in but the parallels between the story told through Tayo and him being thrown into a white man’s war and the poor assimilation of the Gwich’in people into western culture. I’m not saying there should be some universal understanding of these works. I’m just led to wonder what is unique to our understanding of these works as mostly white people intertwined within western culture? Also beyond discussion in the classroom, where do these works lie with evaluating our own place in western society?
By the end of the book Tayo is going through his last healing ceremony which involves the acceptance that there is going to be an element of loss in his life. He does this through incorporating the abandoned mine as a symbol of lost lands to the white man. Through this Tayo is able to connect with the larger community of the earth which now includes the support of his tribe, the birds, the grass etc.
Through acceptance of loss Tayo is able to receive connections previously unavailable to him. Do you think that growth and healing either emotional or spiritual requires loss? To what degree? Are the new connections Tayo feels to the world a “reward” for his acceptance of sacrifice?
As Tayo goes through his journey of healing he starts with western medicine in the veterans hospitals which doesn’t help him in his quest to heal. But also when participating in the traditional ceremonies he also doesn’t quite find the peace that he is searching for. What he does seem to find peace in is in his sense of place and his connection to the past. On page 87 it discusses how in school the teachers taught him that what his grandmother used to say was wrong when she would say “Back in time immemorial , things where different, animals could talk to humans beings and many magical things where still happening.” It goes on to say that Tayo even though being taught otherwise still felt like this was true. My question is that is indigenous knowledge have a place in western society? Can it be used as a way of connecting ourselves to something or to feelings that we cannot otherwise explain such as the feelings we sometimes get when we are in a certain location?
“At the Dark Mountain, born from the mountain, walked along the mountain, I will bring you through my hoop, I will bring you back. Following my footprints, walk home, following my footprints, Come home, happily, return belonging to your home, return to long life and happiness again, return to long life and happiness.” (p.133, Silko)
As Tayo is guided through the second healing by Betonie and the helper, these words are said over him. I think that it has an important note of healing. It says, follow my footprints and go home where you will know happiness again. In this moment of cultural upheaval, what does it look like for advocates to make footprints leading home? What is home? Is it what was or what will come, if it is what is to come how can we rest there? For people who have never had long life or happiness what does returning home mean?
Betonie tells Tayo the story of the creation of white people and the mass destruction that he believes was actually created by Indian Witcher’s. He talks about natives coming together in a competition for evil. There is a witch who is unidentifiable who unlike the other witches, only tells a story of mass destruction. They predict there will be a species of man who will have no attachment to the earth. They will not see people and animals and nature but instead objects. The other witches actually seem more afraid of this than their own evil creations. This is the one thing in the poem they attempted to wish away. I don’t think Betanie uses this story to let people off the hook for their destruction. I think instead he is attempting to deconstruct the omnipotence of white power. He says that natives have created white people so therefore they can also handle their destruction.
Is Betanies behavior towards white people’s destruction of landscapes and other people somewhat passive? Is acting within the digressing evolution an effective approach to change?
During Betonies healing ceremony he tells Tayo about how the White man was made. He told the story of how a witch made the white man, and how it was known from the beginning that white people would claim and destroy the world (127). Betonie tells Tayo about this because Tayo feels that Indian medicine can’t touch the evils associated with the white people’s war. Betonie’s story puts the power back into native hands, as long as native peoples choose to see the fact that they created white people, and therefore have power over their destruction. At the end of ceremony and the poem on pg.134 it says, “ the rainbows returned him to his home, but it wasn’t over. All kinds of evil were still on him”. Insinuating that the ceremony had some effect, but didn’t fully heal him. This leads me to my question, Could Tayo’s conflict with his identity be the reason it’s hard for him to heal the traditional way? Could his associations with half of his heritage be causing an internal struggle so significant that he is subconsciously fighting the traditional ceremonies?
In the second half of “Ceremony”, Tayo is searching for his uncle Josiah’s cattle. The cattle also fit the book’s dynamics of changing the cultural dynamic. They were speckled Mexican cattle owned by Josiah, bred with the local heifers. After Tayo “rescues” or steals back the cattle, it is symbolic for him coming to terms with his mixed heritage. In fact, it is after he returns the cattle that his old Grandma even fully accept him as a member of the family.
Tayo has help from a woman named Ts’eh, although we don’t ever find out her real name. The woman, a mountain lion, and an unnamed hunter (who I suspect may also be the mountain lion) help guide Tayo on his quest to find his uncle’s cattle, and along the way they help formulate Tayo’s ceremony that helps Tayo with his journey of rehabilitation and acceptance.
Along the way, it was important for Tayo to figure out his perspective and relationship with White people and their culture, and tendency for destruction. That is why the creation story of the whites from the native Americans was somewhat of a transformative idea for Tayo. If the Native Americans created whites, then they can learn to come to terms with them, and their related capacity for destruction.
My question of the week: What would Tayo have done if he could never find Josiah’s cattle, or if they had already been slaughtered?
I am still in shock from the last part of Ceremony by Leslie M. Silko. I really don’t think that the end of the story could have been written any better. When I read that Emo had gone to the police and that they were after him, I was petrified of them forcing Tayo to undergo more of the Westernized treatments that did not work for him in the first place. I was so scared for Tayo when he got into the car with Harley and Leroy, and was absolutely terrified during the scene in the Uranium mine. Reading Tayo’s story really explained the depth of his situation as a half-white/half-indigenous american man; he was confused for a long time after he got back from World War II. Old Ku’oosh and Betonie helped Tayo perform his own ceremony to forgive himself and his comrades for the things they did in the Phillipines. Tayo is performing his ceremony for every life he has influenced and everyone in the drought as well. Tayo learns through this ceremony that he can live through loss, just because bad things happen he learns that he cannot give up in the future.
Q: Why does the last line of the poem repeat itself four times?
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Towards the end of Ceremony there is a tale that explains how the white-man was created by witchcraft. The story goes that there was a gathering of all witches, during this gathering they began showing off their most complicated and evil creations. The processes that take place are vividly detailed and combine graphic and disturbing uses for people and animals. After the witches have shown off their best creations of evil one witch steps into the group but they are unidentifiable and begin delivering a story of the most evil creation ever. The white man and his introduction to society and the destruction that he brings with him is more evil and disturbing to all the witches. More disturbing than the dead babies in their pots and skin from living things lying around.
Does this story of the white man and the destruction he brings apply to the ability of Tayo to understand the horrors he deals with and has seen? Does this tale of how white people embody the purest of evil explain why they are so destructive through colonialism, patriotism and capitalism?
We talk a lot in class about agency and how it is taken away or can be reclaimed. One of my favorite passages in the last parts of Ceremony is on page 143: “…He had never seen a white person so clearly before. He had to turn away. All those things old Betonie had told him were swirling inside his head, doing strange things; he wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence and the existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery.”
Clearly, hearing that story had allowed Tayo some renewed confidence and agency in his understanding of his relationship with his colonizers and oppressors. Reclaiming agency can be done in many ways, significant or not at all. Just this little interaction had quite the effect on Tayo; knowing this information he can move forward and redefine his relationship with history, with the present and with himself. What are some simple, yet effective ways to restore agency to those who have historically faced violence and still do?
Since the 1820’s Indians are expected to flow effortlessly into the civic and political landscape of the united states and let go of their cultures, their homelands, and their identities. With this expectation birthed the myth that “Indians should move on and forget their past”.
In a distinctive and creative way, Silko addresses the many ethnocentric myths surrounding native peoples. Myths and ideas rooted in fears and prejudice stemming from ideologies of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny. Throughout the novel, Silko highlights Tayo’s difficulties within his struggle in self-identity in a country that so polarizes modernity and the traditional ways of Native peoples. Tayo’s difficulties in the story are being mirrored by those of the characters in the poems. Both are struggling with drought, loss, and a disconnect between the way things are and the way they should be. On page 116, Betonie a medicine man within Tayos community suggest that today in a world vexed with the modernity/ traditional dichotomy that it is necessary to create new ceremonies.
“After the white man came, elements in this world began to shift, and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made canges in the rituals. the people mistrust this greatly, but only this keeps the ceremonies strong.” (pg 116)
My question is this: Within this segment of the book is Silko arguing for an embracement of indigenous modernity that requires a different relationship with the past, one that does not seek to go backward but instead attempts to bring the past forward? Do other indigenous nations see this as strengthening the decolonization movement and achieving goals such as land rights and sovereignty?
In this section of Ceremony, Tayo discusses the destruction white people have cast over the earth. Silko writes, “the earth and the animals might not know; they might not understand that he was not one of them; he was not one of the destroyers” (203). We get a further look into Tayo’s conflict about his identity, similar to his confusion about being neither Native American nor white. Does Tayo feel caught in a similar in-between state in this scenario – not quite a part of the earth but also not a “destroyer”? He is separated from both the earth and modern society. He is disgusted with the oppression Native Americans face at the hands of white people – who Native Americans seem to admire despite this discrimination.
It is clear throughout Ceremony that a key element in the novel involves the destructiveness of tribal lands, culture and just the environment in general by those not of Native American descent. Tayo, being both Native American and white is an example of the two cultures coming together and the contrast between the two. Ceremony, through the use of its characters and events writes a story of the reality that comes with living in America while living out Native American culture and practice. We saw this in the film as well, Natives struggling to live in a world where big corporations are running what happens in their own lives and on their land. At the end of the story we see Tayo finally make the connection between the destruction of the land and his pain, seeing that the uranium that was mined on his people’s land was the same uranium used in Japan.
In Tayo’s story we see the struggle as a Native person living in a white man’s world. Today, how can we shift the conversation or language in order to include a better understanding of Native American culture and practice? Would this help alleviate the issue of environmental racism, if there was a better understanding of the relationship that Native’s have towards the land?
Ceremony is a beautiful story that is not only moving and introspective, but also heartbreaking. While reading Ceremony, something I continually thought of were my own ceremonies, both within my family and within the life I have created for myself as an adult. When Betonie tells Tayo that they must create a new ceremony in order to cure him, I thought of the ways that our own ceremonies are often rooted in the ways we have been conditioned to think and see the world. How can we, as citizens of the world, work to create ceremonies that meet our own needs and connect us to the greatness of the world.
Fast forwarding to the end of the story, when Tayo resists killing Emo even though he watched the brutal murder of his friend, we see Tayo ending a cycle of violence through his own ceremonial meditation. My question is how we can work to end patterns of social and systemic violence in our society through ceremony. I don’t mean native ceremonies that are not accessible or appropriate for non-native members, I mean how we can create rituals of respect and equity in a society that is highly individualized and disconnected from common struggle.
Silko’s non linear interpretation and representation of time Ceremony is one of my favorite things about the novel. In Tayo’s world, time and memory are fluid, not confined to the rigid structure of a story told beginning to end. In this novel I saw the role of ceremonies to be, among many other things, a way to mark, mend or bring about moments in time. Ceremonies, like Silko’s storytelling, are the amalgamation of moments in time. Sometimes they are ways to remember and honor times in the past, other times they are avenues to ameliorate and heal them. Ceremonies are not limited to the past, they can manifest things that are coming and reshape the present as well. The concept of loss is directly tied to a linear perception of time. Something can only be ‘lost’ if has ceased to exist in the present or will not exist in the future. Tayo comes to a beautiful realization when he embraces time, memory, and loves fluidity. On page 204, Silko writes “The dreams had been terror at loss, at something lost forever; but nothing was lost; all was retained between the sky and the earth, and within himself. He had lost nothing. The snow covered mountain remained, without any regard to titles of ownership or the white ranchers who thought they possessed it. They logged the trees, they killed the deer, bear and mountain lions, they built their fences high; but the mountain was far greater than any or all of these things. The mountain outdistanced their destruction, just as love had outdistanced death. The mountain could not be lost to them, because it was in their bones; Josiah and Rocky were not far away. They were close; they had always been close. And he loved them then as he had always loved them, the feeling pulsing over him as strong as it had ever been. They loved him that way; he could still feel the love they had for him. The damage that had been done had never reached this feeling. This feeling was their life, vitality locked deep in blood memory, and the people were strong, and the fifth world endured and nothing was ever lost as long as the love remained.”
What can we do, what cultures/ stories/ world views can we explore to give ourselves a deeper understanding of time and memory? If we have experiences , like Tayo’s that show us they are not simply linear, how can we better understand how they work?
For the second half of Ceremony, the tone shifts to a slightly more reflective one, as Tayo begins on his journey with the medicine man. This is really when the theme of drawing your identity from nature really starts coming clear; at one point, Tayo is taking in the sights and sounds of the Chuska Mountains, and the way he describes everything illustrated a sense of actualization, almost like the nature around him was giving him meaning or purpose, and that majesty he was experiencing was something that demanded reverence, as it truly was special. “This was the highest place in the earth: he could feel it. It had nothing to do with measurements or height. It was a special place. He was smiling. He felt strong.” (pg 129) Tayo drew his strength from nature, but there i also the acknowledgement that mankind is always infringing upon it. But more to that, Ceremony also explores how man made constructs can not only affect nature, but even create abstract concepts that don’t necessarily have any concrete value within the natural world. For example, the idea of private property. At one point during their conversation, Tayo mentions to the medicine man that he sometimes sees his uncle Josiah among the faces of the Japanese soldiers he fought during the war. “Thirty thousand years ago they were not strangers.” (pg.114) This quote alone speaks volumes on these man made constructs, these abstract ideas created by society to explain this thing or that, to define this and that, to separate this from that. Had mankind not been taught to be enemies and strangers, whether it be among racial lines or any other parameter, then they would have no concept of being strangers or enemies.
So my question is, is there any situation where a man-made or society-made construct would be beneficial to the world? Throughout the book, these ideas are heavily critiqued and bashed, and not without good, valid reasoning. But are they all bad? What are some circumstances/examples of a man made construct or concept that not only provides value to humanity, but benefits nature to a degree as well?
“…the liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other… white thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white… they tried to glut the hollowness with patriotic wars and with great technology and the wealth it brought. And always they had been fooling themselves, and they knew it.” (Ceremony, 177-178). As Tayo is addressing Josiah’s cattle that were fenced in the white man’s land, he tells how there is a veil that white people use to shield their conscious from the perpetual wrongs they commit against the native people, the land, and themselves. Their lives are unfulfilled by the extractive and harsh practices they live by, and the continued actions that suppress others and uplift their ideals do no justice to anyone or anything, but continue to drive their actions and destruction on others. Silko throughout the book has described how the witchery of white society is a force needed to be attacked, and the treatment towards native communities and sacred land needs to be reconciled. Tayo finishing the ceremony and restoring the land from the drought is crucial to addressing the way whites have changed the lived experience of indigenous people. As Tayo continues with the ceremony at the uranium mine, it is representative of fully addressing the pain and irreversible impacts that whites imposed on them and knowing the ways to move forward. I see Ceremony as a practice of addressing the wrongs and accepted norms and realizing that our life going forward is aware ourselves of wrong, understand the impacts, and move forward with continuous action in reframing our lifestyles. Ceremony isn’t fully finished at one point in time for us, but is a continual revitalization to reconnect ourselves to nature, our society, and evaluating our relationships to earth, people, and ourselves. How can we take our personal ceremonies to addressing destruction and wrongdoings in a way that grows our ability to create larger change in our society and inner peace within ourselves? This is something I’ve thought about before, and how I perceive our actions and the possible reactions we can do individually is something I struggle with.
I was touched by the passage on page 170: “Old Betonie might explain it this way–Tayo didnt know for sure : there were transitions that had to be made in order to become whole again, in order to be the people our Mother would remember; transitions, like the boy walking in bear country being called back softly”. There are transitions, through the drinking, the forgetting, the connecting, the dying, the living, the walking, the sleeping, the dreaming, that must manifest and lead us toward completion and connection, and eventually, home. This home is transitory in nature–a shapeshifter, but it can be found. We can see this simply shown through Tayo’s recounting of going hunting with Rocky and Robert and Josiah, when they were not lost, but the green truck that they arrived in was; they expected to see it on every ridge they crossed, until finally it was there (page 190). Sometimes we must continue on, through confusion, doubt, and false memories to bring us back. Sometimes it is the misdirection placed by, for Tayo, the construction of the white narrative and prevailing colonialist ideals. Through ceremony, Betonie explains, we can see that it is all a construct.
Who would Tayo be if not involved in the war? Do you think that it was a necessary commitment, that perhaps forced him to physically fight in his mental battle?
In this section of Ceremony, the second healing ceremony with Bethany sticks out to me. I see this as one of the great lessons of Silko’s work. Bethany is a traditional medicine man that lives on a hill overlooking immense social and environmental degradation of the Native people in the place where he calls home. Bethany embodies change, and embraces the change he lives among.
The lesson of Bethany is: tradition is changing, but the people’s connection to the land cannot, staying connected is coming to terms with the new reality, the way the land and the people are right now.
For Sustainable Development folks, I think this is an immensely valuable virtue to hold. It is so easy to reflect and wish to revert to the past. When, the world felt cleaner, slower, less dependent on non renewable economics and more so on traditional knowledge and practices. It is easy to see the past as untainted, in rosy retrospection.
But the lesson of Bethany is valuable for this reason. Be with the issues, stay connected to the earth and the people, learn from the present and adapt to the challenges. How can we practice this actively in our lives? Or even, in class discussions?
How do we find balance between learning from the past and being dynamic aids for the future?