Quotes and Poems: Day 26

Quote:

Self-love is not selfish; you cannot truly love another until you know how to love yourself.

Poem:

Becoming Human

BY SIMON J. ORTIZ

We are given permission

by the responsibility we accept

and carry out. Nothing more,

nothing less.

People are not born.

They are made when they become

human beings within ritual,

tradition, purpose, responsibility.

Therefore, as humans, this we do:

Sun Father begins red

in the east.

Stand and be humble.

Red through trees,

moments changing each instant

into the next change,

each change tied to the next.

To be human is to have

a sense of being within self.

Sun. Red. Trees.

Our hearts' eyes seeing

inward and outward, accepting:

Stand and be humble.

The more names you have the more of a person you become. That's what I've heard. I was telling Tom yesterday afternoon. Values, education, social change, cultural corruption, what is and what isn't. I have to dispute him at moments. I tell him, The knowledge we derive from the education we get is our own. Knowledge is determined by our cultural, spiritual, linguistic, political environment. The knowledge from the community and context here cannot be anything but the people's own. This is not Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, or Rapid City. This is Rosebud, the Lakota homeland.

Our names are both Indian and American. We have so many names now we don't know them all. In a sense, we have become more of a people than ever before.