Recapturing indigenous qualities

In my last column, I wrote about the strong feeling of indigenous culture I experienced in China. I would like to describe what I think that indigenous quality is in any person from anywhere - and what has been done to disturb it.

As I know it, being "Indian" - as indigenous people have been called in the American West - means being deeply aware of one's relationship to everything. Knowing that an unseen force appears when we live this way, one begins to understand that the divine lives inside of relationships - which means that everything you are in relation to is sacred.

While difficult to practice in every moment, just striving for this ideal creates a better world.