THE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE PROCESS
A Review by Apela, Busaba and Martina
July 28 and 29, Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
Lunar Eclipse
Working Title: HOW TWO DRAGONS DANCE TOGETHER, the beauty of
opposition.
Process:
Paradoxical. Frustration if we try to direct. If I want to scream, the scream
doesn’t come.
I laugh and begin to cry.
TKN and RIM died at the Shadows during the student “evaluation.” At that
moment the Program began to live. Esther acknowledged the students
and said she would teach her songs to them. Was the “death” being
released by the CIIS admin.? Termination didn’t formally happen for
nearly a year.
Dreams/Visions:
Dreams end. What’s the process? Of death?
Who knows when to let go? How?
In English, the word “dead” has no movement. In our process we have
movement even though it has been a death. Movement because energy
is involved.
This is what connects the two opposites, the energy of movement.
Right Movement or Message of the Mask
Symbols of the process. Have to die to begin. Walk through the darkness
with new eyes to see through to the light. In the old way of thinking, going
back or into the darkness makes me want to run away in fear. But the
darkness has a message for us to learn. If we refuse to enter the darkness,
the Shadow returns each time with more fear because we have lost to it
before. Now we need to look back into it for the light which is the starting
point! As an individual this process applies. That’s how students arrived.
The darkness has to be through ME, how I am. We feel the connection to
self and others in the darkness and think beyond individualistic thinking. I
perceive the whole (how opposites can integrate, the individual and
whole of self/others.)
Traditional Example: The Story of Raven and the Light teaches the
negativity of light, it separates and differentiates.
We live our lives in a separate way because we don’t want to embrace
the darkness. I see that center of peace in my screaming.
How Do We Know We Are In The Darkness?
Never get my way, feels like I am losing everything because we can’t see!
We must be prepared for the bucket dropping on our head! “I can’t
believe I’m having so much bad luck!”
Admitting my darkness, i.e., I don’t know if I would like to work with Apela.
Is what creates the opening.
Each person is a mask and is a part of a greater mask being formed.
There is tremendous fear and worry. Trying to see in the darkness we
notice other sets of eyes looking back! That’s what makes us want to run
away in fear!
How Do We Know When We Have Learned The Lesson of Darkness?
Don’t know when and how it changed but we are brought to a new
consciousness through chaos. If you’re not afraid you can come close to
movement.
We have to experience the opposite energies. Western rational and
religious thought stresses the Light.
Gays are born with the 2 dragons together. Slowly heterosexuals have to
realize that being whole requires both qualities joined. Yet the boundary
doesn’t exist. It’s a paradox. We don’t know how to weave the 2 dragons
together. TKN teaches us, i.e., at the beginning we chased away the
White students but they kept following us. The more we ran the more they
chased!
Brian represented the warrior and observed that we have to
acknowledge the existence of the while world in us as individuals and
communities.
Benefits and Gains of Walking Through the Underground
“I’m more comfortable in the darkness.”
Less likely to be controlled by fear, anger, etc.
We get an energetic charge to us; when we get together, IGNITION!
People can see this energy and are drawn towards it.
Walking through the darkness honors our ancestors because that’s where
they are, in the obscurity of the past, our history.
To go back to the past, to remember, Makua
says, “We receive the greatest gift of the
ancestors which is the present. That’s why they
call it a present!”
We create with the pain; we bring life forward.
It’s a paradox. In chaos, we laugh and cry at one moment. Before
wedidn’t allow contradictions and ambiguities to coexist. Now we can,
and it’s why we can come back! (from the underworld)
I couldn’t see the meaning or the creative process because it was in
darkness! This is actually a protection.
It was meant to be that ways or we wouldn’t have the darkness to light
message of the TKN process.
A Spirit coming to live in a body must experience the density and darkness
of material form; it’s the only way to arrive.
Embodiment of the whole is entering darkness; therefore, walk through it.
Accept it.
This is the process t ground the Western Mind.
This trip through the darkness has been the curriculum; is the curriculum.
When we live it, the curriculum becomes us! Now we can pass it on.
SUMMARY
How to we know this is an accurate representation of a creative process?
There are traditional stories that pertain:
Raven Breaks Light (Tlingit)
The Bluejay Story (Shoshone)
A Sweatlodge teaches the process. In the Sweat we feel fear. Fear of no
body because we can’t see and the fear of bodily limits, e.g., intense
heat.
Even the reflection that generated the notes was the same dark process. I
noticed how negative I was feeling but did not judge it. Instead, I thought,
“Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder what’s going on.” This comfort with my
own darkness and ambiguity is a result of the TKN process. I also retained
my objectivity in noticing my negativity. I thought, I’m unhappy.
Something must be wrong. It must be me. No, it’s not me, it’s Busaba.
She’s causing my suffering and should be punished!
I noticed this in an early morning drive east to the other side of the island.
As I approached the Pali or cliff that juts out to the sea and marks the
turning point of the journey, I became aware of these thoughts and
wondered how or if I would be able to get out of them today.
When Busaba and I sat down at the Mall to reflect on the TKN process, I
told her the thoughts I had on the drive over. She said she was in a bad
place, too; she was even wearing all black!
We decided to pray but I was so crabby that I couldn’t formulate words.
We sat in silence with our eyes closed for a few minutes and began.
Thoughts, memories and images flowed. Two and a half hours later, we
stopped. We were not late to go to the airport, which was the purpose of
the drive!
We noticed that even speaking of the dark journey changes time and
space. There was no time; there was no mall!
We struggled to recall the question that we began with. It was, “What did
you experience in the TKN process?” Busaba and I reflected on the
personal experience of being in the darkness. We spoke about ourselves
and realized that, in the darkness,
I can talk about me and even you but not really
you, just my view of you. You are a mask of
healing for me. This understanding bypasses the
ego. I can talk about my negative experience of
my experience of you without judgment of YOU.
This allows me to do my work; to examine you as
the teacher in my life and to own my own issues.
It’s transformative.
So, we began in silence; and acknowledged where we were at, including
the negative. We were present in the moment. This is the beautiful
beginning of who you are, what comes to you in your individual reflection
in the moment. Why is this true? (that this ‘insight’ is really true?) Because
at the end, we come to the beginning and we recognize the end
moment when we say,
OH, I SEE . . .
The ego blocks the experience of darkness or light and catches us in
chaoswithout our knowing.
What joins darkness and light? Birth! The process of birth and death. Hold
onto yourself through the darkness with silence, humility, release and
nonattachment. Then SCREAM!
In the process of going through the darkness, every level of our ife is hit,
personal, family, professional, community . . . you are compelled to open
more and more. This is a purification; this is birth and death; this is creation.
And it is the feminine Power of the woman, Earth, Moon, Water, Venus.
The way to face it is exemplified in the Shoshone song, “running With the
Buffalo.” When facing a winter storm on the prairie, the buffalo turns into it,
begins to walk with deliberate steps towards it and then lowers its head
and CHARGES THE STORM!
As a result of the TKN process, I am able to be present with my Elders and
my oldest daughter now works with the language. (Martina)
In this conversation, Chyna, the author’s daughter, joined the discussion.
We have noticed that the dark journey is the power of money, Little
People, sexuality and transformation.0
