Let me share something that lives deep in our teachings — something our old ones knew, and that the land still whispers to those who listen with more than just their ears.
All of creation — the rivers, the rocks, the stars, the wind — it isn’t separate from us. It is us. It’s not just out there; it lives inside of us too. That Great Mystery — the one our people call the Breath, the Spirit, the Law that cannot be broken — moves through all things. It is not a theory. It is you. It is me. It is the root system that connects all our relations, seen and unseen.
We weren’t put here to dominate creation — we were woven into it.
That’s why our ancestors taught us not to say “it” when speaking of a tree, or a bear, or a thundercloud — because they are not objects. They are beings. Relations. And when we begin to see the face of the sacred in the other — even in the smallest blade of grass — we begin to remember the I/thou relationship that western ways tried to make us forget.
This is the essence of what many now call “Natural Law” — but our people have known it as wâhkôtowin, as mîyo wicehtowin, as kinship and right relation since time began. It’s the understanding that we live in a circle, not a ladder. That everything has a spirit. That the world is not a resource — it is a relative.
So when we speak to the water, or offer tobacco to the winds, it’s not superstition. It’s a renewal of relationship. It’s a remembering of who we are.
Because the secret is this: that Great Mystery you’ve been searching for outside?
It’s been inside you all along.
Tâpwê.
—Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
