The American Indian's survival could be at the vanguard of all of our survival

Check out American Indian wisdom

I have been working with the American Indian people to advise them on business and economic growth, how they could bring prosperity to the reservations and create jobs whilst adopting their policy of doing the least damage and only using the least resources. I give this advice free and see it as a very worthwhile thing to do. I hope this will be successful for them.

The reservation residents have a conundrum, there is a modern world outside but they also have to find a way to balance that with their traditional past. They are working to educate the young in the traditions of the past, but they also need an eye to the future.

The current economic model in the outside world is a tenuous one. It is one of artificial demand creation through marketing and product development of ever more higher performing and functional products. At odds with the traditional way of the Indian.

I recently saw a US military project approved, worth billions of Dollars for a war that would likely never come. Perhaps like the boy scout, they need to  'be prepared.' Mightily it would seem.

If our population is to grow and live longer, contingencies need to be made to limit the future population growth to levels which the planet can manage. The Indians practiced a responsible family planning method which ensured that they never overpopulated for their available resources. And that was over millennia.

Things need to change, the American Indians were given a list of prophecies a long way back, these were called the Seven Ages, we have heard of the 7 ages of man, well they have this list of prophecies and all of them have come true so far. We now face the final one and we need to change our way of life otherwise we not progress past that last milestone.

In my work with the reservation residents, I have said that I see the future way forward is to say 'the future is the past is the future.' They can produce a program, a way forward that would ensure our survival.

But it would require a massive re-evaluation of who we are and where we need to go. It would not be an easy ride, it would mean material sacrifices, but life is worth that. It has to be, you can't take money etc. with you when you die.

The wisdom and knowledge that has sustained these people up to the time of colonisation worked. It should now be adaptable for all our futures.

The so-called 'new age' was effectively 'borrowed' from facets of the American Indian lifestyle, without the 'free love' sex, drugs and alcohol additions.

The reverence for care of resources, respect for people, society including all and helping all, may seem like a utopian dream that is far from our lives today but the Indians had this as everyday life.

Consider that the Indians did not covet possessions as we do, they never built any prisons, there was no crime, there was no addictions. They just lived a simple lifestyle. That's why attempts to break up the 'new age' of the late 60's were so aggressive, because they were a threat to the white picked fence consumer heavy American lifestyle. 

In the Joni Mitchell song 'Woodstock,' there is a line 'we've got to get ourselves back to the garden,' which essentially means a simpler lifestyle. The Garden of Eden, but you get the picture.

With automation to take over much of the human work element in just a few years, we need to re-evaluate where we are going. We should look to the American Indian people for the wisdom and knowledge. They will be the salvation.

The Lakota people have a phrase 'Mitakuye Oyasin' 'we are all related.' We should start to think that and fast!