Indigenous Peoples' Day 2021
The Temple of Understanding is honored to lift up the voices of Indigenous Elders on the occasion of Indigenous Peoples' Day. Since our Fifth Summit in 1975 at the United Nations, our organization has included Indigenous religions and cultures in its vision of interfaith harmony. Today more than ever, the need for a transformation to a new consciousness of our inherit interdependence with all sentient beings is vital to human survival. Indigenous wisdom holds the key to that transformation. 
-Alison Van Dyk, Executive Director, Temple of Understanding.
Messages from North American Indigenous Elders
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle for the Great Sioux Nation. 

"I pray today, like every morning we get up in the morning with a good mind to pray for the health and the wellbeing of all nations... We are in a time of a global disasters. We are at the crossroads and we need to pray and heal together for our future generations to come. We ask people to stand in prayer with us in a humble way."
Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan and serves as a Member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee Peoples.

"You know, we're looking at a demise, an existential crisis of survival as a species. And that's because of the greed that is driving commerce and the amoral position that commerce has taken about anything spiritual ... we've been given, as I said before, the responsibility of intellect and the foreknowledge of death - huge, huge responsibility. And we're in a situation today that is extremely dangerous for our future generations. And in that regard, when we were being instructed by the Great Peacemaker, he said to us very directly, when you sit and you console for the welfare of the people, think not of yourself, nor of your family, or even your generation. He said, make your decisions upon those generations coming so that they may have and enjoy what you have today. That's a serious instruction onto seven generations."
Hopi/Havasupai/Tewa elder. She is the Chair of the International Council of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.

"And for thousands of years, we've lived in this way. We have maintained our original instructions and have utilized our knowledge that's been passed down from our ancestors, from our ancestors from time immemorial and our knowledge and our instructions that have been given to us have been, in a way, our code of ethics... about how to care for Mother Earth and how in caring for her, she's caring for us. It's this reciprocity that is in motion here. And it's part of our heritage. It's our cultural heritage that is very important because food is our nourishment, physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. And it holds us, it holds us we say, in a sacred way."
These talks were presented by the Temple of Understanding
in collaboration with Marble Collegiate Church as a part of
FORUM2021 Sacred Food ~ Blessed Earth
held online on September 9th, 2021.
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