Constitutional

There are many reasons for the current failures of our system of government. Some are structural: the Electoral College is obsolete, as are the unbalanced formulas for calculating the number of representatives per state and for correlating taxation and representation. Other failures are dangerous manipulations: gerrymandering, voter suppression and various cheats intended to disenfranchise certain groups or skew results in favor of others. The primary remedy, we are told, is to uphold the rule of law as set forth in our Constitution.

The Constitution is based on the precepts of the Iroquois League, an association of five (later, six) tribes in what is now the Northeastern U.S. and contiguous territory now in Canada, and its political and diplomatic arm, the Iroquois Confederacy. Both were hard-won alliances that predated colonial intrusion and made the Iroquois both formidable adversaries and valuable allies essential to the survival of colonial settlers. The Iroquois League and Confederacy are rooted in a seismic cultural shift achieved within the extended Iroquois kin-net and memorialized in a breathtaking legend based on true events. Because the story is one whose guidance we desperately need, with some trepidation I will paraphrase it here:[1]

In earlier times, the Iroquois were mired in a perpetual cycle of loss and revenge known as the 'Mourning Wars'. In the late 1500's, a Huron man named Deganawidah ('Two Rivers Flowing Together') came to be known as the Great Peacemaker because he traveled throughout Iroquois territory urging warring tribes to come together to embrace peace. In his travels, he met a man named Ayouwatha - known to us now as Hiawatha ('He Who Combs') who was in deep grief and seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and three daughters. Deganawidah strung together the first wampum beads and used them to wipe away Hiawatha's tears. Then he placed them over Hiawatha's throat so that he could express his grief unimpeded. After that, he gave Hiawatha fresh water to drink to calm him and clear his mind. Together, the two joined together to carry the message of peace to all who would listen.

Soon, they met a woman named Jigonsahseh ('She Lives On the Warpath') who lived at a crossroads used by warriors going into battle or returning. She prepared food for them and listened without taking sides. When she met Deganawidah and Hiawatha, she agreed to join them in seeking greater peace for the people. Iroquois society is matrilineal. Women hold the authority to confer leadership - and to withdraw it, if any of the chiefs fail to live up to their commitment to the community. Deganawidah asked Jigonsahseh to appoint the individual chiefs who would sit in a Council of Peace, and she came to be known as 'Mother of Nations'.

Of all the tribes and chiefs, only one refused to work for peace. His name was Tadodaho, infamous for his ruthless cruelty: he was the man who had killed Hiawatha's family. Deganawidah recognized that Tadodaho's belligerence grew out of suffering. Snakes writhed in his hair. His body was twisted, and he was tormented by constant pain. Deganawidah treated Tadodaho's physical ailments and relieved his pain. Hiawatha agreed to comb the snakes from Tadodaho's hair, instead of seeking revenge. (Hair combing was a traditional rite of initiation.) Tadodaho became calm. Seeing the dramatic change in Tadodaho's behavior, Deganawidah asked him to become the firekeeper and leader of the newly formed league of peace, and Tadodaho agreed. The great Council of Peace was convened, and the chiefs that gathered buried their weapons at the base of an ancient White Pine tree whose roots grew in the four directions. The tree was known to be the home of the Eagle, who sees far and can scan for danger. Five arrows were bound together, indicating the strength found in unity. All those in need of peace were welcome to find refuge in the shade of that tree. To this day, the head of the League is called Tadodaho - a name passed down through the lineage begun all those centuries ago.

At the time the U.S. Constitution was being written, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies... The animal totem of the United States is the Eagle holding in its talons a bundle of thirteen arrows.

It is neither right nor possible to steal the successful outward form of another culture and expect that its blessings will automatically accrue, nor the vigilance to maintain those blessings, as our experience in the U.S. has clearly shown. No system can function as intended if it's decontextualized from the culture in which it's embedded and the Mind from which that culture arose.

Within the Iroquois Confederacy, multiple tribes and their leaders embraced the recognition that change was needed; people worked together to achieve the transformation required. The process was arduous. It took time and dedication, and an unwavering vision of a better way of living articulated in the midst of its opposite. Its principles were many and complex: Embracing a vision of peace in the face of chronic violence. Honoring and empowering women. Holding leaders accountable. Alleviating suffering through healing and compassion. Overcoming personal despair through accompaniment, condolence, grieving, and ritual. Building alliances. Restoring sacred trust and making amends. Willingness to take risks for the greater good. Burying the hatchet. Strength in unity. Nature as witness, participant, and refuge. These principles took shape as a result of the lived reality that people shared. They provide a blueprint for societal change that is every bit as spectacular as the result it achieved.

The chronicle of this transformation was codified in a story that sustained the necessary changes - and can sustain them still. Ursula K. LeGuin says, A function of... real myth, as told seriously by serious grown-ups to others, perhaps one of its main functions, is telling us who we are... And a very large part of knowing who we are is knowing where we came from, where we live now, and if there is a further home to go to, what might it be? Placing yourself among your people within a certain context on the Earth. And it seems to take a lively effort of the imagination to accomplish this, so all myths in a sense are "unrealistic." And yet, they are trying to get to the heart of one's reality as a human being who is a member of a community. Which is kind of an important job. (From Conversations on Writing.)

The origin story of the Iroquois Confederacy is a story of healing from war through condolence, compassion, trust and unity, and the origin story of the U.S. is a story of theft: that gap is where our healing must begin. Our motives must be clarified and aligned with the forms we choose. We must make amends, and, in order to do that, our culture must be remade by literally changing our minds. The story has to be put right. In creating a deep cultural shift, there are no shortcuts.

In the Iroquois Confederacy, accountability was built in, measurable by whether or not the entire community, human and beyond human, was thriving. Women were responsible for replacing errant leaders who did not live up to their people's trust. But the founding fathers of the U.S. excluded the founding mothers. Even now, women's rights have yet to be encoded into law and women are not yet equally represented nor respected alongside men, let alone tasked with enforcing ethical leadership.

The Iroquois forms and protocols that expressed the values the community lived by was commodified, then coopted by a culture that elevates the individual above the community, the human at the expense of Nature. It is not possible to laminate a form that arises from mutuality onto a culture of narrow self-interest. Corruption, violence and inequality are endemic because they have been codified in the highest laws of the land - and exported with spectacular success. After more than two centuries, the failures of western democracy in caring for Nature and the vulnerable verify the fundamental dissonance of Mind that occurred from the start and that must be addressed now.

For Earth-based cultures, and Earth Herself, this dissonance is lethal. This is the 'why' of the failure of bigotry, consumer culture, war, and of money as a cure or even an effective tool for addressing the failures of an economic system based on scarcity and greed. It's a primary reason that western democracy can't be imposed on other countries, especially on Earth-based cultures that place high value on community cohesion: communal well-being is incompatible with a competitive mindset. The notion of individual success at the expense of the whole is an insurmountable contradiction. As the I Ching reminds us, There is no such thing as solitary affluence.

Political and economic systems are expressions of a society's values. This includes not only what we value, but how value is expressed. Externally imposed structures that are at odds with internal beliefs are destabilizing because they trigger a profound and irreversible identity crisis. Unsettled identity erodes meaning, purpose and the social safety net. Structural change that effectively addresses cruelty and corruption cannot occur within a system that rewards imbalance. Until we tend to our relational obligations, there will be no peace, no restoration, no thriving.

The work for us in the U.S. now is eerily similar to that faced by the ancient Iroquois: to bring ourselves into congruence with our highest ideals, together, from the inside out, and to allow that congruence to reshape the forms and structures that sustain it. We, too, must learn to hold ourselves and each other accountable for fulfilling the promise of greatness by shifting from vengeance to compassion. From exclusive to mutual. From the exile of 'me' to the embrace of 'we'. The gift of this moment is that we have no choice. The journey is already underway.

[1] I am working on a longer version of the story and its context for another piece and am in the process of seeking corrections and official permission to do so. This is a provisional version, in response to the crisis of the moment.