A Blessing for a Sick World - The Visionary Contemplations of Crazy Horse

"I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become a circle again."

⁠— Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse, a Lakota chief and medicine man also known as Tȟašúŋke Witkó, played a pivotal role in the indigenous resistance against encroaching colonialist settlers during the nineteenth century. His efforts were intended to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people of the Midwest.

While perhaps best known for his participation in battles across the Great Plains, the visions associated with Crazy Horse are also noteworthy, especially for their relevance to the present.

Among Crazy Horse's visions is one directly concerned with unity. This is the prophecy we contemplate here. It is said that Crazy Horse shared this vision with his fellow Lakota leader Sitting Bull during a pipe ceremony, a sacred ritual connecting physical and spiritual worlds.

A Blessing for a Sick World

Introduced as a blessing for a sick world, Crazy Horse envisions a future of misfortune. While such a description could be applied to any period of history, it is especially characteristic of our present circumstances under the synergistic tensions of climate change, pandemic, and racial injustice.

"Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world."
In the context of a world in peril, plagued by disease, the need for blessings becomes ever more dire. With the prediction that the Red Nation shall rise again, Crazy Horse suggests that indigenous wisdom may offer an alternative to the distress that infects humanity. His contextualization further mentions a world longing for light.



"A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again."
These features characterize our present circumstances with exceptional precision. The ways of life inherited by us from whatever powers that be have not yielded the fruits promised to us. Our lives are largely dictated by stratification on various levels ranging from economic to ethnic, with each class and category set apart from the others. We live in the darkness of ignorance and yearn for illumination that will allow us to see clearly.

"I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become a circle again."
Here Crazy Horse details his vision in images central to his indigenous identity. These references emphasize the interconnected nature of existence, with Seven Generations hearkening both backwards and forwards to the lineage from which one has emerged and for which one leaves one's trace through present deeds. The Sacred Tree of Life depicts diverse branches springing from the same trunk, with roots firmly planted in the Earth. Each of these references lends further depth to his vision.

"In that day there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of the unity among all living things, and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom."

We find in this section of the prophecy an allusion to the healing power of well-intended intercultural exchange. The unimpeded transmission of wisdom between cultures offers exactly the psychological and spiritual medicine needed by the world, despite opposition by an especially vocal few. These inward remedies are necessary ingredients for paving the way toward resolving material illness in the world at large.

"I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be as one."
Concluding his vision, Crazy Horse points directly to what appears to function as the inner source of unity between all. Only by first returning to the nature that resides within us are we then capable of genuinely connecting with others in the world beyond ourselves. To do so, we are asked to recognize the common strand that runs through us all, despite our superficial differences.

Visionary Contemplations

Given the divided nature of contemporary race relations, politics, class hierarchies, and other sources of social tension, Crazy Horse's vision of the future may appear to be a mere "pipe dream" without tangible correlates on the ground. However, its hopeful understanding of unity and interconnection may not be so far out of reach. The solution to our situation of separation is simple, but by no means easy.


Crazy Horse was killed through a fatal stab wound to his back, but more than a hundred years later, his vision for the future has not died. Much remains to be done and undone in the world in order for us to approach anything near his vision of unity. Yet as we can discern from his words, such unity may be found right within plurality itself. To be continued.

Ground Sprouts Vanished - A Buddhist Depiction of the Climate Crisis and Civilization's Collapse

"Due to corruption and unskillful things among us, the earth's nectar vanished, ground-sprouts vanished, bursting pods vanished..."

Aggañña Sutta

Origin of the World

Painting a portrait eerily reminiscent of the current state of our world, the Aggañña Sutta records an early Buddhist origin story. In fact, the Pāli word "aggañña" itself means origin, from "agga" or the Sanskrit agra, first or foremost. Despite this emphasis on origination, the Aggañña Sutta's contents reflect what appears to be a process of decline, with implications for both the climate crisis and civilization's collapse through neglect of basic civil rights and universal civility.

The origin of the world is intimately tied into its mode of undoing. Much like the way in which the cycle of dependent origination begins with ignorance and culminates in suffering, any alteration to its conditions stands to unravel the process. As we discuss below, the Aggañña Sutta identifies greed as a primary cause for the origin of the world, which we interpret as a psychological basis for our present state of affairs. If our present world originates from greed, it will disintegrate via greed as well...

We thus take up the Aggañña Sutta's story on the origin of the world as a topic of inquiry, especially given the increasingly tumultuous state of the environment, economy, and epidemiology amidst various forms of suffering deriving from racial injustice and inter-generational trauma extending back through time immemorial.

Feasting on Nectar

The Aggañña Sutta begins with an idyllic image of beings unconstrained by coarse bodies, floating through the ether, rapturous and radiant. As if breathing, the cosmos contracts and expands as these beings flicker out and back into radiance, all the while feeding on rapture. During a stretch of cosmic expansion, sweet nectar forms on earth, piquing the curiosity of these beings. It solidifies on the earth's surface, tempting them down from the ether.

What happens next in some ways closely resembles the story from the Garden of Eden. Perhaps it functions as an archetypal literary device, as its basic themes traverse traditions.

Abandoning their rapture, one of these beings recklessly dips their finger into the nectar. Upon tasting its delectable sweetness, craving is born in them. From this moment forward, ruled by desire as if addicted, these previously radiant beings begin greedily feasting on nectar.

Ground Sprouts Vanished

As they feast, the nectar is said to break into chunks, becoming the celestial bodies, including sun, moon, and stars. Despite their beauty, these once glorious beings deplete this cherished resource from the earth.

In the absence of nectar, ground-sprouts appear, like mushrooms blooming from the earth. No longer sustained by rapture, no longer sustained by nectar, the beings whose bodies have by now become coarse and heavy feed off the ground-sprouts. Lo and behold, they deplete the ground-sprouts through their greed. In the absence of ground-sprouts, bursting pods appear, like fruiting trees. Those are soon depleted as well. In the absence of bursting pods, ripe untilled rice appears, for a while regenerating with each passing of the sun. What has by now become a self-perpetuating pattern, driven by greed, continues.

As these beings dig themselves deeper into greed, they think to themselves, "We'd better divide up the rice and set boundaries," hoping to preserve their resources. The plan backfires, given that "While guarding their own share, they took another's share without it being given and ate it," leading to widespread jealousy and theft.

Climate Crisis and Civilization's Collapse

Greed ultimately tips the dominoes in motion for a series of other unwholesome outcomes. "From that day on, stealing was found, and blaming and lying and the taking up of rods." In this chain reaction of events, an initial moment of greed eventually culminates in violence, characterizing the present climate crisis and civilization's collapse. When beings greedily covet resources and deprive others, then further harmful activities are sure to follow.

Greed → Depletion of Resources → Scarcity → Stealing → Blaming and Lying → Violence
What, then, can be done to reverse the cycle? If we treat this web of causality similar to that of dependent origination, there are multiple points at which the process can be re-routed. The Aggañña Sutta suggests a basic foundation in morality - refraining from killing, stealing, and so forth. Interestingly, in the Buddha's teaching that comes immediately before the Aggañña Sutta in the Pāli Canon, the Buddha goes a step further, crossing into the realm of politics. He advises rulers to distribute resources to the masses in order to ensure their basic needs are met. This, says the Buddha, will prevent the emergence of scarcity, poverty, stealing, and other such events.


So where does that leave us? We stand at one of the most complex crossroads, a momentous junction in the earth's history, on multiple intersecting levels. The complex web of causality is coalescing around events with huge potential to shift the state of affairs drastically in the years to come. What role do we play?

Let us collectively reflect: In our present situation, what steps can each of us take to overcome greed, to prevent the depletion of resources, to avoid scarcity and relieve others from poverty? Social justice requires our collective efforts.

What responsibility will you undertake, what responsibility will I undertake, in order to help co-create a world in which all may experience the greatest benefit and the least harm? Each thread in the web, no matter how small, stands to make a difference. To be continued.

Still I Rise - Dust Contemplations by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Maya Angelou

In light of the abhorrent recent murder of George Floyd, an inexcusably violent act in a string of senseless atrocities perpetrated against communities of color, we turn to the work of African-American poet Maya Angelou.

Born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou was a performer turned writer who worked with both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X during the civil rights movement. Her career spans and merges the realms of theater, literature, and activism.

Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" provides a snapshot into her personal contemplations on injustice. We thus join her in reflection in the midst of protests sweeping the globe, primarily letting her speak for herself.

Like Dust

The image of dust invoked by Maya Angelou in "Still I Rise" carries an especially nuanced power. Prior to its mention, Angelou references the cloud of misinformation, a miasma of distorted history, written at the hands of those in power, who intentionally warp reality to fit their chosen narrative. She observes that although she and other people of color are portrayed as defiled caricatures and thus essentially trodden into the dirt under the heels or knees of oppressive forces, she absolutely refuses to be snuffed out by them. Whatever dust they grind her into becomes her new means of rising above.

But still, like dust, I'll rise
Those voices that are most stifled will nonetheless continue to speak in spite of efforts to suppress them. Angelou herself was mute for several years a child after suffering rape by her mother's partner, whom her protective relatives later killed. As a young girl, she felt responsible for all that had occurred and lost the will to speak. With the encouragement of a black female teacher educated in literature, Angelou eventually recovered her voice and went on to use it skillfully for social justice in the civil rights movement, rising like dust so fine it can be lifted up into the open expanse.

Still I Rise

Much of Angelou's carefully chosen words speak volumes to resilience in the face of horrendous injustices, which continue to plague us today. In fact, with an unrelenting sense of determination, she drew upon the collective strength of her community to triumph over tremendous adversity and traumatic life events during an era of social unrest and turmoil. Shining a beaming light of hope for the future in a time of darkness, which characterizes the atrocities of her time as much as ours, Maya Angelou concludes the poem "Still I Rise" with a set of momentous verses, through which her thunderous voice resounds.

Out of the huts
of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past
that’s rooted in pain
I rise

I'm a black ocean,
leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling
I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights
of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak
that’s wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou. "Still I Rise," And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. 1978.