Yale University’s Forum on Religion and Ecology:

People of the Earth Address the Fukushima Crisis

Chief Arvol Looking Horse Speaks

 

Thursday, November 14, 2013 at 2:00-3:30pm

Tillman Chapel

Church Center for the United Nations

777 UN Plaza at 44th Street

New York, New York

Event Flyer:

People of the Earth Address the Fukushima Crisis

“Powerful technologies are out of control and are threatening the future of all life.”

“The Fukushima nuclear crisis alone is a threat to the future of humanity. Yet, our concern goes far beyond this single threat. Our concern is with the cumulative and compounding devastation that is being wrought by the actions of human beings around the world. It is the combination of resource extraction, genetically modified organisms, moral failures, pollution, introduction of invasive species and much, much more that are threatening the future of life on Earth.”

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Spiritual Leader of the Great Sioux Nation, will present the Council Statement on Fukushima. [...]

Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Oct. 28, 2001 (emphasis added): [...] To allow continual contamination of our food and land is now affecting the way we think. A “disease of the mind” has set in World Leaders [...] In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the Crossroads: Either unite Spiritually [...] or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives eyes. [...] This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war, and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium. [...] You yourself are the one who must decide. You alone – and only you – can make this crucial choice, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World. Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending!

Chicago Tribune, Oct. 1, 2006 (emphasis added): For more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of Native Americans trekked to Dave Heider’s farm to visit Miracle, a rare white buffalo they viewed as a prophecy of peace on Earth. When Miracle died two years ago and the visitors stopped coming [...] in August, Heider discovered a newborn white calf nuzzling its mother in a pasture. [...] When Miracle was born in 1994, members of the Lakota Sioux Tribe in South Dakota deemed her the first white buffalo born on U.S. soil since 1933. [...] Scientists say three things in nature can cause this kind of spontaneous genetic mutation: radiation, chemical exposure and a natural accident in the process of the cell duplicating DNA [...] To many Sioux who traveled to Heider’s farm, Miracle represented the return of the sacred spirit of the White Buffalo Calf Woman who first appeared to the Indians some 2,000 years ago when tribe members were dying of starvation. [...] Before leaving, the woman told the Indians she would reappear one day, signifying the return of peace to Earth. As she walked away, the woman turned into a young buffalo, turning four colors–black, red, yellow and white. Miracle’s coat changed color three times–from white to black to yellow and then to red. [...] Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota tribal chief who is the 19th-generation keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf pipe, said Miracle would have had to change color a fourth time–back to white–for the Indian prophecy to be fulfilled. “To us, this new calf brings another rebirth, and tells us have the faith and belief that if we unite and respect each other, we will see change,” he said.

See also: Statement from Indigenous Leaders: Fukushima nuclear crisis "a threat to the future of humanity" -- "We have reached the crossroads of life and the end of our existence"