The Edenhope Nature Preserve

On December 19th 2011 – this being also the fifth anniversary of our taking up residence in Vanuatu ….and coincidental resolve to establish Edenhope there – the Government [by its Department of Environment and endorsed by its Minister of Lands] officially registered the Edenhope Nature Preserve as a Conservation Area. In so doing, a statement was made to the whole world ….that the Edenhope Project as defined therein is a constitutionally-acknowledged fact. Its regulations now carry the weight of law.

Our work in bringing the Project about has been the most gratifying Ruth and I have ever experienced. It is the crowning event in a lifetime full of adventure ….simply because it, above all, satisfies the ultimate intention to honor the Creator! ….We come here as pilgrims.

‘It is said that ‘you can’t go home again’…. But that is a desperate premise; it stems from a deficit of spirit. We are home [even if we are still somewhat getting used to the idea….]

Our Hopi brethren [the Elders] really got so much more of it right; one senses the power of Truth resonating throughout their collective messages [some of which we are privileged to reproduce on this website].

Grandfather, too, was a powerful guide. Thus Tom Brown Jr is also recognized for his faithful renderings of Stalking Wolf, whose wisdom is present in each of Tom’s books.

It is ironic that indigenous vision was the most durable after all….!

There must somewhere be a final word, a moment of conviction ….when in its totality one can see the raison d’etre for all that has ever been: the seemingly endless digressions and cessions from Natural Law that have always, it seems, plagued our species – and the Universe by extension. Perhaps it is to finally rid ourselves of that faulty disposition ….to which we have so easily fallen prey.

As we approach the altar; it is fitting that we acknowledge the thousands of generations it has taken to get here – and to appreciate ….that we are just part of an ultimate game!

Which reminds us of Chief Seattle in his reply to the President of the US in 1854, this in the words of Al Q”yawayma:

“In January 1991 I was invited to attend a joint international meeting
between the UN and the Club of Rome, attended by scientists, religious leaders, artists, poets and leaders.

“A theme of the meeting was The Third Millennium. As stated by Thomas Berry, ‘We are entering not simply the twenty-first century, not simply the Third Millennium of our Era, we are entering the Ectozoic Era in the biological story of the planet.’

“We are experiencing massive extinctions of living forms in a scale equalled only by the extinctions at the close of the Paleozoic era 220 million years ago and the end of the Mesozoic era 65 million years ago. The only choice we now have before us is how we participate in the emerging Ectozoic era, forming an integral earth community that includes all the human and non-human elements of planet earth.

“As the meeting progressed. I was struck more and more with the familiarity of the ideas. Finally, I made the connection. Today’s newest thinking of the world as a communion of subjects, and our role in the integral functioning of the natural
world-these are ideas that were spoken by Chief Seattle 137 years ago.

“In 1854, the “Great White Chief’ in Washington made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a “reservation” for the Indian people. Chief Seattle’s poetic reply is one of the most profound statements ever made on the relationship between earth and man.”

“What is man without the beast? If all the beasts
were gone, man would die from a great loneliness
of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts,
soon happens to man. All things are connected.
Teach your children what we have taught our
children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever
befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon
themselves. This we know: The earth does not
belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we
know. All things are connected like the blood
which unites one family. All things are
connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the
sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of
life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he
does to the web, he does to himself. This earth
is precious to Him (God), and to harm the earth
is to heap contempt on its creator.”

* * *

HOPI DECLARATION OF PEACE
by Thomas Banyacya

It is in the power of the true Hopi to unify the minds and spirits of all true peace
seeking peoples of the earth.

‘Hopi’ means ‘peaceful people,’ and the truest and greatest power, the strength of
peace, is the will of the Great Spirit.

Do not think that just because the true Hopi have been told by the Great Spirit never to take up arms, that the true Hopi will not fight, even die for what we know to be the right way of life.

The true Hopi know how to fight without killing or hurting.

The true Hopi know how to fight with Truth and Positive Force in the light of the Great Spirit

The true Hopi know how to show to all the world’s children the true way of life by
example, by working and communicating in ways that reach the minds and hearts of all
people who are truly seeking the way of a simple and spiritual life, which is the only life that will survive.

The true Hopi preserves the sacred knowledge about the way of the earth, because the true Hopi knows that the earth is a living and growing person, and all things on it are her children.

The true Hopi know how to show the right way of life to all the world’s people who have ears to listen, who have eyes to see, and who have hearts to understand these things.

The true Hopi know how to generate enough power to link up the forces of the minds and spirits of all the true Children of the earth, and to unify them with the Positive
Force and the Great Spirit, so that they may put an end to affliction and persecution in
all afflicted places of this world.

The true Hopi declare that Hopi power be a force which will bring about world change.

We believe that all things are alive, and that they hear and understand us.

The Hopi live on a barren land, but we believe that we were led there by the spirit
“Maasauu”. Our role is to preserve certain knowledge for all mankind - the knowledge
necessary for the understanding and preservation of all Nations. ”

[By] Thomas Banyacya,
Interpreter for the Traditional Hopi People [the EdenHopi]