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In Search of My Lost Tribe By Jay Ray
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First published, Southern Crossings Magazine,1991.)
The search for Self is multifaceted. There is not one thing that describes us, or who we are. We must find ourselves on all planes. We must ask ourselves; Who am I Physically? Who am I Emotionally? Who am I Intellectually? Who am I Spiritually? Who am I Genetically? We have to keep asking ourselves that question, time and time again, Now and now and now, for we are ever changing beings. A new aspect of me has been trying to emerge over the years. Maybe it will also apply to others. It is an increasing awareness of a deeper me. I can perhaps better describe it by asking the question ; “Where is My Tribe?” It has bothered me for some years. I have felt the need for a tribal root system, and envied the Koori (Australian Aboriginal) and Native American peoples, the Eskimo and the Maori. At least what is still left of it in some cases. But all these people have the potential to know who they are on a tribal level. All have a people to return to, a culture to reclaim. My heritage has been systematically dispersed by my own people. Historically, a great deal of information has been lost and destroyed by wars of the mind as much as the body. I would have to go back to pre-historic times to begin to find out what happened to my ancestors. I would have to decipher the genetic interbreeding pattern of a nomadic seafaring people, who spread themselves far and wide. I started asking myself if this was how it was meant to be - a 60’s vision of a great melting pot. I could see there would be certain advantages in a racial standardization program. Hitler was quick to propound the benefits of ‘one people’, although his purist vision was a far cry from the melting pot concept. Standardization of all sorts of things has become our ‘norm’. It’s so much easier to package and control. That’s true both corporately and politically, it would seem. But the wonderful diversity of the planet is the thing that helps us survive. We only have to look at what happens in a monoculture when a disease whips through fields and fields of wheat. Permaculturalists will tell us that biodiversity prevents diseases and pests from making a clean sweep because they run out of food if we mix our crops up. Wheat diseases do not thrive well on cauliflowers. It struck me that a world full of only pine trees, as much as I love them, would have lost a great deal,. What happens to us when we lose our boundaries? On a personal level, we lose the power of Self. We lose our ability to define and meet our own needs. We ‘become’ other people. We think, feel, and operate from a skewed perspective, unable to differentiate for whom we are speaking, or the basis upon which we are making choices in our lives. This also has to be true in the larger picture. If this were to happen to a people or a race, what would be the outcome? What ‘has’ been the outcome? We only have to look at the sociological problems of the white Anglo/Celtic people to see the answer to that question. We have become a people devoid of spiritual understanding. We have lost touch with our allegiance to the Earth and the other ‘beings’ on it. We have lost all concepts of the consequences of our actions, and the impact they will have on future generation. We don’t care! Our lack of caring leave us empty inside and that emptiness we fill with substances that make us care less again. We yearn for something we can’t find and we don’t really know where to start looking. That brings me back to the question "Where is mine? Who are mine?" What do they look like, and how do I recognise them? Are they looking for me as I am looking for them? Am I a voice crying in the wilderness for a people long gone? Or can we, should we, regroup? It seems there are many tribes within the Caucasian Race, just as there is in any race, but we of the Celtic/Anglo people don’t see ourselves in that way. If we do band together, it is based more on economics than on the spiritual. The cry of "Germany for the Germans, Foreigners out" as it was heard recently in stree6 marches there, struck terror into the heart of the average Jew, but they too, are involved in their own tribal battles with the Palestinians. Why do we need to do battle? Is it fear of the ‘other’ that brings about distrust? Is it fear that they may do to us what we have done to them in the past? Maybe, once we have addressed these issues in our hearts, the external boundary issues can begin to be solved. Perhaps it's not about owning ‘more’ land, but about being caretakers of the land that we personally, as individuals, tribe, or family are privileged to be part of. This article was written 13 years ago. During the intervening years, an immense spiritual drive and longing lead me to the Otago Peninsular in Dunedin. It also lead me through a path that lead to the discovery of the Inner Celt that continues to teach me today. All that we ever were is encoded in us genetically. Do discover the past, we simply need to be open enough to go to it inside ourselves. In re-reading this article, I realise that many of the issue that were so pressing inside of me at that time have now been resolved. I feel very much a part of my own heritage as a Briton, and free enough to make New Zealand my physical and spiritual ‘home’. I have come to see Britain as the Mother and New Zealand as the lover who called me to her. I came, and I’m glad that I did!
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