Risk. The word had a whole new meaning when uttered within the context of these jungles and the people who populated them. For most tribal people, the risk was not so much of dying but of not living properly. It was the quality of your time on earth, not the quantity, that was important. How different that dream from the one I had been taught! Where, I wondered, did we get the idea we must do everything possible to postpone the inevitable? What is it about the words more and longer that has made them assume such a paramount position in our language?
~ from THE WORLD IS AS YOU DREAM IT by John Perkins
Granma said all Cherokees had a secret place. She told me she had one and Granpa had one. She said she reckined most everybody had a secret place, but she couldn't be certain, as she had never made inquiries of it. Granma said it was necessary. Which made me feel right good about having one ... Granma said everybody has two minds. One of the minds has to do with the necessaries for body living. She said we had to have that mind so as we could carry on. But she said we had another mind that had nothing atall to do with such. She said it was the spirit mind. Granma said if you used the body-living mind to think greedy or mean; if you was always cuttin' at folks with it and figuring how to material profit off'n them ... then you would shrink up your spirit mind to a size no bigger'n a hickor'nut.
~ from THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE by Forrest Carter
