“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”
–Martin Luther King Jr
I have discussed this before in previous articles. 
Some of the old Haudenosaunee people say that some of the best of the sacred medicines for healing, are often hiding in the woodlands. Unless the gatherer is spiritually right, they will not be able to locate these medicines no matter how much they search. The herbs know things about people. They know if our heart is good or troubled. That’s what the old people sometimes say. They say that these plants actually know how to hide! The old Iroquois also talk about the Great Law of the Great Peace, in much the same way. The Law is like the medicine. It has supernatural qualities. If someone is not ready to understand such depth of spiritual principles, they will not understand the Great Law of the Great Peace.
It is difficult to understand how killing can achieve peace. My Navajo friend Rachelle says that killing to stop war is like having sex to stop pregnancy. Many great things are mysteries to the majority of humans. Most of us are willing to protect the lives of our loved ones no matter what it takes. Would we kill? If we have never killed another human, it’s hard to say but those veterans of war understand the need to kill others. Some veterans say that when they were in combat, they found themselves killing to simply to avoid being killed, rather than killing to serve the higher purpose of some vague “political” victory. I know a American Indian woman who served two tours in Iraq in combat. She said that she found herself killing people that “looked just like her own Tribal members.” They were brown-skinned indigenous people. As soon as she realized this thing she was doing, as a form of genocide, she had to withdraw from the military and change everything about her thinking. Today she is an antiwar activist.
Living according to the traditional ways of our ancestors must occasionally require killing to protect our families and our homes from those who would destroy us. The histories of every creature and every land on earth is stained with blood. We are warriors by design. We are also taught that we should respect all life and all belief systems. No one human is superior to another and all deserve respect, honor and dignity. When Osama Bin Laden was assassinated there were reports of rejoicing because the survivors of terrorism had finally been avenged. This is of course understandable and disturbing all at the same time.
Martin Luther King Jr was one of the finest heroes of our time. I believe in the Haudenosaunee Great Law of the Great Peace and the astounding mystery it promises the soul. Perhaps the hidden medicine is as simple as the smile with which we greet one another or the time we take to listen more from the heart then from the ears. Or perhaps the hidden medicine is within our own hands as we gently plant the corn under damp earth with a silent simple prayer, as though we were caressing the face of our firstborn child. The essence of love is light, the light Dr. King spoke about in the above quote. When we search the woodlands for the medicine, we may discover that the plant has bloomed with bright flowers and was right under our nose the whole time. We may ask ourselves, how did I miss finding this the first time I searched here? When our soul is ready for truth, the thing we need most appears before us effortlessly. If we learn to live in the moment and as they say in meetings, “surrender to win” we open ourselves to the greatest mysteries of life and joy. We become the change we want to see in the rest of the world.
