Time for our Light and Sight to Come Together
Very Beloved Relatives,
From our Indigenous relatives of the Americas to our African relatives, the sacred holders of the prophecy of “the pupil of the eye,” we extend our hands, our hearts, and our deepest respect.
We come not to place ourselves above you, nor beside you in competition, but to recognize a sacred relationship that has been hidden in plain sight. The prophecies given concerning our people are not separate prophecies. They are related, living, and complementary. They point toward a future that cannot be fulfilled by one people alone.
Our Indigenous Peoples have been divinely promised that, when properly educated, we shall become so illumined that we shall enlighten the whole world. This illumination process has been underway for almost 70 years. We are spiritually prepared, have fresh horses, and are ready to ride. This does not mean a worldly light, nor the pride of one people over another.
It means a spiritual illumination born through suffering, endurance, sacred memory, original instructions, prayer, sacrifice, and the long walk of survival. It is the light of a people who have never fully surrendered their relationship with the Creator, Mother Earth, the ancestors, the sacred hoop of life, and the generations yet to come.
At the same time, our African relatives have been honored with one of the most profound spiritual images ever given to any people: the pupil of the eye. The pupil is not merely dark in appearance. It is the opening through which light enters.
Without the pupil, the eye cannot receive light. Without the pupil, there is no vision. Without the pupil, illumination cannot become sight.
This is a sacred mystery. The pupil does not create the light, yet without the pupil, the light cannot be seen. The light does not replace the pupil, yet without light, the pupil has nothing to receive. The eye needs both. Humanity needs both. The future needs both.
This means that our Indigenous Peoples and our African relatives are not called to walk separate roads when the Creator has placed our destinies within one living vision. If Indigenous Peoples carry a promised illumination, then that light must be seen, interpreted, protected, and brought into moral vision.
Our African relatives are the pupils of the eye. They carry a sacred capacity to receive light, focus vision, perceive truth, and help humanity distinguish between darkness and dawn. Together, we become a precise instrument of sight.
This is why cooperation and collaboration between our peoples is not simply a social strategy. It is a spiritual necessity. It is part of the Divine Plan. It is part of the healing of history. It is part of the restoration of our Human Family.
Both of our peoples have suffered under systems that denied our humanity, attacked our families, stole our labor, our lands, our languages, our bodies, our dignity, and our future. Neither of us has disappeared or lost the sacred fire.
Our people have never ceased to sing, pray, resist, forgive, rebuild, and rise. From the plantations and the reservations, from the boarding schools and the slave ships, from the prisons and the battlefields, from the broken treaties and the broken promises, something sacred has survived. That sacred survival is not for ourselves alone.
Our suffering has prepared us for service. Our endurance has prepared us for leadership. Our memory has prepared us for truth-telling. As our wounds heal, they will become medicine for the world. But we must come together.
If there is light but no eye to receive it, the light remains unseen. If there is an eye but no light to enter it, vision cannot be born. But when the light and the pupil come together, sight becomes possible. Direction becomes possible. Discernment becomes possible. A new path becomes possible. This is the living meaning of our relationship.
Our Indigenous Peoples bring the ancient memory of a sacred relationship: a relationship with the land, the waters, the stars, the animals, the plants, the unseen world, the ancestors, and the unborn generations.
Our African relatives bring a mighty spiritual witness born through the furnace of suffering: the power of song, faith, justice, courage, liberation, moral vision, and the unbreakable dignity of the soul.
When these gifts come together, they magnify one another. Together, we will help humanity see again.
We will help our Human family see that justice without love becomes cruelty, and love without justice becomes injustice. We will help the nations see that peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of loving, considerate, and just relationships.
We will help our children see that they are not born into a doomed world, but into a sacred responsibility. We will help our elders see that their suffering was not in vain. We will help all humanity see that the Creator has never abandoned this world.
This is why we must build a covenant of cooperation. We must gather our elders, our mothers, our fathers, our youth, our spiritual leaders, our scholars, our artists, our healers, our organizers, our communities, and our nations.
We will create spaces where Indigenous and African-American relatives can pray together, consult together, remember together, heal together, and act together.
We will not come together only in reaction to a crisis. We will come together because the sacred prophecies are calling us forward.
The world is struggling because it has lost its vision. It has knowledge without wisdom, power without humility, wealth without generosity, technology without spirit, and movement without direction.
The eye of humanity has been clouded by greed, racism, materialism, violence, and forgetfulness.
But the Creator has already placed medicine within our Human Family. The light is here. The pupil is here. The vision is waiting to be born.
Therefore, we call upon our Indigenous relatives and our African-American relatives to recognize one another not as strangers, not as competitors in suffering, not as separate communities seeking separate healing, but as relatives whose sacred responsibilities are one.
Let us come together in humility. Let us come together in truth. Let us come together in prayer. Let us come together in disciplined love. Let us come together for the children. Let us come together for Mother Earth. Let us come together for the healing of the nations.
For when the bearers of illumination and the pupil of the eye come together, the world will begin to see again. When the world begins to see again, the path to justice, unity, peace, spiritual renewal, and the Lesser Peace will be manifested.
With Warm Love and Greetings,
Brother Phil
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr.
Member-Chickasaw and Ihanktonwan Nations
Chairperson, Continental Indigenous Council
Compassion Games International
Four Worlds International Institute
Choose Peace. Live Peace. End War.