INTRODUCTION - The Fourth Way
The Fourth Way reflects the view that the Human Family is at a crossroads facing diverging paths; on one side lays the path of conflict, militarism, economic insecurity, and war. Conversely, it is a sacred path leading to mutual understanding, cooperation, and sustainable, harmonious prosperity.
"We, the like-minded Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth, offer the Fourth Way based on the conviction that Indigenous Peoples have the understanding, the vision, the guiding principles, the values, the growing capacity, and the collective resources to co-create a peaceful and harmonious future for our children and grandchildren. We submit that our Indigenous Peoples who care for Mother Earth and all living beings hold an essential key to peace, security, and sustainable well-being for all members of the Human Family.
In the Fourth Way, we discuss the issues and outline a strategy for the constructive engagement of all concerned. Our collective future is at stake. Implementing the Fourth Way requires each individual to look at the world around us differently.
We are accustomed to seeing the world through a prism uniquely anchored in our own background experience and to the narrative or founding "myth" of our Indigenous land or group. We are specially bound by religious belief and tradition. We must learn to respect both religious beliefs and religious differences.
The Fourth Way respects all forms of religious belief and freedom of conscience. We must learn to widen our prism to see and understand more than we did before, to see ourselves as others see us, and to see the issues we face from differing points of view. In the end, we must come to understand the true meaning of Black Elk's vision, that despite our differences, we are, in fact, all related.
BLACK ELK'S VISION
Then I stood on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there, I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
Then, as I stood there, two men came from the east, head first like arrows flying, and between them rose the Daybreak Star. They gave me a herb and said: "With this on earth, you shall undertake anything and do it." It was the Daybreak-Star herb of understanding, and they told me to drop it on the earth. I saw it falling far, and when it struck Mother Earth, it rooted and grew and flowered, four blossoms on one stem, a blue, a white, a scarlet, and a yellow, and the rays from these streamed upward to the heavens so that all creatures saw it and in no place was there darkness. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19atZo2HeVoA0KTloQlmymI7UPIKRS4kIQKqFQi-vNYc/edit?usp=sharing