There are a number of themes that I like to include in my writing. One is the theme of conflict resolution without violence or at least conflict resolution that puts things back into balance. I strongly believe in balance. In fact, I was taught by Haudenosaunee Iroquois elders that the natural state of humanity is health and balance, that when we’re at war, when we are sick, we are out of balance.
And in fact in sign language this sign means anger, which is that your mind is twisting back on itself and this sign refers to clear thought, clean thought, which takes your mind upwards, not downwards. Among the Haudenosaunee it is said that we may be of the good mind or the twisted mind. And we have to really think clearly what are we in right now, how am I behaving, what am I thinking, what am I doing, do I need to change my mind?
And the belief is that you can do this, just as also a bad person, a person doing bad things can be changed, can change themselves into one who does good things. And we have so many traditional stories that talk about that process of transformation and change.
