47. The Apache Resistance

Stories of Geronimo and the Apache resistance all carry and convey similar vital and haunting threads…

Viewed from outside, the Apache resistance appeared to be all about preservation. Preservation of a peoples, preservation of a way of life, preservation of honor and dignity. And yes, their struggle was indeed about these things – but not as a first principle.

There was something else as well, something not as easily appreciated or even perceived. But this ‘something else’ was the deeper motivation behind the Apache resistance.

Before being ‘Apache’ or ‘Japanese’ or ‘American’, ‘European’, ‘African’ or ‘Latino’, we are something else. Before being a man or a woman, we are something else. Before being an upright hominid, equipped with a neo-cortex and higher faculties, yes – we are something else!

It was the honoring of that very special ‘something else’ that defined the Apache resistance.

What is it?

It is something we cannot claim as ‘ours’. No. And yet it is ours to use, to make our lives with, to honor our lives with – if we so choose.

It is something that can drive a person or group of people to accomplish truly great work.

It is in the light of its character that we can appreciate the relentless persistence and uncommon valor of those human lights in world history who carried the fire of this ‘something else’ in abundance.

What we call it – this great small ‘something else’ does not change the fact that it defines our essential humanity and inspires our deepest feelings about ‘who’ and ‘what’ we are.

What is the first most essential vitamin?

Well, perhaps it is to do with seeking to be true to the very thing that makes us human in the first place. What is it? Perhaps this vitamin, this first most essential vitamin – is in the finding, for each to find!

…Ours to bring alive and demonstrate so that our young friends of every age may be inspired to do the same!

~PAZ

*****