Tribeless

I read part of a book today that's called The Scalpel and the Silver Bear. The book is about the Navajo people and one such girl's journey between the Navajo and American worlds. She herself was half and half yet in her heart she felt completely Navajo. The story follows her dividedness to college when she spoke of how outcast and ostracized she felt for her native roots. This is what she had to say about her college experience:

"Some years later, reflecting back on my college experiences, I realized something else. Much of the outside, non-Indian world is tribeless, full of wandering singular souls, seeking connection through societies, clubs, and other groups. White people know what it is to be a family, but to be a tribe is something of an altogether different sort. It provides a feeling of inclusion in something larger, of having a set place in the universe where one always belongs. It provides connectedness and a blueprint for how to live. At Darmouth the fraternities and sororities seemed to be attempts to claim or create tribes. Their activities often seemed to be unconscious re-creations of rituals and initiation ceremonies. But the fraternities emphasized exclusion as much as inclusion...I began to honor and cherish my tribal membership, and in the years that followed I came to understand that such membership is central to mental health, to spiritual health, to physical health. A tribe is a community of people connected by blood or heart, by geography and tradition, who help one another and share a belief system. Community and tribe not only reduce the alienation people feel but in doing so stave off illness. In a sense they are a form of preventative medicine. Most Americans have lost their tribal identities."

I think that's one of the big problems in our world. We lost our community, our central beliefs, our inclusion of others. a correctedness for the blueprint on how to live. I think most everyone feels lost in some regard at different points in life and the way to find ourselves is to build life together. The road less traveled is certainly the right path, but that doesn't mean it has to be traveled alone.