Truthspeaking: Ancestral Ways to Hear and Speak the Voice of the Heart

Imagine a place where there are no lies

where gossip is just a meaningless word

and people naturally speak with respect

The air is not laced with cursing

and there is no shame or judgment

The expression of all feelings is welcomed

Even anger and fear are regarded as gifts

In this place, you can trust in another's word

There is no need for doctrine

as each person knows her own Truth

Even without it being spoken

you can read it in her Heart

Everyone's Truth is heard

as listening is valued even more than talking

And each person's voice is held sacred

There is no need to sweeten it with humor

or mask it with doublespeak

They call this, their cherished way of sharing,

Truthspeaking I wrote this book for one reason-to incite a revolution of the Heart. For too long we have been taught to say what others would like to hear, and what makes rational rather than relational sense. We have been encouraged to be assertive, but we have not learned how to listen. To tell the truth is our ideal, yet most of us tell dozens of lies every day.In the coming pages, we will reacquaint ourselves with a way of life based on the gentle, clear, and heartfelt communication which the American Indian Elders I apprenticed to called Truthspeaking.Notice that I said "reacquaint." You and I already know Truthspeaking: we are genetically programmed to be spontaneous, in-the-now beings with astute expressive and listening skills. We evolved the ability as a matter of survival.It is only since we have become urbanized that we have begun protecting ourselves by suppressing our thoughts and feelings-and defending ourselves from the thoughts and feelings of others. This book shows how to dissolve those boundaries, so that we can again say what we really mean and hear what people are really saying. About the author, When Tamarack Song was a child, he got to regularly practice Truthspeaking with the wild animals in the extensive woods and wetlands which comprised his backyard. As a young man, he lived for several years with a pack of Wolves. After that, he learned the human nuances of Truthspeaking from Menominee, Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Hopi, Iroquois, Australian Aboriginal, and Maygar Elders. They taught him much of the terminology and phrasing you'll find in this book. He augmented this organic tutelage with his lifelong academic study of nature, language, anthropology, and indigenous cultures.