Messages 2005
Walt Whitman and Native Americans.
January 4, 2005
Santa Cruz, California
Received by F.A.B.
I am here, Walt Whitman.
This is my first writing through you, and I am pleased to call you my dear friend. Your interests have attracted me. I pondered deeply over the meaning of America just like you, and also like you, I saw a special type of Providence hidden behind her many sins. Though it is more than a hundred years since my death, I am still to a certain extent preoccupied with our country, not in a low earthplane way, but in the high way so beautifully and eloquently expressed in the book you are reading [“The American Soul” by Jacob Needleman].
Many have thought that the being I articulated in my poetry was a persona, an artificial construct. Whereas I was in fact different in real life from the individual portrayed in “Leaves of Grass,” nevertheless in essence I was one and the same with the rhapsodic lover of humanity described. That is, in my inward parts, I did truly love humanity and life very much. So, even though I may not have outwardly manifested my personality in the same way as in my poems, nevertheless that literary creation was true to my intention as a creature of God passionately in love with the drama of History and the beauty of the cosmos and its Creator.
Now, let me say what Jesus told you in 1997 - you need not fear for America’s eventual fate, for there are certain qualities she has manifested consistently since her founding that will guarantee her survival. We know you feel the horror and injustice done to her indigenous people. Well, we feel that too, and so does God.
Let me repeat another thing Jesus told you in 1997 - that many American indigenous spirits have responded to your genuine love and concern for their culture and their tradition. They respect your beliefs and will work with you in that framework, but they see also that you recognize and respect their way of thinking, even though you don’t yet know that much about it. So you see, there is respect and consideration both ways because of the loving attitudes you all manifest. Let me assure you that in the coming manifestation of America’s greatness, the Native cultures will play a crucial role, and they will finally get the widespread respect they always deserved.
It has been blatantly obvious to all here in the spirit world that God disapproved completely of the way Native American peoples have been treated by the white culture, and indigenous spirits over here have been completely vindicated. But even they had to go through a purification period as to their hatred of the white man, who attempted to destroy their culture.
So you see, the redemptive process has continued over here, and those white people who committed atrocities against Native people discovered to their horror that they were caught in their own net, and had to pay the penalty of their dastardly deeds, and they could no longer ignore the terrible suffering they inflicted on their fellow humans. Yes, every massacre, every broken treaty had to be accounted for in their crucible of suffering. Gone were their hegemony and their lust for dominance and power, and all that remained in their consciousness were the cries of the innocent children murdered by their hand, and their attempted murder of a whole people, which you in your time have called genocide.
I know you expected this first message to be all about me. Well, my friend, many wonderful surprises await you. I will stop here. Thank you so much for your interest in my life. I noted it from the beginning.
Love, Walt Whitman