PULL TOGETHER NOW (PTN) creates opportunities for us to get to know each other and share ancient and new ways of being Good Ancestors
where we live, pray, work, and play.

We invite you to join an ancient tradition with no end:

Honoring and exchanging ancient and new ways of being Good Ancestors
where we live, pray, work, and play.
We’re unifying, and healing, by sharing stories and songs, ceremonies, ancestral foods, the arts, sports, and living wisdom, knowledge, and know-how.
Beautiful people are pulling together, striving to be the ancestors our children and future generations of Life need us to be ─ NOW!

The circular Path We Walk starts in our hearts and connects us as one,
relatives with all of Creation.
No one walks a perfect path. Our love for each other will carry us through.
Together, we accept our sacred responsibility to care for children, family, community, self,
and our sacred Mother, Earth, before all else. Leave no one, no place, out or behind.

The Ancestors’ Message Stick represents love and sacred kinship, humankind’s living memory from the 4-Directions, and the Ancestors who made our lives possible and whose love, sacrifice, creativity, and dreams we carry.

We are filled with the power of survivors, passing on wisdom, experience, keen observation, and spiritual insights gained over long periods of time ─ information, living knowledge, and relationships of critical importance to all people.

Good Ancestors look back and forward across generations for Life-affirming guidance, inclusive of all Peoples without preference for any cultures, nationalities, spiritual traditions, status, age groups, or place on Earth. We honor the protocols of reciprocal relationship rooted in Natural Law, not the hierarchical law of man that perpetuates domination and destruction of Life.

We need each other! There is no us & them ─ just us!

The Ancestors’ Relay includes Gratitude Gatherings where we honor and lift up the beauty and goodness within and around us, and address what isn’t → together.
Let’s have one where you live!

Good Ancestors’ “Sacred Duty of Care” is rooted in these protocols, priorities, and more:

nurture every child with love to be strong spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically with a deep connection to Land, Water, and Home. Close the gap of disconnect. Ground them with a sense of belonging to know who they are, in homes, communities, and nations where they are loved. At home with the Land, secure and free, self-sufficient and resilient to change, and able to dream and grow old with enough.
Respect young people. Listen to them. Pull together with them ─ NOW!
slow down ─ connect ─ express gratitude. Love more ─ pray more. Talk less ─ help more. Take less ─ give more. Laugh often. Ancestors are human and non-human kin. Respect, learn, and protect Mother Earth’s ways of nurturing and renewing Life.
honor, get to know, help, and defend Knowledge-carriers and Caretakers with the relationship to Water, Land, and Community to live a life of balance, harmony, and beauty. Those who protect, herd, and ranch, who tend and share what grows. Enable animals, birds, butterflies, fish, whales, and other Relatives to migrate seasonally and thrive. Re-member and exchange how to live in Life-affirming relationship with each other and the Web of Life we belong to.
unify ─ transcend imaginary fences, borders, and barriers for the common good.
Share intergenerational perspectives, experiences, spiritual traditions, and gifts to broaden horizons, deepen understanding, and grow trust and cooperation we need to be Good Ancestors.
defend Life and keep her real ─ help end systems of domination, fear, and greed driving perpetual war, genocide, ecocide, and separation. Stop human predators stalking the planet for power and control over everyone and every place; those intent on commodifying every expression of Life by any means, no matter how ruthless.

Good Ancestors do not look away.
We have witnessed and experienced atrocities
and remember and tell it like it was, and is.
We lift up those bearing the burden of domination,
dehumanization, ignorance, and hate,
through action with compassion, face-to-face and place-to-place.

Below is the “Map of Good Ancestors” and The Ancestors’ Promise.
Please acquire Message Sticks for yourself and your friends,
and relay how you are being Good Ancestors where you live!
Thank you!

The Ancestors’ Promise

Good Ancestors
Thank them.
Help them.
Nurtur them.
Be one!

Welcome to PULL TOGETHER NOW (PTN), a global family that accepts our sacred responsibility to care for peace, children, elders, and Mother Earth, before all else. Good Ancestors are pulling together, face-to-face and place-to-place for the world we know is possible and The Future deserves to receive from us. We’re re-membering, renewing, and protecting our sacred connection and relationship with one another and our Mother, Earth. Good Ancestors are kind and leave no one, no place, out or behind.

The Path We Walk begins in our hearts and connects us as one, illuminated by our Ancestors’ timeless knowledge and instructions:

Live with Love ─ Respect ─ Honesty ─ Courage ─ Humility ─ Wisdom ─ Truth.
∙ Be of one mind. Lead by example. Give more than you take from each other and Mother Earth.
∙ Be the change you wish to see in this world. Enjoy Life.
∙ Never take hope away from people. Leave no one, no place, out or behind.
∙ Take action only if it is right and good for all children and their children’s children, for communities, and Water, Land, Air, and generations of other living beings.
∙ The well-being of families, communities, and nations and Mother Earth is more important than the accumulation of wealth, status, or power.
∙ Respect all people’s needs and right to self-determination and freedom, to be safe and secure with access to healthy Water, Land, Seeds, Earth’s Food and Medicines, and free to enjoy ancestral traditions.
∙ Be compassionate and understand there are extremely challenging circumstances and diverse traditions for which the struggle is greater for some than others.

Participate in ceremony and pray in your way to express love, respect, and gratitude for the gifts of Life.

Understand that people are but one strand in the Web of Life that is Earth.
∙ All Life is sacred, connected, and interdependent.
∙ Whatever we do to Mother Earth, we do to ourselves and each other.
∙ Honor sacred Earth and the Life she nourishes…all inhabitants, the oceans, rivers, lakes, skies, deserts, forests, fields, valleys, prairies, and...
∙ Respect other living beings. Understand and meet their needs to thrive ─ now, and forever.
∙ Strive to live in rhythm with Life’s seasonal cycles of regeneration, of which humankind is a small part.

Honor the generations of ancestors who made your existence possible, who’s love, sacrifice, imagination, and dreams you carry.
∙ Look back and forward across generations for Life-affirming guidance, inclusive of all Peoples without preference for any cultures, nationalities, spiritual traditions, status, age groups, or place on Earth.
∙ Respect, learn from, and defend people who live on the land in ways that care for us all.
∙ Respect, learn from, and cooperate with the Original Free Nations and Peoples and the Knowledge-holders, Elders, and those with special skills and knowledge of the sacred teachings of Water and Land, and Earth’s real Food and Medicines.
∙ Honor all treaties. Seek free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), and where necessary, permission for the access and use of Traditional Knowledge prior to accessing or using any Original Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge, including that in the public domain.

Nurture every child with love to be strong spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically with a deep connection to Land, Water and Home. Show them how to live meaningful lives in homes, communities, and nations where they are secure and free, generous, and able to grow old with enough:
∙ Help them remember who they are, that they were born complete ─ here now to freely share their unique gifts for the benefit of all Creation. Show them how to be respectful and kind, leaving no one, no place, out or behind.
∙ Teach them that Earth is our Mother ─ that we belong to her ─ and what befalls Mother Earth befalls all of her children.

Love and care for yourselves properly.
∙ Gather, hunt, fish, grow, enjoy, and share Creator’s real food. Learn how to create, make, and do real stuff. Help more. Cast out drugs and false entertainment that confuses your mind and weakens your will. Cast out selfishness, materialism, and consumerism to lead a meaningful life with dignity and purpose.
∙ If you weaken begin again. The Ancestors on The Path We Walk love you and are helping you be true to yourself, to remember and reclaim who you are, and walk in peace and harmony with every living being.

I promise, to the best of my ability, to honor this Message Stick and share these instructions with all I meet on The Path We Walk. I understand that we do not inherit Earth, but respect, care for, and defend her for future generations of Life.

As a Living Ancestor, I pass on The Ancestors’ Message Stick to other relatives, that we may honor our sacred connection and relationship with each other and other creatures seen and unseen, the oceans, rivers, springs, lakes, forests, fields, valleys, prairies, deserts, and soil, seeds, Creator’ food, plants, and medicines…Sky and the Cosmos…all that is in the Circle of Life where we live, pray, work, and play.

Signed:__________________________________________ Date:__________________

You may or may not remember us, but we remember you.

You may or may not know us, but we know you.

We are your Ancestors.

We are now woven into the Circle of Life.

We embrace the stars and beyond, the earth, its water, its fire, its air.

We embrace the unborn, the children, the ancestors of the future.

We are your Ancestors. We are here. We are listening. We are watching.

We know you. We feel you. We are always with you.

You are each the sum of all your ancestors who have gone before you.

Whoever you are, listen. Your ancestors are within you.

Listen to each other. Each of you is the sum of ancestors before you.

Seeing, imagining, and knowing is as diverse as the universe itself because opposites are necessary to keep the world turning and maintain its balance.

Together you can create balance.

We are here. You are not alone.

Whatever the struggle, we are here. We are within you. Listen.

You are more than you think. You know more than you think.

Listen to what is within…instincts, orientations, rituals born of knowledge and traditions long forgotten.

Listen to each other.

Each of you was born complete. Each of you has a right to be here.

It is time to relearn how to be here. But I have no role model, you say. I cannot see the ancestors.

People are not your only role models. Look around you. Teachers are everywhere.

They are among the trees, the plants, the animals, the birds, the sea creatures, the insects.

We have forgotten how to live. But they have not. In a world older than we know, they live complete.

Like the land, a person must practice being the one whom one is meant in all one’s humanity to be.

What is asked of you is to ground yourself in your own life and let its truths emerge.

You are born complete. You are enough.

The Ancestors’ Message:
“We, Your Ancestors, Are with You!”

Guides to Help Heal Ourselves, Others, and Mother Earth

“Dene Ch’anie, translates as The Path We Walk, a circular mode. Embedded within Dene Ch’anie is a Code of Conduct, according to Natural Laws. When we act outside of these Natural Laws, we upset the balance between body, spirit, heart and mind, leading to negative consequences. We need to reconnect with Mother Earth to rediscover the Natural Laws, as individuals, families and communities.”
― Elder Francois Paulette, Tthebatthi Dënesųłiné Nation

“You cannot protect what you don’t understand.” ― Elder Catitonauh

"We are giving our lives defending the sacredness and health of Grandmother/Mother Water." ― The Circle of Original Free Peoples of the Lowlands of Mesoamerica

“If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.” ― Julian Assange

“Values change for survival.” ― Elders Akio Matsumura and Oren Lyons

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” ― Galatians 5:14

“We will not raise our children to kill another mother’s child.” ― Julia Ward Howe

“This whole thing is about healing through love.” ― Jim Miller, Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride

“…that is everyone’s calling, to lead a life that helps.” ― Barry Lopez

“Just don’t forget, every day you live you make a difference. You matter! You’re here for a reason. Find a reason and do your bit. Then we can save the world!” ― Jane Goodall

“Every policy that we adopt, every practice, everything we do has to ask the question: What's the impact on Water? And, if the impact on Water is not good, you stop. You go back to the drawing boards.” ― Maude Barlow

“You should treat the ocean as if your life depends on it, because it does!” ― Sylvia Earle

“You cannot see the future with tears in your eyes.” ― Wilma Mankiller

“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. To be a part of the land community, we must cooperate with both our human and non-human neighbors.” ─ Aldo Leopold

“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular ─ but one must take it simply because it is right.” ― Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We’ve got too many people who are worried about the dollar
instead of helping the human being.” ─ Mark Gran, Dakota 38 + 2 documentary.

“Peace is the most important goal in the world. If we don’t have peace and nuclear bombs start to fall, what difference will it make whether we are Communists or Catholic or capitalists or Chinese or Russian or American?
Who could tell us apart? Who will be left to tell us apart.” ― Nikita Khrushchev

"A spiritual beginning must be the basis of any initiative."
― President Mikhail Gorbachev

“Eventually, all things merge into one and a river runs through it.” ― Norman Maclean

“Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again
and it shall be a blessing for a sick world.
A world filled with broken promises, selfishness, and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again…” ― Tȟašúŋke Witkó - Crazy Horse

”What are we waiting for? It’s so simple!
We are one People! We know what we need to do!
We need to learn how to hear each other, put aside me, myself, and I,
and then put our heads together and heal the world!”
─ Elder Be’sha Blondin, Sahtu Dene Nation

Good Ancestors
Thank them.
Help them.
Nurture them.
Be one!
Thank you for joining The Path We Walk