My father is Celtic, a Taoist Celt, in fact. My mother is Algonquin Indian. I often imagine that when they met during World War II they must have immediately sensed a common thread between Taoism and the Algonquin Red Road, as many have since. There are no books that really recognize the similarity between the two ancient cultures, but they did, and they married. Then us little kids came along, one little two little, three little Taoist-Celtic-American Indians.

Now, Celtic-Indian Taoist communities were hard to find in the 1950s when I was growing up. So we became part of a struggling Unitarian community, a safe non-dualistic space where we hyphenated kids could work out our own answers about what and who and where God was—and argue about politics of course. There were, sadly, no books on Native American philosophy in those days, so my mother told me stories that she would make up as she went along, stories with Mi'kmaq words in them (such as Pipsissewa) and Red Road teachings. When I got older she read to me at night from the Tao Te Ching. Close enough, I guess.  [1] For years I thought the Tao Te Ching was written by Loud Sioux, as in “Chief Loud Sioux.” What did I know?

My father became Treasurer of the church and helped to build the Paint Branch Unitarian church where I attended services, and I became part of a tribe called LRY. I came to New York City to seek my fortune. I didn't really start exploring my Mi'kmaq (Indian) roots again until 1989. Meanwhile I got interested in world religions. Now I am an interfaith Minister.

I had learned a lot of things about being Indian from my Aunt Helen, and Uncle Roland, but one never knew what to take seriously and what was a little joke. When I started learning from tribal elders, it confirmed what they had said. As it turns out, Mi'kmaq ways are rather shamanistic, which was no surprise, but also clearly Taoistic. The word shaman means healer in the Altaic language of the Baikal shamans of Eastern Siberia, and the word Tao means “The Way,” in middle Chinese. But just as shamanism is found all over the world totally unrelated to Siberia, little T Taoism is found all over the world as well. Different languages call both by different names, but the two appear everywhere on every continent, and sometimes together, often in earth-based traditions.

As far as I can tell, Chinese Taoism developed in the Yellow River estuarial valley, some time before 3000 BC, around the time of the introduction of agriculture, when people first started to live close together in large numbers. Similar ideas popped up all over the world.

Let's start by defining the Tao. Lao Tzu (Loud Sioux) wrote that “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the Tao.” Ooops. Dead end. But Tao means way, and Loud Sioux also talked of the way of heaven, which is the way of the eternal, which is the Tao. Some couldn't picture that clearly, so he spoke of the way of nature, natural wisdom and suggesting we should follow the path of water, which seeks the lowest place, the valley, instead of clawing our way to the top of the food chain. Go with the flow. We could all visualize that. Then people still didn't get it so he talked about the way that mankind should follow, which was wu wei, which means “not doing.” He implied that everything was already as it should be so why change anything, just let reality flow through you. Then someone asked (I presume) but what do we do if wrongs are done and we need to change things? Then he talked of “Wei Wu Wei,” to act without acting, which was still okay. Working with nature without opposing it. He would look at the big picture, find a leverage point, perhaps a place where people were stuck, and then just with one swift calligraphic brushstroke, he unstuck them. Keep it simple.

I was sitting at the feet of a Mi'kmaq elder one day in about 1992, asking questions about good and evil, and he used the word “Agoolamz.” I said, “What does that word mean?” He answered, “I can't tell you.” I said, “Wait a minute, it's a Micmac word and you speak Micmac but you don't know what it is?”

”No, I know what it is, but I can't just tell you. You have to live it.”

I said, “But how can I live it when I don't know what it means?”

He said, “If I told you what it means, it wouldn't mean anything, because it would always mean more than that. I could maybe tell you just a little piece of it.”

So he told me that agoolamz was the truth of things as they are. I asked, and came to understand that it was the path we're on, but that some are more on the path than others. He told me it was the path that spirit wishes us to follow, and that it was a good way of life. I asked if it was like “The Red Road,” and he answered, “Something like that, yes.” He said that was called “Maygwaig Outee,” but Agoolamz was part of it.

I struggled with this, and a few days later it hit me. Agoolamz is a lot  like Tao. It can't be spoken of, but it's the way, the way of the eternal, the way of nature, and the path mankind should follow. Sometimes the more we try to force things to work out the worse they work out; we need to step back sometimes (non-action) and let things fall together. In Mi'kmaq this is called “Mawee Dahdjik.” Things fall together. It's as natural as breathing. Just as air flows through us, water flows through mountains, and events fall into place. Everything is interconnected, everything is related, and in fact we are all brother and sister with everything that lives. We are one. In Mi'kmaq we say “Unkeedaseewach'n,” It's the wholeness that is holy. When you finally see this oneness, perhaps through an epiphanal experience such as experienced by Papunhank of the Lenape, you become Neoline, or enlightened.

I began to see Taoistic teachings in everything, first in Mi'kmaq culture. Then I started to see them throughout Algonquin culture, which includes some 84 Native American societies including the Mi'kmaq. Their society is considered to be “the First People” and very ancient. Then I saw these Taoistic teachings in many ancient spiritual wisdom traditions, and in each one I found a single word that had this same curious non-meaning, or at least used to have that meaning before people changed it, improved it, solidified it. This word, like Tao in Chinese, always meant, “The path or road.” They said it couldn't be spoken of, but then when you badgered them with questions, they described it on three distinct levels, the way of heaven, the way of nature and the way humankind should follow. But it wasn't really on three levels, because all three are One! Very interesting.

My friend Kevin Marth has a Reggae band called Fin-o'-tee, which means “The Way” in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, the descendants of the ancient Kushites. It literally refers to everyone's individual path, in the context of the whole, the oneness. Unity in diversity. The Kushites lived on the upper Nile River, at the confluence of two rivers and Heile Selassi claimed to be a descendant, and I presume he used the word Fin-o'-tee.

The word Fi-Rhinne in Celtic languages refers to a path of virtue. The great early sites of Pre-Celtic Brythons by the way are on estuaries. New Grange is on the River Boyne, and others are on the Shannon. There were important Celtic ritual sites at Heathrow on the Thames, and also some in London. It seems these non-dualist spiritual paths always developed near an estuary where water informs the consciousness of the people. Water is always in process; its only goal is the sea. I call it “hydro-theology.”

The Russians say Doroga means “The Path We're On,” and it has a mystical connotation. Some Jews use the word Dereg for the spiritual path, almost the same word. Halakha is a Hebrew word that denotes a body of laws or wisdom, and includes the Mitzvot, the root of which denotes “good.”

In Hindu culture, which developed a long time ago along the Indus River, an estuary, and then also along the Ganges, the word Dharma meant the path or way, indefinable, but there was the Eternal Dharma, the Dharma of Nature, and the Dharma of our lives. Sometimes I see those bumper stickers that say “BREATHE” on the car in front of me, and I think, “Oh no! I'm not breathing right!” Dharma is very simple, like breathing. But some are more on the path than others. Dharma is a path of oneness (Ekam) within Brahman. Then King Ashoka and some others came up with The Law of Dharma, and he had it engraved on all these Pillars of Ashoka all over India, telling people not to be violent, etcetera. Become One or Else. It was like those BREATHE! Signs. Only if you didn't “breathe,” they'd throw you in jail. It became Us Versus Them. A far cry from the Tao that could not be spoken of.

In Islam they use the word Shariya'a, which in ancient Arabic meant “The Path to Water,” which was a beautiful metaphor for the way we should live. It was indefinable, which, in the desert is not surprising, a mystical idea of the good. It too was presumably on three levels. Today, Shariya'a is the Law of Islam, and in some countries, if you don't “breathe” they'll cut off your hand, and then throw you in jail.

In ancient Egypt there was the word Ma'at, which referred to a path of virtue and balance. These teachings grew up on the banks of the Nile, a large estuary. Somewhere along the line it became embodied by a beautiful Goddess Ma'at, who presided over our personal judgment day when we die. She weighs your heart against a peacock feather, on a scale held by Horus (some say an Ibus) and if your heart is not as light as a feather, you can't go to Heaven. In other words you are no longer immersed in the One. You lost the path, go back to earth. This goddess was picked up by the Greeks and became the Blind Goddess of Justice that now stands in every traffic court in America, or at least her picture. ”Heart heavier than a feather? That'll be three points on your license, buddy.” So Ma'at became law too.

You can see how most religions started out with this core teaching of oneness. No “us versus them,” no satan, hell or damnation. No salvation. You just keep trying. We're all humans, we're all on the path somehow. This is what I call non-dualism.  Unitarians now call it “Process Theology.” Then over time things fell apart and they added dualism later. For example, the Taoist paradoxes of Lao Tsu gave way to the moralisms of Confucius in the Yellow River Valley.

All of these paths of oneness were not able to stop societies from becoming corrupt. People started lying, cheating, fighting, etcetera. People still said these sayings about oneness, or “The Way,” but it became harder to live up to. Ethics is an important part of a spiritual path, but as long as everyone is already ethical, there is no need to discuss it. Moralist philosophers arise when the people become immoral.

Dikaion in Greek referred to a cosmic order of balance, which later became defined as universal justice, and then got confused with human justice. This word was used in the Greek Bible, and was translated into Latin as Justitia, which is still a word evoking images of balance and harmony. Then in the King James version, Justitia became not Justness, but Righteousness, which swung Christianity towards its Zoroastrian and dualistic side. That odd choice suggests a deliberate link to “Asha,” the ancient Zoroastrian word for righteousness, which also became a word for “law.”

At the same time you can see that Christianity is Taoistic at its core, as Jesus says “I Am the way,” a little poetic license conjoining Jaweh, “I Am that I Am,” which is very Jewish, and The Taoistic/Dharmic “Way,” (and Jerusalem was on an Asian trade route). [2] The sermon on the mount is purely Taoistic, using nature as a model of human virtue. The Gospel of Thomas (from the Dead Sea Scrolls) shows this Taoistic character most clearly. Let us remember that the word for sin in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is Hammartia, which means “it misses the mark.” Clearly a statement of Applied Process Theology.

UU minister Linda Anderson recently said, “We are the totality of the universe expressed partially. (UU) theology understands reality as a process rather than as a static…”

Any Algonquin can relate to that. I shoot at the deer with my bow and arrow. I miss. I get another arrow and try again. Zoroaster by the way, who considered himself a perfect Avatar, became a warrior and lived by the sword. Interestingly, he died in battle. (Did he miss? Just asking!)

This “non-dualism” is what Taoists, Algonquins and Unitarians have in common. This may be a new term to some, and you're saying to yourself, “He's callin me a WHAT?” but most of you are non-dualists at heart, because Unitarians believe in Process Theology, (unless they respectfully disagree of course) and Process Theology  is non-dualist. Process Theology says that reality is a process. In a recent sermon, Linda Andersen said, “I am here, now, being in this moment, but even as I say this, the moment passes and I am becoming into the next moment.” If water could talk, it would say the same thing. “My reality does not stand still. Reality is not moved by [my] will, but by itself, through countless individual actions.” When we really think like water does, we are One with the Tao, whether we are Unitarians or Algonquins.

What is a non-dualist?

This word has many meanings. Basically, it means you're not a dualist. What is a duelist? It's someone who is not a non-dualist…Let me make it even simpler. A non-dualist says, “We're all one! It's that simple.” A dualist says, (in a deep voice) “You know what? There's only two kindza people, us and them.” As the “us and them” sets in, it generally devolves to “We're good and they're evil. We're right and they're wrong. We're superior and they are inferior. We're entitled, and they're not. We're humans and they are sub-human. We're saved and they're sinners. We're going to heaven, they're going to hell. Sometimes it even comes down to “We deserve to live and they don't!” There are other forms of dualism but they stem from these basic splits.

I know some of you are thinking, ‘Yeah, I just hate people like that!” Stop it! The minute you think that way, you too are slowly becoming a duelist, you are making an “us versus them” distinction. At first this “hate” is just an honest expression of how you feel. Soon, if you don't let the hatred go, you start trying to justify your hateful feelings. You start saying you are good and they are evil. And that's bad! Well, not “bad” bad, but dualism is highly infectious stuff, which is not as good for the healing process as healthy non-dualist feelings.

One of the great non-dualist Advaita teachers, I believe it was Nisargata, or was it Neem Caruli Baba, said, “Do what you must, but don't leave anyone out of your heart.” Truer words were never spoken. Ram Dass said in the sixties that if we did not love the people we were protesting against, our quest for social change would come to nothing. I think we're approaching a time of intense change where we have to think this way again.

So how do we manage to not feel threatened by people whose ways are so different than ours? In Buddhism, we speak of Right Discrimination. Here in America, the word discrimination sounds somewhat criminal. “Discrimination? We fought against that in the sixties!” some of you are thinking. English has a lot of pitfalls like this one. So let's just switch to non-dualistic languages. In Hindu language (in the path of Sanatanadharma) the word is Viveka, the ability to choose wisely, and to even remove from your house that which is not appropriate for your house. There is no real dualism in this process of Viveka, it is not destructive, it is selective. Sometimes we need those cool Asian words to heal our dualistic wounds. I may not want a book by Pat Robertson in my house, but that doesn't mean I have to burn everyone else's copies. I just remove it from my house.

This dualism is different than multi-culturalism, which seeks unity in diversity. That is actually a form of non-dualism, because diversity in itself is not separation; it does not cause conflict. It's how the unity expresses itself.  I believe conformity happens in response to other conformities, more us versus them thinking.  Diversity only becomes a problem when you no longer seek the middle ground, but want people to join you in battle against the “others.”

The word Unity shows up in Unitarianism, and in Universalist, it shows up twice, which shows you how important it is. Taoism shows us through the Yin and Yang symbol that within the great circle of life there are distinctions, opposites, male/female, cold/hot, black/white, dark/light. Ironically, the Yin Yang is the ultimate non-dualist symbol, because the two poles embrace each other as one, intertwined and interdependent.  Non-dualism doesn't say it's bad to distinguish yourself as man or woman, it says that men need women and women need men to be whole, that one is not better than the other. Believe it or not, there are still primitive dualistic societies that actually favor men over women; we call them patriarchies.

In my search for meaning, I found that at one point in history, a majority of humans lived in the rich alluvial plains of estuarial valleys, growing crops, building the first cities, and exchanging ideas about life and spirituality. As far as I can tell, all of these water-based cultures were placid peace-making societies that strove to remember that we are all one, and developed teachings, songs, and stories to remind us of that to help us to resolve conflicts with our brothers and sisters. You can find a non-dualist core at the old-growth center of most religions and philosophies.

German anthropologist Helmer Ringgren writes, (p.22 Religions of the Ancient Near East) “In an epic text about King Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta there is a passage which speaks of a time when there was no snake or scorpion, no hyena, lion, or wolf, when man was without fear, and with one voice praised Enlil.” Ringgren links this to the Sumerian Garden of Eden myths.(Eden is their word for the southeastern marshlands at the mouth of the estuarial Euphrates, so it does relate to water.) It is in this area that the first Temple of Inanna was built, that the myths of the Dying Grain God Tammuz, the Good Shepherd, who dies and is resurrected at the first full moon after the equinox, when the floods come, which is Oestar, and now Easter. [3]

Abraham's father was an idol-maker there at the mouth of the Euphrates, and when corruption overtook that society, honest Abe fled the water's edge, crossed the growing desert, and made a covenant with a monotheistic “God the Father.” That led to Judaism and Christianity, and later, Islam, which returned to that valley and established one of its greatest societies in that river valley. Judaism also returned to that valley and one of the Talmud texts was written there. Followers of John the Baptist, the Mandeans, also ended up there on that estuary, people who go to the river.

In his book Religions of the Ancient Near East,Helmer Ringgren says, “It should be noted that there is a basic difference between Babylonian and Assyrian religion. The Babylonians in the south depended for their livelihood on the supply of water from the rivers, and this also set its mark on their religion and gave it a more calm and static character. The Assyrians in the north depended on the rain, and their religion came to lay more emphasis on atmospheric phenomenon, and acquired a more dynamic character. In the course of time, a measure of interchange between the two took place.”[4]

You may have thought the Inca, the Quetchua path, were mountain people, along with the Quro, but in fact their society developed in the Urubamba River Valley below Machu-picchu the Male Mountain, and below Wyna-picchu, the Female Mountain, all connected by the Inca Trail, another kind of path. They honored men and women equally, a balance of yin and yang, valleys and mountains. The Urubamba was called the Wilka Miyoo, the “Sacred River. [5] Patchamama was the Earth Mother spirit, still highly praised.  They fled to the mountains when the Spanish conquistadors came, to avoid conflict. Eventually they had to fight and became great warriors like the Sioux. (Thanks to Eileen O'Hara for this piece of the great puzzle).

The Hudson Valley is among these great estuaries of hydro-theological lore. It was the home of the Orient Point people, a great civilization that flourished around 1000 BC, part of the Red Paint tradition. As far as I can tell, most Red Paint people had their sacred sites on estuaries, and some believe they may be the people who built the standing stones and perched boulders in America. There is a great stone structure underneath the Hudson River from that period. Someone recently found a Red Paint burial mound at the estuarial mouth of the Merrimack River, surrounded by stone work, and dated back to 9,000 BC. It's certain that the Red Paint people were a main trunk of the Algonquin family tree, and our eastern Algonquins have mainly lived on estuaries ever since. The Algonquins of the Hudson were very peaceful people, honoring men and women as equals. The people of Cold Spring who lived on the Hudson (or Mohicanituck) called themselves the People of Pasquaskeck, (great prominent woman) after Storm King Mountain, which they saw as a huge female. There's the thought that Taurus Mountain was her male consort so to speak. Taurus was their Machu picchu, Storm King their Wynapicchu. They were a peaceful people. The Mattaewan Indians of  Beacon are named after the Mattaewan river, now called the Fishkill, and in one sense it means “trout stream,” but the way it's usually spoken it means “the people of the humble stream.”[6]

Zoroaster was born far inland, probably somewhere on the farthest outskirts of the Indus River Valley civilization, between 1000 and 2000 BC. His birthplace was probably north of the Iranian border.  But from all indications, he was far from the “maddening crowd” a hermit from the mountains, not from a place near placid waters. He was the one, perhaps the first, who refrained from associating water with the feminine, as practically all earlier teachers did before him. Water simply became one part of the domain of an all-ruling and emotionally distant Lord of Light.

Zoroaster had clearly been traumatized by some experience, we don't know what, but felt someone had pretty much messed up the planet, and was very angry at “the people of the lie.” He abandoned the “process theology” of his time, and gave up on forgiveness. He implied that “These people will be judged on the final judgment day and damned by God to Hell, and serves em right.” He dedicated himself to the saying “There are only two kinds of people…” The dualistic teachings of Zoroaster and good and evil gradually spread to every corner of the world and grafted itself onto the non-dualistic, process-oriented roots of world religion.

Zoroaster's influence on Christianity is great. To him we can ascribe the origins of both Christian dualism and monotheism, of the concept of the Devil or Satan, of Judgment Day, of individual salvation by an avatar-like Lord of Light, the preservation and resurrection of the body, the Magi, negative views of nature and the occult, the emphasis of light victorious over darkness, patriarchism over feminism, pastoralism over nomadism, modern Christian views about angels, the soul, and hell, and possibly baptism, and much more.[7] Some of these views and beliefs are Sumerian and Indo-European and predate Zoroaster by thousands of years, and in fact some of these beliefs may have entered into Zoroastrianism after his lifetime. [8]But it seems that it was through his followers that these ideas most clearly entered into Hellenistic Judaism, and therefore into Christianity at a time when many leaders of the Parsi faith were looking for the next coming of the Master. The story of the Magi coming to Bethlehem from Persia looking for the next Zoroaster, following star signs rather than earth signs, is positioned front and center at the beginning of Matthew.[9]

Unitarian Universalism and Algonquin spirituality are different in some respects, although the differences are disappearing. The Algonquin path is an earth-based path and therefore shamanistic, whereas UU comes more out of urban experience and rational enlightenment thought. However, last year the church adopted an earth-based addition to the credo printed in the front of the hymnals that states that Unitarian belief now embraces earth-based spirituality, which greatly closes the gap, and I think in a good way. I've been preaching earth-based spirituality at Unitarian churches for 15 years, so I'm very happy to hear that it's now okay.

UU has not always had a strong identity or set of traditions, and has gone through a lot of “process,” but it has emerged at a strong place, the place where civilization should never have left, a place of inclusiveness, oneness, harmony. It is a place that is very close to Algonquin Earth-based teachings. It is a non-dualistic place.

It is a hard road to follow. As I read from non-dualist texts, I warn listeners that a lot of people have trouble understanding non-dualism at first. A Catholic student of mine, struggling to understand non-dualism, said to me, “You mean all the people of the world are God's children, but know Him by different names? “ I answered, “Yes. Or Her!”

We can see the cost of rampant dualism everywhere in the world today; wars, conflicts between genders, conflicts between countries, between religions, between ourselves and the earth. Our whole situation with global warming would have not gotten to this point but for all the dualistic fighting between the classes. Now we are in the same leaky boat and we have to paddle together (another Mi'kmaq phrase) or sink out of sight. Unitarians and Algonquins (and Taoists) should be proud and outspoken about their non-dualism. Unitarians should put a sign out on the door that says, “Dualists Welcome,” because there is no us versus them; our future depends on them getting our message. Ironically, non-dualism is the one true faith at the heart of every hydro-theology. So go forth and preach the one true gospel of non-dualism, ironic as that may sound.

“When a fool hears of the great path, he laughs out loud. If he did not laugh, it would not be worthy of the name.”