Ilarion Merculieff on The Wisdom of the Elders

Jul 31, 2024 09:29AM ● By Sandra Yeyati

Courtesy of Ilarion Merculieff

Ilarion Merculieff is a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights and the harmonious relationship with Mother Earth. For decades, he has served his people—the Unangan (Aleuts) of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea—and other Indigenous peoples in a number of capacities. He was city manager of Saint Paul Island, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development and chairman of the board of The Aleut Corporation.

Merculieff has chaired global climate change summits, led Indigenous gatherings for the healing of Mother Earth, participated in sacred ceremonies around the world, given keynote addresses at government conferences and lectured about traditional ways of knowing at universities. His many articles and books include Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold History of the Unangan People.

Today, Merculieff is president and founder of the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership & Lifeways, and as the co-founder of Wisdom Weavers of the World, he collaborates with Indigenous Elders to propagate their vital messages.

How do you maintain hope in the face of the historical oppression of your people, which included genocide, internment camps and slavery?

For me, it has been easy because when I was a little kid, the Elders never showed or acted or said anything bad about anyone. They were very forgiving people, and their demeanor was always consistent with what they were saying. That inspired me, and that’s the reason I’m able to do the work I’m doing now.

Could you describe your Unangan upbringing on St. Paul Island?

I come from a remarkable people. Unangan means “people by the sea”. We’ve lived in the Bering Sea for over 10,000 years, and we’re still there. My generation was the last to have a fully intact traditional upbringing. The adults’ job was to create the space for a child to learn, not to tell them what to learn, how to learn or to define anything.

At age 5, I had a traditional mentor, my Aachaa, who took me under his wing until age 13. He taught me much of what I know about being a man, reverence for life, hunting and fishing, and the ethics and values of being Unangan, and yet he may have said no more than 200 words to me that whole time. I learned by watching and listening.

Why is it important to be present in the moment and in the heart?

Our people understand that the heart never guides us wrong. It is a place of love, compassion, patience and understanding. When you’re out of the mind and in the heart, present in the moment, that’s when you commune with all that is, or as we call it, the Maker. The heart receives things and communicates them to the mind. Traditionally, all people around the world used to have the heart tell the mind what to do. Today, the mind tells the heart what to do, which is a masculine imbalance, because it’s top-down, it’s control, it’s fear. Today, we have shut off the communication vehicle for receiving information.

We have a story about our whale hunters on St. Paul Island that used spears tipped with a particular type of poison that would go to the whale’s heart, so the whale didn’t even know that it was dying. An Elder told me about this man that was visiting our island who asked, “How did you know about this poison? Did you guys experiment or watch animals die when they ate this plant?” And the Elders said, “No. We talked to the plants and received information from the plants.” This ability to commune with Mother Nature is not unique to Indigenous people. All people have this ability, but they lost it when they left their hearts.

How did you learn to listen to the heart?

When I was 6, I loved to watch the sea birds that were nesting on the island off cliff ledges. The birds would start awakening when the sun came up, let go of the cliff and circle around waiting to collect members of their species for going out foraging. There must have been 10,000 or more sea birds of all kinds of species flying in apparent chaos. They would come off the cliff edges at different speeds and different heights, and none of them even clipped a wing. It was amazing.

I wanted to be a sea bird. I wondered, “What’s the difference between a sea bird and me?” and I thought the only thing that could be different was that they weren’t thinking. I concluded years later that they were a field of awareness. For two months or so, I worked at not thinking. I would go through the day with not a single word coming through my mind, and that’s when the magic happened.

My Aachaa would take me out hunting for sea lion with five or six hunters. The men would watch the sea, and then all of a sudden, someone would say, “Sea lion coming,” and instantly all the men at the very same moment, without anyone pointing, would look at the same spot, even though there was no sea lion there. Five to seven minutes later, a sea lion would pop up exactly where the men were looking. I thought these men were magical until I decided to apply what I learned from the sea birds, and sure enough, when I did that, I could feel the sea lion before it showed up. This ability to receive—a feminine trait—is considered very important for the best hunters and fishermen.

Can you explain the Hopi saying: “Seek not to fight evil, let goodness take its place”?

We are energy beings. When we focus our energy on stopping wars, political corruption or the violation of women, we are taking our mental, physical and spiritual energy and putting it into those things, which increases the power of the negative things that we’re trying to stop. Instead, the Hopi say, just focus on the world you wish to see without reaction to anything else, and then we will see real change happen. When we are in alignment and in harmony with the vibrational field of Mother Earth, then we will have real impact. Even the smallest thing that you do that is positive, that is not in reaction against something, adds to this effort.

How should we approach the problem of climate change?

People are depending upon governments and science and technology to figure out a way out of global climate change, but the Elders know that this is not going to be the answer. What we understand is that we must let go of this thing that everybody is attached to, which is the mind. What we call state-of-the-art technologies is nothing but the old regurgitated as new. For example, when the U.S. committed to hybrid fuel, that was considered good environmentally, but the Elders understood that this was going to have repercussions. Many of the world’s farmers stopped raising food crops to raise fuel crops like corn, and that led to food shortages, starvation and increased food prices around the world.

Depending on logic and rationality to guide us is the wrong place to look. The answers are in our hearts. When we access that place, when we receive that information, we will have a gift to give to the world. Each and every person is needed now. You cannot do anything about climate change until you receive your gift. It’s challenging because, accepting that as a paradigm, you have to do things that your heart is telling you to do, and it might be something that people think is crazy, like going around dancing in a circle or leaving a good job. You might be worried about where you’re going to get your food the next day.

When you stop worrying and just trust by being present in the moment and in the heart, you will contribute to the survival of the human race. Each person that does that changes the vibration that the world now is surrounded by, which is in a masculine imbalance. We need to change our consciousness now.

Can you explain what the womb at the center of the Earth is?

When I was 16, I lamented to the oldest man on the island that the Unangan people had lost the ability to make masks. His grandfather was the last shaman on St. Paul, and shamans knew how to make the most powerful masks. The man said that the ability to make masks had never been lost. He told me to go to the beach, take a rock and stick and beat them together, then sit in harmony with everything around me—the sea, the seals, the birds, the wind—and then go to my center and wait.

What he meant by “going to the center” was doing it without thought, going to the heart and listening and trusting that the answer will come. Trust is something that is beyond what most people understand; it is pure faith. You trust in your life, trust in your life processes, trust in yourself, trust in your relationships, trust in Mother Earth, trust in the universe, trust in the whole—the Maker. All this trust is embedded at the cellular level. Everyone can do it.

After one or two hours on the beach, a black dot showed up in my mind’s eye and out poured 100 or more incredible masks. I was wondering if I imagined this, so I went back to the oldest man. He said, “Good boy. You touched the womb at the center of the universe, the place of creation and creativity. This is a place where our people got our information and our natural laws.”

That identical field of energy is in every woman’s womb. Before time began, women were considered sacred all over the world, and now we’ve forgotten that. The Elders teach that if women get together in sisterhood, they can heal themselves quickly, and then they can take this energy that is within them and put it energetically outside themselves to build an invisible container for something new to be birthed. Until this happens, nothing new will be created, and that includes everything we think of or create. For this reason, according to the Elders that I work with, women are going to lead the way to sacredness.

Sandra Yeyati is national editor of Natural Awakenings.