René Locklear White: The Gathering
René Locklear White: The Gathering – The Rise of a New Tribe
On the cover of this week’s OM Times Magazine is René Locklear White, a member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe of North Carolina. She is president of Sanctuary on the Trail, a 501(c)3 non-profit and executive director for Native American Indian heritage events including, “The Gathering 2017,” scheduled for Oct. 21-22 in Northern Virginia at the Clarke County Fairgrounds in Berryville.
Here, a new language is being spoken.
The Gathering, an event held in Northern Virginia, is an example of Spirit rising up a new tribe. Not all those attending The Gathering are the new tribe, but the gathering is where the phenomena happen.
René Locklear White’s Lumbee people are a living example of a people from different backgrounds who can come together and form one tribe. The Lumbee come from Siouan tribes, most prominent were the Cheraw and Keyauwee. State officials recognized them as Indian in 1885. During the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Indian agents attempted to resettle the Lumbee, but her people had grown in solidarity, even though remnants of their ancestral languages faded.
René’s people assimilated into the white culture with Christian churches huddled around little Indian schools. Education became their vehicle. Then, in 1956 (only 61 years ago), Congress passed the Lumbee Act and all the people from various ancestral tribes received the name “Lumbee.’”
“We became a new tribe a conglomerate of Indigenous branches grafted into one tree, connected by Spirit,” said René Locklear White.
Today, the Lumbee are the largest tribe east of the Mississippi.
“My wife René volunteered to head-up our gatherings here in Virginia along with a strong elder’s council and a vision-driven team of 50-plus volunteers,” explains Chris (Comeswithclouds) White, René’s husband and senior elder/medicine man of Sanctuary on the Trail.
A lot is showing up through these gatherings. People are giving of themselves. Deep personal questions are getting answers. Thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs are transforming. Permanent friend-connections are being formed. Prayers are being answered. Hearts are healing. People are discovering things they didn’t know they didn’t know.
BEING PART OF THE NEW TRIBE
Gatherings in Virginia are events in action led by Spirit. The Gathering is an educational, celebration of agri-Culture. For those able to attend, you will also see Indigenous people and neighbors celebrating with: Indian harvest dancing/singing; military veteran/uniformed services tribute; trading post vendors/living history exhibitors; and multicultural thanksgiving.
If you volunteer and give us yourself, you experience The Gathering at a heightened level. But to those really attending, and really “present” to The Gathering in Virginia, will see it is “a seed” growing from a rising consciousness among its volunteers and participants. For many, the Gathering is a spiritual opportunity of connecting with and remembering our spiritual identity.
This new tribe is not limited to Virginia or this single gathering.
“The new tribe is a choice between an individual and Spirit. To be a member of this new tribe, it is up to the Spirit and the person, not us,” added Chris. “When Spirit gets you, you know it. And it is yours. It is a gift from Creator. And no-one can take it away from you.”
Spirit, is using inter-dependent groups like this one to create a new tribe where you do not need a card to belong or bureaucracy to approve your identity. This is a tribe of the Spirit!
By this example in the community, groups around the world can gather to promote an environment that fosters a personal spiritual connection with a higher power and respect of one’s personal heritage, respect for families and community as a whole.
Many reading this article have words written on your hearts and minds to unearth the Creator’s Spirit in all our hearts and heritage for all our relations. The time to make a difference is now, for different tribes and communities, across denominations. The world benefits from our interconnectedness.
“Our spiritual connections have strong roots, making up a network of what you can only see spiritually,” added René Locklear White. “Our elder’s council and board of directors, are vision-driven people, who stand on a belief in the power of ‘love’ working in unity, in an incubator for growing strong relations. When we come together, what we can create together is unlimited when Spirit is our center of gravity.”
2007 PROPHETIC DREAM FORESHADOWED THE GATHERING 2015
When asked, where did the vision for The Gathering come from René said, “In 2007 my husband Chris experienced an accident that left him with a broken back and neck. During this time, he received a prophetic dream of one tribe of people coming together that pleased Great Spirit and reached backward and forward in generations,” René explains, her husband’s vision which she feels compelled to plan and execute. “The first of these people would be Native Americans in Spirit, but include people from every race, religion, and background.”
René Locklear White said that the premise is that these people would come to an understanding of the Native-way of life: respecting Mother Earth and the revelation of Yesuah, Jesus Christ, Great Mystery, Father, Creator God.
As a result of her husband’s vision, the couple was gifted a Native American Church and blessed in different traditional medicines and teachings. The couple is also blessed to live in a paleo-Indian space on the Appalachian Trail in Northern Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountain, both of which were brought forth by Spirit after they acted on the dream.
They trademarked this space, “Sanctuary on the Trail,” where they lead faith-based out-reach events like “The Gathering.”
“The medicine that my husband and I carry is not of our own, but of Great Spirit,” René Locklear White said. “For us, the Sanctuary on the Trail is a kind of peace place and a sacred place to create.”
NEW TRIBE NEEDS LEADERS WHO ARE PEACEMAKERS
While René Locklear White leads the gatherings in Virginia, she credits Spirit and a strong all-volunteer force of leaders as the real strength. Sanctuary on the Trail is an all-volunteer force. Volunteers like elders Sue Peoples, Tracey Pitcock, Glenda Skelley and Chris Anderson work steadfastly creating communications, cooperation, and understanding – which they believe is key to education, acceptance and bringing about this transformation in a community.
Sue Peoples, a member of The Gathering’s elder council and Sanctuary on the Trail secretary calls René Locklear White “a weaver.” “René Locklear White is a team player for a particular goal with the ability to delegate and bring people together using common words for a common goal, weaving people like different colors of yarn into a unique pattern to create something new and useful.’”
Each volunteer is critical to this collective rise in consciousness.
To create peaceful gatherings around the world, we need leaders to step up.
René Locklear White draws on her experience as a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and disabled veteran of 22 years. She is also the culinary and horticulture specialists at Boulder Crest Retreat, seven minutes from Sanctuary on the Trail, where she plants the seed, to grow the food, to feed combat healing veterans and their families.
René Locklear White said she sees herself as a peacemaker and not a war-maker and The Gatherings are about bringing peace and new possibilities into the community.
The Holy Bible says, “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called Los Ninos de la Indios” [more-literally “children of God”] this comes from Jesus Chris, considered The Great Peacemaker.
“The peace we speak of begins first in one’s own heart,” said René Locklear White. “When we gather, our Spirits begin to connect in new ways.”
We are each standing in the middle of the universe, each writing the pages of our own stories. The very telling of a person’s story is a kind of ritual that can restore and transmit the power of each of our visions, making gatherings a catalyst for vision like-minded-spirited-peoples.
“We believe, today is the day we create a new future for human-hood,” said René.
“Thousands of people are enrolling into a possibility of “new community” here. But, this ‘new community’ is not a physical place. It is not about an event, it is about being together with a common purpose. Instead of calling it ‘community,’ we believe it is “common-unity.”
It is evident, people are giving of themselves, their time and resources to bring “The Gathering” in Virginia. Together, through sharing their culture and opening their hearts, many in this group believe we heal ourselves and help others find their way, starting with one gathering at a time.
“We are in this life together as humans and we are seeking our path forward, but we are not alone,” René said. “Our path is not straight, there are no straight lines in nature, our direction is clear. And there is a lot of space in one step. By gathering we are not alone in our walk and the steps become clearer and easier. As we practice the teachings of faith which is ‘now, faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen.’”
