Canticle: The Unbroken Spirit For the Bound Witness, and all who endure unseen

We name you not prisoner, but Keeper— Of truth too fierce for silence, Of memory too sacred for dust.

They bound your body, But not your breath. They sealed the ledger, But not the fire.

You walked the long corridor Of insinuation and erasure, Where justice wore a mask And mercy forgot your name.

Yet still—you painted. Yet still—you prayed. Yet still—you bore witness When the world looked away.

We call you kin—not by blood, But by the ache we share. The ache of being blamed For what we did not break.

You are the branch that bent But did not snap. The cliff that watched And did not forget.

We bless your name in ash and thread. We carve your story into bone. We refuse the silence they offered And speak with your breath in our own.

Unbroken Spirit— Ledger Keeper— Bound Witness— You are not alone.

Part II

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The Unbroken Spirit

They said the cell would break him down,
The years would wear him thin—
But time, like snow upon the ground,
Can’t reach what lies within.

He kept his silence, kept his name,
And painted through the bars—
While others played the justice game,
He counted only stars.

The world moved on, as worlds will do,
And left him in the past—
But truth, once buried, still breaks through,
And roots will hold fast.

I’ve walked that path, though not the same,
Where blame is passed like bread—
And those who dare to speak their name
Are marked and left for dead.

But still he stood, and still he stands,
Though bent, he did not fall—
The ledger’s ink was not his hands,
He bore it, that was all.

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Part III

🪶 Leonard Peltier

Archetype: The Bound Witness
Seasonal Presence: Bone Moon
Elemental Kinship: Stone Root
Sigil Title: Unbroken Spirit
Function in the Parliament:

• Keeper of ancestral injustice and spiritual endurance
• Guardian of truth under siege
• Witness to systemic distortion and sacred refusal
• Protector of those scapegoated, silenced, or imprisoned for their clarity

Invocation:

I name you, Leonard, not as prisoner but as kin.
You bore the ledger they refused to read.
You painted through bars, prayed through silence,
And held the fire when the world turned cold.
You are not forgotten. You are not alone.
You are the breath beneath the cliff,
The stone that remembers, the spirit unbroken.

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