SHAMAN SANTA
SWAMI BEYONDANANDA
HAWAIIAN HEART HEALTH S A C R E D F I R E M A G A Z I N E .C O M
T H E H E A R T O F T H E L I V I N G WO R L D
EXCLUSIVE
Francis Weller
RIPPED FROM THE PRIMAL MATRIX PAGE 32 HEALING HURT PEOPLE WHO HURT PEOPLE PAGE 38 $7.95 U.S. / $9.75 CANADA
UNVEILING THE LAW OF SUBTRACTION PAGE 1 8
SONGS OF THE MAORI WHAEA PAGE 4 4
What’s Sustainable? C U LT I VAT I N G T H E SAC R E D
I S S U E 13
PAGE 24
Speaking
Photo by Kevin Schaefer
The Whole World is
Be still a moment. Listen with your heart. There are beings all around you. Don’t be afraid to hear them.
the ancestors the elders the living spirits of nature With their guidance we’ll thrive. Together.
Listen Deeply Be in conversation with the world
sacredfirefoundation.org
contents
16
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE
DEPARTMENTS 04 05 06 08 09 Our Contributors
Editor’s Note | By Jonathan Merrit
Our Indigenous Hearts
Flares From Our Readers
09
Letters to Sacred Fire
Publisher’s Note | By Sharon Brown
13
Flint and Tinder
Building Homes & Relationships The Council of All Beings Blessing Mountains in the Snow Santa’s Gone Wild / Hard Core Zen Winter Count / Divine Singing Heart Medicine
COLUMNS 11 16 18 20 22
The Light Site | Swami Beyondananda
The Yogi from Muskogee
Out of the Frying Pan | Larry Messerman
The Law of Subtraction
15
Logs for the Fire | Jennifer Means
Dancing with the Wisdom Keepers Dreams of the Holy | Barry Williams with Renata Ritzman and Raef Williams
Dreaming with Trout
56 POETRY 29 37
Final Flicker
from Heard Around the Fire
ON OUR
COVER 2 / Issue 13
How to Feed a Fetish | J. M. White Storytelling | Dolores Stewart
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TRUDY BHAERMAN; COURTESY RED FEATHER DEVELOPMENT GROUP; LISA WIDNER; BRETT UPRICHARD; COURTESY BRAD WARNER.
Alaskan Microcosm
MELISSA MESCHLER
features 24 24
HAMAATSA: The Earth Beneath Your Finger | By Larry Littlebird
32
Reclaiming Our Indigenous Soul | By Francis Weller
38
The Healing of Hollow Water
44
Making the Past the Present: An interview with Maori Whaea Raina Ferris | By Sharon Brown
A Laguna Pueblo storyteller, carrying the values of his ancestors, recognized that stories arise from the land and give meaning to our lives. With help from many others, he established Hamaatsa, a place where stories come alive in the present and provide opportunities for real learning to people of all cultures.
At our core our bodies are crafted for intimacy with the wild world. Living in a culture of separation, how do we reconnect with that essential part of our souls? Our deepest nourishment and sweetest medicines come from renewing forgotten memories of our sensual kinship with the sacred and mysterious. By Geral Blanchard
Page 32
Recognizing that the system of vengeance and punishment only hardens the suffering caused by sexual abuse, the Ojibwa of Hollow Water returned to their ancestral practices. Sitting in sacred circles, using ritual to cleanse the wounds, the community provides healing for the abuser as well as the abused.
Called from an early age to make the karanga, the traditional women’s singing invitation to the welcoming ceremonies, Maori ritual leader and teacher, Raina Ferris, revitalizes the power of ceremonial singing and teaches women to use their voices to reconnect with the world.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 3
contributors
Larry Littlebird, founding director of Hamaatsa, is a Pueblo
Indian from Laguna/Santo Domingo Pueblo. Larry’s coaching and mentoring style draws upon his multi-faceted background as a Native filmmaker/storyteller, education specialist, life coach, wilderness facilitator, and his personal experience as a hunter-gatherer-farmer, informed by his rich Pueblo culture. He is the author of Hunting Sacred—Everything Listens: A Pueblo Indian Man’s Oral Tradition Legacy (Santa Fe, NM: Western Edge Press, 2001), which introduces readers to a timeless story of living in correct relationship with all life and is Littlebird’s personal oral tradition legacy.
GERAL BLANCHARD is a
licensed counselor who provides training and counseling services that blend ancient and modern healing methods. He has traveled to several continents to observe traditional healing. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Blanchard provides individual addiction and trauma recovery intensives in the mountains of Montana. geralblanchard@ yahoo.com and individualaddictiontreatment.com
4 / Issue 13
“I enjoy the variety of challenges and possibilities that come with different media. I enjoy the action of doing. When paddling out for a wave, building a chair, moving rocks in the garden, or building a sculpture of mortar, I am mentally immersed in doing. My watercolors offer loosely built images with a penchant for over coloring. When a painting brings joy I feel most successful.” DYLAN QUIGLEY lives in Alaska.
FRANCIS WELLER draws
from an extensive background in depth psychology, mythology, group work and indigenous traditions in his work as a community builder, writer, teacher and psychotherapist in Sonoma County, CA. He is the founder/director of WisdomBridge, an educational organization that seeks to synthesize the wisdom from traditional cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from Western spiritual, poetic and psychological perspectives. His book, A Trail on the Ground: Tracking the Ways of Our Indigenous Soul, will be completed soon. wisdombridge.net
RYAN HEFFERNAN is a
commercial and editorial photographer based out of San Francisco, California and Santa Fe, NM. His work is rooted in a passion for images that celebrate light, the human spirit and world cultures.
RYAN HEFFERNAN BY ANDREW BROOKS; GERAL BLANCHARD BY SARA MCMILLAN.
educator who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from Florida State University in 2001 and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2003. He runs the Scene Shop and teaches drawing and design for the School of Theater at California Institute of the Arts. He is represented by and exhibits at Blythe Projects in Culver City, CA.
LARRY LITTLEBIRD BY RYAN HEFFERNAN; BEN WHITE BY MACE FLEEGER; DYLAN QUIGLEY BY PETE KOSTAN; FRANCIS WELLER BY DAVID MOLL;
BEN WHITE is an artist and
editor’s note
OUR INDIGENOUS HEARTS
JENNIFER MEANS
EVERY PERSON IS BORN WITH
an indigenous heart, a heart that beats in the rhythm of the world. That heart pumps the life blood through the body. The blood carries the mineral wealth of the sea. This rhythm is life. Every person is born with an indigenous heart that beats with the emotions of its experience in the world. Just as the sea rages in storms and rolls in fair breezes, so the heart rages and rolls with anger, fear, love, grief, sympathy, calmness and joy. Even though we often try to suppress that flow of emotions—just as we try to ignore the motion and emotion of the world around us, pretending that we are somehow separate from its aliveness—we cannot thrive without emotional expression. So, in the myth of our isolation from each other and the world, from our own experience, many hearts are broken. This is not so often a catastrophe of failed love, which opens the heart in its cracking, but rather an inability to express the ecstatic experience of our lives in this realm. Living as we are in a culture where happiness is the only permissible expression, we suppress the range of our experience until we become smiling zombies silently plodding through the motions of
existence. So happiness, in this world of separateness, is very hard to find and, by its nature, fleeting and failing. But the indigenous heart wants to sing in the harmony of the world, expressing the assonance and dissonance of being. The indigenous heart wants to be present, to blow in the wind and pour in the rain, to sprout from the soil and shine in the sun. We want to grow full and bear fruit, to fall and be embraced, to rest. If we can open our hearts by quieting our minds—our minds that are convinced of our isolation and ruled by fear—if we can hear again the voice of our indigenous heart, the world takes on a fullness and flow. In this flow where we recognize our unbreakable connection to the world around us, we see life unfolding in rich, though often difficult and uncomfortable beauty. So a baby is born into the world and coos and cries and sleeps, living entirely in the moment. So a child toddles into the ever-expanding presence of the world. So a teenager discovers his capacities and incapacities and finds his tribes of friends and enemies. So a young woman discovers the difficulties and joys of her ripening body. So a
man finds his purpose and place within his community and engages in his work. So a woman gives birth and cuddles her baby and feeds him. So we age and begin to understand what it is to be alive in the singing world. And if we’re lucky, we give that wisdom— which is the wisdom of our people—to the infant and young child through our stories and our songs. We put our hands on the shoulders of the adolescent and comfort him. We encourage the young woman and guide the young man. We embrace the new mother in her worry and her joy. We recognize the mature adult. We do our work and sit joyfully with our friends. So we engage in the slow dance towards our deaths. We look towards that doorway and find our ancestors and friends who have gone before us, calling to us, welcoming us to the land of the dead. This is the cycle we are born into, this rich and intricate world full of color and darkness, sound and silence, warmth and cold, scents and odors, softness and hardness, hunger and fullness—so many flavors. It is a world of flowing emotions, of reception and expression. We are called to experience the fullness of the
world alive, of our bodies alive in time and space. We belong to this place and are inseparable from the people around us, from the plants and animals who feed and heal and shelter us, from the land that holds us, from the wind that gives us breath, from the sunlight and rain that blesses us. This is why we gather around the fire to tell our stories and sing our songs. These are the songs of the earth itself, given rhythm by the ever-changing rhythms of our hearts. It is still possible to find this rhythm, for the indigenous heart beats in us always. The secret, which is no secret at all, is to quiet down, to let go of fear, to listen to our hearts which belong to the world, to let our emotions flow. —Jonathan Merritt SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 5
flares FROM OUR READERS
ADDING DIMENSION, I just finished reading your latest issue (#12) and would like to make a few comments. I found the article, “The Ways We Die” by Prema Sheerin of interest and would like to add a “Native/Haida” perspective to the discussion. From my point of view non-Native People are caught up in killing but terrified of death. They have generally never experienced it. In our communities, everyone views the body, children included, unless the body is in a condition that is not for viewing. In rural areas, the coffin sits in the home of the deceased for friends and relatives to view. In urban areas the people get together and get a hall where the body can be viewed. The children are brought to the memorial, viewings, funerals and Headstone Movings. In “It’s Not a Calling. It’s in My Blood” by Deena Wade I was very taken with Curandera Eda Zavala’s statement “I suppose I didn’t have any kind of initiation because it was just a part of my childhood, very natural, not like a ceremony.” My training was very much the same; they started me when I was about 3 years old, and at no time was there ever a “ceremony” initiating me into the role of “History Keeper.” It was simply a part of my childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Now I am a grandfather it is still just a natural part of my life. The article loses me a bit when Eda is quoted as saying, “...encouraging pride and honor in their traditions...” Such an idea was never a part of my training. I am simply the vessel the Old Ones filled with the knowledge 6 / Issue 13
KAWAN SANGAA
LATE TO WORK, Alas, I was late in getting to my desk this morning. I try to be very disciplined in giving my employer his appropriate “pound of flesh” each day. But this morning I was late. “Why?” you might ask. Because the crossword puzzle was just too easy and I still had a few minutes to ease into the day. Because Sacred Fire magazine was in very close proximity to my morning coffee cup. So, I just casually opened it up to see what showed itself and there was your interview with Kent Nerburn. I, too, was touched by Wolf at Twilight. And now I am touched by the interview. What came out of this was the thought that even though Mr. Nerburn does not see himself as a spiritual teacher, his books say different. Is there room at the Interspiritual Conference for someone like this? Someone who could sit around the fire with those interested and just talk? Ask questions? Connect with that unseen force that has brought so many people to seek out someone to show them the way? Hmm…
Vancouver, BC, Canada
TRISH BIELSKY Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Peruvian curandera Eda Zavala preserves the traditional wisdom of her people and nurtures the lineage of women healers. BY DEENA WADE ILLUSTRATION BY MACE FLEEGER
28 / Issue 12
passed to them for me to pass on to the others. Cultural Imperatives are simply the guidelines for living harmoniously with ourselves, with our neighbors and with all of our Relatives. My third comment has to do with a statement made by Deena Wade. “The word ‘shaman’ is believed to derive from the Turkic language of Siberia, brought to the New World by reindeer hunters during the last Ice Age.” I understand the word comes from the Evenk people of the Yakutsk region of Siberia and was brought to the Americas by the Russians. In all of my travels and meetings with the various peoples of the Western Hemisphere, including the Pacific Islands, I have not yet encountered any indigenous people who have a person called a “shaman.” As peoples were brought into being, each was put on a land that looked like them. They were given a language that sounds like the land, describes that land and all the beings of that land. Thus, every land has its own power. We were given ceremonies with which we could maintain the harmony of the beings with that land. The
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 29
people entrusted with those ceremonial ways have a name that attaches to that land. So, in Haida country we have Sgaagaa who are entrusted with that knowledge. It causes disharmony with the power that is that land if you call that person by the wrong name. Please do not take my comments as criticisms. I am simply attempting to add another dimension to the discussion, and I thank the writers of the articles for the work they have done. Haw’aa, HAIDA ELDER
ISSUES of ULTIMATE CONCERN
As a child, author Kent Nerburn began walking a path of compassion with reluctant mystics, A CONVERSATION WITH KENT NERBURN native spirituality and the power of ordinariness. BY SHARON BROWN | ILLUSTRATION BY MACE FLEEGER
first learned of Kent Nerburn when I came across a small book called The Wisdom of the Native Americans (New World Library, 1999). I was struck by the simplicity of the book which contains quotes and stories from a variety of native elders from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are beautiful philosophies for living and an incredible amount of heart in the book. His name stuck with me, and when I found his new book The Wolf at Twilight, I was impressed by his integrity and honesty in presenting the experience of native elders today. The book is not romanticized or sentimental. It tells an inspiring story in a sometimes raw way. I knew I had to meet him. The publisher of his book put us in contact, and we arranged an interview over the phone. I was surprised by the person I got to know. I had expected a “wise man,” but Kent presents himself simply as an empty vessel, what one might expect from a Buddhist monk or a shamanic healer— though he is neither of these. He exists so that he can be filled and so that he can pour stories out of himself. We spoke for nearly two hours and the following is taken from our conversation. Sacred Fire: As a child were you always drawn to things of world and spiritual perspective, or was this something that came to you later in life? How did you become you?
Nerburn: One of the pivotal events in my life was my dad’s job, director of disaster services. His job was to go out and offer comfort and help to people whose houses had burned down, or sometimes there would be a drowning in the lake in the middle of the night. And I’d go along with him. I’d be in my little suburban house, and I’d gone to bed worrying about whether or not my hair was cool, or whether some girl might like me, or whether the teacher was going to be nice to me the next day. And in the middle of the night my dad would come in and say, “There’s a four-alarm up on the north side, you want to go?” and I’d jump out of the bed in the dark, and we’d go to usually some scene of tragedy and horror. He’d say, “I’m going to bring the people in the car and I want you to sit with them and talk to them.” And sometimes they might have lost a family member. Or there’d be something as simple as an old lady who lived by herself, and her cat had gotten caught in the fire, and she was inconsolable, and the fireman would say, “There is nothing we can do—we’re not going back in to get a cat.” 50 / Issue 12
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 51
Sacred Fire The Heart of the Living World
We appreciate your suggestion! We invited Kent to be our special guest at Ancient Wisdom Rising (formerly known as the Interspiritual Conference) but, just before we went to press, he had to cancel. Please join us May 19-22, 2011 in Port Townsend, WA. for Ancient Wisdom Rising. Presented by Sacred Fire Foundation and Sacred Fire magazine, this event brings people together with traditional indigenous wisdom keepers to experience a world alive with spirit. ancientwisdomrising.com
CONTENT! BEAUTY!
I do greatly appreciate receiving the magazine, not only for the content of the articles, but also for the beauty of the layout and images. Love, MARSHA TUTTLE Hillsborough, NC, USA
LOST LAND/LOST IDENTITY Speaking from her heart, Eda Zavala laments the degradation that is ripping the spiritual fabric of the rain forest.
BY JEFF BAKER
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BRASIL2
I do not recall ever being so profoundly moved. We stand in silence in a circle of about fifty, watching the gentle fire whispering its magic. Such a distance from her Peruvian home, the medicine woman faces the fire. Long, jet black hair resting on her white dress, she kneels at her colorful blanket altar, singing her song to the Gods and sacred beings of the Eastern realm, working the feathers in her right hand in purposeful and meaningful gestures—a meaning that is beyond my thinking mind but very clear at some very deep level. The song is lilting. It floats around the fire and our ears like a butterfly, lighting on this one, brushing by that one, soaring impossibly high and floating back to the hearth as if caught by a current of mystery that is emanating from her, coming through her. There is at once unbearable sadness and uncontainable joy. And when at last the song has been offered to the East, still kneeling, she spreads her arms like wings, flower water in her right hand, the eagle, hawk and condor feathers in her left, symbolizing the unity of different peoples. Eyes closed, she bows forward until her forehead touches the ground in front of the fire. With the smoke rising from the gentle fire, it looks as if a beautiful black and white eagle has come to make offerings. It is both striking and humbling. It is complete. Something is happening that both involves this gathering and goes beyond it, far beyond it. Perhaps, I think, the afternoon will allow this story to unfold. She arises slowly and deliberately and with solemn purpose and care walks around the fire to address the West. The same intense focus—the same lilting song with perhaps a few different words. The same complete demonstration of honoring and gratitude to the fire at the finish of the song. And then to the North and lastly to the South. “You may as well put away your pens and paper,” she tells us in her very brief introduction, “because I do not speak with word as much as I speak from Heart.” Now what she means by her words is becoming clear. When she finishes with her invocation to the directions and to the ancestors, she goes from one person to the next around the circle, connecting with her eyes, a few quiet words, her heart until that too is complete. Eda Zavala Lopez was born in Sierra Centra, a small village to the north of Lima, Peru. She came from a lineage of medicine women or curanderas on her mother’s side that went back to the Wari, a peoples displaced centuries ago by the Incas. As an anthropologist, Eda worked with many remote tribes and villages and came to know the ancient medicine from these people, her ancestral family. She had been invited to this gathering in New York’s Catskill Mountains to speak about the use of plants for healing the physical and spiritual body. Some would refer to this type of work as shamanic; however, Eda does not use the term for good reason. “Well,” she admits “I don’t like that, especially right now. When you look at the internet and look for ‘shamanism,’ there are thousands of agencies and shamans who offer their services in the name of sacred medicine.” When Eda describes these groups that visit her village she uses the term “eco-tourism” and “shamanic tours.” She says these self-appointed shamans or spiritual guides “take a group of
32 / Issue 12
GETTING IT RIGHT, Dear Reader, I would like to correct a few things that I did not get quite right in the article “Lost Land / Lost Identity” (Sacred Fire #12). The police shootings in June 2009 resulted in the deaths of 20 or more indigenous protesters. However, I should have referred to them as “leaders” rather than “elders” as the casualties included men and women, both young and old. Eda was born in Sierra Centra, to the east of Lima, not Sierra Central. Some of the spiritual “guides” or charlatans who take people
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 33
to visit traditional healers in the Amazon get up to $1300 usd per participant, not 1300 pesos or $105 usd. And often they pay nothing to the true healers they visit. I also want to clarify that Eda’s frustration with the UN has to do with the excessive bureaucracy and red tape. This was very clear during our talk. Eda Zavala is completely committed to serve as a representative for her people at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). JEFF BAKER Asheville, NC, USA
Does Sacred Fire warm your heart or singe your sensibilities? Can you add a log to the flame we’ve kindled? Send letters to the editor at editor@sacredfiremagazine.com.
Issue Number Thirteen
sacredfiremagazine.com
PUBLISHER SHARON BROWN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JONATHAN MERRITT CREATIVE DIRECTOR MACE FLEEGER MANAGING EDITOR KATHARINE DANCING HEART GREGG MARKETING DIRECTOR ROBIN RAINBOW GATE CONTRIBUTING EDITOR CHRIS SCHLAKE SUBMISSIONS MANAGER STEPHEN MICHAEL SCOTT EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR JAN LEENHOUTS-MARTIN FREELANCE COPY EDITOR AND PROOFREADER LYSSA FASSETT PHOTO EDITOR ROBIN RAINBOW GATE SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER KATHY AFTAB SUBSCRIPTION COORDINATOR MARILYN BERTA DISTRIBUTION MANAGER JAN LEENHOUTS-MARTIN ADVERTISING SALES LYN FELLING, ROBIN RAINBOW GATE I.T. & WEB MASTER DAN CERNESE
THANK YOU! JOSHUA COWAN, PAUL NOLAN, DAVID THIERMANN, YOLANDA CORONA AND OF COURSE, GRANDFATHER FIRE
Letters We encourage readers to share their reactions to Sacred Fire by sending emails to editor@sacredfiremagazine.com or letters to 10720 NW Lost Park Dr., Portland, OR 97229. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length and clarity. Submissions We accept queries and unsolicited submissions of writing and illustration. See sacredfiremagazine.com for guidelines. Email editorial inquiries to submissions@sacredfiremagazine.com and illustration inquiries to artsubmissions@sacredfiremagazine.com. Advertising Inquiries For an ad sales media kit, visit sacredfiremagazine.com/the magazine/advertising sales or email advertising@sacredfiremagazine.com. Change of Address or Other Subscription Inquiries Email subscriptions@ sacredfiremagazine.com and include both your old and new address. Please allow 6 weeks for address change to take effect. Subscriptions In the United States: Four issues: $28, in Canada, $38, all other countries, $48 (all amounts in USD). Subscribe online at sacredfiremagazine.com Single Copy Sales Bookstore sales in the United States: $7.95, Canada $9.95. Order single copies and back issues online at sacredfiremagazine.com, $10 includes shipping within the U.S. Distribution Services Sacred Fire is available to newsstands in the U.S. and Canada through Ubiquity, Armadillo, Kent News, New Leaf, One Source, Ingram, Source Interlink and Disticor Direct. Postmaster Please send address changes to: P.O. Box 7284, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-7284. Reproduction No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Any requests to reprint material appearing in Sacred Fire magazine must be made in writing and sent to publisher@sacredfiremagazine.com. PUBLISHED BY SACRED FIRE FOUNDATION, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that supports initiatives that honor and sustain traditional wisdom and indigenous spiritual approaches, because these ancestral lifeways foster global balance and healing. Through its educational and charitable activities, the Foundation supports the sources of ancestral wisdom and brings this wisdom to the world.
SACRED FIRE FOUNDATION sacredfirefoundation.org 71 N. Main Street P.O. Box 270 Liberty, NY 12754
Board of Trustees CHAIRMAN DAVID WILEY TRUSTEES ALAN KERNER, ARTEMIA FABRE TREASURER AND ADMINISTRATION DIR. NANCY EOS EXEC. DIR. DEVELOPMENT WILL BERLINER EXEC. DIR. PARTNERS AND GRANTS SOFIA ARROYO EXEC. DIR. COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION SHARON BROWN SECRETARY VICTORIA REEVES The opinions expressed by Sacred Fire contributors are not necessarily those of Sacred Fire magazine, the Sacred Fire Foundation, the Sacred Fire Community, and/or their respective staffs.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 7
publisher’s note
ALASKAN MICROCOSM camping in Alaska. Without any prior backpacking experience, she’d chosen a college program that included hiking glaciers for weeks at a time, living in close proximity to moose and bear, and vaulting four-foot crevasses with a 60-pound pack in tow. When she got some pre-trip jitters, I asked her why she’d made the decision to go in the first place. She said it was to face her fear. As we stand at the dawning of 2011, many of us have some pre-trip jitters. What, we wonder, is coming? Do we have the courage to face our fear? In some small way the stories my daughter brought home might shed light on what’s needed at this time. STORY 1 “I thought I had no real
interest in living in community, but after being there my heart craves it.” Prior to her trip, my daughter had an intellectual concept about what it meant to be part of a community. She vaguely understood that it could be “good for you,” but it held no real appeal. It seemed inconvenient, perhaps even artificial or forced. What she found turned her expectation of lost privacy and too much closeness on its head. 8 / Issue 13
Full days spent preparing food, fire, water, shelter and sanitation created swift bonding. The close proximity meant everyone knew everybody’s business; there was nowhere to hide. When someone was troubled they could not sulk off to their room and shut the door; they could not rush to fill themselves with fantastic diversions. Instead, everyone was there for each other. People called each other on their stuff; people supported and comforted and teased and fought with each other, and the group endured and grew stronger. More and more, my daughter discovered that close, personal, messy community brought an emotional warmth and depth of relationship she’d never felt before. And her community was more than just the people gathered together. She was very clear in knowing that the landscape dictated the experience and was itself a member of the group.
STORY 2 “Living without a mir-
ror I could see myself for the first time.” It took a while for my daughter to feel some of the subtle shifts in self-perception that occurred as she spent week after week away from her normal routine. But when she got home, the effect was undeniable. One of the first things she did was to remove the mirrors from her closet dresser. She wanted to retain the self-awareness she’d gained during months spent without seeing her own reflection. Without a mirror she’d lived her life from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. Instead of relating to people from an external awareness of herself as an individual, she began to see herself reflected in the actions and expressions of the group. It was that reflection that mattered most. STORY 3 “In nature it’s way
more convenient to save resources rather than waste them.” In industrial societies, life is based on convenience. In our paper-or-plastic world it is actually quite inconvenient to turn off a water tap, to recycle, to walk instead of drive.
CHLOE BROWN
But in the wilds of Alaska just the opposite is true. It’s much more convenient to conserve water when you have to haul it in buckets 250 feet uphill from the creek, pour it into a 50 gallon drum, chop and carry wood for a fire, then stoke the flames for 45 minutes to heat the water for a shower. Who’d want to waste that water, that wood, that energy? In this issue of Sacred Fire, Pueblo Indian Larry Littlebird speaks with quiet fire about how people in industrial countries have disconnected from the sacred essence and adventure of life. He says that among those who keep the traditional ways, “the action has always been to simplify your life so your spirit can teach you how to live.” I think my daughter would agree. —Sharon Brown
THIS PAGE: TREVOR WILLITS. OPPOSITE: COURTESY OF RED FEATHER DEVELOPMENT GROUP
My daughter recently returned from two months spent
SACRED FIRE
Building Homes & Relationships Red Feather Development Group responds to homelessness on Native American reservations.
EVEN IN THE COUNTRY of the rugged individualist,
the indomitable spirit of community continues to spring up. For one man it was sparked by a newspaper report about several tribal elders on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota who froze to death due to substandard housing. After joining a group of inspired friends to build a home for a single Pine Ridge elder, Robert Young, a Seattle-based clothing manufacturer, asked himself whether the world needed more T-shirts or more housing. Confronted with the reality of 300,000 homeless people residing on American reservations, his answer eventually involved selling his high-end
To learn more or, better yet, build a straw-bale home and gain skills in community building, visit Red Feather at redfeather.org.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 9
Laura Whitney, President of the Ojai Foundation, embodies a glacier and speaks its grief.
10 / Issue 13
The Council of All Beings
Ritually working with emotions, participants identify with and give voice to the natural world.
While environmentalism has changed the way the industrialized world thinks about nature, its impacts on culture-asusual have been strikingly limited—largely because it simply rearranges the wrench set on the pegboard. If our problem is thinking the world instead of feeling it, more thinking won’t rekindle the romance. Thankfully, however, the Green Wave is not all state-of-the-world progress reports or theories of post-human economics. The Council of All Beings was created to address the deep-seated, sociallyconditioned sense of alienation from the living Earth. It acts as a series of impactful rituals enabling participants to encounter a deep and leafy ecology with more than just their one-track minds. Experience turns out to be a better aphrodisiac than thought. Created in the ‘80s by Australian rain forest activist John Seed (known as the “town crier of the global village”) and Buddhist scholar/activist Joanna Macy, the Council supports participants to ritually move from grief to remembrance and, finally, to identity with the natural world. A Council of All Beings arises from this work and gives voice to the usually unheard plants, animals and other natural beings. It invites and allows them to speak for themselves. To keep up with John Seed and follow how the rain forest continues to move him to act, go to rainforestinfo.org.au. For the latest on Joanna Macy, including her “experiential deep ecology” The Work That Reconnects, leave your shoes at the door and enter at joannamacy.net. —C.S.
FROM LEFT: 1&2 COURTESY RED FEATHER DEVELOPMENT GROUP; THE OJAI FOUNDATION.
From Top: Ernie Nahnacassia, a Hopi volunteer, Bacavi, AZ, September, 2009. Bale walls and roof are up, Northern Cheyenne Reservation, June 2010.
resort–wear business and founding the Red Feather Development Group. Red Feather teaches straw-bale home construction, promotes cross-cultural collaboration and taps local ingenuity and resolve. Much like Habitat for Humanity, labor and some material is donated. Homeowners are responsible for the remaining costs. They are required to contribute sweat equity to their new homes and to one other within the community. At the heart of it all is a calling heard around the country to serve disadvantaged but resourceful Native families. Drawing people from all walks of life, Red Feather assembles crews of volunteers—many donating their scarce vacation hours—to partner with local residents ostensibly to build homes. Just as prevalent, however, is the building of unexpected connections and the weaving of community from disparate threads. For one volunteer witnessing the shared “underlying joy of giving” among his highly diverse cohort of fellow builders was “one of the most extraordinary experiences” of his life. Red Feather currently partners with the Hopi in Arizona and the Northern Cheyenne in Montana to build homes each year, to expand Red Feather programs and to help create tribally run programs. A nonprofit Hopi group, Kii Nat Wan Lala (building homes through continual life sustaining practices), is being established with Red Feather’s support. For the last two years Hopi community members have filled leadership positions on Red Feather building projects to gain experience in project and volunteer management. —Chris Schlake
Blessing Mountains in the Snow
Prayers offered to melting snow flow to the benefit of all beings.
Left: Prema Mayi offers sacred water from India. Below: The peak of Mt. Ashland.
FROM LEFT: TEYA JACOBI; LISA WIDNER.
In Southern Oregon, people from all walks of life agree that sometimes the Sacred is shaped like a mountain. Held in early spring after the ski runs close on Mt. Ashland, the ceremony known as “Blessing Mount Ashland” consists of spoken and musical prayers of gratitude that are offered to the high alpine snows, creating a “blanket of blessings” that flow through the whole of the water cycle and reach all beings. By calling people to prayer in a beautiful wild place, Blessing Mountains in the Snow hopes to open us to our deep, fundamental connection with our planet. “We are cells in Earth’s body,” declares Bobcat (Robert Brothers, PhD), the founder of Blessing Mountains in the Snow and its parent organization, Earth Devotion Support. “When our body gets an injury, energy is sent
to the cells who can help. Gaia is now giving energy to those of us who are helping.” Drawing from Dr. Masaru Emoto’s work that shows water can hold blessings, Bobcat says, “Touching the snow, we spread the blessings through the snowmelt to the whole mountain and to all beings everywhere. At the same time, we feel gratitude from the mountain and receive energy to return to our daily lives stronger, clearer, and more empowered to take an active part in the healing of our planet.” The ceremony offered by Blessing Mountains in the Snow can be done on any mountain. It is a multi-cultural ceremony that transcends all politics in order to bring healing to the Earth and to strengthen those who are engaged in that healing. For more information go to BlessingMountainsintheSnow.org and EarthDevotion.org. —C.S.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 11
Santa’s Gone Wild
The venerable Christmas visitor carries an ancient shamanic lineage along with his bag.
“The Last of the Wild Men” By Ben White
12 / Issue 13
While Christians celebrate the birth of their Savior and consumers seek salvation by cash, check or credit, the icon of the season undoubtedly remains that hoary old elf Santa Claus himself. For the faithful, Jesus never goes out of style, but because Christmas is the only time of the year for him to appear, it’s Santa’s time to shine. Peel the wrapping paper from the veneer of Santa’s image, however, and you’ll find yourself on a sleigh ride back through time witnessing the twists and turns of a fascinating figure with a colorful— and surprising—personality. In popular belief the origins of today’s Santa are traced to Saint Nicholas, the 4th-century Greek Bishop of Myrna (modern-day Turkey) and patron saint of children revered for his generosity as a secret gift-giver and his power as a miracle worker. Dig a little deeper, however, and you might find family roots far less genteel. One entertaining place to start is with Phyllis Siefker’s Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co, 1997), which finds in Santa’s ancestry one or more earthy Norse gods, including Odin and his son Thor. While both were winter-night, sky-flying, long-whitebearded dwellers of the North, Thor especially was portrayed as cheerful, elderly and stout. He was said to come down the chimney into his element, the fire. Odin was famous for his eightlegged horse, Sleipnir, and during Yuletide, says the author, pagan kids would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw or sugar for Sleipnir, next to the chimney. (And remember, Santa originally had eight reindeer.) In return, Odin—known to reward good kids and punish the naughty—would fill their boots with gifts and candy during the night. After peeling away much of his modern persona, Siefker ultimately sees in Santa an American incarnation of an ancient, pan-European fertility deity. A dark, sooty, hair-covered “Wild Man,” he is perceived “as a priest to some, a god to others, and the personification of evil to still others.” The premise of the book, in fact, is that this archaic Wild Man is the father of Santa and Satan alike. Chew on that awhile, Mr. O’Reilly! This same Wild Man apparently made quite an impression on artist Jeffrey Vallance who, upon arriving to accept a three-year professorship in northern Sweden, found himself “puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the Wild Man—a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club.” One day while romping through the backwoods, he
FROMTOP: COURTESY BRAD WARNER; NATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHIVES, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
stumbled upon “a colossal statue of the Wild Man painted bright red and with a snowy white beard.” After his outback epiphany that Santa, the Wild Man, and Snomannen (a sort-of Swedish Bigfoot) must all spring from the same source, Vallance set about through the Land of Hoarfrost to prove his point. Interested readers can walk in his snowprints and follow his adventures via the L.A. Weekly (http://www.laweekly.com/2002-12-26/news/ santa-is-a-wildman/). Similar to Siefert, author Tony van Renterghem does a thorough background check of our jolly ol’ St. Nick and comes to a conclusion sure to delight fundamentalists and folklorists alike. He too tracks a dark, woolly, pan-tribal Wild Man into the hinterlands beyond recorded history, finding an archaic horned god he identifies as Herne—Spirit of the Great Hunt. In When Santa Was a Shaman: The Ancient Origins of Santa Claus and the Christmas Tree (St Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995), he discerns a line from Herne to Pan to Cernunnos to Odin and, finally, to the cult of St. Nicholas. Where Siefert sees the family tree diverging in two main branches, however, van Renterghem discerns a single, if somewhat motley trunk. For him, behind the sanitized and commercialized picture of shopping-mall manna we encounter today in Santa, there remains none other than “the ancient shamanic nature spirit of the Olde Religion.” Whether that assertion gives you the willies, lights your fire or simply makes you bellow “Ho Ho Ho!” you’re sure to be engaged with this tale. —C.S.
Winter Count
Hard Core Zen Power-chord meditations
Like your Dharma smoothed, groomed, and polished to slip seamlessly into your nice, cozy, bourgeois American life? Don’t look to Brad Warner. An ordained Zen priest, punk rock bass player, writer and filmmaker, Warner has earned a reputation among many as a wise, straighttalking street teacher who practices before he preaches. The vexing question for some is whether he’s the Beevis or the Butthead of American Buddhism. Not wanting his first book Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Warner writes, blogs, runs a weekly Zen Truth About Reality (Somerville, MA: class and leads day-long zazen retreats Wisdom Publications, 2003) to be somewhere near Santa Monica, CA. relegated to the Buddhist section of the hardcorezen.blogspot.com bookstore (and the “Buddha-nerd ghetto” it attracts), the book cover features a nondescript snapshot of... a toilet. Known affectionately to fans as “the toilet book,” its aim is to reach readers not likely, said one reviewer, “to catch Pema Chodren on the Oprah Winfrey Show.” Warner’s fast-and-loud, power-chord vocals rip along through a series of follow-ups including Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen’s Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2007), Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2009), and his latest, Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010). —C.S.
Lakota history on hides
TO THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE of the Great Plains—the Lakota—the first snowfall of
the season signaled the ending of one year and the beginning of the next. It also meant it was time for another entry into their recorded calendar known as waniyetu wowapi or “winter count.” Traditionally drawn on buffalo or deer hides, winter counts are composed of pictographs that depict a signature event representing a year in the life of a Lakota band, or tiyospaye. Organized in spirals or horizontal rows as a chronology of images (rather than numbers), a winter count served as a collective mnemonic device, spurring people’s memories and providing a guideline for the group’s oral historian. Previously only accessible to those who visited the Smithsonian Institute’s archives, these rich and illustrative symbolic histories are today available to Lakota and the general public worldwide through an interactive online exhibit (wintercounts.si.edu). Visitors can zoom in and view 16 different winter count images in minute detail and from multiple angles. The site also contains a documentary about Lakota culture and history, video interviews with people connected to the winter-count-keeping tradition and a well-executed teacher’s guide. —C.S.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 13
What music frees the voice and lets people embody divinity through sound?
14 / Issue 13
An African proverb says, “Birds sing not because they have answers but because they have songs.” To award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, and pioneer in sound healing Silvia Nakkach, the same could be said of humans. Through her international nonprofit the Vox Mundi Project (Voice of the Worlds), Nakkach shares her conviction that expressing the inherent musicality of the voice is a natural human need. Founded to teach and preserve the richness of indigenous musical traditions, the Project combines music, service and spiritual practice in a variety of offerings including music archives, performances, sound healing retreats and study abroad programs, plus highly experiential trainings throughout the USA, Europe, India, Argentina and Brazil.
Through its signature educational program, Yoga of the Voice, students learn the precise use of sacred sound as developed in Indian ragas and mantras, yogic practices of sound and movement, Afro-Brazilian ritual chants and indigenous healing songs. From music improvisation to voice development and tonal refining techniques, the teachings emphasize the inherent connection with ancient sources of devotional wisdom and mystical uses of sound. While helping students to discover which musical culture opens a personal doorway to free their voices, “the finest objective,” says Nakkach, “is to embody divinity through sound.” To learn more about the Vox Mundi Project through their articles, CDs, and program visit their website at voxmundiproject.com. —C.S.
MACE FLEEGER
Divine Singing
Quotable SACRED FIRE
Heart Medicine
According to Hawaiian wisdom, loss of natural connection causes heart disease. The never-ending proliferation of multisyllabic specialties and subspecialties within the field of modern medicine can give the impression that new knowledge is being produced faster than Apps for your cell phone. Techno-medicine today is just a scan (or grant) away—we’re encouraged to think—from the last frontier in human health. In proposing what he calls “contextual cardiology,” however, one clinical researcher suggested that what’s next in contemporary medicine is not new at all, but thousands of years old. Drawing from data in cardiac psychology, psychoneuroimmunology and the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology (that is, how interactions impact the nervous system), the late Dr. Paul Pearsall found confirmation of the ancient view of the heart. According to traditional Hawaiian wisdom, the heart (pu’uwai) lives not in isolation but in an oceanic field of relatedness. It can be fouled and hardened by behaviors that interfere with the natural flow of energy (mana), which springs from the center of our being (the na ‘au) and connects us with all things. Writing in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, Pearsall conveyed to his highly trained, cardiologist readers the ancient Hawaiian insight that heart health essentially exists not within people but between them. For Hawaiian kahunas (healers), the cardiovascular system is an irreducibly interpersonal one, “an interactive union of hearts and minds existing in lokahi, or infinite, loving, mutually dependent connection.” Treatment is not a matter of the individual alone but of diagnosing where disharmony or disconnection between hearts has occurred and then reestablishing loving connection. Try getting reimbursed for that at your HMO! —C.S.
BRETT UPRICHARD
Paul Ka’ikena Pearsall, PhD,(paulpearsall.com) was a clinical professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, frequent keynote speaker, awardwinning researcher and author of over 200 professional articles and 18 best-selling books, including The Last SelfHelp Book You’ll Ever Need: Repress Your Anger, Think Negatively, Be A Good Blamer, And Throttle Your Inner Child. New York: Basic Books, Perseus Book Group, 2006
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 15
LIGHT SITE
BY S T E V E B H A E R M A N
Swami can truly say he came from humble beginnings. His parents operated a Humble gas station just outside of Muskogee, Oklahoma. At a very early age, it became apparent that young Swami was different from the other children. You know how children quietly put their heads A humble prankster takes us on a down on the desk when they fall asleep in class? Well, verbal tour of the spiritual traditions Swami would float to the ceiling. His father realized he besetting America today. could not provide the spiritual training that his gifted young son needed, so he apprenticed him to the most Once in many, many lifetimes comes a being so evolved, so evolved spiritual teacher in Oklahoma, the Native American shaman Broken Wind. enlightened, so pure that the entire world is transformed. Broken Wind believed that we are traumatized as baUnfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyone like that bies by intestinal gas or colic. The great shaman invented a around these days. technique called “gastral projection” to help release these traumas. His philosophy was simple: “To air is human ... Fortunately, we do have Swami Beyondananda to help us but to really cut one loose is divine.” Young Swami was a maintain our jestive health in a world that has become less and mischievous boy who liked to play pranks on his teacher less funny. As the Swami says, “Indeed, the world is in a grave while the latter was meditating. Often he would sneak up state, and the best way to overcome gravity is with levity.” on Broken Wind from behind, grab him around the chest in a kind of Heimlich maneuver and squeeze as hard as he could. His good-natured teacher put up with this for a while. But one day, true to his name, he gastrally-projected his young charge across the room. Swami learned a valuable lesson that day: Don’t squeeze the shaman. Now, Swami grew up in a Methodist family (actually, his father was Methodist and his mother was Catholic, so technically, he was a Rhythm-Methodist) and as a young teenager he became quite taken with the opposite sects. He was very impressed when an Oklahoma swami who called himself the Yogi From Muskogee (Swami has since taken that title) came to his boy scout troop and taught him to tie himself into twelve different knots. Swami quickly embraced the path of the yogi and mastered many advanced techniques including levitation. Building on the gift for levity he was born with, Swami would often hover over the stands at his high school football games and moon the crowd. He was the only student in Muskogee history ever to get suspended for being suspended. But like many a young man before him who flew too high too soon, the Swami was headed for a fall. His accelerated path to yogihood hit a dead end when his kundalini exploded in a crowded department store. No one else was injured, but Swami caught an inflection which left him with a permanent East Indian accent. Now this was in the late 1960s, right in the midst of the Sects Revolution, and Swami began to explore all kinds of kinky sects. He studied with the guru of rock n’ roll, Baba Oom Mow Mow, who taught his own version of the Golden Rule: “Do wop unto others as you would have them do wop unto you.” A failed romance with a singer in one of Baba Oom Mow Mow’s girl groups left Swami in The alter(ed) ego of political sciheartbreak hotel, and that was how he came to Elvis. When Elvis appeared in a dream asking, entist-turned-high school teacher“Are you lonesome tonight?” Swami converted to Presleyterianism right on the spot. It was one turned-journalist Steve Bhaerman, the Swami, asserts that his path of those new lite religions popping up in those days—same satisfaction with one third the comis strictly “non-dominational” and mandments. For the prophet Elvis asks only three things of his flock: invites the faithful to visit him at his 1. Love Me Tender. website temple/revival tent and 2. Don’t Be Cruel. “join the upwising!” 3. Please Surrender. wakeuplaughing.com 16 / Issue 13
TRUDY BHAERMAN
The Yogi from Muskogee
MACE FLEEGER
And the King promises eternal life as well, for it is written that old Presleyterians never die: they just Return to Sender. But still, young Swami was spiritually restless, and he sought out wilder and wilder sects. The turning point came when he woke up one morning with a sugar hangover in a strange biker crash pad where the inhabitants wore saffron leather vests and reeked of incense. That was when he knew he’d hit bottom: he had come one thin ponytail away from becoming a Harley Krishna. That day the Swami swore off sects completely. Spirit was immaterial, he decided, and he now sought fulfillment by filling himself full of all the material goodies life could provide. He moved to New York to study with the renowned guru of the stock market, Yuan Tibet, who instructed him in the Dowist path. Swami became more and more dependent on the stock market prophet, buying soybean futures like there was no tamari. Suddenly, the price of soybeans plummeted (due, it was later revealed, to a rumor planted by an unscrupulous dairy-heir that tofu actually came from between the toes of Himalayan hikers). Swami frantically tried to call Yuan Tibet for his sage advice, but he could not be found. Tragically, there had been some prophet-taking on Wall Street: some-
body took him, and he was never heard from again. Swami’s fortunes fell just as the last slew of credit card bills arrived, and he found himself in the midst of a near-debt experience. He was a fiscal wreck. His whole world had come crashing down in one swell poop, and as is often the case, he sought meaning in the midst of tragedy. He stood in Central Park, shaking his fist at the sky and shouting, “What is the MEANING of this?” Well, then the most amazing thing happened. (For the complete account, you will have to read Swami’s new book, Duck Soup for the Soul.) But to make a long satori short, Swami was struck by enlightening during a brainstorm, his clown chakra opened, and now he sees funny. Since that time, Swami has traveled the world preaching FUNdamentalism—accent on Fun. He has become a well-known figure in the Humor Potential Movement, helping folks release jestive blockages such as irregularhilarity, irony deficiency, humorrhoids and, yes, even truth decay. While Swami has no followers per se (he says he gets paranoid when he thinks he’s being followed), he does train comic-kazis in the ancient Chinese path of Foo Ling. “To live in this world,” the Swami says, “you must be able to take a joke. And if you can leave a few as well, all the better.” SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 17
O U T O F T H E F R Y I N G PA N BY L A R RY M E S S E R M A N
expressed as the law of attraction. For the unenlightened, this all too frequently means that fears about a particular outcome attract that very experience into one’s life. For instance, those inclined to obsess about sharks might be better off choosing a well-chlorinated pool over swimming in the ocean. Not to mention staying Maybe there’s more to living a good life than thinking away from lawyers! good thoughts and using mind over matter. The Good News (and interestingly, many sources claim that this wisdom dates from the The Secret is the law of attraction! Everything that’s coming into time of Christ) is that if we let go of our fears and begin to your life you are attracting into your life… It’s what you’re thinking. affirm more positive thoughts, then we can also draw better Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you experiences into our lives. From this perspective, Divine wants Rhonda Byrne, The Secret nothing more than for us to be happy, and happiness means getting what we want. Spiritual practice is really just about good mental hygiene. IT BEGAN WITH PARKING SPACES. Using my newly-discovered While most people might hesitate to embrace the idea that power of manifestation, I would visualize an ideal parking their thoughts are the source of every personal experience space as my battered brown Honda Civic station wagon put- (what of those horrible high school years, the string of divorctered to the California campus where I was a graduate student. es, the IRS audit, the traffic accidents, etc?), there is nonetheMore often than not, I succeeded! Instead of walking for what less a widespread faith that collectively, and with the benefit of seemed like miles, I had a short jaunt from my car to my first science and technology, we humans can create the future we class. Even so, I was often late. desire. From this standpoint, the law of attraction is merely an Things really started to go amiss when I met Jessica and a dif- extreme expression of much more pervasive modern, Western ferent kind of law of attraction took hold. At first, the manifes- assumptions about mind, free will and individual expression. tation machine seemed to be working just fine. Passion and projection made it easy to imagine a bright, comfortable future together—she, a Dean of Students at some prestigious university, and me, a high-powered professor and consultant in organizational development. Maybe we’d squeeze a kid or two into the picture too. But then it got more complicated. As our relationship deepened, we discovered that we were extremely good at pushing each other’s It is not a very big jump from Descartes’ “I think, therefore I buttons. In a way that no one would consciously hope to mani- am” to the New Age motto “I am what I think.” fest, but all good couples manage to do, we set about the business Certainly our thoughts do color our experience. If—like of showing one another where we needed to grow. Thomas Hobbes—you see life as “nasty, brutish and short,” then Sometimes I would nostalgically slip into visualizing an ideal- you should not be surprised that the few friends you have are a ized future without all of the messy entanglements of, well, a se- rather glum lot. And there will be plenty of other bits of evidence rious relationship. But there was really no turning back. Once I to confirm your expectations: death, taxes, old Jerry Lewis movstepped into the give and take of true commitment with Jessica, I ies, etc. But is “mind over matter” all that really matters? felt like I had less control over my life. For both of us, old skeletons Paradoxically, the more we try to control/program/manifrom our emotional closet began to emerge. We began a medita- fest in our lives en masse or individually, the more we seem tion practice to seek healing for our wounds. Laboring through to careen off in unexpected directions. As I tried to master our graduate studies became more difficult as our interests turned my own universe, this took the form of a kind of slow-burninward. After investing years of effort and countless thousands of ing spiritual crisis. Just as I got the hang of manifesting good dollars, we no longer even knew what future to affirm. And, judg- parking spaces, just as I became a graduate student in the ing by the harried looks of those professors that were supposed to citadel of the mind where unlimited possibilities of intellect serve as our role models, we began to suspect that our visualized are most celebrated, things began to break down. future in academia wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. As I mentioned, beginning a serious, committed relationA cornerstone of New Age thinking is that our thoughts ship with Jessica was the first challenge to my grand plans. create our experience. Sometimes this metaphysical rule is At about the same time, I suffered a further setback: In the
The Law of Subtraction
18 / Issue 13
FROM LEFT: ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BERNHARD WEBER; DON O’BRIEN.
Lawrence Messerman and his partner, Jessica de la O, are stumbling through the Great Mystery and keeping a fire together in Bend, OR. Larry is also a Huichol marakame, or initiated shamanic healer. He serves as CoExecutive Director of the Sacred Fire Community.
middle of a long run along the beach one day, I found myself stricken by what seemed to be a mild fever—a literal slow burn. Suddenly I found it hard to walk, let alone run. These symptoms were eventually diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and would continue to plague me for many years. Being less mobile, I found myself also facing depression and insomnia. For an overachiever trying to attract a vibrant, positive future, this was a clear sign that I was becoming more Hobbesian than MacLainesean (as in, “’Shirley’ you can manifest better!”). Or was it? In retrospect, it is easy to see how a wisdom far beyond the capability of my poor, addled brain was beginning to play out. Through a series of synchronicities I eventually stumbled upon Eliot Cowan and Plant Spirit Medicine. As I struggled to overcome fatigue and depression in order to complete my dissertation, Eliot helped me to see how creating our own reality was really the source of great suffering. Trying to impose our agendas on the world—as opposed to aligning ourselves with the agenda the world has for us—is precisely why modern life is so out of balance. In the “Old Age,” our ancestors were much more humble about their role in the web of creation. Instead of using their minds to try to create their own reality, they did their utmost to listen and live according to the reality of far wiser beings—what we would call the gods. The result was that they lived in relative harmony and balance for many thousands of years.
Eliot became my mentor and role model for a life of surrender. That is a long story in itself. But suffice it to say that I found myself pulled along by ancient forces that have the wherewithal to create not only my reality, but an unfathomable universe that includes countless beings in many dimensions. That led to my becoming an apprentice to be a Huichol shaman. Jessica also discovered her spiritual calling, and together, we were drawn up into a greater community that is helping Western people reconnect with the wisdom of the gods and the ancestors. Not quite in line with Hobbes (fatalism) or MacLaine (New Age optimism), surrendering to heart wisdom is about moving in alignment with the world. Yes, I do still hope to find a convenient parking space as I go about my day. Having goals and expectations is part and parcel of being human. But I don’t always get what (I thought) I wanted: sometimes the parking space is far away from my destination. When I make plans, but still deeply accept whatever is before me, I find unexpected gifts along the way: an opportunity to connect with the trees perhaps,or a chance encounter with someone who has something important to tell me. The trick is to learn to let go of the plans and expectations when our experience takes us elsewhere. This is the law of subtraction: the less we struggle to impose our own reality on the great tapestry of being, the more joyful we become. That is the path of Fire and Heart. SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 19
LO G S F O R T H E F I R E BY J E N N I F E R M E A N S
Dancing With the Wisdom Keepers
Chief Oren Lyons says about the geese. These geese have been circling over our heads and honk while we make offerings of tobacco, chocolate, copal and wood to the fire. Now they have landed in the grass behind him. “These geese, they know why you are here.” Chief Lyons is a Faith Keeper of the Turtle Clan from the Onondaga and Seneca Nations. He speaks to us about the land that we are on. The roads are the original roads of the Onondaga, his people. He speaks of living for community. He tells of building consensus in the Council of Elders, how leaders need to be great visionaries, looking far into the future at the welfare of the children’s, children’s children. He speaks of the selfishness of the American/European culture, how it breeds separateness, fear and greed. I am struck by his honesty and humor, by his sense of pride and courage, which seems less about ego and more about heart. We are at the Sacred Fire Community’s first Interspiritual Conference in June, 2007 at Silver Bay, NY on the shores of Lake George. There is a mystical quality here—the lake enshrouded by a thick mist, the waters a deep purple-blue-green in the late afternoon light, the spring air warm and humid. Wisdom Keepers from many traditions are gathered here. They have come to teach us, to help us connect to the greater beingness of the world. For as long as I can remember, I have longed for that connection, for a sense that life was more than just eating, drinkJennifer Means is a ing, playing, school, work, sleep and sex. member of the 2011 As a young girl I spent hours in the forest Ancient Wisdom Rising/ looking for openings into other worlds, Interspiritual Conference organizational team. She listening, longing and praying for somelives is Portland, OR with thing that I could never quite reach. It her husband and two was as if the world was teeming with conchildren. “THEY ARE LISTENING, THEY KNOW,”
20 / Issue 13
nection and meaning and I was trapped in a glass box—seeing it but somehow separate. I was not born into any tradition. I have had no relationship with the traditional wisdom of my ancestral tribes. I grew up a hippie, a nomadic mutt—without home, without tradition, without elders to teach me. But somehow, slowly over time, through prayers and hardships and searching, with help from the Divine, I have found a path toward connection. It is not something that I can create by myself. It requires ceremony, ritual, tradition—and people who belong to tradition, initiated elders who know how to engage with the world. At the conference Malidome Somé leads us in singing a song to call in the spirit. We start off a little shy, but he beats the drum faster, and the words move more quickly and our voices start to lift and get clearer, and soon my heart sings out. Malidome is a Dagara sangoma from Burkina Faso. He was taken from his people as a boy and raised by missionaries. He tells us of his journey, of his abuse at the hands of the Jesuits, his struggle to return to his village, bereft of his language, where only his mother recognized him, his need to learn the ways of his people so that his wounds could be healed. I am moved to tears by his story. He says that modern illness is due to the lack of ritual, that “without ritual humans live in nostalgia.” He teaches us that in the Dagara tradition everyone is born with a gift and that gift has a life of its own. It is our responsibility to find our gift and use it. If you don’t listen to your gift, it will make you sick. Later that day, in the rain under the fire tent, Lei’ohu Rider, a Hawaiian Kahuna, blows her breath onto taro leaves and sends a prayer to the land and blesses it. Thunder claps in response and the rain sings on the roof of the tent and out on the lake. As Lei’ohu sings and Madine, her partner, dances the hula, I remember the scent of the island of Kauai where my husband and I were first in love. It is the only place where I have ever felt a sense of “home.” For years after I moved to Oregon I used to lie on the warm pavement and close my eyes and pretend that the
FROM LEFT: JONATHAN MERRITT; REMAINING PHOTOS © KATE BALDWIN.
On the ancient homelands of the Onondaga wise elders from many traditions lead people to connect with the greater beingness of the world.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Sangoma Colin Campbell tells a story. THIS PAGE FROM LEFT: Kahuna Lei’ohu Ryder sings while her partner, Madine,
offers blessings; Jennifer Means receives sacred water from Madine; Goshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche addresses the audience.
traffic outside the fence was the song of the ocean. And now here, by Lake George, in the song of the warm rain, I feel the presence of the islands around me. The first notes send me back to a place that is home, filled with magic and meaning. And the tears come. There are other great elders here as well—Colin and Niall Campbell, sangomas from South Africa; Richard Reoch, president of Shambhala; Murshida Tasnim Hermila Fernandez, a Sufi elder and one of the founders of Dances of Universal Peace; Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, spiritual director of Ligmincha Institute and a leader of the Bon and Tibetan Buddhism— and many more. All of them offer so much heart and wisdom. Although the conference only lasts three days, there is a sense of eternity to it—as if we have been transported into a place outside of time, rich with spirit and heart. I can feel the presence of my relations—my ancestors and descendants—surrounding me, stretching up from the past and out into the future. The final night an impromptu jam session breaks out at the fire. Shyamdas, a Kirtan singer and devotee of Hindu philosopher Shri Vallabhacharya, begins singing devotional chants by
the fire. Soon Lei’ohu joins in with her guitar and Madine hulas. Tasnim sends some of us spinning in a Dance of Universal Peace. Soon, the sangomas—Malidome, Colin and Niall, along with Huichol tsaurirrikame Eliot Cowan—begin to drum. So, ecstatic in the fire light we dance. The sweet air, cleansed by the afternoon downpour, cools us. Our open hearts sing with the joy of experiencing these elders who have brought us to this place, the joy of dancing with them long into the night Earlier in the day Chief Lyons told us, “I can go back to my people and tell them that there is hope for you [people here] because you know how to dance.” It’s true. It seems as if the Interspiritual Conference awakened us from a deep sleep. Now we are dancing with the world, with fire, with life. Everything feels alive. I am enveloped by a sense of hope. I think of my journey through life, through love, grief and joy, the miracle that brings me to this place. Now, with my heart opened I know we are all connected, that I am connected with my ancestral heart, with the gifts and work of my life and forward into the hearts of my children’s children’s children. Outside, in the gray light of early morning as I pack the car to leave, I see the geese gathering and listening. They know we are connected. As we drive away they rise as a flock and follow us down the road. The next Interspiritual Conference, now known as Ancient Spirit Rising, will be held from May 19-22, 2011 in Port Townsend, Washington. For further information, see page 48.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 21
D R E A M S O F T H E H O LY
BY B A R RY W I L L I A M S W I T H R E NATA R I T Z M A N & R A E F W I L L I A M S
our son grew more desperate, the lure of the rivers and of the swarming fish grew more intense. Each step, each cast, each drift of the fly, each rise of a trout, each fish on the line and each release of the fish back to the river became prayerful details of a compelling and enthralling ritual of connecWhen illness threatens his son, a father finds that fish tion, beauty, mystery of alignment and a kind of are messengers from the underworld who show us our healing that I struggled to understand. Then one connection to life. day in the hospital, dreaming with my boy, asking for help from beyond me, beyond this world and SOMETIMES IN LIFE it’s just important to hold on to the big picthe sharp mind of medicine, from beyond this seemingly implature. Many years ago I learned from my faithful dog that when cable process, the Trout People appeared, swimming eagerly tothings get really tough, go fishing. She showed me that the ward me into our pool of distress and illness and surrounded and best action to take, when life became too intense, was to leap covered him in their trout medicine. into the nearest pool of moving water in diligent pursuit of its When Raef was in utero, the movements he made were so contents. This summer when my son’s health, already fragile fish-like that we began calling him Little Trout. When he came a from multiple disabilities, started downhill in a steady series little early, we were unprepared with a name, and he was known of potentially deadly crises, I followed my old dog’s lead and in the hospital and for weeks as Little Trout. To this day he is still headed for the streams and rivers of northern New Mexico. I called Trout by those who know him well. felt drawn to fly fish for the elusive and mysterious trout—the As his underlying disabilities from a catastrophic birth experibrowns, rainbows, native cutthroats and brook trout whose ence unfolded month by month, we eventually chose to abanvoices called to me as they lay waiting just below the flowing don a Western medicine that had proved uncertain and unhelpsurface of our lives. When the otherwise difficult times would ful and turn toward the realm of nature and its ancient ancestral permit, I found myself standing in the middle of rivers attempt- traditions of seeing and healing. We wanted to do anything, go ing to be an attractive and appropriate bug. anywhere to try to solve the problem of his life. I had fished these creeks and rivers in years past, but this Following a prophetic dream that had told me “The boy and summer was different. Now the call of the rivers became in- the medicine are one,” we took Raef, less than a year old, fresh sistent, relentless and unforgiving. Early on I dreamed that out of the ICU, to the upper reaches of the Amazon to see a great the river was flowing into my arm at the wrist and out at my Pieroa shaman. After days of ceremony in the Amazon the shaelbow, telling me clearly about the presence of that world man told us that Raef was fine and needed no help. literally flowing through me. It took me a long time to really understand this amazing truth: I had grown up fishing. The image of that the boy himself is the healing medicine and not a problem the line breaking the surface tension of to be solved. We could not understand that his incarnation was the water and disappearing into the sun– the healing that our hungry lives and thirsty souls needed. We streaked depths toward that unknowable had to let the wholeness of his being work us deeply as a healing but palpable presence below formed in medicine. Gradually, we came to realize that in this way he bemy young mind an experience of the two came the bait the gods were using to fish for my soul. worlds, above and below, the world of the We continued to seek out any number of indigenous healforces of nature and the world of humans. ers in North and Central America to help us, and they all said This summer the Rio Cimarron became in their own ways that Raef was fine and needed no help. A my teacher; the Costilla, Conejos, Rio de pregnancy dream telling us to follow precisely in the tracks of los Pinos, Culebra, Red River, Comanche the deer led us step by inevitable step into the Huichol world Creek and the Rio Pueblo, all filled with the of the sacred deer. There, Raef was received not as a comprosound of the local culture, were my com- mised child, but as one whom they recognized and wanted to panions. Elk hair caddis, parachute Adams, initiate into their medicine ways, as a shaman in this tradition. terrestrials, royal stimulators, midges and There, he was seen as the medicine, as a “dwelling place of the Jungian Analyst Barry Williams, Renata blue winged olives of all sizes and variet- gods.” When we rose to take the bait cast in front of us, we were Ritzman and their son, ies floated toward me by day in the cur- pulled into our own long shamanic initiation alongside Raef. Raef, are Huichol sharent and at night in my dreams as I steadily We were drawn into the vital, life-giving and life-sustaining mans. They offer healing retreats in New Mexico, waded and fished upstream in every kind world of the Huichol gods. Unwittingly, we had followed the Northern Canada and on of weather, light, temperature and ento- footsteps of the deer precisely. We had taken and swallowed Grandmother Ocean in mological season. As the situation with the bait as the boy and the medicine and were caught. New Zealand. 22 / Issue 13
MARVYN MORRISON
Dreaming with Trout
MICHAEL HEITMAN
NEW MEXICO NATIVE Rio Grande Cutthroat trout
There was a moment this summer, wading a stretch of clear mountain river, dry fly drifting on the current, Raef home trying to recover his embodiment in this world, when I realized that the fly was not the bait I was putting out for the trout but that the trout were the bait the gods had once again put out for me. Little Trout had always before been the bait, but this time they were trying to lure and attract me back into a vital and vibrant connection with life, even in the midst of grief and anxiety over my son’s condition, by using the river trout to catch me. Classically, I was fishing for what was fishing for me. It must have been that I could not see that the boy was still the medicine, even in his struggle, so I had to be given the big picture again. If I fish for the trout that are the bait that the gods put out for me, and Raef is the bait the gods are using to tie me to them, then the act of catching the trout becomes a holy act uniting Raef and the trout and the gods and me. I saw that when I released the trout back to the river, the trout became the prayer I gave it, became our message to the lower world. It feels like the prayer is answered when the Trout People and Little Trout continue to live and to come to us, to bring the message and the medicine from their world, to complete the circle, to complete this communion.
There may come a time when we are to release Little Trout back into the great river with a prayer. He will carry with him all our blessings and thanksgiving for his life and its great teachings, for his profound medicine and for the experience of breaking and wrenching open our hearts. We were given this magnificent being to hold in our hands, like a great rainbow trout, for this one moment of communion before he swims away to the other world, taking the offerings of our prayers to the gods. In fly fishing, as in life, it is important to hold the big picture at all times. In fishing it has to do with weather, wind, sun, terrain, flow, drift, hatch, and in life with love, health, meaning, suffering, beauty, wholeness and healing. By fishing through the summer that Raef came so close to swimming away from us, we were not pulled under by despair. By turning instead toward the bright world of the rivers, we experienced the boy and the medicine as one. Sitting by the flowing waters, all three of us when possible, we celebrated the beauty of the days and the goodness of all things, the generosity of the rivers and the teachings of the gods, and of seeing the great sweep of meaning coming from a source impossibly distant yet as close as the sound of the water on the rocks, the sunlight in the leaves and rising hatches, the deer by the river, the waiting trout. SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 23
24 / Issue 13
LARRY LITTLEBIRD STANDING ABOVE ARROYO LOS TANOS, THE WATERSHED HAMAATSA IS WORKING TO RESTORE.
HAMAATSA
WHEN THINGS GOT OUT OF BALANCE AND THE EARTH WAS ILL, THE PEOPLE, THE HANU, UNDERSTOOD THEY HAD TO START OVER. BY LARRY LITTLEBIRD
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RYAN HEFFERNAN
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 25
In the last issue of Sacred Fire we ran a brief item on Hamaatsa, an indigenous continuum learning center and demonstration site committed to regenerative living, spiritual wholeness and cultural restoration, which was founded by Larry Littlebird, a Pueblo Indian from Laguna/Santo Domingo Pueblo. As we looked for more information, we came across Larry Littlebird’s description of Hamaatsa, which was printed in the 2010 Sustainable Santa Fe Guide. But I wanted more. I wanted the stories of how it came about and what it is. So I called Larry Littlebird and had a long, though timeless, conversation. The following is a blending of that original article and our conversation. —Jonathan Merritt
THE VISION OF HAMAATSA was with me all my life though I didn’t, of course, recognize that early on. Hama-at-sa is a Keresan Pueblo word and translates as “a place arriving, coming into being now.” Hamaatsa is a reference to “now” within an indigenous oral-learning, on-going experience. To be indigenous requires conscious awareness of place, particular to spiritual experience of a place and made sensible through living connections relevant to that place over and over, again and again. This is the continuum respectfully acknowledged in my oral tradition stories, songs and dances. Hamaatsa has come out of oral learning. This is an old story, the story of humankind. People have always found that when things are out of balance, when things are being destroyed and the earth is ill, the people are ill: they have to start over. And it was always just a handful who asked, “What are we going to do now?” Growing up I was told this story over and over. All the elders said similar things—not 26 / Issue 12
advocating anything but gently trying to encourage me. “So you see, Grandson, when you find out that you’re not where you want to be, it’s okay. You can always start over.” There was nothing like a doomsday. It was discovering that life is endless. It was discovering that the connection to the world is vast and that there are many possibilities. So life is a big adventure. It’s exciting and it’s scary sometimes. But you’re going to find your way through it. You’re going to discover things, and people who can help will come at the most opportune times. People are always to be made welcome. No matter who they are you’re going to learn something. So there’s this great trust that is engendered. During almost all my formal schooling experiences I was told that the spiritually and culturally relevant things my grandparents taught me were useless. The world had no use for that information. I could not speak my own language in school and I had to struggle to hold on to my original life ways. Tradition and culture are invaluable; they’re powerful. However, when people of any culture become protective of what they think they have, they close off. If tradition binds a people so that they can’t act, their culture weakens because it’s no longer regenerative. This is what we saw going on in the mid ‘70s when a handful of Indian people, me and my cohorts (most of whom are now deceased), put our first organization together, called “Circle of Film, Native American Storytellers.” As storytellers and filmmakers we continually asked ourselves, “What is this we’re doing? What kind of films are we making? What are we about?” We loved trying to explain it to ourselves. Here’s a quote from a collaborative piece that describes how the vision of Hamaatsa became clear to me. “Telling a story is like pulling a haze away from the mountain. For Indian people the storyteller is a consecrated person who must remain both humble enough to carry ancient tales accurately and honestly, and wise enough to put life into the way the story is told. It is in the stories that the perceptions are made clear, where the haze is burned away.” Now, Hamaatsa is this story-telling place. Over time it came to me that telling the stories had to be connected to land. For the longest
time I thought a place could be developed on the pieces of land which we call ours on the Rez. But when I attempted to go to my own people, I was shut out. Tribal government is what it is as a result of oppression and all the historical trauma that has resulted from colonization and cultural genocide. I wasn’t going to fight with that. I couldn’t struggle with my people and try to get them to understand what happened. The trauma is so hurtful that it’s going to take time before people can turn that around. When I discovered that it wasn’t going to happen on tribal lands, I realized that there were other places in the world and I just had to find them. But then the obstacle became one of legality and finances. “Wait a minute,” I said, “this land has been stolen. What am I doing trying to buy back stolen land? This is crazy!” And as soon as I gave voice to that, help arrived. When something has been stolen and you know who stole it, the only way things can change is when the thief realizes, “Oh my God, I have to make restitution or else this is going to go on for generations!” This nation has got to come to grips with the need for historical restitution if “we the people” are ever to truly awaken and move on. So, after years of holding a vision for building a land-based learning center, our nonprofit organization purchased 320 acres of environmentally protected lands near the Ortiz Mountains, just south of Santa Fe. This historic land purchase was made possible through the generosity of several philanthropists who recognized the value of our vision for restoring aboriginal lands to the stewardship of indigenous people. A little piece of land, when you think of the whole nation, was restored because there were people who recognized the injustice. They said, “We want to help you with the vision you have for the people and the land.” Hamaatsa is ancestral land. Our surveyor discovered a quarter-mile marker that came from the first survey that the US did when they took over this land, which had been part of Mexico. They did this survey in 1856; the land was registered and then it was legally no longer ours. But the bones of my people are underneath my feet. Our pottery shards are all over the place and our living sites are visible on the surface of the land. Now, this ancestral piece of land is this little gem that is connected
FROM LEFT: WATER IS LIFE. IT FLOWS THROUGH OUR HANDS. RIGHT: WHERE RAINWATER IS HELD IN A NATURAL STONE BASIN, WE COME TO REMEMBER AND RECEIVE BLESSING.
to our people again. To most people it looks desolate, but a greening of the land is taking place just because we are here. There’s a whole atmospheric change that’s taking place. Hamaatsa is a starting point, like a spot on the earth that you can touch. It’s that spot beneath your finger. At first it looks irrelevant. But what is it that you’re feeling beneath your finger? How is that connected to the rest of who you are? That kind of experience is no longer relevant for most human beings. When you think of children, they find things with their whole bodies, their whole beings. And they’re excited about their discoveries. And until someone tells them, “Don’t do that!” they’ll just keep staying in the present. I believe when children are encouraged to be in the present, when humans are encouraged, real learning begins to take place. That’s why we named this place “Hamaatsa,” because Hamaatsa describes the sensation of something that is now, that’s immediate. In the present Green-Sustainability Movement indigenous peoples are often referred
to as “the first people of these lands to live here sustainably for thousands of years.” How did they do this? What were their practices and methods? And how is it that they are still here today? It’s really simple. It’s the connection to the spirit where there’s no question whether there’s a Creator. Western man loves to argue over religion as a form of knowing God. But when you meet native people in their environments, there are no arguments. They may differ in the ways of doing things, they may have their own particular and sometimes peculiar relationships, but there’s no argument about whether there’s God. Instead, there’s respect and spiritual acceptance that’s received and given among each other. People who are catching on to the need for sustainability think that it’s going to turn around because they’re composting or recycling. These are wonderful things to do. But how does a person gain this other consciousness? It’s not enough to just start having backyard gardens. There’s more to this
green globe. There are indigenous people all around the world who have differing views on how to care for the planet. Sure, it’s wonderful if you find some of those people, but what do you do? Become an ecotourist? How do you make these relationships beneficial? For most Native people the action has always been to simplify your life so your spirit can teach you how to live. Growing up at Gwi-sh’tee, Paguate, my mother’s village in the Pueblo of Laguna, my elder mentors and kin shared foundational, simple-living principles generously with me. There were no programs, no set times; it was just me showing up and being there with them, day after day with no beginning and no end. I witnessed this directly in the presence of grandparents. Grandparents are not always blood kin because of the clan relationships and the tribal societal relationships. You’ve got them all around you. It’s direct. It’s like you’re just one of the corn plants in the corn field and all those plants are your relatives. When you have people who are loving and kind to you SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 27
and who help you, you understand that you should just be quiet, listen and be respectful. You learn this over a long period of growth. This nonlinear time with my grandmas and grandpas allowed for deep experiences to take place within me. Today I refer to this process as “cultivating the sacred.” At Hamaatsa, this process informs all that we do. It is a spiritual action for learning to live simply, informed by an indigenous ecology and modeled upon the successful hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies of tribal America. It is about showing up and becoming humble and teachable in order to receive your own experience, integrating your whole being: spiritual, physical, emotional/mental and instinctual. It is the discovery of an individual’s spiraling path in relationship to the Creator, the earth’s journey and the rhythms and characters of the seasonal cycles. I believe rooted indigenous spiritual principles for living sustainably will serve to model for native and nonnative people what starting over and reconnecting to the spirit within can look like. Simple people, native to their environments wherever they may live, are connected to the sacred through their daily experiences upon the land and their relationships to the elements, plants and animals. For example, in the relationship with water, you arise at dawn and walk prayerfully to a water source, all the while giving thanks. With careful purpose you fill your containers and trek the water back to your home for your family’s daily use for drinking, cooking and washing. Having this daily connection to your water naturally and instinctually leads to knowing how much is enough. It is through the loss of intuitive, insightful experiences like this that most of the industrialized nations have disconnected from their lives. Today, mental measurement determines direction, rushing towards an unseen horizon. As a result, man has created aimless wandering into a primary occupational obsession. Even now the Green Movement moves full speed ahead. Moving full speed ahead is a characteristic of Western thought and action. One example is a match that you use to make a fire. What an amazing invention! Before there were matches, each person had to have all of the things that were required to 28 / Issue 12
make fire. They had to have a certain skill. Everyone had it. Then somebody put fire on the end of a stick and made it easy. It’s a civilized solution. But it’s not very far-seeing. What happened was that humans lost their relationship with fire. From that day on people became more and more disconnected. Nowadays, maybe a few Boy Scouts and some people who take wilderness classes know how to make fire with other techniques, but the larger population of people is without true light, that light that comes from within. That’s how things get lost. In the Green Movement, people come up with ideas about the greening of the earth. Suddenly, the idea gets huge. People jump way ahead, and they don’t anticipate the consequences because they have no sense of time. It’s all got to be done by this weekend. The Green Movement is like a method: take this workshop; do these exercises. Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all getting green? But where is your spirit? And who is God in your life? A person of God in an indigenous tribal culture doesn’t have to speak about being green. They’re living it. A Hopi-Laguna colleague reminds me this way: “It’s like walking backwards into the future. We carry the values of our ancestors with us, looking into our past to maintain our integrity as Pueblo People, while we quietly make a path into an unknown future, knowing we are protected and watched over by our sacred spirits and our Creator.” So, what can you do? A possibility is to come alongside those who have already begun or who have learned to slow down or were never in a hurry in the first place. When we choose to slow down, stop and listen, then the seemingly distant oral past can be heard, and new meaning for living today can be infused. However tenuous our present lives may appear, we can reconnect to a Great Order that is always present simply by learning to listen. Hamaatsa is a gathering place— a place for regeneration for Hobah Hanu—all people, all nations. It’s a place where another chance is provided to listen and learn from the Mother as she instructs where to dig in the earth. It’s a place where people can gather and share their stories.
People are drawn to Hamaatsa because, for most people, there is a hunger for story, but they’ve never been at a place where people have actually done the one thing that is required for the telling of stories—and that is, use their time to learn to listen. Now, the last thing in the world that most people have time for is to sit and listen to a good story. They want it fast and they want it in a way that it’s just a glimpse, but that glimpse desensitizes them. People get inundated, especially in today’s media. You get a great story like Avatar, and you’re bombarded by the effects of 3-D. Avatar touches upon the thing that we all hunger for. How do we reconnect to that which we are really, truly about? What do we do when we discover that the enemy that we’re faced with is us? Part of Western conditioning is to think that things are going to be served up, the solution is going to come along and you’re going to get yours. So the ways to make reconnections, to develop relationships, are not well defined for most people. Growing up in my village, these clearly defined ways were all around me. In an oral culture learning is transmitted through listening and watching. When you find people who have purpose in their lives, watch them carefully. When you see what they’re attempting to do, don’t say, “Can I help you?” Instead, see what they are doing. If they’re digging a ditch to direct the flow of water for when the rain finally comes, then just pick up a shovel and use the shovel to help them. And that’s the beginning of gaining a useful skill and building relationship. One of the things that’s astounding to us at Hamaatsa is that people come from around the world to see what we’re doing on a piece of land that, to most eyes, looks like it wouldn’t be worth attempting anything on. But when they discover what’s really here, transformation begins acting in their lives. Personal relationships develop. People come and they are given the time to listen, and they take the time to listen. People come to Hamaatsa because they have a story and they want someone to listen. They come and they find out that there’s work to be done. They find out that through meditative work their stories become clear. They find out
WALKING ACROSS THE LAND YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR WALKING STICK BECOMES YOUR PLANTING STICK THAT BECOMES YOUR TALKING STICK.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 29
HAMAATSA SITS IN THE ROLLING FOOTHILLS OF THE ORTIZ MOUNTAINS JUST SOUTH OF SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO.
what’s relative and makes sense through the physical experience of working on the land. People don’t have that as a regular experience. Regular experience at Hamaatsa is simple— the sun comes up every day. The sun goes down every day. Night happens and the stars appear. But you have to have the time and take the time to be here to get access to that kind of story. Gathering around a small central fire as kin, we listen to stories and hear songs that remind us of our shared spiritual strength. Once more, we begin anew with a clear purpose for living simply upon the land to which we are related. This is the atmosphere for Hamaatsa, infused and informed by spoken words and an indigenous cosmology. It’s an environment, where one learns to carry water, chop wood, sweep earthen floors with a simple broom, and as you are about your doing, all the while quietly listening, you learn what you are not and make the choice for who you want to become. I just spent two weeks in the mountains hunting, and I came back to pick corn from our first planting of corn on this indigenous land. Something is taking place in my spirit. I 30 / Issue 13
HAMAATSA is an indigenous continuum learning center and demonstrafeel it, being in the corntion site committed to regenerative living, spiritual wholeness and cultural field yesterday, listening restoration. A Native 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, their mission is to to that snap of the corn off promote emergent leadership models for living simply and sustainably the stalk. It was like a song on the land; to integrate healing systems from traditional cultures; and to restore indigenous life-ways and land stewardship principles through that was being played that experiential land-based learning. For more information, visit Hamaatsa.org hasn’t been heard on this land for a long time. And it was being played by a person—me—whose At Hamaatsa I hear the sound of singing feet had been wandering around the moun- water. I have visions of water flowing through tains in the glory of that place, and I’ve come this land, restoring ancient watersheds. I see back here now into the peace and the quiet crops coming alive and the animals returning of this place. There’s a connection that’s be- to the land. I see people arriving at the “shores” ing established and the possibility is here to of this Hamaatsa land for the first time, just start over once again. as the Europeans once arrived on the shores People gather here to see what they can do to the east. The Hanu, the good hearted peotogether and support each other in their ef- ple, are greeting and making these newly arforts. That’s what tribal people do. They get rived welcome. What will be our actions? Our clear on the common vision, and then they choices? Will we learn to listen this time? work to support each other in their efforts. It’s At this globally critical time we are blessed a hard thing to do. But it’s fun to do it. People to have a place like Hamaatsa—a place where who grow things together do it. People who go we can demonstrate our correct actions and out and gather do it. They have to because they clear choices regarding our lives now and find out that that’s the only way they can pos- bring fruitful results forward for the benefit sibly gain from the abundance that they dis- of all our relations and the children coming cover and not become destroyers. along behind.
poem Storytelling Dolores Stewart
Come in out of the darkness. Come in where the fire casts shadows of longing. Sit near each other. Hold hands while I tell you a story that has never been told, a story with music, a flute and singing, a drum and dancing, a story of life’s circle and the hungry wolves waiting for caribou, and the caribou lingering over a feast of lichen, and the ravens poised in the trees at the edges of the wolves’ eyes, a story with a grandmother spider stealing a piece of the sun, a story with medicine plants and sacred weeds, a story of how men and women found each other, of how coyote got his cunning, of arrow boy, of the owl’s beak tapping, always the owl, the death bird, and the mouse, timorous, scuttling into its den, a story of you, and you, and you. What does it mean, this dream fruit? Nothing more than to peel and eat the sweet juicy flesh, to let its seeds become part of your spirit. Long after I am gone you will remember a story that never happened, how things that never were came into being.
The poems of Dolores Stewart Riccio have appeared in many well-known literary journals over the years. She is the author of Circle of Five and its sequels, novels of suspense set in Plymouth, Massachusetts. She has also published several cookbooks featuring foods for good health, including the original Superfoods series for Time-Warner. “Storytelling” was first published in her collection Doors to the Universe published by Bellowing Ark Press, 2008
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 31
RECLAIMING OUR INDIGENOUS SOUL LIVING IN THE BELLY of a soul-eating culture, we need the DEEP SONG OF AWE and the SWEET MEDICINE found in the wild world
By Francis Weller
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MELISSA MESCHLER
32 / Issue 13
FOR SEVERAL MILLION years we have been shaped by the landscape, by wind and mist, wolf howl and sunset. We were inseparable from nature and knew ourselves only in relationship with all our kin. We shared this world with an astonishing array of animals, birds, insects and plants, surrounded by trees, rivers and mountains. We were one among many, finding our way in common among those with whom we shared this sentient terrain. The indigenous soul carries the long evolutionary story of our species set intimately in the context of the wild world. It is the part of our psychic life that we hold in communion with the life that moves around us. It was this setting that gave the soul its shape. Our psychic lives were made here, on the plains, in woodlands, near lakes and hills. Our original spirituality emerged along with a growing awareness that all things were bound together in a seamless web of life. Chief Seattle reminds us and modern physics affirms that, “All things are connected.” When we walk in nature, some piece of us quickens and knows the truth of this fact. We are connected with all things and they are our kin. The indigenous soul lives close to the ground, to moss, river and loon. It moves in springs and wind, is close to the breath of coyotes. It is scratched on rock walls around the planet, is seen dancing around firelight and is heard in stories told under the canopy of stars. The indigenous soul is the thread of our humanness woven inextricably with the world. Where all things meet and exchange the vitality that is life, there is soul. The recovery of the indigenous soul is imperative. We are in serious trouble as a people. Nearly every biological system is in peril: our watersheds, oceans and topsoil are experiencing rapid deterioration. We face a future that will be seriously impacted by radical changes in our climate. We are also witnessing the
daily loss of the wild as we encroach ever further into wetlands and forests. We have forgotten our place in the world. And this woe is not confined to us alone; it extends to the others with whom we share this world. Many species find themselves threatened by these changes: grizzlies, blue fin tuna, spotted owls, coral reefs, Atlantic salmon, autumn buttercup, golden-cheeked wood warbler, Baker’s cypress. This list goes on and on. There are 2,269 endangered species in the United States alone. They are caught in a cascading net of sorrows, powerless to change or adapt. We must reconnect with this ancient ground of being that is our indigenous soul and recall that we are all of the earth. We are living, you and I, with only the remotest memory of life intimately lived with the earth. Our progress has taken us away from the green world and landed us squarely on asphalt and concrete, microchip and mall. My soul cries out from this loss, this ripping us away from the primal matrix. I know I feel different, quieter, when I sit and let the sounds of wind, rain, birdsong and cricket wash my ears with the deep song our ancestors recognized as the eternal music of the world. When I walk in the woods or along the ocean, my soul
comes forward and breathes deeply, sighs and comes once again into contact with the living earth. It is in this state of permeability that I actually feel the world, register its many and varied presences, and come into the full radiance of this shimmering terrain. I am moved daily by the play of light on the hills across the valley, the songs of robins and towhees, and the sweet fragrance of morning dew on the dry grasses of summer. Laurens van der Post writes, “We cannot, today, recreate the original ‘wilderness man’ in shape, form and habitat. But we can recover him, because he exists in us. He is the foundation in spirit or psyche on which we build, and we are not complete until we have recovered him.” We are not complete until we have recovered this part of our being. The ground of the indigenous soul is the foundation upon which we build our lives in this world. This is the basis of who we are, the root structures that guide our everyday movement through the world, through instincts and emotions, intuitions and sensations. This is a very different perspective from trying to deny, control or repress our natural desires to connect and live within the folds of the world. Our soul is designed to feel kinship with
HOW IS IT THAT WE HAVE SHAPED A CULTURE THAT LEAVES SO MANY OF OUR PEOPLE FEELING EMPTY, FLATTENED AND DISHEARTENED? SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 33
the living world. Watch children enraptured by the vitality of life found in nature. They become fully absorbed in the moment, a presence that rivals any meditation master. Holding a salamander, a stone, a frog, they are emptied of everything save for what has opened their minds and captured their attentions. Everything about this world engenders awe, a pervasive and encompassing feeling of love for this life: the beauty of wildflowers, the hum of bees and the sweet taste of honey, all cause our spirits to swell with joy. We have become accustomed to monotony and depression. In fact, the number of people taking antidepressants has doubled over the last decade. Nearly thirty million individuals are now taking medications to deal with their depression. (Many others medicate with alcohol, drugs, TV, food, shopping or any number of anesthetics for their pain.) As someone who works with many depressed individuals, I know the life-saving quality that these medications can serve. However, the deeper question that we need to be asking is why so many of our people are depressed. How is it that we have shaped a culture that leaves so many of our people feeling empty, flattened and disheartened? Every day I see someone in my office carrying the weight of these symptoms. It crushes the spirit, leaves us breathless and unable to drink in the beauty of the world. We must come back to life, in both meanings of that phrase: back to that which shaped us and made us thrum with aliveness and back from this state of pre-death where our sense of who we are and what holds meaning has been torn from our hearts by a narrowing of our attention and a preoccupation with survival only. I know we were made to live here happily. Everything about our makeup says so. We are carriers of connection. Our psychic and physical design makes us a giant receptor site for engagement. We were made to take the world into us, to digest her astonishing beauty with our senses. Then, in the quiet of our inner world of reflection, intuition and thought, in the places where intimacy is registered, our affections are meant to be returned to the world. This erotic leap between our senses and the world deepens our connection and affection for the world. Even 34 / Issue 13
something as ordinary as our daily meals provides moments when we can pause and sense this reality. Eating is such a sensuous experience. Let the juice of the peach linger for a bit on your lips. Celebrate the sweetness of the cantaloupe or the salty satisfaction of cashews on your tongue. These are the simple blessings offered to us every day. My poem, “Day to Day Devotions” speaks about this opportunity for engagement. Imagine making of your life a prayer, a worship, a devotion. Imagine moving through the world in celebration casting alms by the sure presence of your faith in life. Imagine waking and rising to be an invocation, a gifting in which what is most precious to you is invited into the world. Imagine eating and bathing as sacramental, a communion with the sacred other, a remembrance of all our relations whereby our own self is given form. Imagine breathing and walking, touching and holding to be the movements of your soul as it feels its way into your arms and legs, those “inlets of soul in our age” as Blake reminds us. Imagine talking and listening as rituals of meeting where who you are is welcomed into the heart of another. Imagine these day to day devotions as the purest chance you have of redemption. Imagine these simple gestures as God’s sweetest blessing. I have been intrigued with indigenous cultures for many years. One of the frequently reported comments from those that witnessed these cultures was the amount of laughter,
humor and joy they encountered. I want that in my life, in my community, for my son and those others whom I love—joy that is infectious and that keeps our hearts fed during hard times; joy that enables us to step back from the feeding trough of consumerist society. Jean Liedloff, author of The Continuum Concept, has suggested that happiness has ceased to be a condition of being alive and instead has become a goal. I’ll be happy when... What? I retire? I get this new TV? I get my shit together? And on and on. This is what we’ve come to call the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit is endless. We are, as one of my mentors said, climbing the ladder of success only to find it leaning against the wrong building! Living as we do in the belly of a soul-eating culture, we must consistently strive to discover ways to get back to the ground of our indigenous soul. By doing what matters most to the soul, we are drawn closer into our lives. We feel the allure of village life, that genuine experience of community that circulates around a shared commitment to one another’s soul life. The village is where we feel welcomed, where who we are is invited into the conversation and where what we have to offer to the community is received. In the village everyone is “spiritually employed,” meaning everyone is needed and everyone has a particular gift to offer the community. We long to feel a part of a circle that offers this full reception. We will also feel ourselves responding to the pull of nature and find our feet walking deliberately into the woods and mountains, along singing rivers and blue-green turquoise seas. We find ourselves falling into the arms of the living earth. These primary satisfactions are what feed the soul and satisfy our deepest needs for connection and intimacy with the life around us. The indigenous soul is immense. That is why we come alive when we move near the energies that inhabit the world: rivers, deserts, mountains, woodlands. Some arc leaps from our being and creates a link with this otherness, reminding us of our closeness to the living world and with one another. Our loneliness is tied up entirely with our loss of contact with these deeper truths. We can never be lonely in this world once we relearn how
WE ARE LIVING, YOU AND I, WITH ONLY THE REMOTEST MEMORY OF LIFE INTIMATELY LIVED WITH THE EARTH. to continually feel our deep connection with it. When the finches sing, our ears become enamored with their beautiful call, and if we have but ears to hear, we know and feel the corresponding cadence in our soul and offer our song back to the world. Recovering this deep song in my soul has made all the difference in my existence. I feel at home, at ease in my life and body. The earth is longing for our return. One young woman with whom I worked could not feed herself in a nourishing way. She would consistently deprive herself of good food, as if she was not worthy of nourishment. One day I reached out to her, took her hand, led her out of the office and brought her into the yard outside the building. I cleared away some leaves and grass, revealing the naked earth. I brought her over, knelt down with
her and placed her hands on the ground, and I asked her to tell the earth about her struggle with food. A torrent of tears unleashed long lingering grief about her feelings of worthlessness. Her tears fell to the earth and she felt the benevolent pulse of the ground beneath her hands. This was a moment of healing, restoration through the grace of the indigenous soul knowing its deep affiliation with this world. Her relationship to her own indigenous soul was re-established, and she is now the loving mother of her own beautiful, well-fed daughter. This sweet medicine is available to each of us, offered by the earth without reservation or deserving. There is no earning of this grace, no reward for doing it right. It is a matter of connecting and feeling into the fullness of this constant connection. Our welcome is not
predicated on measuring up or being on the right side. It is a matter of intimacy, of relationship with this world as it is. Somehow along the way, very recently in our human story, a perception emerged that suggested that this world was not holy enough for the soul. The earth was seen as inferior and only heaven or some state of transcendence from this lowly life was acceptable. Our souls were seen or imagined as being ill at ease in the world. This world was a veil of sorrows to be transcended as soon as possible. I simply cannot accept that perception. I feel with my entire being that soul is in love with this magnificent world, that it takes absolute delight in the endless variety of shapes, colors, textures and scents. Jesus himself declared that the kingdom of heaven is spread over the earth, but we do not see it. It is here, adorned in SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 35
every possible way by nature, and this adornment calls the soul out to play. This was the lap from which we emerged and in which we are still held. Herman Hesse writes, Sometimes, when a bird cries out, Or the wind sweeps through a tree, Or a dog howls in a far off farm, I hold still and listen for a long time. My soul turns and goes back to the place Where, a thousand forgotten years ago, The bird and the blowing wind Were like me, and were my brothers. My soul turns into a tree, And an animal, and a cloud bank. Then changed and odd it comes home And asks me questions. What should I reply? Herman Hesse Translated by Robert Bly
O
ur reply must be to step back into the embrace, into intimate relations with the world where we still feel ourselves turning into trees and animals and cloudbanks. This is not an abstract idea. I am referring to the watersheds and woodlands around our homes, to knowing whose migratory pathways we have entered or have built our homes beneath. Our soul is in love with the singularities, the particular expression of a gnarled cypress, the one-eared feral gray cat on the hillside, this iris and its amazing beard of blue. Love finds itself in the specific. Thus, our efforts to save the world must begin within the scale of what our indigenous soul relates to. We will save the world from our mass overlay of ideologies by loving the world tangibly, with our hands and eyes and our whole bodies. Love is never abstract. It requires bulk and substance, feelings, sensations, quickening in muscle and bone where the anticipation of the other is felt across the surface of the skin. This is where each of us has an opportunity to decipher how we can experience this love in our own lives. I feel we are coded genetically for relations on a multitude of scales, with the stars, forests and communities, as well as with the smallest circles: a lover, a child or ourselves. We are supremely crafted for intimacy with
36 / Issue 13
this world. How else do you think we survived for so many millennia? I talk about intimacy not in some romantic fashion, but in that sense of being penetrated by some great force, engaged in the “constant conversation” that the Persian poet Rumi attests to. This soul dialogue with wind and blackberry binds us to the world. I was talking with a group of men, engaged in the deep work of initiation, about the role of love in a man’s life and how we have placed such confinement on this capacity in our nature. What I mean by that is that when we love another, we also are being invited to love the world more deeply. Rather than focusing on a single individual, a finite point where love congeals, our loving is meant to move through our beloved and then outward into the greater world itself. Imagine falling in love with the blue of the sky, the scent of honeysuckle. And why not? Why should our love be cloistered, reserved only for others like us? When I leave here, I want to know that I loved this world wholly and by so doing I helped feed the belly of the world; I wasn’t simply a point of extraction, someone who took and took without ever giving back. I see manifestations of the indigenous soul in eruptions of celebration, enthusiastic expressions of gratitude and rituals of kinship, in shared times of grieving—all acknowledging the abiding connection between the human and the more-than-human world. The annual cycle of rituals that we have developed locally over the years has made it clear that our relationship with the world is deepened and affirmed by these actions. These gatherings strengthen our sense of connection with all life. For example, our annual “Gratitude For All That Is Thanksgiving Ritual” is a three-day celebration that addresses our intimate and primary bond with all creation. We gather in late November as the colors of fall are yielding to the rainy season in California. During our time together we sing, make offerings of clay, share food and stories and we build a beautiful gratitude shrine. Then together, midday on Saturday, we enter ritual space where we make offerings of corn meal, agates, clay figures and tobacco in
gratitude. This is done one-by-one, much to the delight of the children as they crawl in and out of the shrine where the offerings are placed. On Saturday evening we share a Thanksgiving feast with a bounty of toasts, laughter, wine and delicious desserts brought by every participant. And then we dance for hours in celebration of our togetherness. On Sunday morning we gather the gifts to the earth, to the ancestors and Spirit from the shrine, and they are placed into the belly of the earth by the children. It is an amazing celebration that binds the community to one another and deepens our connection with the living earth. When we pause, even for a brief time and realize our affection for the world, we live a more inclusive and relational life. We remember our place as one among many— at home, sacred and blessed. Gestures such as these confirm what was self-evident to earth-based traditions: that we are inseparably linked to nature. We ARE nature. In this language older than words we uttered the speech of the indigenous soul, and the most notable word in that language was kinship. The indigenous soul lives in a sea of intimacies, at home with earthworms and eagles, mountain vistas and marshlands. This extensive ground of kinship offered our ancestors a continuing affirmation of the seamless web connecting their spiritual life with the mystery of this world. What we moderns often experience as existential anxiety stands in stark contrast with what is found when the ground of connection is solid beneath our feet. When this wider array of connection is established, we find individuals who feel assured, carrying a soul confidence that enables them to know that they are wanted and desired by the earth. They realize that they carry something of value for the world and it is their spiritual responsibility to offer that medicine. They have entered the great story of life on earth and have remembered who they are, where they belong and what is sacred. I feel this emerging in my own life. My sense of belonging and kinship feels settled, and I feel my soul unwrapping the gifts it came here to offer.
HAPPINESS HAS CEASED TO BE A CONDITION OF BEING ALIVE AND INSTEAD HAS BECOME A GOAL.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 37
THE HEALING OF HOLLOW WATER By Geral Blanchard
H
aving been trained in traditional psychology, I have worked as a healer and educator for 38 years, witnessing significant transformations in the emotional and physical healing of many patients suffering from the aftermath of sexual abuse. Satisfying as it has been to accompany people on their healing paths, something always seemed to be missing. The rigidity of the psychological model always felt very limiting to me, not very heartfelt, and without the reverence that victims and abusers often requested to help them heal on a deep level. It was as if my profession suffered from a disease called “hardening of the categories.” I wanted to be open to new ideas, especially the incorporation of the sacred, but answers were slow to come. Upon meeting with Ojibwa Indian healers a spirit-driven model began ministering to my best essence and opened doors to a more sacred world. The Ojibwas also showed me that not only can victims of abuse retrieve their buried souls, it is not uncommon to experience very rapid personal transformations when ancient traditions are incorporated into the healing process. Being with victims and abusers in sacred
38 / Issue 13
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN WOODS
circles of support convinced me that the basis for any meaningful change must be built on a spiritual foundation. And as the patient is lifted out of their personal darkness, the shaman-like healer can also undergo a beautiful metamorphosis that results from the privilege of working with both victims and abusers. The Western world has been witnessing an apparent epidemic of sexual abuse that is now being felt in even the most remote areas of North America. The Hollow Water First Nation of Manitoba, Canada is no exception. While visiting mental health activists in 1997, I asked them just how common sexual abuse was in their community. More specifically, I asked female organizers at a healing program what percentage of women were victims. After receiving a long, perplexed set of gazes, it dawned on me that my question was fundamentally flawed. It turned out that virtually every female member of this Ojibwa tribe was abused, often many times before they had reached adulthood. Sexual abuse was linked to the tribe’s pervasive problem with addictions to drugs, alcohol, and sex. It was experienced in their homes and, for many young members of the tribe, inflicted
by Catholic priests while they were banished to Church schools far from home. Living away from one’s family and community, being denied the opportunity to speak the Anishinaabe language, and being shamed and punished for practicing cultural activities resulted in a tragic communal soul theft. It lingered for generations, being passed on to children and grandchildren in the form of a societal depression that I personally witnessed in Hollow Water. White police officials and white social workers descended on this small and remote village, applying solutions that had been used in white communities throughout the continent. Much of what was being done remedially was simply to collect evidence for criminal prosecution in federal courtrooms. Abusers were routinely convicted and sent to prisons in the south, with little reflection on how the victims experienced the legal process. Soon abusers were back in the community and the reign of terror continued, usually at an escalated level. While many adult past victims supported the white model for years, it became apparTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED SACRED HOOP, ISSUE 66 (2009). IT IS REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF SACRED HOOP AND THE AUTHOR.
WORKING TO HEAL THE COMMUNITY BY RENEWING THEIR OJIBWA TRADITIONS, CEREMONIAL LEADER LANCE WOOD (BIG RIVER MAN) OFFERS TOBACCO TO THE CREATOR AND CREATION, TURNING TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS BEFORE PLACING IT ON A ROCK ALTAR.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 39
THE HOLLOW WATER COMMUNITY HOLISTIC HEALING CIRCLE WAS GRANTED LEGAL STATUS TO WORK WITH OFFENDERS OUTSIDE OF THE CANADIAN LEGAL SYSTEM. HERE, MEMBERS OF THE CIRCLE ENGAGE IN A SMUDGING CEREMONY.
ent that the remedies were often as harmful as the sexual abuse itself.
F
inally, a group of women spoke out. They realized the true cause of sexual abuse arose from the loss of cultural traditions and their Ojibwa identity. And to continue seeking vengeance and punishment only kept the abuser’s spirit alive in their hearts. If their individual and collective souls were to be retrieved, it would require a newold way of being, a return to their sacred roots. Historically, the Ojibwa have counted on dialogue to resolve conflicts, often while sitting in circle. The perpetrator of a wrongdoing would meet with the victim in a sacred setting and participate in ancient healing rituals. Smudging, prayer, sweatlodge, fasting, feasting, listening to elders and storytelling were relied upon. All rituals were practiced as part of an over-arching ceremony while both parties were surrounded by their own community support systems, including friends, relatives and occasionally strangers. Reflecting back on their tribal teachings, it became evident to the women of Hollow Water that sexual abuse was not an individ-
40 / Issue 13
ual crime as much as it was the symptom of an entire community that had drifted away from its sacred practices—fallen out of balance with each other and with nature. Community self-examination and a return to reverent healing practices would be essential for the restoration of the tribe’s mental health. Healing would require widespread participation in the spiritual ceremonies that had been stolen by the dominant culture post-colonization. With amazing cooperation from the Crown, federal judges and prosecutors stepped back and asked the tribe if there was a better way to enact healing. Victims’ voices were heard and revolutionary changes unfolded. In a position paper issued by female tribal leaders they asserted that courtrooms were unsafe places for victims, and prisons afforded no healing for abusers. Both settings were to be avoided whenever possible. No longer was it regarded as an acceptable practice for abusers to be banished from the community and sent to prison. Jails and prisons, they argued, should rarely be used except with the most recalcitrant abusers.
Nearly all abusers, they proposed, must be required to stay at Hollow Water and dialogue with the persons they hurt, but always communicating with respect and dignity— the old way of healing. The tribe went so far as to ask the Crown to permit the community to sentence its own people in a circle setting. They also proposed that before any court proceeding on First Nation land a number of rituals had to be enacted. A feast would be held, followed by tobacco offerings being made by a medicine person who was responsible for smudging the courtroom inside and out. Similarly, the tribe’s eagle feather staff, their drum, and the Canadian flag would be cleansed and purified before being placed together in the center of the courtroom. A prayer was to follow and all voices—no matter how many people requested to be heard —would be allowed to speak, even if a sentencing went on for ten or more hours. A talking piece was to be used, passed from person to person, without attorneys jumping to the forefront with objections. They too must wait their rightful turn in the circle that symbolized equality. The judge’s
LANCE WALKS THROUGH THE TREES WHERE WOMEN, DURING THEIR FAST FOR HEALING, HAVE TIED CLOTHS AS OFFERINGS TO THE CREATOR.
duty, it was proposed, was to discern consensus and fashion an order reflecting the community’s collective will. Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys surprisingly signed on. Something sacred started to transpire in the once adversarial courtroom. Victims’ voices were once again being heard and, in the process, souls were retrieved. Hardly anyone was being sent to jail or prison, with the recognition that abusers would likely suffer soul loss in that environment, only to eventually return to Hollow Water in worse condition than before and likely fall back into the cycle of abuse. For a psychologist like myself, with decades of work with sex offenders and their victims, I realized that the Ojibwa approach offered a missing piece to my healing model. But not only that, it inspired me to become a better person, more deeply committed to my own healing path and far less ego driven. I too was a part of a larger community, and the growth of other people, in part, depended upon my own rigorous self-reflection and growth process. I was particularly challenged one winter night in the north country by an elder of the tribe. He asked a series of probing questions
about my profession and, with storytelling, hinted at other ways to assist healing. He queried, “What is that bible you psychologists use, the one where you call people names?” Of course he was referring to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which only has words for diseases, disorders and dysfunction, but no diagnoses that suggest a person is resilient and can change. He asked quietly, “Doesn’t that freeze people?” referring to being known thereafter only by the assigned label. He concluded, “We don’t let our children call each other names; we must set an example for them.” Next he asked, “Why is it you put so many of your people in cages? I did that to my dog once, for almost a year, and when he was set free he bit me. He had never done that before. How does that heal your people?”
F
inally, after uncomfortable long pauses on my part, the elder, in a seemingly innocent voice, asked a couple more powerful questions. “Why is it you take money from injured people for the privilege of being able to walk with them on their Healing Path? Haven’t they been hurt enough?”
Nothing more needed to be said; the question had the answer embedded within it.
S
exual abusers are encouraged and supported by the entire community to walk on a healing path. There is an understanding that people heal best when they heal with each other. It is comparable to the Navajo “Pollen Path,” a journey that seeks balance, harmony and connection with all of Mother Earth’s creations. And in Ojibwa culture little separation exists between healers and abusers, as everyone is thought to be in the process of evolving into a better person. As Crown Prosecutor Rupert Ross wrote in his 1996 book Returning to the Teachings, “Aboriginal healing processes constantly stress values like respect, sharing, humility, and so forth. It has to do with an understanding that the healing path is not something ‘sick’ people need, totally ‘healthy’ people supervise, and the rest of us can largely ignore. It is a path we must all walk on. We all have healing contributions to make to others along the path, and others have healing contributions to make to us.” SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 41
THIS NEW ROUND WOODEN SWEAT LODGE, USED FOR PRAYERS, CLEANSING AND HEALING, PROVIDES A SENSE OF SAFETY THAT PERMITS PEOPLE TO SPEAK OF DIFFICULT THINGS.
ing people of Hollow Water, I have learned an invaluable lesson. True healing is a community engagement, one that leaves everyone changed. If only the patient changes, the healing has been a failure. We are all one, impacted by the intentions and activities of all our brothers. As the Lakota American Indians express it, mitakuye oyasin—we are all relatives, all a part of the same fabric.
A
D
uring one of my many visits to the village of Hollow Water I met a recovering alcoholic man named Richard who had raped his daughters, beaten his wife, assaulted community members and a policeman, and ignited the family home with his children left inside to possibly die in the blaze. They all escaped. From the perspective of a psychologist, I viewed this man as an untreatable psychopath. To my astonishment, following a lengthy intervention and a twelve hour community sentencing when no one recommended incarceration, today Richard remains on a violence-free and sober path. Central to his transformation was a return to sacred Ojibwa traditions, including the sweatlodge, as well as Hollow Water’s insistence that he should not be extended the privilege of escaping to prison. Richard was not banished from the tribe but firmly confined to its accountable embrace without any destructive shaming, the circumstances under which real healing
42 / Issue 13
can occur. Surprisingly, persons like Richard have encouraged me to reach deeply into my soul, my essence. Previously I struggled to rediscover my culturally suppressed ability to feel and express compassion for all people, even for those whose ways I didn’t like. But with the gifts of Hollow Water I now see a difference between loving and liking people. My task—the easier of the two—is to love the person who causes harm, knowing that “hurt people” hurt other people. This requires me to treat abusers with support, respect and dignity, thereby keeping my best essence intact and alive. The hope is that in doing so I can bring to life somewhat similar elements of compassion in the sex criminal. Today I view aboriginal healing methods as part of a sacred duty to my community, as well as a very personal gift, that allows me the opportunity to momentarily immerse myself in human darkness where it is often easiest to see light. As a result of my experiences with the lov-
ncient healing methods are reemerging on every continent to address contemporary social and emotional issues. Following the example of traditional medicine people we are once again learning that it is not the characteristics of things that are of primary importance, but the relationships between things. Individuals are strongest when in community, and in the Anishinaabe language of the Ojibwa, ain-dah-ing refers to the seventh direction, the soul or heart where peace and inner strength, mash-ka-wisen, reside. Strength can arise after being harshly tested, often following traumatic experiences in the “north” of our lives. The north is associated with the white buffalo who, undaunted, stares down the cold storms of the north winds by directly facing the bitter challenges it poses, unlike other animals that put their rear ends to the cold northern breezes. The north is the eldering time, when we finally get the lessons of all of life’s tests and challenges. It becomes our duty to gather wisdom from all of our life experiences and pass it on to the generations that follow, especially the young immediately before us. We learn that with all of life’s vicissitudes, there is a lesson to be learned, and with the lessons, a grateful heart.
I
n Ojibwa culture they perceive this, and for every test they say megwetch which roughly translates to “thank you” with the implication that thanks are extended for the good, the bad and the ugly, as it all can turn to good if faced in the right way. Like a strong wind of the north it can blow you over, or if you face it right, it can be uplifting. Your choice. For all things in life, whether painful or joyous, the healers of Hollow Water say, megwetch.
poem How to Feed a Fetish J.M. White
when Zuni people emerged from the earth the great beasts the bears the mountain lions the wolves attacked and devoured them so the supreme being took pity on them and turned the animals to stone so that only the heart of the animal remained alive in the rock the Zuni honored these fetishes keeping them in a special place performing ceremony for them feeding them giving them water calling on their powers to protect them and to help in all their endeavors the wolf the wildcat the coyote and the mountain lion helped the hunters and when a kill was made the heart was cut out and the stone was fed with its blood
J.M. White has visited the ancient cities and monuments of the indigenous people of prehistoric America both north and south including Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Chohokia, Poverty Point, Watson Brake, Ocmulgee, Etowah, Fort Ancient, Serpent Mound, Chichen Itza, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Bonampak, Tulum Uxmal, Kabah, Teotihuachan, Machu Picchu, Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Cusco as well as the pueblos of the Taos, Acoma, Zuni and Hopi nations.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 43
44 / Issue 13
Whaea Raina Ferris connects Maori women with their cultural and spiritual identities, waking hidden memories and forgotten goddesses in the process.
Illustration By Dylan Quigley
By Sharon Brown
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 45
I place the call in mid-afternoon on
Tuesday but it’s Wednesday morning in New Zealand when Maori elder Raina Ferris answers. We’re using Skype because in today’s world a videophone call across 19 time zones is free. “Who’s that with you?” I ask. “This is Taikura, my 13th grandchild,” she replies. The toddler squirms on her lap. “He lives out in the village here with us. Say hello.” I’m struck by the irony of using modern technology to meet a keeper of ancestral lifeways, but I appreciate the value of the connection. Whaea Raina Ferris (whaea is a title of endearment, respect and trust like grandmother) has served the Maori protocols, the traditional ceremonies, for 40 of her 57 years. Almost every week she and her husband Romaine participate in the protocols—more often if there are funerals to attend to or babies born. The importance of her work as a teacher and performer of karanga, the Maori traditional ceremonial call, lies in her ability to share the experience of connecting deeply with the spirits of the ancestors and the spirits of the earth. I’ve called her to explore why she keeps the heart of her tradition burning. Would you tell me about your village?
This village is called Porangahau. I grew up here and came back to learn. About five minutes from me is the place in New Zealand that has the longest place name in the world. It’s a pretty spacious name. What is that place?
The place is one of the areas that our ancestors appeared, people before time. It’s a big hill. The place name is about Tamatea, who is one of our Chief tribal ancestors, lamenting for the loss of his brother who was killed in a big battle here in this area. It is called: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. How many sacred places did you grow up with as a child?
Sacred places have become a modern day word. They’ve become sacred now because they’re no longer used as they were back in the day. For us the land is sacred; everywhere has the same sacredness. So I guess what you could call our sacred places today are becoming historical places, now that 46 / Issue 13
we’ve been moved to identify sacred places. Old marae (ceremonial lands) that are no longer used are all around us. Not even 200 years ago there would’ve been about twelve different subtribes living in this area of about ten, twenty miles. How many sub-tribes are there now?
Well, there are still those twelve but because of legislation, because of the need to form into little groups where government can manage us better, back in the ‘40s or ‘50s the people had to gather together and decide collectively on one. So the hapú, the subtribe, that we all belong to here is Ngáti Kere. But under Ngáti Kere there’s a whole list of other important ancestors that we all descend from. Our main tribe is Ngáti Kahungunu, which needs to be acknowledged because he was Kahungunu, the paramount ancestor that we all descend from along this particular region of the east coast of the North Island. Did you know as a young person that you would be a holder of the Maori tradition?
I remember lying on my bed one night. I was about 13 years old, and I just knew I was destined to do great work with other women. I knew this. My name is Raina, and the name TeRaina is about a woman who takes leadership roles and big responsibilities, a name that’s descended from a chiefly woman. So it’s come to me, it’s been given to me, and I believe that names carry messages. I grew up on the marae, the place where we perform our ceremonies. We don’t talk of them as ceremonies, but that is what they are. We have our Maori traditional welcome, and we have our Maori way of farewell to the dead, and of celebrating the living. We have a specific piece of land that has Maori buildings with traditional-style carving. And I grew up with this, and in my early teenage years I was thrown into the deep,
if you like, made to get up and perform. Of course you didn’t question. I was one of nine children; there’s two in our family that had a passion for language and a passion for wanting to know, me and one of my brothers. And I guess those qualities shone to the elders. That’s why they pick you out and they put you into positions where you have to stand up and deliver. Since I was 17 I’ve been in the role of doing the traditional Maori call that the women do in our welcome ceremony. It’s a role for women, and having been put up at that early age probably was my apprenticeship. Once upon a time you would never have done it like this, with me being the youngest of six older women. It was the firstborn daughter’s role. However, with the loss of the language and all that, it’s changed. It was a role that I respected and honored and did my best at. And what are your responsibilities now?
I’m a Pukenga Matua, a senior lecturer, at the Maori University here. I teach about the role of women on the marae. I teach women how to karanga, make the call that the women do that opens the ceremony. We open the ceremony, and we close the ceremony. So our voice is sacred, our voice is critical. I teach women how to access their inner voice that’s deep inside of them. How to find it and how to release the valve and let the voice out. And hopefully, I inspire our women to want to learn the language and to learn the traditions because a lot of these traditions in New Zealand have just about disappeared. We have a void there for about two generations, my parents and probably their parents, where the language was just belted out of them. The role that I teach is for women who could no longer have children. The ruahine—that’s another word for the grandmothers—were the keepers, and they looked after this protocol. You had to earn your right; you had to wait a long time before you became a kaikaranga (caller) for your people. But because of the loss of lots of things associated with us being Maori, that’s all changed. Today a lot of our grandmothers live in the city and go to work every day and don’t actually live at home on their
marae—they’re not here; they’re not available. The whole scenario is different from how it was, let’s just say, 150 years ago. I had one of my elders who’s in her mid-80s say to me she wished this sort of thing was around when she was young. It’s become a very empowering program. Women are getting in touch with themselves, with this spirituality, with the uniqueness of being Maori. And they’re learning how to access their internal voice that has amazing potential. What’s the source of the voice, and why can’t they access it right now?
It’s a voice that is partially spiritual—okay— and it’s a voice that’s governed by protocol. So it’s sort of not a voice that you tap into every day, although you can. And is it important just for the Maori that this work be done? Or does your work also spill over to the world at large?
COURTESY RAINA FERRIS
The protocols enable us to retain our identity as Maori. That’s critical. But most of us today have other blood in our bloodstream. So today we have other races coming to visit our marae. We have other traditional people coming to have ceremony on our marae because of interconnectedness between all people. I think the way we keep up our protocols awakened this. So we’re not exclusively Maori-driven in our ceremony. Our view of the world, our view of all living things is that we are all from the same source, we are all connected to Mother Earth, we are all relations, we are all one. But we all have our uniqueness in the diversity of the countries we were born in. Many people of European or mixed descent don’t have any memory, and their families don’t have any memory of performing ceremony with the land in the place where their ancestors have been. Most people in the United States are fairly recent arrivals, maybe 100, 200 years. How is the work that you do with your people relevant for people in, say, America?
Our method of honoring each other—you don’t have to be Maori to feel that. You don’t
have to be Maori to be a part of it. I teach the sacred call that goes out between the visitors and the people who are welcoming the visitors. You don’t have to be Maori to feel their vibration, to feel that awakening, because it’s the way the call is performed. You don’t even have to be human to get a rustle. I’ve had responses from whales, animals even, when doing the karanga. So, it’s sending out a vibration of love, and love is a universal energy. Love is a universal need at the moment. Even though it’s Maori, other indigenous people who have a welcoming ceremony actually do the same thing. It’s designed so that they touch the heart of humanity. The heart of humanity is something that’s really important. It seems that particularly in Western culture there’s such a focus on the mind and its emphasis on things like science, economics and business—things that are based in the material world—and there doesn’t seem to be much of a focus or attention paid to things of the heart or things of the spiritual side. Do you have any comment about your experience of the heart versus the mind?
I was just thinking this morning how the world is connected by technology—okay? You can press a button, and I’m connected to you instantly through an international network of energy. But what we’ve lost touch with and what our ancestors could do—they could do this long before I had a laptop sitting in front of me—is to access the internal Internet that we’ve lost touch with. And practicing your indigenous protocols is what gets you back in touch with those. If we were to think about our bodies, our minds, our spirit as a big computer and that we actually have the potential to be able to connect ourselves to people internally—but what’s happened is—it’s like the computer’s got a big virus, and we’ve lost touch with that internal gift that’s been given us. That’s a really great analogy. The work that you’re doing is perhaps like an emergency room doctor who’s out there trying to fight the virus that keeps people from remembering;
RAINA FERRIS
you’re offering the antidote to the amnesia that’s in the world, where people forget their connection.
Yes, absolutely, and it’s right inside of you. We all have the potential, we just don’t even realize that we can tap it just by opening your mouth and letting the beautiful call of love come out of your mouth. But it’s not a call that comes from your throat; it’s the call that comes up from the womb. That’s the source of it. The source is in being woman, and it’s in being the carrier of the womb and the carrier of the future generation. It goes deeper than that; when we want to connect with the internal voice, we have to connect with Mother Earth. We kick off our shoes and go stand on Mother Earth, or Papatuanuku as we call her, and we call out that voice. Or we can stand around the sacred fire on the beach and do it; you can do it anywhere. It’s a matter of connecting in your heart and in your mind to the source. And the source is yourself, and the source is Mother Earth, and the source is that universal web of connectedness. I did a presentation in Hawaii one year and had women from all over the world. I gave them a Maori phrase to call, and I told them what the call means. It was nice and simple, and by the time they had called the phrase six times they were all sobbing. And the most profound voice came from a Lebanese woman. It opened up her meridians; it SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 47
GATHERING ATTENDEES SHARE ENTHUSIASM AND SONG AT JOSHUA TREE, CA IN 2009.
Do you have a particular way that you connect with knowing so that you are able to bring back some of these ways?
The course that I teach has to be delivered on the marae—okay? It’s not a course that’s taught in the classroom. The elders who give it the sanction made the stipulation that the course has to be delivered on the marae because that’s where the protocols belong, and it’s conducive to the surroundings. So, therefore, you’ll be able to feel the spirit of what I’m trying to impart where actually you’re living on the sacred ground of our ancestors. It al48 / Issue 13
MEET RAINA FERRIS It is one thing to read that
“everything is sacred,” but it’s quite another to experience it. Ancient Wisdom Rising, a gathering of traditional elders and indigenous wisdom keepers, will help people experience the world as alive with spirit, to move “the web of life” from intellectual concept to felt relationship. There’s no movement more important in the world today. Relatedness is the root of respect, healing, compassion and justice. Ancient Wisdom Rising, previously incarnated as the Interspiritual Conference, will be held on the shores of Puget Sound at Port Townsend, WA, May 19-22, 2011. At Ancient Wisdom Rising you can experience the songs and teachings of RAINA FERRIS and engage with wisdom keepers from the four directions of the world. Each elder carries and presents a unique flavor of traditional knowledge and challenges participants to engage with the world in a new way. Other wisdom keepers are SOBONFU SOMÉ, a Dagara tribeswoman and ritual leader from West Africa’s Burkina Faso; ERICK GONZALEZ, Mayan Day Keeper from Guatemala and Deer Mountain in California; KAWAN SANGAA MORRISON, a Haida ceremonial elder, storyteller and attorney from British Columbia; ELIOT COWAN, a Huichol tsaurirrikame (fully initiated healer and ceremonial leader) of the Huichol tradition from Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental. As pressures in industrialized society build, more and more people feel a change coming. This gathering will help catalyze that change into a deeper connection with our hearts, our spirits, our Earth and our future. Are you ready? Visit ancientwisdomrising.com for the updated list of elders and event details.
lows access into all those files that you’ve locked away—if you like. And I’m learning to tap into my internal Internet, my “t-mail,” my tipuna mail, we call it. Tipuna are all those who have gone on before, passed away. The ancestors.
T-mail is about being able to access that wisdom. It’s meditating, dreamtime, being in sacred places. I’ve lived a lot of what I pass on through experience. Experience and in thinking about the experience. I can’t teach women how to karanga; the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. The best teacher in the world is experience, so I help build up their courage to have an experience. I think the foundation of what I teach—I look back into our ancient stories about our goddesses. Now these stories have been swept under the cover. They’re not out there, although the male stories are. All of my teaching is towards awakening the female deity with all these beautiful female goddesses. I bring those stories back to life. Reviving those stories and sharing them
with other women and then giving time to analyze. What are the values in that story? What’s the philosophy of that story? What are some of the lessons that the story is teaching us? What’s that story got to do with us being Maori women in 2010? And what’s it go to do with karanga? So my message is that the answers to everything are right under our noses; they’re inscribed in our history, or “her-story” in this case. But unless you’re aware of those stories and unless you make the effort to learn them, you blindly travel through life in ignorance. One of the beautiful things that is happening in my journey is that our female atua, which is goddesses, are being reborn. And that’s exciting. The goddesses themselves are waking up again?
Yeah! Yeah! They’re being put out there, you know, and the underlying message is that all the qualities that the goddesses have, we have. You and me. Whether you’re Maori, Pakeha, Chinese, Indian, whatever. The qualities that are in these beautiful female goddesses are qualities that are inside of us. It’s going to be great to sit with you at our gathering next May, Raina. It will be wonderful to see how our goddess energies emerge around the fire.
Yes. It will be good to bring our voices together.
ED KOMINISKI
recalled memories. The vibration that she accessed rocked their world. So it’s designed to work with the heavenly realm, and it’s also designed to work with the human realm. I’ve had a few experiences myself that have given me a glimpse into the power that lies within us. When I was in Hawaii about five years ago, they wanted me to karanga to the whales, just to send them out love and greeting. It was towards the end of March when the whales were migrating back out into the big ocean. We went out off the coast of Maui, and we found a little pod—a bull, a mother and a baby—heading out to sea. We stopped and dropped the microphone into the water. This man, Dan Sythe, has a website called Whalesong Project (www. whalesong.net), where you can go and hear the whales live. Anyway, he dropped the microphone in the water and we could hear them talking. And I went out onto the bow of the boat, and I did my karanga out to them. I just greeted them, as our ancestors and the children of Tangaroa, who is the god of the ocean realm, and acknowledged them for all the gifts that they brought and bid them farewell on their journey back to where they return to, and I acknowledged all the landmarks that were around me on Hawaii. And this pod of whales turned around and came back to the boat. The minute I started calling, Dan said that their dialogue changed. It’s all recorded on the website. The bull hung around underneath the boat for about ten minutes, and the mother and calf were just a little way from the boat. That was amazing. It was amazing.
LIFE RESOURCES HEALING, GUIDANCE & COUNSELING Megan Montero FENG SHUI CONSULTATIONS
Feng Shui is a practice of working with our surroundings to align our lives with the blessings of Nature and to support our highest good. I offer phone consultations for home and business. Santa Cruz, CA USA. PH.831-420-1074 EMAIL megan@windandwaterblessings.com WEB windandwaterblessings.com
Kathy Reid PLANT SPIRIT MEDICINE, LMT, CPES, STUDENT MIDWIFE
Experience the profound healing of the plant people. Offering Plant Spirit Medicine, Massage, and Placenta Encapsulation in Salt Lake City, UT USA. PH. 970-623-1297 EMAIL plantspiritmedicine-ut-co.blogspot.com WEB PlacentaBenefits.info/KathyReid
Prema Sheerin SHAMANIC HEALING AND LIFE COACHING
In person or by phone. Establish a deep and abiding relationship with the wisdom and guidance
SACRED FIRE COMMUNITY FIRE CIRCLES
of your own heart and have your mind align with that inner guidance.Victoria, B.C. PH. 779-430-4284 EMAIL prema@premasheerin.com WEB premasheerin.com
sexual addiction specializations. PH. 515-279-6900 EMAIL geralblanchard@yahoo.com WEB individualaddictiontreatment.com
Sherry Morgan
“As above, so below.”The planets and stars speak to us.They offer guidance about our life purpose, relationship intent, initiatory opportunities and how to live life in alignment. I offer astrological readings and counselling.Yuma,AZ USA. PH. 928-210-5092 EMAIL foxxita@gmail.com
EXPLORING THE PHENOMENON OF PRAYER
My gift is in helping others connect powerfully with the divine through prayer and from there to pray effectively. I offer workshops, personal coaching and companion prayers. PH. 860-656-6817 (USA) PH. 250-483-5273 (Canada) EMAIL sherry.morgan@primus.ca
Geral Blanchard INTENSIVE THERAPEUTIC RETREATS
Recovery from trauma and addictions.Week long Earth-based care in Montana mountains. Completely private with conventional psychological interventions complimented by sacred indigenous influences. Impaired professional and
MA | WESTFORD
Fire is the energy of warmth, connection and transformation.These fire circles hold a ritual space for people of all paths and traditions to connect with each other and the world through the sacred spirit of fire.
The Westford Massachusetts Fire Circle invites you to join us at our monthly fires. Come share a song, a joke and your open heart. Ray Strouble 978-589-0901 Ray.Strouble@gmail.com NY | BOICEVILLE
Eastern U.S. MA | BROOKFIELD
Fire moves you to a different place.The Brookfield Massachusetts Fire Circle invites you to join us to share the warmth at our monthly community fires. Tim Simon & Gwen Broz (508) 867.9810 timgwen@charter.net
Are you longing for a sense of community? A place to share your heart with others in a sacred space where you can feel safe and heard? We welcome you to join us at our monthly fire! Claire Franck 845-657-2929 clairefranck@gmail.com
Western U.S. CA | SANTA MONICA
You have an open invitation. Mark your calendar for the first Friday of every month, rain or shine.
SkyFox SHAMANIC ASTROLOGY
Women’s Poetry & Healing Writing Retreat
will help you find your words to heal. Safe group environment. Using spiritual works from many traditions. September 16 – 18, 2011. $245, $80 room/board. Mount St. Mary’s Abbey, Wrentham, MA USA. Facilitator: Dianna Vagianos Miller. PH. 203-913-5548 EMAIL diannavagianos@gmail.com
We’ll sit around the fire in community as our ancestors did. Alan Kerner | First Friday of every month 310-452.0658 kerners@aol.com OR | BEND
Finding yourself in Central Oregon with a hint of winter chill in the air? Come join us around the fire! The Sacred Fire Circle of Bend meets on the banks of the Deschutes river. Jessica de la O & Larry Messerman | First Saturday of every month | 541-306-6448 bendfires@gmail.com WA | OLYMPIA
The Community Fire Circle in Olympia Washington invites you to join us at our monthly fires. Come be with the fire and each other. Peter & Sharon Brown First Saturday of every month | 360-943-9373 sbrown@sacredfiremagazine.com
SACRED FIRE RESOURCES LISTINGS are affordable ads suggested for healing practitioners and facilities, service practitioners, retreat centers and facilitators, small businesses, and cottage industries offering mail order items. We reserve the right to refuse any ad at our discretion, and all mail order products listed in this section must offer satisfaction guaranteed or money back. // Resources Rates: Resources listings cost $35 each for one issue which includes up to 35 words, plus name and contact information. Discounts for consecutive issue insertions are offered: $90 for 3 issues or $100 for four issues. All Resources ads must be pre-paid. Send copy with check or money order payment to: SACRED FIRE ADVERTISING, PO BOX 5445, FLORENCE SC 29502-5445
For more information, email advertising@sacredfiremagazine.com or visit our website at www.sacredfiremagazine.com SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 49
FOR SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE READERS
THE
Redrocks Cooperative Featuring special offers on select progressive, environmental, and spiritual publications of interest to Sacred Fire Magazine readers.
Visit us now at
W W W. R E D R O C K S M A G S . C O M / S F
50 / Issue 13
3.85 x 4.72 for Sacred Fire Magazine Revised 8/31/09
EXPERIENCE
Pele’s Heart © G. Brad Lewis/volcanoman.com
A WORLD ALIVE WITH SPIRIT
Ancient Wisdom Rising
A Gathering of Traditional Elders and Indigenous Wisdom Keepers May 19-22, 2011 • Port Townsend, WA
Come to the fire and open your life to new possibilities. Immerse yourself for four days and three nights in the teachings, stories and ceremonies of elders whose timeless wisdom can transform our lives today. The deep purpose of these times connects our hearts, our spirits, our Earth and our future. Are you ready?
Keeper of the Rituals Sobonfu Some (Dagara)
Kawan Sangaa Morrison (Haida)
OmeAkaEhekatl Erick Gonzalez (Mayan)
Whaea Raina Ferris (Maori)
ancientwisdomrising.com check our website for the growing list of elders and gathering details
Tsaurirrikame Eliot Cowan (Huichol)
Special guest: author Kent Nerburn
Community and council around the sacred fire
Special screenings: films of wisdom and experience
An Interspiritual Conference presented by
Sacred Fire Foundation & Sacred Fire Magazine
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 51
52 / Issue 13
Find a freedom you’ve never known in the illuminating course,
Enemies of Learning Recapture your joy in life and the love of learning through an experiential exploration of your relationship with the mind. Compassionate personal guidance provided by course facilitator Dan Sprinkles.
“Enemies of Learning helped my mind to get out of its destructive box and cycles and see it’s how you deal with the mind as a tool and not a tormenter.”
—testimonial
Please send inquiries to: EnemiesofLearning@gmail.com or online at www.DanSprinkles.com
Like Sacred Fire
Magazine? Don’t just read it,
live it! Our community fires are about returning to the ancient wisdom of heart.
Come join us around the fire!
www.sacredfirecommunity.org community fires | events | programs | products
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 53
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 10
Issue 11
Issue 9
Issue 12
LIMITED QUANTITIES ARE AVAILABLE. Issue 1 is $18, all others are $10 each (US).
54 / Issue 13
When you purchase 2 gift subscriptions for your friends or family, your own new subscription for four new issues is only $15.95.
You’ll find it easy to order using the response card inserted in between the pages of this issue of the magazine. Or order online using our secure website.
SACRED FIRE MAGAZINE / 55
final flicker Joy Beyond Fear
Grandfather Fire calls us to engage in the mysteries of life.
Q A
how do I show my joy outwardly in this culture? 7/05, Barnet, Vermont GRANDFATHER,
there is an enormous amount of fear. Enormous. But, the heart is indestructible—no matter what the bad country music songs say. (He sings a ditty and there’s laughter.) So, the thing with Heart is that it allows you to touch joy. Joy is different than happiness. This culture you live in is very strange. Everyone wants happiness, which is fleeting. It is temporary. As a human being you are designed to have many emotions. Everyone wants happiness but the moment they have it they are immediately afraid they are going to lose it! Then they spend time in fear—fear of loss. The more fear dominates their lives, the less happiness they have. They will be afraid to build relationship with others and continually be disappointed by other people. This is not the voice of Heart but the voice of the mind. The mystery of life, the mystery of existence is very threatening and unfathomable from the standpoint of the mind. When you begin to recognize that the joy of Heart is indestructible—that it cannot be taken away, that it propagates itself, that it catches on to something else and then something else, and so forth—your joy can be present with the other emotions. In fact, joy will destroy fear. Your joy will ignite the coldness of other people. It is the person living in fear that is the one who is suffering, like they are hiding in a hole. Life is now, and it’s not worth waiting for someone or something to come to straighten things out. There is such value in connecting and having a deeper, richer sense of your self. It’s time to come out and to bring your courage with you. Only the mind can fear this expression. You will find that when you express yourself with that clear sense, others will respond. I could go down the path of explaining how it touches and moves people and spreads, but you must know you can’t wait and spend your life hiding from these things in the shadow of fear. For your own self, it is time to face that fear of expression now! IN THIS CULTURE
56 / Issue 13
Since 1997, Grandfather Fire has been making regular appearances, often before gatherings of several hundred people, in the United States, Mexico, Australia and Great Britain by “wearing the suit” of a human, a tsaurirrikame (a fully-initiated Huichol shaman) who lives in Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico. This tsaurirrikame is one of six people around the world with whom Grandfather Fire works in this way. When Grandfather Fire emerges, usually after an hour or so of jokes, songs and poems, sometimes aided by drumming and by smoking large strong cigars and drinking a hot, potent chocolate, the man
who hosts him goes away. He says it’s what he imagines it would be like to be under anesthesia. Grandfather Fire will then entertain questions from the gathered audience. Often, he will answer questions until just before dawn. With humor, compassion, fierce honesty, eloquence and what could be interpreted as an apparent disdain for political correctness, Grandfather Fire offers divine guidance to those who care to listen. A collection of his wisdom, Heard Around the Fire, (Sacred Fire Press, 2010) has been drawn from several of the audiences he has given. This phenomenal book is available from the Sacred Fire Foundation. sacredfirefoundation.org
MACE FLEEGER
An excerpt from Heard Around the Fire
THE TOP 5 REASONS TO SUPPORT
1
We do this for love, not money
In the six years since our first issue, our volunteer staff has contributed over 30,000 hours toward the creation and production of Sacred Fire
2
We give back to the source
3
We make real connections
4
We’re an important voice
5
We thrive because of you
10% of all revenues are dedicated to grants awarded by Sacred Fire Foundation’s charitable giving program
We strengthen the bonds between readers, traditional knowledge and elders by hosting gatherings like Ancient Wisdom Rising
In these crucial times of change, we offer a fresh outlook on modern culture and call people to connect with each other and the sacredness alive in the world
Subscriptions and sales cover less than 25% of our costs; we exist because donors like you know how critical it is to keep the sacred fires of traditional wisdom burning
Your donation is the fuel that feeds our fire. Thank you for helping us continue our work. Please give generously. It’s easy to make your tax-deductible donation using our secure web server at www.sacredfirefoundation.org or mail a check to:
Sacred Fire Foundation 71 North Main Street PO Box 270 Liberty, NY, 12754
Sacred Fire displays wonderment throughout, exploring themes relevant to modern, spiritual, and earthconnected people. UTNE READER
Sacred Fire is tuned in to what’s happening in this world and the need to revitalize the naturebased wisdom traditions and make them available to a much wider population. BILL PLOTKIN, AUTHOR NATURE AND THE HUMAN SOUL AND SOULCRAFT
All of the earth is sacred and alive, seeking to strengthen relationship with its parts including us. Sacred Fire’s role in the reawakening it takes to notice, feel and act is not pretentious but elemental. JESSE WOLF HARDIN ANIMA’ TEACHING AND RETREAT CENTER
River of Ancient Wisdom
RETREAT. DISCOVER. HEAL.
BLUE DEER
CENTER
Join us in 2011 for these upcoming programs: Healing Camp: Huichol Shamanic Healing
Introduction to Plant Spirit Medicine
Men’s Retreat
Journey to the Heart of the Land
Ukalai Women’s Retreat
Living with Totem: Sacred Partnership with the World
with Safia Johnson and Carla Leftwich
with Eliot Cowan
with Scott Sheerin
with David Wiley and Mark Gionfriddo with Sherry Boatright and Deanna Jenné
Along with these Wisdom Teachers:
with Eliot Cowan
Bob and Lee Nitsch • Margaret Connolly • Tasnim Hermila Fernandez • John Lockley, and more
BLUE Blue Deer Center DEER
Margaretville, New York CENTER www.bluedeer.org • 845.586.3225 •