MAUI, MARY MAGDALENE & ME
THE TEMPLE COW SEES ALL
RECEPTOR SITES FOR THE HOLY SACREDFIREMAGAZINE.COM
AN ANTIDOTE TO HUMAN AMNESIA
TOM PORTER’S MOHAWK THANKSGIVING
WHAT IS THE ORIGINAL RELIGION? $7.95 U.S. / $9.75 CANADA
BILL PLOTKIN STAGES TO THE MORE-THANHUMAN WORLD
MELISSA NELSON
“RE-IMAGINE YOURSELF IN THE WORLD.” ISSUE 8
Looking for something sustainable?
In the earliest times, humans were uniquely
connected to the lands where we lived, the animals that fed us, the plants that nourished our children—we were all intimate partners in a circular dance of life. In those times, we heard the music of this dance and recognized it as the voice of divine, the sacred song of Creation. Each people had their own songs, given to them by the ancestors and spirits of their places. These songs were the original agreements, the original instructions about how to live in right relationship with each other and the earth. In today’s fast-forward world, we have forgotten how to hear this music. Symptoms of our collective amnesia are everywhere—economic turmoil, environmental crisis, political polarization, social injustice, and rising rates of physical, mental and emotional illness. We are profoundly disconnected from our communities, our families and our own hearts. What can be done to bring the world and her people back into balance? It is time for a great remembering. It is time for Sacred Fire.
Sacred Fire Foundation promotes personal, cultural and environmental healing by helping all people re-discover their innate and intimate connection to the living world.
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of living is a good place to start.
Sacred Fire Foundation
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Be a Firestarter
In many indigenous and traditional communities, there are wisdom holders who remember how to be in right relationship with the world. These spiritual elders, healers and medicine people offer something both precious and practical to the global community: a worldview grounded in sustainability and co-existence.
Sacred Fire Foundation knows how important it is to bring this wisdom to the world, now. Our magazine, Sacred Fire is a modern voice of these ancient traditions. It’s an antidote to human amnesia, reminding people who we are, so we can find healing, create loving relationships and build sustainable communities that are rooted in awareness and reciprocity.
OUR MISSION:
Reviving “right relationship” between humanity and the living world. The essence of every healthy relationship is a natural cycle of exchange, and Sacred Fire Foundation knows the importance of supporting the source of ancestral wisdom. A 501(c)3 charitable organization, Sacred Fire Foundation develops partnerships and programs that provide in-kind, technical and financial aid for organizations that preserve and sustain traditional indigenous lifeways. Support the source of ancestral wisdom. Support bringing this wisdom to the world. Support Sacred Fire Foundation. www.sacredfirefoundation.org
Contents
On The Cover: Melissa Nelson was photographed by Ryan Heffernan on October 16, 2008.
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16 | Divine Nourishment Ancestral Voices By Mary Lane
18 | Logs for the Fire
A Tale of Beauty and Happiness By Svagita Elks
64 | Final Flicker
Opening to the Sacred By Deena Kaye Wade
DEPARTMENTS 4 | Editor’s Note
The Gods’ Little Joke
6 | Letters 8 | Unintended
Consequences Sweet Nothings / Wrinkles in the Plan 10 | Reviving Right Relationship Remembering, Respect and Reconciliation
59 | Marketplace
COLUMNS 15 | Dreams of the Holy The Great Mystery Speaks By Barry Williams 2 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
10
POETRY 38 | Motionless
in Moonlight By Stephen Harrod Buhner
38 | Open Your
Box of Religion By Susan Austin Taylor
56 | On Plum Island By Katharine Gregg
57 | The Great Mother By David Harrington
PROVOCATIONS 19 | The Holy Ones Among Us
43 | What If... 58 | A Young Woman Dies
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Features 20 | A Mohawk
Thanksgiving Address Whenever people come together, these words must be spoken before anything important can be done. By Tom Porter
25 | Mapping Black Elk
A Canadian architect turns the Western worldview upside down as he considers the true value of a place. By Emilio Laurier Williams Portal
30 | Remembering for the
Future: An Interview with Melissa Nelson Peacemakers and warriors, ceremony and the Great Mystery will bring us back together after five hundred years of fragmentation.
36 | The Original Religion
Even using the words “divine” or “sacred” widens the division between ourselves and the world we inhabit. By Charles Eisenstein
FROM TOP: RYAN HEFFERNAN; JOHN BARRY.
39 | Maturity Matters: An
44 | Portfolio: Gravity
Interview with Bill Plotkin How visionary experience, the dream of the earth, and constant interaction between people of all ages can help us finally grow up.
of Stone At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, a remarkable garden of Zimbabwean sculpture gives travelers a place to remember and connect. By Sharon Brown & Photographs by John Barry
49 | An Inescapable
Calling: An interview with Niall Richard Campbell Plagued by dreams and harassed by voices, this Tsonga-Shangan Mungoma speaks about the “sickness of calling” that led him to thwasa.
52 | Fiction: Eyes of
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a Temple Cow Fed and fussed over, the playmate of Lord Krishna chews the cud of the sacred and the profane. By Murzban F. Shroff Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 3
Sacred Fire An Antidote to Human Amnesia
Sacred EDITOR’S Fire NOTE
Volume 3, Number Eight
PUBLISHER SHARON BROWN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JONATHAN MERRITT CREATIVE DIRECTOR MACE FLEEGER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MARY LANE, CHRIS SCHLAKE, SHELLEY HARRISON SOLICITING EDITOR LOUISE BERLINER SUBMISSIONS MANAGER STEPHEN MICHAEL SCOTT COPY EDITOR CHARLE LEAGUE SUBSCRIPTION SALES JILL JACOBS SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER ANDYE MURPHY ADVERTISING SALES LYN FELLING PUBLICITY KATHY DANCING HEART I.T. & WEB MASTER DAN CERNESE GRASSROOTS TEAM MARY LANE, THERESA ARICO, AMY CANFIELD, NATHALIE WORTHINGTON
ADVISORY BOARD KAREN ABERLE, JEFF BAKER, TUCKER FARLEY, LISA GOREN THANK YOU! ERIC NOYES & THE AMERICAN INDIAN INSTITUTE, LLOYD ARNEACH, GALEN MCKIBBEN, TIM SIMON, PAUL TURNER & 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 Email subscriptions@sacredfiremagazine.com and include both your old and new address. Please allow 6 weeks for address change to take effect. Postmaster Please send address changes to: P.O. Box 30645, Albuquerque, NM 87190-0645. Subscriptions Four issues: $28 (USD), single issue $7.95 (USD); Back issues $10 (USD) includes shipping within the U.S. Subscribe online at sacredfiremagazine.com 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 Sacred Fire Foundation fosters personal, cultural and environmental healing through the preservation and propagation of traditional indigenous lifeways. A 501 (c) 3 charitable organization, the foundation seeks to revive “right relationship” between humanity and the living world. The foundation supports the source of ancestral wisdom through the development of partnerships and grants and supports bringing this wisdom to the world through publishing and events. SACRED FIRE FOUNDATION sacredfirefoundation.org 3 Elmwood Road Hancock, NH 03449
Board of Trustees CHAIRMAN DAVID WILEY BOARD MEMBERS ALAN KERNER, ARTEMIA FABRE EXEC. DIRECTOR DEVELOPMENT SHERRY MORGAN EXEC. DIRECTOR PARTNERS & GRANTS SOFIA ARROYO EXEC. DIRECTOR COMMUNICATION & EDUCATION SHARON BROWN SECRETARY VICTORIA REEVES BOOKEEPING DANA MARTIN GRANT RESEARCH AMY CANFIELD 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.
4 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
The Gods’ Little Joke ONE OF THE BASIC PREMISES OF Sacred Fire is that the gods are
alive and active in the world, not just as elemental phenomena or as a single omnipotent force, but as many living manifestations of divinity, alive on every level of being, each with particular attributes and tastes. This was well known to our ancestors and is still known by those who are living within ancestral traditions. Much of my apprenticeship as a marakame, a traditional Huichol shamanic healer, had to do with creating relationship with the Kakayaris, the god-forms that manifest as sacred sites, to which I had been called. While these magnificent beings are tremendously generous they are also strict masters who sometimes employ a certain rough humor that can be very uncomfortable. Several years ago, when my son, Eli, turned one, we welcomed him into our spiritual community with a baptism ceremony at the Fiesta for the Initiation of Marakames. The Fiesta is held at the traditional Huichol initiation site, a magnificent volcanic lake in Western Mexico where the presence of the gods is palpable. The Fiesta is a rich and intricate ritual, conducted by elder Huichol marakames, requiring intense attention to details. For the many guests, it is a period of celebration and repose steeped in connection with the holy. For the initiation candidates, it is the culmination of years of
apprenticeship, an ordeal that tests them to the limits of their endurance. If they are successful, they may bring the gifts of the gods, of healing and wisdom, to their communities. It is also an auspicious time to conduct weddings and baptisms, The baptism ceremony also requires preparation and sacrifice. Numerous details must be attended to, prayers memorized and fasting observed. Since I was slow in confirming our reservations, our family and friends were housed away from the main resort. So, much of my time was spent thinking of logistics—how to get back and forth from our hotel, how to get the items we needed for the ceremony, how to make sure our friends, who were unfamiliar with the community and the ritual space, were well cared for and content. To say the least, I was a bundle of tension and concern. The baptism was scheduled for the last night as the Fiesta built towards its climax. That night the attending shaman sang a timeless and infinite song to petition the many gods to help and bless the candidates through their final trials. Throughout the attending shaman’s singing, I kept checking the time, wondering when and if the baptism would take place. Finally at two a.m., we were called into the tuki, the sacred god house, to perform the ritual. The ritual was rich and beautiful and deep. My son
PHIL PARKER.
was held before the community and prayed for and sung to. And, although Eli protested loudly when he was drenched with sacred water, and though Jennifer, his mother, and I were not too accurate in reciting our prayers, Eli was blessed and given a Huichol name. Afterwards, I felt energized so that, at dawn, I was able to aid in the final rites of the Fiesta. But that day, while the community celebrated the successful initiation of the new marakames, I felt completely depleted. I nearly missed the opportunity to speak the poem that I had written to honor my teacher’s initiation as a Tsaurirrikame (Singer of the Gods, a fully initiated shaman/healer). That night, as we passed tequila to toast our son, I could think of no words to bless him. And the next day, while the Fiesta guests left and many of us prepared to travel deeper into the Huichol homeland, I felt only my fatigue—and one other thing, the first stirrings of dysentery. In order to deepen our connection to the lineage and the land, each year we travel to a Huichol village. It is extremely remote and rustic, perched on a mesa overlooking a magnificent, impenetrable canyon we call the mirador. Flying in the small plane to get there, it was all I could do to keep from shitting my pants. I spent the next three days—despite the efforts of the medical doctors, acupuncturists and healers among us—either on my back or running to the latrine. I lost more than fifteen pounds. That third night, we were granted an audience with Tatewari, Grandfather Fire (for information on that phenomenon, see Sacred Fire, #2). As I lay beside the fire, I asked him what
my illness was about and how I could heal it. Grandfather said, “Well, first, it’s my quick weight loss program, which you sorely need. No, when you’re sick like this, what can you think of but how you are feeling and whether you can run to the latrine in time. You’re present in the moment. Over the last few days,” he continued, “you’ve been part of a magnificent ritual, but you could only think of what was missing, and what you had to do next. You were barely there. So this is the Gods’ little joke, a way to bring you into the present. When you become alive to the moment, to the world singing beautifully around you and through you, then this sickness will dissipate.” The next morning at dawn,
I woke to the sounds of the animals, the donkeys, dogs, chickens and songbirds singing for the arrival of the sun. I heard the Huichols chatting together as they prepared breakfast. I saw the light gathering in the sky. And that day, I went to the mirador. Looking out over the land, feeling the pure, upwelling wind and the warm sun pouring down, watching the vultures glide and the great white clouds floating overhead, I felt my deep connection with the present moment, with the world as it presented itself in all its grandeur. My dysentery was gone. I was able to eat and drink that day, to write poetry and to celebrate the amazing richness of the present presence of the gods. —Jonathan Merritt
The baptism of Elijah Merritt by Tsaurirrikame Eliot Cowan, with his godfather, Will Berliner, holding Eli while his father, Jonathan Merritt looks on.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 5
Sacred LETTERS Fire
Dear Sacred Fire, Fall-Winter 2008
The Longest Walk Is Not Over
THANKS FOR MENTIONING
the Longest Walk 2 in Sacred Fire #7. Here’s an update on the Walk. Starting from San Francisco, California, taking two routes, the Longest Walkers traversed more than 8,000 miles across 24 states and 35 reservations over five months. We survived many challenges in our journey to raise awareness about sacred site protection, cultural survival, youth empowerment and Native American rights. Along the way, each community shared their stories of environmental destruction and threats to sacred sites. We witnessed the desecration of sacred sites by the United States government, corporations, developers and individual citizens. We saw extreme pollution of our lands by littering, coal fired power plants and toxic waste dumps. We saw extreme poverty and religious persecution and heard testimony of the denial of 6 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
religious freedom to prisoners. On the last day of the Walk, four staffs of authority were handed from the elder generation to the younger generations so that we can continue the fight for Indigenous rights and protection of our land. I was honored to have been one of the three young women and one man that were chosen to step into the leadership roles, to carry on the struggle for Indigenous cultural survival—the protection of our traditional teachings, culture and land—that has been passed down through the generations. Finally, over 800 walkers from across Indian country as well as international allies gathered in Washington, D.C. carrying the message, “All Life is Sacred, Protect Mother Earth.” As we arrived in D.C., Jimbo Simmons, the Northern Route Coordinator, greeted us with these words, “Today, we are one voice. We are one spirit. We are one body. The two walks brought together many different people
from many different parts of this country—from different reservations, from different communities, from different walks of life. But today, we have brought this pair together as one prayer—a prayer for the sacred mother earth, a prayer for future generations, and a prayer for the earth.” The Longest Walk 2 has had a long lasting effect not only the participants but on all the communities we touched along the way. A strong network of committed people across Indian Country is developing strategies to protect sacred sites and build deeper connections. These sites, the water sources, mountains and sacred places are key components of Native religion and culture. We have come to recognize where there is an environmental threat, there is a cultural threat. What the first world considers to be natural resources are, in fact, our cultural resources. As Indigenous peoples protect the land, we protect our culture, our religious freedom and
our selves. We strive to create education and awareness that Sacred Sites protection is not just an Indigenous rights issue, but also involves social justice, environmental justice and human rights. As we work together to build healthy sustainable communities, we recognize our common goal as we struggle to exist as a people. MORNING STAR GALI
A citizen of the Pit River Nation
morningstar@treatycouncil.org
Mountain Time THE VARIOUS ARTICLES IN
issue 7 about the geographical area of the Northwest brought to mind something from the past. I lived in Seattle for a year in the 70’s while attending the University of Washington. I spent much time fishing the cold waters for salmon and hiking in the Cascades through forests of fir. After returning permanently to New England, I visited my in-laws home in the Seattle area during a vacation. This was
five or six years after Mt. Saint Helens erupted in southern Washington. I needed to hike and wanted to see the mountain. I got the permit required and parked in the upper parking lot. Hiking from there shouldn’t have been hard, but with so much volcanic sand, it was one step forward and a half step back. Finally, at the top, I rested a bit. There were 25 or 30 friendly and talkative people there from some club in Portland. I looked over the sharp rock edge with some fear. It was a sheer wall of hard rock maybe 1000 feet down to where some volcanic domes were pushing up. Rumbles and noisy cracking of solid rock occurred constantly. Then a loud and deep voice commanded me, “Get Off This Mountain Now”. I stood at attention and looked to see what the other people were going to do. They continued to talk and move as if nothing had happened. Why weren’t they reacting? I didn’t know. I just grabbed my pack and headed down. I was really motivated even though it didn’t make sense. On the way I slid on a plastic bag on some of the snow patches. That was fun and really quick. Well, I had no reference to this voice. I just forgot it and never told my in-laws or family. Why bother? It didn’t didn’t make sense and I couldn’t explain it anyway. Now it does. The sacred voices speak out if we can listen. Mostly I feel their sadness because salmon runs have slowed and development has diminished the natural landscape and increased pollution. I wish they might say to us all, “Cut It Out.” TIM SIMON
Brookfield, Massachusetts
Kind Words FIRST, I WANT TO THANK YOU
for this glorious magazine into which you obviously pour so much heart and soul. It shows, and we are grateful. The quality of the writing and photos is stunning. Even if I weren’t part of the larger Sacred Fire Community, it would bring depth and sweet questions to my heart. I had the opportunity for a long plane trip soon after issue #7 was released and so had the luxury of reading it, cover to cover, with little naps in between articles so that I could take more of it in. The snapshots in “Unintended Consequences” made me squirm and smile. I particularly enjoyed (is that the right word?) “Cleaning Ourselves Sick” where the author mused that our panic for cleanliness has left our immune system to turn on itself in boredom. I hope that the old saying, “We heal stronger in the broken places,” is true. We’ll find out after the cumulative brokenness breaks us down and the microbes have their day. The excerpt, “Wolves,” from Louise Erdrich’s The Painted Drum caused me to buy and read the book. It is a stunning story of how being disconnected causes natural instincts (such as mothering our young) to go sideways. I silently wept over Jonathan Merritt’s poem “There Will Be No Story” as I looked out from 25,000 feet above the beautiful land with all its scars. My prayer each day is that Great Mother will speak. I don’t particularly want to hear what she says, but my soul knows that only Her words will begin to heal us. “My Body is the Land” also spoke deeply to me—especially one of the last thoughts that
Jeannette Armstrong wrote about her people’s definition of insanity: too many people talking about different things. It made me feel the insanity of our political and economic system in a deeper way. Please know that although we may not be always vocal, your work nourishes your dedicated readers and the communities we live in. Deep bows of gratitude. Sincerely, BETH PATTERSON Bend, Oregon
Lighten Up I’M HALF WAY THROUGH
Issue 7, but I’m sorry to say I’m losing interest. I’m losing interest because the tone of the magazine feels preachy and negative. I’m tired of hearing how bad we all are because we happen to have been born here and now and to live the way we were shown to live by the misguided people who came before us. I didn’t do it! It was my parents fooling around one November evening that brought me forth the following August. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to live as best I can in this crazy world. And my parents—they’re not bad people either. They’ve been doing the best they can since they got here too. So lighten up! Stop focusing on the demons lurking in the bushes, or the ones behind us that we’re running away from—I’m already all too aware of them! Show us what is possible. Give us something to go TOWARD!! I feel especially put off by your remarks about Christianity. In their “Letter to the Huichol,” Eliot Cowan and David Wiley black-wash Christianity because Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals threaten the Huichol
Tradition. Their anguish as they watch this happen to beloved friends, teachers, and an ancient tradition is understandable, but there are a lot good-hearted Christians. Branding Christians as “bad” can only increase the alienation among our people. Friends who count themselves as true Christians take great exception to Fundamentalist Christianity, which is a promotion of Empire and not a true reflection of the teachings of Christ. Just because Fundamentalists have co-opted the word “Christian,” it does not mean that they own the word, which in fact describes a path of integrity and heart. Please don’t take offense at my forthrightness. I love the beauty and caring heart of Sacred Fire and look to it to connect me to the world of indigenous people, tradition and understanding. I’m so very grateful for the resources and ideas I have found within its pages. I just don’t want to be told I’m “bad” or “lost” or somehow misguided. If I was so misguided I wouldn’t be reading this wonderful magazine! Warm best wishes, SANTHA COOKE Salt Point, New York
OUR ERROR In the last issue we misidentified the source of the lovely excerpt we called “The Wolves.” It came from Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Painted Drum. Our apologies to Ms. Erdrich. Does Sacred Fire warm your heart or singe your sensibilities? Do our articles, stories and poems light up any memories? Can you add a log to a flame we’ve kindled? Burn with us. Send letters to the editor to to editor@sacredfiremagazine.com
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 7
Sacred UNINTENDED Fire CONSEQUENCES
Sweet Nothings/ Wrinkles in the Plan AS HEIRS OF A HIGHLY TECH-
nological vision of the world, we in the West seem to rely instinctually, especially in times of crisis, on our cunning ability to manipulate the natural world. Energized with a pious faith in the power of technology, the movers and shakers among us roll up their sleeves and greet the issues of the day with the
8 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
optimistic belief that cuttingedge technical developments will solve any problem. And if no real problem exists, product marketers are only too happy to create one. Remember, you can never be too young or too thin. The real target for the diet and cosmetics industries is not around the eyes or waistline but between
1
Empty Calories, Empty Promises
WANT TO GAIN SOME WEIGHT?
Try drinking diet soda. In the 50 years since the introduction of low calorie soft drinks, American obesity rates have soared from less than 10% to over 30% of adults. How could this be? After all, saccharin was such a serendipitous discovery. In 1879 a sloppy chemist spilled coal tar derivatives on his himself, then sat down to eat his dinner. His food tasted extremely sweet (so much for washing your hands before a meal), and thus an industry was born. By 1907, saccharin (300 times sweeter than sucrose) had replaced sugar in foods for diabetics, though not without some controversy. During regulatory hearings, President Theodore Roosevelt defended its use in 1911 when he said, “Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.” Sugar shortages during the two World Wars solidified widespread adoption of the much-cheaper saccharin. The molecule’s true fame arrived with the post-War years of plenty. While while in some cultures “chubby” signals “prosperous and healthy,” in 1960s America “fat” meant unfashionable, and saccharin became the fuel for the massive “diet” soft drink industry. Today, the world’s richest nation spends around $50 billion a year on diet aids. “No calories” means guilt-free indulgence. Whoopie! So why is it that the average American weighs 30 pounds more than s/ he did 100 years ago, when only one person in 150 was obese?
A recent Purdue University study sheds some light (if not pounds) on what can happen when we try to fool Mother Nature. As reported in Behavioral Neuroscience (Feb. 2008), lab rats fed food sweetened with artificial sweeteners eat more calories than their counterparts whose food is sweetened with normal sugar. The “sugar free” rats get fatter and more sedentary. Turns out, when food processors pull the calories out of the sweet taste, they also pull the rug out from under the body’s internal regulatory systems. When “super sweet” food has no nutritive value, the body wisely compensates by slowing metabolism, reducing physical activity and eating more. The upshot is weight gain, not loss. According to researchers Susan E. Swithers and Terry L. Davidson, “Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet non-caloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship, leading to positive energy balance through increased food intake and/or diminished energy expenditure.” Translation: the body isn’t a fan of bait and switch. —Sharon Brown
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Botox Bites Back WANT MORE WRINKLES?
Try Botox, the “non-invasive” alternative to plastic surgery. While the pharma-cosmetics industry and its government cheerleaders at the FDA continue to affirm its safety and dismiss any concerns over longterm consequences, this sunny fantasy of eternal youth may be dimming as doctors report new findings about its long term use.
© MONKEYBUSINESSIMAGES | DREAMSTIME.COM
the ears—to produce repellant images of personal inadequacy in consumers’ minds.
THE HERO RETURNS First published in1949, JOSEPH CAMPBELL’S
The Hero with a Thousand Faces continues to provoke and enlighten readers. On the surface, modern psychology and comparative mythology dance together, but deep inside the paradox of cosmic life-and-death everlasting throbs with brutal grace. New World Library’s Third Edition features new illustrations, bibliography and sidebars for your hero’s journey. newworldlibrary.com
FROM LEFT: © RINDERART | DREAMSTIME.COM; JOSEPH CAMPBELL TKKK
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
As a cosmetic solution, Botox fights wrinkles where they begin—facial movement. For example, “crow’s feet” around the eyes is a clear result of too much smiling. An injection of a neurotoxic protein derived from the bacteria that cause botulism (one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances in existence), Botox works by paralyzing muscles in the face. Approved by the FDA for cosmetic use in 2002, this bacterial toxin-cum-facial elixir has reached increasing numbers of fretful, self-admiring consumers through the infamous promotion of Tupperware-inspired Botox parties. Over wine and cheese (and, presumably, highly narcissistic chit-chat), eager guests take turns visiting the “doctor” in the next room for their chemical make-over. Administered by the
friendly and capable hands of the family M.D., Botox boasted over a billion dollars in sales in 2007. But an increasing number of aghast consumers are finding that previously unblemished areas of their skin are beginning to wrinkle. Some doctors wonder if muscle atrophy is to blame. Since treatments last only three to four months, frequent injections are needed. With each treatment, antibodies form against the toxin creating increasing resistance to effectiveness and requiring increased dosages. Eventually, the treated muscles may atrophy—and sag. In the view of one expert, however, the appearance of new wrinkles is a simple matter of compensation. According to Dr. David Becker, assistant professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College, “a patient
may unconsciously attempt to recreate the facial expressions in the area where treatment has paralyzed their facial muscles.” Following treatment, patients’ muted faces unwittingly try to express themselves by engaging the non-paralyzed muscles near the site of the injection. “Repetition of this action causes new wrinkles,” he says. Not surprisingly, the professional recommendation for these new wrinkles from the medical minds at Botox is, well, more Botox. In their tireless quest to save us from the scourge of furrowed brows, the promoters of Botox seem to have lost sight of the face for the forehead, ignoring the unscientific rumor that the body is a dynamic whole and not just an assembly of freefloating, isolated fragments. —Chris Schlake
HOOKING UP
The Global Oneness Project is a web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. The site features a living library of films featuring creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the fundamental understanding that we are all connected and thus bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. globalonenessproject.org Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 9
Remembering, Respect & Reconciliation OLD-SCHOOL SOLUTIONS IT’S OFTEN SAID THAT necessity is the mother of invention. But in an isolated New Zealand community, necessity may be seen—tellingly, to those in the West—as the mother of remembrance. Deep in the rugged, emerald backcountry, in a lush river valley of the Whirinaki rainforest, the tiny Maori vil-
lage of Te Whaiti labors to this day under the painful legacies of its colonial past. Stripped of their ancestral lands, and forced to abandon many of their traditional ways, the native peoples initially maintained their livelihoods through the one commercial activity available to them: contracting themselves out to the government as road-
builders. When a burgeoning environmental awareness brought a halt to timber harvests in the 1970s, however, native workers instantly lost their jobs. With no viable alternatives, unemployment in the valley quickly shot up to a staggering 99%. When representatives of the Education Review Office arrived in 1996 for a routine assessment of the village school, they encountered a zero-employment local economy that had endured for over a generation. They also found an equally deprived and depressed village school struggling (and largely failing) to meet national standards. The Review Office issued a scathing public report, with TO INCREASE AWARENESS of their ancestral wisdom, a traditional entry was installed on the new schoolhouse in Te Whaiti.
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an explicit threat of closure of the school. Since the people of Te Whaiti had successfully educated their offspring for millennia, this may have seemed like one last affront in a long line of abuses. The severe criticism from the very agencies mandated to steward their well-being was all too familiar. As one elder put it, “In those early days we got used to being tagged over the head and people saying, ‘You’re not doing that right,’ all the time.” For a small, rural community of unemployed ex-loggers, without any lawyers, accountants, or business people among them, the prospect of untangling the bureaucratic and linguistic complexities of the state educational code was universally intimidating. Faced with the prospect of their children’s opportunities becoming even further eroded, however, the school board chose to look their dilemma squarely in the face and commit themselves fully to its resolution. Leaving their usual roles at the door, the people of the village gathered in a community “live-in” where their first agreement was to dispense with any and all of their common excuses, such as unemployment and rural isolation. Next, they decided to refrain from placing blame on any external parties and began instead with a deliberate focus on themselves. By staying close to their personal experience and behavior, they opened an atmosphere into which truths, both bitter and sweet, were gradually spoken. Together they were able to confidently outline their collective strengths and weaknesses.
PETER GOLDSBURY
Sacred REVIVING RIGHT Fire RELATIONSHIP
Drawing on their particular family identities and inheritance, they shared with one another their guiding values and expressed their personal understandings of their collective purpose. The community began to connect and cohere. On the brink of a crisis with their children’s welfare, they began to re-imagine their shared possibilities and to remember their ancient calling as kaitiaki or guardians of the valley and its future. The villagers recalled their ancestral figure of Toi, the renowned leader, explorer and community-builder. His memory became a guiding inspiration behind the process of transformation. Animated by a reawakened awareness of the potency of their tradition, the Maori of Te Whaiti became clear that, while needful of sub-
the curriculum and throughout the grade levels. With new attention focused on concrete educational outcomes and the barriers to their realization, early successes steadily catalyzed even more successes. Within the span of a few short years, the school underwent a profound transformation. When next assessed in 1999, despite remaining among the most disadvantaged districts in the nation, the school received high praise and excellent reviews across a wide range of performance areas. The people of Te Whaiti discovered that the wisdom of their ancestral tradition was worth embracing not only for reasons of collective identity and solidarity, but for its genuine power to meet contemporary challenges. Indeed, the process by which the school executed its turnaround
TRY, TRY AGAIN THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers was nearly kicked out of the Vatican—for praying. According to the July 18th, 2008 edition of Indian Country Today, this extraordinary group of elders received a permit to offer prayers in St. Peter’s Square and gathered on the morning of July 9th. They set up an altar cloth with candles and sacred objects, including feathers and incense, and began holding a prayer and ceremony circle. Dressed in traditional regalia, nine-year-old Davian Joell StandGilpin, a direct descendant of Chief Dull Knife of the Lakota Nation, also participated in the ceremony. Soon, however, four Vatican police officials asked the women to stop, claiming the Grandmothers were conducting “anti-
DEEP SLEEPERS
Whaledreamers, a documentary produced by JULIAN LENNON, is the heartfelt story of the return of an aboriginal whale dreaming tribe from the edge of extinction, and the equally long journey of the whales, not only to survive the slaughter by man, but to engage the human race into waking up in time. whaledreamers.com
WHALEDREAMERS
The most important resources they required lay not in the hands of far-away government bureaucrats, but in the presence of the land itself and the collective wisdom of the community. stantial technical supports, the most important resources they required lay not in the hands of far-away government bureaucrats, but in the presence of the land itself and the collective wisdom of the community. One of the first changes they implemented in the curriculum was mandatory training in their native language of Te Reo. As the community began to more deeply embrace the visions and values of its ancestral heritage, parents became increasingly eager to involve themselves in all aspects of their children’s learning, quickly sparking improved performances across
drew the attention of national experts in project management. In collaboration with these academics, the people of Te Whaiti have since crafted a holistic approach to organizational development that incorporates— but ultimately transcends—the latest in management theory and practice. Previously unknown and unemployed, these Maori now consult internationally, utilizing the cutting-edge model of organizational change they call Tipu Ake ki te Ora: growing from within, ever upwards toward well-being. —Chris Schlake tipuake.org.nz
Catholic” demonstrations and that their actions were “idolatrous.” This was despite the presence of two crosses on the altar cloth, and the fact that some of their members are practitioners of the Catholic faith. The officials told Carole Hart, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer and filmmaker traveling with the Grandmothers, that the group was in violation of Vatican policy. They said that the permit Hart had obtained was only relevant in terms of filming, but did not allow the women to pray, sing or burn incense. “We stuck to the fact that we
ALL STUFFED UP
For all our apparent sophistication, most of us— even the reduce, reuse, and recyclers—don’t really always grasp the big picture of our lifestyles of consumption. In fact, the less visible our patterns are, the better for the profiteers. The Story of Stuff, however, draws it up in bold strokes and connects all the dots in an accessible, engaging, and ultimately enlightening animated short. storyofstuff.com Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 11
Sacred REVIVING RIGHT Fire RELATIONSHIP STRAIGHT SHOOTER Peter Menzel, an American photojournalist, is probably best known for his books that render global inequities in living color. His Material World: A Global Family Portrait assembled a pictorial profile of 30 statistically average families from around the world, framing each family in their home with all their material possessions. Ten years later, he produced a global portrait of food consumption, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, including 30 diverse families surrounded by a week’s worth of groceries. menzelphoto.com
GIANT STEPPES
Today’s shamans are often either dismissed as quaint antiquities or enshrined on a pedestal of celebrity. Real lives, though, unfold in the contradictions of history and rarely conform to easy typecasting. In Khadak, an inspired and evocative film, through imagery both sumptuous and stark, viewers witness the surreal coming-of-age of a Mongolian shaman caught between an expansive, nomadic past and entrapment in a contemporary industrial nightmare. khadak.com 12 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
were legitimately there with this permit,” Hart said. “The grandmas did not back down.” Hart and the group appealed the decision to a higher authority. Finally, the police brought back a law official who assessed the situation. Upon hearing one of the elder women’s songs, the official concluded there was no problem with the ceremony. He ultimately invited the grandmothers to enter St. Peter’s Basilica to rest and pray. Despite their short-term success, the primary goal of the Grandmothers was thwarted. They had traveled to the Vatican to hand-deliver a package to Pope Benedict XVI, which they had planned to present to him during a public audience. The pope had changed his plans, however, so the Grandmothers left the package with one of the pope’s personal guards. The package contained a written statement the women
had sent to the Vatican in 2005 to which the Vatican had never responded. It also contained a new statement asking the pope to rescind several controversial papal bulls that played a part in the colonization of indigenous lands. The 15th century edicts, which contained the doctrines of “Discovery” and “Conquest,” in effect granted legal and spiritual permission for the genocidal onslaught that affected millions of indigenous people in the American continents, Africa, Asia and Australia. In 1455, for instance, Pope Nicolas authorized Portugal “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans” along the west coast of Africa, to enslave them and confiscate their property. This set the tone for European interaction with indigenous peoples all over the world. “We carry this message for Pope Benedict XVI, traveling
with the spirits of our ancestors,” the women said in their new message. “While praying at the Vatican for peace, we are praying for all peoples. We are here at the Vatican, humbly, not as representatives of indigenous nations, but as women of prayer.” The package was given to the pope’s guard in the traditional Lakota manner, by extending it three times before the guard accepted it on the fourth attempt. The entire process was captured on film, and is expected to be made into a documentary by Hart in the coming year. —Jonathan Merritt grandmotherscouncil.com
THE CANADIAN APOLOGY—A FIRST STEP ON JUNE 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood before Parliament and many First Nation, Inuit and Métis guests and issued a nationally televised public apology to Indian residential school survivors.
FROM LEFT: KHADAK; MARISOL VILLANUEVA/GRANDMOTHERSCOUNCIL.COM.
The Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers pray at the Vatican.
In all, about 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Métis children had been forced to attend the schools. The last school closed in 1996. The statement of apology MR. SPEAKER, I stand before
you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history. In the 1870’s, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools. Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, “to kill the Indian in the child.” Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. Most schools were operated as “joint ventures” with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United churches. The government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in
these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home. The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities. The legacy of Indian residential schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today. It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered. It is a testament to
in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian residential schools system. To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions, that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize
schools system to ever again prevail. You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey. The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly. We are sorry. In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian residential schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement began on September 19, 2007. Years of work by survivors, communities, and aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership. A cornerstone of the settlement agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This commission presents a unique opportunity to educate
Canada built an educational system in which young children were forcibly removed from their homes. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. First Nations languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures. Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the government of Canada. The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you,
for failing to protect you. Not only did you suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry. The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long. The burden is properly ours as a government, and as a country. There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential
all Canadians on the Indian residential schools system. It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 13
Sacred REVIVING RIGHT Fire RELATIONSHIP
Response from the First Nations SEVERAL MEMBERS of Parlia-
ment, First Nation, Inuit and Métis speakers followed the Prime Minister to the podium. We offer here the response delivered by Phil Fontaine, a proud member of the Sagkeeng (Ojibway) First Nation in Manitoba, the survivor of ten years in the Residential Schools and the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. MEMBERS OF THIS HOUSE,
elders, survivors, Canadians; to our parents, our grandparents, great grandparents, indeed for all of the generations that have preceded us, this day testifies to nothing less than the achievement of the impossible. This morning our elders held a condolence ceremony for those who never heard an apology, never received compensation, yet courageously fought assimilation so that we could witness this day. Together we remember and honor them, for it was they who suffered the most as they witnessed generation after generation of their children taken from their families’ love and guidance. For the generations that will follow us we bear witness today in this house that our survival as First Nations Peoples in this land is affirmed forever. Therefore, the significance of this day is not just about what has been but equally important for what is to come. Never again will this house consider us the Indian problem—just for being who we are. We heard the Government of Canada take full responsibility for this dreadful chapter in our shared history. We heard the 14 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
Prime Minister declare that this will never happen again. Finally, we heard Canada say it is sorry. Brave survivors, through the telling of their painful stories, have stripped white supremacy of its authority and legitimacy. The irresistibility of speaking truth to power is real. Today is not the result of a political game. Instead, it is something that shows the righteousness and importance of our struggle. We know we have many difficult issues to handle. There are many fights still to be fought. What happened today signifies a new dawn in the relationship between us and the rest of Canada. We are, and always
The attempts to erase our identities hurt us deeply, but it also hurt all Canadians, and impoverished the character of this Nation. We must not falter in our duty now. It is possible to end our racial nightmare together. have been, an indispensable part of the Canadian identity. Our peoples, our history and our present being are the essence of Canada. The attempts to erase our identities hurt us deeply, but it also hurt all Canadians, and impoverished the character of this Nation. We must not falter in our duty now. Emboldened by this spectacle of history it is possible to end our racial nightmare together. The memories of residential schools sometimes cut like merciless knives at our souls. This day will help us to put that pain behind us. But it signifies something even more important—a respectful and therefore liberating relationship between us and the rest of Canada. Together we can achieve the greatness our country deserves. The apology today is founded upon, more than anything else, the recognition that
we all own our own lives and destinies, the only true Foundation for a society where peoples can flourish. We must now capture a new spirit and vision to meet the challenges of the future. As a great statesman once said, “We are all part of one garment of destiny. The differences between us are not blood or color and the ties that bind us are deeper than those that separate us.” The common rule of hope will bring us to reconciliation more than any words, laws or legal claims ever could. We still have to struggle but now we are in this together. I reach out to all Canadians today in this spirit of reconciliation. Miigwetch (Thank you). WHILE THE APOLOGY and its
Final Settlement Agreement— worth over 5.2 billion Canadian dollars in individual compensation, an education fund, healing
resources, a commemoration fund and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission—is an important step, for many First Nation, Inuit and Métis people it falls far short of providing justice for the systematic abuse of their children and the destruction of their cultures. A meaningful next step would be for Canada to ratify the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was adopted by the General Assembly on September 13th, 2007, with a vote of 144 in favor and four against. The four dissenting votes were Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. —Shelley Harrison For a more complete picture of the history of residential schools in Canada go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_residential_school_system
HELEN GRANGER
Canada for all of us.
Sacred DREAMS Fire OF THE HOLY
The Great Mystery Speaks If the forces of nature manifest through our dreams, then we are the problem our dreams are trying to solve.
SYLVIA CALDERON
BY BARRY WILLIAMS WITH RENATA RITZMAN THERE ARE RECEPTOR SITES for the Holy. They are the means by which the soul, or psyche, receives, perceives and communicates with the Divine Realm. These receptor sites are not part of the intellect, the ego personality—our educated, objective, rational, logical, discursive, analytical or otherwise reflective mind. They are in-built into the soul—the deep, mythic, non-rational, meaning filled, symbol laden, imaginal world. They can be activated in numerous ways by prayer, chant, meditation, fasting, substance, ritual, hardship, nature, dance, sexuality, ecstasy, or, every day, every night, in dreams. The great mystery is always and eternally present, offering from time to time doorways to images of itself in myriad forms. Unfortunately, when the primacy of the mind feels challenged, overwhelmed or frightened by the presence of something so much greater than itself, it can view these revelations as cryptic puzzles to decipher, analyze, understand and file in known categories. These strategies have the effect of bringing the dream out of its world into ours—like the proverbial specimen of nature stuffed and placed in a display for the intellect. The invitation that any dream represents, especially the great revelatory dreams, is for us to be drawn into the dream’s living world, to be worked on by the forces of nature that are manifesting through it. We are the problem the dream is trying to solve, not vice-versa. Dreams serve wholeness, and thus, healing by
Barry Williams, Raef Williams and Renata Ritzman dressed in their regalia at the Fiesta of Initiation.
establishing a connection, through imaginal pathways and receptor sites, between the ego and the great forces of nature, between the personality one identifies with and the gods, between the mind and the overwhelming affect of the numinosum or sacred or the holy. For example, while anchored in a remote bay on a sailing trip in the Southern Pacific Ocean, a woman dreams that she looks from the boat onto a sunlit, grassy hillside that rises above the shore. The scene is so beautiful that someone takes a photograph of it. When the photo is developed, it reveals—hovering over the land, poised regally, enormous with a mantel on indescribable blue—the presence of the Virgin of Guadalupe. What the message in the dream reveals, like the photograph, is that there are two worlds co-existing, one as the spirit essence or core of
the other. One, available through our ordinary perceptions, is what we often label “the real world.” The other, just as real, equally present but obscured, is revealed by allowing an impression, an imprinting, a reception of its light, its spirit form and energy, to fall onto a photosensitive receptor site—that dynamic of the soul that receives, perceives and makes imaginally available the otherwise unseen but constant presence of the Holy. What is the Virgin of Guadalupe doing in the South Pacific, especially since the dreamer is far from being Catholic and far away from Meso-America? What we do know about the Virgin, particularly the Virgin of Guadalupe, is that she is a Christianized image of a preChristian Earth Mother, the goddess image of growth, fertility, nature, the moist earth, the rhizomes, the plants and the planted soil, the bringer of abundant life and earth wisdom. She is always and everywhere available and attainable. Seen or unseen, formed or Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 15
Jungian analyst Barry Williams, Renata Ritzman and their son, Raef are shamans (marakames) in the Huichol tradition. Together they offer healing retreats in New Mexico, Northern Canada and on Grandmother Ocean in New Zealand.
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Sacred DIVINE Fire NOURISHMENT
Ancestral Voices The ancient wisdom of the Divine Feminine opens an unexpected path for healing. BY MARY LANE ALTHOUGH THE TWISTS and turns of my 57 years have led me through many adventures, my time spent on Maui continues to have a huge impact on me. They call the island “Mother Maui” because she embodies the nurturing aspect of the Divine Feminine. Anyone who has spent time there can attest to this energetic quality of the island. Next door, the big island of Hawaii has quite a different energy. The volcano Pele rules. Witnessing her in action as she gives birth to the island with her fiery orgasmic eruptions, one can only bow with deep respect, and a sense of awe and fear. Each of the Hawaiian Islands embodies an aspect of the feminine. However, Maui and the Big Island embody the two primary aspects—the nurturing Mother energy and the
powerful, life-creating, sexual energy. For 15 years these two luscious islands were my teachers, but I struggled to fully embody their overwhelming feminine powers. While I deeply honored them, they are nature and I was but a mere woman unable to let go of wounds that had accumulated over many lifetimes. As connected as I felt to these islands and the energies they hold, I always felt a door close within me that kept me from claiming these energies for myself. Some times I got closer with little baby steps—but the door just wouldn’t open. While living there I was called to a heiau (sacred site) that housed the ancestors of an ancient lineage that had a strong feminine nature. Each time I went there, which was often, I felt such deep peace and love surrounding me that I became very open. Eventually, I was able to listen. I spent years listening, deepening my relationship with these ancestors and receiving their teachings. One day, they told me I had to go to France and immerse myself in Mary Magdalene. Excuse me! Mary Magdalene! All I could think of was the typical propaganda about her that has been handed down through Christianity, somewhat smoothed over by
© JOSEASREYES | DREAMSTIME.COM
formless, this numinous presence uses the dream to show us that the soul is abidingly spirit sensitive, like the photosensitive paper on which the light falls. The great opus and accomplishment within the dream is both the taking and development of the photograph. The camera in the dream is an image of the technology of the Sacred. The aperture of the camera is the nierika, the portal between the ordinary and the divine world. The gods need us to be drawn enough toward beauty, in this case, so that we will initiate the process by which their presence can be revealed. When the shutter is opened in the dream, the image is imprinted on the soul. The second task is then to develop what is unseen. The search for the image of what is beautiful, when unfolded and unwrapped, made visible and manifest, reveals to the dreamer the inner presence of the divine image in the soul—though it is not visible to the ordinary senses, to the mind, ego or the intellect. The developing of the photo in the dream hints at the development of that connection to the soul that allows us to see what the soul sees—the inner core, essence or presence of the divine spirit of nature. Like the bee that is drawn to the flower’s display of beauty and inadvertently involves itself in the perpetuation of life, we are innocently drawn to record what we think of as beautiful so that the gods can manifest and become visible through our developed understanding and vision. Though this dream is, of course, particular to the dreamer and her own unique stance in life, such a dream is also offered to us through her as a teaching dream for the human experience. The teaching is three-fold—we have receptor sites for the Holy; the divine world will manifest to us in virtually infinite forms; and we are transformed by the emotional experience of such revelatory events. Any theophony—the visible manifestation of the gods in any and all forms, however understood— creates for the dreamer a connection to that divine, numinous world that is compelling, healing and transforming. We are drawn into a relatedness with our own souls that align us with that which seeks a relationship with us through the very receptor sites of the soul.
The DaVinci Code. I was accutely aware of the huge damage Christianity has done to the entire world. My own mother died in agony because she, and consequently her family, had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for taking birth control pills when I was a young child. She died in fear of going to hell. I wanted nothing to do with anything that was Christian, especially since Christianity was instrumental in the conquest of ancient cultures and the destruction of the feminine principal that was prevalent there. But, because of the deep love and trust I felt for these ancestors, I opened up to the possibility of what they were asking me to do. Three days later, a client asked me to go to France to cook for her family on their vacation. I knew something was up since I had never heard of shipping a chef to France. France stirred up a lot for me. It was obvious that this wounding I felt from Christianity was in my way. After returning home I started attending an online esoteric mystery school to learn more about the original teachings of Jesus and his partner, Mary Magdalene. These earliest teachings came through an ancient doorway that honored men, women, spirit and body equally. I was especially struck by the deep feminine wisdom that appeared to offer a path to rebalancing our world. Yes, the school taught, Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ partner, wife, and LOVER. She taught him the beauty of being in a body. And she was treated as an equal to her husband by the disciples who were not committed to the destruction of the feminine. What was even more surprising was that many of the original teachings were exactly the same teachings I had received from the ancestors at the heiau on Maui. Were Jesus and Mary Magdalene connected to an ancient lineage that actually honored the feminine? Was the original wisdom of Christianity—a tradition that banished the feminine to the underworld—actually feminine in nature? As I dug deeper I came to realize that, as expressions of the Divine Feminine, Mother Mary was the embodiment of Mother Maui and Mary Magdalene was the embodiment of Pele. After exploring this more, it became
recipe
hot winter cocoa The nourishment of this velvety drink merges with hot spices, embodying the integration of the feminine in her primary wholeness. •Heat milk or non dairy drink such as unsweetened almond milk with organic rich dark cocoa powder in a saucepan. •Add a sweetener to taste such as honey or maple syrup •Briskly whisk in a pinch of unbleached white flour. Chickpea flour works well if you don’t eat wheat. Adjust amount according to volume to thicken slightly for that velvety texture. •Add small pinches of spices such as red chili powder, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla •Simmer until it thickens slightly and strain into your cup.
obvious that our great Mother Earth is the integrated embodiment of these two primary aspects of the feminine. She nurtures herself and all she has given birth to; and she is this living, breathing, seething being that oozes with sexuality and infinite creativity. She is the balance of the two in her wholeness— each aspect complementing the other. These divine aspects have been distorted and shunned by a jealous and fearful patriarchy. Conventional Christianity ignored Mary Magdalene’s gifts and declared her nothing more than a whore that Jesus pitied. And they had to declare Mother Mary a virgin, because a woman powerful enough to birth and nurture
the Christ could not be one of us. The rejection of these aspects of the feminine has created disrespect for the natural world, for Earth and the female body and a perverse self-rejection among women in societies around the world. It has formed history as we know it. Many people of European descent feel so much shame and pain because of this heritage. Even though I had walked away from Christianity, I was still the accumulation of all my ancestors and all my lifetimes. There was no moving forward without dealing with this ancient wounding. I had had no problem honoring this sexually powerful aspect of the feminine when it was in the form of nature, or a goddess in the spirit world, but I couldn’t bring it into myself on the human level. It was shocking to discover that the door—Christianity—that created the wounding was also the door—through the discovery of who Mary Magdalene truly was—that would provide the healing. When you listen to the ancestral voices and surrender to them, you just have no idea where you will end up or what will happen. As a culture we are beginning to embrace the nurturing aspect of the feminine again, but the inability to embrace the creative, sexually powerful woman has created severe imbalance on our planet. There is little support or encouragement for women to integrate these two primary aspects of themselves—the nurturing and the sexual. Listening to the ancestral voices, trusting them beyond any outside influence, was a big step toward healing the wounds that prevented me, and I’m sure many other women, from fully embodying the powerful feminine forces needed in our society at this time in history. I have learned through the support of these ancestors the importance for women to be kind and nourishing to ourselves. If we embody the primary energy of the Mother and love the rejected parts of ourselves, then we can heal the self-rejection inflicted upon us through our collective wounding. We can open to the powerful, centered, creative, sexual feminine energy that Mary Magdalene embodied. We can become whole through the integration of these two primary energies. We are then more available to allow our gifts to flow through us, into the world. Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 17
A Tale of Beauty and Happiness Could there be more to happiness than that nut-brown lover from her distant past? BY SVAGITA ELKS
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a girl with eyes like a wide dark sea and pink-gold skin that was softer than soft. She lived with her one-eyed dog in a land where torrential rains alternated with high-altitude sun, clouds moving constantly and kaleidoscopically across the sky. The rains left the land green and blooming, the earth wet and sucking at the girl’s feet, and the air teeming with butterflies, mosquitoes, and mold-spores. One morning the girl awoke feeling the sort of heaviness that occurs only after a night of relentless dreaming. On such mornings the girl was always reminded of the twelve fairytale princesses who, bewitched, would wake each morning exhausted, their silken slippers in tatters from dancing the entire night. SVAGITA ELKS AND A MAASAI FRIEND
18 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
There were no threadbare slippers beside her bed, but as she stretched long under her duvet the girl managed to catch some wisps of dreams in the butterfly net of her mind: prehistoric creatures just under the surface of a lake, a flash of silver, laughing friends around a table, a journey somewhere, somewhere... After the dream fragments evaporated completely, the girl arose, bathed, combed the tangles from her hair, dressed, and set off into the dove-grey morning. On the way out she scratched her one-eyed dog between his grateful ears and filled his bowl with water. The rain indulgently allowed the girl to pass through her great wooden gate and into her car before coming down in sheets. By the time she reached town the rain had ceased, leaving a thick humidity in its wake. While breakfasting on chai maziwa at a local internet cafe, the girl read her emails: reminders of meetings later in the week, advertisements for discounted airline tickets, no-fail methods for increasing the girl’s penis size, and then—there it was! A message from that yummy, nut-brown lover from her distant past! She laughed as she read his story of a faraway nap on a boat, interrupted by the sudden whizz of a fishing reel, a swordfish at the end of the fast-moving line. (Later she wondered many things: Did he eat the swordfish after it was caught? Was that huge fish the same prehistoric creature, the flash of silver from her dreams the night before? Was he taking good care of the sunbirds she sent to him the previous month, faithfully feeding them the nectar of Liberian flowers?) In return for his message, he asked of the
girl a tale of beauty and happiness. Hmmm... A tale of beauty was a request easy for the girl to fulfill, for she could find beauty in what was even the most ordinary. A tale of happiness presented more of a challenge, but the girl thought that perhaps this was simply a matter of semantics. She gave it some thought. For the girl, “happiness” used to be a brightly colored and chaotic thing; short-lived and unsustainable. This sort of happiness had inevitably left the girl brittle, with dark circles and an over-taxed liver. Her current “happiness” was of a different variety, one she may have considered mere “contentment” in years previous. This happiness was lush and low-growing, with roots reaching deep to sustain it. It was defined by long afternoons sketching, writing, and reading; by countless glasses of water and nourishing food; by a body made strong and supple at the gym; by evenings spent with friends and coming home alone to a peaceful expanse of white bed. She came to realize that this happiness, albeit a quieter and more subtle animal, was happiness nonetheless. And she realized that beauty—and her gift to simply notice the beauty in her every day—made the girl happy. It was of this that she wrote to the nut-brown man. She wrote to him of Mt. Meru wrapped in a cloud mantle; of a dog belly offered; of creamy foam and nutmeg on morning coffee; of the sleeping weight of her god-baby in her arms; of the syrupy scent of night jasmine; of muscles pleasantly aching from regular and vigorous use; of a book read in a pool of candlelight; of the keen of a mama kite on her nest; of ripe mangos. And while she may have enjoyed coming home to occasionally lay beside/beneath/ astride the contrast of her nut-brown friend against the white, white bed, the girl still managed to live happily ever after. Svagita Elks has left her Tanzanian home and has begun a new life of beauty and happiness in Southern California.
COURTESY OF SVAGITA ELKS.
Sacred LOGS FOR Fire THE FIRE
The Holy Ones Among Us Fifty thousand people packed Qwest Field in Seattle on April 12th, 2008, to see His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama during the Seeds of Compassion conference. Before His Holiness took the podium, the governor of Washington and several other luminaries addressed the crowd. Among them was James Hillaire, an elder and cultural secretary of the Lummi Nation. Dressed in traditional regalia, his face projected on the Jumbotron, he paused for a moment as the crowd buzzed expectantly over the imminent appearance of the featured guest. In his eyes there was a look of wonder. Fifty thousand had come to see this traveling holy man, to hear his wisdom, to support him in his struggle to regain his land from a powerful invader. And his wonder was tinged with irony— fifty thousand, most of them descendants of the invaders of his own land. Among this fifty thousand, few were aware of the people whose land they stood upon. And fewer still knew of the holy ones among them who, like His Holiness, maintain the ancient rituals that keep the land alive.
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Mohawk
Thanksgiving Address Given By Tom Porter
The following Thanksgiving Address is excerpted from the opening address that Bear Clan Elder of the Mohawk Nation, Tom Porter (Sakokweniónkwas—he who wins them over) gave at a recent gathering hosted by the American Indian Institute. That gathering, Ancient Voices—Contemporary Contexts, brought elders from several tribes together with a small group of non-natives for a conversation about the survival of our world, and how the indigenous wisdom of native peoples might provide solutions.
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Tom Porter is the founder, director and spiritual leader of the traditional Mohawk Community of Kanatsioharè:ke in upstate New York. He has devoted his life to educating Native and non-Native people about the true history, culture and spirituality of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois.) I had the good luck to be one of the non-Natives present at this talk, and was struck by the beauty of this Elder’s expression. He began his talk by saying he’d brought a tissue box with him, because “sometimes I cry.” I loved that about him, and was grateful to witness the moments when his grief shone through, as well as his contagious delight when he told a joke. That alone was a powerful gift. The following address comes from a long tradition of extemporaneous opening speeches from the Iroquois Nation. No two addresses are the same, but they’re not that different, either. They are living prayers that come from the heart. I give thanks for Tom’s generosity in allowing us to print this shortened version. Niá:wen ‘ Kó:wa (Many Thanks) —Louise Berliner SO THIS MORNING WE HAD A TOBACCO BURNING, AT THAT NICE SA-
cred fire over there. And we took the tobacco that was given to us, the Iroquois, at the beginning of the world, when the first human came here, and the Iroquois never quit to have that tobacco. This tobacco you can’t buy at a smoke shop. You can’t buy it at a drugstore. You can’t buy it anywhere. You’ve got to plant it. The seed came from Grandmother and her grandmother right from the beginning of the world. I want to turn now to what we call the Thanksgiving Address. We said this at the tobacco burning, this morning. Some people call it, Opening prayer—in our language we call it Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, which means, “the things you say before anything important is done.” That’s the Creator’s teaching. And I believe it’s the first teaching humans were given to live on this planet, called the Mother Earth. So Iroquois people, every time they talk this talk, they finish one paragraph or one topic each and they say, “If there are 60 or 80 minds in here, it becomes gathered into one. And, so now, all our minds are agreed.” And as soon as they say that, everybody, whether they are Seneca or Mohawk, are supposed to say “tho.” If you are contemporary Mohawk, you say, “huh.” And if you are very Onondaga and very modern, you say, “Yeah.” But it doesn’t matter how you say that, as long as you agree. So are we agreed? First, let’s define our Creator. It’s important that when you talk about spiritual things, that you know what you’re talking about. So, when we talk about the Creator, we’re not talking about just one man, at all. One man really has nothing to do with it. But in the western world, that’s what it seems to be. That’s the first thing that needs to be fixed. So one time, a college man came to ask my grandfather, “What’s the Creator?” Grandfather said, “Tell the university man, the big school man, he’s got to get a calculator like at the general store. And he’s got to get the biggest barn in all of Akwesasne. And then he’s going to put on that calculator every human being that lives, in the universe, even the baby that was
born, a second ago. He can’t miss one. Then pull the handle once he’s done that. Then he’s got to count how many deer there are in the whole world, even in Africa, Asia, China, South America, everywhere, every deer—he’s got to pull it. Don’t miss one. Then he’s got to count every star, in the universe—don’t miss one—and go on and on like that. It will take 2 or 300 years with a team of maybe 60 men or women to add up all the live things, assuming that you can do it. Then pull it. The summarization of all those lives is what we call, the Creator.” Because every life in the universe, together, is the Creator. And vice versa. The Creator is in every one of you here, and the Creator is in the water, and the Creator is in the tree. He’s in the wind, in everything that lives. That’s why you’re supposed to be nice to each other. So now we know what’s Creator. Can’t have a shoe that’s size 10 or 12. He’s too big and powerful to have a shoe. Nothing fits him he’s so great. You can’t buy him pants like you and I, because he’s as big as the whole universe! Nobody makes pants that big. You follow what I’m saying? That’s how great Creator is. He ain’t just a little old human being. It’s everything that lives. So when you see a deer, you treat that deer right. You see a river, treat the river right. Anything that’s living, you treat it right. And you honor the Creator, that way. That’s what our ceremonies are for, for the Cherokee, the Choctaw, Cheyenne, Lakota. It is all to honor what the Creator gave to us. NOW WE BEGIN THE THANKSGIVING.
As long as we live and we’re walking, Creator’s there. And so, when our Creator finished the world he said, “All I want to hear every day, is for you, my children, just to say thank you, and I will be happy.” And so, to the Creator, we say “Thank you,” and our mind is agreed. And then our Creator said, “Now look around when you are assembled in a great meeting.” I look around and I see all our women, pretty, nice looking women, every one. Even our elder women—oh how stately and how beautiful they look. We’ve got some of the best women in the whole world right here. Yes. Then he says.” Look around some more.” I look—and oh we’ve got some of the best looking handsome men in the whole world, right here; young ones, middle-aged and old ones, dignified and so stately looking. And our youth—look at our young girls, prettiest ones in the whole world. Look at our young men—handsomest in the whole world. The best looking people in the whole universe are right here. And we say hello to one another and give our thankfulness to one another and our kindness and love to one another. And now our mind is agreed. THEN OUR CREATOR MADE THE EARTH, AND HE SAID, “EARTH, YOU’RE
going to be a woman. You’re going to be the mother of all life.” So the Earth is the humans’ mother and the deer and elk’s mother. And the birds and the eagle, that’s their mother. And that’s why Mother Earth is so important, more than the other mother, because a human woman is mother of her kids, but the Earth is the mother of every species of life. And then when she gives birth to everybody, she nurses them. That food we ate this morning, that came from Mother Earth’s garden—and what we eat at dinnertime, or lunchtime, we eat from Mother Earth, too. I loved it when Grandma talked. She said, “You know, Mother Earth is just like a mountain rock—strong, consistent, and never give up. Because, since the beginning of time, our Mother Earth never throw us away, us people. Never abandon us. No matter what we did or didn’t do, she never got mad to throw us away.” Now that’s what you call a real mother. Just as strong as can be. So that’s why it’s easy for our minds to Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 21
it in the water. And he said to that water, “Your job, Water, is real important. You’re the one that has to quench the thirst of every single human being in the world, every day. You, the water, are supposed to quench the thirst of every buffalo, elk and deer and chipmunk and little squirrel every day.” And so that water was given a living spirit and comes down the mountain to here and back up and down again, because it’s always moving, because something that lives is always moving. When it doesn’t move, it dies. And then on a hot day, we just get a nice cold glass of water, and drink that. That’s medicine. And so you see, the water is so sacred, all over the whole Mother Earth, because they follow what the Creator told them to do. That’s why we’ve got ceremonies for the water. That’s why we use that water for everything, for the ceremonies. So, to the waters of the world, we the human beings are of one mind, and we put layer and layer of thank you and greetings and compassion and love. And then you and I, the young people, we pick it up, that big pile, and we throw some to the North, some to the West, some to the South and some to the East, so that every stream, every lake, every river in this whole Mother Earth receives our thank you, and our love, for quenching our thirst yesterday and today, and our mind is agreed. THE FISH, BIG AND SMALL, THEIR JOB IS TO KEEP
become one, and we put thank you and greetings and lots of compassion and love real high and then you and I will pick it up at its perimeters, it’s a big pile, and give it to the North, South, West and East for the Mother Earth. We are your children, from oldest to youngest. We give you our love, our thankfulness, and our greetings today for another miracle has occurred that was never before. This day is a miracle. Mother Earth, your children thank you. And our mind is agreed. AND THEN OUR CREATOR MADE THE WATER—IN THIS LAKE AND
the rivers, the creeks and the small streams; and he made rivers and creeks under the Mother Earth like the veins in our body. And when our Creator made that water, that water is not what America says, H2O. That water is something more than that, a scientific term. That water was touched by the Creator’s hand, and Mother Earth’s hand, and when Creator touched that water, all the water in the world became holy sacred water. Even the smallest creek. And then our Creator talked to that water, and put a soul and a spir22 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
the water clean: the ocean, rivers, every place. Sometimes when we’re hungry, they give their life for you and me, as long as we take only what we need, and no more. And so to all of the life in the oceans we send our greeting and our thankyous and our love to them, and our mind is agreed. AND THE CREATOR MADE THE THINGS THAT GROW. IN THE NORTH-
east, where we come from, he chose the corn and beans and squash to be the leaders of everything that grows in the garden. And he said, “That’s going to be the sustainer, the nourishment, for us.” And so every ceremony the Iroquois does has got that food in there. So today we thank for the harvest. I know my wife has got over 400 quarts of food that’s canned up in jars and put it on the shelves in case Lehmann Brothers goes down some more. We don’t care because we’ve got food. And that’s one of the teachings that we’re supposed to have. Be ready. Put away the things Mother Earth’s given to us. To all the gardens of the world, we send our thank you with love and our mind again is agreed. THEN OUR CREATOR MADE THE BERRIES THAT are growing, and he
chose the strawberry to be the leader, where we live in the East, because when the snow goes away, that’s the first berry to be picked. That’s why
we call the strawberry the chief of all the berries. And that strawberry looks like the heart of a bird or a human, and we call it the big medicine. When the strawberry is growing, you eat a lot of it, as much as you can, because that’s going to take you through the winter. And when the strawberry finishes, raspberry is next, then the blueberry, then the blackberry, then the gooseberry—right until snow comes, there’s still berries to be picked. That’s for the bears, the birds and for the humans. Oh the Creator made a wonderful plan when he made this world. He made it a perfect world for us. All we’ve got to do is open our eyes. All we got to do is feel with our hands. All we’ve got to do is be thankful for every gift. And that is what Indian ceremony is about, to be thankful every day. And so to the berries of the world, we say thank you, for following the Creator’s plan. Thank you for doctoring us every season that you harvest. We say, berries of the world, with love and thanks and our mind is agreed. THEN OF COURSE THE CREATOR MADE THE TREES
that make the forests of the world. Where we live, he chose the maple sugar tree to be the chief of all the trees. Because after the snow of winter goes away, and the wind a little bit warms up—still snow on the ground a little yet—then that maple tree, make a little hole in it, and catch the sap. It’s sweet, it tastes good. And then if you cook it, it turns into maple syrup, the best in the whole world, and the Iroquois cook that—lots of it, gallons—and we carry ourselves through the whole summer, the whole winter, the whole year. That’s our sugar. And many more fruits grow on our trees as a gift from our Creator to the humans and the animals and the birds. Everything that gives life is full if we honor that. And so to the trees who also we use to make a sacred fire, where we pray, to put our sacred tobacco into the fire to carry our smoke into the universe, so that every one will see it, smell it, taste it. To the tree in the cold months in the Northeast where I live, when the snow can get over 14 feet deep some time, and the wind come strong—we gather the branches of the tree and make fire in our house and oh it’s good. Warm. We won’t freeze our young and our old. And the bough of the tree, some of it is medicine. But that tree, the biggest gift it gives, it makes the oxygen in the air that we need to breathe every day—for the whole world. And if that tree should ever stop making that oxygen, there would be no you and there would be no me. So when you see a tree, it is not just lumber, it is a gift the Creator gave to us to help us to live and to enjoy this world. And so to the maple tree and all the other species of the trees that make up the forests of the world, we, the small human beings, are of one mind and we
B
efore the sun shines, all you birds get up early in the morning and you sing your hundreds of beautiful songs to welcome the sun, the miracle of the new day. And when you sing to welcome the sun, the humans will hear it. The bears will hear it. The moose, the elk will hear it, the deer will hear it. And you will in fact shake their minds up so that boredom and lonesomeness will not find a home in their lives but instead will hear the joy of the most rare thing.
send many thankyous, many greetings, many loves, big piles, and we pick it up and we throw it North, South, East and West so that to every tree, even the small little one that just come up, we say thank you. And our mind is agreed. THE DEER IS THE LEADER OF THE ANIMAL WORLD,
where we live. We send our thank you and our love to all the animals, because they are always there when we need them. As long as we honor them they will always be there. And again our mind is agreed. THEN THE CREATOR SAYS, “I DON’T WANT YOU HUman beings to walk around the earth with your
lower lip hanging on the ground tripping over yourself and your sadness and your self pity. I don’t want you to be like that. That’s why I put the birds in the sky and then I put all kinds of beautiful feathers on the birds, as wings, to make them look very beautiful as they fly around your head, where you walk.” He says, “And then I gathered those birds, those robins, and gave them their song, beautiful song. Then I gathered the mourning doves, and I gave them their song. And I gave the chickadees their song.” And he went on and on, till all the birds had songs. And then he said to the birds, “Now I choose the eagle to be the chief of all the birds. Now, in order that those buffalo, deer, moose and those Salish and those Iroquois, Hopi and Navaho don’t get lonesome, and have their lips hanging down in self pity, when the dawn comes of the new sun, before the sun shines, all you birds get up early in the morning and you sing your hundreds of beautiful songs to welcome the sun, the miracle of the new day. And when you sing to welcome the sun, the humans will hear it. The bears will hear it. The moose, the elk will hear it, the deer will hear it. And you will in fact shake their minds up so that boredom and lonesomeness will not find a home in their lives but instead will hear the joy of the most rare thing.” So this morning there were birds singing. They never forgot. They are still doing what the Creator told them. What a miracle day it is, too. And so, to the birds of all the world, for the songs they sang this morning, we, who are the human relatives, send our thank you and greetings. For they are so courageous and so brave, they have never forgotten what the Creator told them to do. To the birds of the world, thank you with love, and our mind is agreed. AND THEN WE COME TO THE FOUR WINDS. SO
when Mother Earth is tired—can you imagine? How many women here have had babies? You know, we have six of them. My part was easy. Her part was the hard one. Because she had to carry that baby nine months and then she had to give birth—lots of pain, lots of suffering. Woman goes through that. And Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 23
Multiply that one woman’s suffering and pain of giving birth by a trillion zillion—that’s what our mother goes through, the Earth.
when she’s done, whoa, she’s exhausted. Well, that’s one woman. Multiply that one woman’s suffering and pain of giving birth by a trillion zillion—that’s what our mother goes through, the Earth, of all life’s birth, so she gets tired now and then. “So guess what happens,” Grandma said, “when Mother Earth gets tired? The wind of the North and the wind of the East bring a white blanket of snow to cover Mother Earth’s body so she can rest. Then, when the other two brothers of the wind of the South and the West deem that Mother Earth has sufficiently rested, they come with the warm wind and they take the snow off, and wall to wall on the mother’s body is green grass, beautiful flowers of every color and every smell, and life is reborn.” And that is the job of the Four Winds, to bring the changing of the seasons. And so to the Four Winds, we the people, we send greetings and love for always taking care of us, for that’s what the Creator told them was their job to do. We thank you with love and our mind is agreed. AND THE THUNDER GRANDFATHERS—THEY ARE ONLY LITTLE GUYS.
One time I asked Grandma, “How come they are so little?” “That’s the way they are. But dynamite comes in little packages; you can see what it does. Same thing as that. They are little, but they can do a big job, and when their voice roars across the sky, every Mohawk pulls their prayer pipe out and sends the tobacco—‘Welcome to where we live.’ They are going to quench the thirst of our corn, our raspberry and strawberry fields and there will be lots of food. Oh, every time thunder comes, Iroquois smoke goes up. Welcome. Welcome.” And so this summer, they came where we live, and they watered all our crops and brought the water in the river and all the lakes and so what we do, we, who are the great children, we make one mind and we set our attention to the western sky. Our Grandpa Thunderers, thank you for the renewal of the waters of the world, and our mind is agreed. THE SUN, IN OUR LANGUAGE, MEANS THE DAYTIME SUN, HE’S THE
one watching over us. The Creator told him he’s the older brother and we are the younger brothers and the older brother has to care for the younger ones. That’s why he’s way up there watching over us, making sure we’re doing okay. When he shines the light I can see my sister when I come next to her. I don’t have to crash into her body. Or if I am walking I won’t hit the post or the tree, because I can see it with the light of the sun. So wherever the sun shines there should be peace and harmony and there should be respect. If there is war and there is bloodshed, that means the people are spiritually blind and they are spiritually deaf to the Creator’s things. And so with this, to Older Brother Sun who makes the miracle bright day, we say thank you with love and our mind is agreed. AND THEN WE GO TO THE NIGHTTIME SUN, OUR GRANDMA, THE
moon. And many people ask, how come you call the moon your grandma? Well, easy. It takes her 28-30 days to walk a certain path in the nighttime sky, and as she walks, she goes like this with her wand, or her orchestration stick. Whether it is white woman, purple woman, green woman, every woman—every 28-30 days, get ready woman, every month. Get rid of the old blood and make new blood. And Grandma sent that new blood every month after that. It’s like a beautiful bed with a soft mattress and a quilt where a new human baby can find a place to 24 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
start on his new journey. And so the moon is the one who determines the rhythm of our women of all the nations, when the children will be born. And so I say to our youth, thank you to Grandma Moon, to the birth of our babies and our mind is agreed. MY GRANDMA USED TO JOKE, “GRANDMA MOON
is a woman of the night. She always goes out at nighttime. Oh, she likes to dress up. She likes to wear diamonds on every finger and hang diamonds on her ears and a necklace on her ankles, on her wrist—everywhere she‘s got diamonds.” You know what she’s talking about? The stars are the diamonds, are her jewelry. What a wonderful image that is. How rich she is, that Grandma Moon. And she walks amongst the diamond stars of the universe. And from that, little babies come to the earth. “And remember, too,” Grandma said, “the stars used to talk to us Indian people. But they say that one day we will start to lose the knowledge, one day will come we won’t know how to talk to the stars anymore. But if that day ever comes, it’s okay, for if we forgot everything about what the stars mean, we will not forget their beauty for we are not blind.” And that will be sufficient reason to send our greetings and our thank you and our love to every star in the nighttime sky and that is what we do now and our mind is agreed. AND THEN THERE ARE FOUR SACRED BEINGS, ONE IN THE NORTH,
South, East and West. They are the unseen forces; they are the helpers of our Creator. We call them the Sky Dwellers. They are the ones who help the Creator, and they are the ones who look after us, especially our children and our elder people. Whenever our people in the past forgot their history or their ceremony, the Creator sent one of them to be born to reinstate his sacred teachings. That’s where our Great Law came from, our clans and our four sacred rituals—everything how to govern to survive. And so to those Four Sacred Beings, we thank you for all the knowledge that you have given to us and our mind is agreed. AND THEN FINALLY, OUR CREATOR, THE MAKER OF ALL THINGS, CRE-
ator said simply, “I’m all done. Man and woman, you will walk side by side, and with the love and respect you have for each other, there will be replicas born of you, a new generation.” He said, “I’ve even made a big old mountain for you. I didn’t make St. John the Divine in Manhattan. I didn’t make a museum full of architect documents of philosophical spiritual knowledge. No. I just made the world. The river. The lake. The great beauty. That’s all I give to you. And from there is everything you need to live in peace. So all I want every day, is for every man and for every woman and every child to stand before me and your Mother the Earth—because we are your father and your mother—and say thank you for the miracle of your birth and your life.” SO NOW, LET US PILE UP MANY THANKYOUS, MANY GREETINGS,
many loves, and touching our hands on it in a big circle that touches the ceiling it’s so much, we send it high into the universe and say, “Creator, our maker and father. Thank you for the miracle that we are here today.” And our mind is agreed. And that is the Reader Digest’s form of the Thanksgiving.
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of the Centre of the World is crucial to an understanding of Plains shamanism. Although Black Elk referred to this as Harney Peak in the Dakota Badlands, which he identified as the specific mountain he visited during his great vision, he also commented that the centre could be anywhere. He meant no contradiction by this. Just as the power of Wakan Tanka is a part of everything, so each thing also functions as a symbolic representation of this power and contains within itself all the potential forces of the cosmos. The Centre of the World can, therefore, be invested in a grain of sand just as readily as in such a dramatic and impressive representation as Harney Peak. Norman Bancroft Hunt, Shamanism in North America (p. 170) Or if we hold a piece of rock in our hands with the clarity of perception which is the direct contact of naked insight, we not only feel the solidity of that one rock, but we also begin to perceive the spiritual implications of it; we experience it as an absolute expression of the solidity and majesty of earth. […]. That small rock represents every aspect of solidness. I do not mean this in the physical sense alone; but I am speaking of solidity in the spiritual sense. The solidity of peace and energy, indestructible energy. Chogyam Trumpa Rimpoche, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (p. 222) THESE NEXT FEW WORDS ARE ABOUT SITE. They are not only
about site in the architectural sense, but they are also of how we know site. These words are about how we know our land, our water, our sky, our innate nature. These words are about the lenses we now look through, and the vision that once was: the Euro-American invasion and the indigenous tradition. The word site has inborn implications of placing something, of locating something, of mapping. It is a method of controlling land. To know a site is to know its boundaries; it is to know its limits, its thresholds, its contours. But what is the necessity of this knowledge? The necessity is more desire, and the desire lays in power. The desire to know a site’s limits is to understand its value. It is important here to be explicit about the definition of value. Here, we are talking of
The primary source for this paper was the book Black Elk Speaks. It was inspirational in many ways. I learnt so much about an indigenous way of seeing the world through Black Elk’s stories. I am very grateful for his willingness to share his visions and his life with the rest of the world, and for John Neihardt who listened and compiled them.
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To better understand the meaning behind many of the stories told by Black Elk, I decided to paint some of them. This allowed me to grasp the sensibilities of an indigenous person and the great importance of the elements in indigenous cultures. The earth, water, air, fire, plants and animals are seen as interrelated and inseparable. Animals speak with two-leggeds [people], and two-leggeds talk with thunder. Horses turn into birds and humans into spears. People fall into near-death comas and float into the clouds to hear the great spirits of the six directions give instruction. These visions are not drug-induced. They are callings from the outer world to those whom the spirits have chosen.
economic, physical, monetary value, for example, the total hectares of lumber, or the abundance of a certain animal, or the area of land that may hold gold. This is the mindset with which the Europeans came to America, and the lenses we still utilize. Another sense of site exists, which has a different definition of value. Its value does not lay solely in the physical realm. There is invaluable worth in the spirit that dwells in all things. For example, say we ate sushi tonight and it was delicious. Where does this deliciousness come from? The fish alone? That is not possible because the fish does not live in a vacuum. The fish lives in water, the water flows on the earth, and the earth rolls in the deep skies of this universe. When we taste how delicious unagi is, are we not tasting cosmic dust? And is there not something that moves through all of this, making things live and others die? Indigenous people around the world have lived by this sensitivity for thousands of years. In the book Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota medicine man, who was born on the Little Powder River (modern day South Montana) in the Moon of the Popping Trees (December) in 1863, describes the life and the slow and painful near annihilation of one of the last indigenous Nations in North America, the Lakota. He lived among the greatest Lakota warriors and medicine men. Crazy Horse was his cousin and, while in Canada in the 1870’s he lived with Sitting Bull’s band, the Hungpapa. His testimony is crucial in helping us understand the suppressed concept of site that exists in indigenous Nations. That fall [1883], they say the last of the bison herds was slaughtered by the Wasichus [white men]. I can remember when the bison were so many that they could not be counted, but more and more Wasichus came to kill them until there were only heaps of bones scattered where they use to be. The Wasichus did not kill them to eat; they killed them for the metal that makes them crazy [gold], and they took only the hides to sell. Sometimes they did not even take the hides, only the tongues; and I have heard that fire-boats came down the Missouri River loaded with dried bison tongues;
they just killed and killed because they liked to do that. When we hunted bison, we killed only what we needed. And when there was nothing left but heaps of bones, the Wasichus came and gathered up even the bones and sold them. All our people now were settling down in square gray houses, scattered here and there across this hungry land, and around them the Wasichus had drawn a line to keep them in. The nation’s hoop was broken, and there was no centre any longer for the flowering tree. The people were in despair. They seemed heavy to me, heavy and dark; so heavy that they could not be made to see any more. Hunger was among us often now, for much of what the Great Father in Washington sent us must have been stolen by Wasichus who were crazy to get money. There were many lies, but we could not eat them. The forked tongue made promises. John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (pp. 213-214)
this deals with site is that there is no unfavorable site. Each site is special and important in its own way. Every site possesses spirit. This is entirely opposite to the Euro-American knowing of site. Many sites are avoided because they are not economically feasible, and there is no sense of gratitude or communication. There is a human made tabula rasa that is imposed upon the world; a white blanket of nothingness on which endless manifestations of material manipulations can be displayed. There is no consideration for where these materials come from, or for the impact that these will create in the making. There is only a fascination and a fetishizing of material and form. This obsession with making new and better things, with technology, with the idea of advancement has permeated every realm of modern life since the industrial revolution. But this obsession with advancement has led us down a dark road. A road to a place where there is no communication with our real ADDITIONAL TO THE SENSE OF VALUE, a sense of gratitude beroots: the earth. We take all things for granted and believe that there stowed upon a site is of parais an infinite source. Most of us mount importance to unhave no idea where our water, derstanding how indigenous food, clothing, building materiTHERE IS AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION people know site. They know als, or electricity comes from. HAPPENING BETWEEN SITE AND a site by its trees, animals, and There is a dislocation that is PERSON. THE INDIGENOUS WAY OF rocks, of course, but the differpainful. First hand account toKNOWING SITE IS THROUGH ence is that they are grateful for day is rare. This dislocation does COMMUNICATION WITH ALL THINGS, knowing it. A sense of gratitude not come from a site; rather it AND IN THIS POWER THERE IS GREAT VALUE. for seeing a hawk flying above, is born out of our approach to or for having the opportunity to site. An approach to site withkill a bison and feed one’s family, or of having enough water to drink out gratitude or communication breeds ignorance about its inherent is very real and alive. In having this sort of direct contact, a direct truths. We ignore the inherent truths of a site in order to satisfy our communication with the rest of the world is created. This communinarcissistic urge for satisfaction. It is not possible for any one site to cation with the world is cherished within indigenous Nations. There satisfy our every desire, so, importing materials from other sites, on a is an actual conversation happening between site and person. The global scale, is the every day practice. indigenous way of knowing site is through communication with all Is this why almost all our present day actions are traced back to some things, for which they are entirely grateful because all things can eienvironmental degradation? ther help us exist or help us die, and in this power there is great value. I am writing on an Apple keyboard made of some petroleum-based Further, all things are spirit, and all things can be the “centre.” How plastic that was shipped to the school on a truck powered by fossil
WASICHU
BIRTH
Black Elk was born on the Little Powder River in the Moon of the Popping Trees in the year when Four Crows were killed (1863).
During the late 19th century, the white man encroached on the land that the Lakota recognized as sacred land, namely the Black Hills. The Lakota were ordered to move onto reserves and forget their traditions. Roads and railways were constructed through the area in order to allow for gold prospecting and eventual mining to take place. To this day, there is a legal battle between the American government and the Lakota Nation as to the ownership of the Black Hills.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 27
fuels from a post office that received this package from a warehouse itself. It is not concerned with its interconnectedness in this world, somewhere in North America that stores Apple computers that were which is necessary for its existence. designed in California and assembled in Malaysia. This i-Mac comIndigenous architecture is a sustainable and organic architecture. puter requires 180 watts of continuous power [approximately equivIt is such because it poses no impacts on the land because it is either alent to a 200 lbs bike & rider pedaling at 20 mph on the flats] that is made of materials from the site, or made of materials that are lightprovided by the school that receives 24-7 power from the local power weight and portable [organic in nature]. The design of indigenous plant that burns coal to produce steam to turn immense magnets dwellings has a direct communication with all things in that specific around coils that create power by starting an electron flow in metal. place. This is why each dwelling is the centre of the universe. They all There are countless implications in this one action of sitting down recognize their surroundings. They all flow with the intrinsic qualiat a computer to write an essay in the school of architecture in Halities of the Earth. fax, Nova Scotia, North America, a place that used to be Mi’kmaq land. Everything that I am connected to at this point in time is the [...] we made these little gray houses of logs that you see, and they are square. result of the approach to site by the Europeans. And everything that It is a bad way to live, for there can be no power in a square. You have noticed I am connected to at this point in time is having some kind of detrithat everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power mental impact on the local, national, continental, and global enviof the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In ronment, which of course harms everyone. I am unwillingly waging the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came war on people I have never met who live on the other side of the planto us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unet by damaging their ecosystem, broken, the people flourished. The their water, their air. But basiflowering tree was the living centre cally, all the water, air, earth, of the hoop, and the circle of the EVERYTHING THAT I AM CONNECTED TO plants, and animals dwell, grow, four quarters nourished it. The east AT THIS POINT IN TIME IS HAVING SOME and live on the Earth. So, we are gave peace and light, the south gave KIND OF DETRIMENTAL IMPACT ON THE all responsible. warmth, the west gave rain, and LOCAL, NATIONAL, CONTINENTAL, What does this mean for arthe north with its cold and mighty AND GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT, WHICH OF chitecture? wind gave strength and endurance. COURSE HARMS EVERYONE. And, what is indigenous arThis knowledge came to us from the chitecture? outer world with our religion. EvIt means that we [designers and architects] must get rid of our oberything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and session with form. Dealing with form as the first step in design is synI have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The onymous with a kind of tunnel vision. All that is in front of us is this wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs thing, floating, pristine, sexy. But this approach is entirely ignorant, is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a myopic. It ignores and negates the existence of the planet. It ignores circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form the source of materials. It ignores the construction of the design. a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they And it ignores the site. There is no communication with anything but were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in this form that is continuously fondled. This approach is not sustaineverything where power moves. able, in that it cannot sustain itself because it deals with nothing but John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (pp. 194-195)
BROKEN LEG
Black Elk’s father had his leg broken in the Fetterman Fight in 1866. 81 American soldiers were killed by Lakota warriors.
28 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
FURTHERMORE, WITH THE ADVENT of green and sustainable archi-
tectural trends, there has been a revival in the interest of indigenous wisdom. The interest is in the approach to site; it is in how we as a people, as a society can minimize our impact on Mother Earth, the greatest and only site we have. It is quite ironic that people of European descent are now asking for help from the indigenous elders, whom, only 100 or so years back, they wanted to exterminate. This says something of the value of tradition and the value of being humbled in front of such wisdom. When a tradition can be upheld for thousands of years there is automatic proof of a sustainable people that arises. The destruction of these traditions is one of the greatest crimes on humanity. The fact that a people can sustain a certain way of life for thousands of years shows that there is balance, that there is a true understanding of how the Powers of the World move. Our (Western civilization) greatest downfall is our inability to admit any wrongdoing. Because of this stubbornness, we leave absolutely no room to learn. There is no willingness to learn, because we think we know it all. We somehow believe that our lifestyle is the right one. We somehow believe that “green” or “sustainable” gadgets that can be plugged into buildings will save us and give us the ability to continue living our cannibalistic consumer dream. We are obsessed with constant satisfaction; with the constant orgasmic fantasy. If we could, we would all live the constant orgasm; an orgasm that would last forever. In fact, we cannot talk of site without talking of our approach to it, without talking about our vision of life. What is our vision of life? If one has no vision, if one does not care, per se, then one will not care about site. Fundamentally, this person does not care about themselves, let alone the earth, water, air, plants or animals. Only a sense of self emanates, which is completely devoid of any sense of empathy. But if there is vision, there is a concern for the interconnectedness of all things. There is an opening of oneself to certain truths about our existence here on planet Earth. No one can debate whether or
not we need air to breath, or that we need water to drink, or that we need food to eat. These are truths that are unarguable. Argument has no place when someone is hungry. Argument has no place when someone is thirsty. Argument has no place when someone needs to breathe. We are connected to these basic elements. This is just the nature of what we are. This is just the spirit of what we are. But as I sit here on this plastic and metal chair and type on this plastic keyboard and watch binary signals appear before me, I am again caught by the sense of responsibility for these elements that are detrimentally affected by this one action. In comparison to a building, this action is minute. I am left with a sense of responsibility in this lifetime to move into a direction that has sensitivity, awareness, and mindfulness not only to site, but to all actions. All actions carry energy with them, and every action echoes throughout time carrying that energy along. If an action is blind and self-centered, ignorance will echo until it fades away. We are in a time of transition, of mind fading, and heart growing. In the mind, intellectual conquest is the only goal: a battle between right and wrong. The mind is concerned with only being satisfied, with being right, always. The heart moves us in places where we need to be. It reminds us that we always have exactly what we need. The heart exudes compassion, respect, and gratitude. Ultimately, these words about site are really about spirit. This spirit grows out of our interconnectedness to all the Earth. To harm any one of these elements, to take without gratitude or respect, or to ignore its spirit’s presence is to harm not only oneself, but all of us together. We must have a sense of gratitude for even existing in order for us to move into harmonious times. This sense of the transcendental value of life leads to immense gratitude and, consequently, a communication with our surroundings. We can then come to the realization that every site is spirit, that we are all interconnected, and that we are fundamentally all guardians of this mesmerizing site we call Earth. Emilio Laurier Williams Portal is an architect living in an intentional community near Victoria, British Columbia.
Additional Sources Trungpa, Chogyam. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1973.
CRAZY HORSE
Crazy Horse is considered to be the greatest Lakota warrior. He got his name from a vision he had. There was a spectacular magical horse in his vision, which seemed to continuously move yet somehow be motionless at the same time.
Rebecca Belmore http://www.belkin-gallery.ubc.ca/belmore/ http://www.ccca.ca/artists/artist_info. html?link_id=2002 Trudy Sable http://www.gpiatlantic.org/conference/ reports/2209.htm
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 29
30 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
An interview with
Melissa K. Nelson
ber for the
Future PHOTOGRAPHS BY RYAN HEFFERNAN
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 31
MN: It’s a really great question. There’s the large umbrella of education,
The book’s title caught our interest
IMMEDIATELY... The Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future. As we read the book’s collection of pieces from more than 20 contemporary indigenous leaders—such as Chief Oren Lyons, the late John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke and John Trudell—we were struck by the clarity, simplicity and accessibility of the messages delivered. The book contains powerful guidance on topics as far-ranging (and yet integrally connected) as childhood development and education, food security, human and animal health, natural resource management, community co-operation, self-governance and conflict resolution. We were inspired. We met the book’s editor, Melissa K. Nelson, PhD, in her office at San Francisco State University, where she is a professor in the American Indian Studies Department. Melissa, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is of mixed-blood heritage, her mother being Chippewa (Anishinaabe) and FrenchCree (Métis) and her father, Norwegian. Since 1993 Melissa’s been the executive director of The Cultural Conservancy, a San Francisco-based non-profit that preserves and revitalizes the cultures and ancestral lands of indigenous peoples. Additionally, since 1993 she’s been very involved (including years as a board member) with BIONEERS, the New Mexico-based organization that provides a forum for connecting the environment, health, social justice, and spirit within a broad progressive framework (Revolution from the Heart of Nature, bioneers.org). We spent a few minutes telling Melissa the story of The Sacred Fire Foundation and the genesis of this magazine, and then we began. —Editors Sacred Fire: Tell me about the people you feature in The Original Instructions. Melissa K. Nelson: I’ve worked with or know most of the people who
were contributors to the book in various capacities through the Cultural Conservancy, through my Native American studies research and through various indigenous alliances. It’s brought me to many different gatherings and circles, Bioneers being a major one. SF: Is Bioneers one of the most effective ways to reach Westerners with the indigenous message? MN: It’s become a movement of many movements. I don’t know if you’ve
read Paul Hawkins’ new book, Blessed Unrest? Paul Hawkins has been involved with the Bioneers movement for a very long time. His book basically talks about the convergence of the environmental movement, the social justice movement and the indigenous movement. Just like you’re saying in your story of the Sacred Fire Foundation, Paul Hawkin is saying that the indigenous people need to help lead this movement. SF: So how do you communicate this movement across the chasm of Western society, which is oriented toward short-term results? How do you get people to understand the indigenous worldview, which is at its core very simple? How do you get them to, maybe, just go sit in a field and listen? 32 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
of course, but it has to be an invitation. It has to be an invitation to a different way of thinking—to re-imagining the world and reimagining yourself in the world in a new way. That’s part of why I’ve been interested in the eco psychology movement because it’s critical of the more didactic approach of the environmental movement that says, “You must change! You’re ruining the environment! Be guilty and adopt these better ways, or else we’re all going to die!” We know that approach does not work. It does not work for anything. The people in this book are committed to a very spiritual education, to share the original instructions in an invitational way. SF: In The Original Instructions Paula Gunn Allen writes: “We are not restoring the planet, she is restoring us”. MN: Very powerful SF: I was really struck by that. Personally, I find a lot of hubris in the global warming chatter, as though global temperature change isn’t something that has always happened and is happening again as a part of a larger cycle. The world is healing us...we’re being given these challenges so we can remember what we’ve forgotten. MN: Exactly. Very well put, to remember what we’ve forgotten.
To re-learn to remember. That’s why so much of the original teachings really focus on remembering—literally, “to re-member,” to put our members back together and make ourselves whole again after the fragmentation of 500 years of colonization. That impacts us all. That affects everyone—but especially indigenous people. And so much of what we are trying to do in this collective book is to say to Euro-Americans, “Pay attention and respect our ways, but also go back to your original instructions.” The greed that is destroying the planet comes from a kind of spiritual bankruptcy. Too often, greedy, hungry people go to indigenous people—their land, their water, their minerals, their forests, their traditions, their actual DNA—to be filled. This commoditization of the sacred is something that really has to stop. So we’re offering all of these different teachings, from multiple native perspectives in different ways, to say, “Hey. We all need to awaken and remember who we are. We need to remember all of our original instructions. Because no matter what race color, creed, or religion you come from, there is the kernel.” There is the seed of these original teachings in all traditions. SF: Absolutely. A phrase I like that describes how the myriad of the world’s traditions co-exist in truth is, “A common essence—A diversity of expression.” MN: So we have to become Native to our place, but it’s a very delicate
process, because out of this hunger we often become greedy and we often think we know what we want when really we need to humble ourselves and listen to a totally different worldview, a totally different way of being. And that’s tough for folks. Because when you’re hungry and desperate you want to cling to things, and if you see a little piece of truth, you want to cling to it. It reminds me of a great joke. The god and the devil were talking and looking down at earth. There was a man walking along and they were watching what he was going to do. There was something really beautiful and shiny on the ground. The man picks it up and looks at it. He gets so happy and he puts it in his pocket. God says, “Oh, Devil, you must be really upset that this man found a piece of truth. You’re in trouble now,
The Cultural Conservancy records the Southern Paiute Salt Songs at the Old Woman Mountain Preserve, California.
Devil.” And the devil says, “No God, I’m very happy. I’m going to go help him organize it.” SF: Yes, that’s so true. People worship the structure of a thing. MN: Yes, people find even a small piece and they think that’s all of it.
We get caught up in one aspect of the structure, but we have to continually humble ourselves because, as all these authors say, the Great Mystery is vast. The Great Spirit is vast. This little human being, this little human mind, is only going to know a little corner of it. So we have to constantly humble ourselves. That’s why we open Original Instructions with the great Iroquois Haudenashaunee thanksgiving address, the late John Mohawk’s version of it, that honors all life and gives thanks because we couldn’t exist without it. It can exist without humans, clearly. SF: We humans put ourselves in the center so often. But things like environmental disaster and social injustice may just be a symptom of the problem, not the core problem itself. The root cause seems to be our
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warriors. They embody both, depending on the circumstance. So when they talk to a state legislature about protecting a sacred site, they’re warriors who address what you call the symptoms. Winona La Duke is a warrior woman, speaking truth to power on a number of issues related to structural oppression and institutionalized racism, working on changing laws and policies and economic systems. That’s really front line—being willing to criticize Monsanto and criticize the US Government’s policies and all these structures of oppression that have really damaged so many people, mainly indigenous people. And then there’s the Indigenous Environmental Network, Tom Goldtooth and his environmental piece, and all the people in our decolonization and global indigenous struggles for justice. It’s very, very important. Yet many of these people are also involved with their ceremonial life, with traditional religious practices, with the NAC (Native American Church), with working in partnership with organizations and spiritual programs. In a more spiritual setting and context they talk about these issues through dialog, through ceremony, through ritual, to say, “Hey, we get stuck up here. We need to move, right? These are the ways we move, from being stuck in fragmentation to embracing greater wholeness.” All of these people are healers at some times and warriors at other times. Some are really active on the political realm through protest, legislation and litigation; others are quietly working on the level of their communities, educating non-Indians about their ways, doing healings, and trying to invoke that transformation, that psycho-spiritual transformation that is more the root cause. The media is a fabulous tool for native people today. Magazines, grass roots publications, film/video, audio—these are all great forms of creative expression to get the message out there. And gatherings. There’s gatherings all the time in Indian country, all over America, all over the
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Through my work as an indigenous rights activist, I know you have to have the peacemakers, and you have to have the warriors.
disconnection with the world as a living being and a sacred place. But when you experience that sacredness, you can’t disrespect the lands and the peoples of those lands. MN: That’s right.
MELISSA NELSON
SF: You mentioned that it’s not particularly effective, like at Bioneers, to tell people “You must change!” But what else can be effective? MN: I think we have to have mul-
tiple strategies. Multiple tactics. Through my work as an indigenous rights activist, I know you have to have the peacemakers, and you have to have the warriors. Most of these people in the book are both peacemakers and
The Cultural Conservancy Founded in 1985, the “Sacred Land Foundation” was created by “wellmeaning, Euro-American women” including Claire Cummings and Kimla McDonald, to protect sacred sites around the world. The organization’s native advisors recommended a focus on North American sites and issues, and by 1991, the group had became native-run. The new board and staff broadened the mission, combining the “cultural preservation” focus of a group like Cultural Survival, with the “land protection” focus of a group like Nature Conservancy; they re-named the organization The Cultural Conservancy (TCC). Melissa Nelson was hired as executive director in 1993, working to integrate the vision that culture and land must be protected together. As she says, “If you don’t have your
homelands, it’s very hard to practice your culture. And if you have lands, but you don’t have your songs and your stories, your dances or your language, it’s very hard to be a whole people.” In its first decade, TCC worked to preserve sacred sites and to open access to lands so native practices can continue. Working with the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and private landowners, the group helped develop land trusts and access agreements so local native people can do ceremony, collect medicines and traditional foods, gather craft materials, and make offerings to village and burial sites “to protect them according to their original instructions,” says Melissa. More recently, to restore and
revitalize fading cultural knowledge, TCC supports language preservation programs, including a project to preserve ancestral wisdom called Storyscape. “Embedded in that name,” says Melissa, “the story is embedded in the landscape. You get stories from the land, and you also have stories of the land. Many of the people we have recorded have passed on. We were the first group to be entrusted to record many Native sacred songs and stories, for future generations of their people.” Today, TCC gets requests from native communities locally, nationally and internationally. Their shared expertise in land protection, in developing strategies for accessing and protecting sacred places and restoring sites, and in cultural revitalization, empowers native communities to deepen their relationships with their own original instructions.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 33
world, where people strategize, build their toolkits, see what’s been effective. And now, with new communication, we can see how the Maori people of New Zealand are restoring their lands, and bringing back their sacred waters and their sacred places. Or how they’re fighting their federal government and winning important cases. We can talk to them and learn what they are using and what has been effective. And they can look to us, to all of the tribal models and Native American programs in the United States and learn from our histories and struggles and successes.So international, indigenous communication and alliance building, has been extraordinary. SF: I don’t know if this is a strategy, but what about shared ceremony and even ritual between native peoples and whites as a way to effect change, as a way to change Westerners’ worldviews? MN: I just want to first say how delicate and treacherous this terri-
tory is. For one, I prefer the word “Euro-American” to “white people,” personally, because there’s the history, the social construction of “whiteness.” When the first Europeans came here, the French were the French and the English were the English, and the Dutch were the Dutch and they were not all united. I think part of the problem is identifying as a white person, because when people do that, they erase their culture, they erase their history. Again, it’s that lack of remembering, the lack of memory... SF: The “melting pot” burns it out of them... MN: The melting pot burned it out. Some peo-
ple call it the “lactification” process, or “Wonder Bread-ization” that erases all cultures. It tried assimilation too with Native peoples and it was effective in many ways. Someone may have brown skin, but a colonized mind. We’ve all been colonized. I want to acknowledge that Euro-American people, quote “white people,” all come from cultures, all have stories. They all have stories in their history of struggle. I’m half Norwegian. I honor my Norwegian heritage as much as I do my Native American heritage. To be a whole person, I feel that that’s absolutely essential. But getting back to the question of the role of ceremony as an educational tool for Euro-Americans... SF: And a healing... MN: Yeah, and a healing tool. I think that’s
absolutely true and can be very effective. Native people have touched a lot of their allies in the environmental movement by welcoming them into ceremonies. I also want to be really explicit about this term “ceremony” or “ritual.” It’s so mystical and exotic, and yet it’s something so simple. For Native people, it may be as simple as going to a lake and putting some water on your head and offering some tobacco to the lake. And saying “Thank you for nourishing me with water.” And that’s something that all people can do. 34 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
For more information about Melissa Nelson and
her work, visit earthdiver.org. For more information about the Cultural Conservancy, visit nativeland.org.
But there are also these “hungry people” who are spiritually bankrupt and are looking for something, who often think it’s going to be some grand, mystical experience. It’s going to be, you know, lightning bolts and bears and eagles flying out of their eyeballs—they imagine something like that. Dennis Martinez makes a very important point in his chapter in Original Instructions that indigenous ways are practical ways. They can be mystical. They certainly are spiritually based, but they’re very practical. And so for Native people to share some of those practical acts of gratitude, practical acts of thanksgiving, practical acts of making offering, I think, can be transformative for EuroAmerican communities. But there’s always the risk and always the problem that somebody, some White person, is going to think, “I have that piece of truth now. I can go organize that. I can go sell that. I can become a shaman myself.” And so, because of that risk and that threat, many, many Native people do not want to share. And will not share, because the context gets stripped away and the core essence of who Native people are gets exploited. So it’s very treacherous territory. And yet I know people like the late great Corbin Harney—a Western Shoshone elder, magnificent spiritual teacher, environmental
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He wasn’t about turning anyone into a Native American, he was about honoring who you are as a human being. We’re all two-leggeds; we’re all human beings.
The Salt Song Trail – Bringing Creation Back Together This 20-minute film was a collaboration between The Cultural Conservancy and The Salt Song Project of the Southern Paiute Nation. Melissa Nelson was an executive producer for the film, winner of both“Best Documentary Short” in the American Indian Film Festival and “Award of Distinction” at the Indian Summer Film and Video Image Awards in 2005. The film presents a story of the revitalization of the sacred Salt Songs (Asi Huviav Puruakain) of the Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi) people. The songs are used in memorial ceremonies and as a spiritual bond for the Southern Paiute people living in the Southwest. Through the landscape of the Colorado Plateau, painted deserts and river valleys, the Salt Song Trail traces the journeys of ancestral peoples to historic and sacred sites. The film also documents a healing ceremony at the Sherman Institute—a former Indian boarding school where Indian children where forcibly taken from their homes and forbidden to practice their traditional cultures. In this ceremony, the singers return to the school to sing for the children who never came home. To purchase a copy of the film, go to: nativeland.org/dvd.html or call 415/561-6594.
activist, indigenous rights activist, anti-nuclear activist—who welcomed all people to all his ceremonies. And he was significantly criticized for it. And yet, it was great to be in the circle with people of all colors, all races, all religious backgrounds, in ceremony together, 500 people in a circle, praying. And, as Corbin Harney always used to say, “ I pray my way, you pray your way. I pray my way, you pray your way.“ He wasn’t about turning anyone into a Native American, he was about honoring who you are as a human being. We’re all two-leggeds; we’re all human beings. So, I think there can be a really inspiring and transformative aspect to sharing ceremony. But it depends on the culture, the nation, the tribe, the spiritual teacher. With the Hopi, for example, you can’t even be from another tribe, much less be a EuroAmerican person, to come to their ceremonies. Many tribal people are like that. Even within the tribe you might not be allowed into a ceremony because you’re a different clan. You may even be a distant relative, but your clan should not know these ways or should not practice these ceremonies. And your clan has your ceremonies that others are not allowed into. It’s one of the biggest differences between the indigenous paradigm and the modern Western paradigm. The paradigm in the dominant society is “Everything’s
MELISSA NELSON at the 2008 Bioneers Conference where The Cultural Consevancy and other groups hosted indigenous speakers and presentations.
up for grabs.” It’s that imperial, colonial impulse. SF: It’s that “be what you want to be because you can be anything” mentality. MN: Right, you can be anything,
grab anything, take anything. The American Dream is kind of like that. Grab it. Take it. But it has deep roots in imperialism and colonization. Whereas indigenous people have taught, there are things that you should not know and things that you should not do. We need to respect the mystery. We have to respect the unknowable. We have to respect other people’s ways. If we’re rooted in our own ways, we don’t need to know everyone else’s ways. We just need to respect them. SF: When you say “There are things that you should not know,” that’s certainly hard thing for many... MN: Hungry people? SF: Yes! And it’s hard for so many Euro-Americans to hear, because they want to go to a buffet. MN: Yes! A smorgasbord... SF: A smorgasbord—and they want a little of this and a little of that. I was at a fire a couple weeks ago with a shaman who was talking about how walking a spiritual path really isn’t about hybridization. The Nahuatl people of Mexico have their tradition. They don’t need chakras and universal love. They modified it a little to stay alive when the Spanish showed up, but basically it’s the same story that they’ve been telling since the beginning of time. MN: Exactly. Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 35
by Charles Eisenstein all religions today there is a common core, an inner spiritual transmission going back to the dawn of human consciousness, to a time when religion was not necessary. The original purpose of religion was to keep life sacred. Imagine a time (whether prehistorical or transhistorical) when human beings lived moment-tomoment in the presence of the sacred. Religion was unnecessary. There was no separation between spirituality and life, no distinction between the sacred and the mundane, no division of the Godly and the worldly. When we lost the ongoing and immediate sense of sacredness, then we needed religion to bring us back to it. “Religion,” after all, means “that which renews our connection.” No matter that modern religions have been distorted into a force for separation and not connection. If we look carefully within any one of them, we will find traces of the Original Religion, the religion borne from that immediate, experiential identity with the divine. Born from the divine, it also has the potential to bring us back to the divine. I am afraid that when I use phrases like “bring us back to the divine” I am strengthening a separation that is actually an illusion. The Original Religion is not a program for attaining to a divinity separate from ourselves or the world of matter we inhabit. It arises from the felt experience that no such separation exists. To even use words like “divine” or “sacred” establishes them as separate categories of existence and widens the division. We have a name for the Original Religion. We call it animism, and it is still practiced today primarily by isolated groups of indigenous people. We usually define animism as the belief that all things have a spirit: including animals and plants, rocks and streams, the wind and the sky. Actually, this belief is a step away from the original animism, which is perhaps better termed “panentheism,” recognition of the indwelling divinity of all things. Panentheism says not that all things have a spirit; it is that all things are spirit. Spirit is not a distinct element that can be separated out from the being itself. The entire universe, and everything in it, is irreducibly sacred. Everything that exists, even two apparently identical drops of water, is unique, special, and sacred. The panentheist thus lives in a constant state of reverence. Each action takes on a sacred significance. Each word is a prayer. Each event is divinely arranged, a communication from the All to a temporarily 36 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
separate piece of it, the self. The detachment from this way of being began with the earliest rudiments of human separation from nature: symbolic culture and domestication. When we try to encompass the infinity of the world within a finitude of labels, we distance ourselves from its immediacy and uniqueness. As the author of the Biblical Genesis understood, to name is to objectify and therefore to own. Domestication of plants and animals, similarly, risks converting them from coequal beings sacred in their own right into chattel, subordinate to human purposes. This process was well underway in the Mesolithic if not before, but human beings still lived in harmony with nature because they had experience, stories, and rituals to reconnect them to the truth of the irreducible sacredness of all beings. Shamans were the original priests, the caretakers of this sacred knowledge, which they recognized is indispensable for human beings’ survival. In those days, we understood the necessity of religion—renewing or remembering our connectedness. It is necessary because it is true, and no being can live very long or very well outside of truth. Traces of the Original Religion survive within the esoteric traditions of modern religions, embodied in teachings like, “God is everywhere,” “God is in all things,” or “Everything happens for a divine purpose.” The experience of God’s constant presence is essentially the experience of the Original Religion. The mystics tell us that it is a Presence so close and so intimate that the self is submerged in it. The Presence suffuses all life, each moment of it, and it shines forth from every being we encounter. We have the sense of living in a wholly divine world, a holy world. And because the same Presence shines forth from all, our customary
CREDIT: This article was originally published on Reality Sandwich (realitysandwich.com)
sense of division falls away, and we have the feeling that you and I are really the same being looking at itself through different eyes. This is actually very easy to experience, at least for a split second. Look someone in the eye, and pay attention for an instant of recognition and union. It is so intensely intimate that we usually cannot stand it, so we shift our eyes away or shift our mind away, and forget that moment before we realize it has happened. I think the original motivating intent of religion is to seize and expand such moments until they widen to encompass all of life. Even the attenuated rituals of modern life have something of this power to evoke the presence of the sacred, which we can then recognize was there all along, immanent and waiting. Any religion can connect us to that presence, even an atheistic religion such as Buddhism. After all, if God is in everything and everyone, and not external to everything and everyone, what does it really mean to say God exists or does not exist? Buddhism speaks of interconnectedness or interdependency, and we typically understand that to mean a kind of relationship among separate subjects. The true teaching goes much deeper. It says that our very existence is woven out of relationships, that we are our relationships and nothing else. Inter-existence would be a word for it. And so karma is not an externally imposed punishment for doing ill to a separate “other” being; it is simply the direct consequence of all that we do, because the other is not in fact other. In Western religion we can apply the same understanding to the Golden Rule. Perhaps when Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he wasn’t prescribing a moral rule. He was simply stating what was, from his perspective, an obvious truth: As you do
unto others, so you are in fact doing unto yourself. This is obvious from the felt perspective of nonseparation. Every action is significant, every word deserves mindfulness. God sees everything. There are not some words and actions that don’t matter and others that do. Everything matters. Everything is sacred. Nothing is left behind in the cold dead world of the mundane. Does that mean that our sacred objects, our times of meditation and prayer, our rituals and observances have no purpose? No. Their purpose is to remind us of the truth. The purpose of a holy object is not to say, “This object is holy and others are not.” The purpose of a holy object is to remind us of the holiness of all objects. The purpose of a ritual is to remind us of the sacredness of all action. The purpose of a prayer is to remind us of the sacredness of all speech. And, when we see our holy men or women as divine, it is to remind us of our own divinity and the divinity of all. Too often the teachings of our great spiritual leaders have been perverted, so that holiness has become something outside ourselves. When that happens, we naturally trust external authorities in most matters, and lose the confidence and ability to be the creators of our own lives. Today, more and more people are returning to the truth: that we are divine beings living among other divine beings in a world that is itself, in its parts and in its entirety, wholly divine. Whether conscious or not, it is this realization that ultimately motivates the environmental movement, the peace movement, the justice movement, and so many other areas of activism. None of these make sense in a world of force and reason, where more for you is less for me. Why should I care about the fate of other beings? As long as I can insulate myself from the blowback, why not just maximize my own security? Arguments for justice or the environment that attempt to appeal to rational self-interest (“think of all the medicines we could derive from rainforest plants”) are never compelling. They do not compel others to change, as forty years of failed environmentalism demonstrates. Nor do they compel meaningful changes from within. We cannot scare ourselves into virtue. That is why the panentheistic revival in all its forms is key to the transformation of the planet. Underneath all the New Age expropriation of the trappings of indigenous spirituality and shamanism lies a yearning to return to the living realization of the indwelling divinity of all things. It is a way of seeing the world profoundly at odds with modern materialism’s reduction of the universe into a pile of stuff: generic masses subject to arbitrary, purposeless forces. And it will engender profoundly different results. Can you imagine a science, a technology, an economy, a culture founded on reverence? That is the promise of the once and future Original Religion. Charles Eisenstein is a writer, speaker, and the author of The Ascent of Humanity and other books.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 37
Motionless in Moonlight by Stephen Harrod Buhner There is no place you are not seen.
all of you.
their lives, pull, tug, at your tethers, and call you back to suckle in leaf-dappled shadow, at the ancient breast that suckled humans long before Jesus saw light of day, or palmed iron, or Buddha sat, or ate mushrooms, or man walked on the moon.
In spite of your thinking yourself safely invisible, these beings,
Stephen Harrod Buhner is the author of ten books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, herbal medicine and the sacredness of plants.
It is no secondhand God but the stones under your feet, The tree leaning casual in shadows, the wolf motionless in moonlight, your own soul standing silent in darkness next to your unconscious self that see you,
Open Your Box of Religion by Susan Austin Taylor
Open your box of religion. Then take it out, throw it onto a hard fire and see if the smoke curls up to heaven. Susan Austin Taylor is a channel medium, a psychic intuitive, spiritual teacher and poet, and has been a featured instructor at the Ozark Research Institute. 38 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
M
MATURITY MATTERS GROWING INTO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE An interview with Bill Plotkin
IN
Creating Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, author Bill Plotkin, PhD, drew upon nearly 30 years experience as an ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide. “I’ve overheard myself say that this is a field guide for growing a genuine elder, starting, that is, at birth. What do the stages of modern human development look like when we grow, in each stage, with nature and soul as our primary guides?” he asks in the book’s early pages. The work features a schema he calls the Wheel of Life. The eightstage model “shows us how we can take root in a childhood of innocence and wonder; sprout into an adolescence of creative fire and mystery-probing adventures; blossom into an authentic adulthood of cultural artistry and visionary leadership; and finally ripen into a seedscattering elderhood of wisdom, grace and the holistic tending of the... more-than-human world.” This complex and comprehensive work, almost 20 years in the making, offers a vision of opportunity during these times of political, economic and environmental upheaval. Plotkin offers a narrative of how we might grow whole, one life stage at a time, by embracing nature and soul as our wisest and most trustworthy guides, calling it “a contemporary methodology corresponding to what we had in ‘earlier shamanic times.’”. We sat down with him under a blue sky on an early spring day, and talked by the fire.
needs to be regular interaction between people of all the developmental stages. This is commonplace in healthy human villages. We used to have this — societies with everyday communion among people of all life stages, including genuine adults and elders, both of which are relatively rare now in the Western world. You can also look at the relationship the other way around: the importance of individual development to community health. Successful individuation is perhaps the most important factor in community development, in the evolution of a particular community. Because the cutting edge, the breaking wave, of cultural evolution is the work of adults in the second half of true adulthood, people who are creating neverbefore seen cultural forms out of their own depths and out of the experience garnered in the first half of adulthood. These Stage Six adults, what I call Artisans, are creating new social, practical, and ceremonial forms for every aspect of community life. To create healthy contemporary communities, the roots of human culture will need to be planted once again where they always used to be planted, in the instinctive, pre-rational source of the culture, which is visionary experience, the dream, what theologian Thomas Berry calls the dream of the Earth. Each culture holds the promise of embodying a unique form of this intricate dream of the Earth. And the dream of the Earth, like any dream, is not static. It’s constantly in flux. So what the Earth wants of us humans is gradually changing and evolving. So it’s not just the original instructions that are important, it’s also the current, breaking wave of instructions from the Earth’s dream.
Sacred Fire: Your book, Nature and the Human Soul, seems to focus primarily on the individual, although there are definitely places where “bringing back the gifts to the community” is key and central. How is this work applicable to community settings? Plotkin: A couple things come to mind. In order to fully mature, young
SF: As you speak of humanity’s evolutionary projection forward, I think you’re referring to a section of your book called “Circle and Arc,” which lays out repeating cycles of experience along a linear arc of evolutionary progression. P: The arc refers to the fact that we’re heading—we’ve always been
people need the guidance of older people—not just chronologically older, but psychospiritually more mature folks. For that to happen, there
heading—into territory we as a planet and as a species have never previously known. We are different humans than we were five to ten thouIssue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 39
sand years ago, or fifty thousand or half a million years ago. We really are different, and the way we mature is different. SF: How are we different than we were ten thousand years ago? P: Probably the single biggest difference I discuss in this book is the
developmental stage we call adolescence. Most modern people might think there’s always been adolescence. But I think a more careful reading suggests that adolescence is actually a very new thing. In evolutionary terms, it’s extremely recent. One dimension of our evolution that we can trace back a long ways, before we even differentiated from other primates, is how long it takes us to physically mature. Our neotany, our juvenility, lengthens... SF: Isn’t that cultural, though? Is adolescence really new in, say, New Guinea today? P: Good question. I don’t know. That would be interesting to find out.
But something that really floors me is the information from microbiologists that the human genome and the genome of the chimpanzee are something like 98-99% identical. And almost all of that one or two percent difference has to do with the slowness of human maturation. The thing that most separates us genetically from chimpanzees is that we take longer to develop, to mature. So it may be that adolescence is, in a certain sense, a new stage of development that’s necessary for us to realize our human destiny as a species; we need certain kinds of psycho-spiritual faculties and resources that take increasingly longer to develop. SF: So you’re saying that adolescence is a fairly new evolutionary step, and yet, immediately we got stuck in it. That makes it feel more cultural to me. Not that we need to debate your point, but if, as you write, exploring mystery, darkness and the underworld are aspects of late adolescent development, it is interesting that we evolutionarily had to have a big dose of shadow thrown at us in order to take the next developmental step. P: I believe human development, in Western societies, generally stalls
out in early adolescence, and that this has been the case for several thousand years, from the beginnings of Western civilization. Some theorists say that the cultural dilemma we have gotten into over the past five to ten thousand years was inevitable—inevitable for any species, on any planet, hypothetical or otherwise, that develops the sort of consciousness that we have. This has been called “self-reflective consciousness” or “conscious self-awareness,” in which there’s a part of consciousness—the ego—that separates out from the larger psyche, and comes to know itself as a “self.” Our form of consciousness gives us a certain potential. It might even be what most definitively makes us human. But it also gives us our greatest burden, a means of self-sabotage, our deepest wound as a species. SF: The blessing and the curse of cognition. P: Yes, the blessing and the curse it’s a dilemma we have to work out as a
species. It’s taken us five to ten thousand years to get to the point where 40 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
we’re either going to work it out or it’s going to be too late. In evolutionary terms or geologic terms, we’re a very young species that has reached the point of a huge crisis. You could say the crisis has come to a head in this century or the last, or during the industrial revolution, the last two to three hundred years, or you could say it began with the advent of agriculture five to ten thousand years ago—because agriculture made a certain human pathology possible, namely hoarding. There wasn’t much, if anything, to hoard before the surpluses made possible by agriculture. You might say that all humans in early adolescence have the liability of developing a pathological form of greed. But before agriculture there weren’t many places for that greed to go. But with agriculture, hoarding became possible. SF: So in our current Western society where hoarding and greed has had its most resplendent expression, how do you feel your work is going to break through? The dominant culture is so much a part of everyone’s being that most people can’t even see that they’re in it. P: We have at least three categories of remarkable allies. First is nature
itself. Second are the wisdom holders, the original people. These two are extraordinary allies. And third is the human soul. Modern people who are not completely numbed out know there’s a whole dimension of living that’s missing in their day-to-day lives. A vast number of people are spiritually hungry and know it. When someone speaks openly to this hunger, it’s just remarkable how people open up to it. One of the first things they open up to is grief, grief triggered by the realization that there’s a deeply fulfilling way of living that is their birthright—that is everybody’s birthright—and they’re hardly living it at all. Then they begin to intuit the impact on the world from the fact that there aren’t more people living deeper lives, and there’s grief for that also. Everyone in the Western world is sitting on a mountain of grief. And when we begin to wake up, this is one of the first experiences that comes through the open door. SF: If I’m not mistaken, Malidoma Somé has talked about that. That what’s really missing in this country is that we don’t know how to grieve. P: Yes. And another indigenous teacher, Martin Prechtel, also speaks
about how we need to learn how to grieve. So what can help us, you and me and all people trying to help ourselves and others wake up, is simply to be aware that the human soul is real and exists for everybody. And those who aren’t completely numbed out respond when they hear this. SF: Does the communication need to be person to person? Is there a mass media way to get this done? P: Probably not mainstream media, but alternative media like Sacred
Fire can broadcast this message—with poetry and imaginative language. And organizations like my own (Animas Valley Institute) can and do offer programs. It’s an interesting dance, because we have to use language in such a way that we’re not just speaking to the choir. People
CANYONLANDS, UTAH “A Solo Wanderer in a Canyon Country Cocoon.”
in the mainstream, who are in any way awake, might hear us and say, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m looking for.” SF: One of the things that really struck me about your work—and it’s really core to the work of our magazine—is the embrace of both the light and the dark sides of the human being, of the spirit, and of the energies around us. Not to disparage the New Age movement, but for those who only want to embrace the light, our work can seem a little scary. P: Yes, it is scary for many. Many people want to get away from the dark,
are afraid of it, and often have a kind of a Judeo-Christian perspective on what the dark even is. They believe it’s associated with evil.
ever deeper into the mysteries of nature and psyche, which is to say to experience the underworld, the fruitful darkness. To do so, you have to leave the home of your adolescent personality. Some people can accomplish this on their own, but most everybody would benefit from the help of initiators and elders who have traveled this way before. SF: There were moments when I was reading your first work, Soulcraft, when I was thinking, “Bill is opening a Pandora’s Box for someone who is not grounded in a good way. Sometimes someone reads a book and feels that she is now empowered to “go do” the work on her own, without a human teacher to help her understand her blindness. Any response?
SF: Well, it’s the cultural definition that Westerners grow up with, whether they grow up Christian or not. P: Yes. But in the Western traditions, two of the
places we find an embrace of the dark in a much broader, deeper, and more meaningful way is among the “soul poets” and the depth psychologists, beginning with Carl Jung. They are saying, “The dark is a fruitful place of mystery, where we find all kinds of things from which we benefit when we embrace them.” More specifically, the dark is what we each must enter in order to find that unique mystery at the very center of our soul, the unique mystery we were born to live. We must travel into the dark to mature psychologically. In my work of 28 years in wilderness settings, no one has come to any kind of lasting harm. But there is a disruption on the personality level. Peo-
BILL PLOTKIN
ADOLESCENCE ISACTUALLY A VERY VERY NEW THING. ple are shocked out of their familiar way of belonging to the world, which is exactly what must happen to enable psychospiritual maturation. Consequently, some of the work is explicitly designed to be devastating to the person’s current way of being in the world. There has to be a dying for a rebirth, a dying in which everything you thought you were going to be, and everything you thought was going to happen in your life, and everything you thought was something to reach for in your personal life, is gone. There’s the recognition that you can’t depend on it anymore, and you understand that it’s really not yours anymore. SF: That sounds so frightening to so many people. P: It’s also what I think everyone who has awakened longs for: to stride
P: Yeah, I very much agree. People can get themselves into trouble. The
question of intent is central—why we perform the ceremonies and visit the places we do; how this reflects our deeper purposes... or not. If our deeper purpose is not clear we can be harmed. We depth psychologists often say that if the soul cannot find any other way to get the personality’s attention, it will use illness or injury to do it. The soul initiation process can be dangerous. Here’s an example: the use of plant allies (entheogens), what we used to more commonly call psychedelics. The plant ally by itself isn’t a soulcraft practice, a method of soul discovery. It’s only one element in one kind of soul initiation practice. By itself an entheogen can be harmful to most anyone, and especially people whose early adolescent developmental work is not solid, who’ve not established a clear and authentic way of Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 41
CANYONLANDS, UTAH The art of being lost in the wild with the companionship of rhythm, Sun, Earth, Sky and the Others.
belonging to human society. So when plant allies are used in traditional practices, they are only one element of a very complex ceremony that includes specific settings, certain sub-ceremonies, established drum and shaker rhythms, other musical instruments, and elaborate preparations that might take months or years. You can’t extract the plant ally from the ceremony and accurately conclude, “Ingesting this will be something good for me.” More generally, you can’t put an unprepared person through an initiation ceremony and have any confidence that anything good or of value will result from the experience. If you’re a Western anthropologist and you spend time with an indigenous people, one of the most noticeable and dramatic things
And sometimes the individual also needs help crossing the threshold. Some ceremonies can provide that last piece of creative impulse or energy that enables them to make that shift. SF: How important is the teacher? Can someone read your book and do it themselves, versus seeking out a guide? P: It’s always better to work with a guide so long as you choose one
wisely. SF: How do you choose? P: You need to discern the deep purpose of the guide or teacher. You can
start by asking the teacher about her motivation for teaching. Why is
IT’S WHAT I THINK EVERYONE WHO’S AWAKENED ABSOLUTELY LONGS FOR. you’ll observe are their ceremonies. You might very well conclude that the most important elements in personal development in that culture are the ceremonies, because these events stand out so significantly. They take place in a relatively short amount of time, and they are dramatic. What you wouldn’t see—and might not know how to understand—is that in the long intervals between the initiation ceremonies from one stage to the next there are a great variety and number of developmental practices interwoven into everyday life. They’re simply a part of the fabric of that culture. And they don’t look so dramatic. To really understand these practices, you might have to live with those people for years. Otherwise, one might mistakenly conclude, “The most important or striking thing that these people have that we don’t are their ceremonies and rites of initiation.” SF: It’s really a worldview, and a lifeway. P: Yes. And we don’t need to borrow lifeways from other peoples so
she doing it? What really drives her?
much as we need to create our own. We must learn to ask again, “What are the practices that help humans develop fully into their humanness?” The rites of passage are really relatively unimportant when compared to the daily developmental practices, but they are still very important because they signal to the rest of the community, “Here is a person who has moved through one stage to the next.” The ceremony lets everyone know, “This person has graduated into a new stage of life and needs support adapting to and succeeding with the challenges of this new stage.”
SF: What’s your assessment of the best answers? P: The shorthand way of explaining this is that you hope to find a teach-
42 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
SF: What would you say to a person who’s reading this interview but hasn’t yet read Nature and the Human Soul and doesn’t know what you mean by Stages Five, Six and Seven? P: (laughing) They should read my book!
BOB WINSLOW
er who is in Stage Five, Six, or Seven.
What if the war in Iraq has nothing to do with Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and Big Oil? What if they are simply puppets in the play of the gods—an ironic, albeit bloody drama in which the cradle of modern civilization, the spawning ground of the imperial cultures that dominated the world and destroyed the ancestral traditions, is itself destroyed? What if the entire structure of civilizations built on empire comes crashing down? Perhaps, by losing access to the stolen wealth of the world, we will get back to building intimate relationships with the lands in which we live. Perhaps we will renew our ancestral connections with the mountains and forests, the deserts and rivers, the rocks, the plants and animals, the seas. Perhaps the wisdom of the heart will rise through the elders among us, and communities of interdependence will rise in which each person has a vital role. Perhaps, then, we will live without fear of each other. Perhaps, at last, we will once again look in each other’s eyes.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 43
“The sculptor hunts the stone with a punch and hammer. Before I make my piece, I must hammer the notes in my mind. The stone controls me, but the stone doesn’t talk.” Sylvester Mubayi Born 1942 Chiota Reserve, Zimbabwe Photographs by John Barry
Gravity of Stone By Sharon Brown
A surprising moment of grounding found in a rootless place
What does it mean, to honor the ancestors? It need not be complicated or contrived. Remembering is a good place to start.
If you’ve never spent time in the American South, perhaps this moment will elude you. But if, like me, you spent years in the suffocating embrace of that fertile, tragic place, perhaps you’ll appreciate this small discovery. It’s a sculpture installation in the most unlikely of places, Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport. I came upon this place by accident, and by no accident at all. (Where are you on your path? Do you, too, find that confusion and inconvenience often bear the most surprising gifts?) Not long before, I’d had a profound experience during a visit to Memphis, where I lived my first 25 years. I’d followed my teacher’s advice and returned to the place of my conception, and returned to the place of my birth, and silently honored the ancestral spirits at those sacred doorways. I’m a white woman, but the emotions, images and real-world events that arose from my ancestral remembering were warm, welcoming—and very black. This did not confuse me. Instead, for the first time I felt a deep connection to the land and to the generations of Africans whose lives permeate my birthplace. My remembering changed my perception of self forever. Months later, when stumbling upon Atlanta’s Transportation Mall between terminals A and B, I was amazed. Stretching out before me was a monument to remembering. The city of Atlanta (which, like Memphis, is over 60% African American) offers travelers an opportunity to contemplate and connect with the ancestral homeland of Zimbabwe. Twenty massive stone sculptures command the space. Large photos of Zimbabwe’s animals, landscape and Shona people line the walls, amidst the musical lilt of the mbira (a thumbox piano). As they traverse the space on moving walkways, people can’t help but gaze at the totemic parade. Those who walk the hall are rewarded by the close encounter; many travelers are compelled to caress the stones and circle individual works. Being in their presence has a power to return people to their center, toward the gravity of home, family, nature and spirit. In this way, the sculpture garden embodies more than the cultural legacy of the Shona people; it calls to everyone to stop for a moment, and remember. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” says a woman behind me. I don’t recognize her accent. I turn, and she smiles broadly. Her plastic badge tells me she’s an airport employee. “Magnificent,” I reply. “I always walk here every day,” she says. “I live here now from Ghana. This place takes me to my home. “
Protecting Spirit 44 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
Sacred PORTFOLIO Fire
“In my work, I want to show that what had become impossible is once again possible— that man and nature can embrace.” Gladman Zinyeka 1962-2000 Gutu District, Zimbabwe
At One With Nature
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 45
Generation Pyramid
“People respect their jobs and their cars, but they forget about their family and where they came from. I want to send a strong message about respect.� Gedion Nyanhongo Born 1967 Nyanga, Zimbabwe 46 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
Conversation
“It is important for me to record and describe the traditions with which I was brought up—I want my children to know them. My work will preserve my ideas in stone long after me.” Agnes Nyanhongo Born 1960 Nyanga, Zimbabwe Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 47
“I get my ideas from nature. I can talk to nature, I can listen. Take for example, the way the wind is blowing now. This is how it has been blowing for millions of years. Although man has tried to be modern and change the landscape, nature has always been here. It was nature that weathered these stones into different shapes. They have survived for so long.� Nicholas Mukomberanwa 1940-2003 Buhera District, Zimbabwe
Nzuzu (Water Spirit)
Madora (Mupani Worm) 48 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
An
Inescapable Calling An Interview with Niall Richard Campbell
ALYSON FREDDIE LEBLANC
White Sangoma/Mungoma
Niall Campbell was born in Botswana in 1970 to parents of British descent. He grew up on a farm outside Gabarone, the capital of Botswana, where he still lives. His work as a healer/diviner has led him to travel extensively and it has had a profound impact on the lives of many people here in the US. Here we offer excerpts of an interview taken in 2005 and originally published in Penton, a Pagan magazine based in South Africa. These excerpts are printed with the generous permission of Penton (penton.co.za).
outside the body in spirit while a medium is possessed by spirits who work through them. We have two kinds of spirits, the first are called Ngoni spirits and are usually related to the host (sangoma) as direct family ancestors. The second type are called Ndau spirits and are the spirits of foreigners who choose to work through the host. These spirits are particular to Tsonga-Shangan Bangoma.
Penton. What is a Sangoma? Niall Campbell: These days the word, Sangoma, has become a broad
people who were not perceivable to other people, and sometimes I had dreams which were so strange that I was fearful to sleep. Often the scenes in the dreams were beyond the capability of my mind at the time. But later, I would find the content of my dreams reoccurring in places I had seen during sleep but never physically visited. At around the age of twelve I started being harassed by voices that only I could hear. These did not convey any important information, but at times were so loud that I had difficulty concentrating or even sleeping. I had already learned from hard experience not to share such matters with anyone. Living on the farm next door to ours was an old man who came from Sibasa in Venda, a bantustan in northern South Africa. This old man was well known as a bone diviner and traditional doctor. I went to see him
spectrum term for traditional healers in general. My understanding is that the word comes from the root “Ngoma,� which is a drum or a song. A Sangoma is therefore someone connected with the song. Traditionally in Zulu culture Sangomas are diviners possessed by ancestral spirits, and in that culture it is a calling to which women are more susceptible. My brother, Colin Campbell and I were trained in the Tsonga-Shangan tradition, and we call ourselves Bangoma or Mungoma in singular. The Tsonga Mungoma is best defined as a medium of ancestral spirits rather than a Shaman. I came across an interesting definition that makes the distinction that a Shaman travels
P. When and how did you receive your calling to become a Sangoma? N: I was always a little different to other kids, I used to see and hear
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 49
one day to consult on a matter completely (I thought) unrelated to the problem at hand. Hosea Chaoke, the old diviner, threw his bones and told me that I was troubled by spirits and that the problems, including the one I was asking about, would be solved if I learned the art of throwing bones. From there I began an apprenticeship to Hosea that lasted about 4 years. I would come home from school and spend the afternoon with Hosea, collecting or grinding medicines and observing as he threw the bones or treated his clients. In 1986 Hosea moved away and my apprenticeship to him came to an end. By this time I was an adequate diviner and had some knowledge of Venda and Tsonga medicine. Hosea Chaoke passed away two years later and, as the voices and dreams had settled down to a bearable level, I did not pursue any more training for a while. At the time I was training with Hosea, my father was working for the national museum. He was often on trips to remote parts of Botswana. During school holidays my brother and I often accompanied him to a very remote part of northwestern Botswana where the Hambukushu people live. This particular place is called Tsodilo and is located around some very sacred hills. The headman of the community is also a traditional healer. He took my brother and myself under his wing and taught us a huge amount about the traditional spiritual practices relating to hills, caves and other landscape features. I left school in 1989 and was employed in a mechanical workshop. I used to come home in the evening and see clients (many of whom were originally Hosea’s) until late at night. I worked at that factory for seven years with my evening practice going at the same time. In 1997 I left the factory as I had got a job with an international NGO based in Canada. I moved to Canada and it was then that the voices returned. The dreams came with a vengeance and I started to suffer the most terrible financial luck even though I was well-paid. I remember waking up one morning and being sure that in the night my parents had phoned to say that my grandmother (who had passed away years before) needed me to come home. At this time I was experiencing dreams of the most terrifying nature which included deep pools inhabited by giant snakes and dragons. Often I would wake up from these dreams wet with fever. When my financial situation became untenable, I returned to Botswana. I was aware of what was causing the problem and I was determined to solve it. At this time my brother, who lives in Cape Town, was experiencing similar problems, I remember speaking to him one day and he said “Time to thwasa” at the same moment I said “I am going to thwasa.” Thwasa, which can be interpreted as “awakening” or “rising,” is the Tsonga-Shangan initiation ceremony. We both knew that it was time to more deeply follow our calling. Q. Tell us about your initiation ceremony. N: Initiation to Bangoma (Sangoma-hood) is hell. Our initiation last-
ed 3 months (traditionally it is two years), as we were already diviners and herbalists. We went to live at the home of our initiator where we worked for him. During thwasa the student’s day begins at three in the morning with prayers and dancing. The day is spent cleaning the initiators home and doing household chores, collecting and preparing medicines, treating clients and running errands. At four in the afternoon, we began dancing again. During dancing the students learn to allow their spirits to possess them and work in partnership with them. Things are hidden during the day, especially student’s personal belongings if they are left carelessly. At dancing time the spirits have to find these things and bring them to the teachers (mostly former students). Sometimes 50 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
they would bury a tiny red bead in the sand of a dry riverbed. We had to find and fetch it with the help of our spirits. When the student is deemed ready, the thwasa ceremony is prepared as a test. Many high ranking Bangoma are invited as testers. The ceremony lasts two whole days and nights, non-stop. During the ceremony two goats are given to the spirits. The student is put through some terrible ordeals culminating in the hiding and finding of parts of the goats and finding a new dancing costume. On the second day of thwasa the students are taken to a deep pool in the river where they go through another ordeal—the initiation of Ndau spirits. During all this time visiting Bangoma dance and test the students. If a student fails for any reason they forfeit the thwasa fee (5000 South African Rands, about $550 USD) and their initiator has to pay a cow to the visiting Bangoma. If the student passes well they are recognized by the community and all senior Bangoma as a true Mungoma. After the thwasa ceremony, the students start gathering their own medicines and establishing a client base. They are then taken home with another two-day ceremony involving a cow and a goat, more tests and a lot of feasting. Q. What kind of spiritual or religious background did you have before you took initiation, and how does this affect your being a Mungoma? N: I was a Catholic but my parents lapsed while I was still young and
started exploring other belief systems. Personally I am very drawn to Buddhism and try to live my life by its principles. This is difficult in terms of being a Mungoma. African tradition does not have the same views about killing animals. I guess I do my best to serve both belief systems. There are definitely places where they clash, but I have not ever tackled justifying one or the other. Q. How did your family and friends react to your decision? N: I must say I have only ever had support from family and friends.
My family were hugely relieved that we managed to solve our problems without psychiatric treatment of a western kind. Most of my friends I have had since childhood. They all knew I had some very odd things going on that did not fit into any of the brackets of western logic. Most of my friends came to our homecoming ceremony and feasted with the rest. Q. Would you tell us more about ancestors and their relationship with the living? N: African spirituality is, like (traditional) African society, based on hi-
erarchy. Every person has a position based on age, status and family relationship. In traditional society everybody has an immediate senior to whom they would go if they had a problem they could not solve. In my case I have an older brother. If he is unable to solve a problem of mine, he approaches my father. If he can’t solve it he may approach the chief, the traditional healer or his own dead father. The problem just goes up until it reaches an authority who can deal with it. We see the Ancestors as being actively involved and interested in our everyday affairs, so we have a commitment to keeping them informed and happy just as we do with our living parents. As Bangoma we pray twice a day to the ancestors. In the evening at six we pray and announce all news and events. In the early morning at three we again pray and ask for the things we need. The Ancestors are just people. They live among us but in another reality. They have the same personality they had in life and we treat them
as such. I personally could not approach my grandfather in life, as he was very strict, so I don’t approach him in death either. My grandmother on the other hand was very approachable, especially if one poured her a whisky. Now that she is dead, I still pour a whisky and then ask her in the same roundabout way for the things I need.
just when you want something. Build up a relationship with them, and try to tell news and give thanks for what you receive. Always ask for clear messages that you can understand.
Q. Tell us about the spiritual significance of animal sacrifices? N: In traditional African society a person’s most valuable possession
spirits practiced. We throw divining bones as a diagnostic method and from these we get a map of the client and his or her environment and relationship with family and community. We believe that all illness is traceable to something in the environment. After establishing all the factors that are causing problems we start to tackle them individually—re-establishing good family relationships, strengthening ties with ancestors, building protection from negative and harmful people and energies. In our treatments we might perform a ceremony or steam the client with herbs, or give herbal baths and remedies, or prescribe
was livestock. Mostly animals were not slaughtered unless for very special occasions. So, contrary to popular belief, meat was a rare commodity and was shared with the community. The ancestors like people to be happy so at times of celebration, we invite the ancestors and the community to feast with us. It is considered a huge honor for anyone to slaughter an animal on one’s behalf. In life it is at one’s birth, wedding and funeral. So, at times of thanking the ancestors, we slaughter
Q. Tell us more about the healing aspects of your vocation? N: Often the treatments we specialize in are those that our possessing
I once used the most eloquent terms and heard a voice ask if I was practicing for a
Shakespeare audition!
on their behalf and invite the community to share in the feast. We never slaughter without traditional beer, so the celebration is huge. We say, to feed the community and make them happy, is to please the ancestors. Q. How can people who are not trained Bangoma approach their ancestors for guidance or assistance? N: Good question! Communicating with one’s ancestors is simply a
form of prayer and I think there are as many forms of prayer as there are people. If I can give some basic guidelines, it is said that the best times to speak to the ancestors are three in the morning and six in the evening. Traditionally, these times are dawn in the morning and sunset in the evening. The best place is in nature, a hillside or forest, and it is especially good if there is running water, such as a stream, spring or river. If it is a particular ancestor one is addressing, it is usual to do it at his or her grave or home. We Bangoma have shrines that represent the graves of the ancestors in the courtyards of our homes. When addressing ancestors we usually sprinkle snuff on the ground before beginning. We sometimes also sprinkle alcohol. We kneel down facing east and clap our hands gently. We begin by announcing ourselves, “I am so and so, my parents are such and such.” Then we call the names of those ancestors we know and ask them to take the message to those we don’t know. As a Buddhist I also call on my Guru and personal Bodhisattva. One should speak in audible sound as the ancestors won’t hear mumbled whispers and might become annoyed. When speaking to ancestors address them in terms of respect, but not necessarily flowery language. I once used the most eloquent terms and heard a voice ask if I was practicing for a Shakespeare audition! Outline the situation and your needs clearly. Always assume that the ancestors are people who can’t possibly know what they have not been told. If you garble your message, you can expect a garbled reply. That can cause chaos when the spirits reply in actions and not words, as they most often do. It is polite to approach your ancestors regularly and not
prayers. Our view of herbs is similar to the Wiccan view. Herbs have powers that are not necessarily scientifically active on the body. For example, yarrow is good for fever, but it also attracts friends and keeps enemies away. We use herbs and animal parts, minerals and even biproducts of modern technology. All these things are seen as routes along which energy can be directed. Q. How may interested persons become a Sangoma or Mungoma? N: At the risk of sounding exclusive, it is not for everyone. The calling to
become a Mungoma is very specific, and many people who are interested don’t have the calling. I don’t think that Bangoma is the only way to become involved in indigenous spirituality though. There is no specific calling to become an iNyanga (traditional doctor) or to learn to be connected with the Ancestors. Usually, when people are on the road to thwasa, they end up having the bones thrown and specific combinations come up. In our tradition we look for three independent divining sessions in which the need to thwasa comes up before we consider training. A difficulty is that Bangoma are often very secretive about their activities, especially to non-Black people. I recommend that people try to get friendly with a Mungoma and see if there is a possibility of attending a dance. But don’t ask endless questions or make judgments as these turn the veils of secrecy into concrete curtains. Those who genuinely need thwasa will have such an affinity to what is going on that Bangoma may even approach them and recommend thwasa. I don’t advise thwasa with the first Mungoma one meets. Many people claim to be Bangoma and are not. They would like nothing better than to lure a rich ignorant person into parting with vast amounts of money in the name of thwasa. For those of you who are on the road to thwasa, may your ways be open and filled with light. For those interested in African spirituality, don’t try to apply western logic to it, but may those who guide pour luck on you like sunlight through rain clouds. Thokozane Bakokwano Rejoice Elders. Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 51
Eyes of a by murzban f. schroff
© DREAMSHOT63 | DREAMSTIME.COM
Temple Cow 52 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
Sacred FICTION Fire
I am Kuntakalli, the temple cow.
People pass me on their way to the temple while I wait outside with my keeper, tugging at sheaves of dry, green grass. I eat because I have to. Because it is my duty to accept grass from the devotees and bless them. I overeat sometimes, like the men who pass me by. They who come with their lottas, their tikkas, their chests bare, their paunches spilling out from the soft white robes draped around their hips and shoulders. These are the men who are rich and prosperous. They are the ones who stay the longest inside the temple. I can see them pouring milk or water over the beautiful stone lingum that makes up the cynosure of their worship. Here, in my temple, it is the phallus that is worshipped—a beautiful stone phallus smoothened by years of nursing—by hands, eyes, and lips of extreme devotion. The lingum, as the phallus is called, is set in the yoni, the seat of creation, the home of divine compassion, the love-seat of all times. No, that’s not my devotion talking. You’d feel that way too if you saw the beautiful rose petals—pink, red, and blushing with health—spread all around the yoni, which is a black stone in the shape of a giant keyhole, indeed the door to many of life’s mysteries, indeed the mother-source of life itself. But I am not supposed to influence you with my ideas, which, I confess, are age-old and inherited, like my hump, the burden I must bear quietly. The burden is never irritating, never irksome like those flies which keep bothering me. No amount of tail-flicking chases them away. The sun shines fiercely. I feel drowsy. I feel my eyes bulge. I blink and try to shut out the sun. No use. I try to walk away from the flies, but there’s only so much distance I can cover, for there’s a long rope round my neck, which attaches me to a tree. I keep my back to the traffic. It prevents the dust from getting into my nostrils. I’m tied to a tree with reason. I have broken away many times, not with the intention of securing my freedom but for a change of diet, a break from the grass I chew as part of my destiny. You see, there’s a bazaar opposite, where fresh fruit and vegetables are sold under colorful beach umbrellas. All I have to do is cross the road, dodging the traffic; then, it’s banquet time for me. I must say, in this city, there is respect for a temple cow. People give you right of way, which is more than what they do for each other. They don’t shout, curse, or threaten to accelerate their vehicles when you saunter past, eyeing them warily. Somewhere down the road, I feel we—the temple cows—are better off than the human beings we serve. We are fed, fussed, worshipped, and not all of us end up as beef, thanks to some politician in Delhi who is rooting for us and some political party who has made us its symbol. On occasions when I have made it across to the bazaar, the vendors have received me warmly. They have reached out to offer me the freshest fare. I don’t even have to ask. I can help myself to whatever attracts
me, or smells good at that point—capsicums, cauliflower, coriander, spinach, mint leaves, even the more expensive veggies like iceberg lettuce and broccoli. There’s no one to say anything to me, no one to refuse, for I am considered lucky—the playmate of Lord Krishna, to whom I have given an inexhaustible amount of milk during his childhood. This was in the early days before the scriptures were written, when people noted and remembered such things, and immortalized you for a simple act of kindness. Today their memories are short. The only person who doesn’t appreciate my getting away is my keeper, for it eats into her earnings. She is an old lady, in her seventies, knock-kneed, and with a long droll face. Her hair is alarmingly white, as though she has been through several degrees of suffering. The rest of her—her bent brittle body, her crinkled skin, broken toes—is testimony to the struggle she has had to endure. She had to do that because she was widowed early in life, with three children to bring up. My keeper chews betel-leaf all the time, which makes her irritable. That and the sun make her short-tempered. But she knows she can’t give vent to her anger publicly. She can’t scold or hit me, for that would enrage the devotees. In that sense, I am protected. While I wait, buses and cabs whiz past, wheezing their poisoned breath onto me. Once, my coat was soft and white like mountain snow, now it is yellow and frayed like an old goat’s. I don’t mind. I accept change. It is the price one pays for living in the city. People pat me as they pass by, and this I endure, for it is their way of showing respect, of acknowledging my burden, which is to eat and bless them, no matter what. From where I stand, I get to see a lot. I see beggars huddled on narrow ledges along the temple wall. They wear torn dirty clothes. I see watchmen guarding the entrances to newly-constructed buildings. They look smart in their uniforms, directing incoming cars by blowing their whistles piercingly, imperiously. On the main road, I see cars slowing down to face a jam and their owners peer out with unmasked irritation. I see men and women scurrying past, their eyes lowered to avoid the beggars and the slush. The slush comes from the new buildings coming up in the area, the construction work so brisk and random that it is difficult to say whose slush is coming from where. As a result of this construction, we have a marsh in the middle of the city, flowing past the temple under God’s eyes. And I think: if the gutters cannot handle the Bombay rains—they choke every year causing heavy floods that linger for days— then how they will handle the cement, the mud, and the tar, this nexus of elements as unholy as that between the politicians who offer the city for sale and the builders who buy both, the offer and the seller? Such things you only see when your eyes are open, when you are a mute animal destined for service, when you don’t have a stake in how people live, what they endure. But no mistake, these politicians too are awakened souls. They have a sense of detachment toward their duty. But that is not my business. I am not a questioning cow. I am only here to cleanse people, to eat what they offer. Once I am fed, my keeper pushes me away, as if that were the only aspect of my relaCREDIT: “Eyes of a Temple Cow” first appeared in the Kyoto Journal.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 53
tionship with her. As if it were a relationship with lines drawn and defined. I don’t mind. I chew and mull away, a vegetarian vigilante to the world. And oops (let this be whispered) my urine sells, too. My keeper collects it in old water bottles, which she sells to people who’ve been possessed by evil spirits. On application, the urine drives the ghost out, or so people believe. There go the temple bells. And from the main road arises a cacophony of horns from hell. Everybody here is in such a rush. Everybody wants to overtake, no matter that their paths will cross, overlap, create hot angry reactions, a plethora of unhealthy vibrations. Even the people
too young for that. Beneath her boredom, I can sense some slyness, as if given a chance she’d leave the old woman. She’d do that when she was old enough and some opportunity presented itself. The old woman begs too, before the rich man, but her pleading is more sincere, more fervent. Her face wears a look of humility, as if she believed some reward would come out of her effort. It would come from the rich man. The rich man recoils, glares, and scampers up the steps, disappearing into the temple. The old woman appears crestfallen. Holding onto the girl, she trudges back to their place in the queue. She lowers herself on the ledge, wincing in pain. The other beggars lean across and tell her
Cha!” she says. “How to wait? Haven’t eaten since two days. You should see how much this girl eats. She’d put a horse to shame. who come to the temple are in a hurry. I can tell by the way they ring the bells, using both hands. They are so anxious to waken the Lord from his meditation. So anxious that he hears them, responds, where influential mortals have failed. Sometimes the devotees beat the drums long and hard, a sound so rich, deep, and powerful that it appears to rise from the bottom of the earth and collect in the dome on top. While this happens, the deity of the Goddess, set in stone, sits in quiet contemplation, in stony, stifflipped grandeur. We have so much to learn from her—her silence, her poise. And, yet, some people drum away, allowing other sounds into their minds, sounds that come from uneasy hearts and appetites raging unappeased. A man crosses the road. I have seen him before: a fat man, in his fifties, with a brown face and a freshly scrubbed appearance. His eyes are small, his cheekbones are red with health, and on his head there’s a mop of hair, soft and snowy-white like fleece. The robes he wears are pure white, with an embroidered border running along the sides. The border is exquisite. It is of gold lace. The fabric too is expensive, and I figure the man must be rich for his manners are such—haughty and elegant, the look of a man overwhelmed by his own success. From the queue of beggars an old woman rises. She is frail, with a look to suggest she is weary of life. Her skin is dark and dry, her arms and legs are like reeds, her neck has deep folds of wrinkles, her hands and feet are chapped and withered, and her sari hangs off her in shreds. The old woman is accompanied by a girl not more than twelve years in age, who is probably her granddaughter. The old woman clutches the shoulder of the young girl, and with the other hand, she clutches her back in pain. The two walk up to the rich man as he is about to enter the temple, just as he wipes his bare feet on the mat at the entrance. The girl sticks her hands out. Her face is bored. Her mouth is open. Her lips droop, showing yellow unwashed teeth. She’s got the look of one who knows it is not her responsibility to fill her stomach—she is 54 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
this was not the right time to have asked. You don’t interrupt one on the path to progress; you let him return relieved and reassured; then you make your pitch. He’d be more amenable that way. “Cha!” she says. “How to wait? Haven’t eaten since two days. You should see how much this girl eats. She’d put a horse to shame.” From where I sit, I can see the rich man inside the temple. He’s got a packet of milk in one hand, in the other, leaves and flowers. He signals to the temple-boy, who scoops up a tumbler and rushes to the water-tap outside. The boy knows he will be rewarded for his enthusiasm. There are people praying in the temple before the deities of Lord Ganesha and Lord Hanuman. They make way for the priest, a short bald hunchback, who starts to clean and adorn the deities. The rich man waits for the priest to finish, then draws him to the side and whispers in his ear. The priest listens, nods, and disappears from the side exit. He hobbles off with a limp, holding his dhoti. When he returns, he is holding a thali of diyas in his hand. The diyas illuminate the face of the priest, which now wears a slow knowing smile. The smile makes him look almost boyish. The priest hands the thali to the rich man who takes it and moves up in front. The rich man draws in his shoulders and stands upright, holding the thali up. He is facing the lingum and the yoni, and the stone sculpture of the Goddess Parvati. At the side, on either side of him, are the deities of Lord Ganesha and Lord Hanuman. The other devotees flock behind the rich man. His bearing is such they prefer to stand behind him. Occasionally, they crane to get a glimpse of the lingum and the yoni, which is at a lower level than them. The priest grips the bells that droop from the ceiling in long chains and begins clanking them. In a corner, a youth begins to beat a drum with two sticks. He beats it with a sense of rhythm and joy. The devotees begin to clap in unison. The aarti—the invocation—has begun. It is the rich man who leads the way. The priest clanks away, while the rich man swirls the diyas—first
around Lord Ganesha, the Elephant God; then around Lord Hanuman, the Monkey-God; then before the holy mother, Goddess Parvati, the strength of the Lord himself. Outside, cars honk, beggars dream, watchmen blow their whistles, and the sludge froths and flows, leaving trails of liquid squalor. The aarti goes on for twenty minutes. The fervor increases, so does the clapping. Color appears on the face of every devotee: he who claps and consolidates his worship, and she who gazes adoringly, asking for nothing but her family’s joy. Little boys stare at the priest enviously. They wonder when they’d be tall enough to reach the bells. Little girls emulate their mothers by shutting tight their eyes and clapping hard and occasionally opening them. The babies are left to crawl on the cool white marble floor, where, unwatched by their mothers, they struggle to their feet and prod Nandi the bull, who looks on lovingly at his Lord. At the side, the priest enters into some kind of a delirium, some kind of trance. Eyes shut, his body sways, his lips quiver, and I wonder if he is ringing for himself so that all the crushed bones in his back will open up and snap back into place, or, as a medium, he was ringing out destinies more favored than his own. In the course of the aarti the thali exchanges hands. One by one the devotees step forward and circle the thali around each of the deities. When they finish, their faces are lit not by the flames from the diyas but by some unseen light from within. Such is life in the temple, the joy of achievement over small things, and I tell you, if you were to see their faces, you’d know too what it is like—the aftermath of pure worship, the sanctity of devotion, so rapturous and edifying, like some longpreserved secret of creation has been revealed to them. The best part is: the experience is the same every time. It never fails to delight. When the aarti is over the priest takes the thali. His face is glowing, a smile lurks at the corners of his mouth. Mindless of his burden, he hobbles over to the devotees, and they circle a palm over the thali to collect some of the blessings that have accrued from the aarti. Some of the devotees rummage in their pockets/purses and come up with coins, which they drop into the thali. Others simply collect the blessings. They are in their parents’ house. Our rich man has got busy now. He drags a stool and squats before the yoni and the lingum. His robe is strapped around his shoulder and his posture is one of determination and purpose. Facing north, he pours milk over the lingum, slowly, in a steady stream. Then he splashes water from a tumbler onto the lingum and he bathes it gently from all sides, remembering to chant Aum Namah Shivay, Aum Namah Shivay, till it freezes on his tongue and unifies his senses in devotion. He also pours some water into the vessel overhead, so that his devotion might drip the day long. Then he bends and prays and asks for some request that might run like this: “Please my Lord, grant me this contract. Keep my respect and my shame. The competition will bribe its way through. But let me know their intent. Let me work it faster than they. And guide me that I might know what they don’t—who is pliable and at what cost.” In the center, Nandi the bull gazes at his Lord. He is the ultimate devotee, rooted to the spot, committed not for centuries but for yugas, demanding nothing more than the sight of his Lord. I wish I could be like him—as strong and chosen forever.
From across the road comes the sound of voices. It is the bazaar at its peak—vegetable vendors shouting out their prices, women pausing and weighing options—what would please their men at dinner, what would delight their children? The vendors raise their voices and try to drown each other. The women grumble and pretend to walk away. The men call out flirtatiously. It is one big game, and each knows it, each understands the compulsions of monthly budgeting. To my sides cement grinders whir away. Cranes circle like longnecked dinosaurs. Men in uniforms oversee unloading operations from trucks, while bare-chested laborers in loincloths toil like assiduous ants. The laborers work in chains, carrying bricks, stones, and cement on their heads to different levels of the upcoming buildings. They are helped by women with dark esoteric complexions, strong arms, and firm backs. The buildings gape with dark, open mouths and dull gray facades, spaces claimed off an unresisting sky. Several such structures loom from all sides, and from wherever they rise they cast a foreboding gloom over the neighborhood, like they were here to devour the other smaller structures: the tenements, the shops, and the old art-deco buildings with arched windows and balconies, with pigeons nestling shyly on ledges. Our rich man emerges from the temple. He is looking pleased now. The other beggars goad the old woman. Reluctantly, she shuffles across. Before that she remembers to don her most wretched expression and she clutches her back with genuine courage. Leading her is her granddaughter. I think she has been finely tutored this time. The beggar-girl pleads with her hands cupped. Her mouth is open with dry, abysmal hunger, her tongue is stiff and white, and her eyes are dark and sorrowful. Behind her is her grandmother, with a hesitant smile. The rich man doesn’t see her. He sees only the young girl, her hand rising to her mouth, touching her flat smooth belly, then rubbing languidly her slim neck. Abruptly, the girl drops to her knees and touches the rich man’s feet. From there she looks up at him, a slave willing to bare all. His eyes wander to her neckline, to the incipient swell, the collarbone gleaming with health. He steps back hurriedly, as if from himself, and then he collects himself and admonishes her gently, saying, “Don’t... don’t ask and you shall get. How many times have I told you this? How many times to repeat? When will you people ever learn?” His voice is berating, yet soft and kindly, and I don’t think it will ever be this low, this humble, in the course of the day—once the pressures of work set in and the list of opportunities and options present themselves to his consciousness, and the phone calls start, and the delicacy of deals and the imperatives of manipulation roll off his buttery tongue like film off a projector, canceling out the memory of this sweet visit, this unified chanting, this brave head-of-the-table worship, and the singular hope expressed, enshrined and left behind. Left in the care of one who knows and listens, knows whether it is right to confer, or to delay, or simply to pass and defer. Or sometimes, just to let know that he knows what lies within the souls of man and beast. Murzban F. Shroff ’s debut collection of short stories, Breathless in Bombay, was published this year by St. Martin’s Press
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 55
At Plum Island by Katharine Gregg
Always there is this mingling, this refusal to stay in one sphere, in one form: the sea merges with sky, scrim of mist over waiting land, and close up, suffuses the sand with dark blush, then fades as it falls. For a second the sand mirrors like polished metal a surprise of blue, then a flash of white before wave smashes all to swash and roil. Sanderlings play the verge like a game of chicken, turning their backs to probe the icy sand, then skitter and stop just beyond and back again and forth in the dance of the watermark. The moon swings her silver skirt and the fishes rise and fan through dark water, gulls sharpen their desultory eye, and the tide pools unclose. See how the whole country dozes in amniotic dreams of dog whelks nested in the tops of trees, of deserts waving barnacle plumes. The heron hears how the sea coils and uncoils its breath and does not watch the beachcomber plowing and slurring his righteous line from A to B, proclaiming his otherness, his irrefutable logic, his own god.
Katharine Gregg, who taught English and, sporadically, French and Latin, for 20 years, now writes, gardens and works as a part-time publicist.
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The Great Mother by David Harrington
Disregard the Great Mother and she’ll disregard you when it comes time to suckle her breasts. You who hover above her while your bones turn to dust in her belly, have you forgotten her as well? Do her loving arms fasten you down as you wander aimlessly in the Land of Shadow longing to be free, where nobody has substance and nothing to sustain them but gravity itself. Remember then, the softness of your Mother’s warm caress when she nestled you close to her bosom and brushed gently against your cheek. Remember how you once slumbered peacefully in her womb and dreamt of a hopeful renewal? Remember, as you lie paralyzed in the stench of her bowels, the richness of her beauty and the fragrance of her flowery folds: The sweet aroma of roses and cherry blossoms, laced with lilac. So come all you blood drinkers and flesh-eaters to the Banquet of the Great Mother! Watch how she trembles and shakes as you cut her to pieces and gnaw at her flesh. Then burn her with fire and laugh in her face, leaving her to smolder in ash. Feel her icy breath upon you like a cold winter frost, O you who strip away her dignity and rip apart her veil: For even now her sorrows are mounting. Go ahead: Bind her wrists, chain her ankles. Poke her with needles and stick her with pins! But beware children, it is because of you that our Mother is enraged. She is as wroth as a cosmic dragon: Feel her fiery breath upon you like a hot desert storm. Her lungs are clogged with thick black smoke that fumes from her nostrils, rising up to overwhelm her. The four winds swirl around her, one for every season. Can you hear them whisper her name? So go ahead: Plant your orchards and vineyards while her skin is still moist, O you who blind her eyes and leave her naked and shivering in the sun to die: For even now her tear drops are falling. Behold your Mother’s glory and kiss her on the cheek. Lift the burden which weighs so heavy on her weary shoulders. She was once a lovely young celestial virgin, pure and unspoiled, in a garden paradise bursting with ripened fruit, sweet and delicious. But how we ravish her like wild animals, who can blame her for rebelling? How much more can she withstand, this Mother of ours, whom we cast aside like a used up whore, all trampled and torn. Has she not sung us tender lullabies and rocked us gently to sleep in cradles of swan feathers and pine needles? Be kind to your Mother and treat her with respect, I tell you! Why must you thrust her full of holes? Just how much venom must you sink into her veins before she becomes immune and rises up to swallow us like a viper? Step out into the light, O you Children of Darkness, and cover your eyes with coal. Step out of the darkness, all you Children of Light, with your lamps trimmed way down low. See how your Mother feeds the beasts of the field and the creatures of the forest that assemble at her feet, some by day some by night. The lion, jackal and wildebeest come from miles around just to drink out of her hands and taste her crystal clear waters. The birds of the air nestle in her hair and the fish course through her veins to and fro the heart of her ocean. Call to mind how she once flowed with milk and honey, and with wine. And now, even in her old age, she is pleased to nourish us with all the essentials of life. What is it that is wrong with us? Are we no better than the hounds and vultures who will be left to lick at her wounds and lap up her blood, or will we rescue in time to save ourselves? I think not.
David Harrington, an off and on writer for thirty years, resides in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two sons.
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 57
A Young Woman Dies
Brianna, a young woman with a graceful manner and a generous heart, highly intelligent and articulate, gifted with a wry humor, a marvelous writer with a passionate knowledge of and skill with food, dies after a long bout with cancer. It seems unjust. Yet, in a larger view, if this life is just a suit we wear through the arc of eternity, then this is just another transition for her, a new birth. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the emergence of disease among my friends—many who are suddenly dealing with serious illnesses like cancer. I don’t think that I’m being set up to witness a series of miracles, but, rather, to experience the death of those dear to me so that my denial of death, the absolute reality, is confronted. It’s not that I’m being hardened to face death. I think the opposite—that by being exposed to death, the flavors of life, the feel and smell of it, become so much dearer, more present and valuable. It does suck that this lovely young woman died. I feel such sadness for all of her family. I feel my own loss.
Boy, are the squirrels busy.
58 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
MACE FLEEGER
But the sun shined so beautifully today and the sky was so clear. I noticed that the songs of the birds have a different rhythm and tone as the fall gathers in the trees and grasses and streams.
The
Profiles Healing
of
book series Titles include:
The Profiles of Healing book series was created to evoke the experience of being with traditional healers, shamans and medicine people as they share their wisdom and cultural ways. The books are first person narratives accompanied by photographs, illustrations, and CDs or DVDs of music, prayers, sacred songs and dances of the cultures.
Walking Thunder : DinĂŠ Medicine Woman Kalahari Bushmen Healers Guarani Shamans of the Forest Balians : Traditional Healers of Bali Credo Mutwa : Zulu High Sanusi Plus five other fascinating editions
To Order please visit
www.ringingrocks.org or call 1 (800) 213-6550
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 59
ANIMAL TOTEM
APRIL 15-19, 2009
Riding the Wind Horse of Good Fortune Increase your inner strength and prosperity through the wind horse practices of Tibet
A five-day retreat with
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
In his 17 years of living and teaching in the West, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has become renowned for his ability to convey the ancient wisdom of Bön Buddhism in a way that is immediately relevant, inspiring, and applicable to modern Western students. Tenzin Rinpoche’s books include: Healing With Form, Energy, and Light; The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep; Wonders of the Natural Mind; Unbounded Wholeness; and Tibetan Sound Healing.
WORKSHOP with Eliot Cowan Through dreamwork and craftwork, reveal and build right relationship with your animal allies. Discover how and when to call for their help in resolving life’s problems and obstructions.
April 13-16, 2009 Blue Deer Center Margaretville, NY
$1,350 includes all food, lodging & materials. Contact psminfo@bluedeer.org or call 805-967-7853
Animal Totem1vert.indd
60 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
10/15/2008, 10:53 AM
This April at Ligmincha Institute's Serenity Ridge retreat center, amid the mountains of central Virginia, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will teach shamanic rituals that Tibetans have practiced for thousands of years and which have their origins in the Bön tradition, the indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet. During these troubled times, the ancient Tibetan rituals of the wind horse help us communicate clearly and directly with the spirits of nature in order to gain their support in raising our prosperity, personal power and good fortune. Join us for this unique opportunity to intimately connect with the uplifting qualities and energies engendered by these powerful rituals.
Ligmincha Institute, Charlottesville, Va.
ligmincha@aol.com; 434.977.6161; www.ligmincha.org
Sacred Fire Community Fire Circles Fire circles are at the heart of the Sacred Fire Community. They offer a space for people of all paths and traditions to come together in community around the fire and be touched by its transformative energy as they share their hearts and lives. Fire Circles are offered in North America, Australia, and Europe. For a full listing, visit www.sacredfirecommunity.org
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 ďŹ re!
Community Fire Circle of Boiceville, NY Claire Franck at cfranckpsm@hvc.rr.com 845-657-2929 The The
Groton Westford
Massachusetts Massachusetts
ďŹ re circle invites you you invites to join join us us at at our our to monthly ďŹ res. Come monthly ďŹ res. Come share a a song, song, share a joke joke and and your your open open a heart. heart.
&OR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT 2AY 3TROUBLE AT 2AY 3TROUBLE GMAIL COM
THE FIRE CIRCLE OF SANTA MONICA INVITES YOU TO FIND WARMTH AND CONNECTION AROUND OUR MONTHLY FIRES. Contact us: Alan Kerner Santa Monica, California kerners@aol.com 310-452-0658
Come Home to Your Heart THE COMMUNITY FIRE CIRCLE IN SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA invites you to join us at our monthly fires. Come be with the fire, the ocean, and each other. For more information, contact: Peter and Sharon Brown 831-252-5530 p2b48@yahoo.com
THE BROOKFIELD MASSACHUSETTS FIRE CIRCLE invites you to join us to share the warmth at our monthly community fires. Contact us: Tim Simon and Gwen Broz at timgwen@charter.net or 508-867-9810 for dates and times of upcoming fire circles.
“Fire moves you to a different place�
COMMUNITY FIRE CIRCLES OF TENNESSEE, GEORGIA & SOUTH CAROLINA invite you
Come, Join Us Around the Fire! • stir ancient connections with the natural world • share our hearts and lives • deepen our spiritual connections For more information, please contact: Steve Skinner, Summertown, Tennessee 931-964-2452 stvskin@bellsouth.net Sherry Boatright, Carrollton, Georgia 770-854-5551 sherryboat@bellsouth.net. Annie King, Florence, South Carolina 843-665-1340 annieking@sc.rr.com
Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 61
The Ascent of Humanity the Age of Separation, the Age of Reunion, and the convergence of crises that is birthing the transition “A door of honest hope amidst the dark destiny we have woven about us.” -- Joseph Chilton Pearce “A radical awakening” -- Bruce Lipton “Bold, visionary thinking” -- Joanna Macy
Available in print or free online at
www.ascentofhumanity.com Charles Eisenstein.indd 1
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10/24/2008, 8:52 AM
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BACK ISSUES
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For or the first time in North America, a FIRE / 63 8 / SACRED For or the first time in NorthIssue America, a two-year year training program with two-year year training program with
Sacred FINAL Fire FLICKER
Opening to the Sacred How can we connect with the mystery of the divine in daily life? I HAVE NEVER FOUND A FOOLPROOF WAY
to pray. I’ve read many books that tell us how to bring our intentions into reality, how to talk to God, how to think, what to say or feel. I’ve met many spiritual teachers who offer practices designed to help us know our true selves, to quiet our mind, to find the bliss of nowness. But when I sit down to talk to the sacred, I have no idea what I’m doing. And yet, I return to the sacred and its symbols over and over again. I pray in different ways, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter so much how I pray, just that I do it, and that I mean it. Sometimes I put my palms together the way I was taught as a little girl. Often I pray by talking aloud to the trees, or sky, soil, water, or any plant that will listen. Sometimes I pray on paper. Sometimes I stop and pray while reading a book, a simple pause to acknowledge spirit. Sometimes I pray using my body, dancing, 64 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8
making love. Sometimes I pray with tears. A few years ago I made a conscious decision to devote my life to spirit, to the sacred, the subtle, the invisible world of the divine. It isn’t the kind of devotion that requires I move into a monastery or live apart from the world. It isn’t the kind of devotion that denies the realm of the physical, the manifest. It is the kind of devotion that says, everything I do is with the intention of awakening, even when I’m doing it wrong. In his book Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, author Gregg Levoy begins by sharing an experience he once had when “part of the invisible world was made, for a brief moment, visible.” He describes how in that brief moment of clarity, he “saw that what is necessary to make substance or meaning” out of all the invisible energies and subtle phenomena occurring within and around us was “a receiver, somebody to receive.” Yet in our phenom-
enal world, we live so much of our lives at the level of gross sensation, overrun with noise, speed, images, and information, that we blunt our ability to receive the subtle. The landscape of our soul becomes foreign territory for which we have no entry point. Intuition is a mere concept, and our world appears solidly predictable. I believe the divine requires a certain amount of silence, a certain degree of stillness, a certain quality of attention. And so I have made a commitment to create space in my life for that sacred stillness and to cultivate my ability to listen and receive the mystery of the divine in my daily life. In the beginning, it requires great faith but gradually it becomes clear to me that spirit has been here all along. Writer and massage therapist, Deena Kaye Wade, lives in the Catskills with her dog, Fleur. Her memoir is titled, Start Again: Notes on Love, Discipline and Dharma.
© PARAZIT | DREAMSTIME.COM
BY DEENA KAYE WADE
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Joshua Tree RetreatEspiritu Center, described, as in the foothills of southern California’s Mojave Curandera • a “jewel in the desert,” rests on 420 acres Red Earth Woman • Desert 32 miles from Palms Springs, CA.
JoshuaJoshua Tree Retreat Tree Retreat Center, Center, described described as a “jewel as a “jewel in theindesert,” the desert,” rests on rests 420 onacres 420 in acres theinfoothills the foothills of southern of southern California’s California’s Mojave Mojave DesertDesert 32 miles 32 miles from Palms from Palms Springs, Springs, CA. CA.
Mayan priestess and Keeper Southern elder,Conference. medicine A rareAfusion rare fusion of sweeping of sweeping desertdesert and mountain and mountain vistas vistas provides provides a powerful a powerful backdrop backdrop for thefor 2009 the Ute 2009 Interspiritual Interspiritual Conference. Special Special rarePlants fusionfeatures ofinclude sweeping desert and mountain vistas awheel, powerful forfacilities, thesome 2009some Interspiritual Conference. Special of Athe • Member of the features include a labyrinth, a labyrinth, outdoor outdoor fire pit, fire medicine pit,provides medicine wheel, trails and trailsbackdrop retreat and woman retreat facilities, of which of which were designed were designed by wellby and sundancer • Great,wellfeatures include a architect, labyrinth, outdoor medicine wheel, and retreat facilities, known known architect, LloydLloyd Wright, Wright, in fire collaboration inpit, collaboration with his with father, histrails father, Frank Frank Lloyd Lloyd Wright. Wright. some of which were designed by wellCouncil of Thirteen Indiggreat-grandmother. known architect, Lloyd Wright, in collaboration with his father, Frank Lloyd Wright. enous Grandmothers. isc@sacredfirecommunity.org isc@sacredfirecommunity.org • www.interspiritualconference.com • www.interspiritualconference.com • 800.560.9167 • 800.560.9167
The The ISC ISC is sponsored is sponsored by the by Sacred the Sacred Fire Fire Community. For more For more information information please please visit visit www.sacredfirecommunity.org www.sacredfirecommunity.org isc@sacredfirecommunity.org • Community. www.interspiritualconference.com • 800.560.9167 Issue 8 / SACRED FIRE / 65
The ISC is sponsored by the Sacred Fire Community. For more information please visit www.sacredfirecommunity.org
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66 / SACRED FIRE / Issue 8