Sunday, May 19, 2024
"The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings"
Sunday, May 7, 2023
Love, Nature, Magic: Shamanic Journeys into the Heart of My Garden
In her new book Love, Nature, Magic: Shamanic Journeys into the Heart of My Garden, Maria Rodale takes the reader on an unusual autobiographical journey through her life. Rodale combines her love of nature and gardening with her experience in shamanic journeying, embarking on an epic adventure to learn from plants, animals and insects--including some of the most misunderstood beings in nature. Maria asks them their purpose and listens as they show and declare what they want us humans to know. From Thistles to Snakes, Poison Ivy to Mosquitoes, these nature beings convey messages that are relevant to every human, showing us how to live in balance and harmony on this Earth.
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Meeting Author William S. Lyon
Sunday, September 18, 2022
Dark Ecology
Sunday, August 14, 2022
"Sacred Art - A Hollow Bone for Spirit"
Sunday, May 29, 2022
"The Shamanic Bones of Zen"
Manuel speaks in deeply personal rather than theoretical terms about the underlying shamanic reality of Zen practice. Such awareness is crucial for the development of contemporary Western Zen. Displaying reverence for the Zen tradition, creativity in expressing her own intuitive seeing, and profound gratitude for the guidance of spirit, Manuel models the path of a seeker unafraid to plumb the depths of her ancestry and face the totality of the present. The book conveys guidance for readers interested in Zen practice including ritual, preparing sanctuaries, engaging in chanting practices, and deepening embodiment with ceremony. The Shamanic Bones of Zen will turn your conception of Zen inside out.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
"The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity"
The Dawn of Everything offers a dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution -- from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality -- and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. In its early chapters, the book proposes that the European Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries was actually, in great measure, a response to the Indigenous philosophies that Colonists and Imperialists had come into contact with in the New World of North America. Ideas of freedom, equality, and democracy did not exist in Medieval Europe. Ever since then, the Western mind has been moving closer, in these areas, to Native American views. As the authors point out, our ideas about human freedom, democracy, and sexual equality are much closer to that of an Indigenous person of the 16th Century than they are to the European Catholic view.
One of the main propositions that Graeber and Wengrow put forth in The Dawn of Everything is that the ancestors of our prehistory were not simple, ignorant savages, but rather self-conscious, idiosyncratic social organizers, evolving through a "carnival parade of political forms." Today we might use words like anarchist, communist, authoritarian, or egalitarian to describe their activity, but that language fails to represent the sheer quirkiness of the actual case studies: large cities without central authorities or farming (Göbekli Tepe), tribal nations spanning entire continents (Cahokia), and social housing projects (Teotihuacan).
One of the key arguments of the book is its stance against a reductionist view of our current circumstances: its insistence that the first 300,000 years of human history offer a past that is more varied, hopeful and altogether more interesting than what we have interpreted it to be, and that the same might be true of our future. Our species has been creating new ways of living in all the diverse ecosystems on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. We have the freedom to create new and different forms of social reality, so why not exercise it. We have done all this before. We can do it again. The book's optimism, in the face of impending climate doom, political polarization, and social upheaval, is itself a provocation to act.
Sunday, December 12, 2021
Shamanic Trance Postures
2. The Lady of Cholula Posture for divination, guidance and advice;
3. The Tattooed Jaguar Posture for a metamorphosis into a jaguar;
4. The South American Lower World Posture for journeying to the lower realms;
5. The Psychopomp Posture for guiding departed souls into the afterlife.
Sunday, October 3, 2021
Contemporary Korean Shamanism
Sunday, September 5, 2021
Laguna Pueblo Author Leslie Marmon Silko
I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren't just for entertainment.
Don't be fooled
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off illness and death.
You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories.
Their evil is mighty
but it can't stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then.(1)
The above passage is from Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko's acclaimed 1977 novel Ceremony. The excerpt emphasizes the essential role that storytelling plays within the Pueblo culture. It also sums up the repeated attempts of colonial invaders to erase Pueblo culture by destroying its ceremonies. Despite these attempts, which began in 1540 and continued until the 1930s, the core elements of Pueblo myth and ritual have survived. However, as Silko reveals in Ceremony, the years from World War II to the present have brought new threats to the Pueblos, which, although more subtle than the early Spanish conquests, are even more insidious, and must be confronted if the Pueblo culture is to survive.
In Ceremony, Silko portrays the endangered state of the Laguna reservation following World War II. The land has been damaged by runoff from the uranium mining, and a generation of young Pueblo men has been devastated by the war. Ceremony tells the story of Tayo, a wounded returning World War II veteran of mixed Laguna-white ancestry following a short stint at a Los Angeles VA hospital. He is returning to the poverty-stricken Laguna reservation, continuing to suffer from battle fatigue, and is haunted by memories of his cousin Rocky who died in the conflict during the Bataan Death March of 1942. His initial escape from pain leads him to alcoholism, but his Old Grandma and mixed-blood Navajo medicine man Betonie help him through Native ceremonies to develop a greater understanding of the world and his place as a Laguna man.
In his search for healing, Tayo seeks a cure from Ku'oosh, the old medicine man. Ku'oosh realizes that he cannot heal Tayo because, "Some things we can't cure like we used to...not since the white people came." While the return to the old ways helps Tayo, something else is needed to complete his healing ceremony. This is where Betonie, a new kind of healer, comes in. Betonie still wears the traditional clothes of a medicine man and uses the traditional paraphernalia, such as prayer sticks, gourd rattles and sacred herbs. But Betonie also uses contemporary items as healing tools, such as coke bottles, phone books and old gas station calendars with pictures of Indians on them, all common objects on the reservation. When Tayo questions the use of such non-traditional items for his ceremonies, Betonie responds, "In the old days it was simple. A medicine person could get by without all these things. But nowadays..."
Betonie provides Tayo with the blend of tools and faith Tayo needs in order to undertake the completion of the ceremony, which can cure both himself and his people. The key to survival of Pueblo culture, as Silko demonstrates in Ceremony, may be found in allowing traditional Pueblo ceremonies to change to meet the present-day realities of reservation life. It's in this fusion of old and new that the Pueblos may find the healing they so desperately need after suffering nearly 500 years of colonialism.
Ceremony gained immediate acceptance when returning Vietnam war veterans took to the novel's theme of coping, healing and reconciliation between races and people that share the trauma of military actions. It was largely on the strength of this work that literary critic Alan R. Velie named Silko one of his Four Native American Literary Masters, along with N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor and James Welch. Her publications include Laguna Woman: Poems (1974), Ceremony (1977), Storyteller (1981), Almanac of the Dead (1991), Gardens in the Dunes (1999) and The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir (2010).
1. Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (Viking Press, 1977), p. 2.
Sunday, April 4, 2021
"Shamanism for Every Day: 365 Journeys"
- The ancient roots and principles of shamanism and the practices of shamans, who straddle the spiritual and physical realms;
- The crucial concept of shamanism: the interconnectivity of all things;
- How to journey, tap into the wisdom of our ancestors, and how to find a guide;
- The Why of the journey--a rekindling of the connection to your own spirit;
- The importance of helping spirits, whether human, animal, plant, or other;
- Setting the stage for your journeys;
- The power of drumming;
- How to practice interpreting what you learn as you go along.
Sunday, March 21, 2021
The Hidden Life of Trees
A revolution has been taking place in the scientific understanding of trees, and Wohlleben is the first writer to convey its amazements to a general audience. The latest scientific studies, conducted at well-respected universities in Germany and around the world, confirm what he has long suspected from close observation in this forest: Trees are far more alert, social, sophisticated -- and even intelligent -- than we thought.
There is now a substantial body of scientific evidence that shows that trees of the same species are communal, and will often form alliances with trees of other species. Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence similar to an insect colony. These soaring columns of living wood draw the eye upward to their outspreading crowns, but the real action is taking place underground, just a few inches below our feet.
Five-thousand miles away, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Suzanne Simard and her grad students are making astonishing new discoveries about the sensitivity and interconnectedness of trees in the Pacific temperate rainforests of western North America. Dr. Simard is a professor with the UBC Faculty of Forestry, where she lectures on and researches the role of mycorrhizae and mycorrhizal networks in tree species migrations with climate change disturbance. Networks of mycorrhizal fungal mycelium have recently been discovered by Professor Simard and her graduate students to connect the roots of trees and facilitate the sharing of resources in Douglas-fir forests of interior British Columbia, thereby bolstering their resilience against disturbance or stress and facilitating the establishment of new regeneration.
They found that the mycorrhizal network serves as a belowground pathway for transfer of carbon from the nutrient-rich deciduous trees to nearby regenerating Douglas-fir seedlings. Moreover, they found that carbon transfer was enhanced when Douglas-fir seedlings were shaded in mid-summer, providing a subsidy that may be important in Douglas-fir survival and growth, thus helping maintain a mixed forest community during early succession.
Simard's research indicates that all trees in a forest ecosystem are interconnected, with the largest, oldest trees serving as hubs. The underground exchange of nutrients increases the survival of younger trees linked into the network of old trees. She has found vast underground tree root systems that are kind of like giant brains. Like the neurons in our own brains, trees send messages via their roots. In fact, she says that trees aren't only communicating, but are also sending resources back and forth to help out other trees -- even if they are a different kind of tree.
Simard calls the older trees (up to 500 years old) "mother trees." Mother trees are the biggest, oldest trees in the forest with the most fungal connections. They're not necessarily female, but Simard sees them in a nurturing, supportive, maternal role. With their deep roots, they draw up water and make it available to shallow-rooted seedlings. They help neighboring trees by sending them nutrients, and when the neighbors are struggling, mother trees detect their distress signals and increase the flow of nutrients accordingly.
When mother trees begin to die, they start passing their resources off to the younger trees around them. Simard says it's like the passing of a wand from one generation to the next. Besides being a beautiful way to understand forests, this information also gives us one more reason to stop clear cutting, which is when timber companies clear tracts of land of all trees. It's easier for the loggers, but it takes away the mother trees so they can't pass along those resources to the next generation. With the logging of mother trees, they wipe out whole forest communities, and that's nothing less than attempted ecocide. After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Decolonizing Indigenous Cultural Protection
In 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux and legions of their allies protested the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would carry Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, crossing underneath Lake Oahe, the reservation's water source. Tribal members opposed the pipeline over fears of water pollution and climate impacts; it also crossed their ancestral lands, and they argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not adequately surveyed the burial grounds in its path. But because the pipeline wasn't on tribal lands or under tribal jurisdiction, there were few legal options. As Indian law attorneys Hillary Hoffmann and Monte Mills write in their new book, A Third Way: Decolonizing the Laws of Indigenous Cultural Protection, after almost 200 years of treaties, court cases and federal infringement, "The tribe had lost almost every source of legal authority to regulate or stop it." The pipeline was ultimately constructed, though its legality is still in court over potential environmental violations.
The battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline exemplifies how difficult it can be for tribal nations to assert their sovereignty within the existing legal structure to protect culturally important land, water, wildlife and ancestral objects. Over the last decade, however, Hoffmann and Mills argue that a new era of Indian law has emerged that protects Indigenous cultures based on Indigenous value systems. This "third way" -- neither solely Indigenous nor European, but rather both -- shows tribal nations working within those legal constraints in novel ways, or changing them altogether, to better reflect their values. This could mean different outcomes in future cultural protection conflicts.
In A Third Way, Hillary Hoffmann and Monte Mills share what they've learned over their combined 31 years of teaching Indian law and working with tribal nations. They explore the myriad ways Indigenous people are decolonizing laws around cultural protection. The book details the history, context, and future of the ongoing legal fight to protect indigenous cultures. At the federal level, this fight is shaped by the assumptions that led to current federal cultural protection laws, which many tribes and their allies are now reframing to better meet their cultural and sovereign priorities. At the state level, centuries of antipathy toward tribes are beginning to give way to collaborative and cooperative efforts that better reflect indigenous interests. Most critically, tribes themselves are building laws and legal structures that reflect and invigorate their own cultural values. Taken together, and evidenced by the recent worldwide support for indigenous cultural movements, events of the last decade signal a new era for indigenous cultural protection. I highly recommend this important book to anyone interested in the legal reforms that will guide progress toward protecting indigenous cultures.
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Five Groundbreaking Books on Shamanism
2. An Encyclopedia of Shamanism by Christina Pratt (2007): Christina Pratt's outstanding two-volume encyclopedia combines the philosophy, concepts, and practical elements that make up shamanism. Pratt has compiled a potentially useful -- although rather expensive -- reference tool that bears testimony to how far shamanism has come in the last few decades. Thirty years ago, shamanism was rarely discussed outside of scholarly anthropological circles. Today, we find this two-volume encyclopedia set offered by a mainstream academic press that specializes in educational books for young readers. Moreover, the set's contents are rich enough to provide shamanic practitioners with some stimulating windows into the transformative worlds of both traditional and contemporary shamanism. Unlike many cross-cultural overviews on shamanism, the essays and many of the entries in these volumes are enriched by the author's personal background in several experiential shamanic traditions.
5. The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing by Michael Harner (1980): Founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Harner blazed the trail for the worldwide revival of shamanism and shamanic drumming with his 1980 seminal classic. This informative guide to core shamanic practice set me on a new course in life. From this guide, I learned to hone my skills of shamanic journeying. Harner teaches core shamanism, the universal and common methods of the shaman to enter "non-ordinary reality" for problem solving and healing. Particular emphasis is on the classic shamanic journey; one of the most remarkable visionary methods used by humankind to access inner wisdom and guidance by the teachers within. Learning to journey is the first step in becoming a shamanic practitioner.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Book Review: "Black Elk, Lakota Visionary"
Black Elk was born in 1863 on the Little Powder River, in what is now Wyoming. Like his father before him, Black Elk became a warrior, as well as a holy man of the Oglala Lakota tribe. Black Elk's early years were spent living the old nomadic life, and he was present at Custer's Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. In the 1880s, Black Elk toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show before returning to the Pine Ridge Reservation established for the Oglala in South Dakota. On his return to Pine Ridge in 1889, he became a leader of the Ghost Dance. When the government responded with troops, Black Elk called for armed resistance, and he was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. After being wounded in an attempt to retaliate after Wounded Knee, Black Elk was convinced to surrender by another Sioux chief, Red Cloud. He remained living on the Pine Ridge Reservation and later converted to Catholicism.
Black Elk's conversion to Catholicism in 1904, then in his 40s, was surrounded by great controversy and often misunderstood. The publication of John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks in 1932 put Black Elk in an awkward position in relation to the Catholic Church. His reputation on the Pine Ridge reservation was built as a Catholic catechist, not as a Native spiritual leader. The Jesuit priests at Holy Rosary Mission were shocked and dismayed at the suggestion that one of their most respected catechists still harbored beliefs in the old pagan religion. The monotheistic position that people are supposed to belong to one religion, or at least to one religion at a time in devoted allegiance to a singular belief system, has contributed significantly to the controversy around Black Elk's beliefs. Black Elk, like most Lakota converts to Christianity, was quite capable of moving between two or more religious systems on a situational basis, drawing from each and all those prayers, songs, rituals, myths, and beliefs that satisfied the needs of the particular time. For Black Elk, Christianity and traditional Lakota spirituality were part of one vision, one Spirit.
Although the Lakota elder was embarrassed in front of the priests, he never denied the sincerity of his belief in the way of the sacred pipe. Near the end of his life, Black Elk told his daughter Lucy and other family members, "The only thing I really believe is the pipe religion." Joseph Epes Brown--author of The Sacred Pipe (1953), a fascinating narrative on Black Elk and his remarkable visions--recounts that, "Black Elk says he is sorry that his present action towards reviving Lakota spiritual traditions shall anger the priests, but that their anger is proof of their ignorance; and in any case Wakan Tanka [Great Spirit or Great Mystery] is happy; for he knows that it is His Will that Black Elk does this work."
Though many books have been written about Black Elk, none have arguably explored the entirety of the Lakota holy man's life and the centrality of his universal vision as this book by Harry Oldmeadow. This biography will assist with correcting the historical record and will no doubt spark more interest in the life and legacy of Black Elk. This book depicts how the spiritual legacy of Black Elk is instrumental in representing the ancestral traditions in the pre-reservation era, their destruction, and subsequently a powerful revival that continues today. The old-time Lakota always believed that it was the warriors who would save them. What Black Elk taught his people was to depend instead on something harder to take away than guns--the trust that prayers in their own language, delivered in their own way, would reach the supreme being they addressed as Wakan Tanka.
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Five Books for Connecting With Power Animals
1. Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals by Jamie Sams: Jamie Sams is a best-selling author and medicine teacher of Iroquois and Cherokee descent. I have used her unique and innovative divination tool since its publication in 1988 for guidance, insight, and help in finding answers to life's questions. The messages always clearly reflect whatever life situation I am going through at the time. This card-based divination system draws upon ancient wisdom and tradition to teach the healing medicine of animals. The deck of cards and book connect the natural attributes and behaviors of the animal with the native lore relating to each creature in a way that is both sensible and spiritual. The suggestions for introspection are evocative, and I find myself returning to them again and again.
2. Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small by Ted Andrews: Easy-to-read and understand, Ted Andrews's bestselling Animal Speak shows readers how to identify his or her animal totem and learn how to invoke its energy and use it for personal growth and inner discovery. Nature lovers will love this insightful compendium filled with touching stories about animals, natural history, and animal folklore. Readers will also learn magical animal rites and how to read omens of nature. Animal Speak includes a dictionary of bird, animal, reptile, and insect totems, which describe each creature's meaning. This bestselling guide has become a classic reference for anyone wishing to forge a spiritual connection with the power and wisdom of the animal world.
3. Bird Medicine: The Sacred Power of Bird Shamanism by Evan T. Pritchard: Evan T. Pritchard is a descendant of the Mi'kmaq people (part of the Algonquin nation) and the founder of The Center for Algonquin Culture. Pritchard's scholarly and illuminating book is based on his field interviews with people in the Native community on birds as teachers, guardians, role models, counselors, healers, clowns, peacemakers, and meteorologists. They carry messages and warnings from loved ones and the spirit world, report deaths and injuries, and channel divine intelligence to answer our questions. Bird Medicine is a treasure trove of ornithological insight and indigenous wisdom. It provides numerous examples of everyday bird sign interpretations that can be applied in your own encounters with birds as well as ways we can help protect birds and encourage them to communicate with us.
4. Power Animals: How to Connect with Your Animal Spirit Guide by Steven D Farmer: Dr. Steven Farmer is a psychotherapist, shamanic healer, and the author of several best-selling books. In Power Animals, Dr. Farmer guides you through a journey on the accompanying audio download to connect with your power animal. Once you meet your power animal, you can refer to the text to learn what this says about you and read a channeled message for you from that animal spirit. This is an easy-to-read introduction to the concept of power animals, and provides descriptions on 40 different animals. It's clear, insightful, fully developed but not overly wordy, and all of it is helpful.
5. Animal Spirit Guides: An Easy-to-Use Handbook for Identifying and Understanding Your Power Animals and Animal Spirit Helpers by Steven D Farmer: After the publication of his book Power Animals, many readers inquired about the meaning of power animals that were not contained in that work. In Animal Spirit Guides, Dr. Farmer provides concise, relevant details about the significance of more than 200 animals that may come to you in physical or symbolic form as guides and teachers. He lists three things for each animal: 1) if the animal shows up, what does it mean, 2) when you should call on the particular animal that you are reading about, and 3) if the animal is your power animal what does it mean. This makes the information very concise and easy to find and understand. It is an excellent reference book to have on the shelf.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Book Review: "The Shamanic Journey"
In his book, The Shamanic Journey: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Shamanism, shamanic practitioner, teacher and psychotherapist Paul Francis has created a practical step-by-step guide to experiencing your first shamanic journey, developing a relationship with your power animal, and interpreting trance experiences. Shamanic journeying is not an exceptional skill reserved for certain people, but knowing what to do with intuition, how to respond to it, and how to integrate it into day-to-day life is an exceptional skill that can, and should, be learned. Building on the core shamanism developed by Michael Harner, author of The Way of the Shaman, Francis has written a common sense guide for beginners interested in shamanism and looking for a place to start practical application of its practices for themselves. At once both practical and deeply thought-provoking, this book examines how to make shamanic practice relevant and central to our modern-day lives. This useful guidebook is recommended to anyone seeking to experience the shamanic journey -- a core practice common to all shamanic cultures.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
The Book of Ceremony
Sunday, December 9, 2018
The Cross-Cultural Evolution of Shamanism
So why did shamanism evolve in cultures all around the world? A recent study by one of the foremost scholars on shamanism today reveals that shamanism evolved all around the globe because the shamanic narrative is hard-wired in us all. In his book, Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing, Michael Winkelman presents the shamanic paradigm within a biopsychosocial framework for explaining successful human evolution through group rituals. According to Winkelman, shamanism is rooted in innate functions of the brain, mind, and consciousness. As Winkelman puts it, "The cross-cultural manifestations of basic experiences related to shamanism (e.g., soul flight, death-and-rebirth, animal identities) illustrates that these practices are not strictly cultural but are structured by underlying, biologically inherent structures. These are neurobiological structures of knowing that provide the universal aspects of the human brain/mind"
Winkelman's groundbreaking book extends our understanding of the evolutionary origins of humanity's first spiritual, healing and consciousness tradition. Though shamanism has been conventionally considered a spiritual practice, it has ancient biological, social and psychological roots. Shamanism has its bases in innate aspects of human cognition, engaging the use of altered states of consciousness to integrate information across several levels of the brain to produce visual symbolism exemplified in visionary experiences. This explains why shamanism evolved cross-culturally and is still relevant to the modern world.