American Indian Poet John Trudell Walks On

John Trudell (February 15, 1946 – December 8, 2015), an American Indian poet, actor, spoken word artist and political activist passed away on December 8, 2015, at his home, surrounded by his family and friends. John Trudell was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. John Trudell led a life dedicated to indigenous human rights, land and language issues. He helped spark a spoken word movement that is a continuation of Native American oral traditions. His last big media success was the book, Lines from a Mined Mind: The Words of John Trudell, a collection of 25 years of poetry, lyrics and essays from Fulcrum Publishing, 2008. This collection is a tribute to the man, his legend and legacy.

"We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all the natural world has a right to existence. We are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off. We are the people." -- From "We Are Power" speech by John Trudell (July 18, 1980)

Music for the Shamanic Journey

Music for the Shamanic Journey. The Shamanic Journey is a powerful technique used by shamans and shamanic practitioners worldwide. Music -- often drumming -- is a favorite vehicle for the journey, helping to focus the mind and invite the spirit body into the non-ordinary reality. Shamanic music awakens your innate ability to commune with your inner self and retrieve information. Your inner self is in constant communication with all aspects of your environment, seen and unseen. You need only journey within to find answers to your questions. You should have a question or objective in mind from the start. Shamanic journeying may be undertaken for purposes of divination, for personal healing, to meet one's power animal or spirit guide, or for any number of other reasons. I have created a playlist of music to support your shamanic journey at: YouTube Music Playlist. 

Riding Spirit Horse

My drum can connect me to the earth or carry me like a flying horse. Sometimes I send my spirits out, but other times I must go myself, alone or with the spirits.

―Tania Kobezhikova, Khakass shaman

As a spirit guide, Horse is a messenger to and from the spirit world and a psychopomp who leads departed souls into the afterlife. Horse represents personal power, stamina, endurance, freedom, independence, travel, adventure, and soul flight. Horse is a medicine or you could say a relationship with the spirit of Horse such that the Horse will let you (your spirit) ride him and will take you where you want to go. Do you need to get somewhere physical or spiritual? Horse will assist you and serve as your guardian spirit, giving safety in your physical and metaphysical journeys.

The shaman's horse, namely the single-headed frame drum, originated in Siberia, together with shamanism itself thousands of years ago. The repetitive, rhythmic cadence of shamanic drumming is evocative of a horse on a journey. Siberian shamans describe it as the buoyant, transcendent state that one mounts and rides from plane to plane. The wild, untamed spirit of Horse will teach you how to ride the drum into vast worlds of extraordinary richness and complexity. We can ride Spirit Horse on journeys through the inner realms of consciousness or call upon this power animal to be the courier of our prayers in remote or distant healing.

Shaman's Journey

Take a fractal journey into the realm of the Shaman. A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems -- the pictures of Chaos. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions. Fractal patterns are extremely familiar, since nature is full of fractals. For instance: trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes, etc.

Shamanism represents a universal conceptual framework found among indigenous tribal humans. It includes the belief that the natural world has two aspects: ordinary everyday awareness, formed by our habitual behaviors, patterns of belief, social norms, and cultural conditioning, and a second non-ordinary awareness accessed through altered states, or ecstatic trance, induced by shamanic practices such as repetitive drumming. The act of entering an ecstatic trance state is called the soul flight or shamanic journey, and it allows the journeyer to view life and life's problems from a detached, spiritual perspective, not easily achieved in a state of ordinary consciousness.