"Ze" Film Depicts Shamanism in Modern Mongolia

In 2014, Mongolian filmmaker Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir went to see a shaman named Uranbold. Although going to shamans was not a new experience for her, meeting Uranbold shocked her, because a young man of twenty-one in jeans and T-shirt appeared from underneath the shamanic robes and headdress after the ritual.
 

According to Purev-Ochir, "a shaman must balance double lives. He must listen to and guide people who come with problems ranging from infidelity to bankruptcy. He must play the role of psychiatrist, financial adviser, doctor and many more. He must comfort the dying and those they leave behind. And that is just his life outside of school, friendship, and romance."
 

With Uranbold in mind, Purev-Ochir began to form the backstory for "Ze," her feature-length directorial debut. The film tells the story of the budding relationship between a teenage shaman and a young woman, set in the impoverished yurt district of the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar. "Ze" is an exploration of the contradictions of modern-day Mongolia, a country where growing class divisions spurred on by what Purev-Ochir describes as "unfettered capitalism" are thrust against the traditions and beliefs of an older way of life. Caught between those contradictions is the emotionally charged relationship between 16-year-old Marla and the shaman, Ze, a bittersweet love made all the more complicated by the pressures of life on the rough-and-tumble fringes of Ulaanbaatar.
 

"Ze" is a portrait of the hard-scrabble realities of what it means to be a young, urban Mongolian today. Purev-Ochir wanted to tell a story about the bipolar experience of growing up in contemporary Mongolia, where Mongolians lead precarious existences due to ongoing economic instability and underdeveloped social infrastructure. Within this context, shamans play an important role in providing comfort and guidance. Yet they are people, too, living and breathing within the same restraints and freedoms as any other Mongolian.

Standing Rock Developing Wind Farm

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is developing a wind farm, the first of its kind on an Indian reservation in North Dakota. About 60 turbines are slated to dot the Porcupine Hills between Fort Yates and Porcupine. Tribal leaders have nixed moving ahead with a wind farm in the past, reaching the conclusion that they would have little ownership of such a facility if a developer were to build one on Standing Rock.

To aid in that effort, Standing Rock over the years has secured small grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to study wind development potential on the reservation, as it's long been something the tribe has wanted to pursue. With that work done and with the right approach moving forward, the tribe now hopes to attract a developer aligned with its values to build the project.

Standing Rock is pursuing the idea amid its fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has spurred efforts to harness renewable power on the reservation. A small solar farm already exists in Cannon Ball. Standing Rock is working with advisers, including LIATI Capital, Connexus Capital and Hometown Connections, to make the wind farm come to fruition.

The wind farm would be named "Anpetu Wi," which in Lakota means "the breaking of the new day." The Lakota people traditionally have prayed at that time, SAGE General Manager Joseph McNeil said. "You're praying for guidance, you're praying for wisdom, you're praying for what's best for the day for your family, for the people," he said. "This is really how we look at this project, as a prayer to guide our people into the future, into the new day." 

The wind farm would have a 235-megawatt capacity with the potential to expand down the road. SAGE recently filed an interconnection request with the Southwest Power Pool, which oversees the power grid in a number of central states, including in parts of North Dakota. McNeil said he anticipates the interconnection process to take at least two years as the grid operator studies plans for the wind farm. In the meantime, SAGE plans to work on other aspects of the project, including building access roads through the area this year in an effort to make use of the Production Tax Credit, a federal wind incentive expiring at the end of 2020.

SAGE also intends to do other work, such as identifying the exact location for each turbine with the help of Standing Rock's Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which will survey the area for any cultural resources that should be avoided. The project also will need various environmental analyses.

Philanthropic foundations already have contributed nearly $2 million toward those efforts, and SAGE is launching a crowdfunding initiative at www.anpetuwi.com to raise another $1.5 million to complete the work. SAGE is seeking donations as the tribe's resources have been drained amid the coronavirus pandemic and a drop in revenue from Prairie Knights Casino following the pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017. The total project cost is estimated to be $325 million. SAGE plans to secure that funding through additional crowdfunding and by partnering with a developer and investors. SAGE also hopes to court an entity to purchase the power generated by the wind farm. SAGE leaders envision that the wind farm, once built, eventually would generate revenue for the tribe, as well as provide construction and maintenance jobs for tribal members.

Earth: The Free Will Planet

Earth has always been a free will planet. We incarnate here on Earth to experience freedom of choice. A free will system is an experimental laboratory for creation. We can choose to do anything we want, no matter how it affects others. There are other worlds where we learn other experiences, but the human realm is the only one in which our choices (good or bad) affect our future. We live in a reciprocally interrelated world where there are repercussions for our actions. As conscious moral agents, humans have power that the beings in other realms do not; this clearly underscores the importance of moral action and spiritual development.
 

Freedom of choice is our human birthright and gift from the Creator. When the Creator created the world, he gave humans the option to choose between good (light energy) and evil (dark energy). Light energy is unlimited and comes from the divine source. It is highly vibrational, expansive and full of love. Dark energy is dense, negative, and goes against the flow of the universe. It is about manipulation, oppression, conquest and fear. Darkness is part of who we are, and we all have to take responsibility for it.
 

At any moment, each of us is confronted with choices between good and evil forces. The dark forces were created so humans could realize their inner powers and develop the soul. The darkness consistently tries to make people choose between the good and bad and tries to tempt them to choose the bad. Its goal is to force us to behave in opposition to our true soul, to be bad. When we choose good over evil, we grow spiritually and bring more light into the world. This is how we learn to take responsibility for our own actions and eventually realize that self-centeredness is counterproductive to the evolution of the individual and the collective.
 

The Great Shift
 

A growing number of voices in the international shamanic community are telling us that Mother Earth and her inhabitants are undergoing a fundamental, evolutionary change -- a change that many of us will experience first-hand in this lifetime. Some call it the Kali Yuga, the age of maximum darkness and ignorance; a time when the dark forces of the unconscious are at their strongest. Some call it the Era of Strife, Tribulations, or End of Days. Others refer to this unfolding event as the Turning of the Age or a Great Shift in consciousness that was foretold long, long ago.
 

Great shifts in energy are taking place at this time. The veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is growing thinner. In other words, the boundaries between spirit and matter have greatly dissolved, and these worlds are currently overlapping and blending together. There is a major battle going on in the spirit world between the light and the dark, and it is spilling over into the material world. It is not hard to see that, even though we live on a planet that surrounds us with beauty, there is a lot of darkness manifesting within humanity. The dark is making a bid for power. The light is countering every move made by the dark; the light will ultimately prevail.
 

In the struggle between good and evil, we are all being called upon to choose which side we are on -- the light or the dark. This is not judgment day. It has nothing to do with religion or ideology. This is about human existence, free will, and each of us claiming our sovereignty. Sovereignty is the supreme power to self govern -- to be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. If we claim our sovereignty, we can shape a truly New World.

The Healing Heartbeat Rhythm

According to new neuroscience research, rhythm is rooted in innate functions of the brain, mind, and consciousness. As human beings, we are innately rhythmic. Our relationship with rhythm begins in the womb. At twenty two days, a single (human embryo) cell jolts to life. This first beat awakens nearby cells and incredibly they all begin to beat in perfect unison. These beating cells divide and become our heart. This desire to beat in unison seemingly fuels our entire lives. Studies show that, regardless of musical training, we are innately able to perceive and recall elements of beat and rhythm.

Rhythm is the heartbeat of life. It is the primal power that unites us all. All rhythm is healing, but the heartbeat rhythm is the most healing of all. The familiar lub-dub, lub-dub of a heartbeat rhythm has a therapeutic, integrative and calming effect. This healing pulse redistributes the energy from your head into your body. It has an almost instant grounding and centering effect. Moreover, it reconnects us to the warmth and safety of the first sound we ever heard -- the steady, nurturing pulse of our mother's heartbeat. When we drum the heartbeat, we connect to the feminine energies of creative imagination, birth, and intuition.

The heartbeat is a rhythm archetype representing yin, the receptive, feminine form-giving principle of energy. Yin energy is magnetic, receptive and conducive to great healing and regenerative powers. It is a descending force that draws the energy of the original cosmological pattern down into the earthly realm, helping to align the circle of life with the original intention for the Earth. One of the commonly held beliefs in shamanic cultures is that there exists a patterned cosmological order, which can be disrupted by human activity. When harmony between the human realm and the original intended pattern is disturbed, we drum the heartbeat to bring back the balance. In harmonizing the microcosm of the self with the macrocosm of the universe, we harmonize Heaven and Earth.

Every rhythm has its own quality and touches you in a unique way. These qualities, in fact, exist within each of us, longing to be activated. It is this process of internalization that allows us to access the inaudible yet perceptible soul, so to speak, of a rhythm. There are two voices to a drum. One is physical, having to do with the drum's construction, cultural context, and method of playing. To commune with the drum's second or spiritual voice, we must be carried away by the rhythm. We must soar on flights of rapture. It is this ecstatic element that today's drummers are rediscovering.

People are again hearing the call of the drum. As we hear and respect the compelling voice of the drum, we connect with our own inner guidance, which inspires us to heal our own place on the planet. The heartbeat of the drum is breaking through our soulless scientific misconceptions of nature to a new communion with our planet. The drum is calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of nature. Indeed, it is the voice of our Earth Mother who is speaking through the drum, for the drum echoes the pulse of her heart. Her heart is crying out to the circle of humanity to attune our hearts again to hers. May we all heed the call of the drum.