PERFUME, MUSIC AND BOOKS FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AND HEALTHY HUMANITY
Certain universal principles predispose us to peace.
The first and most important of these is respect.
Respect is at the heart of many spiritualities, but it is particularly well lived and apparent in indigenous and native spirituality. I can cite examples from our peoples here in North America, but I know that these values are shared by the vast majority of the world’s native peoples.
Introduction from Wind Daughter.
Sun Bear, Gheezis Mokwa, who was born Vincent LaDuke, was a sacred teacher of Ojibwaa/Metis descent and the Founder and Medicine Chief of the Bear Tribe, a multi-racial, educational society. He was a world-renowned lecturer and teacher and the author or coauthor of eight books. He was publisher of the magazine Wildfire and founder of the World Earth Fund. Sun Bear was the founder and Medicine Chief of the Bear Tribe Medicine Society. He was born in 1929 on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.
One of my most cherished elders and teachers, who was a true mentor for me on the Red Road, was a Chippewa Medicine Man named Sun Bear. He was one of the very first to take the sacred teachings around the world.
(If you haven’t read the 2 previous articles, please do, they will help in understanding this one).
The Native way is called the Butterfly Ceremony. It follows the 4 steps of the life of a butterfly. The Egg, the Caterpillar, the Cocoon and the Butterfly.
Since the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, especially in Canada and the United States, there has been a constant policy and attempt at physical and cultural genocide. It’s more insidious today, but it continues.
As a result, many traditions and spiritual teachings have been lost.
This is the continuation of the article published last weekend.
In the initiatory shamanism of temple-building Nations, and also in the hard-core shamanism of nomadic nations, there is always what is known as the lineage of power, or the lineage of wisdom transmission. Those whom tradition, observation or events have designated as heirs to the community’s ancestral shamanism receive from their elders, after a period of training, the power to serve their community with those skills unique to shamanism. It’s the same in Buddhism and among the yogis of India and Tibet, the Taoists of China, the Shintoists of Japan, etc. The knowledge, power and wisdom handed down uninterruptedly for millennia by successive generations of great masters, pour into the aspirant and apprentice like an old vase of pure water pouring into a new one.
It’s easier and more powerful to meditate and pray when you can create sacred space in your home. To follow up on my article on spiritual practice last week, I will offer a time-honored way of creating a spiritual light giving altar in your home. It’s the one practice all my students have implemented in their lives, the one most important teaching they all thank me for. Thus, an excellent transmission to share with you all today.
If I didn’t have the spiritual practices my elders taught me, I wouldn’t have survived the trials life has given me. Spiritual practice is also the path to higher human evolution, distinguishing us from the other beings who share the planet with us. Although we believe that all beings have a spiritual practice, the only being who approaches it consciously and voluntarily is the human being.
As plants are growing at their peak in these days leading up to the summer solstice, and my domain is bursting with vitality and lush greenery, I’m noticing plants growing without my having sown them.
Native teachings and traditions all over the world are rooted in the community. The community is an extension of the fundamental cell of human life, the family. The family entity gives life, and supports the birth, growth, education and continuity of community life. From community emerges the complementarity of human and physical resources (education, healing, food, clothing and shelter) necessary for human life in the midst of nature.