Category: Native American Spirituality

By Keith Varnum For the last year I’ve been haunted by a revealing Navajo proverb that goes: “You can’t wake a person who’s pretending to be asleep!” I’m haunted in the sense that Ebenezer Scrooge is haunted by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future in Charles Dickens’ beloved parable “A Christmas Carol.” I’m [...]

From the time of the Crusades to the modern day, war refugees have struggled to integrate into their new communities.  They are often economically impoverished and socially isolated, which results in increased conflict, systematic violence and warfare, within and between communities as the new immigrants interact with and compete with the previously established inhabitants. Now, [...]

By Emy E. Johnston Judy Hilzer, 63 year old elder of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians,  has been a nurse for over 40 years. It wasn’t until 2007 that Judy was recognized by the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) on the hospital’s spiritual care list as a shaman. Two years away from retirement, [...]

The Native American medicine wheel is familiar to most people. Few, however, know the spiritual meaning of each direction, or that those energies can be called on for help. Spiritual Messenger and modern shaman Laine Cunningham’s Four Winds program aligns participants at the medicine wheel’s center. “When we stand at the center of the medicine [...]

Eliot Cowan and Plant Spirit Medicine By Vivian Mason There are many healers, psychics, homeopaths, naturopaths and mediums focusing on every road to healing and well being. Certainly some, if not all of them are beneficial in one way or another. The list is long and sometimes confusing and many come and go with time. [...]

By Donna Henes, Urban Shaman At the close of the growing season in Autumn, people, like squirrels, like ants, like bees, get busy gathering the great bounty of the land. We forage and harvest, hunt and herd; industriously amassing the abundance proffered by the earth, water, and sky. After the toil, the patient tending of [...]

by Shaman Maria I was amazed how fragile things could live undisturbed in the rainforest while we humans lived in turmoil. – Maria Gurule Many people return to the jungle. Once it’s in your blood, you cannot stay away. It’s like the call of the wild, a retreat from the trappings of the modern world. [...]

The View Through The Medicine Wheel; Shamanic Maps of How The Universe Works By Leo Rutherford O Books $29.95 215p Facing a mid-life crisis after working in the manufacturing industry for twenty years, Leo Rutherford moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1977. During the years that followed, he studied the teachings of the [...]

by Maria Yracébûrû As visionaries hoping to manifest dreams of amazing peace, it is important to understand the history and truth of humanity and earth before actually warping time. Through history humanity transitions in its relationship with Changing Mother Earth. Our lives here have been more than simple existence with no purpose. We are an [...]

TUCSON, Ariz. – The event is billed as ”10,000 years of culture – 150 tribal nations – 10 days – all in one location”; and despite a full and busy agenda, organizer Fred Synder advises: ”Take your watch off and put it in your pocket,” because nothing starts until the medicine men and the Gourd [...]

by Howard G Charing The ofrenda An 'ofrenda' is the most important ceremony used by Andean Indians to relate with Mother Earth. The ofrenda is a symbol of reciprocity with nature and its purpose is to teach us to reproduce this attitude. Through it we speak back to nature saying we understand the message and [...]

by Howard G Charing Spirituality is at the centre of the Ayahuasca experience. Purification and cleansing of body, mind, and spirit in a shamanic ceremony can be the beginning of a process of profound personal and spiritual discovery. This process can continue indefinitely even if one never drinks Ayahuasca again. We believe that by seriously [...]