Native American Tradition, Ceremony and World View From an Energetic Perspective
Acknowledgment
I would like to acknowledge my Native American teachers. Clyde Hall of the Shoshone nation and holder of the ancient tradition of the Naraya, The elders of the Naraya, Chief Richard Sparrow Eagle of the Lakota nation, and a host of other first nations people. Each and every one of them lives daily with the reality that there are many people who believe that the sharing of their ancient traditions with non native peoples is wrong and punish, censor, and ostracize those who do so. Even in these times it takes tremendous courage, persistence, and personal sacrifice to share the red road with non native peoples. I would also like to acknowledge the “Rainbow Warriors”, those of non native blood who have chosen to follow the “Red Road”, for they too face the perils of non acceptance. And lastly my teachers at BBSH who have helped me find myself in this now.
I am a white man, and as much as I might wish otherwise there is no escaping it. I follow the path of many who have come before me who have attempted to express the nature of the First Nations reality in western terms. We all fall short. I am only a human being and I ask that if I have done something that is not in a good way that I will be told, so that I may do it in a better way the next time. I can only ask that my elders will overlook my ignorance and accept my heart.
My Story
When I was a boy growing up in eastern Massachusetts I loved to play “Indian” Whenever I played Cowboys and Indians with friends, I was an Indian and I usually identified with being a scout. I had an Indian craft book and made beadwork, clothing and moccasins, and I had a little cloth tipi that I loved to play and sleep in. I grew up hating my white skin. I was always happy when summer came and my body would start to turn brown from the sun. What I really wanted was to be an Indian, but how could I do that? It did not seem possible to make contact with Indians and anyway I was white and I knew they hated me. As time passed, I slowly abandoned this dream.
Our teleological urges lead us to our life task. As an adult I did not understand this dream or what it meant for my life. I could never see a way into that world. One concerted attempt in 1991 fizzled after only a few months. As I began to question what was behind this apparent failure and disinterest, I was told by spirit, “You are attempting to approach this tradition from the perspective of who you were then in past lives. You must learn to approach this way of living from who you are now in this life.”
Our teleological urges lead us to our life task. As an adult I did not understand this dream or what it meant for my life. I could never see a way into that world. One concerted attempt in 1991 fizzled after only a few months. As I began to question what was behind this apparent failure and disinterest, I was told by spirit, “You are attempting to approach this tradition from the perspective of who you were then in past lives. You must learn to approach this way of living from who you are now in this life.”
One year after beginning my training at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, I received my first invitation to participate in a Native American ceremony. Over the years I have come to see how my training at BBSH has much to inform and enlighten my Native American spirit work and my Native American spirit work has much to inform my BBSH work. I have lived with a growing passion to become literate in both modalities and to be a bridge between them.
From the depths of my soul I believe that Native American traditions are based on ancient knowledge that incorporates all of the teachings brought forth at BBSH and more. Some Native American legends refute the current anthropological theories of their migration to the Americas from Asia over the Bering Straights. There is an indication that the Native Americans are decedents of people from the ancient land of Lemuria who fled in all directions when their continent sank beneath the waters of the Pacific ocean 20,000* years ago. If this is true, then Native American traditions and legends hold much of the sacred knowledge of that culture.
The Bird Tribes
The story of the Native American experience is an especially poignant one, not so much for its uniqueness or its tragedy, but rather because of it’s ancient roots and the relative newness of its transitions. It speaks to the hearts of all people because it is also the story of the experience of our European and Asian ancestors many tens of thousands of years ago.
The spirit of the land of America is unique in its closeness to the original way of being that characterizes the ones known as “the real people”, the ones who lived in balance and harmony between their physical beings and their spirits (the Bird Tribes). While other continents are many millennia away from that original experience, the Americas held that consciousness until 2500 years ago. It is interesting to consider that in first nations cultures around the world, the translation of the name they have for themselves is often “the people” or “the true people”
Eons ago in the creation of the earth the spirit ones, or bird tribes, were challenged because it took a lot of energy to hold a form so that they could create on this level of reality. Their solution was to create an autonomous creature that they could exist with in a cooperative fashion to make their creating easier. They created humans. This cooperative existence went well for a few thousand years, but eventually the human ego began to perceive fear and in that fear began to create cultures and societies to protect themselves. Eventually these cultures evolved into the Warrior Tribes. These cultures grew and expanded until they covered all of the world except the Americas. Because of this energy of fear and suspicions the Bird Tribes were unable to maintain contact with the warrior tribes and could only communicate indirectly if at all. They created an energetic sanctuary around the Americas so that they could continue in their collaborations of creation with humans who had been unaffected by the warrior energy and had not rebelled against cooperation. As of 2500 years ago, however, the collective consciousness of the planet became so strong as to begin to encroach on that sanctuary. The peoples whose dispositions had always been open, loving and relaxed, began to interpret the events of the world around them in fearful ways and they began to create a warrior culture which emerged as the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. Thus began the time of history for the Americas and slowly the Bird Tribes began to retreat to the remotest parts of the continent. Most chose not to incarnate on this world at all. About 500 years ago, the truth of reality that was the hallmark of the time before history was all but lost and the spirit ones, knowing that the warrior cultures would spread to the Americas, made a heroic attempt to instill knowledge that would survive the wave of the warrior cultures and be available to help humans in the future times of reawakening. This attempt is reflected in the Native American story of the coming and teachings of White Buffalo Calf Woman and the teachings of Deganawida and Hiawatha in the creation of great Iroquois Confederacy. At the time the spirits brought these teachings, they also foretold the future.1
The Spirit of America
The land of Americas has always seemed to hold a special feeling that many have tried to describe. The Hudson River School style of painting in the 1870’s attempted to portray the feeling in a visual way. We can look to nature and find the creatures that are uniquely American to help us access this spirit. The buffalo, the eagle, the antelope, the big horn sheep all carry a certain energy that speaks to a spirit that underlies even our western culture. The United States Constitution and structure of government are all strongly influenced by the spirit held in the land. Carlos Nakai, the Native American flutist and jazz musician, once asked his audience if there were any Native Americans present and would they raise their hands. As it was an audience that was completely white no one raised their hands. He then went on to say, “Actually this land called America has a very special spirit. A spirit that has very important things to give the world, You have all been born in this land or live on it, and that spirit is a part of you now. You should all raise your hands because you are all native Americans.” This spirit is a direct legacy of the Bird Tribes. A close link to the way of being that existed before the advent of time, the warrior societies, and fear.
The Rainbow Warriors
The coming of the white man to America and the outcome was foretold many generations before the actual event. From many diverse tribes spread across the continent of America these prophesies are still recounted today. The Aztec, the Crow, the Blackfeet, the Assiniboine, the Hopi, and the Lakota are but a few of the Native American nations who hold these in their traditions.
It was only seven generations ago that Native Americans were still roaming free and following their religious and cultural traditions in the western half of America. During the 1800’s and early 1900’s when the destruction of the Native American way of life was at its peak, and such tragedies as the Massacre at Wounded Knee, The Trail of Tears, and the Sand Hill Massacre, many Native Americans who died made a vow to return in order to restore their unique ways of seeing the world. By that time, the culture of the Europeans would be in great need of these teachings to correct the imbalance that they had brought with them. These souls would return in the bodies of all the races and they would reawaken the spirit of the land.2
During this time also, the wise elders made all efforts to preserve their culture and ancient ways, knowing that seven generations in the future there would come the time for these teachings to be brought forward again. That the time would be ripe for the ears of the white men to hear what they had been unable to hear in the four hundred years of occupation of the lands of the Native Americans.
As was foretold in the prophesies, there came a time when the children of the engulfing culture would begin to show an interest in Native American ways of living. It was foretold that the sign would be that they would adopt long hair and beads and begin to seek out Native American elders for teaching and guidance. The fortunes of the people who had struggled to maintain their way of life in the face of incomprehensible odds had begun to turn.
Research Issues
The difficulty in accessing Native American knowledge is a result of four factors:
1) The loss or transmutation of information through the effects of time, local conditions, oral tradition and the lack of a written tradition.
2) The immense difficulty of translating between two cultures whose world view and methods of communication are diametrically opposed.
3) The deliberate withholding of knowledge and information considered too sacred or dangerous to be revealed at the present time.
4) My limited experience and knowledge of Native American culture and traditions.
The end result is that my ability to corroborate,reference or support the few translations I have been able to make with written evidence is limited. In addition there are even problems with attempting to reference written material about Native American culture. For the majority of the last four hundred years of interactions with Native Americans, it has been non native people who have written about them. It is only in the last seventy years that any Native Americans have written about their culture and traditions. Even in that regard, a large percentage of Native American tradition, culture and world view is not easily expressible or impossible to express in words. The structure and reference points of Native American language is so different from English and other Latinate languages that the original meanings are often impossible to convey or get lost in translation.
My experience of working with Native Americans is that the skills and practices of their sacred traditions are taught through experience and not through words. An individual is directed to perform certain tasks with little or no description as to how it is done. It is expected that the individual has watched the task in question being performed and has a basic understanding of the structure of it. The rest is learned through practice and experience. Much of the sacred tasks and skills an individual learns are energetic or perceptive in nature. Often, the elder does not try to express these things in words. At best the individual may be told a story that on the surface appears to have nothing to do with anything, but underlying the story will be the information that the elder wishes to impart to the student. It is up to the student to figure it out. There are and will be no reasons or explanations.
When the individual has reached a level of competency in the performance of the task, there is no formal acknowledgment of the fact. The elder knows the student knows and the student knows that he/she knows, and the individual is then directed or encouraged to begin a new learning. There is then, no real traditional way to discuss or quantize the spiritual or energetic components of the elements of Native American spirit work. The only words and conscious structures that can be used to communicate these things to western world are thus western and there in much danger and potential for misunderstanding. That being said, I will attempt to impart my perceptions of Native American world view and ceremonies in the Barbara Brennan model.
Awakening In Native American Tradition
In reality, the format of our living is not so easily broken down to fit into the categories of the Awakening model. The aspects of Native American living will appear under the heading they most generally fit under although there may be aspects that also apply to other headings.
Transformation
Knowledge of the Self/ Exploring Inner Landscapes
In the BBSH model, the awakening process begins with the exploration of self. Utilizing the skills of Life Pulse; Listening Skills; Contact Skills; The Wound; Higher Self, Lower Self, Mask Self; Shadow; Defense; Main Belief/Image and its Constellation; Intentionality (Positive. Negative, and Effortless); Transference; Boundary Issues; Ego (positive and negative); and Witnessing, Asking, and Experiencing, the student explores his/her relationship with his/her self.
In Native American culture the exploration of self was nurtured throughout an individuals life.
The Seven DirectionsOne of the most prominent structures in First Nations traditions is the Medicine Wheel. The elements of the directions embodied in the Medicine Wheel are a source of many teachings for the people.
If we look at the directions in a broader way we might interpret the individual aspects of the four cardinal directions as the auric level, the level of the personality. The qualities of the directions and the animals, birds, minerals and plants associated with them reflect the qualities of the personality. Any particular individuals affinity for certain aspects of the directions speaks to their core qualities.
I translate these elements into BBSH terms in the following ways.
East - spring, air, knowledge, the birth of our life cycle, the expansion of the Life Pulse.South - summer, fire, passion, the youthfulness of our life cycle, the stasis of the expansion phase of the Life Pulse.
West -fall, water, surrender, personal power, the maturity of our life cycle, the contraction of the Life Pulse
North - winter, earth, wisdom, the dying of our life cycle, the stasis of the contraction phase of the Life Pulse
The aspects of the Mother and Father spirit relate to the haric level, the level of intention, where the connection with the earth and the connection with the divine meet within our human body.
Mother spirit - the power of creation from which all things are born.Father spirit - the power of creation that is the inspiration and the idea.
The aspect of Great Mystery relates to the level of core essence, where our deepest and simplest expression of being resides and the level where our connectedness with all things is most basic and apparent.
Skan Skan - the power that moves moves wells up from the black velvet void which the mother and father spirit use to create all things. That which is within everything.The Great Mystery - the Black Velvet Void which is the formless place at the deepest level of our perception out of which all matter arises.
These descriptions speak to some of the qualities of the seven directions. These perceptions draw from the aspects of Native American teachings (largely form the Plains tribes) on the directions that resonate with me. Any attempt to unilaterally connect the different qualities of the directions between tribes meets with failure. Qualities which one tribe will ascribe to one direction may appear in another direction in another tribe. There does appear to be consistency with in the groupings of qualities. I hypothesize that the reasons for this lie in with the differing aspects of the geography and climates within which each tribe lived. There appears to be adaptations which connect the community to the aspects of nature in their immediate locality.
Transcendence
Expansion of Awareness to Higher Levels of Being
In Native American and Western culture the expansion of awareness to higher levels of being is most generally accessed through ceremony. In Native American culture the values held in highest regard included, personal integrity, community and generosity. The sacred was so enmeshed in their way of life that it is impossible to separate religious tradition from culture and the day to day activities of living. Every aspect of their daily life was filled with ceremony and the awareness of, and contact with, the sacred spirits of the land, sky and all who existed in it. The spiritual focus of the culture was to support and foster the individual’s and community’s growth into a deeper and stronger expression of the sacredness of the human spirit.
As in the BBSH model, the awareness of the aspects of transformation are an integral part of the transcendence process.
Setting Sacred Space
The setting of sacred space supports and enhances the process of transcendence and is common to both BBSH and Native American tradition. In Native American tradition the setting of sacred space generally involves defining the space through the creation of a circle and the construction of various sacred elements such as a fire, an altar, reference points related to the seven directions and any elements that are specific to the intent of the ceremony. The space is then cleared of any remaining negative energies through the use of sage and cedar smudging, prayer and intention, and the spirits are called in to assist in the ceremony.
The BBSH tradition uses the same elements. The boundaries of the space are defined and a container is constructed using tools familiar to the practitioners. The area is cleared of negative energies (most usually through intention) and any specific energies not useful to the work at hand are identified through awareness and awakening skills and dealt with.
My perception of the Native American form of calling in the seven directions relates to Dr. David Bohm’s perceptions of the unmanifested state of being (implicate enfolded order) and the manifested state (explicate unfolded order). The spirits of the directions are the guardians of creation and the gateway to spirit. In a sense, they hold back the unmanifested worlds. In our normal everyday living the edge of our world lies out beyond the horizon. When sacred space is created by setting a sacred circle and the calling of the directions to the edge of that circle, the effect is to shrink the size of our manifest world and bring the unmanifest closer for easier access.
The Inipi (Sweat Lodge)
An individuals entry into the ceremonial aspects of Native American culture began at birth and continued to mark all the significant changes in their development. Although for many individuals familiarity with higher levels of being was a common aspect of their daily existence, a formal introduction could be said to be made first through the Inipi.
In an interview with Thomas Mails, Frank Fools Crow, a great Teton Sioux ceremonial chief, explained that the heat of the sun and fire carries the power of Wakan Tanka, the great spirit.3 A traditional Lakota story of the origin of the sweat lodge speaks of a warrior who traveled to the lodge of the sun and having won the favor of the sun was given the sacred ceremony of the sweat lodge.4 The power of the sun is gathered and stored by the standing ones, the trees, who transfer their power to the stone people, inyan, who become alive through the heat. In this form they can more easily speak to us. In addition, the water poured in the lodge becomes a healing medicine through invocation and prayer and in the form of steam cleanses and heals the participants.
It is said that the sweat lodge represents the womb of mother earth and those who enter into it give up their old life and are reborn when they emerge. It is perceived to be spherical in shape, the top half being formed by the structure of the sweat lodge and the bottom half forming in the earth beneath. The power of the spirits is called by the directions and focused by the sacred fire, guided across a sacred altar made from earth, cleansed by a pot of smudge whereupon they enter the lodge. While it is said that the lodge represents the womb of mother earth, it is also often said that it is also the whole universe, for in that place one has access to all of creation.
Hambleche (Vision Quest)
For many Native American tribes the seeking of a vision marked the coming of age for young men. The culmination of a childhood or training to be in contact with all things and creatures was to go out to a sacred place with no food or clothing to “cry for a vision”. Through setting of sacred space, fasting and prayer, the individual seeks for an experience of guidance and individual sacred powers. It is from this experience that they form their personal relationship with the divine and the individual expression of their sacred nature in daily life. An individual will seek a vision as many times as he feels necessary throughout their adult life to gain the guidance and power necessary for the completion of their personal and life tasks.
Pipe Ceremony
White Buffalo Calf woman brought seven sacred rites to the Native American peoples. The first and foremost was the Sacred Pipe Ceremony. It was through this ceremony that the people were reminded of their role as the connection between mother earth and father sky and between the material world and the spirit world. It is through the ceremony of the sacred pipe that the power of prayer and intention is manifested into material form.
Sundance
The Sundance is a dance of honoring and sacrifice. During the early part of the 1900’s the federal government forbade the practice of Native American ceremonies and traditions. The Sundance in particular was targeted by this law because it was perceived as being barbaric and heathen. Throughout the early 1900s it was, however, conducted in secret at remote locations. As such the Sundance is a tradition that has continued uninterrupted for many hundreds of years and is considered by the people to be a ceremony necessary for their survival.
The sundancer dances for the people and for their healing. All things are owned by the creator. The only thing that an individual has to offer the creator that is not already his is his or her own flesh. It is in this spirit that the sundancer makes offerings to the creator for the health and healing of their family, friends, and community.
In my personal observations, I have seen an energetic structure created. Through their sacrifice and effort, the dancers provide an extraordinary level of intention, awareness, and a channel for energy to move. The tree at the center of the dance ground provides the focus for the energy to move. The dance supporters create the holding and grounding that allows the dancers to attain this altered state with minimal damage and pain. The dancers, the supporters and the tree combine to create a powerful energetic/prayer engine that spreads prayers and healing over the world like a giant mushroom cloud. During the summer “sundance season” when many such ceremonies are being held around the world, the planet is being bathed in an atmosphere of prayer and healing.
Naraya (The Dance of Legends)
It is told that the Naraya was given to the people by coyote, the one who tricks us to encourage us to ask the hard questions, to help the people heal or ward off sickness or bad and harmful events. Emily Hill, tribal elder of the western Shoshone stated, “The songs of the Naraya were here long before our fathers and our great grandmothers. They say that when you sing those songs it makes the grass grow, the berries grow, the water run.”. According to Duane Wahtomy, a Bannock traditionalist, “The purpose of the dance in the last decade was to honor and renew the earth. The tribal elders that were keepers of the dance held the view that it must not be lost, that and vision and dance must continue to be danced in order for the people and earth to survive.
The Naraya is danced in a circle with men and women shuffling their feet, dancing sunwise(clockwise) while singing the sacred songs. The name “Naraya” simply refers to this side-shuffling or dragging step of the dance.5
In the late 1800’s the Paiute prophet, Wovoka, had a near death experience when struck by lightning on a mountain. He lay as if dead for tree days. Upon his return he began to hold dances based upon the Naraya tradition which included his vision of all peoples living in harmony and friendship and the restoration of the traditional Native American way of living. As the dance spread from tribe to tribe in those difficult times, it became misunderstood. Many tribes interpreted his vision as meaning that all the white people in America would be destroyed and the lands returned to the Native Americans. It was this permutation that became known as the “Ghost Dance”.6
The Naraya is often perceived as a dance for healing and renewal, both personal and planetary. In this regard, it contains many aspects which parallel BBSH models. There are no spectators at a Naraya. All those who are present participate in the ceremony. It is thus a very personal and private experience and it is not appropriate to discuss details in this forum.
Past, Present, Future
The ancient traditions carry power for very practical reasons, not just for some unknown and mystical concept. They embody methods of communication and interaction with energies and spirits that exist outside of our everyday level of awareness and experience. They are familiar to the spirits and provide a known framework with in which to interact. At the same time, traditions evolve and change over time in order to be relevant and meaningful to the times in which they exist. There is then always a dynamic tension and balance that needs to be struck in ceremony between traditional ways of doing things that provide a familiar road for all who are involved in the ceremony, spirit and material forms, to travel, and the exigencies of the moment.
The tragic experiences of the past are an important part of the context in which today's ceremonies are conducted. They are a part of the whole that must be acknowledged in order to to have a clear balance. They are a source of much poignancy and power and are an integral part of the bridge between the past and the future that is a part of every ceremony.
Transfiguration - Entering into At-One-Ment
It is through the process of transformation that we make the shift from a physically-based reality to a consciousness based reality. Holding clear intentionality aligned with divinity brings us to a greater experience of our Inner Divine Essence, and we begin to enter a profound awareness of the true nature of what was perceived as boundary.7
The process of transfiguration is a natural outgrowth of the process of transcendence and as such is present in both the BBSH and Native American models.
Transfiguration is evident in the Native American tradition through the importance of silence in that culture. In ceremony and daily life, silence was highly valued. In community and inter-community councils silence played a crucial role. It was in the silence that what had been said by an individual was carefully considered by all. The contribution of the individual was duly honored and considered and from that integration another contribution to the council was born. In this way process of the life pulse(expansion-stasis-contraction-stasis) was incorporated into the communication process which allowed for the development of a group consensus on any particular matter under consideration. Silence also provided the opportunity for deeper levels of interpersonal communications. It is through silence that the power of intention(the haric dimension) is manifested.
Native Americans considered the circle as the foundational model of reality. In contrast, western culture views the straight line as the foundational model of reality. It is from the circle that Native American belief in the relatedness of all things arises. The importance of the circle also gives further indication of the awareness of the process of the life pulse and the deeper aspects of consciousness.
The process of transfiguration is in evidence throughout the structure of Native American traditions and ceremonies. The awareness of the energetic or spiritual nature of reality was interwoven through out their daily lives.
The Healing
When I first began my experiences in Native American ceremony I was somewhat baffled about the role that the ancestors played in their tradition. My western cultural training did not include any concepts beyond a certain understanding of world view and character traits that were passed consciously or unconsciously from generation to generation. I had a perception that much of what is considered genetic is most likely energetic or consciousness based. My BBSH training had taught me that I had made specific choices in who my parents were for this lifetime but I could not fathom what those would have been. My feelings of being a Native American trapped in a white body and my anger and hate toward my western culture and the damage they had done to the earth and the Native Americans had no rational explanation. As I began to look more deeply into my family history, I uncovered the fact that my family had been living on the American continent for almost 370 years. During a healing session with a BBSH senior it was revealed that during the time I had lived as a Mandan Indian in southern Minnesota my direct ancestors had been the ones who had displaced me from my ancestral home. In addition, one might consider that it would be impossible for my ancestors to not have had many interactions with Native Americans. One relative spent a summer just after the civil war in upstate New York with a New Hampshire regiment burning down Native American villages. It was then that many of my personal feelings, world view, and reasons for choosing this family and this body began to come into focus. I contain within my physical lineage all the elements of the western culture and its effects on the American continent. My spiritual being contains all the elements of the Native American tradition. The disastrous clash, and the woundings that resulted from the meeting of the two cultures was embodied in my present form. My personal and world tasks began to come into focus. What was outside me was also inside me. The healing work that I have to do as on individual is at the same time directly reflected in the outer world. My lifetime longing to be more deeply connected with nature, to communicate with the animals and the land began to have a deeper reflection in the healing of a two cultures.
Mother Earth and Father Sky
The many religions of the settlers who came to America, were for the most part Christian based. While the origins of Christianity included personal spiritual vision and the mother principle, early in the first millennium after the coming of Christ, the church made a conscious effort to reduce the role of the feminine in its religious teachings and to eliminate the concept of a personal connection with God and the father spirit in order to exert and maintain control over the people.8 The only access to these were through the intercession of the priests and the church structure. This is reflected in the concerted efforts to eliminate or usurp all the earth based religious cultures in Europe, The Druidic culture was completely eliminated and the Celtic and European continental cultures were systematically dismantled and subsumed. Many on the Christian religious holidays were moved to incorporate and disempower the native cultural and religious power.
By the time the Christian based culture moved to the Americas, any reference or attempt to access the earth energies in a sacred way was considered to be satanic or evil and was not tolerated. As Native American religious traditions were strongly earth based, the colonists and subsequent generations regarded them as evil and demonic.
The Native American view of reality was centered around the concept that every one and everything is related. They had a strong and intuitive sense that the land and all that existed upon it had equal rights to respect and full access. The earth and its resources were to be held in common by all beings. The Great Spirit owned the land, the Native Americans were its caretakers. The European view, that nature was a force to be conquered, owned, subdued and exploited was in direct conflict with the Native American viewpoint. The colonist saw the land as something to be owned. These divergent viewpoints spawned a disaster.
For the European settlers the mother principle was effectively held in shadow, they had no choice to but to view the Native American viewpoint as either incomprehensible or completely wrong. To attempt to integrate them and their culture into their world view was a direct threat to the power of the church. The end result was an attempt at conversion. When it was clear that conversion of Native American culture was impossible, the only other alternative was to eliminate and destroy them. The history of the United States expansion throughout America is replete with germ warfare, massacres of millions of women and children, forced relocation, broken treaties, war, cultural repression and destruction of the environment with the aim of destroying Native American culture that continues into this present day. It is estimated that in 1875 there were between 50 and 75 million buffalo in North America. By the end of the century there were less than 400 remaining. The majority of these were slaughtered as a part of a government campaign to impoverish the plains tribes whose existence depended on the buffalo for their survival, and to allow the construction and operation of the intercontinental railroad.
The imbalance of the Christian father spirit based religion has wreaked its havoc on the earth. From the perspective of characterologies, the predominately Schizoid and Oral characterologies with the Psychopathic overlay of the culture have manifested in physical form. The Mother earth and nature is not a force that nurtures and sustains, but rather a force that must be dominated, manipulated and controlled. There is never enough so as much as possible must be gathered and stored and not shared. The angers and woundings held in shadow find their way into the expression of an entire culture.
It is important to acknowledge and bring out of shadow, the tragedies of the past and hold them in our consciousness. The healing is not in reparations, or any act of contrition. The healing is simply allowing the experience of the past to exist in harmony with the realities of the present so that the energy and power that is held may be released to be available for new creation. When both sides can see the roles that each played in the creation of the experience then there is the possibility for new outcomes
Drumvalo Melchizedek’s work with the Flower of Life geometries reveals that the Platonic solids are derived from the structure of the sphere which is the basis of the structure of creation.9 The circular and the linear need not be in conflict with each other as they are different aspects of the same construction.
The mother and father archetypes are often respectively represented by the circular and the linear as well. The conquest of the Native Americans did not solve the underlying problem and so it has continued to manifest in different ways.
The healing between the Native American culture and the Western culture does not lie in the triumph of one over the other, just as the conflict between the masculine and feminine archetypes is not healed by the triumph of one over the other. The healing is in perceiving how the two world views are a part of the same whole and can exist together for mutual benefit.
Bringing it Home
What is manifest in the outer world is also present within us. The antagonism between the Native American culture and the Western/White culture exists within me. Occasionally I will hear myself say or think something that clearly reflects this, a denigration of the western lack of contact with nature, a stray thought about how “Indians” can’t get it together in western culture, or a longing for the way it used to be when I roamed across the plains free and autonomous.
The dance between the masculine and the feminine is present too, a reflection of the cultural split. How is it that the passive and active principles can reside in one place? What does “masculine” mean? “feminine”? Where do they seem to contradict each other? Where to they support each other? How do these elements manifest in my life? What is the experience of their balance within?
I watch these things, and I work with them. Sometimes I can feel the weight of my ancestors and tradition holding me back. Sometimes I can feel them supporting me. Sometimes when I have an insight or a healing I can feel it reverberate back in time to heal my ancestors and forward in time to change the lives of those who walk after me. For indeed, we are truly all related, at the core of our being we have connection with all things created. The path is, as always, to understand that.
Mitakue Oyasin (All My Relations)
Brennan Healing Science Practitioner, '03
BS Brennan Healing Science, '07