Gosh.... He's handsome, those cheek bones :smile:

It is a representation of The White Buffalo Calf Maiden.
Like Christianity follows a male Jesus Christ, in our Way of Life
we follow the teachings brought by a Woman that teaches us The Way
to The Father Wakan Tanka the Great Mystery Spirit or Great Spirit.
She brought the Chanunpa Wakan or Sacred Pipe and gave rites and instructions
to the people. The Chanunpa Wakan or White Buffalo Calf Pipe is still in the possession
of our Pope like leader. Arvoll Looking Horse :smile:
Those that follow the Chanunpa Wakan Way,(Sacred Pipe Way) say it is not a religion but a Way of Life.
The Chanunpa Way has a Church, we call it Nature or our Mother, that gives and sustains
our Life in the in-between Sky and Earth.

I don’t consciously/intentionally carry my resentment luggage in daily life, but when racism rears its ugly head – of course it is the old wound opening up again and this (as a child; - subconscious) need to protect gran, now meaning whoever is in the receiving end of racism.

I do not take ‘sides’ – but have a guess what side racist situations themselves generally put me in.

In this case I would ‘side with’ the white male:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58NFBsEsVqQ
… like these dudes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrAOWURvU98
But had she (in the video) been ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ instead of African/American - my bias would show in my comment to her:
“Why is cultural appropriation activism turning you ‘white’ - girl? Have you no understanding of indigenous spirituality left in you?”

That was good – and sounded proper-right.

*

My Western, ‘white’ Social Justice Warrior grandfather hated the Church (well, actually, he hated those Lutheran ‘moral authority’ clergymen who had sexually abused their young female servants. (My great-great grandfather’s untold story and the Fennoman propaganda).
So, he also allegedly hated the Church oppression of the ‘Natives’.
Besides, he thought all that ‘spirituality stuff’ was just plain nonsense. “Religion is the opium of the people” was his motto, so spirituality too was just for the uneducated feeble mind fruit loops - he thought.

In his superiority, (like any proper-right white man understands himself to be) – he saw it his mission to educate the dumb blacks (gran) or the natives and teach them the Western thought. And his superiority and his SJW-rightness saw no limits as to how many tickets he could pin on himself (i.e. this to sell/have tickets on yourself ... thing) – and what’s more – generally people believed him, were blinded by his conceptual *rap (as everybody saw how good looking, handsome he was aaaand how good a provider for his family ... which he was).

But all the nonsense talk about spirits, animal spirit helpers, omens, premonitions, other dimensions, trances etc. was supposed to be out – yet my grandfather became a constant unwilling witness to them due to all that being my auntie’s and uncle’s reality (and mine too – I should add).

Gran was non-dual, so all this talk about Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ (All Are Related) was given reality, not any conceptual native belief.
But my grandfather, due to his superiority (as I saw it as a child) he could not “shift” into this non-dual mode or perspective.
Gran saw this ‘superiority’ as a live-comedy-act and just laughed and laughed and laughed, whereas I just got angrier and angrier and angrier and, in the end, hated my contradictory hypocrite grandfather like a plague and wowed never-ever! - marry a white-man like gran had done.
And of course I didn’t, but ‘married into a black tribe’ instead ….
How could one ever trust a man (or anyone) who cannot shift into nonduality nor even see you – nor acknowledge (your) spirit!

Gran had known better though. I think she had foreseen him come good in the end, which he did in the last years of his life when the tickets started falling off him and the penny dropped when he himself started having other-dimensional-spiritual visions.
Maybe in his past life, he had been one of those moral authority clergymen who had abused their power sexually and who had also committed crimes against the indigenous – but had repented and had now been born into a circumstance which enabled him to learn from that ‘other side’.

Everyone needs healing – the former oppressors and the oppressed alike.
And we all knew how healing gran’s presence was – even he was fully accepted into ‘non-dual oneness’ he himself couldn’t see but.

In principle I do this too, but the realty of this blindness - instead of making me laugh - ****es me off.
But what ****es me off the most is, when the ‘cultural appropriation nazis’ became so “white” in their campaign strategy tactics and approach to supposedly “protect native spirituality” (and do not even themselves realize/see they are doing this, nor would they see spirit even if it sat on their face ....). And I see this as actually destroying the spirituality they are pretending to "save".

And idiot ‘whites’ (from a wealthy middle class) believe in their conceptual ** and thus they can be milked for funds etc.
“You too can become a defender of native spirituality, by supporting/validating/donating to my SJW image/propaganda cause”.
“You too can become connected to the indigenous through your service to our brand of SJWhood work”.

Very wary of SJWs I am … black, indigenous or white.

*

sentient

Yup. I too carry early learned traits and coping mechanisms in my wagon that now carries
my luggage of old defective characteristics that I don't find beneficial in daily life.
It is much lighter to pull them in my wagon rather than carry them on my back.
Trust plays a big part in my decision making.
I use defective traits less and less and I'm finding it much easier to reject the use of them.
I feel so much peace these days that when that stuff does come up
I can feel it effecting me like standing to close to the fire.
It feels very uncomfortable.


The underdog side?

In reference to the white guy with dreads: I would classify that vid. as ridiculousness.
First the girl was just spreading her animosity and found a target. Then the guy seemed to have a prepared 'Egyptian' response that seemed
like his justification. So he seemed not really secure in his own identity wearing the dreads.
I did not know there was even such a thing as the hair police. LOL

Cultural appropriations is a hard subject to analyze.
I usually place them in 2 categories. #1 Ridiculousness #2 Theft.
Cultures have been traded and borrowed and incorporated for eons.
I am not saying that some cultural things should not be protected.

It seems to be the resentment and anger and disrespect that gets this type of SJW practice to go sideways.
I have seen Spiritual leaders use respectful, humble strait talk to people, many times in the form of a question
or maybe a story. I have seen a whole lot of ridiculousness around Native ceremonies where the public is invited though.
It seems like we are living in the age of political correctness and shaming.
An old religious practice, I think it's called "being preached to" and inquisition. LOL
The biggest appropriator is museums and anthropologists and collectors. IMO.

I'll end here and continue later.

Thank you for sharing these powerful images.

The last time I was on the reservation, to see a class graduate from high school, three amazing things happened.

I took photos of a student who was a friend. She was in a rug dress woven with sacred symbols. (The photos, when developed, were blank) power of symbols.

My you son, age 3 at the time, awoke from a nap and told us all he had seen Thunder man. (A spirit had followed her husband home from a ceremony)

Lastly, my friends sister in law sat with us and told me of protections...and prophecy stories. One of which was the white buffalo. They also shared with me the need to prepare for the future.

These picture remind me of that time. I see it all clear as the moment occurred.

Again, thank you ImthatIm!

I would agree with ImthatIm that is what i have always believed also.
Beautiful images,



Namaste

I don't know but I always appreciate the history, religion, and cultures of other races. At some point, I thought, we are indeed diverse but all the lines go back into one lineage. Btw, love the images and the meaning behind them.

Thanks for sharing part of your life.
It is wonderful to have these powerful moments in time come back into our lives.
I have been recently learning greatly from past ceremony and occurrences.
It amazes me how they can still teach.
Your son sounds like a Thunder dreamer.
Here are a few articles from the Nativetimes.
The author talks of Thunder dreamers in the Lakota way.
The Thunder dreamer may also be called a Sacred Clown or Heyoka.
These articles may interest you.

https://www.nativetimes.com/6203-hey...aturals-among-

https://www.nativetimes.com/index.ph...han-his-shadow

Interesting story Alana, thanks for joining in.

From the other thread:

http://www.american-pictures.com/gallery/

In general:
Certainly an eye opener. Jacob used to tell his American stories with pictures at his home in central Copenhagen & I was very glad for having been shown this other side of reality.

More or less just around the corner where Jacob lived, Innuits used to gather, so the pain of his own street where Innuits were quite literally dying at his feet remained … unseen, unacknowledged.
Because it must be the other countries’ colonialism and colonial racist attitudes that cause suffering … innit?

Even the white – skeletons with scabs, heroin addicts - had better, more hopeful lives/futures with the many programs to help them.

I suppose the situation in Canada is similar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfugACqFP58

Aaaand never mind America – what about the ‘pictures’ of Africans, African Americans, the Caribbeans who came to live in Copenhagen. If the story there wasn’t as shocking in parts as in America – I don’t know what 'shocking' is ... for I was shocked ...

Still I’m angry/sad - maybe mostly at myself, because I was no better - did nothing but was fast becoming a useless alcoholic myself trying to drown the painful reality I felt trapped in.

So you are not the only one ImthatIm, but perhaps the reasons for our drinking were different.

*

It is just that with all these beautiful images and concepts - one has to acknowledge the potentiality of fake pipe carriers ........
besides; - Does Looking Back Woman Have ‘The’ Sacred Pipe?:
http://www.awarenessmag.com/julaug06...oking_back.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCJKtQGtnvo

This is not a matter for an outsider to get involved in, but to be aware of.

*

Thank you ImthatIm. I will read the articles. It may be time to tell this story to my son. :smile:

sentient


In a way I deeply miss your Gran and I am so happy that you had a Gran like this
that showed you a way to be in Life.
I am glad you have shared a part of your Life. "Everyone needs healing" is such a true statement.
I have dedicated my Life to self healing through Spirit and helping others heal, that want to come together
and heal in a circle or group. When I first sobered up and discovered a life of healing
through self examination, I could not believe the different person I had become.
Before that I only knew self destruction and creating turmoil.
It was a difference of night and day. Then later, much later did I even consider anything
like nondual and serving a higher purpose.
So I have engrained destructive patterns that are part of my psyche that entered in from
my earliest life through my upbringing. It has been an amazing journey
to heal through Spirit and Life and seeing the whole universe align to
bring about healing. I am amazed daily that I still have Life and opportunity to be simply in AWE of Life.
With the most precious gift to heal some more by discovery and letting go of myself.
So I guess in a way I am envious in a good way of you and your Gran.
So here is a nod to your Gran.

We all have one world and one Love so we might as well share
and become of one mind and share also in our uniqueness
with gratitude.:smile:

I tend to stay out of squabbles these days.

You want me to acknowledge that all kinds of crazy stuff happens in Indian country
in and around Pipe carriers and The Calf Pipe?
Absolutely it does.
People can buy pipes, steal pipes at gun point and all sorts
shortcuts are taken by many.
This world is full of all kinds of people.

I don't know anything about Suzanne Dupree, or her claims.
Watched the vids. of her. Not sure what she is expressing.

Ah, but she was such a bitter disappointment to my "Tickets-On-Himself" SJW grandfather to swallow, - who wished to educate her and to groom her to become "somebody", or a person with "important-self-image" about her "indigeousness"... in order to then exploit/use her as a figurehead for his own agenda/gains.

So, his attempts to make her an important personality were as successful as people trying to ride a camel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMC0IK_wFsI

She was no shaman, just an utterly ordinary indig. person coming from a tradition which laughed at ego/self-importance, like you laugh at a camel
- she wasn't going to sell it as "indigenous spirituality".

First things first:
https://media.buzzle.com/media/image...out-camels.jpg

*

Not really directed at you ImthatIm, but what you said:


But. IF any of us outsiders to Amerind ways would come to believe in pipe carriers and would for a reason or another become involved, then we would be put in the position of having to face a controversy and having to choose for ourselves who or what presents this spirituality – what doesn’t:
https://jpwade.wordpress.com/2012/06...ing-horse-lie/

*

ImthatIm, do you think the Thunder Dreamers are not going extinct, but are actually integrated in society and therefore go unnoticed? Except for the antidotal stories?

I wonder if he grew up on the reservation if elders could help him understand his gifts better? The world is lacking in a way to help you people “know” themselves and embrace their uniqueness.

When He was 10, he had us check out Navajo Language tapes from the library. :smile:

He is such an old soul.

Honestly, ImthatIm.

The first time I ever heard of Arvol, was a Lakota person saying he is a fraud.
Since I am not Lakotan, Amerind nor even American I am not entitled to speak for Lakotas, Amerinds nor Americans.

The only thing I can say, is, that there seems to be a division in belief of who the right pipe carrier is, and it is up to Lakotas themselves to sort this out.

Outsiders really should trust their own spirit guidance or their personal link with spirit.

I respect the ways taught by the White Buffalo Calf Woman as I think all those are excellent.

As for the rest, people really need to decide for themselves, whom to trust.

*

In our stories - a birth of a white reindeer is a good omen:
https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/s...66&postcount=2

But our stories really seem to follow the Arctic narrative.
It is the animals themselves that take pity on humans.

A maiden at certain circumstances either meets a bear or a deer & marries him:
https://assets.lily.fi/sites/lily/fi...idenkansa5.jpg

People go hungry and the bear or the deer or the moose etc. decides to give the flesh of his own body to feed them.
But hunters have to do the proper-right ceremonies to finally release the spirit to its heavenly home - to come back again:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...iZ9OQ&usqp=CAU

The Master of the Forest (or the Sea) decides if there is game to be hunted any particular day and the individual animal decides, whether and when or even if it sacrifices itself to be food for humans.

*

Thanks for the laughs with the camel vid.
I am sure that your Gran had her own medicine that she shared.
You know, they say laughter is the best medicine.

I am at peace with my story of the Calf Pipe keeper.
This is how it was told to me.
Everyone is free to have there own telling of the way they think it is. :smile:

The 2 keepers talked of in this thread are free to sort it out.
It does not disrupt anything in me. LOL :smile:

Goody-good then ImthatIm.
Because entering the 'injun country' to me is like stepping into a mine-field and I am quite shell-shocked already.


https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5PBwDDvTV...i_reindeer.jpg

*

This IS a beautiful and ever so important Amerind story - Thank you for bringing it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reoUMEQCd1o

And the seven ceremonies are so valuable to keep.

Info about the pipe (for non-NDNs):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiPtT4vY-M

From the video:
Pipe as an "energy conductor" for energetic thought-form and he called that an "energy signature"..
Interesting ....

In my culture "the energy conductors" are some specific trees (symbolic of the World Pole), but of course a Shaman no longer needs to do these symbolic acts.
"The Spirit Horse" that came and took the shaman-to-be-person to-the-other-side during the "Shamanic-Death-Experience" and also brought him/her back into the body - now is the energy between the Earth & Sky carrying the prayers. (What Tibetans call the "Windhorse" and Mongolians "Hiimori" - the now 'extra soul of the Shaman').

But the expression "Walks like a living prayer" should be clear enough - no?
Either understood by these symbolic acts or as an already existent "energy signature" of a holy person.
What the Sage intends .... manifests ...

*

His gifts/Spirit will pull or lure him into the right path for him.
I do not think Thunder dreamers are extinct.
He can perfect his gifts as much as He is willing to be open to and commit to them.
He will have His whole lifetime to perfect them or not.
It will be His choice, and it will all depend on His level of commitment.
His interests will probably lead Him as time goes on.

Most tribes have some sort of Thunder society or clans.

Nice little vid. on the White Buffalo Calf Maiden.
Also your 2nd vid. is excellent. I Love 'Not a Medicine Mans' practical teachings.
Yes, there is ritual and then there is beyond ritual.
I could also say the Pipe represent me. To be a Hollow Bone. Yes?

Yes.:smile:

Computer finally crashed so I have to clank out words on a old slow laptop.
So I may also be slow, in my responses.

Yes, yes. These rituals are invaluable teaching tools explaining/demonstrating how things work in practice.
And yes, first one uses a conduit (unified male-female energy) and when the scales tip over one becomes a conduit …. i.e. one becomes nothing, a-beyond-gender ‘hollow bone’ shaman.

Although Amerinds do not have shamans:
So, sometimes these things can be understood across the board, sometimes not. And sometimes the same words used to describe different indigenous peoples’ ways can be wrong and even downright offensive.

One doesn’t call Spiritual Elders “Chiefs”:
http://www.artnet.com/artists/charle...KviNORg0TJx2Q2

And here is why:
https://www.creativespirits.info/abo...l%20University.

One wouldn’t have called a shaman a “chief” either. Ours wasn’t a personality cult. How does one make a figurehead, a ”celebrity” out of a person who has ‘died to the self’ – who became a ‘hollow bone’ in order to serve all? (All one’s relations).

People do borrow meanings from Amerind lingo though, as if it was a common language for all 'natives' :
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ANTIQUE-...-/302745297189

War paint! … What the …?:
http://www.personally-selected-abori...-painting.html

https://www.aboriginal-art-australia...-painting-art/

I don’t know of body painting in shamanism. People expressed their totems, beliefs, spirit helpers, protectors etc. etc. through jewellery and their belonging to a specific ‘nation’ through clothing.

*

Maybe I had told about this story before. At one time, met this Elder/Healer (‘medicine man’) in an event. He had a paper tube on his head and when I asked about it, he said: “The Pope has got one too, so why shouldn’t I?”

- Which I thought was fair enough.

His name was/is "Nose Peg" (Although he wasn’t wearing one at that time).

Another old picture (I trust) of a healer:
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vpyjfaqh

*

Thank you! He will find his way, no doubt. He is working out the empath part first.

That was a good post ImthatIm and it sounded true.

However on the other matter, I cannot quite imagine a hereditary pipe carrier as a “chief” or as a “pope like leader.”
This conjures up an Indo-European hierarchical worldview.
Surely there is a difference there – no?

*

Yes, I agree.
I hesitated using it that way. I decided to live dangerously that day. LOL
I was relating it as an example, but they are totally different.
Though, I cannot speak to how different or how much they
have in common. I have never walked in eithers shoes.

Arvol calls himself chief as a title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynkdlsekUHE

Nice to hear that.
I Hope nothing but goodness for you and your family.

Some Louie Gonnie music
On our Road of Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V38iEVjhP1s

A persons experience of his first sweat/purification lodge.
I liked hearing him tell his story.
I could relate.

Vid. is about 14min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBPc0wVTwM0

This vid. is for libbyscorp if you wander this way.
Or anyone who cares to listen.
Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee
(Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy).(1:11.29 long.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbwSwUMNyPU

Heh, just one word can become like a minefield.
For some the word “chief” is just a language difference, for others it represents a fundamental difference between Western and Indigenous thought.


I really enjoyed Oren Lyons' talk.
Ok. This is very familiar. The World Tree or the World Pole with Eagle on top. Centre and a circle. In the circle diversity, at the centre nonduality.
Egolessness serving the welfare of All Life is how Spiritual Elder leads by example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoxNyNWFvZw

***

When Amerinds talk about “Europeans”, they do not seem to realize they are talking about or are describing the Indo-European ways and perspectives.

Original/Aboriginal Europeans were hunter-gatherers.

Agriculture and the beginnings of animal husbandry came into Europe with Near Eastern migrants seeking new lands to cultivate since they had turned the Fertile Crescent into a desert:

They brought this Earth Goddess belief system with them & this is what people call the “Old Europe”.
Lithuanians are original European hunter-gatherers who embraced agriculture and these Earth-Goddess beliefs early:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k34hXty4iw

Indo-European or Kurgan invasion happened much later and much of the population and the language in Europe was replaced:
https://theconversation.com/european...uropeans-38096

To a hunter-gatherer “The Tree of Peace” was/is the Worldview.
However, it seemed, the Kurgans or Aryans had turned their backs on the ‘Laws of Nature’ in favour of ‘Laws of Men’ in order to rule over Nature and prosper.


So, here we are talking about 3 different Worldviews, the hunter-gatherers, the agriculturalists and the Indo-European Dual:


*

That's some interesting stuff, sentient.
I think Man is by nature an opportunist. He will hunt, gather, cultivate and build technologies.
All these I think must be done in balance with Life. To sustain Life. Possibly even to better Life.
There seems to be those that see our Grandmother the earth only as a resource.(They do not recognize Her as a Living Being)
Then those that see Grandmother as one of the sources of this Life.(And recognize Her as a Living Being)

Grandmother Earth the Stone Bowl of Chanunpa.(Female)
Tree of Life the Stem of Chanunpa.(Male)
Put these 2 together and put in your Tabaco with prayers and song and we say your Pipe is loaded.
All you need is to put fire to it and the wind (Breathe)
What you pray for WILL happen.(As a Pipe filling song goes)

Please NO negative thoughts around
a loaded Chanunpa, for these to will happen but come back on you
twice as negative. Not you sentient but just you in general. LOL

One of the rites the White Buffalo Calf Maiden gave was the Sundance.
This dance is done under and attached to and around the Center pole called
the Sundance Tree and also called the Tree of Life.

Here are 2 vids of an old man who talks of the Sundance a bit.

15:43 mins. Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwyaME9Ck_M

19:24 mins. Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev7sIq69CDI

Bonus: 48 mins. of Sundance songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S03llgFtMWw

A little more on the Tree of Peace. Oren Lyons (Onondaga)
10:00 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iVziGHPhVw

Wonderful videos, thank you ImthatIm.
Such a genuine account of how to work with Spirit and how generous also of him to share the knowledge about the Sundance symbols.

*
Oh, I had heard of the Iroquois Confederacy, but what a great story behind it.
Didn’t know the Longfellow's poem, The Song of Hiawatha was tied to that story.
Because Elias was Finnish and Finland was an agricultural society which for a long time had been under Swedish rule and Kalevala poems mainly came from Viena, “Russian Karelia”,
http://www.juminkeko.fi/viena/taustaa/pieni_kartta.jpg
…. from original hunter-gatherer and shamanic people – Lonnrot did not have the mind-set to understand them and left a lot out as unsuitable for publication.

The two mind-sets:
https://images.cdn.tiede.fi/MKFq2Hwz...?itok=X2DaScbx

But thank goodness for this:
https://finland.fi/arts-culture/alte...in-the-making/

*

P.S. I just learned this:

*

sentient

Your two mind-sets picture reminded me where my thinking was at.

I had heard it told that the pilgrims were taught how to farm/cultivate
by using Native agriculture, especially the Three sisters system.
Corn/Squash/Beans.



So a hunter gather society teaching an agricultural/industrial society to survive by farming.
What?
So me thinks to just separate the two is not so simple.
Me thinks the mind sets are:
1. Receiving in Thanksgiving from Earth/Grandmother living in balance with Her.(Ours)Mitakuye Oyasin
2. Taking from Earth/dirt as a consumer and conqueror, seeing the Earth as something to subdue.(Mine) My God given right to Takeey and conquer in the Name of the Lord. Foolishness.

P.S. And the Bear probably taught the three sister method to the people.
Bear is the Chief teacher of the Plants and Herbal Medicines. eh?

A message from John Trudell on becoming a human being.

19:00 mins.or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=180vRsMmqNI

And a song: John Trudell: The cleansing (Red Earth song).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rYxUjedmNM

Some more John Trudell (And Quiltman singing backup and drum)
From His albulm: But This isn't El Salvador.


Song of the Trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdip-Far6Cs

The newspaper stand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haa2uV_1atQ

Please be careful of how many Links you post


Namaste

I remember last time. Native Spirit
Which leads me to say I hate to put you in this position again.

You specifically told me I should not do what I just did.
My bad.
I get carried away. LOL

I am here to better my writing skills, so I guess I will
try harder to accomplish my goals. Links are kind of cheating for me.:biggrin:

Thanks for putting me back on track.