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The Lakota Way of Strength and Courage
Joseph Marshall III was born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and was raised by his maternal grandparents. He is an author, historian, educator, motivational speaker, Lakota craftsman, and has been both technical advisor and actor in television movies, including Return to Lonesome Dove. A recipient of the Wyoming Humanities Award, he is the author of four collections of essays and short stories. In this book that is brimming with wisdom, Marshall shares stories, talks about the bow and arrow, the role of elders, the perseverance and resilience need for surviving difficulties, and the pride he takes in his tribe and tradition.
Through stories, history, and examples from his own life, the author explores five teachings on transformation, simplicity, purpose, strength, and resiliency. Along the way, Marshall shares the riches of Native American spirituality. Here are a few examples:
• "Silence is difficult to ignore."
• "By 1890, the circumstances for all native people in the West could be summed up in one word: overwhelmed."
• "The most profound difference is the diminished role of elders in our families and communities, and most notably their absence in the leadership hierarchies."
• "I wonder sometimes if we modern humans are past the salvation of simplicity."
• "People kept track of their age by how many winters they had lived, because winter was the toughest season of the year."
• "My grandparents taught me a lot through stories. Family history, events, situations, dilemmas — all had a lesson."
• "Our purposes form from or rise out of the kind of people we are, what our values are, and where and how those purposes can fit into the world around us."
• "Nothing ever stays the same, but paradoxically, very few things change completely. There is always something remaining of the original."
• "Emotional, mental, and spiritual strength is the first line of defense against hardship and difficulty."
• "Wisdom is the basis for strength in any society, culture, or nation. And the source of wisdom is in our elders. It is the epitome of stupidity and arrogance to ignore that reality."
A tribute to the character qualities that enable the Lakota people to survive.
Joyce Sequichie Hifler in When the Night Bird Sings
[This is] what the Sioux Chief said when the tribe was watching the white men takes riches out of the Black Hills. "The whites think they are getting rich by digging in the hills, but the Sioux are rich from looking at the hills."
[This is] what the Sioux Chief said
Path of the Sacred Pipe
Jay Cleve is a psychologist, a shamanic healer, and an energy healer. He has trained extensively in the Sacred Pipe with Ojibway and Lakota elders. In this excellent work, Cleve presents the history, background, cosmology, and spiritual philosophy of the Sacred Pipe. Some tribal leaders have had visions of this ancient ritual being taken up by all peoples. Or as John Fire Lame Deer declared: "We must all work together, both white and Indian, for we are all the children of the same Great Spirit."
Cleve takes a look at the attention to detail involved in the creation of a pipe's bowl and the stem, the various types of pipes, and the pipe bag. He reveals the importance of the tobacco and prayers from the Medicine Wheel — along with animal keepers of the Four Directions. Cleve does an admirable job explaining the ceremonies with the Sacred Pipe, the Sweat Lodge, the Vision Quest, and The Sun Dance. In closing, he writes:
"The Sacred Pipe helps us stay on the path of the Good Red Road, which can best be described as conducting our lives in a way that puts us in harmony with all of creation. This spiritual path is based on the understanding that we are all part of the great circle of life, and being 'spiritual' means finding our place and proper function in this circle."
An excellent presentation of the history, background, cosmology, and spiritual meanings of the Sacred Pipe ceremony.
Godfrey Chips in Walking on the Wind
I'm the spirit's janitor. All I do is wipe the windows a little bit so you can see out for yourself.
I'm the spirit's janitor
Don Jose Matsuwa in Profiles in Wisdom: Native Elders Speak About the Earth
Never take a leaf or move a pebble without asking permission. Always ask permission. That maintains the balance and teaches humility. That leaf you want to pluck could be far more important than the little purpose you have in mind. You don't know--so ask permission first.
Never take a leaf or move a pebble without asking permission
Tipi
World-renowned author and illustrator Paul Goble (All Our Relatives), winner of the prestigious Caldecott Award, has a message for young readers of his new book: "When I was your age my mother made me a small tipi and painted it with Native American symbols. It excited my interest, and made me want to know more. This book is the kind of book I began looking for, but never found. So I have made it for you." He has gathered together a treasure trove of information, stories, legends, and 150 full color drawings of the construction and art of tipis. Tradition among the Plains Indians has it that the shape of the rustling cottonwood tree gave the First Man and the First Woman the idea for this distinctive form of shelter.
"A beautiful tipi is like a good mother: she hugs her children and protects them from heat and cold, snow and rain," the Lakota are fond of saying. Tipis belonged to the women who chose where to camp, selected the site for the tipis and constructed them.
Flying Hawk, a Lakota, said: "The tipi is much better to live in; always clean, warm in winter, cool in summer, easy to move. The white man builds big house, cost much money, like a big cage, shut out sun, can never move: always sick." Tipi doors face the East so that every morning the people awoke to see the Morning Star rising and witnessed the sun's rays through the smoke hole and door. A closed tipi door is the same as it being locked; visitors announced themselves with a cough or a tap. For many years, thievery was non-existent in the Indian community.
Black Elk said: "The Lakota loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. To sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly, and to see more clearly into the mysteries of life and to come into closer kinship with other living things." No wonder sitting in a tipi in silence or resting on the ground in sleep were so soothing.
Goble presents many examples of the art of tipis and the ways in which different tribes decorated these shelters. This is an absolutely gorgeous paperback filled with exquisite drawings and a deep respect for Native American beauty, meaning and reverence for the natural world.
A gorgeous paperback filled with deep respect for Native American beauty, meaning, and reverence for the natural world.
The Desert Is Theirs
Meet the strong brown Desert People who love the place where they live. The sun blazes down, and the hawks fly overhead as the lizards run in the sand. Birds nesting in the cactus sing out over the thorns. Only the toughest plants survive.
The animals share their wisdom with the Desert People. They in turn treat all creatures with respect and share everything with them. The desert provides for everyone. A year that is hard is hard for people and scorpions alike. Rain is a blessing for all and that is why it always pays to be patient. The desert has "its own kind of time," the time that snakes, rains, rocks, and Desert People go by.
Byrd Baylor draws a touching portrait of the desert community and the connections that sustain life there. The drawings by Peter Parnall are delightful.
An exquisite children's book about the desert community and the connections that sustain life there.
The Ancestors' Path
John Lavinnder has studied Native American lore for 25 years, first with an Odawa shaman in Canada and later with elder Fred Wahpepah in California. This divination system consists of a 240 page book, a quest map, a moon map, element and totem dice, and a compass. Based on Native American spirituality, it is designed to evoke the same kinds of insights one might receive on a vision quest. The element dice includes symbols for thunder, sun, rain, wind, earth, and sky. On the totem dice are representations of warrior, serpent, elk, fish, turtle, and eagle.
The author writes: "This system is rooted in the Six Directions — East, South, West, North, Above, and Below — and it incorporates and reflects a Native American worldview concerning the interrelatedness of all things, most importantly the physical world represented by Mother Earth and the spiritual realm of Great Spirit." You throw the dice to get a combination of element and totem, then consult the booklet for an explanation of this path and its application to your life.
Based on the six directions and the interrelatedness of all things.
What I've Always Known
"There's a war going on. A war against mother earth. I wonder whose side you on?" Clayton Tommy, an Okanogan Indian elder asks the author, who has lived for many years in the Pacific Northwest. Tom Harmer, an outdoorsman and hunter, reconnects with this spiritual teacher after a close encounter with death one night in the forests of Washington near the Canadian border. The elder agrees to share with him the "old power way." And so the journey begins as Harmer becomes attuned to a "numinous, knowing feel for the earth that was disappearing from people's hearts."
Harmer lives under the influence and protection of a spirit animal, learns power dreaming, tries his hand at foretelling the weather, and participates in sweatlodges and healing ceremonies. It is a new way of being that connects him with the earth and all living beings. And this power has nothing to do with control over things or knowing in the head: "Power didn't have anything to do with the part of me that thought and decided about how things worked. Power crept along unnoticed under the floorboards of things, moved behind the curtain of what was in front of me, and only showed up on the periphery of what was at hand."
This spiritual memoir will leave you with a deep respect for the Native American path of power that acknowledges mystery as the source of the natural world.
Recounts the author's wilderness learning from an Okanogan Indian elder in the old power way.
Healing Ceremonies
Carl A. Hammerschlag, a psychiatrist and explorer of Native American healing, and Howard D. Silverman, a family physician, teach at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. This excellent paperback presents their view that medicine and spirit are not incompatible.
The authors define healing ceremonies as "activities that take place only on special occasions and that are consciously designed to produce beneficial effects." These activities often involve stories, expression of our visions, and pathways to inspiration and awe. Hammerschlag and Silverman outline the ceremonial seasons of a life from birth to old age with commentary on the need to deal with change, power, mastery, service, and union with God. The last segment of the book, "Creating Personal Rituals for Health," is primer on crafting special occasions for healing, forgiveness, blessing, and letting go.
A fine primer on the transformations that can grow out of a melding of medicine and spirit.