Soma
Sacred Earth => Native American: The Red Road [Public] => Topic started by: Jennifer- on March 25, 2009, 10:06:41 PM
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Ancestors way of harmony for many moons.
(http://dingo.care2.com/pictures/greenliving/1012/1011850.large.jpg)
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Hearing the Totems
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine pg. 146
In ancient times, our legends say that the creatures spoke to human beings. It is not clear to modern-day humans whether this was metaphor or not. The skeptic would assure us that it was a fairytale legend. How can it be explained to the pseudo-intellectual, that hearing comes from knowing many different kinds of languages and ways to listen?
We can hear the animal's voices when they are wounded, their screams reflecting agony and pain. In any nature biologists field recordings, we can hear the difference in their mating calls and their warning calls. Human beings can mimic the creatures voices and hunters can bring them to any area with replicas of the these sounds. The totem call is different thought; the messages are silent.
The totems consciousness is the essential spirit of the entire tribe of that species. It cannot be heard with the ears; it is a living spirit that aligns with a human being and speaks to that person's inner knowing. Some may hear it as a voice in their own minds, while others feel the messages form as emotions that urge them to follow a certain path. Some people hear their totems through seeing visions. To invalidate the message, or the way we perceive it, is to ignore the language of the totems. Messages from the totems have to be experienced firsthand; otherwise, it is merely a myth to anyone who has forgotten how to hear Spirit.
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Loves all Things
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 192
Mother, show me how love
Beyond my human fear;
Teach me all the joys of life
Beyond the veil of tears.
Let me find the pleasure of
A lover's gentle hands;
Let me know the wisdom of
Respect without demands.
Oh, Keeper of Forgiveness,
Teach me how to see
Beyond the petty judgments,
Supporting human dignity.
I will learn your Medicine
Of Mother, lover, friend,
Teaching others how to love
And broken hearts to mend.
Loves All Things, the clan mother of the 7th moon, reminds us that love is a many-faceted jewel that gives humans
the strength they need to meet the challenges of life. Cherishing one another, and working through all of the barriers
we have created that keep us from loving unconditionally, is a lifetime's work. When we show our willingness to
stretch and to go to the next level of life's dance with others, we grow. This act of cooperation- the equal desire to
grow in unity-is foundation for unbridled creation. Desire is the first step of Creation. If we desire and imagine a loving
environment, we invite it to manifest in our lives.
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;D
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Intimacy with the Natural World
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 23
The Red Race has lived in intimacy with the natural world for all its time. Those who still live with nature, in the manner that creates this imtimate bond, can taste the wind and monitor the migrations of the creatures. These human beings notice every subtle change in the atomosphere, the way a sensitive woman knows and responds to her lover's hands. There is no separation between the movements of the natural world and the sensory responses invoked in a human being who has come to this intimate understanding of Oneness.
If we learn to trust our senses and to respond to the quiet imput of those messages in our consciousness, we can perceive countless subtle indications of change. This kind of intimacy is a valued skill, learned through many trial-and-error experiences. When we master the responses inside of ourselves, learning to trust our senses, the languages of the unspoken inner knowing come alive. This skill can be applied to all areas of our lives. The key to achieving this type of inner awareness comes through intimacy. When we are intimately connected with every reaction and response inside our bodies, while being totally still and silent, new worlds open to us. Is it time for you to trust the responses of your perceptions?
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Worshiping Self Importance
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 82
Those who seek to be glorified, adored, and set upon a pedestal have not yet discovered that it is ultimately a boring and lonely place. When one is no longer allowed to be human, fallible and feeling the end result is disaster. When the falseself image or godlike status is shattered, only emptiness and degradation are allowed to remain.
The real adepts of our world have chosen to remain humble, self effacing, and beautifully human. They walk gently on the earth mother, embracing the love of simply being. Their desire to experience, and to show compassion, is the essence that fires and fuels their passion for life.
Weighs the Truth, the clan mother of the third moon, shows us how easily we can become products of our own self importance. This crooked trail haunts history. The pitfalls are many. One of the final lessons of human wholeness is found in how people learn to handle fame. Whether the congnition is large or small, the effects of fame can lead to false self image. Has any drive for fame thwarted your ability to see yourself? Have you mentally held yourself above others? Have you put someone on a pedistal, disallowing the validity of your sacred point of view. Authentic humility and compassion can bring balance.
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Heart Drum
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 193
When we have made our desire for union known by reclaiming our passion for life, the drums of our hearts call out to others. When we find joy in commonplace, meeting each day with genuine excitement, others are drawn to us. The gift of a positive point of veiw is a sure magnet that creates a curiousity in others who want to discover that kind of happiness. The heart drum is playing a melody that cannot be denied when there is lightness in our steps and a twinkle in our eyes.
The Ancestors called this state of being Walking in Beauty. When a person walks through life in this joyous manner, he or she has found union with the self and can share that love with others. That person's heart drum will call to others who can recognize the spirit of the happy heart's song.
When we are down, we can change our hearts sad melody by finding things to admire and appreciate about our lives. By changing our viewpoint to gratitude, we will not draw negative people to us. Our heart drum cannot call sad or miserable souls to us when it is full of praise.
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:-*
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Reason
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p 69
OUR REASON WILL NEVER DECIPHER THAT WHICH OUR HEARTS CANNOT UNDERSTAND.
Using our gifts of intellect, reasoning ability and deduction is not enough when we are observing the Mystery of Life. There are many things happening in our world that may seem like miracles to those who have not experienced them. When we experience the wonders of life firsthand, we feel it to the core of our beings. These personal experiences may defy rational explanation. It is certain, however, that when we walk through that experience we know and feel our certainty because our hearts understand. No one can ever take that away from us.
Is it time to review how your head may have controlled your heart, creating self-doubt instead of certainty?
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Weighing the Force of Intent
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 83
The young men were learning to hunt with their bows and arrows. The finest archer in the tribe was teaching them the techniques that would bring food to the people. The old hunter told the boys about a strange guidance system that he counted as the secret to his success. He made is own arrows and crafted them with love. He then pricked his finger with his knife, putting one tiny drop of blood on each arrow while he silently placed his intent inside of his creations.
The boys looked curious. What was the intent the Old One placed in his magical arrows? They did not have to wait long before the hunter told them.
"I return thanks to the Great Mystery for the creatures who will bring food to my family. I ask that my arrows be guided, making clean and painless kill. Finally, I place the drop of my blood on each arrow to represent the bond of red blood that I share with my four-legged brothers, and the winged ones, who offer their bodies as food so our people may life. I show my gratitude to the Creator for guiding my hands and these arrows before I ever place on in a bow. That is how I know how far to draw my bowstring back. My honorable intent gives my arrows a strength of their own. My bow is never drawn all the way back. Using too much force would destroy the sacred intent my arrows already carry."
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Savage Passion
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 196
Buried deep in the heart of every human is a savage, wanton passion for life. To love and to be loved, to go beyond survival and to embrace life to its fullest-these are the primal drives of the heart that allow us to continue, even in the face of opposition. The feelings have to become suppressed in so many humans that the passion of primal, loving instinct has almost come to extinction in many sophisticated nations. Some call this passion animalistic. The Ancestors called it the Force behind Divine Creation. Today's pilgrims of life's road can choose to give another name- love.
Loves All Things, the clan mother of the 7th moon, shows us the pitfalls of losing the wanton, savage passion for life. She reminds us that complacency has replaced our love of life every time we believe that our lives cannot be improved. We forget how many times we have compromised parts of our personal aspirations and dreams. By not loving ourselves enough to keep the dream alive, we have lost trust in our personal abilities, rejecting our tenacity and strength. When our dreams are whittled away, the raw passion of creative force disappears in fragments, mirroring every part of our life dreams that we have denied.
It may be time to love yourself enough to reclaim those lost parts of your dream and reawaken your savage, wanton passion for life.
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Reason
These personal experiences may defy rational explanation. It is certain, however, that when we walk through that experience we know and feel our certainty because our hearts understand. No one can ever take that away from us.
Is it time to review how your head may have controlled your heart, creating self-doubt instead of certainty?
Ha!
I was jut thinking about this last night, wondering if and how I would word it, should I decide to formulate a post on the subject.
Thanks Jen
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I like this one, thanks Jen-Raven-Sky :-*
Savage Passion
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 196
Buried deep in the heart of every human is a savage, wanton passion for life. To love and to be loved, to go beyond survival and to embrace life to its fullest-these are the primal drives of the heart that allow us to continue, even in the face of opposition. The feelings have to become suppressed in so many humans that the passion of primal, loving instinct has almost come to extinction in many sophisticated nations. Some call this passion animalistic. The Ancestors called it the Force behind Divine Creation. Today's pilgrims of life's road can choose to give another name- love.
Loves All Things, the clan mother of the 7th moon, shows us the pitfalls of losing the wanton, savage passion for life. She reminds us that complacency has replaced our love of life every time we believe that our lives cannot be improved. We forget how many times we have compromised parts of our personal aspirations and dreams. By not loving ourselves enough to keep the dream alive, we have lost trust in our personal abilities, rejecting our tenacity and strength. When our dreams are whittled away, the raw passion of creative force disappears in fragments, mirroring every part of our life dreams that we have denied.
It may be time to love yourself enough to reclaim those lost parts of your dream and reawaken your savage, wanton passion for life.
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Intuition's Legacy
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p.232
There is a place inside us
Where we feel what we know
If we act on that intuition
Doors open, urging us to grow
The legacy if inner knowing
Comes from Great Mystery's grace
Learning to trust these feelings
Is a talent we develop and embrace
Ultimate trust of the Self
And inspiration's guiding light
Allows humankind to develop
The rare gifts of second sight
When we embrace growth potential
Feeling- with all that we are-
Then the legacy of intuition
Allows us to reach for the stars
Nothing outreaches our senses
Nothing is too hard to attain
We serve the truth through healing
The limitations our minds contain
Intuition is born from reflecting
All the senses that we can feel
Then the implicitly trusting that knowing
Gives the guidance that allows us to heal.
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Healing our Defense Mechanisms
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p. 233
Timber Bear was always complaining about the way he never seemed to be able to find a woman who wanted to be his mate, showing the observer his feelings of inadequacy. At other times, he was known to expound upon the multitude of needed requirements of any woman who would have the honor of being his wife, revealing his puffed up, yet fragile sense of self-importance.
One day Timber Bear's wise father took him aside and had a talk with his confused son. He told Timber Bear that his loneliness was self created. His father explained that women avoid men who refuse to see the inner beauty in other people, seeing only the physical body or social graces. The man who looks for ultimate perfection in a woman shows the world that he is deeply wounded, having no real sense of who he is as a man. If a man knows who he is, and what he is about, he can acknowledge his strengths and his faults with equal humility. When a man has healed his insecurities, there is no need to have the perfect woman to fill in what he feels is lacking in himself. He can love others for who they are-not for how they look or what they do.
Timber Bear's father waited for his words to sink in, then he spoke from this heart. "My son, all human beings use any method they can to defend the hurt places inside themselves, but it is the use of those same defenses that keep people from healing. You cannot shoot arrows into the world through your words and attitudes without hitting other wounded people who will equally defend their hurt with arrows of their own."
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Healing our Immune Systems
Jamie Sams
Earth Medicine p.234
To heal the immune systems of the earth mother, we need a concerted effort to clean the pollution and toxic waste on our planet. To heal the immune system of the animal kingdom, we need to stop putting poisons in the foods they eat or injecting them with unnatural substances. To heal the human immune system is a bit more involved because we have several kinds of immune systems.
The strength of the physical immune system is dependent on what we consume in the way of air, water, other liquids, medications and food. These clean-up jobs can be accomplished through personal determination. Due to various new diseases, the decisions to care about our health also include prevention and willingness to avoid known risks.
The emotional immune system is different. We are not immune to abusive behavior, and emotional or verbal attack. The continueance of being the recipient of this ugly behavior affects people's over all immune system. When people believe they have no way out, the seeming lack of choices has put the will (emotional body) in denial. Mental or physical illness will follow when the emotional immune system is overloaded with denied feelings and refused freewill.
Have you put your health at risk by denying your feelings or your right to make choices about what you are willing to experience or consume? Healing note; Digesting emotional toxins can cause chronic indegestion of the spirit and lack of immunity to feeling helpless and hopelessness.
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If someone is dealing with say, someone who is emotionally or verbally abusive they need to get out of the situation. I know with my ex, years of the crap took its toll. So of course it wasnt an overnight process for me to work 'off' and heal from the whole dilemma I got myself in with him.
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Great post Jennifer.
:-*
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Jamie Jamie Sams is a Native American shaman of Cherokee and Seneca decent, who explains that medicine has to do with anything that makes us feel whole. Indians view medicine as a person’s gifts, including their inner strengths, talents, and abilities. "When we look at the idea of medicine," Jamie Jamie Sams says, "we have to embrace the total person: the body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. When any of these part are out of balance, then there is a need for healing."
The processes used in healing depend on the type of illness. First a person must be diagnosed to see whether their sickness is physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental. Then it is treated accordingly. When the body is sick, herbs, flowers, and other plant matter can be used to promote recovery. Mechanical help is also used, such as setting bones when broken. Spiritual illnesses are handled by medicine people who may work with a person’s dreams, or with what they experience on other dimensions that need to be healed. Some tribes also take into account the influence of past lives. Emotional healing for family upsets, a broken heart, or other problems, and psychological healing for mental illnesses are handled differently still. "Sometimes we need to heal our impatience," Jamie Sams says. "And sometimes we need to heal our frustrations. Many times we need to heal the internal criticism that our brain is constantly carrying on, which makes us feel less than. But always, we need to take a look at that which does not work in our lives, and makes our behavior out of balance towards ourselves and others." Here, Jamie Sams explains important principles of healing for specific circumstances:
Mourning
"In indigenous cultures, when someone that we care about is dying, there is a very intense need to mourn. When you don’t release the mourning, it will make you sick. Certain Anglo cultures have a different concept. If you release the mourning, you are looked at as if you lost control over your emotions. The spirit of the person who has passed away that you cared about is not then free to move on into the spirit world because the mourning was not complete. The people did not purge their bodies of this sense of grief." Jamie Sams adds that mourning to Native people is like a bow. The people moving on are the arrows. Mourning a loss allows the spirit to fly into its new non-physical life.
Healing Pollution for Ourselves, Our World, and Our Future
Jamie Sams notes how we poison our systems on multiple levels: "Bitterness, hatred, and resentment are toxins from our heart, while jealousy and greed poison our thoughts. Then we harm our bodies with unhealthy foods and artificial substances, and hurt our spirits with a lack of gratitude.
In this sickened state, human beings tend to lose balance, and begin to see the world around them as something to abuse as well. "The things that we have done to ourselves internally," notes Jamie Sams, "we have also done to the earth, which is our sustenance."
Native Americans realize that living according to right principles not only helps ourselves and our planet, but insures a future for generations ahead. Jamie Sams notes that, "When we gather herbs to assist someone, we thank each and every plant that the earth mother sends, and we pass the first seven plants to always remember to leave enough for the next seven generations. In doing that, we are honoring the ninth clan mother who looks toward tomorrow for what our children and their children will need on the earth."
Healing Humiliation
Regarding humiliation, Jamie Sams writes, "Humiliation is the one event in human life that becomes unforgettable. The loss of human dignity at the hands of another can be forgiven, but it is rarely, if ever, forgotten. Healing humiliation and the loss of dignity is something that comes from inside a person. No healer, psychologist, doctor, medicine person or teacher can do it for somebody else. Consciously shaming another has dealt many a blow throughout time. Kicking people when they are vulnerable is a tactic of insensitive bullies. The world has been fraught with this behavior since its inception. It never seems to happen when we are feeling strong. It almost always happens when we are dealing with our own self-doubt and self criticism.
"We can heal the need to experience this reflection if we protect ourselves. The key is to notice that if we stop beating ourselves up internally the bullies of the world will quit picking on us externally. In Native American thought, we understand that the external world, and the things we experience in day to day life are mirror reflections that show us what we are doing to ourselves internally. If we honor who we are without an arrogance or sense of pride, but do it in a balanced way, and we walk life in a manner that allows us to honor and respect every other living thing, then we don’t bring the experience into our lives that would necessitate us being shown how it feels to be bullied or humiliated by another human being."
Healing Personal Integrity
"One of the things that human beings need to heal is the idea of hypocrisy. We say walk your talk. Don’t talk your walk. Human beings have learned over the years that spoken words are cheap and promises are often broken. And that, in many cases, is a commitment that is not being honored. So, many times we ask people who have walked the crooked path to heal their personal integrity. That’s a facet of healing that most people do not look at.
In our grandparents and our great grandparents day, a person’s word was their bond. But in this modern world, most times, if we give our word, we aren’t sure that the person we give our word to, and they give their word back is going to honor their personal integrity, because the sense of self has been eroded to the place where we cannot embrace the idea that integrity is everything, that if a person honors themselves, that promise is made to themselves. When you make a promise to another person, you are making it to yourself. That’s another aspect of the great smoking mirror. And when you do not honor your promises to another, you have reflected back to yourself through that great smoking mirror, what you actually think of yourself, which must be very little, because the integrity in your bond and your word was not honored by you, so how can others honor that same thing."
(http://www.native-americans-online.com/images/MedicineWoman.jpg)
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Awesome!
;D
:-* :-*
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(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj117/SnowWolf_oz/Native%20American/Native_American_Art_2.jpg)
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Native Americans realize that living according to right principles not only helps ourselves and our planet, but insures a future for generations ahead. Jamie Sams notes that, "When we gather herbs to assist someone, we thank each and every plant that the earth mother sends, and we pass the first seven plants to always remember to leave enough for the next seven generations. In doing that, we are honoring the ninth clan mother who looks toward tomorrow for what our children and their children will need on the earth."
Dang! I am so impatient to get some of her books!
Thanks for allowing me some snippets, though.
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(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj117/SnowWolf_oz/Native%20American/Native_American_Art_2.jpg)
:) :-*
Dang! I am so impatient to get some of her books!
Thanks for allowing me some snippets, though.
You are very welcome!
I need to get busy typing up some more from her Earth Medicine book for sharing. ;)