Ahbleza
June 8th, 2009, 07:55 PM
http://grantlawrence.blogspot.com/2009/05/reliance-on-humans-or-spirits-tribal.html
Reliance On Humans or Spirits ? A Tribal Perspective
Compared to Imperial Western Cultures, Native American ways are an entirely different world and worldview, in every way. Like any culture, the different parts of life and belief and practice all integrate together cohesively, and as such they pretty much rise and fall together. Native ways are pretty much the opposite to Western ways, across the board : even if you go back just one or two centuries, the old- timer White American settlers ironically considered the Indians to be backward and primitive, so very alien- how much MORE SO moderns comparing themselves to Indians !
Westerners/ Moderns tend to break up nature and life into various categories rather than accept the whole. For Natives, everything was a spiritual experience, and most Ceremonies consisted really of Ceremonies WITHIN Ceremonies. ( A truly profound Shamanic KEY, if you understand it. )
The most Central Ceremonies are Pipe and Medicine Wheel and Sweat Lodge.
Pipe represents the unifying or resolution of the basic Dualisms in the Universe, and as they relate to humans, they see their peak expression in the male and female of human sexuality.
Medicine Wheel goes on to relate and to order the larger more complicated relationships in life and society and Nature. Relationships that are not only Dualistic but also Cyclical. Medicine Wheel points to Balance.
The Sweat Lodge is a way of Praying, but it is about praying in a more powerful way- the Spirits who are being appealed to by the Indians just are not the equivalent of the Western ' God '.
Read Hank Wesselman's latest newsletter-
( http://www.sharedwisdom.com/newsletters/Understanding_the_three_stages_of_spiritual_unfold ing.html )- it explains a lot about how this works. Judeo- Christian prayer is about belief- not about relating or action or relationship. These spiritual beliefs that Western institutional people have do not usually reflect the way the real Spirit world works. There are some hints of Shamanism in the Old Testament and even the works of Jesus- but Westerners have, rather than preserving knowledge of those Shamanic ( or Tribal Medicine ) Ways, they have deliberately tried to destroy all practice and even records of those pre- historic ways- that is why we go to great effort and expense to find or rediscover and recover Tribal Ways.
Western Cultures ( of Mass Agriculturists ) are founded on the premise that short- cuts ought to be taken in going from a state of having human needs that are not met to obtaining those needs. And those short- cuts need to be forced by the application of very energy intensive methods. It is a short- circuiting and over- simplification of the processes in Nature that had historically supplied human needs. Energy transfers facilitated by the making and use of tools and infrastructure that is also energy intensive as well as resource intensive. ( Western sentiments are such that short- term success is viewed as automatic assurance of long- term success. ) Relationships in such a way of life are primarily Humanistic and Human- Institutional which see little need for connection to Nature and Nature Spirits. ( Large- Scale Agriculture was the template for that way of life : early ' less developed ' Agriculture retained some values that exalted Nature, but each advance in Agricultural development came at the expense of devaluing Nature Awareness to lower and lower status. )
Tribal Cultures are founded on the premise that pre- existing systems in Nature ought to be sufficient in taking humans from a state of having human needs that are not met to obtaining those needs. Humans ought to observe and learn about the highly complex energy and information pathways in Nature, and adapt their behavior to accommodate those cooperatively ( Hunting/ Gathering and Grazing ), or to selectively enhance those positively without degrading their basic functioning ( as in small- scale Agriculture ). Relationships in such a way of life are primarily Naturalistic, and human awareness of the complex of relationships among living things in the ecosystem makes the human being much more sensitive to the presence of Nature Spirits who naturally inhabit and/ or emerge from such a complex web of living energy and information pathways that comprise ' Nature'. Tribes learn the advantage to them offered by connection to Nature and Nature Spirits, and they develop ways of relating to those Spirits by implementing Ceremonial Practices that often mirror or parallel or emulate in a small way the structures in Nature from which the Spirits emerge. Tribes seek to appeal to Spirits connected to a specific Phenomenon in Nature whose workings they seek to enhance, enable or be personally empowered by.
Mass Agriculturists appeal to fellow humans and their Humanistic Institutions ( aloof social Leadership ), and typically to Anthropomorphized Gods ( also aloof ), as substitute for Tribal people's direct appeal to Nature Spirits.
The black- and- white contrast between Mass Agriculturists and Tribes has entirely to do with availability and use of carbon- based fuels for energy. For Tribes : wood and other plant fibers and food intake calories. For Mass Agriculturists : since they began as Tribes, wood and other plant fibers and food intake calories, then adoption of clearcutting mass deforestation techniques, then coal, then oil and gas, then nuclear. The reason is it takes vast amounts of energy to supplement or replace the functioning Natural Systems and even more energy to defer or circumvent the adverse unintended consequences.
A really big problem I have noticed among whites learning about Native ways and Shamanism is that the New Age has misrepresented a lot of that. New Age is a mixture, really a natural process called Synchretism, of mixing many alternative ways in a very NON- radical way- but that is not authentic Tribal at all. I mean that to believe and think a little differently is not radical compared to actually acting and living radically differently. New Age is pretty conservative, ironically. New Age, rather than just starting collective human culture over again ( basing that on surviving Tribal knowledge ), New Age keeps repeatedly referring to Judeo- Christianity and Buddhism and New Science as a reference rather than just cutting ties to all the Mono- Theisms and Modernisms that are still rooted in the Western worldview.
http://grantlawrence.blogspot.com/2009/05/reliance-on-humans-or-spirits-tribal.html
Kevin Puppos, Toledo, Ohio
Ahbleza Kevin Ahbleza,
The Born Observer- The Watcher of Beauty-
He Who Sees the People's Path to Life
Reliance On Humans or Spirits ? A Tribal Perspective
Compared to Imperial Western Cultures, Native American ways are an entirely different world and worldview, in every way. Like any culture, the different parts of life and belief and practice all integrate together cohesively, and as such they pretty much rise and fall together. Native ways are pretty much the opposite to Western ways, across the board : even if you go back just one or two centuries, the old- timer White American settlers ironically considered the Indians to be backward and primitive, so very alien- how much MORE SO moderns comparing themselves to Indians !
Westerners/ Moderns tend to break up nature and life into various categories rather than accept the whole. For Natives, everything was a spiritual experience, and most Ceremonies consisted really of Ceremonies WITHIN Ceremonies. ( A truly profound Shamanic KEY, if you understand it. )
The most Central Ceremonies are Pipe and Medicine Wheel and Sweat Lodge.
Pipe represents the unifying or resolution of the basic Dualisms in the Universe, and as they relate to humans, they see their peak expression in the male and female of human sexuality.
Medicine Wheel goes on to relate and to order the larger more complicated relationships in life and society and Nature. Relationships that are not only Dualistic but also Cyclical. Medicine Wheel points to Balance.
The Sweat Lodge is a way of Praying, but it is about praying in a more powerful way- the Spirits who are being appealed to by the Indians just are not the equivalent of the Western ' God '.
Read Hank Wesselman's latest newsletter-
( http://www.sharedwisdom.com/newsletters/Understanding_the_three_stages_of_spiritual_unfold ing.html )- it explains a lot about how this works. Judeo- Christian prayer is about belief- not about relating or action or relationship. These spiritual beliefs that Western institutional people have do not usually reflect the way the real Spirit world works. There are some hints of Shamanism in the Old Testament and even the works of Jesus- but Westerners have, rather than preserving knowledge of those Shamanic ( or Tribal Medicine ) Ways, they have deliberately tried to destroy all practice and even records of those pre- historic ways- that is why we go to great effort and expense to find or rediscover and recover Tribal Ways.
Western Cultures ( of Mass Agriculturists ) are founded on the premise that short- cuts ought to be taken in going from a state of having human needs that are not met to obtaining those needs. And those short- cuts need to be forced by the application of very energy intensive methods. It is a short- circuiting and over- simplification of the processes in Nature that had historically supplied human needs. Energy transfers facilitated by the making and use of tools and infrastructure that is also energy intensive as well as resource intensive. ( Western sentiments are such that short- term success is viewed as automatic assurance of long- term success. ) Relationships in such a way of life are primarily Humanistic and Human- Institutional which see little need for connection to Nature and Nature Spirits. ( Large- Scale Agriculture was the template for that way of life : early ' less developed ' Agriculture retained some values that exalted Nature, but each advance in Agricultural development came at the expense of devaluing Nature Awareness to lower and lower status. )
Tribal Cultures are founded on the premise that pre- existing systems in Nature ought to be sufficient in taking humans from a state of having human needs that are not met to obtaining those needs. Humans ought to observe and learn about the highly complex energy and information pathways in Nature, and adapt their behavior to accommodate those cooperatively ( Hunting/ Gathering and Grazing ), or to selectively enhance those positively without degrading their basic functioning ( as in small- scale Agriculture ). Relationships in such a way of life are primarily Naturalistic, and human awareness of the complex of relationships among living things in the ecosystem makes the human being much more sensitive to the presence of Nature Spirits who naturally inhabit and/ or emerge from such a complex web of living energy and information pathways that comprise ' Nature'. Tribes learn the advantage to them offered by connection to Nature and Nature Spirits, and they develop ways of relating to those Spirits by implementing Ceremonial Practices that often mirror or parallel or emulate in a small way the structures in Nature from which the Spirits emerge. Tribes seek to appeal to Spirits connected to a specific Phenomenon in Nature whose workings they seek to enhance, enable or be personally empowered by.
Mass Agriculturists appeal to fellow humans and their Humanistic Institutions ( aloof social Leadership ), and typically to Anthropomorphized Gods ( also aloof ), as substitute for Tribal people's direct appeal to Nature Spirits.
The black- and- white contrast between Mass Agriculturists and Tribes has entirely to do with availability and use of carbon- based fuels for energy. For Tribes : wood and other plant fibers and food intake calories. For Mass Agriculturists : since they began as Tribes, wood and other plant fibers and food intake calories, then adoption of clearcutting mass deforestation techniques, then coal, then oil and gas, then nuclear. The reason is it takes vast amounts of energy to supplement or replace the functioning Natural Systems and even more energy to defer or circumvent the adverse unintended consequences.
A really big problem I have noticed among whites learning about Native ways and Shamanism is that the New Age has misrepresented a lot of that. New Age is a mixture, really a natural process called Synchretism, of mixing many alternative ways in a very NON- radical way- but that is not authentic Tribal at all. I mean that to believe and think a little differently is not radical compared to actually acting and living radically differently. New Age is pretty conservative, ironically. New Age, rather than just starting collective human culture over again ( basing that on surviving Tribal knowledge ), New Age keeps repeatedly referring to Judeo- Christianity and Buddhism and New Science as a reference rather than just cutting ties to all the Mono- Theisms and Modernisms that are still rooted in the Western worldview.
http://grantlawrence.blogspot.com/2009/05/reliance-on-humans-or-spirits-tribal.html
Kevin Puppos, Toledo, Ohio
Ahbleza Kevin Ahbleza,
The Born Observer- The Watcher of Beauty-
He Who Sees the People's Path to Life