Reprise
Tomorrow's my guest post on the Balanced Life Center's Blog. The title will be The Great Spirit and the content's about my personal experiences with Native American Spirituality.
Even though I was raised by two Christian ministers (Mom and Dad), my Indian experiences were much more "spiritual" then what our family did...
Now that I'm in my 60's I can see the value in all Spiritual Traditions.
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Since I wrote that guest post for Balanced Life Center, I've begun reading Black Elk Speaks--had to; couldn't help it even though I had other, more "important" things to read...
So, here I am in a rather contemplative mood--a Caucasian with a love for Indians, a blogger who's actually a poet, a man who has his feminine side well-honed, a Baha'i who loves all religions, an American who's striving to be a Global Citizen...
And that Global Perspective brings me back to a focus in this blog's recent past:
Please check out the post, Be The Change.... It's only a couple days old but, in the Blogosphere, that's ancient.
I really want to shift from the Personal Commentaries to a more Global Perspective but I'd really rather have some of You steer me in the direction of the stories or topics or issues You'd like Spiritual Commentary on...
2 comments:
Alex,
I enjoyed your blog about your love of the "Red Path," as we call it, as I am white, Aztec/Nahuatl Indian, and Hispanic, so even though I am blonde, I come from people of color....
I volunteered as a secretary to a Native American Medicine Man Nick Hall, when I worked for him at the Southern Oregon Indian Center, in Grants Pass, Oregon, (where I live), which is pretty much closed down, due to a lack of funding at this time.
I did work with other Native Americans for five months though, and it did change me as I attended Pow Wows all of my life, but this time, I knew the dancers in "full regalia," whereas before I worked there, I thought they were called, "costumes." lol
I let people calling our office know when the upcoming Pow Wows were, and had attended one at the Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, and got to watch my boss (then) and his wife, do a traditional Native American dance around the circle, with all of the other intertribal dancers.
I learned that the fancy dancing is only for the young ones, and the senior citizens are called, "Elders," and are highly esteemed with all tribes, as our center has held an "Elder's Supper," honoring our Elders since they first opened in Grants Pass, Oregon, years ago.
We did not work on a "res," as they call it, or a reservation, so the government would not donote government surplus groceries for our members and community recepients of our food boxes, when they were in need of food for sustenance, and were going through a rough patch in their lives....
Since they could not get more than one grant from a grant writer for $1,000.00, him and his wife had to pretty much close down the center, which went from 200 + members, down to 40 members approximately.
The Southern Oregon Indian Center also had guess speakers at the Elder's Suppers, where we all brought food, and would listen about life for our ancestors in what used to be all of their lands, until they were taken away from them, my ancestors too, as mine are from Mexico, when the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs so long ago, and one of my own family members in Mexico, who had a gold mine, was killed for it, so that gold never was passed down in my family because of that.....
(So that explained why I had always felt different, and had such expensive taste, and not enough money to satisfy it over time! lol)
Well, good luck with this, if you're curious about the SOIC, you can go to their website, and read about some of the things they used to do over the years, including having a Summer camp for our "Seventh Generation," youth, so that they could live in a village like setting and learn about the old ways for themselves first hand, from our own "First Generation Elders," themselves, like they would have done so long ago.
May the Great Spirit of All of Our Fathers and Mothers, be with you and your family always....
BlondeMorticia07
"May the Great Spirit of All of Our Fathers and Mothers, be with you and your family always...."
And also with you...
~ Alex
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