Native American Blogger

Because many of us find ourselves in this position I share this email with you! My mother is 1/4 piikani, and so I don't look the part so to speak, but I feel a connection to this world. To the old ways. Days when your people were thankful to our mother, and brothers upon her. It is ironic that I share more blood with the invaders of this continent than its people, for I would have stood beside my darker brothers to defend your home that has been taken. It means nothing in these great many days after the event, but I am sorry for what my people have done in the past, and as the days progress, I am still the same person but I feel a greater conection to my lost heritage than I did before. I feel a brotherhood to the people of 1/8 of my blood more than all the white man's. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oki Brother (This reply from Summer Fawn - my partner) It matters not one iota whether yo

Grey-Haired Brigade They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs.  Some of us are "Baby Boomers" getting ready to retire.  Others have been retired for some time.  We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were.  We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together.  Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true.  But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.    In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age.  Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience.  We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes.  For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they

This type is Email is typical of the questions I get from confused folks who are having trouble figuring this concept out. Hopefully through this answer I can get some rest :) Hello, When I was a young boy around 10 I had a near death experience in a drowning. I was alone in a big pool trying to get in a floating device when it tilted over. I remember going down backwards trying to swim but I was falling backwards fast. I remember seeing a bright light radiating in the water and then all I remember me walking up the pool stairs with nobody realizing I was drowning. I never, ever forget that and I'm now 41. Ever since then I was looking for answers on what happened and I was told that I survived for a reason. I've been on a spiritual quest and practicing native Indian spirituality. Ever since I was little I always been   enthusiastic about native Indians and don't know why until now. I was told by few shamans that I was born a shaman healer and in my past life I was a fem

Each one of us need to listen to this with rapt attention. I understand it is long but you can break this up into bite size chunks if needed. One thing I need to point out is that during this interview the mention is made that Russell is fighting the ignorance all by himself. I'm here to say that is far from the truth. Dedicated people all over the world work for the rights and freedom of the Native American People! When one person goes down another comes up. I am here to recognize those people and thank them. The other thing I want to point out is that I agree totally with his view of matriarchy.  God knows everyone needs to learn to be gentle as a Mother knows how to be. I learned it but only after a bitter - bitter fight with myself to let gentleness through. Give real women a chance to change life as we know it. (I do not mean feminists who have damaged the human race beyon

Appeal from Russell Means

Oki Niksokowa –  I live in what should be a pristine environment of the Adirondack Park in Northern New York! A national park that covers over 6 million acres of wilderness land,  one that on any given weekend is invaded by out of state people from New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts  to the point of overflowing. I have lived here most of my life which is a very long time to endure the incredible lack of freedom and privacy that should be afforded by all this space.  During that time I have come to resent these out of stater's who come here and do to our Adirondack Mountains what they have done to their own states. I mean my God these people make a mess of their own environments to the point of non-livability and have nowhere to go but here and then they have the incredible lack of respect to mess up our home – criticize our laid back lives and impose their wills upon their hosts – something that would not be tolerated by Native People some 300 years ago. I d

Oki - For all of you out there who think you understand the Ways of the Native People of this Land, watch this movie and then ask yourself how much you understand. We have suffered all of our lives from the disillusionment and hate of the white people. From your selfishness and greed and your religious malarkey that continues breed the type of priests in this movie. You call yourselves civilized and yet you continue to turn away from your own countrymen. We fight along side you in your wars that have nothing to do with us, we suffer when you suffer and we pay what you pay and yet you ignore us who are more in need than any other race that you can name. Our men suffer a death rate six times higher than the white man and our children commit suicide rather than suffer as their parents have and yet you ignore us. What separates white people from the evil that you bring down on us? - Two Feathers Redhawk Watch and be truly educated - Ho

HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA’S MESSAGE ON THE COMMEMORATION OF THE 1ST ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 The September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were deeply shocking and very sad. I regard such terrible destructive actions as acts of hatred, for violence is the result of destructive emotions. Events of this kind make clear that if we allow our human intelligence to be guided and controlled by negative emotions like hatred, the consequences are disastrous. How to respond to such an attack is a very difficult question to answer. Of course, those who are dealing with the problem may know better, but I feel that careful consideration is necessary and that it is appropriate to respond to an act of violence by employing the principles of non-violence. This is of great importance. The attacks on the United States were shocking, but retaliation that involves the use of further violence may not be the best solution in the long r

Most of you who know me personally know that I am a complex, happy yet angry man of mixed Blackfoot and Scottish blood. I have fought hard for many years for an understanding of our Native American people of this land to gain a foothold in society where our people can pull themselves up and out of what was created for them by a selfish and greedy white man mind set. I have watched the white man propel themselves along a pathway to self-destruction much as they have murdered my people in all ways. Spiritually – physically – mentally and morally we have been lied too, stolen from, massacred, used to gain personal uplifting (oh yes I am married to a Native American – how wonderful am I!), you name the Evil and it has been done to us. But then you see what – a native society on the razors edge of total annihilation and you turn your selfish backs on us an go and help Haitians, people in the Middle East who incidentally are waiting for the opportunity to fulfill the o

* Take any help you can get. Stay involved with some ongoing context for learning and working on communication. We all can receive invaluable support from courses we have taken. There are groups of people willing to contribute to other people everywhere there are people. That is one fine thing about which we current humans should all be very happy. Some groups are better at supporting people than others, but the world is full of people who wish to contribute to other people. * Grow or die. If you don't keep growing you go dead. * Have a long conversation (some time when you are not arguing) about when you first got together and how your relationship has evolved over time. Talk about times of jealousy, times of not much of anything, times of not much sex, times of sex that's not much, times you have worked well together. Talk about how your marriage has been a cauldron. Talk about when you have made the cauldron into a flower pot. Summary We are back to the beginning

* Create together some common cause you are both interested in and committed to accomplishing. This opens up the possibility of working together, in communication with each other, in agreement about what you are both dedicated to accomplishing. You feel helped by each other, grateful to each other, willing to acknowledge each other, and capable of bringing about results in the world together. Actually creating something together is a lot of fun. Babies are fun to create, although they are a hell of a lot of work for a long time. Creating is a lot more fun than bitching and whining. * Stay involved with other people committed to telling the truth and to something bigger than their own comfort. An honest relationship with other couples supports your couple. Couples need another couple or two for friends. If intimacy doesn't extend to friends and extended family, the network of support is too thin. If you have even one good friend to both people, to whom both can talk and who suppo

Desperation is a terrible basis for union. If the couple I just talked about had gotten married when they got scared they were about to lose each other, and stayed married on that basis, it would have been a desperate union. That kind of marriage sucks. Loving the holy human prototype is more important than loving the personality. The holy human prototype is the person you see when you look into someone else's eyes without prejudgment. The holy human prototype is like a child. It is the noticer. It is the being, just like you, just across from you. It is the being who, you can tell by just looking, like looking in a mirror, has the same kind of electric circuitry as yourself. You can love that being of the other as much as you love yourself. When that being is a child, you can love him/her more than yourself. Beings do a better job of loving each other than minds. Things That Help Couples Have A Powerful Relationship * Complete any incomplete relationships with your paren

The man had a predictable built-in reaction to this, which was "Oh shit! Here we go again. Why can't I ever have a relationship work out? Just when I was thinking about us moving in together, she wants to back away. This is how it always goes. I am never quite good enough. I am good, but not good enough." As you see, the condition by this time had become two minds relating to each other as "Its", coming out of the same mouths that used to be used by their beings for love. They are both right about each other when they say "you changed" because, of course, both have changed. In just six weeks, they have changed from beings out of their mind with love into minded beings. Half of these wonderful beginnings split up. If they are "like-minded" beings, they stay together in boredom the rest of their lives. If they escape their minds' beliefs about each other repeatedly, they have a successful relationship. I talked to this particular man a

Next, after a few of these arguments, the two parties alternate between feeling insecure and feeling angry. When one gets angry, the other gets scared he or she is about to be abandoned. This alternating process occurs a few times. Then, a discussion like the following one occurs. The fellow is his age makes no difference, has been divorced more than a few times, and is in a relationship with seeker who is being coached on having relationships based on telling the truth. His last lover had walked out on him; he still "loved" her, of course, since she had rejected him. "I really love you", he said. "These month's since we met have been just great. I have never told anyone so much, or had such an honest relationship. I thought, in the beginning, there would be all kinds of bells and whistles. But there aren't any bells or whistles or rockets going off. I have dreaded this conversation for a some time now. I think I am more involved with you than you a

Intimacy is not the same thing as romance. Being "in Love" at the beginning of a relationship is wonderful. I think it is the result of us getting in touch with being, through another person. When you fall in love and get in that blissful state, you just love being, your being, and the being of the beloved, and the being of all beings in the world. You are "home" in that rediscovered sense of unity and bliss. As Kris Kristofferson sings: She wasn't quite as pretty as some others I have known, and she wasn't good at conversation when we were alone, but she had a way of makin' me believe that I belonged. And it felt like comin' home when I loved her. 'Cause she brightened up my day like the early mornin' sun and she made what I was doin' seem worth while. Its the closest thing to livin' that I guess I've ever known, and it left me feelin' warm, when I loved her. Kris Kristofferson, "When I Loved Her&q

A Short Story – One day many years ago I and a friend visited Mesa Verde for the first time! Upon entry into the park I had a short vision of the whole place going up in smoke. Two weeks after we got back home the park burned – every bit that was burnable when up like tinder. In the picture below you can see that it was taken from a vantage point across the canyon. This can easily be reached by a short drive. It is in fact an overlook on the western edge in which one can look at all the buildings on the other side. On this day it was hot I recall 104 degrees and there was not a whisper of air moving anywhere. Nothing… I felt very close to the ancestors here and I thought I could feel them clustered around us everywhere we went. From a pouch that I carried for sacred acknowledgements and thanks I pulled a pinch of corn meal, said a prayer and then let it trickle out of my fingers. As it left my fingers a breath of wind came up and blew it straight across to the dwellings be

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. -Leo Tolstoy As you might have noticed I changed the title of this series. In retrospect while the concept of intimacy turning to hate is a very real problem in our society that is not the message I am trying to get across. I am not in a place of hate and I don’t want to give that impression. I am in a place of wonder however at the gross inept society that we live in. To return America to a land of real honor you must first ask the indigenous people to forgive your forefathers mistakes and sins. America is by far the most violent nation in the world today. Why America is so violent is the subject of much discussion and debate but never is anyone speaking to the real reasons or offering any real solutions. Gun control, they say. We must put more controls. Yes more controls will do it. How about bullet control? Why not cutting everyone's hands off so if they want to shoot - only shooting with their feet.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Leo Tolstoy In many if not most tribal settings the children’s upbringing is a function of the whole tribe with the moral teachings coming from the aunts and uncles, not the parents. The feeling is that an aunt or uncle are enough separated from the emotions of a mom or dad that the advice they provide will be more attuned to the consciousness of the child and not the wants and needs of the parent. The children are not punished but are subject to the peer pressure of their age groups and much emphasis is placed on how each child is viewed by the tribe as whole. It seems a child will react much more positively when they are directed by the opinions of other people besides their parents whom a child will much more likely rebel against. This in turn results in the ability of the parent to show the child how much they are loved if the parent does not have to then discipline the child which puts the child in a place

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Leo Tolstoy I am going to attempt to show what I believe is the causation of all types of violence that is occurring in the world. While there are many forms of violence and the effects have many causes and come from many different places the reasons are coming from one place, one source and can in simplicity be resolved with a very different result than what we are seeing. What we are seeing coming from our species is there because if the lack of true intimacy in our lives. I question my own use of the word intimacy because it only engenders a limited understanding of what it truly represents but in reality intimacy extends to all aspects of our lives and we have to learn to extend it in all areas of our existence. What we as a species tend to aspire to is a mimicry of those in our society that seem to get an inordinate amount of attention. Unfortunately this attention by all definitions is usually negative,

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.        - Leo Tolstoy Oki I am going to take drastic detour from my normal ranting's to a place much more personal and closer to the heart. Some of you I am sure are going to be angry at what I am about to disclose and will ask to be unsubscribed from my mailing.  That is fine if you cannot face truth now then so be it but I intend to post this on my blog as well.  http://natalk.blogspot.com/ So if you start to come down off your bruised ego to a point of thinking maybe you don't know everything you can go there and read these postings. On my way home today from Queensbury and grocery shopping I got caught up in listening to the 50 th Anniversary of Amnesty International on NPR and what it was attempting to accomplish and found myself wondering how the hell did we get to a place where such an organization is necessary. I look at the incredible selfishness of public employees across this great nation as

Subject: Maxine Poses a Question Let me get this straight . . . .. We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are   forced to purchase   and fined   if we don't, Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people , without adding   a single new doctor , but provides for   16,000 new IRS  agents , Written by a committee whose chairman   says he   doesn't understand it , passed   by a Congress   that didn’t read   it but exempted   themselves from it, and signed by a President who   smokes , with   funding   administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes , for which we’ll be   taxed for four years  before   any “benefits” take effect , by a government which has   already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare , all to be overseen by a surgeon general   who is   obese , and   financed   by a country that's   broke!!!!! What the   hell  could P ossibly   go wrong?

We live at the behest of ourselves in order to learn the True lessons of life. Among these teachings are that you never hurt anyone including those that seem to aggravate you the most. If a person aggravates you - you can bet they are getting a bit close to home and you must listen to the lesson. Those that aggravate the most have many of the qualities that you have that you wish you could abolish. Those who hold grudges or use them to further their own agenda's are the Sacred Evil in our world! When challenged by Sacred Evil one must not give in to the temptation of retribution but instead think and do kind deeds for these vendors of terror! Through your unselfish acts of Love and compassion they will become less Evil and even begin to change for the greater good according to Creators laws. If you cannot forgive a persons unkind words or deeds you become exactly the pain and suffering that you believe they have inflicted upon you. You will then live to re-experience the unk

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. A poem from the English Poet William Ernest Henley

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"Perhaps the more important power of Mindfulness is its power to deal with distress. After practicing Mindfulness for a while, we would make an important discovery, that we tend to REACT towards situations. When something happens, or somebody says or does something, we react with anger, or happiness, or hatred etc etc. From here, I learned the first and most important lesson about happiness, that I am fully responsible for how I feel. Thus, it is not skillful to say, "he MAKES ME feel angry". If he "MAKES me" feel angry, then why is it that ten other people in the same situation would react in ten different ways? And not all of them would be angry. The truth is that *I* react with anger to the situation. So it's more skillful to say, "*I* feel angry about what he said", instead of "*HE* makes me...". There is an important difference here. The difference is that I take full responsibility for my own feelings instead of

Oki Niksokowa If you are Native American or have access to genuine Native American products that you wish to sell I would be interested in hearing from you. I have three site's to advertise your products. Spiritalk Net Native Americans Online Native American Blogspot If your willing to share a portion of your profits with us, we are interested in advertising your products for you. Simply comment to this posting and include your contact information. I will be in touch with you ASAP. Waatowa Pistoto, Two Feathers - Kainaiwa - Blackfoot Nation