Honoring the Medicine

While traveling in eastern Canada a few years ago I had the opportunity to meet with my old teacher and friend, N’Tsukw. Now in his mid-eighties, he is the last of my original indigenous mentors who is still alive. N’Tsukw is an Innu (called the Montagnais in French and Naskapi in early ethnographies), a branch of the original peoples from Quebec, Labrador, and Baffin Island. To honor the elder, I offered a sacred pipe/prayer ceremony in his honor. We sat on a bench in his ba

I am grateful to you Snowy Owl Take me from the West, where the sun sets, Where my mind sinks into its depths, To your home in the North, Cold northern winds that test and strengthen. And on to the East, place of new light. May I have the courage to make this journey To face my tests with dignity and grace, To see through my places of darkness And release what is old and unneeded. Snowy Owl, you are beautiful! Fly by me with still, silent wings, I know that you bri

For Hawk Littlejohn Long Person, I come to pray with you Where life begins at the edge of earth and water You have been flowing since before I was born; You will sing long after I am gone. Hear now my voice and stretch it back And onwards so it moves, like you, beyond time. Wado! I am thankful for this old friend returned Brother Tawodi, who stood with me on similar banks In our Beloved Mountains, long ago, We were brothers, not only in spirit. Our friendship is sacre

Native American healing wisdom may be needed for the survival of Indians and non-Indians alike. Its emphasis on respect, justice, and frugality with generosity is sound ecology. We need to learn these lessons if we are to prevent the widely prophesied political and economic conflicts or catastrophes and "earth changes": cataclysmic natural events that may occur as part of the Earth's attempts to re-balance the scales that Western civilization has upset. The elders say that th