Native American Spirituality

[Spirit Dancer]

Great Spirit, give me the knowledge to be in harmony with the spirit today.

[StrongButch]

Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often. The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

[Spirit Dancer]

"This is the time of awakening to the inner father and the inner mother. Without this we will receive no high initiation; instead we get initiated into darkness. That's because any investigation or revolution without God leads, not to freedom, but to more slavery."





--Willaru Huayta, QUECHAU NATION, PERU



Honor the Father and the Mother. Father stands for wisdom and Mother stands for feelings. Inside each of us is the Father and the Mother. If we do not honor both, we will not grow in balance. To honor both the Father and the Mother helps our masculine and feminine sides grow. The winter season is a good time to focus on this. This is our season of reflection. Honoring both sides allows us to see the Creator is both Father and Mother.


Great Spirit, Father Sky, Mother Earth, guide me today. Let me experience balance.

[Spirit Dancer]

“The most important thing now is to reveal the inner temple of the soul with right thinking and right activity.”
–Willaru Huayta, QUECHUA NATION, PERU

The key to growing a strong tree is to have a good system of roots and to feed the roots with good medicine. If we put poison in the root system, it will affect the tree, and it will become obvious to the rest of the forest what is being fed to the roots. This is also true of the human being. We need to feed our roots with right thinking. If our thinking is right, it will become obvious to the rest of the people. We don’t need to tell people about ourselves with our mouth because our actions always tell them.

Great Spirit, direct my thinking today. Feed my roots.

[StrongButch]

Heal yourself, your physical and spiritual bodies. Regenerate yourself with light, and then help those who have poverty of the soul. Return to the inner spirit, which we have abandoned while looking elsewhere for happiness.

[Spirit Dancer]

"Always listen to what the Elders say."





--Dona Josefa Medrano, HUICHOL, SIERRA MADRE, MEXICO



In school we have been taught to go to the encyclopedia when we need information about certain subjects. From the time we are little, we have a natural tendency to seek out role models. When we need information about living we tend to seek out books about living. These maybe self help books. The world is full of information. For the Native people, we have our Elders. All races have Elders. Our lives will run much smoother when we listen to the Elders. They don't always tell us what we want to hear, but they always tell us what we need to hear. The Elders have the ability to make the truth sweet.


Creator, thank You for the Elders. Help me this day to listen to them.

[Spirit Dancer]

Opening a Closed Connection
Consciously Reconnecting




If you feel abandoned or cut off from Spirit, know that it is always there for you waiting for you to plug back in.


There may be times when we feel like our connection to the universe is closed. Maybe things don’t seem to be going well in our day, or our lives, or we may feel out of our element. The truth is, the universe is always there for us. We know that we create our experience with our thoughts, and this is another way we need to make a conscious decision about how we want to experience life. It is up to us to do the work of making the connection, because nobody can do it for us, though sometimes the universe may send us wake-up calls.

You can think of it as getting some fresh air. We are always breathing and the air is always around us, surrounding us, moving through us. But we may need to step outside of where we are in the moment—physically, mentally, or emotionally—and make the conscious choice to take a deep breath in order to feel the air coming in and going out. Whether this means stepping outside physically or merely shifting our thoughts, it is only our perception that changes; the air remains the same.

It is just as easy to reconnect with the universe. Using the same technique as a breath of fresh air, a deep breath can bring us back to our center. As we inhale, we fill our bodies with the oxygen needed to replenish our most basic physical needs, allowing the air to circulate within us. Exhaling, we release the stale, the used, the potentially toxic air, removing any blocks that may keep us from going deeper into the stillness that lies at our center where we connect to the universe. Feeling closed off does not need to be a negative experience. When we become conscious of it, we can think of the wholeness of a closed circuit, which allows electricity to connect and flow properly. Our bodies work the same way, and when we make that connection in our minds, it can help bring us back to the connection we seek.

[Spirit Dancer]

"Also ask your heart to purify and cleanse this defect and harmful desire. Ask also the help of the inner father and mother. Every time we eliminate a defect, we build our soul, our inner temple. We ascend. like going up a stairway."





--Willaru Huayata, QUECHUA NATION, PERU



The building blocks to knowledge and wisdom are constructed through the lessons of our character defects if we constructively review our conduct each day, asking where we are resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid. Remember, we need to review constructively, not destructively. Destructive review is when we ask, "what's the matter with me anyway." or "how could I be so stupid?" These question lead to morbid reflection or remorse and seriously affect our self esteem. In constructive review we ask, "what will I do next time?" With constructive review we progressively eliminate the defect and replace it with wisdom.


My Creator, allow me to have my defects because through them I gain in knowledge of Your will.

[Spirit Dancer]

"The journey to the Spirit World is a long one, my friend. But when you die, that doesn�t mean that this is the end."





--�Buddy Red Bow, LAKOTA



The Elders tell us of the other dimension, the Spirit World. Our spirit in our bodies does not die, it only looks that way to our eyes and our brains. Some of our ceremonies allow us to see into the Spirit World. Death is only part of a process of life. It shows the transition into the Spirit World. The Elders tell us this is a joyful life journey.


My Creator, help me to understand both the seen world and the unseen world. Let me not be afraid of the world You live in.

[Spirit Dancer]

“All life is a circle.”
–Rolling Thunder, CHEROKEE

The atom is a circle, orbits are circles, the earth, moon, and sun are circles. The seasons are circles. The cycle of life is a circle: baby, youth, adult, elder. The sun gives life to the earth who feeds life to the trees whose seeds fall to the earth to grow new trees. We need to practice seeing the cycles that the Great Spirit gave us because this will help us more in our understanding of how things operate. We need to respect these cycles and live in harmony with them.

Great Spirit, let me grow in knowledge of the circle.

[Spirit Dancer]

"We call it the `sacred' red road because it is the road that will lead us to living the good life, an honest and healthy life."





--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA



The Red Road is the path we walk on when we want a direct relationship with the Great Spirit. This requires sacrifice. This requires us to have our beliefs tested. To walk this path is really an honor. The returns for doing so are exciting, not only for ourselves but for the effect that will be felt for three generations. This means your children will see the benefits as well as your grandchildren. Do I want to walk this sacred road?


Great Spirit, guide myself and my family on the Red Road

[Spirit Dancer]

Great Spirit,
Let me not forget even when my mind is weary
you're there on my path holding me up, even in silence.

[Spirit Dancer]

"We grieve more because we have been disconnected from our earth, our first Mother, our spiritual Mother."





--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA



Where does all life come from? The Earth. Where does everything return to? The Earth. Where do values come from? The Earth. Many people are lost because they don't know the importance of connection to the Earth. They connect to money, to relationships, to success, to goals. When we are disconnected from the Earth, we have feelings of being sad or lost. When we are connected to the Earth, we feel warm and secure.


Great Spirit, help me to stay connected to the Mother Earth.

[Spirit Dancer]

In The Presence of Difficulty
Compassion




True compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion.


Compassion is the ability to see the deep connectedness between ourselves and others. Moreover, true compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. When we first begin to practice compassion, this very deep level of understanding may elude us, but we can have faith that if we start where we are, we will eventually feel our way toward it. We move closer to it every time we see past our own self-concern to accommodate concern for others. And, as with any skill, our compassion grows most in the presence of difficulty.

We practice small acts of compassion every day, when our loved ones are short-tempered or another driver cuts us off in traffic. We extend our forgiveness by trying to understand their point of view; we know how it is to feel stressed out or irritable. The practice of compassion becomes more difficult when we find ourselves unable to understand the actions of the person who offends us. These are the situations that ask us to look more deeply into ourselves, into parts of our psyches that we may want to deny, parts that we have repressed because society has labeled them bad or wrong. For example, acts of violence are often well beyond anything we ourselves have perpetuated, so when we are on the receiving end of such acts, we are often at a loss. This is where the real potential for growth begins, because we are called to shine a light inside ourselves and take responsibility for what we have disowned. It is at this juncture that we have the opportunity to transform from within.

This can seem like a very tall order, but when life presents us with circumstances that require our compassion, no matter how difficult, we can trust that we are ready. We can call upon all the light we have cultivated so far, allowing it to lead the way into the darkest parts of our own hearts, connecting us to the hearts of others in the understanding that is true compassion.

[Spirit Dancer]

"Bright days and dark days were both expressions of the Great Mystery, and the Indian reveled in being close to the Great Holiness."





--Chief Luther Standing Bear, SIOUX



The Great Spirit created a world of harmony, a world of justice, a world that is interconnected, a balanced world that has positive and negative, this way and that way, up and down, man and woman, boy and girl, honest and dishonest, responsible and irresponsible, day and night. In other words, He created a polarity system. Both sides are to be respected. Both sides or anything are sacred. We need to do good and we need to learn from our mistakes. We need to honor what takes place in the daytime and we need to honor what takes place in the nighttime. We learn that we need to learn and we see what we are supposed to see by staying close to the Great Spirit. We need to be talking to Him all the time, saying "Grandfather, what is it you want me to learn?"


Great Spirit, let me learn today that all things are sacred. Help me stay close to You, my Creator

[Spirit Dancer]

"In sharing, in loving all and everything, one people naturally found a due portion of the thing they sought, while in fearing, the other found need of conquest."





--Chief Luther Standing Bear, SIOUX



There are two systems of thought that are available for us to choose from. One is the love-thought system and the other is the fear- thought system. If we choose love, we will see the laws, principles and values of the Creator. If we choose fear, the results will be so paralyzing that it will cause us to take over and not rely on the Great Spirit. The fear-thought system will automatically cause attack, conflict, need to control over others. The love-thought system seeks peace of mind, unity and causes us to be love seekers.


Great Spirit, today let me see only love.

[StrongButch]

There are four questions of value of life. What is sacred? Of what is spirit made of? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for ? The answer to each is the same. Only love!

[Spirit Dancer]

"Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is everything where power moves."





--Black Elk (Hehaka sapa), OGLALA SIOUX



In these modern times it is difficult to understand why we should think circles and seasons. People and society are always moving, through distance, over yonder, going here and going there - hurry up, grow up, be successful, climb the ladder of success, etc. The Elders tell us to slow down, to be patient, pray and think circles. Circle thinking applies to relationships, business and every area of our lives. We need to teach our awareness to look for seasons and cycles.


My Creator, teach me the seasons of growth

[KCBUTCH]

Dear Great spirit, dear mother earth, father moon and great Star,
Guide me through this troubled time. I know where I am you are
I know as a peaceful warrior, my struggle is my own to strengthen my soul
to give me the deep wisdom of my elders

I cry for change... Walk with me...
-thank you-KC

[StrongButch]

When you rise in the morning, give thanks to the light, for your life, for your strength.