By Cultural Survival — 2011
Maria Alice Campos-Freire is one of the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, a group of women dedicated to promoting peace and understanding through Indigenous wisdom.
Read on www.culturalsurvival.org
CLEAR ALL
Sustainability is often discussed in a high-level, conceptual way as the connection between people, planet, and profit. But in practice, it can be deeply intimate—a relationship to what nourishes us and enables us to thrive.
Sitting on the floor of a teepee, in a circle of patients, friends and relatives, Doctor James Makokis cried as he remembered his father struggling to accept him when he came out as gay at the age of 17.
The term “Two Spirit” in Native American culture often describes a person possessing both male and female spirits. And they’ve been around well before the Santa Maria or the Mayflower dropped anchor.
In the years that I have had the honor of calling Rita Pitka Blumenstein "Auntie," I have felt privileged every time this renowned healer has invited me into her home.
Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein was the first inhabitant of Alaska to be certified as a traditional healer even though she had never attended an official school. Instead, she spent much of her time with the wise female elders of her tribe.
The growing popularity of "authentic" ayahuasca rituals in Western circles can present multiple problems, including indigenous fetishization, a lack of cultural context for traditional ceremonies, and potential abuse from untrustworthy shamans, all of which can be problematic or sometimes even...