Rattling the Bones

I don’t think there’s anything more difficult and yet more rewarding than relationships.  In the Christian Church when you get a child baptized the priest, the pastor or the minister will tell parents and god-parents to nourish their children with love, discipline, routine and spiritual guidance.  There’s an expectation or request that family members and even congregation members commit and devote to the next generation. “Get involved in your community.  Contribute to the World around you.  Give the best of yourself to your family and your people.” It takes a village to bring up a child and this, is certainly a theme Christians take to heart. People are often surprised when I speak in a positive way about Christianity.  There’s this assumption or perhaps even expectation that because I follow the Shaman’s path I should be at war with all Religions.  During a recent visit to Concordia University, I received an interesting apo...

Every year for the last 14 years, we’ve been guest “lecturers” at Concordia University.  Yesterday, while driving to the University, G and I were sharing EM some of the stories; which occurred in past classes. We seemed nostalgic even with the landscape.  G mentioned every restaurant we had the misfortune of eating at during the last decade.  I had ingestion just thinking about it.  As EM mentioned during the evening – “she was a spectator-virgin” – and was looking forward to seeing us in an experience different then that relating to workshops and circles (ceremonies).   So far the feedback has been:  “Impressive and I liked it!!”  (LOL) AL our host and professor at Concordia repeats every year that it’s difficult to describes what we do; and to basically prepare the students for the experience.  AL has often said throughout the last 14 years: “He feels blessed to know us and wants to share these blessings with ot...

Last week I received this message from MR and promised a response through a blog entry.   MR’s e-mail was the third in a long list of e-mails I’ve received in the last few months asking for clarity when interpreting Spirit messages. MR’s e-mail: Today I got up feeling confused and disoriented. Then I got focused and got LOTS DONE. A couple of times when I came into the kitchen I felt like my spirit was HUGE! Then I sent out texts to some people for the RW talk at the college tomorrow night and a cousin of mine send back an angry text basically saying that Natives were free-loading drunks and should stop asking for hand-outs and get jobs!!! I sat with it for a bit and in the past I would have deleted it and forgotten about it. But I answered her saying she was being harsh and judgmental. We ended up texting back and forth and she softened. She said she never had a positive experience with natives. She is a single 40 year old mom with 5 kids. I told her...

Posting by Serena Winterburn: Hi Lisa, 
I have been wondering about Spirit Names. I was wondering if this could be a topic for a blog? ·       
I was wondering how or why we have spirit names?
 ·       What is the purpose? 
How do we use a spirit name?
 ·       What is the difference between a Spirit name and say a dreamers name? ·       How do we journey with them and why? ·       
How do we find our Spirit name? You gave me a Spirit name from the dreaming at the very first workshop that I attended here in GP. I have now translated it into Cree and learned how to say it in Cree; but I am not sure what to do with it now (LOL). 
I also think about the girls and their spirit names: How could I find theirs out? I know that there was potential for it to come from the bone dance for Ava; but I don't think anyone picked...