Tag Archives: Indigenous Mind

Ancestors, Indigenous Mind, Indigenous Science

Remembering Who We Are: Recovering Indigenous Mind (PDF)

Traditional Greeting

It’s good to be here. My name is Apela Colorado; I will open this talk in a traditional Native way with a chant — a prayer. Foster Ampong, a Ka ko’o, or helper, is going to do that for us.

(Hawaiian chant, “E ho ‘i Mai,” a request to enter and to merge with the sacred wisdom.)

Can you feel that good, strong feeling in the room? It seems like Foster’s been doing this all his life, right? In reality, Foster just came back to his culture in January. I’m acknowledging this because the most powerful thing I can share with you is the belief in ourselves as native people and the proof that anything is possible when we’re in our indigenous minds. We can remember our power. We have an hour and a half to spend together and when I’m done with my presentation, I will ask Choctaw Elder, Pokni, Mary Jones, who has worked with me, taught me,and helped me for so many years, to listen, to reflect, and to close off our session prayerfully. We’ll also have a question-and-answer time at the conclusion.

I was excited to hear about Coumba Lamba; in fact, I’ve waited for more than 20 years for this day to happen. In the 1970s, I was doing my doctoral research on native alcoholism. I believed, and was trying to prove, that the answer to healing Native American addiction, which is the leading cause of death, was the return of true culture and spirituality. At the time it was a very radical claim to make. But I faced a difficult personal reality, one that ultimately brought me to this gathering. I wanted to find out why almost everybody in my family that I loved was either actively alcoholic or had died of addiction, and I didn’t want it to happen to me or to my children. So I started researching everything I could get my hands on. I read every study I could find, not easy in the pre-internet age, and besides I was living in a remote Native community without library or bookstore. After reading more than 250 scientific studies of Native alcoholism, I found out there were 247 differing opinions on what caused Native addiction. It seemed more like personal opinions than rigorous research. My sense of this was heightened by the fact that all of the research was conducted by non-Natives. None of the millions of dollars for the studies ever went to Native people, and certainly, none of it went to treatment for our suffering. The context of cultural control and domination evident in the research process drove home the point that addiction among American Indians had to do with being an invaded, oppressed people. Before contact we didn’t have addiction, after contact we did have addiction. Not hard to figure out, but none of the studies addressed it.

When I began my doctoral dissertation research, experts were telling us, “It’s your biology. You

lack the proper genes to metabolize alcohol – you are weaker, that’s why you become addicted.”

The subtext being that drinking alcohol is normal (at the time the Harvard University had

received a multi-million dollar grant, the largest ever to look at the genetic causes of alcoholism.

The donor was Seagram’s whiskey company.) I wanted to find evidence to support the view that

Native addictions resulted from invasion and expropriation – loss of culture, spirituality and life.

I succeeded, but what happened to me in the search, and how it happened, opened up the mystery

of the ”Great Knowledge.”1

REMEMBER, THE PROCESS OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE BEGINS

I grew up in Wisconsin, and the one cultural person left in my family was my grandfather, who

chose me from his grandchildren and taught me Native values and ways. I wasn’t aware that was

what he was doing. I just knew that I loved him and wanted to be with him. Out of all of his

grandchildren, somehow, I was the only one that was born with a cultural leaning, with that kind

of calling and role in life. He saw it.

My grandfather died when I was just a young teenager, but before he died he relapsed and went

back to drinking. So, I actually lost him much earlier in a terrible way. The one person, in our

huge extended family, I could connect with emotionally was taken from me by alcohol. And then

I was alone. But because of that, I became totally committed to doing something about addiction.

But my grandfather was cultural and knew he should pass on what he knew of the Great

Knowledge. Just before he died, he made my grandma drive him three hours through a

dangerous snowstorm – to come talk with me. I was about twelve years old and really angry with

him for drinking. I did not want to be with him and he knew it. He sat in the easy chair, looked

hard at me (this made me madder) and leaned forward on his cane, and began to speak. What he

said scared the wits out of me. He described my life, naming things he could not possibly know,

and then laid out my future. He wanted my attention and he got it! Then he said, “Remember the

Pipe, Remember the Pipe, Remember the Pipe,” the Pipe being a central way to American Indian

Great Knowledge.

I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I had never seen an Indian pipe in my life. Until

1978, it was illegal in North America for Indians to practice our spiritual ways. It was made

illegal through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Administrative Codes and Practices. You could get

penalized, be imprisoned, or have food rations withheld for practicing indigenous ceremonies.

The ceremonies went underground and missionaries made certain that we grew to fear our own

ways. They justified this to stop the “reckless giving away of things.” A Blackfoot woman once

said, “the worse thing the white man ever did was to kill the buffalo and put us on welfare. They

only give us enough to live and we can’t share with each other.”

As I matured, I felt such loneliness. I kept looking for my reality, for the unconditional love that

underpins Native culture and that I felt with my grandfather. I recalled that he had wanted me to

go to university. So I did. Even though I was not conscious of it, I kept pursuing advanced

education trying to find him and to realize that love in my life. At age 27, I was accepted into and

entered a doctoral program at an Eastern Ivy League school. The wealth and privilege of the

place was beyond any experience I had had. I wondered why I had been accepted and learned

that the personal statement to my application is what did the trick.

1 Private conversations with Credo Mutwa, Great Sanusi of the Zulu, he refers to the ancient

indigenous wisdom as the Great Knowledge.

I had been afraid to apply, thinking I was not smart enough or good enough. The fear was so

great that I procrastinated until the night before the deadline when I picked up a pen (I didn’t

even type it) and wrote about my grandfather and I, and how he wanted me to go to university.

This was a completely unexpected thing and paradoxical. I was sitting in a busy airport, using

my lap as my desk, but was in a liminal state—a light, energetic, feeling came over me. I felt

alive again, and I had a hunch that I would be accepted. I was.

Getting in the door was one thing. Surviving was another. I didn’t know much about being

American Indian. There were no other Indians and few people of color. My identity and values

were challenged in every way. I did not fit and became more and more angry. This was a Jewish

university filled with brilliantly educated people, who were also intellectually competitive. In

class discussions, I never said a thing. I kept waiting for my chance, but was in a culture that

operated by different ways. People argued, asserted, cut each other off, and never, ever, left a

space open for someone like me to speak.

So, I started to fight. When the professor lectured, up went my hand, the only way to get the

 

Ancestors, Indigenous Mind

Kihawahine (PDF)

Kihawahine

Apela Colorado

The Kihawahine is the oldest Aumakua or spiritual helper in Polynesia. She is the life energy of fresh water. Her movement is symbolized, in tattoo and Kapa designs as a wave line punctuated with a period or dot in each dip of the wave.

Polynesian designs are symbolic rather than representational. They reveal the function or physics of the spiritual energy that the design evokes. The Kihawahine depicts the power of the knowledge of the integration of dualism (conception). She brings the spiritual and earthly realms together through the heart. In Christian tradition, her power is the Hieros Gamos or Mystical Union.

Her Kinolau or animal form is the lizard or Mo’o. Every island has a Mo’o, but only Maui has the Kihawahine. In Moku’ula, a 13 acred pond site situated at the base of the West Maui Mountains, a 36 foot black lizard appeared periodically with the cycles of the Moon. She became manifest through rituals and was last seen in the late 1800s. Thousands witnessed her appearance, including missionaries, sailors, and other Europeans who doubted her existence.

This Mo’o or Lizard took on the name of Kihawahine, or fresh water spirit, because the royal family of monarchical Hawai’i dedicated the spirit of a deceased princess to this Mo’o. From then on, the Lizard and the Princess were one, which is why the image of Ki’i has the form of a beautiful young woman. Moreover, only women can conceive.

Metaphorically, the Kihawahine in the pond is representative of the fetus in the womb, which is another reason that Polynesians revere her. Each vertebrae of the long lizard spine represents a generation. The tail is the ancient ancestors.

The Hawai’ian language also illustrates the significance of the Mo’o. a chat of one’s genealogy is a “mo’olelo”. A favored grandchild is the “Mo’opuna.”

The spiritual and cosmological power that this Ki’i, or image, represents is awesome and fierce. She holds the power of generations or of generating. The great warrior, King Kamehameha, could not conquer the Hawai’ian Islands until he obtained (improperly) the power of the Kihawahine. Using the Kiha, he took the image of her and placed it on his altar with his war God and married a woman from the Lizard Clan. Through this misuse of the sacred feminine, he succeeded in dominating the islands and overpowering the original earth and feminine spirituality. After becoming King over the islands, he went to the most powerful priests of the islands, those from Molokai. He asked them to lift the effects of what he had done with the Kiha. They refused and prophesized that because of his violation his line would die out which it did. the devastation generated by Kamahameha’s actions have had long term effects including the neglect and repression of the ways of the Kiha.

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the pond site of the Kiha was held in such high regard that common people were not allowed on the small island at the west side of the pond. Dropping any kind of rubbish in the area was such a serious offense that one might pay with one’s life. After the European and American colonization of the islands, the last Kamehameha retreated from the capitol at Honolulu to the small island in the pond to renew. But as prophesized, it was the end of the dynasty. Yielding to political pressures, he returned to the city of Honolulu. The pond and Kiha were forgotten. About a hundred years ago, the sugar cane plantations covered the island and pond wiping out all traces of her. Lahaina, once referred to as the Venice of Hawai’i, became semi arid.

Today, facing global catastrophe, people are seeking ways to connect with and heal the deep wounds of patriarchy and geocide. Here on Maui we are remembering the beautiful, wonderful Kihawahine. We are working to restore the pond. At Pakala, our home and a Goddess Conference Ceremonial Site, Apela’s husband, Keola Sequeira, Kahuna Kalai Ki’i, or master wood carver and spiritual practitioner, has recreated the image of the Kihawahine, which has been held in the Berlin Museum since the late 1800s, for local ceremonial purposes. The Maui Goddess Conference is an historic event, the first of its kind to shed light upon and to rekindle the reverence for the Goddess Kihawahine.

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Indigenous Science, Migrations

Applications of Indigenous Science: Mo`o Kiha Canoe Project (PDF)

Application of Indigenous Science ~ Mo’o Kiha Canoe Project

My husband Keola is a Kahuna Kalai Wa’a or, a Medicine Man of the canoes. In 1975 he built the Mo’olele, the first ocean going, double hulled voyaging canoe made in more than 150 years. The re-creation of the big sailing vessels triggered a cultural renaissance in the islands. The hundred years of colonization, missionization and plantation life destroyed 90 to 95% of the Hawaiian population in less than one hundred years. The rapacity of conquest left scant opportunity for preserving or perpetuating traditional ways. When Keola decided to re-create the voyaging canoe, he had only a sketch by an 19 century French artist to go by. There were no surviving models of the canoes not Elders who had ever built or seen one. Yet without canoes there would be no Hawaiians for the canoe brought them to the islands and shaped both their characters and societies.

The word for canoe is, ‘Wa’a’. ‘Wa’ refers to a segment of time and ‘a’ is the name for the Sirius star system – the origin of Hawaiian people. Interestingly, when Elders Hale Makua of Hawaii and Dr. Erick Gbdossou of Benin met, they discovered that their diverse cultures have the exact same words for the most ancient aspects of the culture. Both refer to the companion star of Sirius by the same name! Yet, western science only identified this star in our generation.

A few years ago, Keola and I visited Bella Bella, an Indian Reserve on the west coast of Canada. There we met a man who had been a Mason and was an expert in sacred geometry. He mentioned a geometric ratio called, the Golden Mean or Phi Ratio and recommended, ‘Serpent in the Sky’ a book on Egyptian culture and mathematics. It took a while but eventually I found a copy (this was pre-internet). I will never forget what happened when I gave the book to my husband. It was about 10:30 at night, we were in bed reading when suddenly he spoke in a very intense voice. “Apela, I got it. Listen to this, if the Phi Ratio is the mathematical formula for how life expresses itself then probably the Ancient Hawaiians who lived on the seas and in nature would think like that too. They wouldn’t have called it Phi, they might not have called it anything at all but they would have thought that way. Just think. This could answer the questions we could not find out about in the design of Polynesian canoes. A fish is made according to Phi principles. If I could design a canoe and apply the Phi ratio in as many design aspects possible then it could be possible to create a canoe that would be a perpetual motion ‘machine’. Once it got under way and was sailing, it would surf its own wave and would require no energy to keep going! Oh, fantastic,’ he said, throwing off the covers and padding downstairs and outside to his shop to put together a scale model to see how the application of Phi would change the design of the canoes he had made twenty years earlier.

Three days later the model was done. It was sleek stunning and did indeed alter the shape of the canoe. We were in love with it but then sad reality hit. There were no trees left big enough to make such a canoe and even making it out of modern materials would cost more than one hundred thousand dollars. Who would fund such a project? In a few weeks, Keola packed up the small model and put it away. Nearly two years passed.

Keola and I went for a ceremony with my Oneida people. During that ceremony, he asked the Ancestors and the Morning Star, permission to help heal his people. Within a few weeks of our return, people started showing up, volunteering their skills, others brought wood one was even a canoe maker from the Coast of Canada. Our dream project – to build a massive double hulled voyaging canoe – one that would incorporate modern features within a completely traditional design allowing the vessel to pass U.S. Coast Guard regulations and which could sail independent of a support vessel (which Hawaiians don’t usually have) had begun!

We started where we were at which is the first principle of Indigenous Science – everything we need is present in the nature around us. We began the construction in the garage – shop outside our house. Keola had made the first canoe, the Mo’olele or flying lizard, there in 1975 but ‘place and spiritual power’ are important aspects of Indigenous Science too and our house is built on a sacred site. My husband’s Hawaiian family has lived adjacent to a pond sacred to the great lizard later known as the Kihawahine – the spirit woman of fresh water, genealogy and conception. As recently as the 1800’s thousands of people witnessed the last appearance of this 36 foot black lizard in the pond. Because fresh water is so crucial for ocean people, the Kihawahine was revered. To even drop a piece of litter near this pond was punishable by death. When the Europeans arrived, the trashing of the site began and the last Holy Guardian of the site conducted the ceremony to call the lizard – probably in an effort to keep Hawaiians strong and to convince the Europeans of the efficacy and power of Hawaiian spirituality. The lizard came and received the traditional offering of awa – a sacred herb drink. The lizard rolled around in the water with delight! But this did not stop the colonizers from diverting the flow of water from the pond to their sugar cane fields. Subsequently, they land filled the pond. Since that time, water shortages have become common, people have forgotten their identity and West Maui, described as the ‘Venice of the Pacific’ became the semi- arid land it is now.

We did not know it when we began but Keola’s shop was the perfect place. Despite no funds and very limited space, we began to build a 62.5 foot long double hulled voyaging canoe that would take the community and future generations of Hawaiians throughout Polynesia and around the world. The people would no longer be isolated from each other or the global community. They would pick up where their Ancestors had left off!

We’re building the Mo’okiha (the doubly powerful Kihawahine) canoe in a totally voluntary way. In the first six weeks, we had 3,000 volunteer hours. Imagine the excitement. Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the U.S. Most local people must work 2 jobs – all in the low paying tourist industry – the only employer on the island. Nothing like this has ever been seen, It isn’t only natives, we have tourists, people from every culture coming by to help, that’s how it’s catching on. Because of the unprecedented support, the State and the County turned over a small park, adjacent to the sacred pond and right on the ocean. The Kihawahine, fresh water spirit, is guiding and protecting us. She surely must. To get 13 acres of oceanfront property – some of the world’s most expensive real estate, would be impossible otherwise. As of today, we have

put 6,000 hours into the canoe- the hulls, one representing the male sun and the other the female moon are just about done. The bottom of the canoe hull is the ‘kua mo’o or backbone of the lizard. It also refers to a body of stars used in open ocean, non instrument navigating. Next we will start on the I’ako (the curvilinear supports that connect the two hulls and serve as a foundation for a central platform which is akin to the planet venus). As you can see, the canoe is not just a boat. The design embodies principles of star navigation, oral history and worldview and Polynesian worldview is very sophisticated.

Francis Warther, Hawaiian Archaeoastronomer, writes:

Where are we? Who are we? for the ancient Hawaiian, to answer the first question was to realize the answer to the second. The Ancient Polynesian considered a very select geographical area of our planet called the ‘Tropic Region’ almost entirely ocean – the largest in the world, a unique marinescape…. This region had a limit, 1600 miles north and 1600 miles south of the equator, called the “Navel of Wakea” and each half, the north called Kane, the south Kanaloa, WERE MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER IN TIME, SEASONS AND CALENDAR NAMES.

[Hawaiian Identity and the Tropic Skies, p.1 Warther, Francis]

Polynesia islands straddle the equator. The north and south regions are identical and opposite. Water, winds and weather move in opposite directions. Summer in the north is winter in the south. The canoe with it’s two hulls and central platform represent the tropic lines and the equator.

“Only within the Tropic property line limits will the sun climb to the Zenith (Lolopua) directly overhead twice a year for each Tropic island. The sun will be directly underfoot about twice a year at the nadir for each island.

This astronomical fact was the basis for the unity of Polynesian mythology and provided the cosmic connection, the imprinting as it were, of the Heavens to the Sea and its Islands. The belief of Mana, the cosmological generating power of life and renewal capable of infusing a person or thing with immortal sustenance, is I believe, directly connected to the position of place under Heaven and the primordial sea.

[Hawaiian Identity and the Tropic Skies, p.1 Warther, Francis]

These perceptions, singular to the members of the Tropic community have a profound influence on the thought process and values of the society and its regulatory rules….a distinct Polynesian logic has been shaped by this cosmic reality – that position in the world influences and directs ones concept of space and time and even more profoundly the logic of thought processes.

. [Hawaiian Identity and the Tropic Skies, p.4 Warther, Francis]

Roy Wagner shows how the canoe design emulates the inner workings of the ‘tropic philosopher’. “his apprehension of knowledge is dialectical rather than rationalistic.” The Polynesian philosopher creates and uses “ a tension of dialogue, like an alternation between two conceptions of viewpoints that are simultaneously contradictory and supportive of each other. As a way of thinking, a dialectic operates by exploiting contradictions, against a common ground of similarity rather than by appealing to consistency against a common ground of differences after the fashion of rationalistic or linear logic.”

Warther goes on to point out the limits of linear logic to resolve multi-faceted problems and notes that conflict resolution (Ho’oponopono) has been central to Hawaiian culture placing kin, community and leadership in a balanced relationship to cosmic and ecological cycles and who patterned their social, politic organization on what they saw as priorities of order of the astronomical heavens.

Warther concludes with the statement that the survival of humanity depends on our ability to become members of the “Tropic Club”. That is to respond adaptively to the “mental equations contained in the logic of non-linearity passed to us by the Ancient Hawaiian culture.”

As we build the canoe, we are also building identity. Elders like Francis Warther come to the new canoe Hale (house) to teach and to share their wisdom. Hawaiian Elder’s Auntie Mahilani Poepoe and Hale Makua stop by to offer cultural insights, encouragement and love. The more we work the more we are being integrated into the web of life – the Aloha of ancient Hawaii – and the more synchronicities occur. Two striking examples of this come to mind.

When Keola built the first canoes in the 1970’s he was fortunate to find the remains of a partially completed ancient canoe in an a shelter cave. The canoe was falling apart but to his trained eye, the aged pieces of wood were a university that told him how certain cuts were made, what lines to use and even answered critical design questions about ropes and how they were attached but some things could not be answered. Ancestors came to him in dreams. He would fall asleep with a design question and wake up in the morning knowing the answer. But some things could not be solved and he had to make an informed, ‘best guess’ – choices that haunted him. Keola had incorporated all the ancient design features he knew in his canoes. Often he was ridiculed as the features made no apparent sense. The Manu or upright tips at the ends of the hulls were a good example.

Keola and three other adults took a group of eight children out in the Mo’olele. Suddenly a 40 knot wind hit. Ocean swells rose to twenty feet – extremely dangerous. The canoe was moving so fast that she passed the crest of the wave and slid down into the trough. Water began pouring onto the hulls and pushing them down under the next wave. An ordinary canoe would sink in this situation. Suddenly the brilliance of the ancient design shone through. The curved, points of the Manu came slicing up through the waves bringing the rest of the hull along with it! The children and crew made it safe to shore and after that, no one ever again doubted the minds of their Ancestors.

Keola was determined to regain and incorporate even more of the traditional designs into the Mo’okiha and finding out about the Phi ratio provided a key to guide in the construction of elements where the traditional knowledge was absent. But what if this was not accurate? He posed this problem to Kauai archaeo-astronomer, Francis Warther who shocked us with his response. Not only did ancient Hawaiians know about Phi, but had built Malae, an entire pyramid dedicated to the teaching of both pi and phi. Warther then produced a diagram which he happened to have with him!

MALAE PYRAMID

Incorporates the “cosmic proportion” of:

SIX = SPACE TIME and two = FEMALE

FIVE=CREATION Three = MALE

Six divided by Five equals 1.2
1.2 is Pi over Phi squared
Pi over Phi squared is 3.1416 over 1.618 squared

These two harmonic proportions drive the universe. Both are contained in the data bank of Malae.

Warther and Makua point out that the Malae also integrates astronomical information. In this case the site is oriented to the constellation Pegasus as well as heliacal rising and settings of various stars and planets.

Nearing the completion of the hulls raised the question of spacing. How close or far apart would the hulls have to be to conform to the Golden Ratio? Keola worked at this question in many ways including consulting with Elders. No one knew. We prayed and we worried. One day a young German man and wife stopped by the canoe house. They had lived in Fiji for six years because they were building a canoe and wanted to learn about traditional Polynesian canoe design. The Elders had refused to share their teachings so they built an essentially western canoe with obvious Polynesian design elements incorporated. They were very hurt and discouraged but sympathetic to the historic wounds which stood between themselves and the Fijians.

Keola, master canoe maker of Hawaii, shared openly with this young man as he does with all people but he also had a hunch. Sure enough. The next day, just hours before

departure for Europe, the German man appeared at our door. He confessed to Keola that as he prepared to leave Fiji an Elder took pity on him and passed on one traditional design secret. It was all this young man had and he wanted to keep it to himself. He said that after meeting Keola, and not sharing what he knew, that it kept him awake all night so he knew he had to pass on the information. What he said thrilled us – it was the ancient formula for joining the hulls and… it conformed to the Phi Ratio!

So this is a good example of the way Indigenous Science and the Ancestors work to help us when we dedicate ourselves to remembering who we are. Because colonialism is a global phenomenon, we find ourselves receiving guidance from diverse sources – books, guests from other countries, dreams, oral history – that is because our Ancestors always believed in sharing. This is another reason why gatherings such as Coumba Lamba are so important. As we meet, we begin to put together the pieces of the Great Knowledge that each of us has. In the Great Forgetting the Knowledge was disbursed so that no one tribe would have all of it and so that the only way to restore ourselves would be by coming together as was done in Ancient times.

Tonight at Coumba Lamba there will be a ceremony with water and your ancestors. It’s the same type of Spirit and way that has been guiding and empowering us. It is an African ceremony with it’s own unique cultural aspects but emanates from the same source. I encourage you to join us and to remember our indigenous science of relations, peace and Aloha – the turning of the face to God – our Ancestral Remembrance.

Choctaw Grandmother, Pokni, Mary Jones, will now close this session with a prayer.

Pokni Mary Jones

CONCLUSION; Grandmother’s Blessing

I can feel there’s something here, there’s power here. If it wasn’t the power and the Spirit’s power, we all wouldn’t be here. I am so glad that I know her (Apela). She don’t

know I know her but I do and I’ve been working with her for the last 11 years. It’s somebody I have never seen (before working together) and I didn’t even know who she was. But it was a dream that brought us together, it was a rock1 that brought us together, it was the Spirit.

Kowi anukosha,
A depiction of Marys Rock

I’m glad they did; I worked with her and worked with this indigenous science thing. I don’t know much about the science things, I’m not well-educated to know science, but I know my Choctaw science. So my science and Western science; we can compare and I still believe my science because things are just about the same – white people’s science and Native people’s science are just about the same thing. What I learned, I learned by spirit. I don’t learn from reading or nothing like that. I learn from traditional ways. So,

1 In 1990 I had a dream of a special rock. A few months later I visited Choctaw Chief Jerry Jackson in Louisiana. I related part of my dream to him. He interrupted and said we had to call his Aunt Mary as she was the Elder who knew of these things. When Mary came into the room I felt as if I knew her and she later said that she felt the same with me. I told her my dream and she was shocked. She said, ‘I can’t believe it. You just dreamt my rock’. We have been close ever since. Kowianukosha is a little person, a nature spirit with great powers. He is also a trickster who throws this sacred type of stone at people especially healers to help them in their work.

that’s the Spirit that’s with me and I’m so glad to be here with you all. I don’t know what I can do or what I can say but I hope and pray that the Spirit takes care of you all and bring you all back together and give you all what you want, what you all need to be here together today, this week, all this time that you all spend together. Something good will come out. It might not be next week, or next year, but something good is going to come out of this. And this day you all remember it for your next generation. I’m glad to be here with you all and bless you all. Somehow all this touched me and I know so I’m going to pray for you all, all of us together this evening.

(Prayer in the Choctaw language) This session is officially closed. Thank you.

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Indigenous Mind

Grooving with the Shadow (PDF)

The Indigenous Mind Concentration is based in antediluvian rock carvings, which embody and convey the mindset of the of the earth-based spirituality of our Ancestors. All spiritual indigenous people are schooled in these symbols, which are not actual symbols at all, Instead they are interactive essences who revel their wisdom when the time the person and the image match. The Dalai Lama explains:

“There is a great sort of interrelationship between the appropriateness of the time, the place,  and also ta person intimately related to it. All these factors must be taken into account. When suitable people remain there, the image remains. When there are no more suitable people there, the image also disappears.

I myself have one very little pebble, white quartz. There is one Tara in that pebble, very clear, very clear.”‘

Central to Indigenous Mind is the carving of the giant lizard, snake, or dragon because this image teaches the knowledge of the integration of dualism. To acquire the understanding of why and how this is true is an initatic experience. This means that all aspects of yourself will become engaged in an intensive, transformative learning experience.

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Elders

Uli: Mirrors and Horned Beings (PDF)

Conversation with Kapi’ioho November 19, 20, 22, 2008

Mohai, sacrifice, to be of higher plane.

  • Horns symbolizes, ‘what sacrifices itself for us.’
  • We use the horn to call that spirit.
  • It is the reminder. The Aumakua remind us to remember the sacrifice.
  • Some chiefs wear the horn (on the head) to show/strengthen the connection to the animal but may forget the sacrifice and say, ‘I’m as great as this God/Animal and‘I’ sacrifice and feed you, like this animal.”
  • Its spirituality in its purest form, created in the center of the universe; created between things. That gigantic atom in the sky is in us also. The space between two heavenly bodies is not as big as the space between the atoms in us. In that space is Uli, darkness, not Po which is the lack of light. In between is the energy and the harmony. The Black Hole, eats; the White Hole puts out.
  • Spiritual perfection; the yin-yang in interaction – power and harmony blending together to create spiritual perfection. Kahuna contact and remain in contact with Uli to help people.
  •  Spirituality is based upon the blending between power and harmony. Power is the uncontrollable force and harmony is actually like a blob! They need each other and must go together.
  • Medicine People go into Uli; become Uli and then come back out. Religious people can’t get close. They are not supposed to. You meet the Aumakua and things that sacrifice self for physical existence and then become that – those Horns or symbols of what they represent. We come back and draw the true figures.
  • When you look in a mirror, when do you see it? Sometimes not. Depends on the person, moment.
  • Dimensions may move around.
    ~

Uli, look into Uli the place of perfection; it comes back into us.

Ma uli, In the place of darkness it’s the space between things where enormous spirit energy and harmony comes to us. This is not the spirit of the Ancestors. Energy plus harmony equals, spirituality.

Hewa, The curse we put on ourselves. When we leave work; leave the work there, don’t bring business back to the home or the home concerns to work.

Bring Hawaiian language into the work business, in memos, in greetings, even in simple ways it will help to bring forth our thinking.

We have to be at peace. When we’re around someone who is at peace with the past, future and self and each other, it’s contagious. Barack Obama is at peace with himself.

Hamo…..to breathe through the spine; to deal with stress. Ie. Some meals are high stress meals!

I don’t go to ULI with a question, maybe I have them in my mind somewhere but I don’t think about them (in this moment). I go to Uli and certain things are revealed. Maybe and issue you had or something Spirits decide you need.
I go with an empty cup and fill it with whatever is given.

It brings a bunch of clarity. That’s what is given.
When you go there, you don’t want to come back but to stay as long as you can and then come back as soon as you can.

Po is where the Ancestors are at.
Uli is where the higher forces are. The Kahuna can go back and forth to Uli where you meet particular teachers. Their teaching becomes clear. Sometimes clarity makes me more confused in a human way which has to make sense (of it).
When we meditate, we start to put it together.

I meditate before I drive with no objective; then I drive. Aumakua appear. Now I am in another dimension and at the end I come up with fantastic thoughts.

I never went in with an intention of soloving one thing but came out with it. I’m looking for answers in there (Uli) but not consciously. When I come out, I’ll know I was with someone but in there, I’m gone. Out of it, in this clarity, I’ll know if it was an Ancestor.

I’ve worked on helping others to allow others to go to a deeper place. Hewa, allow things to control you.

Help them find peace from with in. Bring peace in and Heva has to get out but it’s a fight because its been comfortable in there (in the psyche or heart). The body nearly stops. Work on the senses to get going.

Moku Mana Mana in 2012…looking for the ship.