The Medicine Man/Shaman

The Medicine Man is a role model of what it is like to live in harmony and balance with the Creator. It takes a long time, a lot of sacrifice and discipline to become a Medicine Man. A Medicine Man is humble and never crass about anything. He knows he lives to do the will of the Great Spirit. He knows he is to help the people. He lives very low key - the more low key he lives, the more people seek him out - and such is life. The more one serves the people and is quiet about it, the more he is sought out. The quieter he is, the more powerful is his medicine.

Great Spirit, allow me this day to be humble. Allow me this day not to seek attention, but to live quietly and keep my focus and attention on serving You.

LOSE YOUR FEAR OF REST

We must find sources of strength and renewal for our own spirits, lest we perish. There is a widespread recognition of the need for refreshment of the mind and the heart. It is very much in order to make certain concrete suggestions in this regard. First, we must learn to be quiet, to settle down in one spot for a spell. Sometime during each day, everything should stop and the art of being still must be practiced. For some temperaments, it will not be easy because the entire nervous system and body have been geared over the years to activity, to overt and tense functions. Nevertheless, the art of being still must be practiced until development and habit are sure ...

Such periods may be snatched from the greedy demands of ones day's work. They may be islanded in a sea of other human beings; they may come only at the end of the day, or in the quiet hush of the early morning. We must, each one of us, find his own time and develop his own peculiar art of being quiet.

We must lose our fear of rest.

TO WALK THE RED ROAD

TO WALK THE RED ROAD:

Long road winding began in the stars,
spilled onto the mountain tops,
was carried in the snow to the streams,
to the rivers, to the ocean
It covers Canada, Alaska, America,
Mexico to Guatemala,
and keeps winding around
the indigenous.

The Red Road is a circle of people
standing hand in hand,
people in this world
people between
people in the Spirit world.

Star people, animal people, stone people,

River people, tree people

The Sacred Hoop.


To walk the Red Road
is to know sacrifice, suffering.
It is to understand humility.
It is the ability to stand naked before
the Creator in all things for your
wrong doings, for your lack of strength,
for your discompassionate way,
for your arrogance - because to walk
the Red Road, you always know
you can do better. And you know,
when you do good things,
it is through the Creator, and you
are grateful.

To walk the Red Road
is to know you stand on equal ground
with all living things. It is to know that
because you were born human,
it gives you superiority over nothing.

It is to know that every creation carries
a Spirit, and the river knows more
than you do, the mountains know
more than you do, the stone people
know more than you do,
the trees know more than you do,
the wind is wiser than you are,
and animal people carry wisdom.

You can learn from every one of them,
because they have something you don't:

They are void of evil thoughts.
They wish vengeance on no one,
they seek Justice.

To Walk the Red Road,
you have God given rights,
you have the right to pray,
you have the right to dance,
you have the right to think,
you have the right to protect,
you have the right to know Mother,
you have the right to dream,
you have the right to vision,
you have the right to teach,
you have the right to learn,
you have a right to grieve,
you have a right to happiness,
you have the right to fix the wrongs,
you have the right to truth,
you have a right to the Spirit World.

To Walk the Red Road
is to know your Ancestors,
to call to them for assistance
It is to know that there is good medicine,
and there is bad medicine
It is to know that Evil exists,
but is cowardly as it is often in disguise.
It is to know there are evil spirits
who are in constant watch
for a way to gain strength for themselves
at the expense of you.

To Walk the Red Road,
you have less fear of being wrong,
because you know that life is a journey,
a continuous circle, a sacred hoop.

Mistakes will be made,
and mistakes can be corrected -
if you will be humble,
for if you cannot be humble,
you will never know
when you have made a mistake.

If you walk the Red Road,
you know that every sorrow
leads to a better understanding,
every horror cannot be explained,
but can offer growth.

To Walk the Red Road
is to look for beauty in all things.

To Walk the Red Road
is to know you will one day
cross to the Spirit World,
and you will not be afraid.

A Seasonal Prayer for us all to P

Dearly beloved [brethren],
				the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge
				and confess our manifold sins and wickedness;
				[and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before
				the face of almighty God our heavenly Father;
				but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and
				obedient heart;
				to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same
				by his infinite goodness and mercy.
				And although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge
				our sins before God;
				yet ought we most chiefly so to do,
				when we assemble and meet together
				to render thanks for the great benefits that we have
				received at his hands,
				to set forth his most worthy praise,
				to hear his most holy word,
				and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary,
				as well for the body as the soul.]
				Wherefore I pray and beseech you,
				as many as are here present,
				to accompany me with a pure heart, and humble voice,
				unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying [after me]:
				(or)
				Beloved, we are come together in the presence of almighty God and of the whole company of heaven to offer unto him through our Lord Jesus Christ our worship and praise and thanksgiving; to make confession of our sins; to pray, as well for others as for ourselves, that we may know more truly the greatness of God's love and shew forth in our lives the fruits of his grace; and to ask on behalf of all men such things as their well-being doth require.
				Wherefore let us kneel in silence, and remember God's presence with us now.
		All		Almighty and most merciful Father,
				we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.
				We have followed too much the devices and desires
				of our own hearts.
				We have offended against thy holy laws.
				We have left undone those things
				which we ought to have done;
				and we have done those things
				which we ought not to have done;
				and there is no health in us.
				But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
				Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.
				Restore thou them that are penitent;
				according to thy promises declared unto mankind
				in Christ Jesu our Lord.
				And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
				that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
				to the glory of thy holy name.
				Amen

God's Acceptance is Good.

Acceptance is the best gift we can give one another. Thanks for all the supportive and inspiring word's daily. I just realized myself other's don't live to please us, Only we can make ourselve's happy. It's not up to anyone else to make our life happier or a better place to be. God's acceptance and support of my sobrie...ty is all I need today! I share my trial's & tribulation's with other addict's so maybe just maybe it could save them a few years that I cannot take back from my past!

The 23rd Psalm for Recovery

23rd Psalm for Recovery
--Author Unknown
The Lord is my sponsor, I shall not want.
He makes me to go to many meetings.
He leads me to sit back, relax, and listen with an open mind, He restores my soul, my sanity, and my health.
He leads me in the path of sobriety, serenity, and fellowship for my own sake.
He teaches me to think, to take it easy, to live and let live, and do first things first. He makes me more humble and grateful.
He teaches me to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can and gives me the wisdom to know the difference.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of despair, frustration, guilt, and remorse, I will fear no evil.
For Thou are with me, your program, your way of life, your twelve steps, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies: rationalization. fear, anxiety, self-pity, resentment.
You anoint my confused mind and jangled nerves with knowledge, understanding and hope.
No longer am I alone, neither am I afraid, nor sicken, nor helpless, nor hopeless.
My cups runs over,
Surely sobriety and serenity shall follow me every day of my life, one day at a time, twenty-four hours at a time.
As I surrender my will to You and carry Your message to others, I will dwell in the house of Higher Power, as I understand him, one day at a time, forever and ever.
Amen



To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakable perfect miracle

Liberal Racism

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Could a "Great Negotiation" End the War in Afghanistan? - Care2 News Network

Link I believe that alot of things would & could change with the right negotiator? It sounds dumb but with the right compromises and deal making abilities they could work out some real Peace talks for the future of us all!

BELIEVE IN HIM ALWAY'S

Sights Set on Saving Salmon | Reznet News

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Exerpt from Lost people in Colonial California

Native Americans who populated the various ranchos of Mexican California as laborers are people frequently lost to history. The "rancho period" was a critical time for California Indians, as many were drawn into labor pools for the flourishing ranchos following the 1834 dismantlement of the mission system, but they are practically absent from the documentary record and from popular histories. This study focuses on Rancho Petaluma north of San Francisco Bay, a large livestock, agricultural, and manufacturing operation on which several hundred-perhaps as many as two thousand--Native Americans worked as field hands, cowboys, artisans, cooks, and servants. One of the largest ranchos in the region, it was owned from 1834 to 1857 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, one of the most prominent political figures of Mexican California While historians have studied Vallejo, few have considered the Native Americans he controlled, so we know little of what their lives were like or how they adjusted to the colonial labor regime. Because Vallejo's Petaluma Adobe is now a state historic park and one of the most well-protected rancho sites in California, this site offers unparalleled opportunities to investigate nineteenth-century rancho life via archaeology. Using the Vallejo rancho as a case study. Stephen Silliman examines this California rancho with a particular eye toward Native American participation. Through the archaeological record--tools and implements, containers, beads, bone and shell artifacts. food remains--he reconstructs the daily practices of Native peoples at Rancho Petaluma and the labor relations that structured indigenous participation in and experience of rancho life. This researchenables him to expose the multi-ethnic nature of colonialism, counterbalancing popular misconceptions of Native Americans as either non-participants in the ranchos or passive workers with little to contribute to history. Lost Laborers in Colonial California draws on archaeological data, material studies, and archival research, and meshes them with theoretical issues of labor, gender, and social practice to examine not only how colonial worlds controlled indigenous peoples and practices but also how Native Americans lived through and of ten resisted those impositions. The book fills a gap in the regional archaeological and historical literature as it makes a unique contribution to colonial and contact-period studies in the Spanish/Mexican borderlands and beyond.