The Official Oklahoma Forum Chattin' Thread (Tulsa, Yukon: rent, travel, lease)

[Goodpasture]

Originally Posted by redbird4848

Smoking= We burn a little cedar (some use white mountain sage), then carry the smoldering cedar around the house while we say prayers-- all the while using an eagle feather to fan the cedar smoke in all directions. It is wise to open a window to allow any entities a way to escape. Its also called smudging.

Its supposed to remove bad spirits and call in the good spirits.

GP, good post.

Here is a link, I am sure there are many other links and variations.

http://www.crystalinks.com/smudging.html

I like mountain sage. sweetgrass is also good. The best is tobacco, but I don't trust the tobacco you can buy at the store....it is so hybridized and genetically modified, it has little resemblance to the tobacco of our ancestors. If I can carve out a small patch of ground this year, I am going to get some heritage tobacco seed and grow a little, for medicine and ceremony.

When aunt Sarah passed we smoked the funeral with both sweetgrass and white sage.

[jessaka]

Originally Posted by redbird4848

I saw this on the general US forums. Let me see if I can copy this link correctly.

Do you believe in "vibes"?

What do you think of "vibes" from different Oklahoma places/cities you have visited. Do you feel "at home" where you are at?

I would like to hear what others have to say on this.

Maybe this is why I have felt a dislike for certain places, when there was no rational reason.

I noticed the same thing on our trip to WY and as we passed through New Mexico. Each state or geographical area has its own vibe.

I definity believe in vibes. Tahlequah had a good vibe to it the moment I drove into town. And that vibe has stayed. I have been in towns where I wanted to live because they were so pretty, but the vibes of the town were pretty bad, so I didn't move to any of those places. I was looking to move at the time, obviously.

I lived in Berkeley many years, and I loved the town, but I remember being hypnotised once and saying that the vibrations of this city were wrong for me. I had never thought of it before then. I can see now why they were wrong, and later on I moved. I remember when I was moved back to my home town I wanted to live in the country, and so one day I saw an ad in the paper, and the landlord told me to go there and check it out. I pulled up to the driveway, got out of my car, squeezed through the barbed wire fence and began walking down the road to the house. It was so peaceful that I rented the shack and fixed it up. I loved that place, and I still miss it. I also remember going to an Indian reservation to look at a trailer park, and the vibes were wonderful. It was desert, and I have always hated the desert, but I wanted to live there; instead we moved to one in the woods where there were no vibes for me either way.

[case44]

Originally Posted by redbird4848

Once upon a time Don had an asthma attack when he came to my apartment. It was so dusty and hadn't been vacumed in so long. *Or cleaned.

He brought his vacuum cleaner the next time he came to visit.

[Goodpasture]

Originally Posted by jessaka

I definity believe in vibes. Tahlequah had a good vibe to it the moment I drove into town. And that vibe has stayed.

When you find a place in the woods or a garden or a park that has good "vibes" you should use that place for a place of meditation/prayer. I am convinced that this is what Jesus meant when, in Mathew 6, he talks about praying in a "closet" and not in public. I would bet just about anything that what he was saying was to find a private place. That is why it was the Garden of Gethsemine he chose, instead of finding a place in the house......did they even have closets in 1 CE? He talks of finding a place where you can communicate with God.....and this is important......and places with bad or neutral "vibes" are not where you should be praying or meditating. It is also true that where I find good vibes may not be where you find them....however, if you find a place where they make you happy, your happiness and contentment can be shared with those that visit you. I have no idea how often people visit me at this little place that I live on, that come from several hundred thousand dollar houses, talk about how they envy me. And it isn't just the goats and cows and dogs and chickens......it is the place where I can share the "vibes" of a happy place.....and it is that, that people so often lack in their lives. They have things, but they have no spiritual connection to where they are or what they are......and in doing so live the "lives of quiet desperation" that Thoreau talked about.........

[redbird4848]

GP,

You hit on something very important. There are places which resonate with powerful "vibes". There is one such place where our people go to fast and pray.

They say this place was given to my people for vision quests, gathering of sacred plants, and I believe it.

I swear that place has an energy like you would not believe. I once came off that sacred place and felt like there were many eyes on me. I turned and waved at the mountain, and immediately all the hairs on my arms stood up.

I found unseen "trails" which led to an alter built of stone on top of the mountain. I used to go there when I needed to pray and work things out.

Peg, there is a sheriff for Hughes County who came out to our place and when he got out of his car, stopped and looked at the house and said, wow, this place has good vibes. And I guess it does, because we have had spirit contacts here, like singing and such.

[Synopsis]

Wow, very interesting perspectives from our Native American friends. I love to hear this kind of stuff redbird and goodpasture. By all means, keep it up!

[colleeng47]

Originally Posted by Synopsis

Wow, very interesting perspectives from our Native American friends. I love to hear this kind of stuff redbird and goodpasture. By all means, keep in up!

Fascinating! I agree, keep this stuff up -- it's soooo interesting! I read so much of this when I took my History Of the Native American class in college a few years ago. It's so moving.

[Goodpasture]

Originally Posted by Synopsis

.......very interesting perspectives ......

perspectives is what it is. people get so caught up with being "right" that they fail to see the commonality of events and situations.

There is a place in Chimayo in New Mexico where there is a chapel that has been the focus of pilgrimages for hundreds of years. It was built on a power place by the Spanish. But the Tesuque had used that place as a place of power and faith for generations before the first conquistador. In the alcove to one side of the Santuario is a place where people can get "sacred dirt" to wipe their hands or arms with, and there is a room full of crutches and canes and wheelchairs attesting to the miracle healings that have happened there.

Places where good spirits are, are condusive to healings and power and oneness with the spirits. There are also bad spirits.......often times caused by bad events....or at least reinforced by bad events......I am not at all sure that bad events are not caused by problems generated by bad spirits......if a bad spirit makes one person anxious and another person edgy, it doesn't take long for the two people to be at each other, and in the worst circumstances death can occur. And you can attribute it to one person or another being cranky or an a**hole or something, but it could be, simply, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I have found places where, even though I was alone, I have not felt welcomed. And it was with relief that I left. Had I remained there, indifferent to the desires of the spirits of the place, my life would have been less than what it was. I have noticed that some places didn't even have birds talking to each other. By moving on, I was able to achieve harmony with things around me and far greater rest and contentment.

And in this whole time of learning and searching, I have found nothing that contradicts the teachings of Jesus, although I have found much that contradicts the traditions of denominations.

It is all a matter of perspective.

[redbird4848]

Some of the ceremonials will never be discussed online.

There was a time when so many Natives felt the old ways, the traditional cremonies were in danger of being "stolen" and/or misused, and that led to a lot of ceremonies being closed off to non-Indians.

Each tribe is different, and each person is different. An example, the Kiowa chapter of NAC does not allow whites inside the tipi. While C&A tribe does, but some won't allow whites to participate.

I think its just we want some of the things we hold sacred to stay that way.

Case in point, I had a good friend (non-Indian) in college who was gay. He said that he had gone to a sweat lodge with some of his gay friends, none of whom were Indian. And it turned into an orgy.
I just sadly shook my head, because, FOR ME, the overwhelming feeling inside the sweat lodge is a time of intense prayers, a time when we set aside the world and really connect with the Great Spirit.

We usually have someone to "run" the sweat, someone with knowledge of certain songs and such. Having said that, there are a great many whites who are adopted by Indians and become brothers.

I took Uncle Don, my companion (who is white) with me to see a medicine man. Don is a retired RN college professor. He was fascinated by the medicine practiced by a traditional healer.
So much that Don began asking all kinds of questions and my uncle listened and asked Don his own. It was funny, because they were both enjoying each others knowledge.

[Goodpasture]

I lived near the Picuris Pueblo for several years. One of my best friends there was a Winnebago who had married a Picuris woman and moved to her home in the mountains south of Taos. He had been adopted out to a white family when he was a child so he could learn to be white, instead of his people (Indian). He ended up going to Santa Fe Indian School as an artist (he worked beads) and meeting his wife. I found it interesting because the Picuris treated him like they did any non-Picuris.......he was not allowed into the Kiva, and even though his son could brought into one of the societies and taught the details of the Kiva, the son was to never talk to his father about it.

I always felt bad for Terry. He was truly lost in a world that was not his. He knew nothing of the Winnebago and living in New Mexico would never learn, he was obviously not white, he was excluded by the Picuris......even though he was on a "reservation" and with Native Americans, he was still a man without a people......and no roots, no traditions, no heritage. His only heritage was the vicarious one he could impart to his children.....and he was excluded even for that.....the elders and the boys grandfather took care of that.

He did good bead work though.