Medicine Wheel Workshop
This is a long two day, highly experiential workshop that teaches the principles and concepts of what the Medicine Wheel is really about; a personal Life mirror and guide of exceptional accuracy. It includes a detailed 40 page manual, and each participant works a Personal Healing Wheel in the class. Class size is kept small to maximize your experience and learning. No previous knowledge of anything Native American is necessary to learn the Wheel.
Medicine Shields Workshop
Life brings many challenges, some we meet head on, some we avoid, often to only wish later that we hadn't. It is possible to understand our patterns well enough to make changes that will improve our lives, such as dismanteling procrastination, learning better money skills, using uncertainty, even fear, to our advantage. You will create a physical Shield, establish a relationship with an Animal Medicine Helper, then learn how all of this comes together in a useful, productive way.
Native American Lifeways and Spirituality
This is an introductory lecture that touches on Prayer as Commitment, Inipi (sweatlodge), Language, Medicine Shields, and the Medicine Wheel. This is presented in two or three hour formats, so check the times on the schedule page. If you are not familiar with me or the Lifeways, this is perhaps the best presentation to start with as it is will give you a good introduction not only to the topics, but to me. I encourage questions from the audience.
Drum Making Workshop
Participants build a 15 inch Native American-style hand drum. The drum frame is poplar with pinned joints, and the drum head is typically split buffalo. Elk is available. This workshop is capped at 8 people. It takes approximately five to seven days for a drum to thoroughly dry, in which time it cannot be played. I like to schedule a drumming about one week after a drum workshop for those interested in "waking" their drum up (this is about ceremony, which is taught in the workshop). The drumming is open to all interested people.
Rattle Making Funshop
You will build at least one hafted rattle (rattle with a "handle") and one palm rattle if you have time after building your hafted rattle. Rattles are made with wet rawhide, but must be dried during the workshop in order to load the chamber, so if you own a hair dryer, please bring it. Class size is capped at ten.
Dreamcatcher Funshop
You will learn the fun art of creating a dreamcatcher on a five inch metal hoop wrapped in buckskin. Once you have mastered the weave, you'll build a second dreamcatcher on a natural vine hoop. I usually have drilled tumbled stones and feathers to decorate the second dreamcatcher with. I encourage you to bring what you have for decoration as well.
Lectures
Myths, Fictions, and a Little Reality
The Colonizer has had some 500 years to write, rewrite, edit, revise, propagandize, distort, revise again, impose, embed, invent and otherwise spin the tail of the relationship and history between Indigenes and European-Americans. This lecture counters these fairytales with a generous dose of reality.
Lifepattern/Spirituality Workshops
Concluding a workshop is not an ending; it is the beginning of a relationship.
Material Culture Workshop and Funshops
Understanding Animals as Medicine Helpers
When you establish a relationship with a Medicine Helper nation, you not only benefit, you become part of a small but unique group that has done so for millennia, and that has been the very basis for the survival of humanity and the balance of the Earth. Creating a relationship with an Animal nation has as much to do with the success of the whole village as it does the personal success of an individual. Learn how to observe and conceptualize animal behavior, and then to extend it into a teaching metaphor.
Drumming: Circles, Healing, Journey
Drumming Circle and Healing
Often times we are approached to do ceremony along with other presentations, which most often results in calling for a drum circle. Participants are encouraged to bring their Native American-style HAND drums (only) and rattles, and we will typically have a number of drums and rattles available for those who do not have one, but would like to participate more fully. We start by smudging, singing a protection song, and doing the Hollow Bone exercise. We call the Four Winds, which puts us in ceremony, thereby allowing us to sing the sacred songs. Drum healing is offered to those people interested. There is NEVER a charge for ceremony, but we do honor the right of participants to make donations. Most circles are pretty well done after a couple of hours, depending on how many people come for healing.
Drum Journey
The Drum Journey is NOT ceremony, yet we will still smudge, sing the protection song, and do the Hollow Bone exercise to start. A single floor drum is used in combination with words to help participants journey deeper into the Spirit World and safely return. Sometimes I will do a drum healing afterward for those who want one, but this is spontaneous if/when it ever happens and I do not consider it a part of the journey exercise.
Newsletter
I am currently working on a book and have TEMPORARILY suspended publishing my monthly article. When the book is drafted and the editing begins, when the real writing starts, in other words, I will resume publishing the newsletter. Thank you for your interest.
Navigation Links
The Pipe
The Pipe, which you may sometimes hear refered to as a canunpa, (cha-new[hn]-pah,) is a sacred tool and the cornerstone of ceremony. Given to the People so long ago nobody knows for sure, to be the keeper of a pipe for the people is a sobering responsibility. Learn why the Pipe is not for everyone, and how to conduct yourself around the Pipe.
From a humble prespective that admits up front there is more we don't know than we likely ever will know, at least in this lifetime, this talk is more interested in considering the benefits, if any, of understanding reality, "nature," and some of the physics they result from. Would having a more accurate picture of how the Universe works help us in our daily, mundane routines in any significant way?
Story
Among oral traditions, stories are much more significant to the Lifeways, history, culture, spiritual understanding, and all other aspects of a nation's identity, than most people realize. Mainstream academia, for instance, still refuses to consider the old stories as a credible resource in its business of "reconstructing" Indigenous North American life pre-contact because it cannot conceive of a story surviving many generations in its original telling. Truth is, to do so, would seriously challenge many mainstream revisionist theories. Hear some fo these stories and decide for yourself what makes sense.
20 Questions
An informative presentation that addresses some of the most common questions about Indians and Indian Country. You can also get your questions answered when submitted a few days prior to this talk.
Loom Beading
Learn the craft of beading on a loom and create your own artwork, adding beauty and meaning to belts, barrettes, drum bags, pipe bags, shirts, hatbands, rattles - you name it. Fun and relaxing.
Forgiveness: Finding the Gift
A four-hour workshop with a different approach than most: When you find the gift in whatever it is you're struggling to forgive (and there is one there), your fundamental perspective will shift, and in so doing, the issue will dissolve on its own. Understanding brings insight, insight combined with intention brings relief, the kind of relief that raises self-esteem, self-worth, all of which result in greater compassion, for yourself and for others. Forgiveness of self is one of the tougher issues we face, so we do spend time on this. You cannot give away what you don't have. If you would forgive others, be compassionate and wise, you must first learn to do this for yourself.
The Crystal Stone People
Indigenes worldwide have long understood and worked with the Beings of Nature in a pro-active and communicative way. Stone People are no exception. In the mainstream it is not acceptable for people to communicate with the animal or tree or plant Medicine Helpers, much less stones and crystals. The fact most people don't only makes it so for them, it does not negate the truth: We can not only communicate with the Stone People, they have much to teach us. You will literally see the energy of crystals, and of how you affect it.
Stone People Rock!
What properties do non-crystal stones have, and how do we use them? We can learn much about a stone from the way it was formed. And as the Earth's crust cycles completely every 20 million years, give or take a couple million, we can see the parallels of birth, death, and rebirth in that process. From this, we learn just how consistent the Universe is.
Labyrinth Walk
At Loxahatchee, FL we have built a beautiful working labyrinth, a seven tier Hopi-style lab, out of various stone. Feedback from those who have walked it is nothing short of incredible. If you have ever wondered why labyrinths exist, please join us for the next Walk.
