...... religion is what you make of it. I had been in the Catholic faith for years and was just not happy. Then I had a dream one night. I was a Cougar cub and I was chasing a baby bunny all over the office, from desk to desk and shelf to shelf, not to eat it but to save it. I had a person interpret that dream for me. She said it meant a new beginning. Boy was she ever right and in more ways than one. I started seeing cougars everywhere. Mercury's on the highway, special programs that I didn't know were one when I turned to that channel. When I started reading about Native American beliefs then I started having dreams about Cougars, and I would often of deer cross my path on the road where ever I went. When ever I had a dought a Cougar of some kind would appear, so I figured that the Native American belief was what I needed, but I kinda of got lost along the way.
I'd always felt that in this country the one religion that had to do with animals was Native American. So I bought books and studied. I studied alot. I think I have more books on the Native American belief than the local libraries. Well it turns out that, and this is a quote, "That's a white point of view." Now I've had alot of NA people tell me that their tribal beliefs are private and not to be shared with those not of the tribe. I was never looking for those. I just wanted someone to tell or show me the proper way to pray to the beginning of the day, or the proper way to give thanks for the needed but not asked for help from one of the many relations we have on this planet, or the proper way to purify something, that's all I ever wanted or needed, but instead all I ever got was either, "It's a WHITE point of view", or "We don't share tribal beliefs." I don't remember asking anyone to share anything.
Now that I've got you really fired up, I'm going to push it a little farther. No......ALOT FARTHER!!! One thing a REALLY REALLY HATE.....is a fake, or someone who denies that something or someone exists. Now I have been reading and buying books on Native American beliefs and Culture for years and yes I will admit that alot of the books out there are or were written by people who either refuse to claim their native heritage for what ever reason or are not native at all, but most of them are PHD types who have studied for years or decades on the subject and despite the misgivings of those of native blood do seem to know what they are writing about.
Then you have the other side of the coin. Those who are of Native American blood either full mixed or part mixed with some other nationality who have in some case gone out of their way to write about the religious beliefs and experiences and printed not only one book but several. One in particularly is Wolf Moondance whose books are still available today, and from what I've read so far she's right in there. You type her name on the Barnes and noble web site and quite a few books come up, and one other Author by the name of Ted Andrews who it seems is well known in the Native American world and has similar teachings, but even thou they are both of mixed blood Ted is more well known than Wolf.....why? The only answer I can think of is the way they teach. One is more along the lines of tradition and the other is more along the lines of New Age, but they will admit that they were never excepted by their people so they went out on their own.
In closing, there are alot of people like me out here who are searching. Searching to be a apart of something bigger than themselves and if Native American aren't going to help people like me and other out there to learn what it is we need to learn, then leave us alone if we don't do things the right way. Both the Native American Beliefs and the Celtic along with a few of the Shinto beliefs are very similar unless you knew for sure what you were watching you couldn't tell the difference so excise us if we don't get it right. If your not going to help us.............leave us alone and don't say a thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment