Quote:
Originally Posted by Unified Serenity
Your anger is very palpable Day, and I'm sure it's born from great injustice. I feel that most here on Avalon are spiritual people who seek greater understanding and truth. They are not trying to disrespect your culture or anyone's belief system.
I was raised Roman Catholic, my step father adopted me when I was 13 and he is of Mayan descent. This helped lead me to looking into native spirituality. I found immense love and understanding in a spirit filled Lutheran Church, followed my path into Messianic Judaism and gained much understanding of the traditions, idioms, and messages only found if seeing things from that understanding. I have been fortunate to study with and fellowship with people of divergent spiritual paths. All of this searching has brought me to a place of appreciation for each path and a feeling of ultimate unity and oneness of spirit in the ultimate creator God/dess.
Something that does bother me, and maybe it shouldn't, but I sense a great disrespect and almost vehement hatred toward "white" people and their seeking of truth. A thousand good deeds go unheralded, while one bad deed is amplified and that is all people seem to see. Truth is the same no matter the religion, language, race, culture.
I loved the heartbeat drumming meditation circle. How the rythmic pounding in time to a heartbeat aided in going deeper on a spirit journey. I loved saying the rosary as a meditative tool and discovering how it was not a chore of saying 10 Hail Mary's, an Our Father, Glory be, but a method to disconnect from out babbling mind and go into spirit and commune with God. So many methods for connecting are out there, and yet some want to focus on one path is the right way and all other paths are wrong and lead to darkness. I am not saying you are judging others paths Day, for I see your hurt and anger over some abusing the wisdom and kindness of the Native American Path to make a buck. But, there is this tone on many threads of putting down those who are of a "white" heritage who have given many wonderful things to the world, and followed God as best they could.
Methods of prayer, dances, ritual and ceremonies are all wonderful things to me if they bring me to a place of Divine oneness, and an ability to express love to all that is. I care not what culture brought them about, for I love and respect them all.
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these may be your feelings but I can assure you ... that it is not anger, but something far deeper that you maybe cannot understand.
I thank you for sharing your story, but you must remember that to respect that it is your story and should not be a cookie cutter blueprint idea for every native person.
i would also caution you about making blanket statements regarding all people.
I have met some incredible people here on Avalon who understand the story very well and are in full agreement with the videos trying to wake people up about the misuse of culture.
what you call anger others call strength.. so you see it is relative to your own experience and not necessarily in truth.
while it is interesting that you stepfather is mayan and how this led you to broaden your cultural experience, it is not the same as having native blood and knowing the history in one's dna
Perhaps one culture has only psychology to understand things in, but we have the Spirit, the Creator and for that we are diligent in wanting to keep these teachings pure and with the respect necessary.
These teachings are thousands of years old and will survive in tact despite what anyone else believes or says.
perhaps you could try to understand that .. instead of believing that you know what other people are thinking