Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

This beautiful creation of Mother Earth and Father Sky-Sun offers each of us an opportunity to walk, always, in balance and harmony by remembering them as our elemental parents. We remember … we have access to an orderly and supportive life view within the context of the Sun, Moon, seasons, the natural world, and the elementals of wind, earth, fire, water and the directions of the Medicine Wheel … Universally, the traditional view of life is one of a sacred nature. Myriad helpers and companions accompany each person, and these helpers may be recognized through vision, dream, inspiration, or experience. Vision, dream, and inspiration are personal and vital connections to enhanced understanding, experience and attunement with the Spirit World. In this way, we honor ourselves as Sacred Beings and begin, or continue, to participate as co-creators in a living world. And so, we move in wholeness and beauty.

May we have a strong body

May we have a good mind

May we have a heart full of love

And know no fear.

Aho!

-- Minisa Crumbo

Of all the paths and choices and histories, the energetic pathways of the directions and elementals are the most real and vital … I think they are only found by mind-oriented persons who comprehend the true energetic, light components of the Medicine Wheel … fuse, merge, again and again with the strips, rays, fibers, and channels of light … Find places of being that are lighter and broader … just make sure that once the light paths open up, and you know it, that some mental program stores it 24-7, making awareness and experience of the light never far from surface consciousness, making the full experience known, close and available, as soon as possible. Form new habits of association … linking the moments like beads on a string until they can be slipped over the head and worn … Our thoughts are our reality. We must think better, smarter, longer, and deeper about ourselves, our world, and what we really want that to look, feel, and be like. Be it. Do it. Don’t let up.

'Winter Solstice' excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

     

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

Winter Solstice: By the calendar of the natural world, the winter solstice marks the ingress into the profound precincts of the deep Mother Earth Womb, the original confirmation point of all seed soul, sprout, and rootlet growth. The days and nights of silent contemplation and Quiet Time observances have served to quiet the mind and prepare the body, much as the field is prepared to receive the new seed. Winter means that much of the northern hemi-turtle shell of this hemisphere is blanketed by the purifying powers of Snow Woman’s gifts and freezes … We live always within the Sacred Rainbow Hoop. This hoop of life is a threshold of all the moments of the eternal present. The eternal present we now find ourselves within and contemplating is the first of the White Plains of Spirit, others will follow in succeeding seasons, each with basically the same purifying intent. The winter solstice, embedded within the purifying power of the cold, cloaked with the white plain of purity, located in and upon the wisdom body of the original gift, represents the core wisdom quality of winter … Conscious arrival and acquaintance with the Winter threshold of the Sacred Medicine Wheel Hoop of Life is a primal renewal experience, made ceremony. If this is a new concept to you, trust that you have entered into one of the most beautiful and comprehensive systems in this galaxy and beyond for containing, supporting, and interpreting life in a sacred way. Best wishes upon this journey. The winter solstice is a naturally occurring station within the year and, as such, has accrued a long history. The holy days, holidays, are usually grounded in natural phenomena that grew out of the Creative Mind and manifested in the first, most beautiful and enduring gifts of our Mother Earth, our Father Sky-Sun and the myriad of clustering entities we call the powers and fixtures of the natural world … This then, is the sacred charge: to bring oneself forward in all possible wholeness, mindfulness, and beauty, and to conceive of and design ceremonies of personal meaning, fulfilling the sacred charge to be happy and enjoy life. This winter solstice is our time to unite with the natural world. Take these long nights to rest, tell stories, celebrate, and dream deeply of life before the stronger suns call us forward once again to grow and to labor. But for now, enter into and be one with the conceptual Return of the Light.

Potawatomi Autumn Vocabulary

Potawatomi Autumn Vocabulary:

Autumn = dgwaget

Basket = gokbenagen

Black = mkede

Blessing = bgosendagwzewen

Corn = ndamen (mdom-in)

Feast = wewesnakewin

Gourd = shishigwIn

Many = dso

Moon = tpukises

Pumpkin = wapkon

Squash = kwesmen (kwes-men)

Water = mbish

West = we’jbkeshmok (where the sun goes down)

Potawatomi Sacred Plants Vocabulary:

Cedar = kishki

Sage = wabshkebyek

Sweetgrass = wishkpemishkos

Tobacco = se’ma

From 'The Eagle Dance' by Woody Crumbo:

The Eagle Dance, like most American Indian dances, was inspired and conceived by one person through a dream or vision. Such a spiritual manifestation was considered a sacred gift of the gods. The blessed recipient of the dream would call about him his fraternal brothers or clan -- in some cases the entire tribe -- and demonstrate the dance while relating the significance as revealed to him by the "spirit world" ... in this, the Pottawatomi Eagle Dance, the ceremonial significance is to depict certain actions and evolutions the American Eagle. It was first revealed in a dream which came to one Kiowa, a Pottawatomi brave. 

Title: Eagle Dance

Artist: Woody Crumbo

Culture: Native American; Citizen Potawatomi

Date: mid-20th-Century

To the Stars Through Art: A History of Art Collecting in Kansas Public Schools, 1900-1950

Art Bytes: 'Moccasin Makers' by Archie Blackowl (MKBMA)

Autumn Harvest

I invite you to consider taking this harvest and honoring time into a personal earth walk whether in community or solitude. In this way we begin to approach the Gaa Biboon Ked, the Winter Wisdom Teachings whereby we begin to ‘Fire Our Seeds of Inspiration’ for the new year to come. Begin watching for the Orion Constellation to appear low in the eastern sky at early night, as the ancient harbinger of Winter Bringer. 

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

 Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk':

This beautiful creation of Mother Earth and Father Sky-Sun offers each of us an opportunity to walk, always, in balance and harmony by remembering them as our elemental parents. We remember … we have access to an orderly and supportive life view within the context of the Sun, Moon, seasons, the natural world, and the elementals of wind, earth, fire, water and the directions of the Medicine Wheel … Universally, the traditional view of life is one of a sacred nature. Myriad helpers and companions accompany each person, and these helpers may be recognized through vision, dream, inspiration, or experience. Vision, dream, and inspiration are personal and vital connections to enhanced understanding, experience and attunement with the Spirit World. In this way, we honor ourselves as Sacred Beings and begin, or continue, to participate as co-creators in a living world. And so, we move in wholeness and beauty.

May we have a strong body

May we have a good mind

May we have a heart full of love

And know no fear.

Aho!

-- Minisa Crumbo

Of all the paths and choices and histories, the energetic pathways of the directions and elementals are the most real and vital … I think they are only found by mind-oriented persons who comprehend the true energetic, light components of the Medicine Wheel … fuse, merge, again and again with the strips, rays, fibers, and channels of light … Find places of being that are lighter and broader … just make sure that once the light paths open up, and you know it, that some mental program stores it 24-7, making awareness and experience of the light never far from surface consciousness, making the full experience known, close and available, as soon as possible. Form new habits of association … linking the moments like beads on a string until they can be slipped over the head and worn … Our thoughts are our reality. We must think better, smarter, longer, and deeper about ourselves, our world, and what we really want that to look, feel, and be like. Be it. Do it. Don’t let up.

Excerpts from 'Spirit Talk': Spirit Plate

The Spirit plate makes out recognition and gratitude visible to the beings who are making a gift of their seed history, and when properly addressed they can become actively involved in an ongoing life path through other agents, namely ourselves. Their seed histories, with cultural family trees grounded in the natural world that make contributions of inestimable value and tensile strength to the DNA of any bonding entity, are at least as hugely long and venerable as ours.

Most of these connections and contributions are beyond our ken, but heartfelt gestures of gratitude and respect for these living things are ours to express through remembering our connections to the best of our abilities—where and when they lived and grew, who harvested them, how they were handled and for what purpose and by whom. The questions are always, what do we have to do that these things will live?

The Spirit plate is prepared by selecting very small and representative pieces of each feast food on the table ... mindfully collected with the left, offering hand, taken outside, and offered with a prayer of recognition and gratitude ... I like to raise the plate and turn it to the seven directions, lastly approaching the Mother Earth four times before lowering the plate to the earth ... Shewen dagzewin! A blessing is visited upon us this day!