Empowering Women Through Art -- Bacone College, Muskogee, OK, Nov. 29, 2016

Bacone College's Merritt D. Betts Library will host a special reception for the artists featured in the "Empowering Women through Art" exhibit from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 29, 2016. There is no cost to attend and refreshments will be served.

The "Empowering Women through Art" exhibit features the inspiring works of Minisa Crumbo Halsey and Molly Murphy Adams, both multi-talented Native American women.

A talented artist, author, teacher and photojournalist, Halsey's contribution to the "Empowering Women through Art" exhibit includes a selection of hand-made turquoise and silver jewelry and her latest publication "Spirit Talk - A Book of Days."

Molly Murphy Adams' work stems from a combination of traditional feminine arts, both Native and mainstream, with contemporary design and media.

"I overlay these traditional skills and design sensibilities with a contemporary understanding and interest in modern art," she said. Her contributions to the "Empowering Women through Art" exhibit include many beautiful beadwork on fabric pieces.

The exhibit continues during library hours through Dec. 15. For more information, please contact Merritt D. Betts Library Executive Director Faye Davis, davisf@bacone.edu.

Listening to SPIRIT TALK: make prayers ... burn sage and sweetgrass!

Well, good morning, bozho, jayek!

No damage from the quake here in the black jack hills of Oklahoma, even though it measured strongly, the experience of it was gentle and rolling ... a surface quake ... apparently, the deeper ones are jerky because of plate activity. Interestingly enough, I found myself listening for a message at each pause and realizing, that IS the message ... listening to the natural world.

This was a short break from the SPIRIT TALK contributions but, Spirit has spoken and this is what I hear. We will soon be hearing many voices of wisdom arise from the four directions and a great many cries will multiply and be heard upon the land.

Current events are a wake up call to all. What we must now do? We must look to do that which is before us ... as well as just keep on keeping on with daily and personal contributions and responsibilities ... but, many, more, important considerations vie for our attention.

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Current events are charging us to 'make our own elections' and in so doing, position or reposition ourselves from a powerful and centered personal focus upon our Medicine Wheel, a position that does not entertain or function (for long) from a sense of fear or division.

More than ever, it is up to us to listen and to 'MAKE PRAYERS' that the world might go on 'in a good way' and then, most importantly perhaps, to remember that within all of these things are deeply embedded messages of seeding, growing, maintaining and continuing stances of  active positive consciousness, postures of gratitude, senses of spacious wisdom, growing awareness, vital and enduring senses of internal Spirit connection ... no matter what. We must remember that the answers are encoded within every question ... we must ask, listen, question, test and consider obeying that which would appear to be clear, loving and positive responses emanating from Spirit and or our highest mind, heart, body and spirit construct.

Election or choice positions and results of any and all kinds extend and represent unique liberation and empowerment opportunities. Evolution opportunities abound and clarity is being made strikingly clear, where perhaps heretofore clouded by inertia, under attention or personal interest.

It is now clear that the map of each person's Standing Rock has moved much closer. We here in Oklahoma have the Black Snakes to deal with as well ... as do each of us.

Let us never forget that we and all others are the SACRED!

Let us walk all days, all ways, in balance and harmony with you, Creator ... AHO!

Bama  mine,

Dawn Woman

Spirit Talks

Greetings Spirit Talkers and Spirit Walkers,

I am writing to express my deepest gratitude for your visits to the SPIRIT TALK entries, both on my blog, to Debra at the Jaguar Spirit-Medicine Wheel site, Mayan Majix, Kaypacha, Facebook, and Twitter publications.

After much thought and prayer I am ready to speak of how it is with me, at this time. The voice of Spirit has been speaking for some time, suggesting to me, that this season would most ideally be explored and honored as one of simplification and relative silence and solitude.

I am deeply appreciative of this guidance and am in the process of listening and obeying.

As I accept and seek the ways by which to best respond to this direction, I find there will be no further posts of Spirit Talk and the Medicine Wheel column.. for the time being. The book, SPIRIT TALK, was initiated during a first four days of December, in silence and solitude, therefore, moving forward  into the relative unknown with confidence and happiness, I would invite you to consider and perhaps join in initiating a personal medicine journey of listening, BEING the witness, appreciating, Firing the Seeds of Inspiration for a very personal Medicine Wheel passage of observing, writing, dreaming and lovingly honoring the coming 13 Moons.

Please feel free to enter your discoveries and wonderings on my blog (dawnwoman5@gmail.com) should you want. I would love to hear from you, as I'm sure would others, as we share our earth walks and Spirit Talks within this time of great positive potential and personal evolution of mind, heart, body and Spirit...within the context of the Sacred Medicine Wheel Teachings, one among many, of the great truth teachings and systems to be found upon our beautiful Mother Earth and Father Sky-Sun.

Blessings,
Good Journeys, Balance and Harmony be ours, this and all days, now and forever more..for it is by our prayers that our world goes on In A Good Way.

Kiche  migwech, Mamogosnan, for all of the gifts..may we move always, with hearts full of love and all of the good things.

To All My Relations,
Dawn Woman
Minisa Crumbo Halsey

Autumn 2016: Part 3

Here we depart from the known and embark on forging medicine relationships with the essential healing qualities of the plant beings directly. So much information of loving substance and value has been lost to us, forgotten, hidden from us, punished, co-opted or discredited and yet many alternative restorative and healing continue to reveal themselves as 'new' or surface in the grass roots research labs of suffering and need, our own and that of others. Courage must be summoned to think deeply about want and need. Talking, reading, observing the good old ways of establishing honest relationships with every aspect of a condition and then stepping out with new eyes, trusting, testing and flexing the new muscle of intuition first on small conditions and then the larger and then the largest. There is no one else to look to but ourselves, collectively, to initiate the Spirit Talks, rebuilding and restoring strong and vital connection and communication with all of the other living things with which we share the planet. We are seriously out of touch with the natural world and continuously moving more seriously out of balance with the whole. We can and must take these steps for our survival. Our survival means stepping put of ignorance, desensitization and feelings of entitlement..anything and everything we can identify that contributes to real or imagined feelings of separation with anything. We are want and need driven, always. These wants and needs will serve us well when order and connection is desired with the natural world, the animals, our ancestral helpers and Spirit guides and the plant beings in particular. The restoration of honorable communication with the plant beings is of paramount importance and of the guidance presented here, found elsewhere and intuited is especially successful, perhaps the plant beings or being will come forward, reveal themselves and talk to you. Then you're on your way. That's the way is always was. The plant beings will then state exactly how they can be helpful and to whom and why...they will say when and how they should be picked, stored, prepared and spoken to..they will teach the forgotten words and songs that should accompany picking, preparation and application. That's the way it goes when it goes well.. This is a true restoration of balance and harmony through a mind, heart, body and Spirit driven initiative in concert with native beauty, the Medicine Wheel Teaching or a structure your choice, design or vision, for our heartbeat and the heartbeat of the Mother Earth are one.
 
WE MUST WALK WITH HUMILITY. WE MUST DO THIS IN ORDER TO SEE AND HEAR ALL THINGS CLEARLY, AND PUT AN END TO THAT WHICH IS NOT REAL.


THE ORIGINAL INSTRUCTIONS
Now comes the work of setting these things we shall call the Original Instructions in place and tending them with attention and highest consciousness. 
 
All  beings are born with a set of original instructions. The clear physical instructions which which we all arrive are DNA and heredity patterning. We, like all beings contain, produce and reproduce adaptive potential to successfully meet a wide variety of growth conditions from birth stresses, the vulnerabilities of youth, reproductive opportunities, sickness, old age and transition activities.  Within our specific lineages are past histories charting the major evolutionary shifts. Science and medicine are able to measure and evaluate current and future cellular data shifts and now, even extends it reach to enter original seed packaging and manipulate base genetic structure in order to legally extend ownership of the developed seed stock for profit in the field and marketplace. The former seed stock contains and reproduces itself according to its original instructions while Genetically Modified seed stock does not. We intend to follow the original instructions and put an end to that which is not real.

We are choosing to continue measuring our steps to meet and journey within the mystical outlines of the original instructions.

Personal choices and affinities of religion and culture shall remain such.

Within this text the major theme is The Original Instructions as revealed and made manifest in the Creator's first gift to us, the two-leggeds ..., most beautiful and enduring gift of the unknowable cosmos within which lives and is breathed alive: Our Mother Earth; Our Father Sky Sun; Our Grandmother the Moon; the Star Beings; the cognizent and powerful elementals .. Water, Fire, Wind, the Green Beings, the Directions .. Spirit Helpers ...all beings who live upon, above and within this Mighty Gift-The Medicine Wheel of Life.... Ho, Mitakweasin..my Relations, I ask you to overlook any omissions or mistakes in this, the naming...there are so many..and I am still learning how to become and live as a complete human being.

And now, I will pause to think on these things.

October 17 -- Spirit Talk: Book Signing

"SPIRIT TALK" speaks to us of the first gifts of life and breath bequeathed to us from the Creator based on the Medicine Wheel Teachings. The author, Minisa Crumbo, (Muscogee Creek and Citizens Band Potawatomi Indian), is an artist and a craftsperson of painting, silversmithing, basketry, potting, quilting, as well as cooking, gardening, and writing. Books available to purchase and autograph by author. 

Sponsor: Native American Affairs at 575-562-2470 or enmu.nativeamericanaffairs@enmu.edu

The Ceremony of Picking and Gathering 'IN A GOOD WAY'

THE CEREMONY OF PICKING AND GATHERING 'IN A GOOD WAY'

Picking and gathering have long been among humankind's primary tools for providing food. The basic nature of the sacred give-away and receive principle is the model for our approach to the plant people, the skebyak, and the natural world.

The plant people go a long way toward offering and providing us, the two-leggeds and others, with the physical materials we need to live life 'in a good way'. Plant fiber provides assorted fiber for the weaving of clothing, nets, mats, basketry, footwear, hammocks, housing, cordage, snares and traps. The plant people share their bodies that our own might live and medicines by which to maintain, heal, and restore health and balance.

The green beings hold all wisdom and knowledge. The Mother Earth and all beings that live upon and within her body have their own unique medicine ways and it is of these ways that we seek to learn the languages, uses and songs. Our Mother is a sentient being with an evolutionary path of her own and when sufficiently sensitized it is possible for us to feel her heartbeat through the soles of our feet and entire being.

In order for us to make orderly and honorable approaches to each living thing we must first understand ourselves for this is what we bring forward in dialogue and intent by way of introduction. The text of Spirit Talk is designed to offer and provide sensitization models, histories, identifying, arriving at and holding appropriate thought focus, charting some designs of personal ritual and time management, suggest structures of meaningful ceremony in the context of individual biology and life style, observing and creatively participating in the cyclical dynamics of the seasons, to encourage song, dance, music..these are some of the ways by which we may begin to accurately and healthily track our minds, authentically and honorably present ourselves to ourselves, actually, and then to all other beings. Seriously consider these suggestions and the practices set forward in the earlier Seasonal writings. Experiment with them for personal veracity, test them out, through your own Spirit Talk. Make requests and prayers for inspired and illuminated pathways.

The Direction of the West, the Physical, Medicine and Introspection
Color: Black or Dark Blue
The Harvest

The Animals often associated with this direction are the eagle and the deer however, many people find that personal affinities with each of the directions may reveal themselves in time. The Medicine Wheel design offered on these pages are of a universal nature. Personal colors and animals may be added alongside the universal motifs, as experience, familiarity and intuition accrues with the seasons. This is a direction of deep return and recognition. The West receives us in our mysterious entirety, our harvest, and we may also journey out to the West and visit.

The Hard Road of Life

West, the final direction in this cycle, links the physical plane-west with the mental plane-east. This is called the hard road of life and where it crosses the good red road is where the sacred Flowering Tree lives. That's us, especially when we have walked all of the Roads for we must not deny walking any of the paths. Here and now is where we can aspire to make our return to the home center and merge with the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life

All of the previous teachings, labors, and observances are approaching a return connection with the Spirit Dream origins of the year, Winter. With the arrival of Autumn we reach a culmination of medicines and seasons. Our harvests, the time of gathering and picking is among the most mysterious, secretive and familial beings, the beings of seed. We can join our essences with theirs, our dualities, singularities, multiplicities and universalities unique and connected upon all directions of the Medicine Wheel but especially, the direction of the west, in the autumn. Everything is coming together and we begin to make ourselves ready to meet the demands and rewards of the hard road of life walk, that another cycle can draw to an orderly close, be complete, rest, prepare and fire the new seeds with inspiration, jointly.

Autumn: Earth Ceremonies of the Gathered Plant, Seed, and Root

AUTUMN: EARTH CEREMONIES OF THE GATHERED PLANT, SEED AND ROOT

The picking and gathering activities of all seasons are remarkable and important but the autumn harvests of the just completed growing season are the final preparations for this winter and often prized and stored against drought, famine or lack, for many years to come.. Prayers, intention, labor and the growth supporting warmth and moisture have produced the fruit, nut, vegetable, green that feeds all beings. Beings such as ourselves, the four-legged, those that swim, fly, slither and crawl that eat more than water, minerals, air and light, as do the seed beings.Most of these plant beings also produce valuable medicine seeds, roots, leaves and stems. The abundantly produced,gathered and stored skebyak, the green beings, and their seeds will feed, clothe and house; they will provide materials for tools and most importantly, they will provide instructive stories which will be told during the long winter nights and in the coming years. The genetic imprint of the seed nourishes our bodies and contributes intelligence from the natural world, the elemental directions and colors, the physical cycles of other living things- composted materials of all kinds-, electric solar emanations, the life carrying vibration of the water beings, fire charges from the fire beings, manifold Spirit breaths carried by the ethers, winds and air beings and minerals released by the rock beings.
 
The abundance of the autumn harvest is a life metaphor which speaks of and demonstrates a mutual and respectful interaction representing the basic giving-away and receiving nature of duality of Spirit as it evolves out of our minds and the mind of the Creator, assuming and manifesting in physical form, life incarnate.
 
And this physical form itself, may change it's face many times and undergo a multitude of shifts. The cycles of life suggest many possibilities of being. Spirit may once again enliven a two-legged form or the intelligence may elect to merge with the water beings, sprout as a grass, shrub or tree, run with the fire, air or wind beings, join with the salts, crystals or minerals, fuse with a direction, color or animal or to dance with the Mother Earth. Spirit can and may elect to expand concurrent knowingness with many of these beings, then as now, alive in a living world.
 
The principle objective ceremony is that of cultivating and maintaining a mindful consciousness, healing, personal ritual, prayer, sacred movement, gratitude and high intention is to honor and celebrate right relationship with ourselves and all of these beings so that perceptions of separation with the Creator, ourselves or anything else are narrowed, closed and made whole...this is harvest made enduring, whole and ongoing. Seed is what carries the harvest of wisdom, knowledge and new life forward.