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Thank you for this beautifully written article and for sharing from a much wider (and wiser) perspective. I have read many an article that condemns even the slightest whiff of cultural appropriation within spiritual communities and personal practices. This type of rhetoric feels like spiritual shaming and is anything but the compassionate and creative expression of the Great Mystery. Perhaps some find irony more compelling than sovereignty. As several teachers of shamanism have shared with me, shamanism is a living tradition – and it’s constant evolution is what keeps it a powerful and sacred gift humanity shares.
Enjoyed the article and it certainly strikes a chord. I spent my childhood on a Nebraska farm and learned to love that land. Have you ever noticed how often people who live in different places choose pictures to hang on their walls that reflect the land they live on? We love the lands we live on, and if you travel around you probably felt love for the lands you visited. All our ancestors migrated around for thousands of years responding to cooling and warming climates and the availability of food and water. We connect to the spirits of the lands with our appreciation and love. They merge with us and influence how we feel and act. We belong to the land more than it belongs to us. If we resonate with the spirit of a land like a person whose ancestors have lived there longer, it’s only natural. We share a consciousness with the land and with the others who love it.
But I can understand why some indigenous people object to others adopting their sacred ceremonies when the outsiders don’t understand what effect the ceremonies are meant to produce. If a particular ceremony has always induced a sense of holiness and connection with the divine n you, and someone else mimics it without understanding, perhaps leaving out important parts, or approaching it without respect or without being in the right mental and emotional state, so that it no longer functions as a bridge to the divine, you might feel that your original ceremony had been damaged. You might find yourself unable to think of your ceremony without also thinking of the mistakes, so that your own sense of its holiness is lost and you feel angry. This is probably why some people protect their sacred rites with secrecy.
It would be nice if everyone in this culture would get over the habit of being offended. It’s such an ego trip. If someone knows a way to connect with the divine, it seems to me that the best thing they could do would be to teach it to others, including the proper ways to prepare their hearts and minds so that it works for that purpose. It’s not the particular symbols and acts of a ceremony that are important, it’s the connection with the divine they can produce. The people who are most vocal in objecting to the use of their symbols and ritual acts by outsiders seem to see them more as badges of identity than as living spiritual openings. It’s immature, but we all go through this stage as we grow up, and they will eventually grow out of it and realize that it’s more important to share our Oneness than cling to a well-defended, and ultimately illusory “identity.”
It sounds like Winter was taught by mature Native Americans to do the ceremonies in the right spirit, and that can only be beneficial for everyone.
Thank you for this.
Something I have struggled with for most of my shamanic life time…I love returning to Don Juan’s quote.
Many blessings of grace and peace and wellness be upon you!
Lauri Shainsky
I loved this article! Perfectly said and beautifully written.
thank you Winter, for this paper. I appreciate the approach of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies of respectful acknowledgment of many cultural ways to spirit. In my practice with others, I try to make clear where each practice originated and my intent to honor that culture. When I have been given permission to tell a teaching story from the culture of my Native American teacher, I am careful to tell it exactly as my teacher did, and the let the listener know I have permission to share that story.
And I wear Aran sweaters even though I am not Irish……..
Wonderful article that hits on some of the challenges I have met and continue to meet. I appreciate your candidness and presenting your authentic self. This term “culture appropriation” has become a trigger for me, and a sticking point of moving forward in my own spiritual growth and studies. Your take on it gives me words to sit with.