Connecting with the World beyond the limits
Posted by msterilinn on Mar 8, 2008
As we hope and plan in the very near future to move to a place of our own choosing, there are several major points which go into consideration. First, we would love to live outside the city limits, no matter where we finally land. My daughter and I wish to have many animal friends to keep us company, either adopted, or whatever our Path brings to us. So we need enough space to live comfortably with our four legged friends. There must be clean and beautiful water spots nearby as well, as we are both part water sprite and love to swim and play near water.
Another consideration, which is quite important, is that I work out of my home via my computer. I do not wish to be limited to my choice of living space through the lack of proper connection to the World Wide Web. I have endured the agony of dial-up in the past, and while I sympathize with those who are still wading through the sluggish waters of snail pace connections, I refuse to go back. My lifeline in the financial realms relies upon my abilities to create, and test my creations, as I learn new ways to improve upon my online presence.
If we wish to live beyond the bounds of high speed cable broadband, we will need to look beyond the land, to the sky. This is where providers such as Hughes Net comes in. Hughes Net uses satellite technology, not your phone line, to give you a super-fast, always-on Internet connection. While we shall definately explore our options, it is heartening to know that there are alternatives and choices, so we have a greater chance of realizing our Dream.
Help us Save Our Tribal Youth
Posted by msterilinn on Feb 29, 2008
Greetings Friends of SOTY:
In addition to Pine Ridge and the Navajo reservations, SOTY is working with the Northern Cheyenne in child sponsorship - yes, we know you are all waiting and we thank you for your patience. We hear from our friends on the rez’s who are putting together the lists that with winter being so hard and still on-going, the progress has been slow because just keeping up with daily life is hard enough. But thank you for your patience and understand that your desire to sponsor a child will be met soon - thank you!!
IN THE MEANTIME - IN ADDITION TO DONATIONS OF COATS AND WARM FOOTWEAR FOR PINE RIDGE (along with DONATIONS FOR FORWARDING THOSE ITEMS greatly appreciated), WE ARE GEARING UP FOR THE SUMMER MONTHS BY HELPING THE NORTHERN CHEYENNE.
PLEASE READ BELOW HOW YOU CAN HELP NOW! IT’S EASY!!! MAKE A DIFFERENCE TODAY AND HELP OUR TRIBAL YOUTH!!
The Northern Cheyenne have started a grass roots effort within their tribe to build a summer camp (to begin with) and an eventual on-going program for their youth. They have asked us to ask our supporters to help them begin their efforts this spring with the following easy to mail items = SEEDS!!!
The aim of the program is to teach the youth how to return to the SELF-SUSTAINING life of their ancestors and that begins with sowing seeds for their own gardens. The intention is for the gardens to also provide nutritional and nourishing food year-round for the youth and families as well.
What’s needed?? They are requesting seed packets of the following items:
corn
squash (of various kinds)
beans
carrots
raddish
cabbage
lettuce
and other hearty vegetable seeds that can survive cool nights in the mountains and plains.
The camp will be in Lame Deer, Montana and they can also use whatever garden supplies or gift cards to places like Home Depot or WalMart (for building supplies) that anyone feels like sending.
YOU CAN BUY A SEED PACKET OR TWO TODAY AND PUT THEM IN AN ENVELOPE AND MAIL IT OFF. YOU CAN HELP FEED A GREAT MANY WITH A SINGLE PACKET OF SEEDS - IT’S A BEGINNING AND THEY WELCOME YOUR DESIRE TO WANT TO HELP WITH THIS SIMPLE DONATION.
Please mail your donation of vegetable seeds to:
Cheyenne Freedom Camp
PO Box 628
Lame Deer, MT 59043
We will keep you updated here on Myspace and on our website: www.saveourtribalyouth.com as news and progress of this project continues.
Thank you for your help and support for all our tribal youth!!
All of us at Save Our Tribal Youth
Our Kitchens are the Heart of our Homes
Posted by msterilinn on Feb 28, 2008
My daughter and I have been contemplating whether we shall buy a house, or have one custom built. Either way, we are so looking forward to creating an environment in our living space, which is all our own. If you are like us, and wish to create a unique atmoshpere which expresses your personal tastes, you may wish to view this sweet little video about Kitchen Design. It is family friendly, I promise you, and I was quite impressed with the unique and classic beauty of these luxurious kitchens. They are absolutely gorgeous! I am positive that you too shall be just as impressed with the style and character, as well as the obvious craftmanship of Master designers.
The kitchen is indeed the heart of the home, and from my point of view it is very important to feel the comfort and love in which we express ourselves through the food we choose to nourish our families with. Surrounding ourselves with such beauty only enhances that wonderful feeling which goes into those healthy meals we love to create. So, let us take a few moments to visualize our Dream kitchen.. then visit Kitchen Design and leave them a comment if you are as impressed as I am.
Enjoy!
A delightful Mediterranean Villa anyone?
Posted by msterilinn on Feb 26, 2008
Anyone who truly knows me can attest to how my eyes light up at the mere mention of traveling through the Mediterranean, exploring to my hearts content. Just imagine my joy at the thought of actually living there for a time, absorbing the culture and growing in spirit in oh so many ways! What adventures I could dream up.
I just spent a glorious hour or so dreaming of owning a sweet Villa along the coast of Spain. Searching through the spanish property for sale or rent in spain, depending upon ones desires, certainly served to bring about an irrestable desire within myself to travel to these exotic places in the Mediterranean. Whatever your Dream… simply to travel to an exotic destination on vacation, or a move for whatever reason, perhaps you too would enjoy searching to your hearts content. And perhaps you too shall simply fall in love with one of these sweet Spanish Villas which are loaded with charm and exquisite character.
I wish to share a site I discovered which has a really cool design and the search is smooth. I fouund more than 7000 properties for sale and rent in Spain, France, Italy and Cyprus. A feature I found to be quite unique is the web site is in 7 languages. English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian and Danish. All 7000 properties are 100% translated.
Not even the UN web site is translated 100% in all their languages. All pages at medhead.com can at any time be translated 100% to any 6 other languages. All properties are added once (by a private individual or an agent) and instantly translated into the other languages - this is 100% unique and not possible on any other web site. THIS IS NOT A MACHINE TRANSLATION! It is done by professional translators and all information is field based (you do not type in anything when you add a property - you only select fields that have all been translated).
I am definately looking forward to many exciting journeys in further exploration of our beautiful, sacred and bountiful Earth. Enjoy!
Bringing about Balance in our Lives..
Posted by msterilinn on Feb 21, 2008
The Chinese word for ‘busy’ consists of two symbols: one is the human heart - the other, death. I take this to mean that when one is excessively busy, the heart is insensible, frozen. In a world where busyness is held up almost as a virtue, especially in business, I’d like to take a look at coming back into balance. It’s a big topic, and one I’ll return to over time.
We hear a lot nowadays about work/lifestyle balance; today I’m asking, what does a balanced life look like to you?
Balance… there are various definitions in dictionaries, but one that I particularly like describes it as “harmony and proportion”. Perhaps these words resonate particularly with me, but with their overtones of unity and spaciousness I feel that these are virtues that most of us could do with more of in our lives.
Balance is about feeling connected to ourselves and others, and a sense of rhythm and flow between mind, body and spirit. It’s about being flexible - having awareness about what’s going on for you at any given time, and equally important, having the ability to respond to the messages that you’re receiving, bringing you back into harmony.
If you think about it, when we balance on something, we’re always moving as we seek to remain in equilibrium: think of the tightrope walker, and how he adjusts his position on the rope continuously in order to remain upright. Likewise in nature; the universe is always seeking equilibrium: think of our bodies and homeostasis, the means by which the internal systems of the body (e.g. blood pressure, body temperature) are maintained, despite possibly extreme variations in external conditions; also the way in which as cells die in a healthy person they are replaced by exactly the same number. We don’t have to think about these bodily processes, but constant awareness of our thoughts is required to create mental and physical balance.
I would like to give you two very different time-frames in which to consider what balance means to you: one may feel more appropriate to you right now than the other.
There’s moment to moment mindfulness, where you might choose to observe your thought processes at various points during the day (perhaps using an external trigger such as when you put down the telephone after a call, or you hear the next door neighbor’s dog barking; whatever it is, make the trigger something that occurs regularly during your day). As you observe your thoughts, see if you can let them go and become aware of what is happening within your own body; you might like to incorporate this with breathing in and out slowly a few times, and saying a statement to yourself that you find calming and centering… an example might be: “I am in control of my life” or “life flows easily for me”.
Another suggestion for “in the moment” mindfulness is to choose an activity that you do on a regular basis and that you consider a chore, and see if you can, by coming into the present moment, alter your experience of it, as an active meditation. If you do not like washing up, for example, see if you can become highly aware of the heat of the water, the sound that the dishes make as you clean them, how the plates shine after they’ve been buffed… Breathe, and feel the calm and balance that comes with mindful activity.
The other method is to take the ‘big picture’ view. Balance doesn’t have to be about compartmentalizing the different areas of your life: indeed, trying to see these areas in terms of symmetry and allocation of percentage points (e.g. work life 22%, social time 15% etc) can cause more stress than it cures! There will always be times when we’re out of balance, if we’re dealing with a sick parent or child, or a deadline at work for example, but in general, some questions to ask yourself are these…
Am I feeling more contented with my life overall than I was one/two/ five years ago?
Am I heading in the right direction?
Are my talents being utilized?
Do I have things in my life that I’m passionate about, and.. Do I have more flexibility of time for these things/people/activities than I used to?
Asking yourself these questions on a regular basis is a good way to check whether you’re moving towards balance or away from it.
Pampering our bodies with Nature in mind
Posted by msterilinn on Feb 7, 2008
I have had a bit of a rough time in the past year. Although I am much healthier now, this was not so last Winter and Spring. I have always maintained excellent health, spiritually and physically. Yet we all fall prey to the beast called ’stress’ at some time or other. This particular ‘beast’ caught up with me, and I seemed to get sick all the time, and was quite slow to heal. Once I realized the cause of my distress, I took a good look at my Life and noticed I had gotten too busy to truly take good care of myself. My daughter and I decided I needed to be especially aware of pampering myself on a daily basis. So each day I must set aside some time to do something special to enhance my wellbeing, and teach my daughter to do so as well, so it would just become a natural part of our day.
As I am into all things natural, I began by sorting though my natural skincare products. I have quite the collection, and was pleased with my options. My daughter suggested a nice foot massage, and I found this totally delicious and healthy sounding B. Kamins Maple Sugar Body Scrub by Skin Dimensions Online. Skin Dimensions Online offers the exclusive Skin Dimensions SB product line. Their exclusive line includes moisturizers, green tea anti-oxidants, acne care and anti-aging products, and the increasingly polular and best-selling retinols, including the new 1 % starter introductory line. I will definately be adding Skin Dimensions Online to my natural beauty selection of resources.
Well then, allowing the Goddess within to hold sway over the moments of each day, I will be on the lookout for many ways in which to pamper myself and my daughter as well. We shall enjoy browsing through the natural skincare essentials to pamper ourselves and enjoy the pleasure of just being and living in each wonderful, loving and natural moment.
A sweet and cozy low impact Woodland Home
Posted by msterilinn on Oct 27, 2007
It has always been my dream to build a home that personifies nature and natural living, blending in perfect balance with my surroundings. Living in such a way brings such a feeling of oneness with nature, and total satisfaction in knowing we are creating a very low impact on our environment.
I love gardening and feel that growing our own food and herbs feeds not only our bodies, but our spirits as well. This is true of our surroundings. The place we dwell within is a reflection of our true selves, and while not all people love nature as I do, those who do may appreciate these quaint and cozy little homes as this family in Whales has built.
You can learn all the details, and step by step process, of how these homes are built and what future projects these folks have in mind. Not only is this a sweet and cozy dwelling, with the added bonus of learning how to build this for oneself, can you even imagine the feeling of joy in knowing you have created this charming space with such love to fill your home, as you shelter within? Is this truly how folks once lived as a rule? How could we have strayed so far from such a natural state?
You can be certain that I shall endeavor to build such a home for my own family, and those who shelter within my little earth home will feel the love and peacefulness surrounding them in a gentle embrace.
Take a little journey into one families adventures in building the home of their dreams at A Low Impact Woodland Home.
Here you will learn of their experiences, as well as step by step visuals and plans of how their enchanting home was created from the earth up. I found the entire process fascinating and hope that you will too… enjoy! 
Mother Earth is growing… what a concept!
Posted by msterilinn on Aug 14, 2007
Now, we all should know that our precious Mother Earth is a living being. She lives, breathes, feels and grows… just like any other being we percieve as being “alive”. This is why it is important to care for her, and respect her as the precious gift she is. The Creator placed us here so we can live and grow in harmony, taking little and walking softly, as our Ancestors were taught. Everything we need to live full, healthy lives was given to us in Nature, and it is a shame to see this treasure squandered thoughtlessly. This is our Life! People need to wake up before it is too late.
I found this video to be a fascinating scientific view on how our dear Mother Earth has grown over the Millenia.
Enjoy…
Dreaming Your Song.. An interview of Lakota spiritual teacher Paul GhostHorse
Posted by msterilinn on Apr 9, 2007
I would like to share a teaching from my dear freind Paul Ghosthorse, a Spiritual leader in my Lakota Tiospe.Dreaming Your Song
New Life Journal interviews Lakota spiritual teacher Paul Ghost Horse.
By Erin Everett
Paul Ghost Horse is a Lakota ceremonial leader who lives in
western NC and teaches and conducts ceremonies throughout the
country. His spiritual grandfather is Lakota elder and author
Wallace Black Elk, and he continues his family’s teaching tradition
by sharing some wisdom with New Life Journal readers. We are
honored to offer his words.
PGH: Years ago, when my grandfather was a young man, he went
on a hill for hanblecheyapi (vision quest), crying for a vision, and
an Eagle came to him. The Eagle gave him a song, and when songs
are given to native people, it’s always given in ceremony. The
song connects spirit to spirit; and so when the spirit gives us song,
they don’t give it with words. They give it with sound, so the
information is transferred from spirit to spirit, the spirit messenger
of Creation to the spirit of human being, through the medium of
sound vibration. So the Eagle came to my grandfather and gave
him this song, and there are no words in this song because people
fight wars over words and get into theological debate over
meaning, but this song is a song of encouragement for the two-
leggeds, so that they never give up in the struggle to become
human beings. The Eagle said this song is going to fly around the
world, and so this song has been sung in North and South America,
in Europe and in Africa. It’s been sung in Hawaii and Russia. And
it’s the song of the Eagle. There are no words to this song because
it’s still a new song. It’s still in a pure state; it has not been
contaminated with words and impressions about what it means.
As I was told: long ago, there was a people and they lived in a
place of paradise. They were very happy with themselves, and they
lived in the spirit of this garden. They had all they wanted to eat
and they needed no clothes, and everything was fine. And the
Spirit said, “Well, you can have anything in this garden you want,
but don’t eat from my apple tree. This tree here: this one is mine.
You can’t eat from this tree, but all the rest, they are yours.”
So the two-leggeds, being as they are, were attracted to that apple
tree, so they ate from that tree. They blamed the snake and they
blamed woman. But both man and woman were lured to that tree.
The snake was an unfortunate bystander. So the people ate from
that apple tree, and they had an understanding, they had a
knowledge. They knew they wanted to start building, creating, they
wanted to be like Creator. And the Creator was upset and chased
them out of that garden for disobeying, so they left in pain and
guilt.
But they left that place with new eyes to see and they traveled all
around the world with that pain and with that guilt, and they passed
it on to other people like a virus. All around the earth, passing it on
from person to person. Many of them wandered in the desert and
they prayed and prayed and a spirit came, a war spirit. They prayed
to this war spirit, and it gave them success in battle. They learned
technology, and they started drifting away from the earth. They
started traveling around the earth, conquering other people.
This place where we live is Turtle Island. This is our paradise, this
is our place, our Garden of Eden. The Creator never chased us out
of the Garden of Eden. We have not one story in all our history of
disobeying our creator and being punished. If something so
important had happened to us, we would remember. Original sin,
that is someone else’s story. It is not ours. These people who came
with guilt on their soul, they passed that on to the people here and
chased the people here out of the Garden of Eden. They came in
pain and trashed our paradise. It is said that there is a holy land
across the ocean, but this land here is holy and sacred and
everything here is that paradise.
It is still here under the pavement! My Grandfather says that we
are the sixth generation to live beyond the end of the world. Some
people are talking about an Armageddon coming, almost with
relish and enthusiasm. Six generations ago-seven generations
now-the last of the free buffalo were killed and the People were
put in concentration camps called reservations. Everyone was
given a number, registration and pedigree. The prophecies were
that we would be living in square houses and that the earth would
be covered in stone, and so here we are living in that age now
where there are roads everywhere and we can no longer drink from
the earth to cleanse ourselves, and the air itself is dark and smoky.
We are the sixth generation to live beyond the end of the world.
And we are trying to find our way. We are trying to understand
how to live in this life. The hunting is gone, so the new hunting is
in jobs, and we live in debt. We are trying to figure it out, trying to
find our way.
Everyone is born with an instruction in this life. As little children,
we are still connected to that spirit. We are born with an instruction
for what we are supposed to do in this world, the little puzzle that
is our life and how it fits in place. And then we lose our way very
shortly after because of the way we are raised in our society. All of
us are damaged now by the way we are educated and because the
food we eat is tortured and contaminated. This hurts our body and
our spirit.
For thousands of years, we’ve been drifting away from creation
and the original understanding of fire, rock, water and the green.
Those are the four elements in the Lakota way of being. So we
have drifted very far from that place. Where we are going, we
don’t know.
We have prophecies, and they shoot off into the future like an
arrow, but those things can be changed. Everything changes. There
is an old Greek philosopher called Heraclitus who said, “All things
are becoming.” There is an old Stones song that says, “All things
shall pursue,” which means that everything changes. The only
constant in the Lakota way of being is that everything is going to
be different tomorrow. Everything changes. So we sit in the middle
of the wheel; hochoka, we call it. That circle with the cross at the
center. We sit in the center and watch the universe all around us
changing from day to day in this kaleidoscope. Our grandmother,
the Earth, how she is clothed: her dress is white, her dress is
brown, her dress is covered with flowers, her dress is green and is
ever-changing. And our Father in the sky: his robe is blue and he
wears that crown of stars over his head. Knowledge and wisdom:
that is the Earth and the Sky. Grandmother and Grandfather: they
are one and the same thing. In Christianity there is a heavenly
Father. But where is Mother? It is a motherless religion. The
Catholics made Mary into Mother of God. So now who is God’s
father? Jesus becomes son and father? Catholics carry the most
guilt of all.
So when we are born into this creation, we have four parts of our
human soul. In the English way, people ask what is a soul, what is
a spirit? No one knows. They try to count the angels on the head of
a pin. In the Lakota way, there are four parts of the human soul,
and there are no words in the English language to describe those
four parts. And I wonder what information has been lost in the
European way of being, because those people were Earth People,
too. Long time ago, they had their songs and their ceremonies, and
they gave up their songs and their ceremonies for someone else’s.
Someone came in and conquered them and convinced them that
their way was better, their songs were better, their spiritual ways
better, and then they passed that guilt of eating from that tree to
new people. They were convinced that they disobeyed the creator
too.
None of my people ever carried that sin. It was never part of our
being. But it was given to us, and we don’t accept it. That’s not our
history. Our way is the way of the fire, rock, water and the green.
We have our seven ceremonies and four virtues. Buffalo Calf
Woman came many, many generations ago and she brought the
ceremonies and teachings that gave us the option of becoming
human beings. We have a culture that had developed without a
prison system because we had justice. We had no need for prisons.
There was never such a thing as an orphan, we never threw our old
people away in retirement centers because we valued them. We
had a culture that seemed to have no government, yet everything
was orderly. Most native cultures were matriarchal: the
grandmother’s wisdom was respected by the people and had great
influence. Men would hunt and fish and protect their territories,
and they would come into camp, and in every home there was a
woman. And the woman would say such and such happened while
you were away and this and that needs to be done. The men would
meet and say such and such happened while we were away and this
and that needs to be done. So the men, they all felt good because
they decided something.
So, that’s the way of balance. It was never a battle of sexes
between the native people; that’s a contamination from across the
ocean. The women did not want to be men and the men did not
want to be women, but everybody had their own power and
understanding. They were born a certain way and they learned the
power of that way. We are all one, but once we are born, we are
separate in the duality of life, male and female. Men and women
each only see half the circle. Together, we have understanding.
The chununpa (pipe) is bowl and stem, male and female, and when
you put them together, it’s a creation, a creation of the world, a
creation of the universe.
NLJ: Thank you, Paul. You just talked about ways that native
people understand and what people who have become
disconnected from their lineage have lost. Many people are
searching for those ways and desiring that connection to the Divine
and to the world around us, that magical connection that makes the
world more alive. Can you tell us the first steps for reclaiming that
connection?
PGH: Well, I don’t think the way for most of us can be found in
religion because in religion, there is dogma. You have to find it in
spirit. A person can be spiritual and still religious, but it’s still in
your spirit that you have to find this. You have to take the time to
go inside. Start each day with a prayer, something so simple. Just
observe this creation and look forward to this day. Give a little
offering of tobacco or chocolate or a piece of your hair or
something for when you’re beginning the day. Wonder about the
adventure that’s going to be in front of you and the challenges, and
ask for gentle teachings. Be conscious. I think the best way is to try
to be conscious through your day in all the little adventures.
Everything manifests from spirit and goes outward, so whatever
your prayer is for the day, that’s how the day is going to unfold, as
an answer. Whatever you ask for, whatever you project into the
day, it’s going to start coming back. It’s like, you drop a pebble
into a pond and the ripples go out, and in a little while, they bounce
back. So you are waiting for these things to come back. Half of
prayer is listening, so when you make that prayer for your day,
what happens through the day is the listening part. And then at the
end of the day, when you are lying safely in your bed and you
review your day, you look at all of the successes and all of the little
failures, and hopefully there are a few more successes than there
are failures, but the failures are good because you will learn
something. Failure is a good teacher. So you give thanks for that
day.
When a human being is born, they are not complete until they take
that first breath. You know, we come from the elements of the
earth. It makes up our body. There is a spirit and there are angels
that come and help us, and everybody has these spirits, these
angels. They are with us, but very few people use them. Very few
people ask them for help. Everybody seems to have somebody
around them, maybe it’s a great grandmother or someone, that
follows them around and kind of watches out for them. Some
people are kind of dead to this, and they don’t realize something’s
there, but most everybody has had the feeling that somebody has
been present alongside them at certain key moments in their life.
So we thank these spirits, these helpers that are near us, sometimes
with little gifts, maybe sometimes give them a little food or
something like that and encourage them and just say, “Thank you
for watching over me.” So they help you to be conscious.
When we take that first breath with our life, we become something
that has never existed before in the world. That person that is there
looking back at you when you look at your driver’s license-that
person has never existed before, and it has come into being, it’s
living in this robe, this body made from the earth, for a short time.
You have to drop this robe back into the earth. There is another
spiritual place, a spiritual dimension, a spiritual world that
everyone goes to but you can’t take your body with you. You have
to leave that behind because you can’t enter with your body. We
live in a 3-D world, and the spirit place is a 4-D world. The 3-D
has to be left behind and that one part moves into the next and how
you cultivate that life, how conscious you are, determines how
conscious your spirit is in that next life. We know this by the
ceremonies. My grandfather was thrown in a crazy house for
praying and healing, and my father was thrown in jail a number of
times for praying in a land founded on freedom of religion. Back in
317 A.D., Constantine made Christianity a legal religion,
supposedly free from persecution at that time. In 1978, Jimmy
Carter passed the Freedom of Religion Act so native people can no
longer be persecuted for praying. We can legally honor our young
girls for becoming women. We can have give-away ceremonies
again. We openly conduct our Sundance Ceremony.
So when people want to live their day with a consciousness and
listening, that spirit will guide them. And maybe the European
people will find their old songs again, because everybody’s family
had their songs. Everybody’s village had those sacred songs that
connected them to the Spirit. And those things haven’t disappeared
from the earth; they are just kind of lost for now, and people have
to find them again. All things have their song, and it just has to be
dreamed again.
So, that was the short answer.
=====================
Look for future issues of New Life Journal, where we’ll share
tradition of the Inipi, the Lakota sweat lodge, which Paul shared
with our editor Erin Everett.
“Reprinted from New Life Journal.. www.newlifejournal.com”
