Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World

by Doug Good Feather

The Creator is the awareness that allows both the existence of anything and everything and the contemplation of the existence of anything and everything. The Creator—the Great Spirit—is every-single-thing and the space between every-single-thing and the possibility and potential of every-single-thing.

The Creator cannot be broken down into a physics equation or a mathematical theorem. But for those who require evidence, that evidence may be discovered in the quantum. Classical physics deals with the properties and mechanics of the universe, that is, the physical things that are the result of particles and waves that exist in the physical realm. However, it’s quantum physics that holds knowledge of the space that’s in between those particles and waves, which is the unseen, the unknown, and the mystical.

In our linear and logical world, many people need to see something in order to believe it, but for those walking a spiritual path, many times we need to believe in something in order to see it.

Each of us is a sacred space through which every part of the universe flows to offer itself for reflection and to offer answers, perspective, and meaning to our lives.

When we learn how to sink into the rhythm of our natural spirituality, we can sense the influence the moon has on us, and we become keenly aware of our earthly relationship with the power of the sun. We may have forgotten the words of our original song, but we can hum along until we begin to remember again.

The sun is the bringer of light, and everything that is born from light begins in the East. The East is the sacred direction where we greet the sun and the light of a new day. Each and every morning offers us a chance to start anew, fresh, and to begin again.

Each morning when we wake—should we choose to listen—is a message from the Creator to remember the privilege we were given of waking up. It’s a reminder to get up and prepare our self, to honor our self, to go out into the world, to connect with Mother Earth and the hearts of other beings, to inspire and encourage those who cross our paths, and most importantly, to enjoy life.

Creator discovered that Iktómi, the trickster spirit, had snuck into the earthly dimension and whispered into the ears of the sleeping humans over and over, “What’s in it for me? What’s in it for me? What’s in it for me?” When the humans woke up the next morning, the question of “What’s in it for me?” was burned into their hearts and minds, and they now possessed an ego, which infected them with the delusion of entitlement and superiority. Their egos made them capable of unimaginable destruction and also afflicted them with an irrational fear of things they could not see or understand. Before having an ego, they were at one with and an intricate part of nature, but now they not only felt separate from nature, but they felt separate from each other. The Creator felt pity for what had happened and took mercy on the two-leggeds and gave them four elemental gifts powerful enough to help bring balance to the tragedy and burden of their egos: fire, water, air, and earth.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us.” Gratitude is the foundation of that adage. It means that our mindset has to be that the universe is generally conspiring and working in our favor. Frequently, when something that we perceive as “bad” happens to us, we let it affect us in a highly negative way. But if we interact with the world from a place of gratitude, when something happens that others may perceive as “bad,” we just see that experience as “interesting.” We are curious about why something happens the way it does, and in expressing that curiosity, we’re actively seeking the part of the experience that we’re grateful for. That experience was our destiny, part of the choice we made when we came into this life. Once we recognize the lesson, the natural laws of the universe will stop these types of experiences from happening.

Our souls are drawn to celebrations because our indigenous spirit yearns to celebrate life. Modern society has created an unhealthy work-life balance, and it’s so unnecessary. If we’re being honest with ourselves, most of the jobs that we do don’t contribute to the essence of life or Mother Earth in any significant way. They matter in the sense that they put food on the table, and, of course, there are significant roles that make up the backbone of our communities—mothers, caretakers, healers, teachers, and artists, and those who provide food and security. But too often we get caught up in our jobs and don’t realize that much of the time, we’re doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. We’re so busy going, going, going and doing, doing, doing that we forget to simply breathe and be.

But too often we get caught up in our jobs and don’t realize that much of the time, we’re doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. We’re so busy going, going, going and doing, doing, doing that we forget to simply breathe and be.

Our intention is not to disconnect from these things; rather, we want to vibrantly connect with our mind, body, and spirit in order to summon energy at will. We want to heighten our senses to allow ourselves to engage the world with the highest and best version of who we are and what we’re becoming. The Breath of Life Method is the counterbalance to traditional meditation in that it’s meant not to disassociate and observe but to activate and engage and light up our physiology at will.

The one thing we can remove to improve the world is humans. The ecological environments on this planet do not rely on humans in any way to survive and thrive. Our Mother Earth only suffers supporting our human life, and she would be better off without us humans on the planet. Therefore, we need to be deeply grateful that we are so provided for and approach our relationship with our Mother with humility and humbleness for her love and generosity.

The ancestors tell us that the way to develop our inner humility is to practice being outwardly humble. A lot of people think it’s dangerous to be humble, because in the modern world, if we’re not outstanding in some way, then there’s always someone faster, brighter, and more than eager to take our job or steal our intimate relationships away from us. Most of us can’t afford to be without a job, so we manufacture ways to make our employer think that we’re somehow indispensable. The same could be said for our behavior in our intimate relationships and in our social circles, with qualities that we pretend to embody or perceived shortcomings that we hide from the world.

Humility opens our hearts and minds so that we are able to receive wisdom and information from the universe rather than just accepting the pseudo-wisdom and contrived information that scrolls past us on a daily basis.

We all think about other people all the time, but we think about them from our own standpoint, our own emotions. Instead, we need to learn how to feel and seek to understand what other people experience in their lives. This helps us learn and explore our own feelings about patriarchy, institutional racism, or corporatism—all of which greatly harm the sentient beings on this planet in one form or another. Humility is what allows us to do something or say something and genuinely mean it because we deeply understand and care for that thing. Humility is the cornerstone of integrity, sincerity, and humbleness.

It’s extremely harmful to constantly be in a loop of our negative self-talk, negative self-esteem, negative self-confidence, and all the social anxieties that go along with them. We must remember that every cell in our body is listening and reacting to how we talk with our self.

Winter is a time of renewal, regeneration, and gathering with the community to share our knowledge, skills, and stories. It’s a time to reflect on our lives and the world around us, to write down our plans, to create our vision boards, to ask ourselves what we need in the upcoming year, and to plant our intentions.

In fact, I say, “I am only an instrument through which Spirit connects. I’m a human man.

Dignity is more than just our inner feeling of self-respect or self-confidence. It has both of these qualities, but it also includes an internal sense that we are worthy of the divine right of the very best that the universe has to offer in terms of love, harmony, wisdom, and joy.

We are all a reflection of each other and our environment and when we negate dignity, we negate not only ourselves but the root value of all life on Mother Earth. Human Dignity + Compassion + Kindness = Peace

Are we going to convince the entire employee org chart of certain companies that just by doing their jobs, they are destroying the environment, promoting war, or harming the health and well-being of families? Of course not. Their paychecks are dependent on them not accepting that responsibility. How do we liberate these people? The answer is, we don’t. We concentrate on those who are awakening and breaking free from these systems. These are the people we can help here and now. The ripple will spread from there and our collective vibe will eventually crumble the walls of these institutions and their way of thinking. This is the power of compassion and empathy.

People who are highly empathetic often get burned by ungrateful people and burned out by helping too much. The key is to determine the best use of our energy and then set a limit on it. It’s a big world with a lot of pain and suffering, so let’s do what we can in a responsible way so we can do as much good as possible.

The spiritual practice for our body is to get back to nature to spiritually rejuvenate, reenergize, and heal. We have to relearn how to see with our “forest eyes.” The key to contemplating nature is to see beyond the form of the beings in nature, which helps us to understand the energies that are required to have a system that exists in harmony. It helps us to understand the space and the beings differently. It takes a little while to sit with this concept and understand it, because we’ve been taught in the modern world that nature is just a pretty place full of resources for humans to exploit. Try looking at it this way: the deer did not cross the road, the road crossed the forest. See the subtle yet profound difference? That’s the difference between seeing nature with a disconnected mindset and seeing Mother Earth through our forest eyes.

Unplugging from the online world and plugging in to nature is imperative to heal and regenerate our life force.

THE GREAT MYSTERY From Wakáŋ Tȟáŋka [Great Spirit] there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things—the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals—and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery. — MATȞÓ NÁŽIŊ (CHIEF LUTHER STANDING BEAR)

The Great Mystery is the vital force that influences and inspires all that is within the sacred realm of Grandfather Sky—and so the very idea of defining the Great Mystery is somewhat absurd, because it doesn’t matter how much we try to figure it out; we never will. We could gather the greatest living scientists, the most notable free-thinking philosophers, and the most enlightened spiritual gurus, and they’d never come to any understanding or conclusion on the Great Mystery. Given that, it’s best to just enjoy being here, being human, and being in this moment, realizing that the bliss, beauty, and comprehension of the infinite cannot be known in this life, but that the answer to the Great Mystery will come—as it comes to us all—soon enough.

In the meantime, what we do know is that we are made of stardust. Basically, we’re just water and stardust held together by a song from the universe. Each of us carries star medicine and whatever sacred force animates the stars also has a hand in our fate as Star Seeds.

The Great Mystery may be incomprehensible but the ancestors tell us that it’s in perfect harmony. If we attempt to live our lives according to worldly terms and human expectations instead of allowing our journey to unfold in flow with the Great Mystery, we will only be forcing needless suffering and struggle into our experience. Various indigenous...

The Great Mystery is a neutral force that places no judgment or punishment on any sentient being. But because we humans fear the unknown and cannot understand the mystery of why things are happening the way they are, we label certain experiences as “good” or “bad” based on our very human perspectives and subjective experiences. When you label things, people, and experiences, you’re only going to see what you’ve been conditioned to see, regardless of how open-minded you think you are. There are no good or bad experiences to reward or punish you, only those to teach you lessons that hopefully you explore and apply to your life.

The spiritual concept of masculinity has very little to do with being male. Certain concepts and beings, such as heaven, fire, hunting, and planting, are energetically rooted in the masculine. And certain concepts and beings, including earth, water, gathering, and harvesting, are energetically rooted in the feminine. Almost no concept or being is fully masculine or feminine all the time—sometimes we’re connecting with our feminine energy and sometimes we’re in connection with our masculine energy. Each of us has a natural resting point somewhere on the masculine-feminine scale.

Mother Earth is the source of life, not a resource. — CHIEF ARVOL LOOKING HORSE

The jungles and forests are the lungs of Grandmother Earth. The wind is moved by the ocean gyres and is the breath of Grandmother Earth. The creeks, rivers, and oceans are the vascular system of Grandmother Earth. The water that runs through them is the blood of Grandmother Earth. And the land under our feet is the flesh of Grandmother Earth. In every way that matters, the earth has its own physiology. When we talk about the sacred direction of Below, we’re referring to the teachings and indigenous medicines of Grandmother Earth that make up the source of all life. Grandmother Earth weaves the story of life on earth and the Creator provides the thread.

Ownership of things is not a concept we understand—even ownership of ideas and knowledge. In Western culture, when somebody has an idea, it belongs to that person—it’s patented, copyrighted; it’s theirs. But in indigenous cultures, we put our heads together and share ideas and if someone takes an idea and runs with it, that’s borrowing, not thievery—for there is no ownership of the idea. The thinking is, that idea is not mine; I’m just the person it happened to come through. Someone else can borrow it, but they can’t own it—and neither can I.

Harmony is not a state of perfection but a state of awareness of balance.

daily life. Finding joy is simple and it grows easier with practice.

There is joy in the mystery of the unknown.

The biggest thief of joy in our modern world is the epidemic of comparing ourselves to others, not only because it robs us of our joy but also because we have absolutely no idea what someone else’s personal journey is all about.

When we desire the lives of others, we may energetically bring all their hard-learned lessons over into our lives, without getting any of the benefits that we think they have. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

The thing is, it’s extremely likely that you have far more joy in your life than you realize, but you just can’t get to it because it’s been cover...

It’s important to remember that all in-depth healing cannot be truly complete until it’s reconciled ...

Otherwise the trauma will continue to come up again and again and may even show up in the physical world as a ...

The person you will spend the most time with in your life is you, and that’s why it’s of utmost importance that you learn to care for, accept, and love yourself first and foremost. It’s much more difficult than it sounds, because we’re often our own worst critic, bully, and abuser. If we want to be loved—both by ourselves and others—we must make ourselves lovable. And we become lovable when we heal the parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed of or that we think are embarrassing or unlovable.

the modern world has conditioned us to think about ourselves—we are trained to only see the worst, to judge and to compete.

“I will help your family and all the families that will come onto this land after you, until the end of time. I will give you my hide so that you may warm yourself. I will give you my flesh so that you may feed yourself. I will give you my bones so that you may make tools and weapons to dig with and defend yourself. Watch what we eat, so that you may know what to eat for nourishment and medicine. Watch how we travel these lands, how we raise our children, and how we live as a community, so that your two-legged nation may learn how to thrive and treat one another with dignity. Our people will show you the ways of living with Grandmother Earth.”

The way to live in a circular mindset is to mimic nature, which is a notion of living with the natural systems of the earth. It begins with a sense of value, community, responsibility, ownership, and simplicity that weaves through our lives and creates the fabric of our communities and culture.

They collectively support each person’s distinct value and contribution to the community. This comes from the mindset that everyone is important because everyone is a teacher. We need to encourage others to find their calling and the role they are most inclined to do. We must not judge anyone, because we have no idea what storm the Creator asked that person to walk through. However, holding someone responsible for deliberately compromising their morals is not judging them; it’s holding them accountable to their role and behavior in the unified family.

If you envy someone else’s ability to paint or sing, then that is setting aside your own natural skills and talents. The answer is not to compete and force yourself into a role that is unnatural for you. Instead, find your passion, what you are naturally inclined to do, and practice that skill until you become an expert. Your role will be upheld and revered as much as everyone else’s.

We need to take a moment to honor ourselves and think about how long we’ve been on our personal spiritual journey, working on our self-awareness, improving ourselves, and working on our relationship to this life and this world. The loss of a relationship is of little consequence in comparison with the loss of our spirit.

We must keep in mind that though we are expanding our spiritual consciousness and personal awareness, we cannot force others to resonate with knowledge that they are not yet ready to receive. In fact, an indigenous proverb tells us that it’s useless to speak butterfly language to caterpillar people. It may be difficult to continue a personal connection with the many people in our lives who have not experienced the level of profound personal awareness and deep spiritual connection with the Great Spirit that we are experiencing. It’s important to keep in mind that someone can only connect with you as deeply as they’ve connected with themselves. From time to time we will simply evolve beyond certain people and the Creator will take us in a different direction in life. This is part of our awakening.