Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World

by Doug Good Feather

And my prayer for you as you read this book is this: that you get comfortable with not knowing the right thing to do. We don’t know how to do everything, and we all make mistakes. A lot of times when I made a mistake, I would punish myself. But that is not a good way to live. Life isn’t meant to be easy. If it were, we wouldn’t need prayer, or spirituality, or healing at all. I was meant to make my mistakes so that I could grow to be nourished, to learn and become a better person for my family and my community.

Your indigenous spirituality can help you come to the realization that you don’t have to go through a lifetime of suffering to find a sense of connection and peace. You can get there simply by listening to your innate spiritual guidance. We all have it, whether we call it our conscience, our intuition, our moral values, or our virtues—it is already downloaded within us when we are born. We can feel in our hearts whether something is right or wrong. This doesn’t need to be taught. We all have this knowing; we just need to be reminded. We are all human, and we all come with this same understanding. This is natural law, this is spiritual intelligence, and that’s what this book is about.

Our journey begins—as always—from within.

The people referred to in part three of the Butterfly Prophecy are known as Star Seeds, people who have been planted here with an inherent sense of knowing of earthly and celestial spiritual flow. Star Seeds will feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth pounding in their chest as they read the strangely familiar words of the prophecy.

However, we can honor and use certain teachings, as they are universal to Natives and non-Natives alike. Terms like the Red Road, in a good way, Sacred Hoop, or medicine are shared by many cultures that span thousands of years, with only slight variations and meanings. These terms and words act as a kind of shorthand that we use to sum up something that has a lot of meaning without using a lot of words. It’s okay for us to use these words and terms in reference to the context and teachings of this book. Let’s get into some of these meanings now so we have a reference for the rest of our discussion on how to Think Indigenous.

Those of us who feel called to live life rooted in nature-based spirituality are said to “walk the Red Road.”

Again, different indigenous cultures use various terms, but we honor our own ancestors by the name they use to refer to the collective consciousness of all beings: the Great Spirit.

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. Letting faith take the lead often comes with too much fear for many people, and they never experience that which they so need. The analytical and authoritarian minds of the world desperately seek to institute order and control over any sign of wild and divine chaos. As a result, without a strong sense of faith in our chosen path and belief in our journey, we may feel unprotected and vulnerable and left with a great desire to regain a personal sense of safety, control, and predictability in our lives.

“Me-talk-oo-yay Oy-yaw-sin.” This phrase refers to that connection between hoops and spheres, that all beings and all things, both seen and unseen, are interconnected and intrinsically related. Not just humans but the totality of every single thing. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ—we are all related and we are all interconnected—all of us: the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the swimmers, the crawlers, the wingeds, the tree people and all those who grow roots, the stone and mineral people, the elementals . . . everyone. This also includes the forests, rivers, oceans, prairies, deserts, mountains, and valleys . . . everything. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ is a prayer of harmony for all forms of medicine, spirit, and life.

Kindness is the spiritual default of those who walk the Think Indigenous path.

Medicine is essence, and essence is the most distinct and concentrated characteristic of a singular thing. Each distinct thing in this world has a natural energy, and natural energy comes in positive and negative forms, as well as masculine and feminine forms. Essence is created when bonds are formed, and essence is released when bonds are broken. These bonds can be in the form of relationships, ideas, molecules, or any assortment of instances when things come together or come apart. When two good things join together, the essence that is created is good medicine, and it is the foundation of love, health, and healing. Good medicine can be anything that promotes healing, well-being, and love and can be as simple as smiling at someone who may need it (even if it’s smiling at our self in the mirror). Even our mistakes can be medicine, because if we learn from our mistakes, then we can teach others the lessons of our mistakes, and helping people is good medicine. Good medicine is spending time with a good friend or animal relative, walking in nature, swimming, making love, laughing, enjoying a good meal, or having good thoughts and wishes for someone. Molecules can be another example of good medicine. A hydrogen molecule by itself is distinct, and so is an oxygen molecule; however, when these molecules bond in a certain sequence, they create a medicine that allows all life to exist—H2O, or water. Good medicine is the essence that’s created when at least two things come togethe...

When two bad things come together or are broken apart, the essence that’s created or released is bad medicine, which is the source of anger, pain, and suffering. For example, bad medicine is created when two people with negative needs come together and create an abusive relationship, such as two highly co-dependent people forming a relationship that results in enabling and abuse. Bonds can be broken apart with bad intention and release bad medicine, such as when governments split the atom to use in weapons of mass murder or when parents break apart and use their children as leverage to inflict pain and suffering on each other.

Creating suffering and imbalance is often the result of the ignorance and the handiwork of those infected with the disease of corruption and greed.

We’re in a time when many people the world over have spiritually devolved and have lost connection with their seasonal and celestial senses. The good news is that it’s not difficult to rebuild our relationship with the ways of the earth and stars. The memory of these ways is literally part of our ancestral blood memory. 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.

But think about it—the sun only disappears for a few minutes! It leaves for hours and hours every night! Imagine what it would be like to have that same sense of awe and wonder when the sun returns every single morning of our lives. We need to connect with that awe, with that sense of gratitude and reverence every day.

in indigenous cultures, we see our generosity as honoring that person, or helping to heal and ease their suffering, where our gift will increase their dignity, happiness, or joy. Our ancestors tell us that when we are generous with what we have, our own opportunities will expand in proportion to our genuine desire to help others. The medicine we seek for ourselves can be recognized in our offerings to others.

The Lakota associate honesty and integrity with the South because the spirit realm has the highest level of interaction in our life when we’re most free of self-delusion and self-righteousness. This clarity comes from our self-work of clearing the obstacles that obscure our sense of honesty and integrity.

Most of us love the concept of complete honesty, right until it’s time to be completely honest with our self. But this level of complete honesty is the most significant step we can take on our journey to self-actualization—the point where we are living up to our potential through the universal principles of harmony, wisdom, joy, and love.

It may seem easy to admit being wrong, but it’s not. Throughout our lives, we’ve taught ourselves to build armor around all the broken and embarrassing little parts of ourselves that make us weak and vulnerable to the systems of the modern world and the people in it. We need to overcome those tendencies, and Thinking Indigenous and walking the Red Road in a good way will help us to think and act from a genuine place of honesty in our lives.

Having integrity simply means clearly communicating what we’re going to do and then doing what we say.

Your word was your bond and essential to the health and well-being of indigenous society.

When it comes to integrity, the old ones say that we should live our life in such a way that if someone spoke badly about us, no one would believe them.

The South sends us a message on the wind to celebrate life, for doing so will help keep us on our journey of Thinking Indigenous and leading a spiritual life. But we also have to acknowledge that “celebrating life” can be an idealistic concept for a lot of people. There are times, in all of our lives, when everything feels like it’s falling apart, and it can be hard to find something we want to celebrate. Many people live in a constant state of anxiety and struggle, and they live that way because society feeds their minds a constant diet of thoughts composed of fear and scarcity. Their worst enemy is the constant internal dialogue going on right between their own two ears; they feel they never have enough of anything (self-esteem, self-confidence, good health, opportunities, money, etc.), and they live in the fear of countless imaginary what-if scenarios.

If we are able to step away from fear, we can be abundantly content with what we have—whatever it may be—and find the ability to celebrate life. Those who have found the way to do this are operating at the level of a dedicated Spiritual Warrior. Mind you, they don’t spend every day sliding down rainbows and frolicking with unicorns, but for the most part they’re enjoying a higher-than-average quality of life. Spiritual Warriors tend to be intrepid explorers, pioneers, trailblazers, teachers, thought leaders, and creators. They seek a charged life—a life of passion, purpose, and divine work—and they often have a message that’s beating inside of them that they need to get out to the world. Why are they this way? It’s because of how they think. They have distinct passions that they cultivate, bringing them to advanced levels of spirituality. These Spiritual Warriors are driven to serve humankind with their talents, gifts, and messages to the world. We’ve all met these people, and we can all see that they are simply different . . . but why are they different? The answer is because of the way they see the world, and how they see themselves in the world. It’s their mindset—which is a way of being conscious of the way we create our own reality. Without a developed mindset, we unconsciously create our reality, and then when we struggle and suffer in our lives, we can’t figure out why. Remember that no matter the circumstance, we are always just one decision away from a totally dif...

Here are some basic things that we can stop doing that will immediately impact our life in positive ways: Stop judging others and yourself. Stop criticizing others and yourself. Stop comparing yourself to anyone else. Stop being responsible for other people’s problems. Stop living your life trying to please other people. Stop being dishonest with yourself and others. STOP living life like you’ll do it “someday,” because you don’t have as long as you think you do. Procrastination can be our worst enemy. We tell ourselves that we’re going to do something that we know we need to do, but we don’t, and we knew all along that we weren’t actually going to make the time to do it.

Essentially, procrastination is having a lack of integrity with our self. There are always other factors at play, like exhaustion at the end of the day and the emotional damage we put ourselves through with anger and thoughts of inadequacy, but those all feed into procrastination. You have to make that decision . . . and then do it. A powerful solution to overcoming procrastination is an ancient practice that comes from the South, the element of air and the second gift...

Success or failure is decided in the mind before a business venture ever gets launched. Enduring love and abject heartbreak are determined in our mind before fidelity ever builds its nest in our heart space. When the topic of spirituality and breath work is discussed, the first thing that usually comes to mind is meditation. A traditional meditation practice takes a dissociative and observational view of our thoughts and actions, but that’s not the state of being we need to summon when we celebrate life. 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 BREATH OF LIFE METHOD—HOW TO QUICKLY ENERGIZE YOURSELF This practice will highly oxygenate your blood very quickly. Your eyes will need to be closed, so it’s important that you’re in a sitting position and able to hold on to something to steady yourself. When you’re done with the practice, don’t stand up right away. You may get dizzy and fall down. This practice can energize your whole physiology in less than a minute and its effect may last for an hour or more, so it’s important that we don’t practice this method too close to when we need to go to sleep. Close your eyes and allow your forehead, eyebrows, jaw, and shoulders to fully relax. Through your nose, fill your lungs with a slow and deep breath. When your lungs are full, hold your breath, and then open your mouth. Quickly inhale with a short powerful breath, and fill your lungs to their maximum capacity. This is called “filling the bellows.” Hold that breath for seven seconds, and then exhale quickly and forcefully. Repeat steps 1 through 4 four times, and then open your eyes ever so slightly and take a slow and deep breath—not focusing on anything in particular—just a soft, downward gaze as you feel your senses heighten, your energy rise, and your body come alive.

The West is where the Thunder Beings—the Wakíŋyaŋ—come from. They fill the atmosphere with rolling thunder, brighten the senses with lightning, and bring the healing medicine of the cleansing rains. The Thunder Beings come from the spirit world; they are the Creator’s warriors, and they come to teach us vigilance and to heal sickness in the world. The Thunder Beings are allies to the Star Seeds, those sacred humans that have picked up the ways of natural spirituality. Carrying these ways can be a heavy burden at times, and the Thunder Beings help to give us healing and strength to hold that space for Spirit to come through us as we continue to walk the Red Road in a good way. But, just like when we walk any road, we gather dirt and grime along the way, and we need to wipe it off. The Thunder Beings’ medicine can wipe us off spiritually and turn water into medicine. A shower, bath, or swim can wash away the stress and worry and cleanse those things that are sacred. They help keep us clean from drugs and alcohol and other forms of self-abuse.

In a Lakota sweat lodge, the sound we hear when the water is poured on the rocks is the sound of the universe. This is not a poetic metaphor; this sound is literally the sound of the universe. When scientists recorded deep space for the first time, that sound—the sound of the first creation connecting with the first medicine—is the sound that they heard. Indigenous peoples have known this is the sound of the universe for thousands of years.

Our prayer is often the strongest when we’re experiencing our greatest fear, because that’s when we’re praying with pure sincerity. In the story of the giants, it wasn’t the level of danger that allowed the Lakota to summon the powerful Thunder Beings. It was the sincerity of their prayer.

It’s been said that humility is not thinking less of our self but simply thinking of our self less.

Humility is one of the most difficult qualities to sense in people, because by its very nature, it is concealed. But we can get a sense of humility when we run across a genuine leader. For example, the modern-day typical “leader” makes us feel like they are important when we meet them. But when we meet a great leader, they make us feel like we are important. Great leaders don’t try to impress or convince anyone of how important they are. They’re just common people who are engaging life from an inner sense of humility and that humility shines through in how they show up in the world. Humility is essentially getting out of our head and not allowing our thinking to always begin with “What’s in it for me?” It allows us to elevate our senses above the white noise of society and see beyond just what’s in front of our face. 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. Humility is powerful enough to disarm an ego that’s out of harmony with nature.

The difference is that humility is an internal state, while humbleness represents the actions we take in the world.

A Star Seed often retains the energy from those they interact with, for better or worse. So someone with trauma can pass the emotional memory of that trauma on to us without being aware of it.

The elders tell us that the best way to get over something is to go through it. Part of that process requires coming to a personal sense of closure with the emotional energy of the trauma, including our emotions around the person who may have caused the trauma. This allows you a release from letting the trauma control you.

These are the months when we enter the time of the dreaming bear. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live in a place where bears do or if you live in a place where it doesn’t snow—it only matters that you begin to become aware of the energy signature associated with this season. This is the time when the earth sends signals to her children that it’s time to slow down, to define things that are unclear, to get organized, and to plan for the upcoming spring. 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. This is a time to sit down with our significant others, our parents, and our children and ask them what we can do for them in the coming moons. This is the season in which we decide and rededicate ourselves to being disciplined in walking the Red Road, working with our medicine and with our people.

All of this is done with the knowing that spring is coming and, like the bear, we’re preparing to emerge from our dens hungry, thirsty, and ready to engage the world once again.

In order to understand nature, we have to dive in heart-first and that requires as much attention and earnest work as any other meaningful relationship in our lives.

In our world, there are people who not only have a deep spiritual relationship with earth energies but are able to communicate with them and use that ability to help others connect with profound knowledge and healing. Genuine healers say that they are not the ones healing anything or anybody; they are merely holding space for the people to connect with the knowledge to heal themselves. In fact, I say, “I am only an instrument through which Spirit connects. I’m a human man. If a person is not ready or willing to connect within, then they won’t be able to understand this knowledge or be healed by this medicine. I have no authority to say who is, or is not, ready or able. That is for each person’s spiritual council to be asked and accept.”

“How do we begin a spiritual connection with our Mother Earth when we’re so disconnected from her?” Just as with any significant relationship, we have to work on our relationship with Mother Earth with great integrity, intention, reverence, and consistency. In other words, we have to fall in love with her. She is the sand, rocks, soil, and all other similar matter that holds a nurturing space for practically everything on this planet. Imagine the sheer enormity of what it would feel like to be the home for all the sentient beings that live in or on you, as well as the cosmic level of love it takes to nurture every form of life.

Dignity is the root-level value of who we all are as human beings. But many people find it difficult to feel this supreme level of self-worth because it requires a supreme level of self-love. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done in our past or where we’re at in our life, because we are all worthy of a fundamental sense of human dignity. 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.

Lilla Watson, an indigenous Aboriginal Australian elder, offers us these wise words of empathy: If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

Compassion and empathy allow us to come together as one mind, love with one heart, and move together in a sacred direction as one unified family. This is the power of the teachings and earth medicine of the North.

What about all the bad people? What does it look like to work together to “liberate” those who intentionally and continuously commit harm? 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.

The old ones tell us that the key to effective empathy is responsibility and boundaries. When we get a sense of what’s not feeling good, we have to realistically evaluate if we’re in a position—and willing—to take responsibility for it. 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.

Our ancestors would take Medicine Walks to seek signs, omens, and signals because the Creator speaks to us through nature.

All that’s required of this practice is to put our body in direct contact with nature, with no agenda and nothing to accomplish except to be fully present and intentionally connect with the vitality of the experience of the natural environment around us. Although this practice may seem obvious and something many people are already doing, there are adults from every generation and corner of society who haven’t walked with their bare feet on Mother Earth or dug through soil with their bare hands with spiritual intention in decades, if ever. And there are kids of all ages that have never had the experience of directly connecting with nature beyond the playground at the neighborhood park or a few school field trips. This is serious, for there are serious physical, psychological, and spiritual issues, as well as significant societal repercussions, when people have little to no relationship with Mother Earth. A Medicine Walk is one of the highest forms of spiritual self-care that a human being can practice.

Other benefits of a Medicine Walk that don’t fit in the small and rigid box of modern-day colonized science are the powerful spiritual and psychic effects of our human connection with Mother Earth. A Medicine Walk brings increases in the following areas: Our intuition and other psychic senses The frequency and abilities in lucid dreaming Our ability to sense various natural energy fields Our ability to communicate with spirit guides and animals The effectiveness of connecting our prayer with action Our awareness of the natural earth medicine all around us Our ability to deflect negativity and attract positivity

greet the environment and introduce yourself. Offer a gift and ask to enter this sacred space while also stating your reason for being there, then give your thanks. For instance, “Beautiful Mother Earth, I offer you a gift of tobacco in a humble way and request to enter your sacred space and ask your help with discovering clarity and direction with a few issues I’m facing in my life. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ; thank you.” Keep it clear and simple, leave your offering, and begin your walk.