Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World

by Doug Good Feather

When a youth grows into adulthood without any responsibility to nurture, provide for, or protect their family, their community, or their natural surroundings, the disconnection from those responsibilities can manifest as being selfish, petty, apathetic, and judgmental. These adult males tend to be quick to anger and blame. Our modern world desperately needs men to heal from this ancestral trauma, as it’s contributing to the worldwide pandemic of misogyny and patriarchy.

One key lesson to becoming a man is responsibility—specifically, developing the understanding from youth into adulthood that “I am ultimately responsible for myself.” This does not mean being selfish or self-centered, but instead means that we are responsible for our life, as well as those things and people who are connected with our life.

We can show reverence for many things, including nature or a particular person, group, or time in history. And we must also have reverence for our ancestors on the other side. Your ancestors have your back. They help clear obstacles in front of you and send you clarity and help guide you with unseen hands. One of the ways indigenous people honor their ancestors is by feeding them. When we eat, our ancestors eat with us. This way goes back thousands of years to nearly every indigenous tribe of people on every continent. When the Lakota people prepare food for their ancestors, it’s called waéglepi—a Spirit Plate or Spirit Food. Spirit Food is endowed with the ability to maintain a quiet channel of communication for us with our ancestors and let the ancestors know they’re invited into our home or gathering. Anyone can practice this ancient way of giving reverence to our ancestors with Spirit Food. All you need to do is take a small, fork-sized amount of each food that you’re eating and place it in a little bowl, on a plate, or even in a napkin. Pour a little water, coffee, or whatever you’re drinking as well—a spoon-sized amount will do.

Mother Earth is the source of life, not a resource. — CHIEF ARVOL LOOKING HORSE The jungles and forests are the lungs of Grandmother Earth.

Grandmother Earth represents the spiritual energy of the feminine and she holds the sacred spaces for the things that make us human. She holds space for where we pray and offer gratitude to the Creator, as well as the land where we grow our food and harvest our medicines.

We need to encourage and nurture the rise of the feminine power in gratitude for all the blessings the spiritual energy of the feminine has bestowed upon us. We do this by holding up our women, encouraging them to stand in their power, respecting their equal if not higher reasoning, reclaiming space for their energy and voice, and elevating them to the highest positions of power structures so they can rejuvenate our spiritually broken systems and processes. The salvation of humanity will be led by the power of the feminine.

On the Red Road, when we give something away, we never feel that anything is owed back. 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.

But it does require self-care. Being generous is good, but being generous should not result in the suffering of our own health, happiness, or well-being. We must remember not to be martyrs. We must be generous with ourselves first, which starts with being generous with our spirits. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before our spirit will rise up to express itself, and we may not be in a stage of life or have the ability to reconcile the needs of our spirit. That’s when life can get rough.

With the right relationships in the right environment, the reciprocal exchange of spiritual energy can grow exponentially until a truly amazing phenomenon occurs: a state of divine equilibrium. This happens when spiritual energy is nurturing and growing itself in a complete circuit and it is another example of the Sacred Hoop of Life.

How do we know when something is wakȟáŋ or sacred? In Native American spirituality, if everything is interconnected, then wouldn’t it make sense that every single thing on Mother Earth is sacred? In fact, yes.

When Crazy Horse said, “I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells,” he was describing the moment when two spiritually connected beings recognize each other, as if they’ve known each other a thousand years, even though they may have just met.

As we learn to connect with the ways of the medicine wheel and our natural sense of spirituality, we realize that we’re not separate from nature—we are nature itself. We’re sentient beings that are naturally synchronized with the cycles of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons of the land on which we live. Think about the power of nature. Consider the moon—something of such great influence that it can pull and push the all-powerful oceans of the world in both tide and current. And then consider: How can we believe the moon has no effect on us humans, even though we are mostly created from and composed of water? The fact is the moon greatly affects us, but many people have become too desensitized to feel her affects. Tuning back in to these types of natural energies takes practice.

On every part of the earth, we can clearly see the devastation and horror humans inflict on other sentient beings and the destruction we bring to Grandmother Earth. It’s not just the bad medicine humans bring to the world, but it’s also the disrespect and abuse we inflict on ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually with the toxic waste that we allow into our hearts, minds, and bodies. For those of us that walk the Red Road, it’s part of our life’s work to dismantle these harmful power structures in all the ways that we’re able to.

Listen to the Earth. It speaks. Listen to the Fire. It speaks. Listen to the Wind. It speaks. Listen to the Water. It speaks. Listen to your Heart. It knows. — The Ancestors

If you recall, the sacred element of the South is air. When air expresses itself, it comes as the unseen force of wind. Wind is associated with wisdom, because the nature of wind is to bring messages, initiate change, animate life, and bring clarity by removing obstacles and clearing obstructions. When the obstacles and obstructions are removed from our mind, we can understand things better because of that clarity. It’s this type of clarity that cultivates wisdom.

Practice pausing before you speak. When you do speak, evaluate if what you have to contribute is even relevant and beneficial to what’s already been said or what is already understood. The old ones teach us that our tongue is connected to our heart—the lesson being for us to learn to speak through our heart rather than letting whatever comes into our brain go running straight out of our mouth. Our breath carries power—our words can provide clarity, our words can heal, and our words can destroy—so let’s not be reckless or wasteful with the wisdom of our words.