An Array of Utopian Flowers
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The Underworld, Rebirth and Renewal with Ceres and Proserpina
Posted on June 29, 2018 | No Comments -
Cinematic Cultural Change in West Africa with Idrissa Ouédraogo
Posted on June 3, 2018 | No Comments -
Mild Satire, Outrage and Hostility, with Philip Roth
Posted on June 2, 2018 | No Comments -
Big Noise from Big Band Drummer Gene Krupa
Posted on April 10, 2018 | No Comments -
Loose Nuts: Edison Reveals Huge Gap in Safety at San Onofre
Posted on April 9, 2018 | No Comments
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Upcoming Events
Rituals and Traditions Archive
Shoshone Myth: Wolf Challenges the Euro-American “Iron-Man”
Posted on March 13, 2014 | 1 CommentNorthern Shoshone Myth on how the Wolf, father of the native people, defeated the white-man's father “Iron-Man,” documented by Robert Harry Lowie in 1909.
Chumash Elder Speaks on Healing Humanity and the Climate
Posted on February 23, 2014 | 4 CommentsArt Cisneros is a Chumash elder and firekeeper. The Chumash People are the original native peoples of the central California Coast. Art holds the sacred space for their annual Tomol crossing to Limu on the Channel Islands. Lately, he has undertaken a series of ceremonies focused on healing humanity's relationship with the climate, responding to the ongoing drought and extreme weather, prayers that he shared with the people at the Great March for Climate Action LA Launch on March 1, 2014, in the Port of Los Angeles.
Pamparios: A Trip with the Huicholes to Collect Peyote
Posted on December 16, 2013 | 5 CommentsWatch the full documentary on the Huichol journey to Wirikuta, where they travel every year to collect peyote. The pilgrimage take place with the intention to return to where life originated and heal oneself and the community.
A Wampanoag Thanksgiving: Stolen Land, Massacred Hope
Posted on November 26, 2013 | 1 CommentThe story of a Pilgrim Thanksgiving was a fairy tale told by Lincoln to unite the union. The Wampanoag version of the harvest festival with the English settlers is a day of mourning for a land taken away, a culture subverted and a people disappeared from epidemic and massacre.
Miskitu Legend: Journey for Love into the Afterlife
Posted on October 20, 2013 | 1 CommentA story from the Miskitu People (Miskito) of Caribbean Nicaragua, about a man who follows his beloved wife into the afterlife.
Mohegan Story: Healing of the Forest Little People
Posted on September 26, 2013 | 1 CommentThis Mohegan story about the benevolent nature spirits, called the Makiawisug, illustrates the spiritual potency of the Native universe, and the healing necessary to face the invading Pilgrims and their fear of the Antichrist.
Ashanti of Ghana: How Spider Obtained the Sky-God’s Stories
Posted on July 31, 2013 | 4 CommentsAnansi, the trickster from the folktales of the Ashanti of West Africa, takes the shape of a spider who goes to the sky god to buy his stories to share with the world. Anansi's stories would become popular through the African diaspora all over the Caribbean and southern US. Here is an animated retelling called "A Story, A Story."
BaVenda of South Africa: How Animals Got Their Color
Posted on July 30, 2013 | 1 CommentThe BaVenda (also known as Venda), a Bantu tribe living in Southern Africa, tell a traditional myth about how the meerkat gave all the animals their special colors.
Ayahuasca: Fake Shamans and The Divine Vine of Immortality
Posted on July 18, 2013 | 7 CommentsEvery day, more and more tourists arrive in Iquitos, Peru, seeking spiritual enlightenment or a psychedelic experience first made popular by William Burroughs and the Beatniks in the 1960s. Unfortunately, some well-paid "shamans" lack the experience or understanding of the powerful and sacred botanical brews used for thousands of years for healing and divination. And the gringos-on-holiday often get over their heads in the wilds of the Amazon.
Visionary Art of Lakota Sundance Chief Marvin Swallow
Posted on June 10, 2013 | 2 CommentsMarvin Swallow paints "images of time before and after the moment," whispering sacred stories of the beauty and mystery of creation. What has emerged through his art is a unique and powerful contribution to the growing genre of Sacred Art.
La Loba: Wild Woman, Luminous Wolf
Posted on May 15, 2013 | 10 CommentsClarissa Pinkola Estés tells the story from the deserts and mountains of Northern Mexico about a wolf woman, a collector of bones, who resurrects the wild spirit of life from the depths of the Underworld.
Haitian Vodou: Summoning the Spirits
Posted on April 30, 2013 | No CommentsLike several West African religions, Vodouisants believe in a supreme being called Bondyè, from bon "good" + dyè "God." Because Bondyè is unreachable, Vodouisants aim their prayers to lesser entities, the spirits known as Lwa (Loa), contacted and served through possession. In turn, the Lwa confer material blessings, physical well-being, protection, abundance.
Spring Equinox, the Eostre Bunny, and Other Wiccan Mysteries
Posted on April 2, 2013 | 1 CommentEostre - the Germanic goddess of dawn and fertility, whose name gives us the word Easter - must be pleased. Two millennia of Christianity, and she has yet to be displaced from our annual celebration of fecundity. Easter eggs, representing birth, nod to both pagan and Christian traditions.
California Condor: Overcoming Extinction, A Symbol of Renewal
Posted on March 6, 2013 | 2 CommentsThe California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, microtrash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film "The Condor's Shadow" documents this struggle.
Papua New Guinea: Rainforest World of Sustainable River Guardians
Posted on January 9, 2013 | 4 CommentsThe Sacred Land Film Project captured a revival of a canoe ceremony with feasting, dancing and carving, honoring their sacred Ramu River. The region is part of the third largest intact rainforest ecosystem left on earth, where sustainable agriculture and forestry practices have allowed societies to thrive for thousands of years, now threatened by multinational logging interests and corrupt governmental entities.
Maya Ruins at Tikal: A New Beginning at Winter Solstice
Posted on December 21, 2012 | 5 CommentsTwenty five hundred years ago, a group of peoples settled Tikal, surrounded by the lowland rainforests of the Petén Basin of northern Guatemala. Their descendants would create a remarkable civilization that populated cities and villages across much of southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. Today, it has returned to the jungle.
Maximón: The Underground Great Grandfather of Western Guatemala
Posted on November 23, 2012 | 10 CommentsMaximón is a folk saint of the Maya of Guatemala, associated with pre-Columbian earth lords who provide money or economic opportunity to client-petitioners. He is an opener of the way, a bringer of rain and symbolizes male sexual power.
All Souls Day Procession Honors the Ancestors in Antigua, Guatemala
Posted on November 5, 2012 | 2 CommentsIn Guatemala, a procession through the cobblestone streets of the former capital, Antigua, marks the end of the Day of the Dead, All Saints and All Souls.
Day of the Dead: Aztec Dance Honoring the Soul’s Rest
Posted on October 29, 2012 | 19 CommentsIn the pre-Hispanic era, skulls were kept as trophies and displayed during the rituals to symbolize death and rebirth. These ancestors passed down the knowledge that souls exist after death, resting in Mictlan, the land of the dead, not for judgment or resurrection, but for the day each year when they could return home to visit their loved ones.
Kumeyaay People: Traditions Survive in Baja California
Posted on October 22, 2012 | 5 CommentsGroups of Kumeyaay People live in the isolated canyons of the Tijuana River watershed, high in the Baja California peninsula. They harvest acorns and pine nuts, hunt rattlesnake and small animals, collect grasses to weave baskets. They allow a glimpse of what life in Southern California before the Spanish arrived was like.
Riding the Sky with Reindeer Shamans of Siberia
Posted on September 30, 2012 | 1 CommentIn Siberia, shamans combine a distinctive imagery of reindeer and of bird-flight. Their costumes sometimes include imitation reindeer antlers, occasionally tipped with wings or feathers, placed on the headdress. Like the participants in the Eveny (Evenki) midsummer ritual, shamans may ride to the sky on a bird or a reindeer.
Popol Vuh: The Ancient Maya Dawn of Life and Overcoming the Forces of Awe
Posted on July 23, 2012 | 9 CommentsThe Popol Vuh (Maya K'iche' for "Council Book" or "Book of the Community") features a creation myth, the Dawn of Life under the spectre of a flooded world, followed by the epic mythological stories of two Hero Twins: Hunahpu (Blow-gun Hunter) and Xbalanque (Young Hidden/Jaguar-Sun) as they confront the Lords of Death and Disease in the underworld caves of the "Place of Awe."
Chumash Healing With Spirit: A Tribute to Cecilia Garcia
Posted on May 26, 2012 | 1 CommentTo honor the soul transition of Chumash teacher and healer Cecilia Garcia, we share an article written by her and USC Professor Jim Adams on mind, body and spirit healing.
Mythology of the Crow: Love Trials of the Magic Buffalo Wife
Posted on May 23, 2012 | 3 CommentsAn Apsáalooke Crow man falls in love and has a child with the magical Buffalo Woman, which requires him to prove his love and devotion to her and her Buffalo Nation.
Caribbean Garífuna: Masked Warriors Dance into the New Year
Posted on April 27, 2012 | 4 CommentsThe masked dance ritual called Wanaragua, takes place as part of the New Year's celebration among the Garífuna villages on the Caribbean Coast of Central America.
