Archeologists have discovered Medicine Bags that were thousands of years old.  Crisscrossing all cultures, Medicine Bags have been found filled with healing herbs and fetish carved animals.   Animals are totems; guardians who protected them or their tribe.  Medicine Bags are typically small and in many First American cultures they are passed from father to eldest son.

I’m a woman who was born with the red road in her heart.  Steadily, I honed skills of observations to recognize the signs of Spiritual guidance.

I never sought the Medicine Bag.  As in most extraordinary examples in my life, it sought me.  My Medicine Bag was passed to me from my Grandfather, Tunkashila.  Decades ago, I was led to a tiny little store and there, hung on a hook, behind some clothes it was waiting for me.  The sales lady practically gave it to me, as it was unmarked with any price.  She pointed out how a few beads were missing, yet I saw the most important bead of all, the Spirit bead.  A Spirit bead in any beadwork, no matter how perfect it may initially appear, signifies that only God is perfect.  By incorporating a blatant bead of color or “mistake” in the beadwork signified that the artist understood this concept.

Some shamans wear their Medicine Bags around their necks, or an inside pocket.  I hook mine on my belt loop when I’m drumming for journeying, and hold it in my right hand, against my heart, when I’m working with a client for a Soul retrieval.

The contents of significance in a Medicine Bag are sacred, and should never be shared with anyone, until you bequeath it.  The one consistent item in any shaman’s Medicine Bag, and is of no secret, is a piece of prairie sage.

Prairie sage (Artemisia ludoviciana) is a powerful medicine.  I was taught not to use prairie sage for smudging.  There are more effective alternatives to burn for that purpose, such as sweet grass or red cedar.

Currently, the term Medicine Bag has taken on a more generic meaning.  The size and grandiosity of design has become a visual contest that the more extravagant and embellished the Medicine Bag, the more powerful the medicine.  I smile when I see them.  The modern Medicine Bags are filled with crystals, aromatic herbs of lavender and rosemary, or a small photo of a favourite scenic area.  People infuse them with positive energy and think of them as a visual shield of protection.  I feel no detriment or disrespect towards those who do this.  All Medicine changes and evolves throughout the years.

Sometimes the old paths meet the new ones.  A few years ago I attended a gathering of First Americans.  There was great dancing, old songs and traditional food.  Traders had set up their tables to display their crafts for admiration and purchase.  A very old Abenaki man, sitting in a chair behind a vendor table, spied my Medicine Bag on my belt loop and asked to see it.  As I placed it in his hands he kept turning it over and studying the beadwork.  He told me that he had not seen a Medicine Bag like that in many, many years.

Studying his weathered face of experience, our eyes met.  For one flash of a second I saw a time that does not exist anymore.  The memory of what some may have thought is lost and gone, was strong and unwavering in his eyes.  As he returned my artifact, we held our hands fast for a few moments.  This memory remains deep within my heart.

I have always known who I am.  Since the day my thoughts became lucid,  there has been no confusion, doubt or questioning as to who I am.  I was born to a shaman’s life and though I tried, at times, throughout my younger years to deny this, it was undeniable by the people I have met, and the experiences I have weathered.  I was called and I answered.

I came to this blue orb to teach.  Not that my way is the only way, but there are inherent truths that cannot be denied.  Each time I tried to deny the knowledge I carried forth from former incarnations, Spirit would let me know in not so gentle ways that my primary role on this planet was to teach.  Sure, I was allowed the occasional year or so to stumble around, rebel against the inevitable, only to eventually be humbled and silently exhale, “I give up, You win.”

Knowing all this, deep within myself, and acknowledging it here on these many posts I now have to lower the boom on supermarket shamans.  I don’t like them.  I’m calling them out.  I’m holding up the mirror.  You know who you are.

Supermarket shamans don’t like it when you call them out on their stuff.  And today the stuff is sweat lodge ceremonies for money.  Do not email me, piously justifying that you have First American blood and therefore have a “right” to earn a wage selling Sacredness. I don’t want to hear it.  Save that positioning for people who don’t know better.

A sweat lodge is an Inipi, for the Rite of Purification.  It is a Sacred Ceremony (Inipi Yapi).  The building of one is exact and Sacred.  Its purpose is so you can communicate with the Creator.  The community all shares in the construction.  Digging the fire pit, gathering the proper sacrifices of the Stone People for the fire pit in accordance to customs that are as old as the Earth itself.  There are prayer bundles to make, hundreds of them, and sacrifice. Fasting. There are songs to Tunkashila, offerings to Makah, and to the six directions. There is a sharing of a communal meal afterward. Sweats are in preparation for Hanblecheyapi, crying for a vision.  And oh yes, there is permission.  Permission to hold these Sacred Ceremonies.  If you have given yourself permission from some sense of entitlement and charging money for it, then you are a supermarket shaman. You are not Wakan.  You are unworthy.  Please stop, you are tripping on your ego, and it is seen for what it is.

I hold no judgments on those who build a proper Inipi, and hold sweats at no charge.  There are many versions and ways of leading an Inipi Ceremony.  Each teacher is different, and I honour their visions if they have been guided to do so with a pure and selfless heart for the higher good.

My vision is clear.  Sacred Rituals are not for sale.

Shaman in Training.

Today my four year old, going on ninety-six, granddaughter told her mother that she was singing to make the rain come.

Even though the Sun is currently shining, I admire her determination.

Update 2 hours later:  It’s raining.  I think she’s got the singing thing down.