This Summer 2010: This summer was for reflection, remembering, healing, and supporting my parents.

We held a family reunion for my fathers 90th Birthday to rejoice in his life. The family gathered in and out for three days to make great food, tell stories, and to enjoy each others  reconnections after many years and find out how we are all related.  

I also took on a job, working at the Camp Sherman store, here in Camp Sherman, and focused on really being present this summer around the Metolius River home.  It's been a very liberating summer.

New Mexico Adventures

October 27th, 2010

Took to the sky again after many months of rest and healing.  Traveled to New Mexico, fulfilling the need to offer a class presentation to the City that has gifted Four Winds grant support over the last three years, the Santa Fe Art Council, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

Jeff Scheide connected me with teachers at the Gonzales Elementary School.   I shared our youth program with eager and enthusiastic 4th graders.  Thanks to Chrissy Romero and Contessa Serna for opening their classes.  That morning, sharing what was “POSSIBLE”.  The children had a hands-on trunk show experience of seeing touching and storytelling about what is possible around us, things and items around us we take for granted, and what things were used 500 years ago in their places.

Also, while there, met us with FWF family from Pittsburg, Lilith Bailey Koll and Jeff and Joan Scheide, Mahhaba Kauffman, Teresa Pisano, David Carson and others from years of traveling there. 

Also gave a talk in Taos to people from Argentina, Taos proper and Ecuador. The talk was based on 2013, the next millennium.  It was wonderful sharing thoughts, fears, and ways to relax from the doom and gloom of it all.

In all the years traveling to New Mexico I've usually stayed mostly in SF with Louisa Putman, (or her house), this dear sister on the Path. She has a Sacred Space she calls home here in New Mexico. She usually hosts people to come see me for a meal or talk, so this year I did that as well, and traveled to see members of our New Mexico family from Taos to Las Vegas, NM. 

Louisa holds a Sanctuary space; for others and me it is a place of renewal and deep truth, and this is where so many creature comforts abound. If you’re ever going that way…Arco Aries will hold you.

Pets include two dogs, two cats, chickens sharing their eggs, goats who gift milk and cheese, and now a black duck and guinea hen that has taken Elizabeth as their Mom.

This year Louisa and I were both in New Mexico at the same time (she also travels a far amount back east to help care for her mother) and we shared with others the Mayan New Years Fire Ceremony.  It was wonderful to renew, reaffirm and offer our gratitude to the 20 divine directions.  We fed the fire and these directions candles, chocolate, tobaccos, and medicines from all over the world.

Also, I was honored to attend the Spoken Word performance at the Native American Indian School in Santa Fe…. where each performance was heart felt, from rap, poems, dance and acting dramas. These high school students gave me a night of tears and laughter, one I needed to continue knowing I am Indian as well as what I appear to be…. white.  These students are led by one of the Men of Louisa’s Cedar Circle.  It was a night to remember.

The return to fall full on here in Oregon is wonderful…but the mile high air in New Mexico is medicine for me.

Louisa and I Santa Fe, NM

Exciting New Program for Deer Haven & Four Winds!

In September of this year 2010, I got together with my neighbor Sarahlee Lawrence, of Rainshadow Organics, www.rainshadoworganics.com, to form a plan to use Deer Haven as a site for a Farm School.  The goals are to use educational skills, the love of the earth, and buying locally to launch a location of collaborating land owners, organic farming and outreach, in teaching skills around organic food and offering this, this spring at Deer Haven, the lands of Four Winds Foundation.

Movement has been fast and very supportive since we started telling people: local ranchers are signing on, schools want to venture out and also come back to their schools setting up further ways to create food security in our local area.

Six local ranchers/farmers have come on to join in this alliance and to offer their experiences in collaborating to create the curriculum that they will teach and share, which will be offered here at Deer Haven. 

The land will be the school site. There will be public offerings monthly, as well as weekly for those taking a more extended learning curve to gain more knowledge as well as schools, organizations.

Our approach is called “Plots to Plates.” We're joining the rapidly growing movement that defies scarcity “thinking” and shows by example ways to grow food for yourself and others, providing organic produce, soil building techniques and how water can be present where it doesn’t seem to be, especially in this arid desert climates of Central Oregon.

WWOOF-ers, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, a place to camp, learn and eat organically, while gaining respect, and future careers raising honey, livestock or farming for the areas people.  The outreach will be from many areas east of the cascades.

People will donate time and some cash to stay, be fed and in most cases join in, to further the movement towards healthier food sources, and showing there can be a living in growing food.

If interested in this program, get in touch with us at info@fwfoundation.com, or sarahlee.Lawrence@gmail.com

Prayers for the Earth.

My Relatives,

Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders.  I

ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit

of your Nations in prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we

are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color,

which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things.  As

I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened,

those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations,

eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The

catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with

the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will

continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of

in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers

for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue.  I believe we as

Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to

allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth.

As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to

assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc'I Maka).

We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the

winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in

repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we

make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected.  And that

what we create can have lasting effects on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.  Along

with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World

Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural

site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us

make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our

children's future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),

Chief Arvol Looking Horse

19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

(Wolakota.org)

Girls Rites Photo Update

Girls' Rites of Passage
April 21 - June 11th 2010
Bend, Oregon

There is still room for our divine feminine girls to attend!   The "Girls Rites of Passage" provides a space for support and awakening of the divine feminine, and is created for girls 5th-8th grade.  It is facilitated by Sweet Medicine.  www.fwfoundation.com  or   wwwthefourelements.org  This is a 6 course, 1 1/2 hour per session meeting beginning after school April 21 and ending June 11, with an evening ceremony involving mothers, older sisters, aunties, grandmothers and feminine lineage.  The cost will be $90, and if you bring a friend deduct $10 (for your friend too!)! This will be an interactive, hands-on curriculum acknowledging and teaching 'The Rites of Passage' of being a girl and coming into maidenhood.   The curriculum offers:  Body teaching, moon cycle comparison in nature;  Respect and awareness including body image and what this means;  Responsibilities of maidenhood, knowing boundaries and saying No, and issues regarding guardianship of our being;  Beauty reflection (inner and outer), authenticity, and Divinity in "being";  The final class will be an evening ceremony reinforcing the girl's connection to the women in her family and to celebrate and strengthen her trust in her own intuition and beauty.  It involves the mother and elder lineage (older sisters, aunties, grandmothers, great grandmothers) of the girl and interactive participation of the mother in assisting their daughters to cross the thresh-hold of moving from Girl to Maiden. If you know of interested daughters & mothers please pass this message along.  With questions or to register, please contact Kimberly Kinney 541-306-8727 / widgi1899@yahoo.com; or Rebecca Fender 541-480-8043 / becksfender@gmail.com.  For curriculum questions contact Sweet Medicine Nation at 541-306-0383.

Apprentice with Sweet Medicine

Sweet Medicine is offering a new Apprentice Program through Skype. This program is directed towards individuals not living in the state of Oregon who are interested in learning about traditional Native ways. You'll now have the opportunity to receive teachings and assistance on your Path with online classes. This is a year-long commitment. We'll be posting more information soon as we develop the program, so bookmark this blog and keep an eye out!

If you're interested, please contact info@fwfoundation.com for more information!

Young Teachers, Old Spirits

During the winter of 2010, two very special teachers were asked by Sweet Medicine to lead classes in Central Oregon during her stay in Chile. Rainbow Eagle Dreamer, formerly Tyler Markland, and Katherine Amara Stanton invited the group into their home and shared their multitude of experiences from South America.

Eagle Dreamer, having known from an early period in his life that schooling and the “normal” American life of a teenager was not his path to walk, received a message of guidance during his first Reiki experience. After spending a short time in Hawaii and visiting sacred island sites, Eagle Dreamer was drawn back to Central Oregon where he was introduced to Sweet Medicine. He immediately began taking classes with her and attended his first vision quest. His path next took him to Prescott College in Arizona, where he pursued an independent study in shamanism. There he met Amara and together they began a journey pursuing indigenous South American ways.

Amara’s interest in ancient cultures started with a fascination for Ancient Egypt when she was a child. Amara spent many of her formative years in an ashram and during high-school developed an interest in permaculture, organics, and the alternative lifestyle that such values bring to an open mind. Amara also studied with an Essene Christian group that, as a part of their worship, honored both the masculine and feminine aspects of divinity. Continuing with her Eastern spiritual influences, she attended a ceremony with the Hindu Guru Amma, known as The Hugging Saint. Deeply moved by that experience and already attending Prescott College, Amara committed to a daily spiritual practice that would lead her to meet Eagle Dreamer.

Together, Amara and Eagle Dreamer traveled to Peru and Chile, visiting sacred sites, attending ceremonies, and gleaning the teachings of influential leaders. They have studied with Drunvalo Melchizedek, Alberto Villoldo’s student Corey Cooperman, Amma Chi, Don Howard “Otorongo Blanco,” Don Rober, Martin Prechtel, and Sweet Medicine Horse Nation. Their teachings have also been influenced by the Quero and the Chavin. Eagle Dreamer and Amara attended a gathering called Return of the Ancestors, and had the opportunity to experience ceremony with indigenous people from all over the world, including the Kogi, Mara, and the Aimara. 

Both Eagle Dreamer and Amara are currently working towards degrees in Anthropology. Amara will focus on cultural Anthropology, while Eagle Dreamer will focus on medical Anthropology. Through this young pair, our group has been able to open our hearts to the traditions and ceremonies of the South. Eagle Dreamer and Amara may be young teachers, but they are old spirits.

Special Programs in Ireland, May 2010

The land of the High King and the Queen of Knots.


Sweet Medicine will travel again to Ireland, offering a three-day workshop of Women's Initiation into Womanhood. This workshop will assist and invite the understanding of these times, our place as women, and providing ceremony for those asking to go through this Rite of Passage. This annual Women's renewal is open to women ready to germinate the "seeds" of time. This is the birthright of each woman.

There will also be a Vision Quest offered in the Choctaw Way of Sweet Medicine's people, being the first outside of the USA. She brings this part of her heritage as a blessing and thanks for those long ago that ventured over the seas in the North, and arrived in the North of Ireland. Those that left behind the ancient carved standing stones that point towards the marking of time, and the fast approaching alignment of 2012, and the Dawning of the Golden Age of Humanity.

This in addition to a four-day workshop with Men, focusing on the High King in each man and following the premise of Joseph Campbell's work, The Returning of the King. Men will be encouraged to reclaim themselves in their rightful places, and to see where in 2010 this moves us towards the Prophecies of old, affirming the Rite of a Man to govern his kingdom, himself with truth, honor, respect, and remembering.

If you are interested in this program, contact: info@fwfoundation.com

or Eleanor Higgins: eleanor.higgins@gmail.com

after the quake.

After the Earthquake, Chile

Dear Four Winds Community,

Walking this Medicine Way is not always easy. Yet, it is very fulfilling. Sending all of you there in North America my love and understanding of these times we are looking at, during the Earthquake here in Chile and the aftershocks.

For me, I have always seen the Americas as one great serpent shaped land, connected and continuous. The tail of this Great Mother is down here in Chile and Argentina and its tongue stretches out at its tip (which is frozen, unable to speak) in the Aleutian Islands way to the North.

They say in many creation stories, which might sound like a fable, this Mother is to all of us here on the body of this connected body of lands called the Americas. This Great Mother is called by many names, for me she is the "feathered serpent," which means the mystery of the earth in this serpentine form, which was formed of the fire, and this fire being the feathers. Fire is also, in this case, the spirit fire of creation. Always creating something new. This is her power, her ability and her fearful capability.

Mother, has shown us all in the past few days here in Chile, her ability to get our attention. Also, part of this is so we will "listen" even deeper to the ways she tells us to pay attention. Who's agenda we really need to be following? This is not a time for Man's plans, but that of the Greater Planner our Mother & the Great Mystery...

We might have had many plans for our events, lodges and gatherings. Yet, she might be telling us we are on-the fast track of the planning of our human schedule.

These past few days while aftershocks still move this rattle tail of hers, we are being notified to stop all that we had planned and get on her timetable and listen to the greater agenda. Being here during this tremendous timing to feel her shake this tail of hers, the Mother Earth is asking us to wake up from our numbness, our folly and not to fall asleep.. Not to keep going on as usual, as if nothing has happened, but to look at what is important to us.

Who is important to us? Let them know. What are you waiting for? We have the ability to change our outcomes. I could see this in all the emails of concerns for my welfare and the relief from our loved ones. This is confirmation to what is Real!

Shaman's of old used such times to predict what would come next. They carved impressions on cave walls and danced to honor the mother with drums and foot beats. Today a person hardly knows what to do to care for ones self/soul. I believe we are in a time to be introspective, be still and pay attention. There has been much I have learned from doing just this in the last 28 hours. When we ask the Great Mother to show us the way, and ask with cannupa and tobacco to be shown what it is we are to be doing, I do not believe it is our own plans....but those plans that come following these prayers that require us to listen.

My suggestion is instead of driving all over the city we gather in small groups that do not require so much travel to practice what we believe. Make a tobacco, for this goes beyond any Form, Dogma or Road. Yet it honors all the holy first medicine, tobacco and corn. Then, share this prayer with your family or those in your neighborhood - nearby. Let Gratitude be the prayer. Assistance with our requests. Then to Know, through requests, what the Will of the Great Mystery, rather than Our own might be?

This power of the Great Mystery has shown us again, we are not in control here, but the Greater Planner is. So, slow down, stop all the doing and LISTEN. Respond and be Humble to the tasks at hand,

It is time to practice what we know how to do. This Earthquake might have felt a long way off for many of you in the North American or Europe areas...but all is connected. Sending mostly, that " you matter to me" and a "I love you all". And I am missing you. Your never out of my mind and heart.