June 19 second day WPPD 2011 -Spirit at water ceremony held at Cold Water Springs was moving to say the least. Gracie daughter of Arvol spoke of how the river that where Arvol lives was polluted with mercury and now after Gracie had shared in puja offerings of corn meal and prayers with another woman the water was healed. Her story and compassion in which it was delivered moved the people to tears. The scared horse ride held late at St Peters grounds in Mendota was awe inspiring and the Mother Earth as a circle from the horses that if full of healing spirit.
World Peace Prayer Day II
A small group gathered at an ancient spring, to perform Water purification ceremony. The site was the place where according to creation story the first couple of man and women came into being..,it was a schock to see how such sacred springs of many indigenous nations was surrounded by delapidated industrial buildings and full of slimy dirty water. These buildings are to be torn down . Stories were told, sacred songs chanted and holy water poured into the spring to purify the water of life, again for the first time since 150 years! It was a powerful ceremony....Later at a different venue another sacred ceremony was held. A huge circle was formed arround a teepee and young people, who had run a long distance to the site as a form of tapasya and purification were blessed and welcome back into "society." Then an amazing ceremony with horses followed, the dance of the horses is an ancient healing ceremony.. accompanied by chanting and drumming on the ancient big drum of Tail Feather woman. So much shared ceremony, with universal sacred guestures, ritual and words. Chief Arvol Looking Horse for example said: 'the Spirit is in everyone ; making all people sacred, all moments, all days, all beings sacred!" We say: Everything is Shiva..everythhing is Spirit! Amazing! Another quote is: spiritual life is love which turns to service because we remember who you are. It echoes Swami Rama's motto: Love Serve and Remember! All nations, one faith, one prayer!
By: Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati
Saturday, June 25, 2011
WPPD 2011 SACRED SITES
Bdote will be the host site of World Peace and Prayer Day 2011 with activities throughout the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Minnesota area. Please refer to the calendar for locations of specific events.
Seth Eastman's 1846 
painting of Pilot Knob ("The Gathering Place" Oheyawahi) looking southeast from below Fort Snelling.
painting of Pilot Knob ("The Gathering Place" Oheyawahi) looking southeast from below Fort Snelling. Source: Minnesota Historical Society.
A poem for peace was sent to WPPDfrom Isaac James Bishara (Maori)
Neither Only Amen
Neither past or futureQuestion answerOnly enlighenment
Neither for or againstTrue falseOnly compassion
Neither black or whiteInferior superiorOnly respect
Neither You or IRight wrongOnly understandingNeither God or country"I"-dentity "We"-dentityOnly acceptanceNeither love or hateVice virtueOnly peaceAmenIsaac James BisharaI am a Maori who has had the pleasure of meeting with ourAinu family and wish to support them through poetry.
WPPD 2011 WHITE BUFFALO PROPHESY
WHITE BUFFALO PROPHESY
The birth of the Sacred White Buffalo, “Miracle”, in Wisconsin in 1994 signaled a time of earth changes and the coming of the mending of the Hoop of All Nations. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, was directed to begin a spiritual journey of a four year commitment to organize World Peace and Prayer Day in the four directions on the summer solstice, June 21st
.2006-10-22 | Mitakuye (my relative),
I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, what we call "Turtle Island." My words seek to unite the global Community through a message from our sacred ceremonies to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator.
We have been warned from Ancient Prophecies of these times we live in today, but have also been given a very important message about a solution to turn these terrible times around.
To understand the depth of this message you must recognize the importance of Sacred Sites and realize the interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.
I have been learning about these important issues since the age of 12, upon receiving the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and its teachings. Our people have striven to protect Sacred Sites from the beginning of time. These places have been violated for centuries and have brought us to the predicament that we are in at the global level.
Look around you. Our Mother Earth is very ill from these violations, and we are on the brink of destroying the possibility of a healthy and nurturing survival for generations to come, our children's children.
Our ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred Site called the Sacred Black Hills in South Dakota, "Heart of Everything That Is," from continued violations. Our ancestors never saw a satellite view of this site, but now that those pictures are available, we see that it is in the shape of a heart and, when fast-forwarded, it looks like a heart pumping.
The Dine have been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver, and we are suffering and going to suffer more from the extraction of the coal from there and the poison processes used in doing so.
The Aborigines have warned of the contaminating effects of global warming on the Coral Reefs, which they see as Mother Earth's blood purifier.
The Indigenous people of the rainforest relay that the rainforest are the lungs of the planet and need protection.
The Gwich'in Nation has had to face oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to the Gwich'in as "Where life begins!"
The coastal plain is the birthplace of many life forms of the Animal Nations. The death of these Animal Nations will destroy Indigenous Nations in this territory.
As these destructive developments continue all over the world, we will witness many more extinct Animal, Plant, and Human Nations, because of mankind's misuse of power and their lack of understanding of the "balance of life."
The Indigenous people warn that these destructive developments will cause havoc globally. There are many, many more Indigenous awarenesses and knowledge about Mother Earth's Sacred Sites, her Chakras, connections to our spirit that will surely affect our future generations.
There needs to be a fast move toward other forms of energy that are safe for all Nations upon Mother Earth. We need to understand the types of minds that are continuing to destroy the spirit of our whole global community. Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will overwhelm us. Our Ancestors foretold that water would someday be for sale. Back then, this was hard to believe, since the water was so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition, and spirit.
Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the nutritional minerals have been taken out; it's just empty liquid. Someday water will be like gold, too expensive to afford.
Not everyone will have the right to drink safe water. We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them as if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the Source of Life itself.
Attacking Nations and having to utilize more resources to carry out destruction in the name of peace is not the answer! We need to understand how all these decisions affect the Global Nation; we will not be immune to its repercussions. Allowing continual contamination of our food and land is affecting the way we think.
A "disease of the mind" has set in world leaders and many members of our global community, with their belief that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will bring Peace.
In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the crossroads: Either unite spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases, and tears from our relatives' eyes.
We are the only species that is destroying the Source of Life, meaning Mother Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources, and ownership of land, using chemicals and methods of warfare that are doing irreversible damage, as Mother Earth is becoming tired and cannot sustain any more impacts of war.
I ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the Peoples of all continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as one at their Sacred Sites to pray and meditate and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace.
As each day passes, I ask all Nations to begin a global effort, and remember to give thanks for the Sacred Food that has been gifted to us by our Mother Earth, so the nutritional energy of medicine can be guided to heal our minds and spirits.
This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it. Starvation, war, and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium.
To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction. You yourself are the one who must decide.
You alone - and only you - can make this crucial choice, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.
Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?
Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less?
In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending,
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
WPPD 2011 HISTORY
HISTORY WPPD POSTER
This poster was designed to honor our spiritual teachers from the past to present who preserved these teachings for our children and the generations to come. This interpretation was taken from LAKOTA STAR KNOWLEDGE STUDIES IN LAKOTA STELLAR THEOLOGY; by Ronald Goodman; copyright Sinta Gleska University in Rosebud, S.D.; 1992.
UPLOAD POSTER: CLICK HERE
UPLOAD POSTER: CLICK HERE
The vortex design on the poster is the central symbol of the Sioux Nation Stellar Theology.
The vortex above is a star and the vortex below is the earth. This represents a mirroring image, sacred above is sacred below. A second meaning of the symbol the vortex above is the sun, and the vortex below represents sundancers.
The vortex with the apex is the tipi symbol, the elders describe this as replicating the creation of the world.
This vortex symbol is also known as a parfleche design created by a Lakota woman's interpretation of the nature of reality; the central symbol is the Kapemni: where the two points meet. This symbol can also represent a mandala; which is an abstract representation of the nature of the universe.
The theological significance of this symbol was quoted by Mr. John Colhoff; a Dakota man living in Pine Ridge: "AN HOURGLASS FIGURE (TWO TRIANGLES JOINED AT THEIR APEX, KA-PE-MINI) REPRESENTS A PRAYER. THE LOWER PART (TRIANGLE HAS TO DO WITH THE EARTH AND THE UPPER PART IS THE HEAVENS. THIS DESIGN REPRESENTS A PRAYER FROM EARTH GOING TO HEAVEN AND BEING MET HALF WAY BY THE THE HEAVENLY BODIES."
The medicine wheel in the middle symbolizes the spiritul power of the life force of the Great Spirit. This emcompasses many teachings; the oneness of male and female, and the four directions meanings. The materilazation of spirit shows itself through the emergence of the four elements: Water-West, Air-North, Fire-East, Earth-South. The four colors of the medicine wheel represents the four colors of man.
Submitted by:
Sheldon Peters Wolfchild
Verbal Permission of this interpretation of Star Knowledge was given by Victor Douville: Instructor of Lakota Studies Department, Sinte Gleska University, Rosebud
WPPD 2011 SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
We honor the memory of Chris Leith, Dakota medicine bundle keeper and spiritual leader from the Prairie Island Dakota who will be with us in spirit. He served as Sun Dance chief for more than thirty years. In 2003 he was a source of important information for the successful nomination of Oheyawahi, (“The Gathering Place”) to the National Register of Historic Places where events will take place during WPPD 2011. He was active in the campaign to save the Hill from private development and led the sweat ceremony on the hill in October 2004. He was very involved in bringing awareness to other sites sacred to his culture as serves as a Wisdom Keeper with the World Council of Indigenous Elders.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse - is the 19th generation keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and holds the responsibility of spiritual leader among the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota People. He holds an honorary Doctorate from the University of South Dakota, and travels and speaks extensively on peace, environmental and native rights issues. He has been the recipient of several awards, including the Wolf Award of Canada and the Juliet Hollister Award for his dedicated work for peace. A skilled horseman, he shares his knowledge with the youth on the long distance rides that take place in South Dakota throughout the year.
Isaac James Bishra -Maori Nation, New Zealand. Isaac organized the WPPD 2008 in New Zealand for his People. He will be bringing his people to speak about the Earth Changes and Climate changes that his own People have undergone with Christ Church Earth Quake, in which his group is still active in assisting with the catastrophe.
Misa Adele Honde - Japan . Organizer of WPPD 2004 in Japan.After studying at Sinte Gleska College on the Rosebud Reservation in 1989, Misa has been working to introduce messages from Native American elders and spiritual leaders to the Japanese audience, through her interpretation and translation work. In 2004, she and her collegues organized World Peace and Prayer Day 2004 JAPAN at the foothills of Mt. Fuji. She participates in grassroots network in Japan working for the reduction of nuclear power plants and transition into natural energy. "Wisdomkeepers", "Messengers of the Wind", "White Buffalo Teachings" are some of the books she has translated into Japan.
Brave Heart Society & Elk Soldier Society- Yankton Sioux Tribe. The Brave Heart Society was revived at Ihanktonwan in1994 to work through ceremony and guidance to assist young women as they becoming a woman. The Elk Soldier Society, which has come into being the last 10 years, focuses on helping the young men. They work in support and partnership with each other as women and men's societies, like they did in old days
Reverend Deacon Conrad Plante - Archdiocese of Winnipeg
Swami Nityamuktananga Saraswati- (Dr. Christa-Maria Herrmann) is German by birth. In 1997 she was recognized by the United Nations for contributions to World Peace (LGWPF/ NGO of UN). She worked with several great spiritual Masters among them Zen-Masters, great Siddhas, the Tibetan Lama and Tulku T.Y.S. Gangchen, the great Yogi Swami Maheshananda and H.H. Swami Anubhavananda (Acharya of Vedanta) and finally M.M. (Mahamadeleschwara) Swami Veda Bharati, disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalaya .
Shri Natha Devi Premananda, affectionately known as Mataji, - Los Angeles As Founder of Eagle Wings of Enlightenment Center in South Central Los Angeles in the African-American Community since 1985, Mataji is a spiritual Mother dedicated to the upliftment of World Peace and the spiritual teachings of Oneness, Compassion, Universal Wisdom and the Holy Scriptures. Over the years she has given refuge to single mothers with children in gangs, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drugs and low self esteem individuals and is recognized as an Ambassador for Peace internationally for her selfless service. Through this World Peace ministry, she has traveled to India, Nepal, Tibet, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, Kenya, Peru, Bosnia, Italy, France, Bolivia, Australia, and throughout North America. She has hosted, prayed and conducted services with distinguished teachers and leaders of diverse spiritual traditions as an interfaith ministry.
Josephine Mandamin-Manitoulin Island This First Nations grandmother who walked around Great Lakes will talk about importance of water. Every spring since 2003she picks up her copper pail and starts walking, circling the Great Lakes. At every tributary, Mandamin stops and talks directly to the water, offering prayers, tobacco and thanks. Mandamin and a small band of followers will follow the lakes to where their water pours into the Atlantic Ocean. (As proof to her message of the need to protect the water, 25% of male beluga whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have cancer). "The water is sick...and people need to really fight for that water, to love that water."
Rabbi Bob Carroll - Israel. Carroll is an Orthodox Rabbi and student of the Kabbalistic/Mystical tradition of Judaism. He serves on the board of directors for Interfaith Encounter, based in Jerusalem, which uses religion to build a grassroots movement for peace in the Mideast by seeking common values, re-humanizing "the other", and building a true community of believers who refuse to be each others' enemies. He is also a lifelong environmental activist who seeks to use earth-consciousness in his work to help bring people together, spending a significant amount of time each year in wilderness areas of the United States
Bob Randall - Australia -is a “Tjilpi,” special teaching Uncle and Elder of the Yankuntjatjara Nation and Anangu People. He and his family have been the traditional carers of Uluru, the great monolith in the Central Desert of Australia for many 1000’s of years. He is an international educator, author, documentary film maker and subject, story-song composer and singer, and recipient of numerous humanitarian and peace awards, including Indigenous Person of the Year. As a member of The Stolen Generation, his song, "My Brown Skin Baby (they take 'im away)" brought international attention to the plight of many thousands of half-caste children forcibly removed from their families and places of belonging by Australian government order. “Uncle Bob,” as he is affectionately known, speaks and teaches internationally to all ages on the interconnectedness and oneness of all living and the Anangu "Kanyini" philosophy of living with unconditional love for each other and all life, with responsibility for self.
Alta Reynolds - South African -is a labour dispute conciliator and arbitrator for the South African Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (the CCMA) as well as several Bargaining Councils. She was nominated by the Shri Miriammen Temple Society in Durban for the Woman of the Year Award 2003 in the category Promotion of Peace.
Shakeel Ori is a 3rd Generation South African of Indian Origin.Presently, he is the Director of Co-operative Education at the Durban University of Technology in Durban, South Africa. Previous positions include Senior Lecturer and Dean (Faculty of Science).Although qualified in the Medical Sciences, he is active in the transformation of tertiary education in post-apartheid South Africa. Serves on several national organizations and is currently the President of the Southern African Society for Co-operative Education and a Director of the World Association for Co-operative Education (WACE).
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