Zia, most AIM members would tell you this means they have a lifelong committment to defending Native traditions and people, and doing so AGAINST people like Oquendo.
This is too funny. There is also a Ralph Oquendo who says he is a martial arts master.
http://www.bushidojapaneseswords.com/aboutus.htmThere was also a Ralph Oquendo who was a member of the Diggdoctors, a Nuagey group that knocked off ideas about Australian Aborigines.
http://dreamtime-didjeriduw3server.com/discography/DRxxxx/DR0033.html"The Diggdoctors are Ralph Oquendo, Late Wolf (M.Bakker) & Rasta Robert. The music is not simply music; rather it is the accompaniment or vehicle for a 'Dreamtime', a gathering of up to 40 people with the intention of entering into altered states to experience their personal dreamtime.
Reviewer:
The Concert - some notes from the players... (snipped a bit). The jump into the Dreamtime... you can actually hear the exact moment the players make the link and jump into the Dreamtime. First you hear clapsticks randomly. The players are using the sound to follow a dreamtrack (altered state). Then suddenly you will hear, at the exact same moment, all the sticks come down together and begin a complex synchronized rhythm; welcome to the Dreamtime. The story-telling then starts with one Shaman traveling until he meets another. They converse in animal-voices, and then there is another. They travel deep into the Dreamtime. (...)the deep rhythmic tunes of Rasta Robert's yidaki and the hypnotic tunes of Late Wolf, building an intensive web of sound. Shamanic voices(...) Both the yidaki and the human voice can 'sing' overtones or cosmic tones. (...) Calling the Whales(...) You hear them calling and then you can actually feel the rhythm of their gigantic bodies. Feel them coming and talking in their huge overtone voices. The Ice Age Hunters. With the bells we are suddenly out and running across the Ice Age tundra's. You hear the hunters call to one another with the voices of the Animal Powers they hunt. Songs from the Heart From the Hunt to the Camp drums and the song of welcome. A song to 'the Four Directions'. An honest and true voice. Then :Celebration!(...)a very virtuoso solo on the yidaki where Ralph Oquendo singles out only the overtones of his yidaki to imitate the human voice. (...) Then Intrusion carries us back to our starting place to complete the circle."
Spirit boat journey seems to be something from one of the core shamanism people, a Francis Caufield in Britain. Basically it's breathing and chanting with a bunch of instruments playing.
http://www.franciscaulfield.com/ceremony.html"Think of it as a Spirit Boat Journey with the boat a metaphor for the community.
The participants gather together within a ceremonial circle, with me in the center as facilitator. Each participant creates an intention for their journey, which they breathe into their heart. Through the application of conscious breathing, sound healing instruments and toning (see below), a higher dimensional energy field or vortex is created within each individual and within the circle or group energy field, so that we as a group, may commune more powerfully and directly with our God-Self, power animals, guardian spirits and ancestors.
With access to the omnipresent Source of Light and Love established within the circle, a paradigm shift occurs within the cellular consciousness, as the harmonic sounds activate the God seed within the DNA code. The overall benefits are profound and unique to each person covering the areas of Spiritual Awakening, Personal Transformation, and Holistic Healing, which provides for a uplifting and healing effect within the local community as well as to the planetary consciousness.
The Sacred Sound Ceremony/Spirit Boat Journey is composed of three sequential phases.
1) Severance: During the first phase, we sever our relationship to the world, as we know it. The mechanical, repetitive internal dialogue that describes and interprets our reality is dissolved. Our attention is drawn away from the collective trance of separateness and alienation and enters a pleasurable state of conscious dreaming, a place in between sleeping and waking. Once the internal dialogue is sufficiently dissolved, the body begins to breath deeply and fully, as if it is being breathed by universal breath. The hidden nature of the body as a portal or gateway to spiritual worlds is revealed, leading to the next phase.
2) Threshold Crossing: During this phase, a radical shift occurs to the assemblage point, a shamanic phrase that describes a movement away from a closed, localized perceptual field and into a open, multi-dimensional and inter-dimensional field of perception. This provides for a nourishing and nurturing communion with our God Essence and for communication with our power animals, guardian spirits and ancestors.
3) Incorporation & Return: This last phase involves the incorporation of the light body into the physical body and for the integration and understanding of communications with the invisible world. This marks our re-entry into the world of ordinary reality, now though infused with the qualities, visions and cellular transformations induced by the harmonics, overtones and the sacred geometry inherent within sound."
