I actually joined this forum in order to post on this thread, and thank you Sparks for your welcome and encouragement.
I was just bored and did a search on her awhile ago, and this thread pops up first, before all the stuff about the Star Knowledge Conferences and other more positive spin things about her.
The fact is that she is a long-time friend of mine, and we have shared much, and I am sorry to see her listed here, although I do understand why.
We met while she was still using her Anglo name and presented her Self as being a hill billy from the Ozarks. She is very intelligent, and we were immediate friends, and stay so, even though we don't communicate much, largely because she lives in her world of metaphysics and I don't, and relating is probably hard for both sides. But if she called me, I would be there.
I watched, and was an integral force in her transformation into Silverstar. I was there when she felt called to work with Standing Elk, and I followed her adventures as they created their particular .... ummm... reality tunnel around channeling and work in the sweat lodges. Over time she began to call her Self a little Indian child who grew up lost in a white man's world. I met many of the people who came and taught at their conferences in the early years. I always considered my self a friend to them, but as with all teachings, didn't exactly feel my reality was being defined, but many people did and still do.
Her actual cultural heritage I can't speak for. As I found out with my own genetic test, what we are taught and what is real don't always jibe. I had two 'full blood Indian' great grandmothers, one my own mother claimed to remember, who vanished into the great illusion when my test came back 99.6% European and none of the trace amounts were Native at all. Elizabeth Warren had the same experience, and I would not speculate what Silverstar's test would show. I do know that the man who is now called Chief Golden Light Eagle is from the First Nations, from the Yankton Sioux res.
I've long known that not all Silverstar claims is exactly true in what we might call consensus reality, and it is a mighty hob-gob from all manner of sources. Far more than my simple mind can embrace. But, my point is that she believes it all to be true. This is not a plastic shaman, but a True Believer, who has sacrificed much on her path and gained very, very little in a material way.
As I said on another thread, I went into the New Age as an explorer, but I kept a sense of observation and skepticism... given they had lied to me all my life about so much already. So, as Silverstar and I sat and listened to channeling, or when I channeled, or when I offered a new book or new teacher that I'd learned about, she took it all without a filter. I watched this for many years.
Silverstar is not a cynic. She has traveled the world on next to no money, fasted for days in prayer, talked to people whose names are known the world over. In this thread I remember someone mentioning her being in the ceremony at the opening of the Native American Museum in D.C. I cannot prove it, but I do believe she was. She told me about all about it, and while I have heard some pretty far-out and/or outlandish things from her, she has never lied to me. At least not over anything important.
So, what I'm coming around to is that here we have a person who has incorporated a mongrel amount of information from all manner of ethnic sources both historical and modern. She really believes and she really honors and she really sacrifices for what she believes in. She lives in her own reality, makes her own metaphysical medicine, and she tries to offer it for the good of all. Yes, her finger goes through the toilet paper from time to time, and yes, she takes pride in her 'Grandmother' status even though it's not good and proper in the traditionalist sense.
And yes, what she teaches is smoke and air to us. To her it is the beliefs of her heart. She may be quite mad, many think so, and I am on the fence... but isn't that the historical description of a shaman? Someone who breaks from conventional reality and goes off into a reality of their own?
Not to justify anything, but to explain that she is not a thief or a scammer. She really believes with all her heart, madness or not. I'm not smart enough to judge. I don't live in that particular reality tunnel, but I do know hers is benign. Mostly harmless!
