Kymberlee Ruff

[educatedindian]

The latest email exchanges between us. I'm trying to find out if she is sincere as she claims and will put out a statement against the falsehoods out there. First her email then min.

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Dear Al,
 I don't actually spend time with Maria. She lives in another state.I don't know anything about her past.
We are not close in that way.
She told me years ago that she is Apache and a little Cherokee.
 I know that she has these women that are her apprentices. I am not one of them.
 
I also do not hang out with Woody. He lives in Colorado.
I do try to stay friendly with everyone I meet.
 
It sounds like there are people that believe she is not living in integrity. It is not my job to judge her.
I think that it is important for people perhaps like you to look into these things.
As far as keeping a secret, I only meant that I would not want you to post anything from my private letters to you on the internet. I try to stay out of controversial matters.
 I never ever write to blogs or whatever where people argue.
 
If you know how to correct things on the internet I would be very grateful. I don't even know how to use WORD document. When I post things, I send an email to a friend of mine in Taos and she does it.
This is another example of how I don't make money. I PAY to have the writings I am given put up on the internet.
 
As far as being an Elder, I only know what Grandfather Martin told me. I don't know if it is true and that is why I never ever mention it to anyone. PLEASE know that I do not have "an attachment" to being "an Elder". I have studied for many years how to release the "ego-grasping" and just be of service.
 
I do not go around telling people that I am an Elder.
 
I HAVE been asked by the Hopi and the Tibetans to be the Messenger of the Hopi/Tibetan Prophecy.
They believe that my son is the human link between the two cultures and it is my responsibility to take the message of compassion to the world.
 
Also I of course would remove any claims that say that I am a Hopi Elder of a Hopi Prophecy Carrier.
I am not aware of any sites that say this. I looked on the internet after you wrote, but I could not find anything that called me an Elder.
If you can direct them to me I would appreciate it because I feel very very strongly about living in integrity.
 
Also as far as referring to these people as my friends, I have been asked by the Tibetans to refer to ALL people as my friend. It is the Tibetan way.
 I would like very much to be friends with YOU!
 
I think the work you are doing is great.
 
If I have not answered any more questions, please let me know. I am not the best writer in the world which is why I did not want to go public and put writings on the internet. I am doing it as a favor to Grandfather and Ven. Bhakha Tulku Rinpoche.
 
I am not aware of a lot of these things that you say are posted about me and I don't have a clue about how to stop some of these things. I would appreciate whatever help you have to offer.
 asqauli,
 Kymberlee
 
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Hello again,
Let me try one last time.
 
1. I'm not talking about Naylin's past, but about the abuse she does RIGHT NOW.
If integrity is so important to you, you should take far greater with who you associate with. It's obvious to anyone who has been around Indians and Native cultures that both Naylin and Vaspra are frauds. Take far greater care in the future.
 
2. "Judgement" is not a bad thing. Believing that it is, well, that's something the New Age claims. It's not something Indians ever would claim, and certainly not Hopi.
 
3. It's incredibly simple to get something false removed. You simply WRITE AN EMAIL.
 
When a site puts out falsehoods, write the site owner. Insist they be taken down.
 
If not, there may be legal remedies. But if you don't want to go that route, put out your own public statement.
 
And please don't tell me you can't or don't know how. You have professional websites for yourself.
 
4. No, you NOT an elder, or a messenger of any kind.
 
Start with the obvious: You haven't talked to every last Hopi, nor to every last Tibetan.
 
You claim that ONE Hopi man asked you to do these things. If a council of elders didn't tell you, then the Hopi have NOT asked you to be a messenger.
 
5. If you go to our website, one of the other moderators, Sky, is herself Cherokee. She points out there's no such thing as a "Cherokee dream walker" lineage or tradition. So you should quit claiming there is.
 
Sky also has posted geneaology research on your family line. There is NO evidence you are Cherokee.
 
Just the opposite, Sky has traced your family line back beyond the Dawes Rolls. This is what she says:
 
"John Byron was NOT cherokee.  He was the PARENT of Cora Byron (who was born in 1896) and the husband of Rosa Bryon Dallas http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/awescard.php?s_last=byron&s_first=john&s_middle=&s_tribe=Cherokee&s_card=10623

I have a picture of the actual Dawes card, I will try and figure out a way to post it.  On it it clearly states JOHN BYRON (deceased) was a non-citizen and that Cora was 1/2.  Cora was enrolled on September 1. 1901.  She was born in Indiana.  She shows up on the 1900 census, living with her Mother, Uncles and Grandpa Thomas Byron(and some other people) in Cherokee Territory.  Uncles and Grandpa Thomas Byron are listed as WHITE.  Grandpa Thomas Byron was born in Pennsylvania as were Uncles James and Sylvester.  Grandpa Thomas Byron's parents were both born in Ireland. Cora's full name was Cora Myrtle Byron.  She in turn married a man with the first name John and they lived in Kansas.  Cora and John's children are still living (in Kansas and Oklahoma) and are in no way related to Kymberlee Ruff."
 
All your ancestors are white. The Dawes roll shows your ancestors as NON Cherokee living near Cherokee land.
 
Even if you did have ancestry, you were not raised in any Native culture. This is why you keep falling for falsehoods like "Cherokee dream walker". Until you know the culture, you should not claim to be Cherokee. 

6.Kymberlee, you claim you want me to help you. Ok, here is my offer:
 
Let's you and me, and other members of nafps as well, start going to all the sites putting out falsehoods about you. We'll write to them and get them to stop, as best we can.
 
Let's also work on a public statement from you, which we will ask them to post, and we will post on NAFPS, and you can post on your professional website. The statment should say:
 
I, Kymberlee Ruff, wish to put an end to all the misinformation out there.
I am NOT a Hopi elder.
I am NOT a Hopi messenger.
I say only that one Hopi man, Martin, has asked me to speak on these matters.
I also claim to communicate with him in dreams.
I have no evidence he is even a Hopi elder. He is not part of any Hopi council of traditional elders.
I am NOT Hopi. I am NOT an adopted Hopi either. Indian tribes do not adopt people. Families do. I claim to be adopted by Martin's family.
I am NOT Cherokee, though I once believed my ancestors were. I was NOT raised in Cherokee culture or traditions.
Still, I believe the message from Martin is important, and am speaking as just an average white woman.
I am strongly opposed to spiritual exploitation, falsehoods, and especially pay to pray ceremony. I have never taken part in any pay to pray ceremony and ask that all websites claiming I have take down this false information.
 
What do you think? Should we help you put out your statment?
Al

[earthw7]

I found this site today
about Martin Gashweseoma
http://www.thedreammasters.org/hopi/martingashweseoma.php

[Defend the Sacred]

"I HAVE been asked by the Hopi and the Tibetans to be the Messenger of the Hopi/Tibetan Prophecy.
They believe that my son is the human link between the two cultures and it is my responsibility to take the message of compassion to the world."

Kymberlee,  Al already addressed the fact that one Hopi or Tibetan person can not make you a messenger for an  entire culture and community. Do you really expect us to believe that two Indigenous cultures would chose a white child, who just happens to be your son, to represent them to the world when they are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves (and do)?  Seriously, it's very hard to consider you to be a sincere person when you make racist claims of this sort.

Kymberlee, I would also like to know why you don't just join the board and speak for yourself. Why do you think Al should spend his time posting the things you send him?  I don't believe that joining a message board is too difficult a task for you to handle, especially when you are asking for our help in cleaning up this mess you've made.

I found this site today
about Martin Gashweseoma
http://www.thedreammasters.org/hopi/martingashweseoma.php

Kymberlee and her son are the white people with him in some of those pictures.

[Smart Mule]

Kymberlee, I hope you are taking the time to read this thread. You seem very happy and excited about what you are doing.  You seem to see nothing wrong with being friends with and supporting individuals who are fraudulent.  His Holiness the Dalai Lama advises that we should publicly expose such people for what they are.  If you are working directly with Tibetan Buddhists I would think you would respect the words and direction of the Dalai Lama, unless you feel that ego driven lies that harm people and living cultures is more important.  If that's the case it speaks volumes about your ethics.

[Defend the Sacred]

Kymberlee, since you say this is all confusing to you, I'm going to put it really simply. I'm sorry if I sound mean, but seriously, you are wasting a lot of people's time and being very offensive. Al and Sky have been very patient with you, and you have acted inappropriately.

If you knew anything about the living or historical Cherokee communities, you would not make the ridiculous claims you are making. We know that, and spot it immediately, even if you do not.

If you knew anything about the census records (besides your quest to misappropriate funds from NDNs to use for your white son's college tuition) you would know that having an alleged ancestor's name appear on the Dawes rolls doesn't make you NDN. It doesn't even make that ancestor NDN. You have to actually read the census information, and grasp those little details like race and citizenship. 

The man you tried to claim as your ancestor wasn't NDN. And according to the information you yourself have provided, as well as that in the genealogies of the tribes, he wasn't even your ancestor.

Maybe you have a John Byron somewhere back in your family tree. But if so, it was a different John Byron. "John" was one of the most common names back then, and "Byron" is not uncommon, either. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, you tried to steal someone else's ancestors.

Kymberlee, you're not the first to find a family name on a tree and try to latch on to someone else's genealogy and present their ancestors as your own. It's happened to some of us here on the board. The funny thing is, you didn't even swipe an NDN lineage. You swiped some white people.

[tecpaocelotl]

I'll make the image of the roll large enough in case she missed it:

[Smart Mule]

Thank you!

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

Eh. She's just playing games here.

She's telling us that she is dumb but somehow made it through college to be a therapist? Where is
the "sense" of insight needed to be a therapist if she can't even gain insight on how a phone works.. blah. Games.

[nemesis]

I cannot see any clear information on her site about the model/s of psychotherapy that she is trained in.

This is fairly unusual as most psychotherapists are enthusiastic advocates of their chosen field.

Apart from the abuses against Native people, I have to say that I am dismayed with Ruff's treatment of her son.  He is a young child and it is really not fair on him to drag him into this mess and to try to persuade him that he is some kind of sacred messenger when he is nothing of the sort. 

[Defend the Sacred]

Tangent about who gets to decide who is and isn't NDN moved to etc: http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3600.0

[earthw7]

thank you Kathryn

[Odelle]

ETA: Ruff asked me to pull the email, so I'm just paraphrasing them, below. Jan. 21, 2013

I'm continuing a thread that I started in Member Introductions but that I think is probably more appropriate here. Here is the link to that thread: http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3915.0

I joined NAFPS because I encountered Kymberlee Ruff's claims about the Tibetan-Hopi Prophecy online and frankly thought that she might be using a Tibetan Buddhist organization's name without their knowledge or permission. I was unsure whether it was a good or bad idea to contact the organization and NAFPS members encouraged me to do so, so I sent them an email, but I have yet to receive a reply. This was about a month ago. Before putting the matter to rest, I decided to contact Ruff directly and she soon sent me two emails with photos. I'll outline my concerns and also the concerns of a couple of my Tibetan friends, one of whom is also a religious teacher, below and then post the email exchange between Ruff and myself.

Why I was concerned:
1. She claims to be both a Tibetan and Hopi prophet and is also pulling in Zuni into the mix.
2.How can she be a Tibetan prophet if she does not speak Tibetan? The Tibetans she implies have given her the prophecy speak English, have established centers and many students. Why do they need an outsider to spread their prophecy? 
3. She claims a mani stone was discovered in Zuni and is thousands of years old, but it is a typical mani stone, a rock with prayers carved on it. She says it has the prayers of all the Tibetan deities (?), but the prayers are very basic mantras, such as Om Mani Padme Hum (unlike Ruff, I *can* read Tibetan). My Tibetan friends comments on this: it is a typical mani stone with no hint of prophecy or anything especially remarkable. It was almost certainly carved by hand (both people I asked believe that mantras and other symbols may spontaneously show up on rocks and other physical objects without being produced by human hands, so they are not just skeptics) and is not portent or anything. One friend scoffed at the idea that it was found in Zuni. To paraphrase him: he thinks that the Pueblo cultures and Tibetans have genetic and cultural ties, but these predate the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet by millenia. Pueblo Indian cultures are not Buddhist, regardless of however much they may share in values.
4. She broadcasts the names of two teachers, who I won't bother to name again and whose names I'll try to edit out of the other post, but doesn't directly say that they are part of her Tibetan-Hopi Prophecy activities. Both my friends have heard of one Rinpoche and agreed that Ruff's claims seemed unlike something this person would subscribe to. For this reason, I decided to take action because I feared that Ruff might be fraudulently representing herself as acting on behalf of this organization, using their name to authenticate her claims.

Ruff asked me not to publish her "personal business all over the Internet", so I've deleted the emails. I'll just summarize the exchange.

Me:

I sent her an email asking her to explain what she meant by a Tibetan "prophecy", what the Tulku title of her son is, since she claims he was recognized (and, though he's not Hopi, he is a link between Tibetan and Hopi cultures), and whether or not the two Rinpoches whose name she mentions on her site where aware of her activities.

Her:
Long email in which she tells me the prophecy is the Padmasambhava, a prayer to Guru Rinpoche that is available in English, transcribed Tibetan and audio recordings all over the Internet. I don't know why she calls it a "prophecy" and she doesn't explain, but, whatever. She does not give me her son's Tulku title, just his English name. It is somewhat strange to me that her son would use an English name, but I've never met a white Tulku before (there are some), so maybe it's a white Tulku thing. She aslo says that she briefs one Rinpoche of everything she says online before she says it. She then included about three photos of herself or this young man who should be her son with both Rinpoches and then began sending me lots of email about a puja in Santa Barbara.

Take home:
It seems possible that the organization and the two Rinpoches involved are aware of Ruff's activities, as she says in the email and are either fine with it or actively supportive of it. Unless I have reason to suspect otherwise, I assume she is being honest on that front and so I will not take further action on the matter.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

But what about her false claims on the rock? Unless you believe your Tibetan friends to be wrong.. Did you ever hear back from the Rinpoche's on this? Of course, what satisfies you is what satisfies you..

[Odelle]

But what about her false claims on the rock? Unless you believe your Tibetan friends to be wrong.. Did you ever hear back from the Rinpoche's on this? Of course, what satisfies you is what satisfies you..

I did not hear back from the Rinpoches' center. So, I just have Ruff's own statements that these people are aware of and condone her using their name for her purposes. My main concern was whether or not Ruff was using these people's names without their permission. She says she's not and that's all I have to go on, right now.

As for all the prophecy stuff and her story of the rock, I don't mean to suggest that I believe any of it. But Tibetan Buddhism is a big, proselytizing religion with a growing number of practitioners in the US. People who encounter her claims about Buddhism have ample opportunity to find out real information on the practice--or to meet real Tibetans and real Buddhist teachers. As long as she doesn't represent herself as a Tulku, or so-and-so's messenger when she is not, she's not committing any cultural crime. In this sense, Tibetan Buddhism is more like Christianity than it is the spiritual beliefs of the Hopi, the other community she claims to represent.

My two friends found her site more humorous than offensive. I doubt they feel like this woman is taking anything from them or their community by promoting herself this way. Certainly, the site is only about promoting herself as special and offers no real message about anything.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

That's interesting.. about Tibetan Buddhism being a big, proselytizing religion. Perhaps sects that don't necessary follow it's tradition is. I only know of what the Dalai Lama has to say about that..

"Dalai Lama Criticizes Proselytizing"

"Whether Hindu or Muslim or Christian, whoever tries to convert, it's wrong, not good," the Dalai Lama said after a meeting with the leaders. "I always believe it's safer and better and reasonable to keep one's own tradition or belief."

The Dalai Lama and others signed a statement saying: "We oppose conversions by any religious tradition using various methods of enticement."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81617&page=1

And this from a statement issued to the NY Times in 1991:

To the Editor:

We appreciate the attention you have given the many activities celebrating the Year of Tibet. However, one point in your Oct. 11 news article needs clarification.

The purpose of the Year of Tibet is not "to spread Buddhist teaching." None of us concerned with Tibet, and certainly not the Dalai Lama, would wish to proselytize.

We are a concerned group of Christians, Jews, Buddhists and nonbelievers with great respect for Tibetan Buddhism and for Tibet's rich cultural heritage. Our aim is to preserve, not to convert. ELSIE WALKER President, Tibet House New York, Oct. 25, 1991

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/09/opinion/l-without-proselytizing-884191.html

Sorry if this is off topic, but I just didn't want to leave this as this, and in case someone stops by they will see an opposing view of proselytizing from the Tibetan Buddhism leader himself.

I think the mish mashers of traditions/religions/spirituality and new agers are the ones who have turned Tibetan Buddhism into the product it apparently is being sold as today. And I just don't believe this Ruff person is some Tibetan and Hopi prophecy keeper or whatever she wishes to call herself.

ETA:  About 40 years ago, when I was a child I read a series of books about life in Tibet. It didn't go into their religions/beliefs. Those were not for public consumption. Somewhere along the way, Tibetan Buddhism has been appropriated and now everyone seems to think they want converted people.. and I keep thinking.. no, that's not how it is, I remember those books and it was clear there that it is not, they have protocols as to who became monks, it wasn't everyone and they never looked to convert *anyone* *ever*.  But here are people telling me no.. they do. Since when? Since being appropriated.

I think about how it's like this for the various Native beliefs.. that people are confused and now think this or that is from this or that Native American belief.. and it's not. But the appropriators have succeeded in making these FALSE things seem TRUE. THIS is the damage caused by appropriation.. and I'm irritated about it.... so SORRY if this is off topic.. but dang it.. I had to say it.. people like this Ruff person are damage makers. They're damaging.