Hello, everyone! I have been on the forum for almost two years and I realize now that I may have insulted you by never introducing myself. Please forgive me if I have. I feel that you already know a good bit about me by my posts, but I did sort of slip in the back door and start posting.
I was first led to the forum when I started doing research on Little Grandmother. I was sent one of her videos inside a newsletter I subscribed to and definitely was not impressed, as so many others were. She looked spaced out and I suspected she was on drugs. I was alarmed she was collecting such a following and have been mesmerized ever since by the sort of nonsense she comes up with and by her defenders. What strikes me as very bizarre is when people defend her by saying “She RESONATES with me!” I have to ask them, “Do people win Academy Awards because they DO NOT RESONATE with you?” It’s acting! It’s a good script, a story! If there were an Academy Award for spiritual teachers (or whatever she is), she would win it hands down.
As to myself, I am a late middle-aged white woman who currently lives and has lived most of her life in central Ohio, with brief stints in Philadelphia, PA and Oakland/Berkeley, CA. I am unmarried and own a lot of cats. I communicate with animals every day. My furry friends say “I am hungry” all the time and I say “Okay” and feed them. I am a college graduate and am semi-retired. I worked most of my life as a secretary, office manager, and/or bookkeeper. I was retired for about a year and a half but currently work part-time as a housekeeper for a sorority, so I am working harder now, at least physically, than I have ever worked in my life. Go figure!
Before I joined this forum, I really didn’t know about cultural appropriation or much about NDN’s other than what I saw in movies (which I know was inaccurate) and what I learned in history class. Years ago, when I was in college, I remember reading “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” and also hearing about the Trail of Tears. Ohio has a rich NDN heritage, but I must admit I am not knowledgeable about it. I remember going to the Ohio State Fair in years past and seeing the beautiful beadwork done by NDN’s and being amazed at their intricacy. There are many NDN names used in towns and cities throughout Ohio, also. The only NDN tribes that I am really aware of in Ohio are the Shawnee and the Miami, but I know there were 11 according to online sources.
I find this forum so fascinating and have gotten quite attached to the regular contributors. I have so much respect for all of you. It is really interesting to see people join and then quickly disappear when they are questioned about their background and/or beliefs. I have to ask why they bothered to join in the first place, but maybe they are just not up to the task of being questioned and really are not that interested in being educated.
As to my personal beliefs, I am not really into “organized religion” because I feel it is a type of programming. I was raised as a Methodist, however, so I am sure that affects my thinking in many ways. I have never been involved in a cult, but I have seen the personal cost of a cult first-hand when the daughter of a close friend totally derailed her life when she came under the influence of a Svengali-like person who took total control of her mind. She totally cut herself off from her past life – husband, children, mother and father, siblings, church, beautiful home – and moved in with this man. Thankfully, she seems to be out from under his control and is starting to rebuild her life. I know she has a long, hard road ahead of her.
I have been heartbroken so many times on this forum when reading about the kind of abuse that goes on with plastic shamans and new age frauds. It is inconceivable to me why people go to such lengths to put on sweat lodges, vision quests, etc, when they have no right to do so, and when their only motivation is making money. I want to say to them, so many times, “Get a real job!” They do so much damage and they just can’t own up to it. Personal responsibility is a hard lesson I have learned in life, and they just refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions. The only explanation I can find is that they are lost and the people who fall under their spell are lost also. I have been educated so much by visiting this forum regularly and I understand how wrong it is to claim something that is not from the tradition you were born into. It seems to me that nowadays people are interested in “secrets” and “discovering lost knowledge” and that leads them to do some strange things, when I really think that the answer is much simpler than that. I think there is a lot in life that we will never understand and the rest of it will come to us when it is time for us to understand. Of course, I am not coming from a place of severe childhood abuse and I don’t want to judge someone who feels tremendous pain and is searching for a lessening of that pain. But I think we all have our burdens to bear and no one is immune from suffering, but we should not compound the suffering by causing suffering to others, which is what the plastic shamans and new age frauds do. The suffering they cause may not be immediate to their followers, but it will show itself somewhere down the line when they will turn around and say to themselves, “How in the world did I fall for that?” and then it will take them a long time to get their lives back on track.
I hate to label myself here, but in many ways I could be considered a “new age” person. The reason I say that is that I have read a lot of the books from people like Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Louise Hay, Caroline Myss, Eckhart Tolle, etc. and feel that I have gotten a lot of inspiration from them. I have never spent any money by going to seminars, have never owned a crystal, and have never felt the need to do something because a teacher tells me to. I thought it hilarious that people were going out and buying crystals and then throwing them into a stream or river because that is what Little Grandmother told them to do (after they had infused them with their positive thoughts and prayers). I feel there are some “new age” leaders who are not always frauds. A fraud, to me, is someone who lies and then piles more lies onto those lies, and that is something I just cannot tolerate. Also, if they are caught in even one lie, then I really have a hard time trusting anything they say.
Five years ago, in a short span of time, I lost two members of my family--my mother (81) and my niece (33)--and that is when I started doing a lot of questioning which has taken me in a lot of different directions. I felt tremendous pain after their deaths and I just felt the need to heal and gravitated to those who could offer healing. I have come to the conclusion that a lot of damage was done to us when we were children, and that we spend the rest of our lives trying to undo the damage. I also realize that this damage was not intentional, but hurtful nonetheless, and that the way to undo the damage is by forgiveness, both for ourselves and for the other person. Forgiveness it not easy at all and is an ongoing process.
Sorry if I have been going on too long. Thank you for taking the time to read my introduction. You know all about me now. I have no more “secrets” to tell!
