Wampum Wednesday: Indigenous Ways of Knowing

Step #3: Anointing Your Hands With Creativity Through Land Connections

Wampum Wednesday is all about creativity through indigenous textiles.  Who we are is just as important as what we create, so we will practice the rituals of smudging, offering tobacco and dancing as forms of giving thanks.   Hand-made is an indigenous way of connecting with our cultural identity that is coded in our DNA. No force in the universe can beat it out of us. It’s who we are!  It’s how and why we survived all the horrors committed against us! It’s our spiritual connection to the land of our ancestors that gives us power and authority.

Here is where I say I only know my truth.  The place of my strongest connection through land is the Outer Banks of North Carolina from Jones Hill at Currituck to Chicamacomico.  The energy from the sand, surf and ocean enables me to let go of my pain and focus my energy on a spirit of kindness, forgiveness and joy. The ocean waves rolling over the sand on my feet floats my pain into the energy of the Atlantic.  I have a new spiritual connection to the ancestral homeland of the Blackfoot under the big sky on the high prairie of Alberta, Canada. As individuals you’ll need to discover the place of your ancestral power vortex. Once discovered you offer tobacco and prayers of gratitude to facilitate your own healing from the inside out.

Indigenous hand-made is a very jealous process and demands all of you with unconditional devotion to lifelong learning.  There are no short-cuts! No instant fame or glory! It’s work, work and more work exploring “What If?” possibilities! Learning indigenous ways of knowing isn’t an instant process.  You get out of it, what you put in. This class is taught according to Blackfoot Poo’miikapii concepts, and Algonquin North Carolina Tuscarora teachings on The Four Daughters and 13 Moons to facilitate collective unity, harmony and balance.