Lineages that feed the Tree of Life
As we name the Lineages that informed and continue to feed Tree of Life, what we are naming are relationships. It is not simple to sum up a relationship in a few words. I will attempt to give a clear picture of this and urge each of us to curate our relationships with teachers and elders who have intact relations with their indigeneity!
Direct Spirit Guidance
When you sit alone in nature and truly quiet yourself, Spirit can be felt and heard. Much of the Tree of Life and what we do inside of it comes through direct Spirit Guidance that came through Rachel Ruach, Joti Shefi, Ann Rosencranz, and Kari Stettler. This guidance came through deep nature connection and time in ceremony; feeding that which supports life, praying, feeling, and listening. It is accessible to all of us who choose to sit in the quiet of nature and make offerings that feed life.
Elders, Teachers, & Mentors
There are devoted, wise, kind people that we have sat with and learned from. We are forever grateful and indebted to both the work that these people have done in their own lives to garner the wisdom and knowledge that they carried and their teachers and mentors who taught them, and the ones who taught them. We give thanks backward in time to the wisdom that has come down through the ages.
Joanna Macy - The Work that Reconnects informs our work. From her we gain the willingness to name the grief, to expand out and understand ourselves inside a map of time, and the soundness of heart and mind to navigate into the Great Turning.
Jon Young was Rachel’s first real mentor in the ways of nature connection, wilderness survival, ancestral skills, cultural building and mentoring, and ceremony. Through him, she became connected with a number of incredible indigenous elders, listed below, who were his elders that he brought in to teach with us directly. He is currently working through an organization called the Living Connection 1st.
The wisdom that Jon and his colleagues and elders gained in their deep dirt time in nature and in ceremony gifts us forward to teaching the people that we touch in our Tree of Life work. We are forever grateful.
The pieces that come forward that inform Tree of Life from the nature connection lineage are:
Building culture and community
Mentoring people & the mentorship journey
Creating leadership structures
Functioning with the Peacemaker Principles
The Foundations and Function of Ceremony
Nature connection and taking people on that journey
Map for maturation as a Human Being
Elders & anchor systems
Working with a Gift Economy
The art and craft of storytelling
Tom Brown & Grandfather Stalking Wolf. “Grandfather” or Stalking Wolf was a Lipan Apache and traveled all through the Americas. He taught Tom Brown most of what Tom has been teaching 1000s of students. “Grandfather” is almost a mythic character, though also a real man, who carried so much wisdom and incredible abilities of perception and survival skills. Tom Brown Jr. has recently passed away. He has written many books, which are easily accessible.
This is the lineage that brings nature connection, sit spot, scout games and skills, ancestral hand and survival skills - that all wind their way into the initiation programs.
Gilbert Walking Bull. He was not just a medicine man, but a holy man from the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) people in South Dakota. He lived in Washington State in his latter years. Because he was raised in hiding with his 11 cousins in the mountains off the reservation by the elders and medicine people, he was the last of an era before colonial Western Civilization had taken over. His understanding of life and reality was beautiful, expansive, and utterly magical.
Through Gilbert came the foundations of ceremony and spiritual cosmology. He was a big man and had many incredible stories that stemmed from a very different reality than we Westerners have. He was deeply connected to the Beings (tankashilas) all around us, including the Weather Beings (Thunder Beings). He was lighthearted, kind, and stern about how we conduct ourselves. This opened the door to the magic of life all around and contact with the Spirit world in a free-flowing way.
These come through in how we hold the initiation work. The stories and ways of seeing Creation are too many to name here, and they deeply inform how the TOL work is oriented to Life.
Jake & Judy Swamp, The Peacemaker & the Haudenosaunee People. This is where we learned the Peacemaker story and the Peacemaker Principles. This Sacred Law is simple and clear. It becomes a deep internal and external meditation and guidepost for how to be in this world relationally. https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/confederacys-creation/
In TOL, this is our primary code of conduct that we follow. The teachings that stem from it are rich, deep, and vast. We have sanctioning to use these teachings and tell the Peacemaker Story from Jake and Judy Swamp.
Paul Raphael & the Odawa People. Paul is a tribal elder for the Odawa people. He brought teachings and experiences about elders and Sacred Fire that we use. Sacred Fire (a fire that is started and tended in a sacred manner ~ not a cooking or warming fire) is a technology that all people used throughout the world. It does not belong to anyone. Singing, praying, and making offerings into a fire of certain prepared plants, animals, and food is also ubiquitous throughout the world.
DeAnna L’am - an elder in Sebastopol who holds Red Tents and wisdom about our cycling. Red tents and moon lodges are also ubiquitous throughout the world. Dig deep and you will find them in any culture. She is a local resource! And is now doing a lot for pre and post menopausal women too!
Ann Rosencranz - an incredible ceremonial elder and holder of an Apache lineage and altar. She sat for over 30 years with her indigenous relatives, working inside the Native American Church. She was the right-hand woman of the 13 indigenous Grandmothers for 10 years, aiding their ceremonies all over the world, and started their Ministry. She validated and still supports our work. She recognizes it as being in deep alignment with how she sees life, maturation, and healing. This is a very large affirmation, given who she works with and her life experience!
Though using prayer smokes and working with plant allies in the prayer smoke came through me, it is from her that we have adopted using corn shucks to wrap our prayer smokes. She has encouraged us to plant and grow corn and to use corn shucks rather than paper to pray with.
Martin Prechtel - His book and teachings were very influential to us regarding Rites of Passage. They brought encouragement and little tid-bits of wisdom that we incorporate in to what we do.
Clarrisa Pinkoles Estes - Her stories, books, and audio series have been deeply influential to the way we work with archetypal energies and the role of the Feminine in our orientation.