Category: Healing

• Life’s Dramas and The Holy

  Being an elder, I find myself watching the lives and dramas of the younger people around me. Somehow, as the years have accrued, I have become less engaged in life’s apparent crises. Not that I don’t get sucked in, I certainly do, but the overall effect has changed. Sometimes I miss the intensity and passion…

  Michael Watson PhD

  August 8, 2011

  Healing, Shamanism

  ancestors, healing, Human Developmentt, Life Drama, spirits

• The Civil War, Manifest Destiny, and Hungry Ghosts

  In the previous post, I continued to think about vision, prophesy, and the unseen world. One of the places Evangelical Christianity and Native belief overlap in the Americas is the idea  that the unseen world continues to influence this one. Perhaps that is part of the broad appeal Evangelical Christianity has for Native people here.…

  Michael Watson PhD

  August 4, 2011

  Healing, native american, Shamanism

  Civil War, genocide, healing, Hungry Ghosts, Martin Pretchel

• Lessons from the Sweat Lodge

  That shamans and healers struggle with their own learnings is news to many people. Yet, my best teachers have freely shared their own struggles and learnings with me. Their willingness to be “just another human being” has felt like a great gift. Their persistence in overcoming life’s challenges has been, and continues to be, both…

  Michael Watson PhD

  July 5, 2011

  Healing, Shamanism

  attachment, healing, Shamanism, sweat lodge

• Thoughts Concerning the Fourth of July

  The Fourth of July! This is one of those holidays, along with Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, I struggle with. My father struggled with it as well, although, the truth be known, he seemed to love Thanksgiving. Indeed, many Native people have very complex, often humorous and contradictory, experiences of the holiday.

  Michael Watson PhD

  July 3, 2011

  First Nations, Healing, native american, Shamanism

  forgetting, Fourth of July, healing, Native American, Shamanism