Category: Stories

• Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

  

  A few days ago, I found myself in a conversation with a young visionary. Somehow the subject of what a shaman might be came up, as it so often does, and I found myself reminiscing about some of the things my teachers taught me about the tasks of the shaman. Listening to my own stories,…

  Michael Watson PhD

  March 3, 2016

  Arts, Shamanism, Stories

  Fred Rogers, healing, Shamanism

• Food for the Soul

  I’ve been thinking about food. Seems to me food, place, story, and language are crucial ingredients of family and culture. Each provides a marker for the construction of self, and aids us in the great task of understanding our place in the ongoing history of a people. My mom could not cook. Actually, that is…

  Michael Watson PhD

  February 28, 2016

  native american, Stories

  family, food, Native American

• Mud Season

  Winter wanes, not that we ever really had winter this year. Still, the light arrives earlier and departs later each day, and the cold lessens. We are on the brink of mud season. For the past couple of weeks the temperature has vacillated from very cold to unseasonably warm. Each storm has brought rain instead…

  Michael Watson PhD

  February 21, 2016

  Climate Change, Stories, Travel

  mud season, stories, travel

• Dreaming an Alternative to Blame

  It is a lovely, chilly day, one of those almost perfect late winter days filled with sun and cloud, a day when one can see a long way. I’ve been having conversations with folks recently about responsibility and blame. Mostly these discussions happen around the painful moments in people’s lives. In our culture, the prevailing…

  Michael Watson PhD

  February 18, 2016

  First Nations, Healing, Psychotherapy, Shamanism, Stories

  blame, healing, Native American, Shamanism, stories