Native American Bison Quotes

Until Columbus, Indians were a keystone species in most of the hemisphere. Annually burning undergrowth, clearing and replanting forests, building canals and raising fields, hunting bison and netting salmon, growing maize, manioc, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex, Native Americans had been managing their environment for thousands of years.

You will learn about A.A. and Al-Anon in the Red Road to Wellbriety but you will also learn about Talking Circles, Helping Spirits, the sweat lodge, the Medicine Wheel, sacred dances, smudging rituals, and praying with the eagle feather.  You will hear men and women of many tribes and traditions illustrating the diversity of how they came to live sober, meaningful lives. The

Unfortunately the hostility that the European displayed toward the native cultures he encountered he carried even further into his relations with the land. The immense open spaces of the American continents, with all their unexploited or thinly utilized resources, were treated as a challenge to unrelenting war, destruction, and conquest. The forests were there to be cut down, the prairie to be plowed up, the marshes to be filled, the wildlife to be killed for empty sport, even if not utilized for food or clothing. In the act of 'conquering nature' our ancestors too often treated the earth as contemptuously and as brutally as they treated its original inhabitants, wiping out great animal species like the bison and the passenger pigeon, mining the soils instead of annually replenishing them, and even, in the present day, invading the last wilderness areas, precious just because they are still wildernesses, homes for wildlife and solitary human souls. Instead we are surrendering them to six-lane highways, gas stations, amusement parks, and the lumber interests, as in the redwood groves, or Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe-though these primeval areas, once desecrated, can never be fully restored or replaced.

The Wellbriety path does not compete with A.A. or any other pathway of personal recovery, but instead enriches those pathways by embracing them within the web of Native American tribal histories and cultures.  In these pages, you will meet people who have committed themselves to live their lives on the Red Road.  Here you will meet Native people whose stories embody the living history of Native American recovery.  You will hear the details of their addiction and recovery journeys and feel the life and hope in

Unfortunately the hostility that the European displayed toward the native cultures he encountered he carried even further into his relations with the land. The immense open spaces of the American continents, with all their unexploited or thinly utilized resources, were treated as a challenge to unrelenting war, destruction, and conquest. The forests were there to be cut down, the prairie to be plowed up, the marshes to be filled, the wildlife to be killed for empty sport, even if not utilized for food or clothing. In the act of 'conquering nature' our ancestors too often treated the earth as contemptuously and as brutally as they treated its original inhabitants, wiping out great animal species like the bison and the passenger pigeon, mining the soils instead of annually replenishing them, and even, in the present day, invading the last wilderness areas, precious just because they are still wildernesses, homes for wildlife and solitary human souls. Instead we are surrendering them to six-lane highways, gas stations, amusement parks, and the lumber interests, as in the redwood groves, or Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe-though these primeval areas, once desecrated, can never be fully restored or replaced. I have no wish to overstress the negative side of this great exploration. If I seem to do so here it is because both the older romantic exponents of a new life lived in accordance with Nature, or the later exponents of a new life framed in conformity to the Machine, overlooked the appalling losses and wastages, under the delusion either that the primeval abundance was inexhaustible or else that the losses did not matter, since modern man through science and invention would soon fabricate an artificial world infinitely more wonderful than that nature had provided-an even grosser delusion. Both views have long been rife in the United States where the two phases of the New World dream came together; and they are still prevalent.

Wellbriety is a larger change in personal identity and values and a visible change in one’s relationship with others.  It is about physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational health.  Wellbriety is founded on the recognition that we cannot bring one part of our lives under control while other parts are out of control.  It is the beginning of a quest

[Carey, medicine man] '...I can feel it in your energy. You don't respect me or this ceremony.' I shrug. 'You got me there.' 'Why?' 'I don't know--I guess--maybe I'd like to know a little bit about your qualifications? Do you have a degree in medicine?' 'Even better. I'm a card-carrying member of the Board of Shamans. BS for short.' Carey pulls out a card from a bison-skin wallet. 'Proof.' 'This is a strip of birch bark.' I turn it over. 'And you drew a cock on it!

Prayer to the Great Spirit O Great Spirit, Whose voice I hear in the winds, And whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me! I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make

Step 4 is about beginning to find your heart. Creator, protect me from my worst enemy––myself.  I ask that you guide me into the badlands of self, that I may know you better.  Please protect my spirit as I relive the past in order to recover. Great Spirit, guide me as I face the self-examination of the South. Our

Steps 7-12 in the Native Way   We are familiar with carrying backpacks of anger, hate and resentment.  The spiritual warrior carries a backpack filled with solutions, a love-based thought system, and values that move us toward a life of harmony and balance.  Others will want to join this walk, strengthening the Healing Forest that we all share together.   W

STEP 7  –   Humility We humbly ask a Higher Power and our friends to help us to change. In Step 7 we finally have the knowledge, desire and allies to change. The knowledge we have is the self-knowledge gained from the inventories and lists we made while facing South. Our allies are the sobriety Elders and the Red Road brothers and sisters we’ve been sitting with in our sobriety circles and healing circles. Creator is an ally

who we are finally walking with. In Step 7 we will really begin to change from a negative to a positive warrior. There is no greater ill than being spiritually sick! When we realize the Great Spirit is the only solution to our insanity, we must give in to our Higher Power. In an act of rebirth our Mother Earth floods everything, from the sickened forest to the beautiful meadow, until all is back in balance. We, too, must start over in every area of our lives. Humility is an attitude that will help us start fresh in everything we do. Humility

helps us face life with a beginner’s mind or a learner’s mind. Some of us have bad memories of being humbled or humiliated in a negative way, but that’s not the humility we are talking about here. To be humble is to drop our arrogance or the attitude that “I know” about everything. Humility is about learning to watch or to listen more in everyday situations so we can approach them freshly. If you look in the dictionary you’ll see that “humble” is connected with “humus,” which is a special kind of earth. To be humble is to get down on the Mother Earth and

My Creator––I am now willing that you should have all of me––good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. A-Ho!  3 STEP

Here is an Eighth Step prayer to help in the sincerity of forgiveness:   Creator, help me meditate on each instance of my past that I may see the truth. Creator, I pray for each and every relation I must approach at this time. Great Spirit, my Sacred Hoop is broken. Please guide me in healing other Hoops that I have broken. Creator, help me to focus on my part in these weakest links of my life. STEP

STEP 11  –  Spiritual Awareness We pray and think about ourselves, praying only for the strength to do what is right. We have always been a People of prayer. In our old ways, we prayed when the sun came up, we prayed when we picked the herbs that became our medicine, we prayed for a good harvest, and we prayed when the buffalo or deer was taken so our people might live. We are still a People of prayer. Something inside of us becomes alert when an Elder prays before a gathering. At home, there is prayer before a basketball game or a graduation. Step 11 is about re-awakening our gift of prayer and using it for sobriety, recovery and especially on the Wellbriety journey that will last our whole life. Many

Here are some guidelines for morning and evening prayer and meditation: Morning Prayer and Meditation 8 Directives to Follow 1– Ask the Creator to direct my thinking today 2– Ask Him to keep me from feeling

self-pity 3– Ask Him to keep me from being dishonest with myself 4– Ask Him to keep me from having self-seeking motives 5– Ask the Creator for inspiration when I am faced with indecision 6– Do not ask for anything for myself, unless others will be helped. 7– Pray that I will be shown what the next step will be. 8– During the day when I become doubtful, ask for the right thought or action.   Evening Prayer and Meditation 13 Questions to Ask Myself 1– Was I resentful? 2– Was I selfish? 3– Was I dishonest? 4– Was I afraid? 5– Do I owe anyone an apology? 6– Do I need to discuss anything with anyone? Something that I have been holding inside? 7– Was I kind to everyone? 8–

As Indian people, we know we have to heal the forest as well as individual trees. Step 12 is about creating a Healing Forest where the community-at-large undergoes healing as well as individuals. This is the story of the Healing Forest, which we will tell again and again. Our culture knows that the individual, the human community, and the land are so completely interconnected that for wellness or Wellbriety, each must participate in the healing journey. As

The term Wellbriety is an affirmation that recovery is more than the removal of alcohol and other drugs from an otherwise unchanged life.  Wellbriety is a larger change in personal identity and values and a visible change in one’s relationship with others.  It is about physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational health.  Wellbriety is founded on the recognition that we cannot bring one part of our lives under control while other parts are out of control.  It is the beginning of a quest for harmony and wholeness within the self, the family and the tribe. True

True Wellbriety occurs in the context of community.  The Red Road to Wellbriety teaches that healthy seeds cannot grow in diseased soil. It teaches that injured seeds need a “Healing Forest.”  The stories in the Red Road to Wellbriety make it clear that the sobriety and healing of the individual are inseparable from the sobriety and healing of the family and the tribe.  In these pages are found the connecting tissue between personal sobriety, cultural renewal, nationhood, and sovereignty. 

The voices that fill these pages reveal how the wounds the individual and community have inflicted on each other can be healed.  These voices call for a new relationship between self and community.  The Wellbriety of the community creates a healing sanctuary–a culture of recovery–for the wounded individual, just as the growing Wellbriety of the individual feeds the strength of the community.  In the Red Road to Wellbriety, the individual, family and community are not separate; they are one. 

Until Columbus, Indians were a keystone species in most of the hemisphere. Annually burning undergrowth, clearing and replanting forests, building canals and raising fields, hunting bison and netting salmon, growing maize, manioc, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex, Native Americans had been managing their environment for thousands of years. As Cahokia shows, they made mistakes. But by and large they modified their landscapes in stable, supple, resilient ways.

This is our book to read, to use, and to study as we take our own Red Road journey to sobriety and Wellbriety in a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical way.

The Red Road to Wellbriety   The Red Road to Wellbriety is a journey of hope and healing for Native Americans seeking recovery from addictions.  This is our book to read, to use, and to study as we take our own Red Road journey to sobriety and Wellbriety in a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical way.   T