The Path of the Feather: A shamanic journey, medicine wheels and spirit animals

The Path of the Feather is about becoming a shaman through your own life as a vision quest.

The Path of the Feather as a teaching, is about becoming a contemporary shaman by seeing and hearing the voices of the living earth. It is about finding out who you are by making medicine wheels and listening to the voices of the spirit animals and ancient ones. It is about you living your ordinary life as your vision quest, as your shamanic journey. It is about you becoming one who sees and one who heals the earth with intent.

This shamanic journey is your personal story of transformation, empowerment, and healing. The Path of the Feather is about your journey right now, embodying the sacred in the simplest ways. Here, the shaman's journey is not presented as something that is unusual or foreign, it is about seeing the earth as sacred, and living your life as sacred, from where you are now. It is about seeing yourself as a shaman, about seeing who you are on earth and what you are about to do. It is about personal transformation, about opening your eyes and awakening.

>> You have a right to it. What you learn though your own experience is yours. It belongs to no tribe. <<

But you aren't teaching people only about their own experiences. You're also teaching them about beliefs and objects that are sacred to Native people.

>> None of the material in this book was taken from first nations peoples without permission. Shaman who shared information with us did so specifically so that we could share it with you. They told us that the time has come for this to be available to everyone. <<

I hope you identify these shamans in your book. It would help if you identified them on your site, also. As you may know, there are a lot of phony "shamans" out there.

>> We know that some first nations peoples do not want the terms shaman and medicine wheel used by non- first nations peoples. They have told us that they feel it is being stolen from them like the land. We are sorry that they associate our saying the earth is sacred with the way our ancestors treated them. <<

I doubt they're upset about your saying the earth is sacred. I suspect they're upset about your teaching about things like medicine wheels or medicine bags as if you know about them from firsthand experience. If you're not Native yourself, one has to wonder what experience you have with them.

If you simply like the concept of a medicine wheel, why not call your version a "magic circle" or something similar? Using the term "medicine wheel" implies you're teaching a genuine Native belief or concept. It's misleading at best unless you're a Native person from a tribe that uses and believes in medicine wheels. Then the question arises whether "your" tribe wants you disseminating or selling this information. The answer is probably no.

Rob Schmidt (non-Native)