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Chumash Elder Speaks on Healing Humanity and the Climate

February 23, 2014 by The Outpost 4 comments

Art Cisneros is a Chumash elder and firekeeper. The Chumash People are the original native peoples of the central California Coast. Art holds the sacred space for their annual Tomol crossing to Limu on the Channel Islands. Lately, he has undertaken a series of ceremonies focused on healing humanity’s relationship with the climate, responding to the ongoing drought and extreme weather, prayers that he shared with the people at the Great March for Climate Action LA Launch on March 1, 2014, in the Port of Los Angeles.

Baja California indigenous arts festival

Rituals and Traditions

Kumeyaay People: Traditions Survive in Baja California

October 22, 2012 by The Outpost 13 comments

Groups of Kumeyaay People live in the isolated canyons of the Tijuana River watershed, high in the Baja California peninsula. They harvest acorns and pine nuts, hunt rattlesnake and small animals, collect grasses to weave baskets. They allow a glimpse of what life in Southern California before the Spanish arrived was like.

Rituals and Traditions

Riding the Sky with Reindeer Shamans of Siberia

September 30, 2012 by Jack Eidt 2 comments

In Siberia, shamans combine a distinctive imagery of reindeer and of bird-flight. Their costumes sometimes include imitation reindeer antlers, occasionally tipped with wings or feathers, placed on the headdress. Like the participants in the Eveny (Evenki) midsummer ritual, shamans may ride to the sky on a bird or a reindeer.

Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth documentary

Earth, Film

Stories of a Maya Rebirth: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth

September 8, 2012 by The Outpost 1 comment

The documentary “Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth” presents an alternative worldview to industrial capitalism consuming the earth, following six young Maya into their daily and ceremonial life, revealing their determination to resist the destruction of their culture and environment.

Ruins of Bonampak in the Lacandon Rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico

Myth

Popol Vuh: The Ancient Maya Dawn of Life and Overcoming the Forces of Awe

July 23, 2012 by Jack Eidt 14 comments

The Popol Vuh (Maya K’iche’ for “Council Book” or “Book of the Community”) features a creation myth, the Dawn of Life under the spectre of a flooded world, followed by the epic mythological stories of two Hero Twins: Hunahpu (Blow-gun Hunter) and Xbalanque (Young Hidden/Jaguar-Sun) as they confront the Lords of Death and Disease in the underworld caves of the “Place of Awe.”

Rituals and Traditions

Papua New Guinea: Sepik River Initiation and the Crocodile Cult

April 6, 2012 by The Outpost 8 comments

Crocodiles feature in the legends and rites of passage of various Sepik tribes, sharing a belief in ancestral ties to the aquatic reptile. Risks from mining in the upper river threatens the health of the people of the basin.

screenshot from MGM's "The Wizard of OZ"

Literary

Mother-Nature Is Not A Wicked Witch: Oren Lyons on Oz

February 20, 2012 by Jack Eidt 3 comments

Baum’s “Wizard of Oz” as a Utopian American Dream soft-peddles an anti-nature-prejudice amid dazzling urban-industrial landscapes. This bias at the expense of the earth’s resources has led us to today’s environmental and economic collapse.

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