because i've never seen such a commercialized and exploited group as the native americans in the us

too many damn people are trying to track down their spiritual riches. the business of native american spirituality is a booming one with a lot of resentment around it.

we've been here a while. we know & love the land & have our own kind of connection with it.

the word ritual sometimes i think creates an image that isn't quite right for everybody. i grew up by a large body of water, and you could see people scattered all along the beaches downtown alone on cold days really losing themselves in the water. whenever i was upset, i would sit on the rocks for hours and feel the strength of the waves coming in and the expanse in front of me.

that, to me, is a personal ritual. but, i suspect, for example, that in order for it to be named a ritual it would need more objects and pomp and circumstance. but that's not how i relate to that water. it wouldn't have held teh same power with anything foreign introduced.

to me, that distance that's introduced by adding layers to ritual is the crux of the misunderstanding.

i thought that some's point was to recognize rituals where you institute them. give them the bigness that they deserve in your life, and find similar type rituals to serve the areas that don't have them but need them.