White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men, Part 1 of 3

White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men is a documentary dealing with the popularization and commercialization of Native American spiritual traditions by Non-Indians. Important questions are asked of those seeking to exploit ritual and sacred ceremony and of those vested with safeguarding sacred ways. This documentary is thematically organized, and deals with romantic stereotypes and copying, the impatience of new age practitioners contrasted to the fact that indigenous spiritual traditions are thousands of years old, and the proselytizing nature of these new age practitioners. The film represents a wide range of voices from several native communities, and speaks to issues of cultural appropriation with humor, righteous anger, and thoughtful insight.

camu.amazonherb.net email Elisa: shipibotours@hotmail.com www.refugioaltiplano.org after many years as an alcoholic i have used many techniques and tools for awakening. 10 day silent Vipassana meditation courses www.dhamma.org Amazon Herbs: troy.amazonherb.net yoga, nutrition, Maori Shamanism: www.ata-rangi.com Rolfing: tarpitboss@mac.com and recently Natural childbirth: www.tlcwomanscenter.com all having a profound impact on my life and realization that life is sacred and it is important to respect the Earth, others and myself. Peter Gorman writes: “Plants, like everything else, are our co-dwellers in the universe. But man has a special relationship with plants. They provide, and have since the beginning of time, the bulk of our food, our clothing, our shelter. Some provide us with the loveliest scents; some with extraordinary color. Theyre the source of our medicines, their roots work with soil and stone to keep the surface of the earth intact. They go so far as to take the poisonous carbon dioxide that humans exhale and turn it back into human-life-giving oxygen. Thats some relationship. Of course it may be that plants only invented us to distribute their seeds, so Im not suggesting they live to cater to us. But they do provide us with much of what we need to exist on this planet.” Ralph Metzner writes: “Ayahuasca is an hallucinogenic Amazonian plant concoction, that has been used by native Indian and mestizo shamans in Perú, Colombia and Ecuador for healing and …