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Yoga Alliance makes no representations or warranties, and expressly disclaims any responsibility or liability with respect to, any errors or omissions in, or the accuracy, reliability, timeliness or completeness of, any information that appears in a closed caption or transcript. MAYA BREUER: Good morning and welcome to the Yoga Alliance Community Sangha. I will repeat that case she did not get that all. Good morning. Welcome to the Yoga Alliance Community Sangha. I would like to share a piece that was written by Jim Croce just to set the tone for what we are about to share with you. Time in a Bottle. If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do is to save every day till eternity passes away. If I could make days last forever, if words can make wishes come true, I'd save every day like a treasure and then I would spend them with you. The universal you. But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do. Once you find them. I've looked around enough to know if I had a box Just for wishes and dreams that had never come true, the box would be empty except for the memory of how they were answered by you. That is really Just a moving, it is a moving song and reading it, it is just a moving piece. Today our guest on the Yoga Alliance Community Sangha is Red Eagle, Shawn Stevens. He is a member of the nation's first people in his ancestral homelands were the Brookshire's are he and I met. This includes the entire Hudson Valley. He is a member of the Stockbridge Muncie band of Mohicans. He is a Native American culturist, artist, musician and ceremonial helper. He draws on the experience from living a Native American spiritual way of life. Shawn also creates beautiful artwork which is located all over the United States and in 14 other countries. Is a storyteller, drummer, singer, flute player and he is an ordained minister of the universal Church of light in a certified facilitator of white Bison mending broken hearts. I have the pleasure of being in his Sean's company. I've smoked a pipe was Shawn Stevens. With healing material inside the pipe. And I welcome you Red Eagle. SHAWN STEVENS: Thank you. Thank you very much. In our language we say (unknown term) thank you from with inside of my heart. Very honored to work with you again. I know what the black Yoga Alliance teachers conference it was an amazing experience from the very beginning to the end and I wish I could save that time in a bottle and relive it day after day as well. YogaAlliance - Monthly Live Community Sangha (USYOGA1112C) Thank you very much for inviting me in an is an honor. MAYA BREUER: Our topic today is Native American healing. I am going to give you space to really expound on that and share with us. SHAWN STEVENS: OK. With Native American healing I could probably spend all week long, at least seven more days in 24 hours explaining it so somehow we have to condense it to something small here. When thinking of this I was trying to think last night what am I going to share. Sometimes I am known to ramble on more than I probably should or go overtime more than I should. I like to look at it is indigenous healing more so. Because the type of healing that we do is the type that has been common in all peoples ancestry. In everyone's indigenous ancestry back a long, long time ago. I would say the three primary areas of healing are in the mind, body and spirit. And if any of those are off balance it can offset the rest. So with the healings that we do we focus on those healings that deal with mind, body and spirit. One of those areas, I would say with the healing is creating a healthy environment, you know, not Just for the body but often does good for the mind and spirit. A healthy environment which means your home, your friends, your relationships. Everything you expose yourself to, your environment is healthy and if there is anything unhealthy in your environment it is wise to remove those things. Another one of the paths is organic medicine. We have always been told that for every sickness out there, there is a plant out there that will heal you. I do a lot of work and also collaborate with a lot of other organic plant medicinal people and I always like to say indigenous people, you know, I know even though I am from a native American tribe in such a lot of the ways we follow followed by many other people. When I say indigenous, indigenous is more of a way of thinking, of understanding your connection to your environment. Your environment is planet Earth. We all come from planet Earth. We are all indigenous. We have to have that mindset that we are part of earth. We have to respect the earth and the earth will respect us back. If we are off balance somehow there is something there from the earth that can bring us back into balance but it's physical, mind, body and spirit. One of those things. Outside of that, there is one more thing. I don't know why it came to me but I had to throw it out there. A lot of the parts of our healing especially with Native Americans is music. Music is huge in our ceremonies, in our daily prayers. Whatever it is we are doing or Just feeling good. Music is also a medicine. It helps you in mind, body and spirit. Our teaching was that music was a gift, a gift from the spirits for when we do our ceremonies and singing. With singing come standing and with dancing you feel good. Your mind, body and spirit are all in connection. It is kind of ironic because for every like out there it seems like there is a dislike. Some people like pizza, some people don't. Some people like hardwood floors, some people do not like hardwood floors. It seems like there is always an opposite something. I have yet to find to this Page 2 of 11 Downloaded on: 14 Dec 2020 2:12 PM YogaAlliance - Monthly Live Community Sangha (USYOGA1112C) day one person other that does not identify with music somehow in some way. I like to say we are made up music or we make music or are we made of music? It's like did the chicken come first or did the egg? Did the chicken make the egg or did the egg make the chicken? It doesn't matter we are all part of the same thing. With music, it is a part of how we give our thanks and our appreciation because it really amplifies our spirit. And with these three different areas of healthy environment, organic medicines and music, you know, there is that positive side that will help us heal to get us to places we need to be. But you also have to watch out for the negative sides of an unhealthy environment, of nonorganic medicines and other things. And not having a way of amplifying your spirit through music and such, those things can put you into a bad place. With music for example, we have all had bad days, hard days, rough days where maybe we are sad or angry. What is the worst thing we can do? It's been on sad or angry music. It Just makes it seem worse. Music has such a way of affecting us that I can either send us further into a depression or pull us out of it. You have to really be careful in how you use music as a medicine as well but it can pull you pretty much out of everything. I am a big fan of the Bobby McFerrin song don't worry be happy. You cannot listen to that and not smile. As a condensed way of putting everything with Native American healing those are the three main attributes that we utilize. Of course, there is so much more we do in ceremony and with other things in such but those are the three sisters, if you want to call them, for Native American healing. The healing part is the healthy environment, using the good organic medicines grown from our mother Earth which are there in purpose for us and also good music to amplify our spirits and lift our spirits. Your spirit gets lifted, your body wants to dance so it does your mind, body and spirit all really good help.