General > Research Needed

International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers (aka the 13 Pay to Pray Old Ladies)

<< < (3/25) > >>

sarahdeer:
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=24637

Women's group seeks peace

Published: October 10, 2007



Click this picture to view a larger image.

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers is comprised of (from left) Clara lura, Maria Freire, Margaret Behan, Rita Blumenstein, Beatrice Long, Rita Long, Bernadette Rebienot, Mona Polacca, Agnes Baker-Pilgrim, Julieta Casimiro, Flordemayo, Aama Bombo, Tsering.
Courtesy Photo
 
 


By REBECCA HOWES

The Union Democrat


Praying for peace, 13 indigenous grandmothers from around the world have united after receiving an invitation by Sonora resident and internationally renowned spiritual advisor, Jyoti.

Jyoti, aka Jeneane Prevatt, began the Center for Sacred Studies in Sonora in 2002. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, has trained at the Jung Institute in Switzerland, and has chosen to devote her life to bringing unity to the planet.

"The Center for Sacred Studies' mission is to preserve and keep safe indigenous ways of prayer, practice and their ways of life," Jyoti said.

The spiritual advisor had a vision of a woman, simply known to her as "Our Lady," who spoke to her, telling her: "The seed of it all, is the seed of relations. If you start with your relations, everything will unfold naturally."

Jyoti had to go back in prayer to figure out which of the grandmothers to call on for the council. She listened to what the vision said and used the relations she had forged through Kayumari, the spiritual community she founded in 1995.

Her prayers led her and Ann Rosencranz, the center's spiritual director and a Columbia-area resident, to travel to Africa and then on to the Amazon, where they met the first two grandmothers who would make up the 13-member council.

There, they spoke with two grandmothers who also had the same vision. Separated by two continents the grandmothers amazingly had both recently signed letters claiming their rights as indigenous people to be guardians of the planet.

With her vision validated Jyoti, who is part Cherokee Indian, decided to approach other indigenous elders. The response to the invitation was overwhelming.

"Of the 16 invitations sent out, 13 grandmothers answered the call to become a part of the council," Jyoti said. "That is incredible."

Well-respected elders in their communities, the grandmothers, who range in age from 53 to 84, represent the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Yup'ik, Tamang, Mazatec, Mayan, Oglala Lakota, Takelma Siletz, Hopi, Havasupai, Tewa, and Omyene, in addition to the indigenous people of the Amazon and Tibet.

"These are very formidable women," Jyoti said.

Apparently, she isn't the only one who thinks so as the grandmothers have been in the company of the Dalai Lama, activist Gloria Steinem and author Alice Walker, to name a few.

The elders make up the The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers who gather to fulfill the ancient prophecy: "When the grandmothers from four directions speak, a new time is coming."

Often called the 11th hour, it is the final moments before a deadline — a deadline the grandmothers believe is upon us.

"The environment is a collective concern," Rosencranz said. "We are all in relation and need to approach it as one entity."

Rosencranz understands the importance of local issues like deforestation in the Amazon rain forest or global warming in the Arctic but stresses the need for a global vision of the problems all over the world.

The council convenes every six months to pray for peace for seven days, asking for blessings and healings. The gatherings, which have been planned out through 2012, are held at each grandmother's homeland or adopted homeland, as is the case with the exiled Tsering Dolma Gyaltong, originally from Tibet.

"There are seven languages being translated simultaneously at every meeting," Jyoti said of the diverse languages spoken by the grandmothers.

The council has met in New York, New Mexico, Mexico, India, South Dakota and will next travel to Gabon, Africa.

For Rosencranz, being a part of the work the grandmothers are doing has been a truly enlightening experience.

"For me, it's been a prayer that has been within me for 20 years," she said. "The heart of the grandmother is that she prays for everyone without discrimination."

Jyoti and Rosencranz are counting on the wisdom of the grandmothers to help bring the world back into balance so issues like clean air, clean water, hunger and war can be dealt with so all the children, and for the next seven generations to come, can live on a planet which is more in tune with itself, with nature and with the indigenous ways of life which were successful in the beginning.

"We are charged with the mission because we caught the vision that called all of this into being," Jyoti said. "All we need to do is open our hearts. We are all people with hearts that beat the same way."


Contact Rebecca Howes at 588-4531 or rhowes@uniondemocrat.com.

Barnaby_McEwan:
"For me, it's been a prayer that has been within me for 20 years," she said. "The heart of the grandmother is that she prays for everyone without discrimination."

She never met my grandmother!

"All we need to do is open our hearts. We are all people with hearts that beat the same way."

This is just the kind of meaningless hippie fluff I'd expect from a Jungian psychologist. How do we respond to the wave of Klan-like noose displays? "Open our hearts". How do we respond to the HIV epidemic in Africa? "Open our hearts". How do we get the Chinese state to respect Tibetan Buddhists? "Open our hearts". How do we make sure all children have clean water to drink? "Open our hearts". Et cetera ad nauseam.

I'd like to know more about how much real say the non-white participants have in that group, especially in handling their PR. Does Prevatt make sure they all know what's being written about them in English? I find it very hard to believe that anyone who's worked for their tribe would stand by and allow themselves to be associated with this pabulum.

TrishaRoseJacobs:
My grandma prayed alot but she also got off her butt and did stuff too.

I agree Barnaby, sounds like a bit of fluff when you get down to it.

educatedindian:
My guess is that, like with the ones Diane Fisher worked with that are actually legit, they were told that people were being gathered together to pray and to speak about issues, and not much more.

This site mentions them by name, but is often vague about where they're from. "Amazon rainforest"?
http://www.nativevillage.org/1International%20Council%20of%20the%20Thirteen%20Indigenous%20Grandmothers/News%20Articles/13_grandmas.htm
The 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, their tribes, bands and homelands:

*Aama Bombo, Tamang, Nepal

*Margaret Behan, Arapaho-Cheyenne, Montana

*Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Yup'ik, Alaska

*Julieta Casimiro, Mazatec, Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico

*Maria Alice Campos Freire, Amazon rain forest, Brazil

*Flordemayo, Mayan, highlands of Central America and Mexico

*Tsering Dolma Gyaltong, Tibetan Buddhist, Tibet/Canada

*Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance, Oglala Lakota, S.D.

*Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance, Oglala Lakota, S.D.

*Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Takelma Siletz, Oregon

*Mona Polacca, Hopi-Havasupai-Tewa, Arizona

*Bernadette Rebienot, Omyene, Gabon

*Clara Shinobu Iura, Amazon rain forest, Brazil

Jyoti/Jeneane Prevatt sells Kundalini seminars, with a bit of the typical pseudo Native knockoffs.

http://www.mothersgrace.com/projects/stargate.html
"Stargate is a study group on Non-Ordinary States of Conciousness (NOSC's) created by Jyoti, PH.D. and Russell D. Park, PH.D.

Stargate is a 10-month empowerment program. The focus is to help people become conscious individuals in their creation. Many different tools are used from various indigenous traditions to dive deep into our selves to discover the wisdom and power that lives within each individual. This course is composed of a sequence of five unique weekends designed to provide an integrative, psycho-spiritual experience.
Each weekend has a theme that is similar to may other paths of initiation. The first step is "Preparation" where we start the process of acknowledging our wounded selves and learn tools to move into our empowered selves. Step two, "Purification", takes the participant deeper into aspects of what does not serve us any more. For instance, we work with cleansing the body by fasting and participating in Native American sweatlodge. The third step is "Initiation" when we study service as one of the tools of initiation. On our fourth meeting, we study "Integration" while participating in a vision quest. Our final step is "Actualization" when we get to dance our power alive...
This study group is designed for both professionals and non-professionals who work with, or want to work with NON ORDINARY STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The course draws upon rituals, breathwork, transpersonal imagery, sound and meditation techniques to access NOSC’s. Each session will focus on a theme to access deep evolutionary energies...
This is not a therapy group, but rather a study group for waking up in our lives so we can make conscious choices that affect all aspects of our lives. People will learn service through surrender and stillness - thus enabling them to embrace the Mystery.
After this first year of study, there is an option to learn more and become certified in Maitri Breathwork™"

I really think it's hilarious she trademarks what she sells.
 
http://www.mothersgrace.com/profile/index.html
"Jyoti has explored multi-cultural approaches, including those of indigenous peoples (such as Native Americans), of healing and spiritual practices, combining these studies with that of more traditional psychology. As a result, Jyoti has become involved in a variety of projects, including the co-founding of Kayumari, a healing retreat center located on a mountaintop in Columbia, California (three hours east of San Francisco). Here she and her husband, Russell D. Park, Ph.D. (a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in transpersonal psychology and neurotherapy), offer specially created individual and group healing and life transformational workshops and seminars that includes her own individualized form of breathwork.

Born in South Dakota and raised in Texas...
In 1988 Jyoti went to Peru on a spiritual pilgrimage to more deeply understand herself and the extraordinary Kundalini experiences she was having. In 1991, she traveled to India with her teacher, Anandi Ma, to study with Dhyanyogi Mahasudandas, a 115-year old Sat guru and from whom she received the name Jyoti (meaning "light" in Sanskrit). It was there that she married Russell Park.
...writing a book, An Angel Called My Name (DharmaGaia, 1998), about her personal Kundalini phenomenon.

Jyoti has a BA in education from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA, a MA in Human Relations and Community Affairs from the American International College in Springfield, MA and a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology with a special emphasis on cross cultural aspects of the spiritual development in children and adults from Summit University in New Orleans, and took post graduate studies at the C.J. Jung Institute in Switzerland."

I'm going to ask over at Freedom of MInd about her credentials.

Kind of conspicuous that at her own site she never mentions tribe. This site claims she's Cherokee.
http://www.wisdomoftheworld.com/products/graceful_speakers.html
"Jyoti (Jeneane Prevatt, Ph.D.)
Author of An Angel Called My Name, is a devotee of the Mother. Holding sacred her Cherokee lineage, she teaches indigenous spiritual practices that evoke a state of prayer and healing. She is spiritual director and co-founder of Kayumari, a spiritual healing community in Northern California, and has served as director of the Spiritual Emergence Network."  

TrishaRoseJacobs:
So really, she's just selling a typical new age self help feel good about yourself while not actually doing a damn thing scam. And the 13 grandmothers thing, that's probably just window dressing then. Actually, sounded like that Jamie Sams for a second.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page