Author Topic: Aussie sweat lodges  (Read 12108 times)


Offline Superdog

  • Posts: 440
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2009, 01:00:58 pm »
No need for you to be sorry.  You can't control what misled people do.  All we can do is educate and communicate with people in a way that they understand and these are examples of what can happen when things go wrong.  That's what we're here trying to prevent.  It seems there are community of people here in the US that believe Australia is prime stomping grounds for misapropriating Native religious practices.  Those are the ones that should be apologizing.  We're all just human beings and you have no control over the decisions others make for themselves so you shouldn't feel any guilt.  I'm sure there are people here on this side of the Pacific that attempt to do the same thing with Australian and Polynesian native religions. 

One of the ones that goes out of her way to use Australia as a stepping off point for selling her wrongdoings can be found on this board.  Rachel Holzwarth (aka Suraj Holzwarth aka White Eagle Medicine Woman [self-named of course]).  Keep an eye out for her over there....

Laurel

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Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2009, 01:31:09 pm »
Dreamfish,

Fair's fair:  in the name of every white woman in the US, I apologize for Marlo Morgan and Mutant Message Down Under.

Offline Superdog

  • Posts: 440
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2009, 02:25:55 pm »
Whew....Just checked out Bobby Runningfox...Now that's just the type of person that should be going to jail for this kind of misrepresentation and misappropriation....IMHO...

I mean...he contradicts himself openly.  Calls himself full-blooded Cherokee and then says he's of Mayan and Incan descent....and he's wearing Sioux style shirts in all his pics...selling a "Cherokee Smudge Kit" for $50-$60 and all you get is a painted feather and a bowl....yikes....a little kid could make that.

That's one bad dude....

From the link you provided:
---------------------------

"Bobby Runningfox is a full-blooded Native American of Cherokee, and he comes from a long line of healers of Inca and Mayan descent. Bobby was trained mostly by his Uncle, a respected Cherokee Medicine Man and his Inca Grandmother, a healing herbalist who passed from this world at the age of 105."

-----------------------------

and here's his crazy website for those that wanna see it....gotta warn you, hard to keep your cookies down when you see someone this brazenly selling religion and attempting to act like he's a messiah of healing of some sort.

http://www.bobbyrunningfox.com

Offline Dreamfish

  • Posts: 18
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2009, 05:27:56 am »
I just think it's very difficult for many of us deep-sleepers to navigate our way through the confusion of this rat-race we know as the modern world. We are forced to be a kind of cattle, sold on dumb ideas that profit a few, and we just act like sheep, following and running around in a frenzied herd when we are frightened by loud noises in the night.... mostly we are just wanting to feel nourished and safe and loved. I am struggling to make my own way through the maze of what's right and wrong, and I recognise that this life is all just a long learning process if I keep my eyes and ears open and my nose on alert!
« Last Edit: February 01, 2009, 12:18:51 am by Dreamfish »

Laurel

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Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2009, 01:14:39 pm »
Sounds like a dud printing--but yes, she's horrible.  My favorite takedown of the book:

http://www.creativespirits.info/resources/books/mutantmessage_chrissitka.html

Offline Dreamfish

  • Posts: 18
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2009, 05:52:08 am »
Laurel,

thanks for the link, I read the article and enjoyed the writing, Chris has a good measure of the dry Australian humour in her perspective.

My only issue with the article is that Chris refutes/asserts many cultural aspects of Aboriginal customary practices, (tools, dress and crafts etc) and she is not really the appropriate person to do that.

I have observed that Murri and Koori people in Australia have consolidated their own powerful voice of self-representation, they have developed a very strong, multi-tribal system of regulated protocols with a highly-structured system of government consulted administration. Of course there are ongoing struggles, but our Indigenous people have fought so long and hard for self-determination and self-representation, I must support their sovereign right to speak with their own cultural authority about these sorts of sacred cultural matters.

I don't know when the article was written (I couldn't see a date), and I do realise it was deeply considered by the author, she obviously is deeply involved in community work, and she displays a strong sense of care and protection against the cultural misrepresentations contained in the 'Mutant' book.  It's all such a prickly business! Maybe one day we'll get it all sorted.

I was recently taught

"Nothing about us... without us"

and I reckon it's a beautifully simple guide to collaboration and reconciliation.

Offline Defend the Sacred

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Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2009, 08:01:51 pm »
"Nothing about us... without us"

and I reckon it's a beautifully simple guide to collaboration and reconciliation.

It is. It's like the difference between "outreach" and truly working in collaboration.

Offline 180IQ

  • The Caretaker
  • Posts: 303
  • I never sleep
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2009, 06:30:46 am »
Whew....Just checked out Bobby Runningfox...Now that's just the type of person that should be going to jail for this kind of misrepresentation and misappropriation....IMHO... <snip> hard to keep your cookies down when you see someone this brazenly selling religion and attempting to act like he's a messiah of healing of some sort.

http://www.bobbyrunningfox.com


Seems like the farther away they are geographically from America, the more bold and preposterous they are with the ripping off.

Laurel

  • Guest
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2009, 03:37:56 pm »
Excellent point, Dreamfish.  When we presume to speak for others we are presuming they have no voice--it's another form of disempowerment.

Offline grumpyoldman

  • Posts: 4
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2009, 06:12:42 pm »
Whew....Just checked out Bobby Runningfox...Now that's just the type of person that should be going to jail for this kind of misrepresentation and misappropriation....IMHO...
http://www.bobbyrunningfox.com


Another from that link,

The navy soon relocated Runningfox to Vietnam for a brief encounter with death. He was in charge of retrieving the rat boats that patrolled the Mekong River. His crew would locate the distressed and shot up bodies of the crew and boat. Repair and send it out again. During a retrieval he could feel bullets zipping past his head and body the same for his crew luckily he taught them how to use the protective white light, they cheated death on many occasions. 

I would love to sit and debate this with him. There are not to many PBR vets there to call him down. That sounds like movie material to me. Having been there, who would feel like they cheated death. If  the spirit you ask to keep you safe does so you have cheated nothing.
It amazes me the  "edumacated" folks who will buy into anything like this guy or any of the other frauds.

« Last Edit: January 25, 2009, 06:14:33 pm by grumpyoldman »

Offline Dreamfish

  • Posts: 18
Re: Aussie sweat lodges
« Reply #11 on: January 26, 2009, 03:06:41 am »
I saw this guy once at a trade fair, he had a stall set up and was sitting there in all his regalia, and he peered out from his healing space with so much scorn and deadness in his eyes. It was very strange to see someone selling rainbows with such an obvious amount of disdain and loathing for the people just walking by.

Surely if he dresses up in such an elaborate costume, he could bother to put on a welcoming smile? The mixed message of placards selling hope to people, from someone stewing in anger and resentment, sort of shouts to me that there is an expectation and pressure for him to do the 'Medicine Man' show, but a great and bitter reluctance in his deepest core.

Next time I have a birthday cake I'll blow out all the candles and make a wish that everyone is now doing exactly what they are truly deeply meant to be doing! But that'll definitely mean I won't get to eat any of the cake.... sigh.

Dreamfish








« Last Edit: January 26, 2009, 03:09:36 am by Dreamfish »