Polarity Center in Maryland

[WanderingNative]

Just had this forwarded to me from a friend at NMAI in DC.  Guess these people are going around the museum "drumming" up new recruits.

The Medicine Wheel As a Counseling Tool with Rose Khalsa

Remembering the ancient wisdom of our ancestors as a way of supporting healing and awareness
Come join us in sacred circle at Gaia Healing Center in Mt Airy, Md.    June 10th, 11th.
In this shamanic class we will explore the  Medicine Wheel from the wisdom of Earth Spirituality. Most of the teachings are from the First Nation, native to Turtle Island.
We will deeply explore the elders that sit in the Wheel to teach us, and all the "medicine??? they are willing to share with the sacred circle of life!
These teachings are excellent for anyone working in the healing arts, to support others and ourselves, for understanding the depth of who we are and where we are going as human beings on this Earth.

Class will be held at  Gaia Healing Center in Mt. Airy, Md. We will meet both days from 10-5. Please register by 9:30 on Saturday. We will start promptly at 10am. Class space is limited, so register early.
Tuition is $200 .To register, send a $100 deposit made out to Rose Khalsa and mail to 9 Philadelphia Ave., Takoma Park., Md. 20912. Registration due by June 1st.

Please bring: notebook, eye covering, drum or rattle, blanket or shawl,  tobacco, rain gear, and lunch.
           ************************************************************
Rose Khalsa is the Director of The Polarity Center & Shamanic Studies in Takoma Park, Md. She has been teaching trainings in polarity therapy, cranial work and shamanism for 20 years. Rose has a private practice of polarity therapy, cranial sacral, spiritual councilling and shamanic healing. Rose is a Sundancer in the Lakota tradition and integrates Tibetan Buddhist and Native American teachings into her life and work. Her Lakota name is Tanampe Wakan Wi, Sacred Hand Woman.
**** A portion of the tuition from this class will be donated to relatives on Pine Ridge Reservation, as a give-away for the teachings.****

For more information on Rose, her web site is www.erols.com/rosediana. 301-891-1599 or e-mail her at rosediana@erols.com

Thought I'd put this out there for anyone in the Maryland, DC area to check on.
Thanks.

[educatedindian]

"Rose offers trainings in polarity therapy, visionary cranial work and shamanism, and integrates nature-based and holistic approaches to healing in her private practice. Her healing work includes polarity therapy, cranial sacral, spiritual counselling and shamanic healing. Lakota Ways and Tibetan Buddhism are integrated into Rose's life and work and are shared as part of her Medicine.
Once a year, Rose leads a Vision Quest--a spiritual rite of passage, an extended, guided experience in nature; a powerful time for prayer, fasting, deep healing, and seeking of inspiration and vision.
Rose has studied with Rosalyn Bruyere, Sandra Ingerman, Michael Harner, Tom Cowan in this country and spent years studying with Tibetan shamans in Nepal. Rose's present teacher is Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rimpoche.
Rose is a Sundancer and Pipe Carrier in the Lakota tradition."

Ok, that's three exploiters, Ingerman, Harner, and Cowan, as teachers.

As for Bruyere, she teaches a hodgepodge of astrology, auras, and chakras.

I don't know about you, but this photo of Khalsa holding a drum and glaring at candles while surrounded by clueless yuppies doesn't inspire confidence.
http://users.erols.com/rosediana/shamanic.html

[snorks]

She advertises in the local new age magazine "Pathways", which has a web presence.  She also announces her workshops in WASN - Washington Area Spiritual Network.  She is very popular and is listed as a shaman.

I will probably run into her at the local Pagan Midsummer festival.  I give work shops on animals for the local Pagans.  (nature based/folkloric).

Any ideas how I handle meeting her or folks like her?

[educatedindian]

Most frauds and their supporters have stock answers ready when challenged. After all, exploiters' meal ticket and their followers' sense of "harmony" depends on rejecting anything that doesn't fit their fluffy worldview:
"You're a bigot" "Anyone who criticizes us is a bigot"
"We need to share (actually meaning take/steal/twist) these ways, to save the earth, etc"

They generally won't stand and debate you. Some might get hostile or even call security on you. I think there's two things you might try.

Appear interested so you can gather information on what she's claiming and then pass it on to us. For example, I'd like to hear if she actually claims to be Lakota, to have had Lakota teachers or elders, what Lakota might have said to her about her shame on business, etc.

Or if you are really upset by what they do, try to warn people away using the points we make in here: This is fraud, exploitation, disrespectful, almost all Natives oppose this, etc. And feel free to refer anyone interested to here.

[educatedindian]

Off topic replies have been moved to [link=http://www.newagefraud.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1146484246]This Thread[/link]

[snorks]

I read the exchange between Ken and Al.  As for the folks in the pictures, I do recognize some of them.  Folks in the Washington D.C. area who are New Agers or looking for Shaman teachings are not yuppies, but they are mostly white people who want more in spiritual teachings.  They are people who conventional religion doesn't satisfy and are looking for something they can be a part of.

Most of the people around here (D.C.) do combine several trads into one - the Tarotists study the Runes, I-Ching, and Kabala to understand more.  They come at it from a secular point of view (theraputic) and transform it into something spiritual.  I think from this way of learning spiritual things, it becames easy to include Native teachings as well.

There are no boundaries as such.  Most people are 'universalists' in that they combine many trads into one.  'Folkish' or 'tribal' understandings are alien to them.  "Folkish" means boundaries and what is mine is mine, and not yours.  The idea that it may belong to a specific group is an alien one.

I doubt many of the folks understand that mixing Shamanic with Lakota or other tribal rituals is disapproved of in various  Native communities.  It is a difficult concept when everything seems so open and accessible.  I think that a dialog between 'universalists' and 'folkish' is a hard one.  It is like one between U.S. liberals and conservatives.  Difficult to bridge.

[Barnaby_McEwan]

There are no boundaries as such.  Most people are 'universalists' in that they combine many trads into one.  'Folkish' or 'tribal' understandings are alien to them.  "Folkish" means boundaries and what is mine is mine, and not yours.  The idea that it may belong to a specific group is an alien one.

I wish you hadn't used that word 'folkish'. It has a very different meaning to the one you give it here.

"Identifying as folkish is a way of saying that you're a racist without actually admitting to yourself that you're a racist."

It's derived from the German word völkisch, which is difficult to translate fully. You can get a flavour of it by remembering that the Nazi party published a lurid hate-sheet called the "Völkischer Beobachter" (meaning roughly "Racist Observer"). if you want to find out where völkisch thinking came from, read George Mosse's "The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich".

[Ken]

There are no boundaries as such. ? Most people are 'universalists' in that they combine many trads into one. ? 'Folkish' or 'tribal' understandings are alien to them. ? "Folkish" means boundaries and what is mine is mine, and not yours. ? The idea that it may belong to a specific group is an alien one.

I wish you hadn't used that word 'folkish'. It has a very different meaning to the one you give it here.

"Identifying as folkish is a way of saying that you're a racist without actually admitting to yourself that you're a racist."

It's derived from the German word völkisch, which is difficult to translate fully. You can get a flavour of it by remembering that the Nazi party published a lurid hate-sheet called the "Völkischer Beobachter" (meaning roughly "Racist Observer"). if you want to find out where völkisch thinking came from, read George Mosse's "The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich".

In order not to get sidetracked by the Nazi spin which has nothing to do with the use of "folkish":

SYLLABICATION: folk·ish
PRONUNCIATION:   fksh
ADJECTIVE: 1. Of or characteristic of folk music, art, or literature. 2. Simple or natural; folksy: charmed us with his folkish wit and humor.  
OTHER FORMS: folkish·ly —ADVERB
folkish·ness —NOUN

More at folkways and mores.

[snorks]

Sorry about 'folkish'.  I was trying to say that what belongs to a specific ethnic group.

[educatedindian]

"Folks in the Washington D.C. area who are New Agers or looking for Shaman teachings are not yuppies"

Snorks, I don't know if you know how the term yuppie came about. YUPpie=Young Upwardly mobile Professional. The Young part was true at the time the phrase was invented, mid 80s. So now it means Baby Boomer generation, mostly ex hippies or people once on the fringe of the hippie movement (but who usually no longer are.) In the US, that rarely meant working class, mostly meant upper middle class.

It's pretty obvious this bunch, like most Nuagers, has at least a little money. She does pay to pray ceremonies. Very few exploiters are based in rural Mississippi or Harlem or East Los Angeles. They're in Sedona or Jackson Hole or Beverly Hills. Or the suburbs of DC, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the US.

So, yes, if they have money to live in DC...and to spend on pay to pray ceremonies....most of them are Yuppies.

"They come at it from a secular point of view (theraputic) and transform it into something spiritual.  I think from this way of learning spiritual things, it becames easy to include Native teachings as well.
There are no boundaries as such.  Most people are 'universalists' in that they combine many trads into one.  'Folkish' or 'tribal' understandings are alien to them.  "Folkish" means boundaries and what is mine is mine, and not yours.  The idea that it may belong to a specific group is an alien one."

I think you may have a point. People from a strongly religious family background often have an easier time getting what we say than those who aren't. After all, most Christians. Jews, Muslims, etc, understand that Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc traditions belong to people OF those faiths, not differing ones.

And like you point out, these are all whites in that photo. There's more than a little bit of White Privilege in the claim that "we can do whatever we want, we have the right."

[educatedindian]

Off topic replies have been moved to [link=http://www.newagefraud.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1146597816]This Thread[/link]

[Le_Weaponnier]

For those that care:
"Cranial sacral" is the practice of: Moving skull bones to enhance brain function, thought etc....

Skeptics point out the scientific evidence for cranial bone movement is insufficient to support the theories claimed by craniosacral practitioners. Scientific research has long supported the theory that the cranial bones fuse during adolescence, making movement impossible. Further, while evidence exists for a cranial pulse, skeptics suggest it is caused by the functioning of the cardiovascular system and not by the workings of the craniosacral system. Finally, while there is plenty of colloquial evidence in support of the link between the cranial pulse and general health, no research to date has supported this claim. ?