Restoring Relations this Thanksgiving with Chief Phillip Scott

Written By Geneva Tolentino

Towards a More Accurate Story and "Big G" Gratitude

SHOW NOTES | TRANSCRIPT

In this special episode, we explore the complex history and deeper meaning behind the Thanksgiving holiday. We welcome Community Leader Chief Phillip Scott to guide us in reflecting on living in the right relationship with the land, ourselves, and each other.

Chief Phillip Scott is a respected elder and spiritual leader of the Lakota tradition. He has dedicated his life to protecting and preserving indigenous ways of living and traditional ceremonial practices. 


This episode invites us to reframe our approach to Thanksgiving - to tap into deeper wells of gratitude, reconnect with the land, and honor the original caretakers. Join us as we unwind the stories we've been told and explore how to live in greater alignment with principles of harmony for all.



In this episode, we cover:

  • Lakota Way of Being and Gratitude

  • Life in Indigenous Communities Before European Arrival

  • Seasonal Cycles and Indigenous Practices

  • Historical Context and Indigenous Responses

  • The Doctrine of Discovery, Indigenous Resistance and Erasure

  • Migratory Impulse and Land Acquisition

  • Importance of acknowledging the pain and suffering of Indigenous people

  • The Standing Rock issue and the ongoing fight for Indigenous rights and self-determination

  • Thanksgiving as a time of remembrance and acknowledging the grief and sadness

  • The importance of deepening connections with oneself and the natural world

  • The role of traditional healers in listening to people's stories and the messages from their ancestors

  • Ancestral Voice, Institute for Indigenous Lifeways mission

  • The current state of Indigenous People in America


Helpful links:

TRANSCRIPT

Chief Phillip Scott  0:01  

When we perceive people as other, as enemy, then it continues to foment the conflict.



Christine Mason  0:09  

Welcome to this special episode of the rose woman podcast, where we delve into themes that resonate deeply with many of us in the United States as we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday with a complex and often painful history for indigenous peoples in this land, we're called to reflect on what it means to live in right relationship today, I'm honored to welcome Chief Philip Scott, a respected elder and spiritual leader of the Lakota tradition, to guide us through this exploration. It encompasses much more than our connections with others. It also encompasses our relationship with the earth ourselves and with what is sacred. How do we walk through the world with more respect, reciprocity and reverence, and what would it mean to honor the original stewards of this land and to live in alignment with principles that support harmony for all? In this conversation, Chief Scott and I discuss the Lakota way of being, the importance of gratitude in its truest and deepest sense, and how we can move beyond the surface of holidays like Thanksgiving to embody a more deep, authentic form of gratitude and gratefulness in our daily lives. So thanks for joining me for this heartfelt and thought provoking dialog, and let's take this opportunity to also listen, just in case. You know, we want to share something with our families this Thanksgiving about setting things right. Please welcome Chief Scott. Maybe we can start with imagining, like just creating a portrait of if it was a time prior to the arrival of the white man in North America, and it was autumn, what would life be like in an indigenous native tribe? I



Chief Phillip Scott  1:54  

think that would depend on geography and location, mainly because at the time when the visitors, as I prefer to call them, arrived on the shores of Turtle Island, which is North America, there were over 500 distinct nations, each with their own language and culture and identity, cosmologies, sacred practices, some of which are antithetical to one another in terms of ideology and practice, and so I think it's difficult to kind of make a generalization about what life would be like for them. However, that said, I believe that there are some fundamental values and principles that are pretty ubiquitous in indigenous cultures, not just in North America, but around the world, and certainly one of them is a reverence and respect and devotion to protect Our Mother Earth and her life, also the cultivation of a relationship with the unseen, with the ancestors, as well as to cultivate an intimate and abiding relationship with the natural world and with all of our relations upon her. So that would be more of a generalized understanding of of what could be expected, or what we, you know, what an observer would perceive. I



Christine Mason  3:26  

mean, I love that distinction even coming out of the gate, because the idea that all of these cultures had contrasting ideologies, in some cases, or worldviews, is, you know, even that's one of those stereotype shockers. And then also, I have the feeling that they probably wouldn't even have to think about a cultivation of the relationship with the natural world, because it would be so embedded. It's just the way things were absolutely so for us to sort of in the modern world, try to piece it back together like the differences, and hold it alive in a meaningful way for modern life, that that must present its own challenges.



Chief Phillip Scott  4:08  

Well, that's why, you know, environmental justice and indigenous rights go hand in hand, that they're inseparable, and that's why so many indigenous activists are on the front lines, literally putting their life on the line to protect the elementals and our mother, the earth. So



Christine Mason  4:27  

it's autumn. We're coming up on Thanksgiving, and you and I kind of talked about doing this episode in time for that part of the year, in part to do a little more myth busting. Why don't we jump into that



Chief Phillip Scott  4:41  

certainly, I think another phenomenon that people from the outside would see in relationship to the autumn is that if we look at the natural world, it's a time of slowing down. Right the deciduous trees, for example, the chlorophyll has perished, and the leaves are turning colors. We're. Orange, bright reds, yellows, right? And what's happening is the tree is going internal, right? And we have other mammalian relations that Hibernate, for example, right? So even within the human being, there's a slowing of metabolism. People tend to sleep more frequently, right? So terms of indigenous cultures and honoring the cycles of nature, which is really another key component that is again ubiquitous around the world in relationship to indigenous peoples, because of that intimacy with the natural world that they respond to and communicate with. Well, they would see ceremonies that that are honoring, you know, this time, perhaps the harvesting of the fruits and the nuts and the berries and the drying of the meat that had been happening in the also over the summer, which create the cash, so to speak, literally, for them to endure the more harsh winter months in those climates that Do have winter with snow, right? And so that's another phenomenon that people from the outside would also experience. And so, you know, part of that myth busting, as you said, is that, you know, this is the month in November that people observe Thanksgiving, and that particular holiday is a time of mourning for indigenous people. There is a narrative, a story that has been perpetrated. And often, if we look at what's happened historically, that history, as we call it, is often composed by the oppressors, right? So there is a narrative that is perpetuated within our educational institutions that really paint a inaccurate and false picture of what transpired. And you know, the beauty of the time that we're in now is that, you know, there's indigenous voices, indigenous perspectives, are being seen and recognized. And so there is a counterpoint, right? There's another narrative. Because, oh, there's always at least three sides to every story, right? And so you know, you have both parties, each with their own perspective and their own experience, and then you have the source, right? So that's the that's the third story, right? And so often the truth is in the middle. But we haven't heard in the past the indigenous perspectives and stories about what their response was to the arrival of the colonizers. Yet now, given the world that we're in and the fact that many indigenous nations and peoples within our western college educated, which was an advocacy by the elders right? So many elders said, you know, go into enemy territory, learn their ways, learn their systems, and then come back and inform us so that we can begin to protect our sovereignty and our self determination. And so many indigenous peoples are very savvy and extraordinarily highly intelligent and educated, and so they know the systems, and they know how to allow these systems to work in support and service of their own nations, right? And so we need to acknowledge that the story that has often been inculcated within western systems and paradigms of education are simply not true, and for us to stop the fiction of Thanksgiving right for many years, I would travel to Alcatraz, and So it was called the UN Thanksgiving. So indigenous nations from all over the Bay Area would convene the blue and gold fleet, and with ceremonial drums pounding, we would travel through with drum and song to Alcatraz, where there was a giant bonfire and the sharing of Wisdom Teachings from elders, and the opportunity to participate in ceremony and in grief and mourning for the massacre that actually occurred, multiple massacres that were occurring at that time. You know, which the the quote, unquote pilgrims were celebrating.



Christine Mason  9:45  

Yeah, there's this fiction that everybody was friends. And is there any part of that story of early collaboration, prior to expansionist tendencies? That was true. Was there a time when the what you as you call. The visitors when there was any kind of positive relation between them,



Chief Phillip Scott  10:03  

I would say that the first wave essentially the, you know, when they were called separatists, right? So the separatists were not able to find a home for their form of religion in Europe. And, you know, they had responded to the church and formulated their own way of worship, and they were kicked out of the Netherlands. The Dutch didn't want them there, and that's what compelled them to travel to North America, and they attempted to settle in the southern portions just north of Florida. However, they kept essentially encountering indigenous peoples all along the seaboard which would not welcome them. So the first people that arrived actually landed in a village that had already been wiped out through pestilence, right? Because there has been visitor as well prior to the quote, unquote pilgrims arriving here. And so that village had been wiped out, and so that's where they settled. But these were people that didn't have any knowledge about how to cultivate the earth, or how to hunt, how to fish, right? And so many of them were in peril, right, because they were forced to pill for graves, for the grain that was that was buried, you know, with the people, as well as the looting of treasures and things which ultimately would not help them in the slightest. And so, you know, the the survivors were, they survived because indigenous nations took pity on them, and so help them to to prevail. And so, I would say the initial relationship before the second, third, fourth and multiple waves came later, right as more and more people from Europe arrived on the shore of Turtle Island. The story and the appreciation of what the indigenous nations have done, which is basically save their asses, was lost. I say the original wave or two probably had much more of a mutual respect and appreciation for what the indigenous nations have done, which was essentially to guarantee their survival.



Christine Mason  12:27  

Wow. I was really moved by this idea that there was, like a defensive line from north of Florida up to the place they landed, that there was kind of an intelligence to, like, protect from the incoming energy. And there's a part of me, like, what's the meaning to make out of that as a strategic question? You know, when visitors are coming or new people are coming, isn't it like the right thing to open the heart and to provide assistance and aid and then to have it sort of weapon like, like, you do that, and, you know, good deed goes unpunished, that kind of thing that sort of bugs me.



Chief Phillip Scott  13:03  

Well, I think that it depends on how people approach a situation, right? So it's one thing to knock on a door and say requesting permission to enter. It's another to say we're coming here. Because, again, you have to understand that part of the intent or the pretext of their travel was based on the doctrine of discovery and manifest destiny, and, of course, fortunately, based upon indigenous advocacy, the Doctrine of Discovery has been rescinded by the current Pope. However, the original intent of the doctrine of discovery was basically to say that the lands in North America and around the world are available for the taking, and that you remove and eliminate anyone or anything that stands in the way of that conquest. And so if you have someone coming on your shores who is there to undermine and steal and disrupt? Then, of course, we're talking about indigenous nations that also cultivate warriorship. And so you know, if someone comes peacefully to my door, it's one thing, but if someone is going to be coming thinking that they can take my home away from me and strip me of my identity, then that's a very different response. And I think that's really ultimately, what's happening is that, you know, there was a ignorance, that there was no one here. You know that there was uh, no one residing in North America, and therefore it was essentially right for the for the taking, which you know, is essentially what it was. It's a land grab, right? And of course, this phenomenon happened 1000s and 1000s of years earlier in Europe, right? So the. Pretext of the Crusades right to find the Holy Grail, so to speak, that chalice was essentially the mandate by the church to utilize Knights Templar to eliminate the indigenous nations of Europe,



Christine Mason  15:19  

yeah, replacing them gradually with with, you know, all of the Germanic tribes, the Sami people, the Gaelic tribes, all of the sort of land based indigenous pagan traditions. Well, fortunately,



Chief Phillip Scott  15:33  

there were two indigenous nations in Europe, which were the Sami as well as the Bosque. So the Crusades, because the Sami resided so far north above the Arctic Circle, and the conditions were so inhospitable up there, as well as high in the pirane, which is where the Bosque people lived, that's really the only two extant indigenous cultures that have maintained a continuity of their traditions, right? But the Wiccan, the Celts, the Druids, they were all exterminated, you know, by the by the Crusades, of course, many other indigenous nations too. I was, once, I was invited to Portugal, Portugal for a festival there, and I asked, Who are the indigenous nations of this area? And no one happened to know. No one knew. No one knew. I didn't know who the indigenous original inhabitants were. And I mean that just speaks to you know, two plus 1000 years of religion and history that was intended to essentially undermine indigeneity in Europe, there's



Christine Mason  16:48  

a couple of different threads chief that I find an interest in pulling. One is the human migratory impulse or the land grab impulse. And you know how that's been happening over all of human history, there was migration from the Bering Strait for what we would now call indigenous people in North America. At what point do we go from simple migration to this aggressive prosecution or taking well,



Chief Phillip Scott  17:23  

so first, I want to share with you and our listeners that the Bering Strait is the theory. It's a theory, okay? It's a western concept, right? And so if we speak with many indigenous nations directly, their oral stories and traditions, often, particularly if they were not displaced from their their land, that that's where they that's their origin story, right? That so certain indigenous nations don't speak about, you know that we all came from Africa, or that we came across the, you know, the Bering Strait. So again, that's having a lot to do with Western anthropological and cultural assessment, right? But there is certainly a piece around migration that's important to understand, which is that we do have a migratory impulse, right to explore our land and to travel, and certainly many indigenous nations were nomadic in the north, in particularly the plains nations were nomadic because their food source was the bison, so they had to follow the bison herds, right? So what we really can say is that this notion of, shall we say, conquest and land acquisition had more to do when people's stopped hunting and gathering and began to a more sedentary, agrarian lifestyle. Right? So around the time, around 10,000 10,000 years ago, in the Fertile Crescent, when we began to see agricultural practices beginning to take root, so to speak, that's really when we see a sense of placement, where there's less migration and more of a cultivation of Place in relationship to whatever plants that you are planting and harvesting.



Christine Mason  19:25  

Yeah, all right, so this is great because you're right about the anthropological sort of Western story is that there's two movements between South America and North America, and then from Siberia to North America, and that there's so many but it's so slow these migrations that it would be totally normal once you can only remember seven generations back to like, this is where we're from. And also it doesn't really matter at that point, like you're, you're, you're, like, baked into the landscape. So now we've arrived and we're settled. In, it's more local, and you're developing transgenerational knowledge of the land and the seasons. And that's what I would consider traditional indigeneity as like a deep, localized, transgenerational relationship to place that then develops into customs that are related to place, and that there's something about that relationship and that knowing that informs your philosophy, your theology and your way of being and and that's the moment we arrive to with a bunch of people who have no relationship to the land, no understanding of its habits, colliding with people who've been there a long time, and that's happening now too. That's happening with all the climate migration and the war migration, and so here we are. There's a good way to enter, we're asking permission, we're knocking we're bowing in respect, we're learning. And then there's a bad way to enter, which is just imposing yourself with violence and threat and aggression. We know how that war rolled out in North America. So here we are retelling the story, and we land now in 2024 coming up on this Thanksgiving holiday, I would say, a couple of decades now, of unwinding the story of the, you know, the Bucha hats and the little hand Turkey that you were taught in kindergarten, and you're saying, let's tap into those deeper points of knowledge, how to approach the season and have some integration and respect. So, so maybe we can go there next. Yeah,



Chief Phillip Scott  21:35  

so, and we were seeing the this antiquated notion of conquest playing itself out in the theater of war around the world right now, right so in in Ukraine and in Gaza. I mean, it's, it's the same old story that just continues to play itself out. You know, we're living in a different kind of world now, and that's much more connected than it's ever been before, and these men in positions of responsibility have forgotten, really, ultimately, that, you know, this world is more connected, and that, you know, imposing our will, like without consent, right? That's a big piece of this right, permission and consent. I'm going to come in and take this land from you, because I have this idea that we know we need to have more more land and and, and to go back to the Republic that we once had, for example, right? Or we want to remove indigenous people from the map in this area, because we don't believe they belong, right? And so part of that story, then is the the creation of false narratives to justify actions, right? So if we're going to demonize someone, right, we're going to create a false picture of who this individual is, then somehow it gives us greater justification for their annihilation and their genocide, right? And this is what we're seeing playing itself out, and that certainly you know, the stereotypes of indigenous nations in North America and and the continued disenfranchisement, of indigenous nations and the economic strangleholds that are being placed upon them now on reservations, which are essentially concentration camps. I mean, that's essentially what happened, is that indigenous peoples were corralled up by the federal government and placed in these concentration camps for the purposes of assimilation, right? And, you know, fortunately, not long ago, I mean, so there's a senator by name Deb Deb Holland, who has is the first indigenous person to run the Department of the Interior, right? So you had non native peoples running the Department of the Interior, which had a direct relationship with indigenous peoples, so did not understand their culture, their ways of life, right, their cosmologies, etc, right? So you have a clash of culture here, a class of perspective, right? And of course, the mandate back then, you know, was to kill the Indian and save the man. That was the quotation right, that was utilized to essentially also kidnap children and place them in boarding schools, right, where their hair was cut off, they were placed in a uniform, right? Of course, you know, for indigenous people, hair is sacred. It's a part of identity, right? And then, of course, atrocities being perpetrated upon them, which can all be regarded as crimes against humanity. Um. By missionaries. And you know, Christian people that were entrusted to educate them and essentially strip them of their identity, to turn them into white people, right and to conform. And you know, my Lakota mother, for example, was one of these individuals who was abducted from her family and kidnapped and placed in the sporting school, and she would share some of the things that she perceived and obviously experienced as a part of that and so now just primarily more in Canada. But, you know, Deb Haaland recently did a kind of very poignant talk where basically that the federal government failed indigenous nations in relationship to the boarding school system. And that's coming to light, and I'm sure as time goes on, some of the news about mass graves that we're hearing about in Canada will also be certainly discovered in United States as well. And the Canadian natives traveled to the Vatican to speak with the Pope and then invited him to come and see what they're doing in Canada, and as a consequence of the atrocities that he reported, he rescinded the doctrine of discovery. So there's obviously some favorable movement and traction in that way. I mean, there have been the peace and reconciliation commissions in Canada, which at least our start. There's many indigenous peoples that I know and colleagues who are not satisfied with the result, but at least it's light years ahead of what's happening in the United States, where there has been no formal acknowledgement or apology toward the genocide that was here in the United States as well.



Christine Mason  27:04  

I feel our nation's healing only will happen when that is acknowledged, as well as slavery



Chief Phillip Scott  27:10  

without question, and that's going to require a willingness to take responsibility, right? So ultimately, what we're talking about are the ceremonial protocols of peace and reconciliation. That means that the aggrieved party articulates their experience and that the oppressor or the the individual or the group that did harm is able to receive that those harsh truths and acknowledge them right? And so there's an acknowledgement of the pain and the suffering. And then there has to be an assurance from the perpetrator that it will never happen again. And then once that assurance takes place, then the aggrieved individual, the person that, or the group that has experienced profound suffering and trauma, can articulate what's needed for amends to be made. So reparations, right? And I know that's, you know, quite a bit of conversation, at least, around African American people around reparations, which, you know, gets sometimes a rather lukewarm response, but there needs to be that, essentially, that container for healing to take place, right? If there's no expression of contrition whatsoever, there's no assurance that it won't happen again. And of course, with indigenous nations, there's, there's constantly under siege, all right? I mean, there was a Standing Rock issue with, you know, corporate interests coming in to try to build a pipeline through sovereign indigenous land. Right? Also, right now in Pipestone, Minnesota, which is the sacred quarry, where the red stone, which is known in West as the catlinite, right? This, this sacred stone that's used to carve sacred pipes that were brought by White Buffalo Calf Woman, right? All of this, you know, this very sacred quarry is also there are corporate interests that want to build a pipeline through this sacred land, and so indigenous peoples are constantly fighting to maintain their rights and their self determination and their sovereignty, when their relations essentially non native people or People that have forgotten their indigeneity are ravaging the earth and have forgotten our fundamental connection to her that is vital for our survival.



Christine Mason  29:50  

Yeah, there's no place to rest when you're fighting either, like in a in a worldview that says I can rest in the arms of the Earth, I can rest in what's provided. Excited for me to be constantly in a vigil state toward those who would harm it that that's you know, long term upregulation must be challenging to keep an optimistic and grateful relationship to the world when you're constantly trying to fight people.



Chief Phillip Scott  30:21  

And what I will say is that you know, given the 500 plus years of oppression, suppression, conflict that indigenous nations have endured, it speaks to their resiliency, right? It speaks to their fortitude and their intent to survive, and you know that they are and of course, there are many millions who have been massacred, you know, through this genocide, which is, you know, we have to call the spade a spade. And yet, you know it speaks to their warriorship, to their perseverance and their unwillingness to give up and surrender and capitulate to to those who are attempting to dictate how they should live.



Christine Mason  31:09  

Well, here we are, and like everybody's families will like we'll get together to celebrate, quote, unquote Thanksgiving, the harvest festival, and I know for a lot of families, they're no longer celebrating it in anything related to Thanksgiving story they were told. They just treat it like a day of family and feasting. But it feels like there's an opportunity to do what you're saying, to bring in this reconciliation impulse into your family setting in some way. Can you make some suggestions for how people might do that? Certainly,



Chief Phillip Scott  31:44  

I think this is what we can call, you know, the exercise of of right speech, right, right action, right? So being skillful, right? So if people are gathering under the pretext of of Thanksgiving, it may be an opportunity, as I did in the past with my family, say, hey, you know I love and enjoy getting together with all of us, but I don't want to continue to support this fiction, right? And so I basically educated my family about what's really trend, what really transpired right from the indigenous perspective, right? So they had a much more balanced understanding. Because, you know, in my biological mother, she admitted that she had never heard that in her school and her upbringing, right? And so that was a an opportunity to present another story, another perspective, but certainly for people to gather and break bread together and enjoy each other's company, that's special and important, right? So I do recall that early on, when we would travel to Alcatraz for the on Thanksgiving. Eventually, one of the elders said, we can call this a Thanksgiving because we can express gratitude that our ancestors survived and that we are here, celebrating and remembering them. And so there was also a shift as well, that they began to call it a Thanksgiving gathering. But from a place of remembrance and also feeling and acknowledging the grief and the sadness of those who had perished, having people gather and remember and spend quality time with each other. I mean, preferably without phones, that I think that's another issue that I see happening in our contemporary world, is that, I mean, I'm certainly grateful that we can utilize this technology that you and I are having to to share story and to communicate with one another. However, I think that it's a difference between it being a tool that we can utilize for the dissemination of information or an addictive device that actually separates and isolates people.



Christine Mason  34:15  

Yeah, this question of, how do we deepen our connection all the time? I think the device is probably the first thing All right, so we were also talking about, how do you use this time of the year to deepen your connection with yourself and the natural world? So maybe there are some things we could do in that movement, with the family also,



Chief Phillip Scott  34:39  

well, for me, the most important thing that we can do is to get outside right and to place our feet on the earth. To you know, depending on whether there's snow on the earth, wherever our listeners are, but being able to, if you can take your shoes off and walk the earth and. Connect with her that way, and to utilize the medicine of the autumn to take a deep introspection, a reflection, a recapitulation of our summer, the spring and the summer months and the early part of the autumn before the temperatures began to cool. Right? As I said, there's a hibernation that's happening, and so for individuals to dive deep, but also to utilize this in terms of connections, not just connecting to the earth, but connecting to our dreams, right? So this is the time when people will often sleep more. So we intend to receive good medicine dreams and the ability to remember them in the morning and to engage in our spiritual practices, right? So myself, I usually am up by four or five o'clock in the morning, and I make my prayers. And you know not that all of our listeners have to do that, but to find whatever sacred practice nourishes your spirit and to engage in what I call a rhythm and a discipline. I think people are a little fearful of the D word, but the reality is that discipline is really just about passion, and it's about rhythm. And if we get our ourselves into a rhythm, into our sacred practice on a daily basis, then it nourishes our spirit and our body, our mind, our heart, so we respond to the world in a different kind of way, because we have equanimity, we have sobriety, we have balance, and we're achieving harmony.



Christine Mason  36:38  

That thing about grounding and touching the earth is so vital. You also have a way of listening and noticing details that I find so compelling. One time you were doing a ceremony here, there was a small creature who was creepy crawling toward the altar, or one time there was a dragonfly, and one time there was a hawk. And that like looking for signs in the natural world and what they might mean and what they're trying to tell you. It's like listening with your with all of your senses and and being aware of the incoming message. Yeah,



Chief Phillip Scott  37:16  

absolutely, for me, this is the essence of wakefulness, right? So if we look at the Buddhist tradition, right, the quest is to awaken and so that whole body listening and paying attention to my surroundings, you know, that's why, you know, when I'm walking in the natural world and walking down the street, I'm not looking at my faults, right? Because I want to see the world around me. I want to perceive the world around me, not only physically, but also energetically. So, you know, the ancestors are constantly communicating with us, and they're sending us signs and omens, messages, you know, through the animal relations or through the plants that that communicate with us. And so, you know, there's a phrase that you know, if you're transmitting you can't receive, right? And so we, we quiet our inner dialog. We quiet ourselves down so that our senses become alive, you know, and our whole body awakens, right? And so we're listening with our whole body, and we are perceiving the world. And as a consequence, we're able to read the messages that the Earth and the ancestors are communicating, because the ancestors are singing all the time, but often we block out those songs and those messages because we are in this incessant conversation with ourselves. And so that's, you know, for me, that the essence of wakefulness is paying attention to the world around me. And of course, you know, as a traditional healer, I want to be listening to people's story, and I also want to listen to what they're not saying, and I want to listen to how the ancestors are communicating with me about that person, you know. So you know, I'm listening on multiple levels and paying attention, knowing that any visitation is never arbitrary, right? So, speaking about communion, I just returned from conducting a traditional hambletia, which is a vision quest, right? So, traditional vision quest where an individual is fasting without food and water and sleep for four days and three nights. As a consequence, they are going to be connecting with the spirits of the ancestors, right? They're going to be visited by beings from the natural world, and none of those visitations are arbitrary. There's a reason that that being is visiting, but. Based upon what the intention of that question may be.



Christine Mason  40:02  

Yeah, I love that so much. Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing with your school, your foundation to bring these kinds of teachings forward? Certainly.



Chief Phillip Scott  40:15  

Thank you. So ancestral voice, Institute for indigenous lifeways has been in existence for 30 years. This year, we're celebrating our 30th anniversary, and our mission and purpose has been to protect and preserve and respectfully disseminate indigenous ways of living and protecting also ceremonial traditional ceremonial practices. Because, you know, Indigenous peoples have very elaborate protocols and ceremonies, as you have witnessed and experienced yourself with me. Well, our mission is to ensure that they don't become diluted over time, right? But part of our mission is also for people to remember their humanity and to also remember their intrinsic indigeneity. All of us come from the earth. We all have people and ancestors that have had that connection to the earth and to the unseen through the ancestors and connecting with our helping spirits, you know, beings that are no longer on the earth who are entrusted to guide us and help us remember our original instructions, right? So that's part of our mission as well. Is to help people live lives that are fulfilling and that are purposive, and help them to remember what they're here to do, to be of service to other people and to find a sense of freedom, right, and so also liberation from from the wounds of the past or from addictions as well. And so essentially, for every human being to remember how to be a human being in this world, which I think has gotten lost in our colonization. There



Christine Mason  42:04  

must be multiple ways that people engage like there are people who do come an apprentice to really learn and master these ways, and that's a lifelong sort of apprenticeship. And then there are others who are living a modern life, and you're providing counseling, support, ritual and things like that to them. So what do you say to people who are trying to blend? Say, their their Christians beliefs or or their, you know, Islamic beliefs and indigenous life ways?



Chief Phillip Scott  42:36  

Well, the beauty of My Altars is that everyone's welcome to come and participate and pray, and so regardless of one's religious orientation, there is always value to remember how to become a human being to connect with, you know, the intrinsic indigeneity or the beauty of one's faith. You know, there have been many individuals who have also come to to apprenticeships with myself or to participate in our ceremonies, and has helped them to deepen their own relationship to the cultivation of their faith. It's been actually gratifying also indigenous peoples who may have been disconnected from their family or their nation or their practices, which you know, helps them to resurrect and remember that and so, I mean the Lakota people, Lakota Nation in general, has been, you know, very generous in helping these ceremonies to support indigen Other indigenous nations that may have lost some of their ways through assimilation, you know, to help them remember.



Christine Mason  43:45  

So what I'm hearing is, as we approach this season, first on a personal level, to reconnect with the earth that you are living on, second, to be an agent or an ally in retelling the stories of our history in a way that doesn't whitewash the ugliness, and to become an agent of reconciliation and acknowledgement, and third, to lean in to the knowledge that many of these cultures hold and are generously offering to share by reaching out and incorporating that into the way we live in the modern world. You know, you can do that by reaching out to you and participating in some rituals or or just taking a course or learning in some way. And I think it'd be helpful too to say, all right, from 500 nations to what, what is the sort of state of indigenous peoples in America. Now, how, like, I know in California, for example, what used to be many different tribes are is down to, like the consolidated tribes of Northern California, it's like they can't even maintain enough speciated tribal identity to maintain. Maintain those traditions anymore. They have to kind of glom together to do it.



Chief Phillip Scott  45:03  

Some of them do, yeah, I think you know when, at the time, when there was the Gold Rush and the push, also from the Spaniards into what was known as California. There are over 200 separate distinct nations in that territory of California alone, each with their own language and culture and identity, etc. So I would have to say that in terms of, you know, speaking with my families and speaking with my elders, and my own particular observation that there's a reclamation that's going on that there is tremendous push to preserve and protect indigenous sovereignty and self determination, language, culture, identity. You know, there are schools that are devoted to language preservation and skill preservation. So I believe that it's a favorable trajectory, certainly with indigenous representation in the federal government. That's even more so now and will only continue, as far as I'm concerned, considering the global crisis that we are finding ourselves in, that our literal survival as a species is contingent upon remembering and honoring indigenous ways of living on this earth, and that's why we need to look with humility and respect and appreciation for indigenous nations that have not lost their traditions and their ways in this relationship to the earth. And also, I think it's important for our listeners to understand that, though given the sordid history and the genocide of indigenous peoples the acts of generosity and forgiveness. You know, like I spoke of my Lakota mother, she was the most unconditionally loving woman I ever met, second only to my wife, who is also in the spirit world now. But My Lakota mother welcomed everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of their identity, gender wise, regardless of their economic status. She truly loved everyone, and that's because she did her work, you know, and she, like many other medicine people, elders that are I know, who are traditionalists, who are opening up the teachings to anyone who is sincere to learn and listen with humility. It is an act of forgiveness, and it's an act of generosity for them to share their ways. They don't have to, but many do, because they also understand the urgency of the crisis that we're in and understand the relevance and the necessity of these ways of reharmonizing ourselves with the earth and each other, because everything has become so polarized, and there's so much conflict now, and so many Stories that that involve the demonization of people. And you know, when we perceive people as other, as enemy, then it continues to foment the conflict. I love the quote from a dear Zimbabwean medicine man and brother of mine says, you know, there are no enemies, only people's stories we don't know. So



Christine Mason  48:42  

may we all walk as courses for unconditional love and understanding. I appreciate you so much for all the work you're doing and for bringing this story forward. I'm sure we could talk about more things. So maybe we come back another time and talk about psychedelics.



Chief Phillip Scott  48:57  

I would love to come back and spend an hour talking about sacraments with you and that kind of ceremony that's beautiful. Thank you, Philip, it's a pleasure.



Christine Mason  49:09  

If you'd like to explore the topic of gratitude further. I invite you to go to my website, Christine mariemason.com, and type in gratitude. You will find an article on little G versus big G gratitude, and you'll also find a gratitude meditation to download. I'd also like to offer you this hooponopono, which is a Hawaiian traditional practice of reconciliation, forgiveness and healing. The word roughly translates to make things right or to correct an error. It's rooted in the cultural and spiritual traditions of Hawaii and offers a framework for restoring balance and harmony in relationships, communities and within oneself. Historically, Ho oponopono was practiced in a group setting, often within families and guided by a respected elder or Kahuna the. The practice involves open communication, expressing feelings, taking responsibility for one's actions and seeking and offering forgiveness. It's deeply spiritual, acknowledging the interconnectedness of all life and the need to maintain harmony a simplified version of HOA pono. Pono has gained popularity thanks to teachings by Hawaiian practitioners like Morna, samyana and Dr Hugh Lin, this version emphasizes a mantra of four phrases, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. The intention is to cleanse emotions and energies that are in the field, both within oneself and in interactions with others. And it's believed that by taking responsibility for one's inner state and clearing harmful patterns, a ripple effect of healing can occur outwardly at its core, hope pono. Pono is about acknowledging our shared humanity, the energy we carry and the way our thoughts, words and actions influence the greater whole. It offers a pathway to peace and healing and emphasizes the transformative power of love, humility, gratitude and forgiveness. So for this Thanksgiving, maybe that's one of the motions, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. And by the way, this practice is often accompanied by kava, and that is one of the sacraments that radiant Farms is offering to help with relaxation, pain, inflammation and overall social anxiety. You can find that@radiantfarms.us and, of course, all of our beautiful body products@rosewalen.com and we are having a big holiday sale on both sites. So please support us. Find Ancestral Voices, find Phillip's work, and see if you can support the re teaching of these ancient wisdoms in the world. Thank you. I love you.


Geneva Tolentino
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