 There's the inside. They're two half sides of the same. If the teaching of drum, every physical thing is a manifestation of teachings. And this is something that's old-way wisdom. Knowing what the teaching is, that's another thing. And sometimes, as people say, it's an interpretation. But the drum is a physical object that reflects a teaching. One is that it can amplify for us the heartbeat of Mother Earth and bring us all into the same rhythm, the same heartbeat, to make us one as a people when we're doing a ceremony or dance. The other thing is that the outside and the inside are one. And what does that say in the teachings of your walk, on this earth walk, of your interactions with other beings, other people, or other beings? If the inner song and the outward face are in harmony, your song is strong. And it's in a good way. If they are not together, it would split the face or the song would not work right. The harmony would not be there. So your inner teachings or your inner knowings and your outward behavior need to be the same to be in harmony. And that's when you stay the healthiest. And that's something that Mother Earth teaches. That's the kind of thing, I mean, you can do that for yourself. Just recognizing that physical manifestations are carrying teachings. Our original instructions from Ojihozo, when he made the bigger animals, the giant animals, he was here when the giant animals were here at the very beginning times when the ice sheets were leaving, and he helped shape the land. And the bigger animals were killing the people. And so he came and made those animals smaller, so that long nose with the tusks and the giant beavers and all, he made them smaller so that they wouldn't be killing the people so much. And he taught the people how to hunt, as well as they were already gathering, so that they could also hunt. That's part of the original instructions where there are teachings out there, and he taught the people how to hunt, he taught how to live in a good way honoring all our relatives. Then he also told us all your relatives carry teachings, and you can learn from them. So that's part of what I would encourage you to realize when you're working with the plants, for instance, they carry teachings. The one book I've seen that really does that well for us was by an Anishinaabe woman, Robin Wall Kimmerer. That's the best braiding and sweet grass. That's where we're at, but we'll learn. We can keep learning. But if you understand that concept, and her book is a wonderful example of that, and it's the same with the animals, it's same with a fireball. You can stop and think about what teachings would be carried by a fireball. Think about it. You're supposed to pray to the fireball to me to help it burn, you don't get burned, though. Right. And that physical object carries teachings, because if you think about the male and female for like older adolescents, a great sex edged, you teach them about safe fire building, and then you teach them the responsibility of creating fire, which can be a wonderful gift, and it can be a very, very dangerous gift if it's misused, and you treat it with great respect. There's just teachings like that. The little kids, you just teach them safe fire behavior, and you don't play with it, and you don't take it in your tent because tents are very flammable. But you know, progressive ages, you teach them more and more of that, but if you stop and think of that, making a basket, you're weaving different elements together. You do that with group work. You do that with teamwork. You do that to build community. You find the strikes and you use them a certain way. You recognize where there's some weaknesses or frailties, and you reinforce them, but you build them in a little different way, and that's what you're doing, and you transpose it into a more abstract, but another kind of process, but it's that weaving. To hold something. What are you holding? The well-being of the people or the group, the teamwork, or the particular goal you're working toward, and that's what that basket would stand for. So that's part of the teachings, and you can do that for yourself. You have to shift a gear a little bit and shift your perspective, and that's when you're getting into the indigenous perspective. All over this planet, it isn't just us. So it doesn't matter whether it's pure abenac or not, which it isn't necessarily, but it's indigenous. It's certainly Native American. An awful lot of the teachings were carried in that way. So that's a little bit of what that old way wisdom tries to hit at. Built in a sacred manner, you don't throw your Kleenex and your napkins in there. You build it with prayers because fire is purification. You have a path and you have a lodge, a low lodge where you have to crawl in. There's a little shallow place in the center. In the fire, which you start usually at least two to three hours beforehand, you have taken, you have put a lot of rocks. You've gathered these rocks. This is often called the stone people's lodge. Because the stone people sit in the fire and gather the heat and when they're glowing red, they're carried in and put in the shallow center. Some people use four stones to start. Some people use seven stones to start. I've been in one really hot sweat lodge where there were two rows of people sitting on the ground and there were 21 stones brought in and we did sweat. So different peoples, different trainings, also for different purposes. I am not trained as a sweat lodge conductor. In fact, if I was to get into one, I wouldn't be able to get back stand up afterwards. Some things I don't do anymore. But I've been in them and it's a purification lodge. And the stone people carry the heat inside. People go in a sacred manner. So they go in usually here in this part of the country, the door faces east, where the heat comes from. And then you travel, sometimes you had, you always turn to your left. Yeah. And you move around and say and the conductor usually sits by the door, the farthest way around. Often the firekeeper doesn't go in, the firekeeper just continues to keep the fire and carries a shovel load or some people won't use a shovel, they won't use metal. And they carry it in on deer antler prongs, but different people again doing it differently. The way I was first taught here in the middle, there's an altar. So you have the fire and the pathway, you have an altar that's actually closer to the and they lean the pipes, a pipe, or pipes, if that's the kind of ceremony, they'll put up, you know, they'll put a fork stick. And they'll and they'll have a crossbar and the other fork stick. And they'll lean pipes. But that's an altar, people also often maybe take off their Nettison bag and put on the altar before going into the sweat lodge. Or and certainly you take off any jewelry, you may not put those on the altar, you may leave those with your things, but don't wear jewelry in there. Right, right. What about cedar? You cedar to torque into the sweat lodge and inside the sweat lodge? Inside and that depends on the particular sweat lodge conductor, but they have they may have sweet grass, they may have cedar, they may have other herbs. And it's up to them and whatever kind of ceremony they're doing because sweat lodge is used for different kinds of ceremonies. They do it for a marriage sweat, where the marriage couple themselves are in the sweat lodge, they may do it coming back from war as a purification from war. They may do it for other purposes, building community, trying to get over some some hostilities or do some healing that way. But it has to be somebody who really knows what they're doing, because different ceremonies have different songs and prayers. I am not trained at that. I don't lead sweat lodges. But when you go in, you go in and you sit down. And then the sweat lodge conductor will will call for the stones and the stones are brought in. Usually after people are seated in there. And then the conductor will sprinkle any herbs or cedar. Sometimes it's sage, sometimes it's cedar, sometimes it's sweet grass, sometimes it's a combination of different things. And then we'll sprinkle water on the stones and the water makes this, he'll have the door closed. And it's all covered over with nowadays, they use tarps and blankets and everything used to be that they use, you know, moose hide or buffalo hide or whatever. And that it'll make a heavy steam bath, basically. And often there's what they call four doors. So he'll close the door, but then they'll call for the door to be open after they've done some singing or talking or praying or whatever. Then they may bring in more stones. They may pass the water around. So everybody can take a sip or pour some on their head or whatever. But they may bring in some more stones and close the door again. So the door may be closed four times. But I've been in sweats where it was just one long door. And I've been in sweats where sometimes it was two doors. So it depends on the purpose of the sweat and the conductor. What people are doing it for. I mean, I've known people who would do a sweat lodge at night, before they were going to go out hunting. So they do like one long door. And then they leave it and go on back out in the woods for hunting. But and just friends. And it wasn't like a formal sweat lodge conductor. But they were certainly were doing it in a sacred manner with prayers, wanting to honor the animals they were seeking to give over their life to feed them and their family. And so it was, there's a lot of reasons why people do sweat lodge. But there are also people who put out the word for sweat lodge for a Saturday entertainment. And there's that going on too. I don't think of it as entertainment, but it really is a timeless time. Some things can happen in sweat lodge, people sometimes feel wings beating on them. People may see something or hear something or be part of what happens. And you can call it hallucinations or whatever you want. But I think it's a spirit world knows that this is a sacred ceremony and it's a purification lodge. And so whatever comes is being brought to those who are there in a good way. If it's misused, it can be a badly. The way I was taught was that this is the turtle representing Earth Mother. Of course, Earth was built on the back of the turtle in the old stories, Sky Woman. And the it represents the womb of Earth Mother, and we're crawling into the womb and then we're being reborn after we're purified. And that you never cross the path because you don't break the neck of the turtle. And the altar, the way if there is an altar, that would be the turtles head, but you also wouldn't break it going to the fire. But then some people don't talk about an altar, they just have the sweat lodge and the fire. And that's a different teaching. I mean, there's it's not wrong or right. It's a different teaching, but you never cross the neck of the turtle. So if you're over here and you want to come over to enter the sweat lodge, you come out around here. And then you go in and when you go in, you say all my relatives, because all of your relatives are in there, you've got fire, you've got water, you've got air. You've got the earth you're sitting on. And in the old way, when you add the animal skins, you had the four legeds in there with you. And of course, the wood from the tree people to standing ones, because the fire keeping is part of the ceremony, the firekeeper is definitely a part of the ceremony. Even if they never go in the lodge, this whole area is the ceremonial area. Now when those sweat lodges going on and people aren't around, animals may wander through and all, that's okay. That's okay. Some people say, well, you can't let the animal you fence it off or something. But the people didn't do that in the old way. It was like, you know, horse wanders through or dog goes over there or something. That wasn't a big thing. It was when the ceremony was going on, it was ceremonial area. And otherwise it was part of Mother Earth. And part of the, you know, it was sacred, but four legeds have just as good as we got. So but that's that's the general thing about it. And different conductors will give different instructions about it, depending on what the purpose of it is. But you just, you know, when some some people go in naked, some people go in with shorts or a shift. You know, whatever the, especially if it's a mixed sweat, some people will not do a mixed sweat. They only do one gender, in which case it's more likely to be naked. But again, it depends on the conductor, it depends on the purpose of it. So it's not right or wrong. It's who's doing it and why I am very cautious about doing sweat lodge with people. I've been in sweat lodges where there were people that it just wasn't pleasant. They were ego and it wasn't like I was harmed. It wasn't like it was somehow malicious, but it's just they were full of themselves and they weren't respectful really. There's these little comments or these little, you know, we'll pass the pipe, but no women can smoke it. And you know, well, if it's a mixed sweat, it's a mixed sweat, everybody should be participating. And so I find that kind of thing really uncomfortable. And that wouldn't go in a sweat lodge or something like that again. But you have to make your own choices, you know, depending again on what it's about. Herbalism is one part of medicine work of indigenous people. The herbs for healing, I mean, they're herbs for eating and that's healthy too. But the herbs were one part of the healing work. But a medicine person, an herbalist was not necessarily a medicine person. And usually from anything I've ever been taught or learned, if some things refer to as medicine with indigenous people, it has to do with their ability to work in the spirit worlds. It goes beyond physical medicine. A shaman may be a kind of medicine person, although may not be an herbalist. An herbalist may be doing some good healing work with various herbs and applications of that, but may not be a medicine person because they may not work in the spirit worlds. But my understanding of the term medicine person, which is totally misused these days. I mean, I knew one time where a woman could whistle bird songs and so they called her a medicine woman. You know, she could whistle great. But that didn't make her a medicine person. And it's so misused that I avoid it pretty much because a lot of people are called medicine people because they have a pipe and they conducts white lodges. But a lot of people do that without truly knowing how to work with the spirit world. So to me, it has to also involve working with the spirit worlds. So I'd be very wary and none of you are going to be made medicine people this weekend. Please don't. Please don't think because you looked at a pipe that you've been made holy. Okay, there's medicine work, which, as I said, to me implies maybe doing ceremonial stuff, or doing herbalism and also working in the spirit worlds. And there's medicine bags and medicine bundles. I don't know what perception you have will say in your in your medicine bag, you put a little something of personal meaning of significance or some major event in your life or something. I was taught that you you can do that for sure. That's not it's not usually questioned. But that also you would put something that carry the energy of your power animal. Because that's your ally from the spirit world, who helps you, who is your protector and a helper. And that you have so you have a little both. I was not told about the three below ground and above ground in here. But but that's okay. So there's medicine bag. I don't talk about it either in terms of what's in there. But it's, it's a small bag. It can either be like that or it can be, I think I had a couple of them out here kind of big circle. You wouldn't want it any smaller than like that. As they still and just punch holes around and and draw it up. It makes it just a little pouch. Or if you want to do a little more leather work, you'd make something a little bigger. And or you can make I mean, there's again, there's no prescription about it. So don't get hung up in in exactly whether it's right. Some have fringes. Some don't have fringes. Some are a lot bigger. I've seen tends to be some of the men like to have one that's quite a bit bigger. They probably put big rocks in them. I don't know. That was a sexist comment. But that's that's kind of what what we're we're talking about. And it's generally warm around the neck or in somebody's pocket. I often have mine in my pocket. And people don't don't realize I have it. But I try to keep it with me most of the time. And that's that's just what it is. Now I was taught about power animals and stops. So that's part of what I include questions. Now a medicine bundle. And again, this is terminology. So don't get hung up if somebody says a medicine bag is a great big bag. That's kind of what I'm distinguishing as medicine bundle. You know, because to me, a medicine bag is small, but that's just terminology. And it's translated into English. So there may be different terms and indigenous languages that make the distinction within the word. And we don't have any help in the English. With a lot of the spiritual stuff we talk about, I had a friend that he and I used to talk about springlish, because we were talking about spiritual stuff, but we were trying to use English. And it just, well, English for 1000 years, or longer, was embedded with Christianity. So that's what the language is, rather than indigenous languages around the planet. So there's a translation thing that kind of creates some misunderstanding sometimes. Neither good nor bad, it's just different understanding. So a medicine bundle, and I don't, I don't take stuff out and display it. But it's, if you're doing medicine work, you might have little pouches of different kinds of herbs. You might have a special stone that does some kind of energy with you. I was teaching somebody one time and she had gotten hit by lightning. It had to hit very close to her. She'd already been hit by lightning before. This one came very close. And she went in her house, she was okay and everything. And she called me later because this was the second time she said lightning's after me. I said yeah. And I said go on out and find a small stone that got hit by lightning and put it in your medicine bag. And she hadn't any of that trouble since. But it was like it was being with her. And so we gave her the name walks with lightning. How did she know the stone that hit by lightning? It was blackened. Yeah, so. But what I have is some of the and they wrapped in leather and in red cloth. I was taught in shamanic training about doing soul retrieval. So I have a small hollow bone that I use for that ceremony that you know, ritual. I have different things that mean something to me that are just part of my work. You would have you would have your own things, you know, your medicine bundle might well have herbs. I wouldn't do pharmaceuticals in there. But some of the some of the herbs that are very special to you a little piece of cedar I might put in there because cedars very special to me. There's something that speaks of my power animal that has that energy. Again, we're talking about energy. We're going to do more work with energy tomorrow. But you want something that carries that energy because that's your ally from the spirit worlds that can work with you. Can you have more than one? You can have more than one. Most people have one primary one. And there might be other others that kind of have a specialty and don't do the primary work. But you have one that's pretty much general and is tries to work with you a lot of the time. Like any being they may be off napping or goofing off and you've got to call them in sometimes. But these are usually animals or birds. And they have an energy. And so you don't decide oh, I really like a cat amount. So mine's a cat amount. It's it is something to say about it. So he's got to be in agreement. Children have a power in in the in the old belief. Now this is again, this is not strictly ebony. This is what I've gleaned from a lot of places people make reference to your ally or your what's the other term they use familiar? Yeah, yeah, which and I think that's a European term. But it's it's referring to a power animal from the because in Europe, way back, indigenous tribal peoples knew a lot of this stuff. And they kept themselves healthy with this stuff. So that's that's you find that all over the planet actually. But you can you can find out who your power animal is and nobody likes to be ignored. So you need to spend some time working with your power animal to develop a relationship and and then they can help you with your healing work or with when there's times where there's trouble and stuff. So it's it's a good connection and you would have some kind of way of connecting with that power animal in your medicine bundle. But that to me is the difference. The bundle is just bigger. And it's got more stuff in it. You know, but yes, you protect it. You don't, you don't have other people handling it. If people reach out for your medicine bag, you may have to and people do they'll be Oh, that's pretty. Yeah, let's go. But the things are in a bag, because they're protected. They're protected in the bag. But it is, you know, it is, people don't know better. It isn't that it's militially maliciously intended, but it's it's disrespectful. And so if you're quick, you you just shield it and say I'd rather you didn't touch it and hung up on it being needing to be a huge fierce animal. We were doing work. And I was teaching some of this and we were doing some of this. And we were we did the work for people to find their power animal. And this friend of mine heard she was a little disappointed. She said, Well, it's well, it's a weasel. And I said the small people can be very strong. And that's one of the fiercest. One of the fiercest hunters there is. And don't don't disparage you that that there's a reason why that one wanted to be with you at this time. Well, later, maybe here in a half two years later, it was a divorce, living in different places, needing to let the kids go visit dad. And they were going to be and she was worried because he had difficulty with anger, anger management. And and all she was worried how how he would handle the kids. Because they had that visiting thing. And she got in touch with the power animal. And she said, I know you're my power animal, but I want you to go with the kids. This is what's going to happen. The kids are going to be away for the weekend. I'm kind of worried about him. He gets real mad. And he gets real rough. And I just I really would rather you be with them to protect them. Okay, then they get up in the morning. She bags the kids all up. They meet midpoint at a restaurant. They're sitting there having a cup of coffee before they exchange kids. He says, you do the funniest thing happened this morning. He said, I went out on the porch and there was a weasel. And he said, I stamped and I tried to shoot it and it hears and it isn't me. He said it would not leave. Now you talk about confirmation. What we're doing is not bad stuff. It's a different perception of our relationship with all our relatives. And what they do with us just as much as we do for them or not. It's it's a it's a partnership. They're not our pets. They're they're our ally from the spirit world. And it's it's a different conceptualization entirely. But people think, Oh, that's just superstition. You just made that up. Sometimes people do. Sometimes people do. But if you've learned about it and you really understand it, you've got an ally that that's helping to protect you. That'll you'll kind of feel a nudge sometimes not physically necessarily, but you'll kind of get prodded or reminded of something just in time. And it'll help you. You come around the corner and oh, you know, these kind of things happen a lot once you get tuned into it. Breathing. And the thing of not only our relationship to Mother Earth, but all our relatives, the relationship with, and this is also in the energy field. So that's, it's something to think about when the plant people with standing ones breathe out, that's what we breathe in. When we breathe out, that's what they breathe in. We cannot live without the standing ones. And the same with all the other beings, we share that breath. And that's Mother Earth's breath as well. So that that relationship is really critical. And other than saying it, I think you just kind of have to be able to spend some time out. And many of you have already mentioned that you really do that. And it nurtures your spirit. And I know when when I've done that, you know, you sit out very, very quietly, and sometimes a bird comes and sits on a bow and talks to you in leaves. And you're sitting there thinking, I wish I could understand it. You know, and sometimes it's a matter of interpretation. Sometimes they're just saying hi. It's just kind of a little blessing. But it's affirming that you've got a relationship because they're they're willing to come near you and talk with you. I've sat one time we were sent out. And I just sat there and a granddaddy long legs came across a plant came over onto my knee, and then seemed to just kind of squat and look up at me. And I just kind of waited and waited. And all of a sudden, I had this whole image. And this is what Uskabe or Ojihozo told us, they will teach us if we're just patient and have the right kind of energy, the peaceful, not I want to swat you off because I'm uneasy about spiders. You know, it's like, wait a minute, it came over to me. And you just wait. And I had this whole image of the sun and the shafts of sunlight as spiders wet. And there I was told later, and then, after I took that in, it turned around, walked off, got onto the plant, walked away in despair. I mentioned that to somebody later, they said, Oh, yeah, there's there's a Native American story about spider throwing his web up because the sun kept disappearing. And and all the all the relatives were worried about losing father son, because they needed the light they needed the warmth. And spider threw his web around the sun to hold it so that we wouldn't forever lose it. Now, I've not come across that story. But apparently they had read it somewhere as a as a story from one of the nations at least. And and here it was, the spider had just taught me that because I know when we were kids, my folks would always say the sun was drawing water. They'd see those shafts and sunlight and all and they'd say, Oh, the sun's drawing water. But this was the reverse thing that spiders web was holding the sun in the sky so it wouldn't go away and never come back. So you can get teachings like that. And it's a matter of just kind of being peaceful and quiet and patient. Remember, it's out of the woods once in the winter. And just being very quiet and the chickadee actually trying to land on me. They'll do that. Yeah, I got too close to my eyes. I was a little worried there. The Apache call the chickadee the good medicine bird. Because it can be stormy and windy, a lot of snow and this little flock and they're just chipping away and they're and they're very friendly. They come very close to the flock of chickadees down at the other place. Right. So there's, you know, there's there's names for these beings because they learn some of the teachings because that's the energy that bird carries. And that's a very good and good medicine when you're having difficulty thinking chickadee and how it makes good times out of even stormy times plant in terms of trying to sense the energy field. Because the more senses you have in tune with it, just the quicker you're going to pick up on something. And you can walk in a room and you know immediately there's been anger there, you feel it. And nobody may be looking at you. There may be no body language right away. It's clear when you you feel it's it charges the air. And there's other who's been there anger in a room. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can also pick up other kinds of energy and you do it without thinking much about it. Energy from other people. Certainly that dog that came running in there this morning. What wonderful. Just exuberant energy friendly. Yeah. So that's part of it. And then it's it's more subtle. But if you have like houseplant and you get kind of stimulate, get the energy going and just try and feel and it's different around a bud than it is around a blossom. It's more intense around the bud, but it's closer in and around a blossom. It's a little bit if you if you try to go like this, you begin to feel where you hit the edges of it. Well, people have that energy field as well. So you know when somebody walks too close, and it feels you feel a little bit repelled, it's because they've come into your energy envelope that's outside of your physical body, but inter penetrate. And so that's that's part of being respectful to others that you don't intrude that far. And you got to kind of sense where it is. And some people's is way out and other people's is more compact. And that can change depending on their moods, what's going on with them. This is what Reiki is teaching people about working in the energy fields and also exactly and and and that's how you use it with other people. But also in ceremony, one of the things you do, especially if you're doing some healing work or something, one of the things you're doing is drawing in energy and focusing it with clear intention and clear focus. So it's not just a few civil energy. It's, you know, bringing it through and focusing it with attention intention. And the intention is to heal. And that that can be very helpful to so that we're going to do spoon bending. The purpose of which is to see a physical manifestation of you passing energy into a physical object and seeing what you do with it. Now you're not going to turn it into one figure eight or a pretzel or something, but you bend the handle or something. And it's something where you check it beforehand. That's that's hard. I couldn't do it without really reaming on it. I don't know if I could do it. But if you and I first learned this because the Air Force back in the 80s, the military has tested these kind of things for decades. They don't tell you that. But they've learned a lot of this stuff. They've tested it for their various reasons, mostly nefarious, but that's where they're at. But this Air Force Lieutenant or whatever he was, and there was a group of people a friend of mine had known about it when we went this was down in DC and that whole circle, not everybody, but most people and it was he kind of did this process of getting you to focus on the energy and drawing it and taking it through, which we'll do. And then then you forget, you let go of it. And you sit there in your chat with people and all she comes around, she says, you're ready. You're ready. You're ready. And when you're ready, and I had tested it every now and then it was just as rigid and tight. And after she said that, I had been chatting by then. Now, the Air Force guy said that they've been doing this a while, and then they were taking some of the pieces of metal and testing it. And what they were testing was, because they were trying to determine, was it just that someone was a lot stronger, or that was a piece of faulty metal. So they were testing whether there was metal fatigue, like you'd find in a piece that was worn or faulty somehow. He said the molecular change is different. So it was not metal fatigue that couldn't explain it any other way. And it was somehow a transference of energy that has real power. So let me tell you, you abuse this power. And it's going to come back around and but you. One thing the spirit world does not tolerate well is the abuse of power. And people get this kind of stuff. And then they say, Well, I'll just zap this person, you know, and they think they're having fun. If they bless you with some abilities, and some awareness and some knowledge, you best not abuse it. You use it only with deep respect or you just don't use it. Because you know, it is tempting. And we all kind of have a sense of humor and like to goose somebody while the way we've been doing it is fine. But don't misuse this power. I had someone got a little pissed at me and really tried to drain my energy for some months. And I had to protect myself because and it was just it was a grudge. And I will not say the person consciously. I don't know, because I think he could have done it consciously. But I think some people are doing this unconsciously. They're just they're pissed and they keep thinking about it. And they keep thinking I wish this or you can do something with energy doing that. So now you have to have enough self awareness that you watch your thoughts and your emotions. Because if you let them get out of control, and you hurt somebody, it sits on you. And over the course of time, energy circles, energy always circles. And it may come back to you not in immediate time. But over the course of time, as that energy has impacted others, that's what strengthens it. And so if it impacts somebody in a good way, it's going to eventually come back in a good way. But if it's impacting somebody in a hurtful way, eventually, it's going to come back not exactly in the form that you sent it out. So you may not recognize when it comes back. But it can come back. The spirit world does not tolerate as well. Exactly karma. It's the same idea as home. Yes, it's the same idea as karma. But it's exactly right. A lot of this knowledge is cross cultural. And so even if it's not specifically taught by an Abaddaki, these are things that indigenous cultures all over the planet have known because they've had 10,000 15,000 years. And they've learned this stuff over many generations and passed it down. They may have learned different techniques. But one thing you find is, some of the core techniques are the same, certainly for some of the healing with us. But there, there's different cultural matrix around it. So they may wear different kind of regalia, they may use different kind of tools there. But tools is a wrong word because they're medicine items, they carry energy. They're not like a wrench, just commercially made and stuff. But, you know, different cultures have different ways of doing it. And that's their own cultural context. But the fundamental core process can be the same. We'll talk about shamanism and stuff a little more. But that's, that's part of what that is, because that's been all the way around the planet for thousands and thousands of years, as long as there have been people living in groups. Years ago, in Western Europe, there was the same kind of understandings. They were the, the Wiccan practitioners, the Druids, there were tribal peoples who also knew these things. And then in the Middle Ages, they were what they called adepts. And they were, they were mystery schools and they were studying, the church was very threatened by it. And the church didn't allow it. So people started being burned, because it was considered outside the province of the church and therefore, of the devil or, but that was a different judgment system on a more ancient system. So that's, that's just, you know, the way it, the way it evolved. But yeah, Europeans also had a great deal of knowledge of this. And there was, there's, there was a guy from Africa giving a talk to a group one time and he was talking about his father, knew enough about the energy field and things that people could shoot a gun at him and the bullet wouldn't hit him, it would block and draw. He could intensify the protective shield enough that he could do that. And certainly I've never seen it. And, but this guy was standing here saying, my father can do this. And he's called a shaman, or the translation for shaman. The word shaman itself is from the Siberian Tungus language. And it means wounded healer. But it doesn't mean wounded the way we talk about it with trauma in ordinary reality. It's, it's part of a in more advanced work. The spirit world will wound you in a way to empower you. And that's a whole different dimension. We're not getting into that this weekend. But that's kind of what that means when you've gotten to a certain level of practice, the spirit world does something that it really is to put more power into you. But it's done, it's done in, in the other worlds. You're just laying on the floor. That's your, your journeying in the spirit worlds. And that's done differently. So, but, but that's what that term means. And it refers to those who have gotten to that level of, of knowledge or practice. But we had, we had similar, we had people, I'm sure, because we didn't live in a bubble. And certainly the Anishinaabe know of it. They talk about the, what's the, what's the term, the shaking tent ceremony. Yeah, yeah, and that really is shamanic. Yeah. So, and they, they journeyed from here. So, you know, we don't have any documents or things happen. One is growing agriculture, which caused people to start living in one place and then becoming urbanized. And when they started gathering together in a more complex social system, because there was a much higher population, they started evolving governance processes. Well, that even if you have a higher population and a more complex, a lot of people that have to be coordinated, it starts getting into a pyramid of control. Yeah, there's slavery then too. Well, it's not only slavery, but there's, there's a civil structure that you know, that, and, and from Europe, what came is that pyramid of control, where there's the masses, and then there's the supervisors, and then there's the administrators, and then there's the top dogs and, and so on. And it's both economic and power, political power. It's more, more scattered and smaller populations. There's not that need for that kind of level of, of control, of coordinating people. And it's not all malicious. It's to try and manage bigger populations and resources and how does everybody get taken care of? And then, you know, the other things creep into it, but it's, it's not necessarily maliciously intended at first, although it is with some. Thank you. But I thought it didn't hit me for a while, and you just explained it very well. That's part of what, and that's part of what came here. And it came from another culture that already had that sort of six dimensional. And they, they couldn't deal with these people who they were trying to make us farmers. That's right in the Jesuit relations. And we, they would get us all started and we'd be planting our seeds and stuff and they'd go out to the Indian camp because they wanted to do some ceremony or conversion or something. They'd be gone. They'd packed up and moved at sunrise, you know, and they'd get out there at eight and nine in the morning and everybody'd be gone, camp would be empty. And we wouldn't come back for three, four, six months. And they were very frustrated because how do you, how do you teach these people? We want to teach their kids reading and writing. We want to, at least their sons. And, you know, we want to civilize them. And jeep was they won't stay put. But it was also the whole civil structure. You know, we have land ownership. That was not a concept our people even had. So, you know, as you study cultures, that's part of what happened. A different culture came in whole different ways, whole different perspective. So land was a thing. We couldn't relate to that because we knew there was a living being here that nurtured us. So there was such a disconnect. And they had more and more population and they just kind of moved in because we weren't claiming the land. We didn't have documents. So, you know, it was free for the taken. And they, you'd come where you had gone to your maple sugar and camp and the trees would have been cut down. And you'd go where the fish were starting to run after the ice went out. They'd be a mill. And then you'd go where you had planted your your corn. And there was a farm there and their pastures and strange animals. And, you know, so more and more they took over more and more of those parts of our land where our resources were. And we were back further and further into the forest and toward the mountains. And then the tree cutters kept coming. And then the farmers were following them. And the the fur traders were all through there. And it was just a whole different concept of all our relatives. We're simply resources to be used and exploited. Whereas to us, we honored them. Yes they fed us. But we also tried not to overuse and to make sure they could regenerate. Just like we wanted to regenerate. So we moved around to not overuse the resources and to allow all our brothers and sisters to be able to recover. And we honored them with a tobacco offering, with prayers. You know, it was always done with respect. That was just you didn't dare not to. Because then if you if you didn't give respect to the deer when you took deer, the deer people would leave. And we needed them more than they needed us. So we we kept ourselves trying to keep ourselves in a good relation in the web of life. And we couldn't comprehend this whole other approach. We couldn't communicate because the concepts were so different. No, so at least in and to give animals and plants is equal status as people. I mean, they've done it in corporations. Why not do it to all our relatives? So yeah, there's I think what's happened is they've gone so extreme with the greed and the exploitation and the power over everybody that bubbling up all over are these little groups saying too much of that we need to go the other and really go the other way strongly to counter it. And so it's it is beginning. It's a revolution, but it's a soft revolution. But the more you can incrementally move that way, the better because it's a balancing again of forces of energies of the unseen powers that are really out of control. So that's that's some and in terms of energies also, there are visuals. And I find this hard to do. But they talk about if you if you get yourself against a neutral background. Some say it works better with a dark background like a dark curtain. Some say it works better with a lighter background. If you if you some people do it in the mirror, especially between your head and your shoulder, you can sometimes get a glimpse of your own energy field because it's coming off two surfaces at once. But you have to soften your perspective to do that. I mean, we tend to focus hard focus to see a cop to see a pen, you know, to pick something up or to relate to something. We're focusing sharply. In survival skills, what they teach you is to soften your focus. So you have to relax your eyes. And what you're doing is looking peripheral as well as center. And I save myself a few times when I was doing home visits way off up in Canaan, and I'm becoming home toward dusk. And I got where I would drive those back roads with the peripheral vision, rather than focusing right on the road, because a moose would step out. And you could prevent a collision sometimes because you'd see it in time, because they're black, they melt right in with the trees. But you'd see something move. You'd see a little something because you were looking that way, even though your eyesight looked like it was straight, you're using peripheral. Those who have limited peripheral vision, it's a lot, lot harder. But if you can relax your eyesight and look that way, you tend to see more and you can sometimes see a little bit of energy. And you kind of have to do it that way. And then you can, and I find that's really good for spotting wildlife. You look up across a field with really soft and vision, you'll see something that's just a different, it's a straight line when the trees are all up and down, or you see a little flicker of movement, or the color is different. The background is green grasses and dark trees, and you see just a glimpse of red. And you realize there's a fox there or the back of a deer. But again, it's that soft and vision that really helps you do that. So you're more aware of your surroundings when you're not focusing so hard. And as I said, it's the same. So if you rub your arms, your hands, and you put them out against, you can sometimes see the energy streaming off your brain. So try that. What you're doing is just getting a circulation a little more, getting the energy heightened up a little bit. And then just try it like against the blue curtain or against the dark cup or try a light surface if you need to. You'll have to experiment with what works best for you, but you'll see that energy flowing right off your fingertips.