Ceremony in the wrong place

There will be a "presentation" in Mt Shasta this evening discussing medicine wheels and earth healing and has been the practice a discussion of doing these things on the mountain in our sacred sites and what our old people called "our church". I ask the good people who claim to follow traditional religions to understand that medicine wheel ceremonies and certain other rituals are not native to this area of California and are offensive when done on places we pray for and at.

Please, when you are in another tribe's territory, ask before you set down a shrine or other religious icon in another peoples place. Do not assume, if you follow the "red road", that we all take the same stops along the way. One size does not fit all in tribal religions and cultures.

We are seeing more and more people coming from out of state into our lands and doing these things. We ask this: if you are a medicine person, what do your people at home do when you are traveling around or living in another state? How effective is your medicine way if you do not go to your own sacred places to gather your medicine that you are bringing to outsiders in foreign places?

I wonder why the Forest Service and local agencies are not stopping this type of activity when they place such strict rules on the local California Indian people. Is it because these folks say they are from BIA recognized tribes that you do not check their papers to see if they are in fact legitimate?

I worry for our sacred places and the waters of the high mountains when numerous people come flooding into to pristine watersheds and damage, albeit perhaps accidentally, the land they are using to make a dollar.

I hope that this reaches the ears of those who have, to date not heard, and that you consider what you are doing before you step into an area where you cannot speak to the spirits and whose spirit helpers you bring do not naturally get along with the locals. This is just food for thought. I hope that we can see a reduction in these intrusions and that people will go to their own lands for their own ceremonies and not abuse the places you think are not under the care of the locals.

The elders of our land here said the same thing as that in the below cited passage from the flier for tonight's performance, but that we have a place here to take care of first and foremost. Those who come to unite need to meet the local tribe(s) first before uniting the general public.

"The elders say according to traditions, part of their original instructions as human beings was to serve as Keepers of the Earth. They were also told that one day they would have to step forward in a time of extreme crisis to lead
-- to educate people about how to restore balance to the Earth–
About Shoshoni Elder, Blue Thunder, he has received this message and is willing to unite all cultures, belief systems, and races in prayer and sacred intent, to heal, unify, and shift the Earth and Her Peoples."

You can learn more at Blue Thunder's sites at www.teton-rainbows.com and www.spiritualelders.org