Exploring Oral Tradition through Renewable Wisdom Trails
Written by Guy Gilleshammer, aka Lone Eagle Anishinaabe Métis
Renewable Wisdom Trails is an offering of vast and ancient knowledge passed from Elders in my tradition, as well as others. It is a portal into the realm of the ancestors, an alive and open space of exploration. Inside this place of long-lived wisdom is a bridge between linear ways of thinking and more intuitive forms of accessing inner knowing. What is encountered is not so much “how-to” linear teachings, but an ancestral flow of wisdom gained by keen observation and recognition of the natural world. We enter this primordial place by learning to relate the entirety of our being as part of Nature, not separate from it. Through this portal it is possible to access the wisdom at the center of one’s incarnation…and touch into and be touched by what bonds us together as a family with All Our Relations.
What has been handed down to me is essentially a responsibility to watch over the pattern of daily life and detail ceremonial observations whereby each of us can become conscious of the critically important role we play as part of Nature. The Oral Tradition I have walked with is about living in full kinship with all species contained in the natural world as part of our human experience. Our extended family of plants, animals, minerals, the land and sky, are part of our evolution on Mother Earth, and we theirs. The natural ecological cycles they co-habit can then be replenished by the trails we choose to live because we seek their permission to be part of them as they are part of us. Simple to say, but a whole other way to experience our existence on Earth.
It has taken many years to listen to and learn what renews and what doesn’t, what is toxic to one’s Spirit and what leads it to beauty. I learned to make conscious what part I play among the seasons and the elements, to realize the life force embodied in a river or a stone, or the life-giving energies in a cloud, are the same forces within a human body. I learned that it takes an unrelenting intention to live with a good heart by distinguishing between belief systems full of distortions and inner knowing, between the perpetuation of separation and the inclusiveness of ‘the everything’. Renewable Wisdom Trails defines this as the ‘wisdom of the in-between’ which gives humans the capacity to know themselves as a potent force aligned with Nature. It is dedicated to the delicate balance of cause and effect, respecting all the resources of life without human domination of one over the other.
In a sense, we are all ‘mixed blood’ and as such, have the capacity to be advocates of change upholding the love of creation in our ancestry. I see this ultimately as a transcultural journey. However, colonization and convention have brutally diminished this capacity for too long. Our origins are not just human origins, but the origins of the movement of the very energy of life itself. Identification with strictly mental ways of understanding has caused so much separation. Perhaps no time in human history has it been as crucial to realize our kinship with Nature than now. The disastrous disconnection from Nature can be seen all around us: overt pollution of air, water and land; obliteration of rain forests; the attack on natural systems of human health; large scale genocide of the animal world and their habitats. Without an embodied connection to Nature, humanity has created a powerful story lodged in some sort of unbalanced, archetypal model of domination, of ‘power over’.
Renewable Wisdom Trails represents the intention of Oral Tradition: to more appropriately observe our unfolding through living stories passed on that reveal layers of meaning which bask in Nature’s Way. It is expansive, inclusive and supportive of Nature’s Commons. Many are yearning to see more deeply into the inter-relatedness of ‘the everything’, to sit in the mystery of one’s inner and outer cosmos and peer into the incarnation of one’s human life beyond facts and figures and the acceptable norms. We see this as true medicine.
The groundwork being presented offers an embodied experience of natural laws and rhythms. There exists a range of access to Renewable Wisdom Trails as a means of passing on knowledge, both orally and in written interpretations. The written knowledge is as follows:
*A Lineage Library delineating Renewable Trails Cosmology;
*Research consisting of internal round table discussions and with other explorers of Nature’s Commons;
*The use of a Turtle Shell Petroform that utilizes a Twenty County system based on the ten toes and ten fingers of the human species. This helps to create passages between dehumanizing, rigid belief systems and a more personal authentication of inner knowing.
This is nested in Braided Traditions (www.braidedtraditions.com), which acts as the custodian of records. Sue “Dreamweaver” Spielman, a long-time apprentice, friend and colleague who has walked these trails with me, is the main knowledge keeper of this Natural Science of Oral Teachings. We intend to seek funding for publication of an Open Source Library as well as any other materials that provide a clear basis for residing in a living, foundational creation story….which is what Oral Tradition ultimately represents. The range of activities we offer can take the form of being part of a circle; participating in ceremony; roundtable discussions, ongoing teaching courses, etc. The main dedication of these activities is to support access to your incarnational journey by integrating this wisdom into your lifestyle, and/or deepening into further exploration. It is a fluid wisdom, in constant adaptation to the extraordinary movement in our world. If a requirement exists in walking these Trails, it is to have the intent to come back – again and again – to one’s natural state, the very essence of renewable wisdom.
We invite you to take the time to absorb our Creation Story (attached), and allow your spirit to open to the wisdom trails that acknowledge the teachings within my tradition.
All Our Relations~~~+
Guy “Eagle” Gilleshammer
Silver City, New Mexico
April 2021
