The European mindset seems to insist on having gods and goddesses which
must
be supplicated and even feared, while what they consider as to be the
lesser
or primal mind sees the universe in an entirely different way.
Before European contact, the various Native North American tribes saw
what
the foreigners called "god" as to be a great and most sacred and all
surrounding and all permeating mystery. The tribal peoples unlike the
Europeans felt no need to give exclusive anthropomorphic definition to
what
may be defined as supreme sacredness. The tribal peoples believed that
the
Great Mystery resided equally in each and every aspect of nature including
humankind, in what they saw as and called "the sacred web of all life".
This
included the seen as well as unseen, the inanimate as well as animate.
The
people believed that each and every aspect of the natural world was alive
and had a life force and spirit of its own that could be communicated
with.
They believed that to address any specific entity in nature was to address
an aspect of the Great Mystery. Originally the term "all my relations"
referred to all within the sacred web of all life within the entire
universe. The people saw nothing as supernatural but all as natural or an
inseparable part of nature.
Jim
