Traditional Teachings

Grandmother,

Your Love is the Plain

Where Sweet Waters Run

And Buffalo Graze.

Teach Me how to Walk

How to Walk in the Good Way

So I can Live with You

Forever in this Place.

The tipi has long served as a traditional gathering space for all sorts of social activities, including everything from ceremonial meetings to daily life. This traditional way of living persists to this day, as the medicine way becomes even more important in modern life. In the photo to the right, indigenous leaders and elders from all over the world are gathered in a dome - akin to the modern tipi - to share their wisdom with the public. Following the prescription of our ancestors, ECA celebrates and practices this traditional way of gathering the people.

Song of the People
The Tribe's Heart Is Strong
It Beats Out It's Song
Raising The Spirit
Gathered as One
Around The Drum
The People Have All Come
To Hear It.
A Union Between
Yourself and All Things
Is Forged in the Sound
Of your Heartbeat
So Dancers - Grow Light -
Join Eagles in Flight
While the Earth
Shakes Under your Feet.
-Broken-Feather-

To Live Truth

'To Live Truth' is the core principle of ECA. To live truth is not an easy thing to do. It calls for every last one of us to strive to live our highest ideal expression of ourselves. Truth is not something that is taught. It is something that lives within. To find it, we must peer into our hearts, discover our inner world, and listen to the silent voice that commands the dream we are living. Only then will we know truth. But our path does not end there. Now we must answer the calling of our hearts, and live the life we are intended. All ECA functions are intended to serve this purpose.

Traditional Medicine

A Medicine Wheel is an ancestral healing tool, used by traditional cultures throughout the world, to assist in relating to nature. Community members are encouraged to participate in healing ceremonies and bring their unique contributions to honor the land and its people.

Medicine Wheel at Junebug Jamboree.
A place where community members can come to connect with life.

An Earth Community is one that is grounded in the wisdom of our ancestors, and strives to attain harmony and balance in all its relations.

In The Words of Our Elders

"We are going where the air always clean, the grass is always sweet, the water is always fresh, and the sun always blesses" (Black Owl) Heaven, earth, fire and water - essential elements for life. Respect for these is vital.

Manifesting this world described by the shaman is the true work of ECA. To accomplish this, we appeal to the true guides of ECA - all our relations- whose wisdom lives within. We are all born of the natural elements that house the spirit of life. They guide us in our decisions. We are connected to our world through them. We understand ourselves and our world through them. Their strength is within us. The bless us with their powers. Their wisdom prescribes the medicine for the world. The preservation of the systems that support life are central to our calling.

ECA founders were present for the gathering of the elders when Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim (eldest female of the Rouge Indian Nation spoke to our people) when she said to our people - "We are the medicine people." Our founders were there when Chief Lyons - Chief of the Iroquois - said to our people, "You are the leaders of this movement." ECA takes its responsibility to the earth and its first nations seriously.

The medicine power of the planet flows through us. ECA volunteers are medicine people, serving in their own way, for the benefit of natural life.

ECA's contribution is in creating an atmosphere where people can practice the many faceted arts of the medicine path.

The medicine path may be walked by anyone, although it may be very challenging. Life has many lessons for us, and there are just as many medicines. But our elders are very wise, and their stories impart remarkable insights, which provide instruction for humanity to live. There story helps us understand our place in nature and how the medicine power works within us.

-Ahau