Anne Wilson Schaef - Native Wisdom for White Minds: Daily Reflections Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World

When I pass a molehill, I say to myself: Down there is another who shows off his centric view of the world! What an ingenious way Anne Wilson Schaef has found in Native Wisdom for White Minds to take us out in the daylight of universal human wisdom!

Everlyn Nicodemus
Painter and writer
Born in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

In my being I know this book! The very printing of the words brings me closer to being what the essence of living means to me, as a recovering addict, recovering human being, recovering Maori warrior. To just be, at one with all the Creator has given, and to carry that message in being I sense this book has been shared with me, and many othersour whanauand I am warmed to the culmination of and gathering of this information.

Ihaia Briggs
Maori
New Zealand

Anne Wilson Schaef has been a friend to Native People for many years. Her writings are incredibly insightful. Many times, I think shes ten years ahead of her time. Her travels to homes of indigenous people all over the world allow her to have special insights that very few human beings have. The teachings of the Elders in this meditation book will help heal many people.

Don Coyhis
Mohican Nation

A One World Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright 1995 by Anne Wilson Schaef

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Owing to limitations of space, permission acknowledgments can be found on , which constitute an extension of this copyright page.

An album of recorded music inspired by Native Wisdom for White Minds is available from Narada Records.

One World and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.oneworldbooks.net

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Number: 94-96757

eISBN: 978-0-8041-5115-3

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INTRODUCTION

O Great Spirit, who made all races, look kindly upon the whole human family and take away the arrogance and hatred which separates us from our brothers.

Cherokee Prayer

A prayer for our oneness. This position of oneness is where most Native peoples begin, and it is always done with prayer. Everything is done with prayer.

For the past several years I have spent large blocks of time with Native peoples and most especially Native Elders. Intuitively, I knew this was what my mind and my soul needed.

I came to write this book as a white mind struggling to heal and find freedom.

It was many years ago that the concept of a white mind came into my consciousness. The first time I remember thinking of the term white mind was when I had the honor of getting to know Frank and Kate Fools Crow. Frank Fools Crow was a great Ceremonial Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Lakota people. Frank Fools Crow became a very important person in my life, and his influence and impact on me have continued to grow long after his death. Some of the most powerful ceremonies I have ever experienced were with him.

After one ceremony that was of particular importance to me, he sat and talked with me. He told me that in his first vision quest, he had learned that he was to bring healing to the white people and he felt that he had failed. He then said that he was giving this responsibility to me. I remember thinking, Of course you couldnt heal the white people, regardless of how powerful you are, because it takes a white mind to understand white minds. Theyre quirky.

I then promptly forgot everything hed said to me and anything Id thought at the timealthough occasionally the term white mind would resurface. Lately, though, when Ive been sitting with Native people, the phrase you white folks often comes up. I began to see that this meant something more subtle than people of the white race. You white folks did mean white people, of course. However, I also began to realize that you white people was referring to the whole perspective of Western culture and to the white minds trained in and wedded to Western civilization.

Native people know that white minds see, conceptualize the world, and think differently than Native minds. As Herb Kawainui Kane says, Primal cultures are essentially much alike, as proved by the universality of their myths; but worldviews, beliefs, and attitudes of primal societies are so fundamentally different from those of the modern Western society that what may be perfectly logical to one group may seem bizarre and incomprehensible to the other.

I have found what Herb Kane says to be true. Still, it is so difficult for white minds to really perceive these differences and appreciate them. This is because white minds are trained to believe that there is only one right answer, one right way of perceiving the worldand that singular way can only be mastered by minds trained in the Western scientific method of thinking. Unfortunately, Western cultures way of training our minds has resulted in closed-system thinking.

For example, in a closed system, white minds set up their world in dualisms. Its either this or that. Black or white. Right or wrong. This is a very limited and limiting way of thinking. In fact, Ive found that the use of the word but usually sets up a dualism. For myself, I try to use and instead of but to help my mind break out of the dualistic form. Ive tried to do this all through this book. Test it out for yourself. See what your mind does when you read an and where you think a but should be.

Why are we so afraid of acknowledging our white-mindedness? Why is there a seeming underlying shame in identifying ourselves as having a white mind? Why do we have such difficulty admitting we dont know and understand everything? Perhaps, part of the reason is that weve been taught that Western mechanistic science gives us the key to unlock the universe, and if there are realities for which this key does not work, those realities must simply be thought out of existence. This process of thinking that which is not understood out of existence is characteristic of a closed system. White minds, seemingly, only feel secure in a closed system.

White minds are often ruled by abstract intellectual constructs that get in the way of our accessing our universal minds or spirit. A white mind has been taught to break down its world into component parts in order to try to understand how things work. White minds reduce and isolate. They dont readily move into wholes or universality. They are hierarchical and mechanistic, and see nature as a force to be tamed and used up with no regard for the future. They cannot understand that they are a part of nature. They cannot see that nature is one with all of usa gift to be valued and sustained. White minds often have to destroy to understand or to accept what is.

Let me say here that its not only white people who have white minds. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s blacks often spoke of Oreospeople who are black on the outside and white on the inside. Native Americans speak of applesred on the outside and white on the inside. In the South Pacific, its coconutsbrown on the outside, white on the inside. We rarely hear these terms today because Native peoples the world over are beginning to meet and share their wisdom with each other. White minds have difficulty reflecting upon themselves because theyre trained to believe that the way they think is the only reality, and that they are the only reality. Yet, most of us have the capacity to transcend our white minds. We simply need help from outside ourselves to be able to move beyond our own limited views, and to reflect upon ourselves in a meaningful way.