Sacred Relatives with JT Shining Oneside

When you think of sacred relatives that includes everything that’s part of your everyday life and whether it whether it’s going to school uh going to Grandma’s house uh walking to Grandma’s house or Grandpa’s house or your aunt or relatives home and outside as you’re stepping outside you step on to our Earth mother that’s our mother earth and as you’re walking along you have other relatives out there which is the trees and the grasses maybe it’s the snow uh the birds singing they all have messages for you if you stop to listen you’ll hear their messages and it could even be the water itself cuz that is your relative because without water there is no life and all of these elements that we have earth water air and fire they all need protection they all need help because without them we cease to exist as a people and so when you think about sacred relatives I always uh many times when we pray we pray for the swimmers everything that in the waters and as aabi we came out onto we spent a lot of our time on canoes so we spent a good majority of our time in the waters and we did a lot of fishing spear fishing uh we did we caught a lot of fish and we also harvested a lot of that and kept it you know to get us through the winter months and we also have um the four-legged and I know that I have a uh female buffalo skull at home and she has come with me uh for when I have been on my hbla um Vision questing she’s been there with me when I uh am in the doo swan in the sweat lodges when I travel away from home shei comes with me or I go to the Thirsty dance Sund dance she comes with me and she watches over the uh sweat lodge you know as protection and when we think of the mushade biki the Buffalo the four Legg we always remember that is about respect and that’s n number one within our under um seven sacred laws that we have seven sacred teachings uh they help us to um keep balanced and stay connected to the Creator and so those four-legged are very important because we even have the Bing gun if you think about uh your relatives your people the ones that you came from you might not know it but there might be uh somebody in your family that has those dreams of the wolf and the Wolf becomes uh and it’s just not the wolf but that also becomes part of who you are and who what you’re able to do as far as uh taking care of other people and helping them you know if they have bad dreams maybe they suffer from uh seizures they have epilepsy uh anything like that there’s so many things that the four-legged do for us that uh without them we wouldn’t exist and then you have the winged and the winged is all of the Birds and the one that flies the highest and we are told that we are to be like the megaz the bald eagle we’re like to be like the eagles because they fly highest to gishi manitu to the Creator and they are up there and in times of storms troubles they’ll just stay up there and they’ll float up there until the storm is over so that’s what we’re told to be like to be like the magazi and uh stay above our struggles and hard times until it’s over and we will surely get through it the crawlers are everything that crawls and even the snakes uh the guinea big the snakes they take care of the medicines and it said that if a guinea big shows up while you are getting medicine there’s a reason that it’s showing up and to have that manad Mo in that respect to know that there’s you know to understand why it’s there what is it protecting and maybe it’s not time for you to pick that medicine that mus Kiki one and we also have the um that I mentioned the Crawlers that you know that we learned from the ants as well about our Villages and those different things so all of those connections I mean even to the Rock Nation because you have the Rock Nation uh you have the water Nation you have all these nations among nations that are out there and they all have a significance to us