How do traditional Native Americans seek closeness/union with Spirit?
For traditional Native Americans, there is no separation between the sacred and the ordinary. Every act, every thought, walks hand-in-hand with Spirit. The hunting of a beast for food is a dialogue between the hunter and the spirit of the animal. Agriculture is an honoring of the spirits of the plants and the fruitfulness of the earth. Human sexuality mirrors and participates in the masculine and feminine forces present in all the earth and the skies beyond. For traditional Native American religion, almost every act could be considered ritual, since each act is consciously tied to Spirit. How can this be? For Native Americans (like primal or earth-based religions all around the world) the world of spirit and the world of physical appearances lie close together, intersecting at innumerable points, neither distinct from the other. Actions in the everyday world impact the spirit world — things done in the spirit world impact this world. At the Niman Kachina rituals of the Hopi, men put o
