Sky Dancer

 

I am Wachiwi Mahpiya, daughter of Ptebloka Iyankapi and Zitkala To, sister to Wakuwa Pi Osiceca, "Sky Dancer" to the white man, and a medicine woman to my people.

 

I am Lakota Sioux.  My dad's English name is Steve "Running Bull" Cutter, my mother is Maggie "Blue Bird".  My Brother is Jimmy "Storm Chaser", and the name fits.  He was born after a major storm, which took out the power and uprooted a home or three.   I'm not saying he's destructive, but things do tend to happen around him.

 

As for my name, I suppose it's fitting as well.   I was born as thunder danced in the sky.   Also... I've never had a fear of heights, and after an incident one summer with a rope swing at the lake... well, people have good reason to call me Sky Dancer (there may be pictures somewhere if I haven't managed to burn them all).   The English name I was given was Maisey, and I hate it.   I introduce myself to people as Sky Dancer, or just plain Sky.  

 

I've done some modeling, at the urging of my friends in school, but it's not a passion. it's a dollar earned.  I'd much rather make a living doing what I was taught from the time I could walk.  Given the chance, I'll open an herbalist shop.  In the mean time, I'm slinging drinks in a bar called The Green Room, in Flagstaff, Arizona.   It's about as far from South Dakota as I can get.  Or have gotten, so far.  

 

Physical Description

Height: 5'8"

Weight: 127 pounds

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Brown

 

Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the Spirit world. A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

 

The term "shamanism" was first applied to the ancient religion of the Turks and Mongols, as well as those of the neighboring Tungusic and Samoyedic-speaking peoples. The word "shaman" originates from the Evenk language (Tungusic) of North Asia and was introduced to the west after the Russian forces conquered shaman Khanate of Kazan in 1552. Upon learning more about religious traditions across the world, western scholars also described similar magico-religious practices found within the indigenous religions of other parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas as shamanism. Various historians have argued that shamanism also played a role in many of the pre-Christian religions of Europe, and that shamanic elements may have survived in popular culture right through to the Early Modern period. Various archaeologists and historians of religion have also suggested that shamanism may have been a dominant pre-religious practice for humanity during the Palaeolithic Era.

 

Mircea Eliade writes, "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = 'technique of religious ecstasy'. Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. The shaman also enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds/dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. The shaman operates primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment.