Inside Sacred Fire Issue Five:

The Ice is Melting
This address to the United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit calls for reconciliation and realignment with the laws of nature.
Chief Oren R. Lyons
Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, representative of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy and a tireless advocate for indigenous rights and sovereignty issues.

Ritual: Correcting the Damage of Modernity
Rituals can be brief moments of connection or multi-day choreographed events, and the power of invocation is real. Can modern society handle it?
Dr. Malidoma Patrice Somé
Shaman, Diviner and Initiated Elder of the Dagara people of Burkina-Faso in West Africa; author of  “Ritual: Power, Healing and Community,” and “Of Water and Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman,”

Spiritual Practice in a World at War
From the frontlines of social activism to the frontlines of Iraq, people are finding contemplative spiritual practice as a way to be more conscious and effective in action.
Richard Reoch
President of Shambhala International, a global community of over 170 Buddhist meditation centers and groups, and former Public Information Officer of Amnesty International.

Opening the Sacred Doorway
An American acupuncturist discusses his journey into Huichol shamanism and how any serious spiritual path requires a teacher. 
Eliot Cowan
Tsaurririkame (Shaman) in the tradition of the Huichol Indians of Mexico’s Sierra Madre and author of the book “Plant Spirit Medicine”

Aloha, the Breath of Love
A meditation on the source of all things. You don’t have to be Hawaiian to feel the spirit of place.
Kahuna Lei’ohu Ryder
Award-winning peace-worker and Hawaiian Kahuna;

Relating to the Sacred
It’s easy to lose the sense of the sacred in the modern world. What can we do to regain our relationship with Divine?
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Distinguished Tibetan Bon master appointed by the Dalai Lama to be the Bon representative to Tibet’s government in exile

There is No Sufi Here
Why you can never find a Sufi, the power of the Dances of Universal Peace and the true meaning of jihad.
Shaykha Tasnim Hermila Fernandez.
Mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace and trained Semazen (whirling dervish) in the Mevlevi Sufi tradition.

The Path of Fire-Filled Devotion
Thirty-four years of studying and translating Sanskrit texts inspires a lesson on the Path of Fiery Devotion, the Path of Grace.
Shyamdas
Ecstatic Kirtan singer, practitioner of Bhakti Yoga, and Sanskrit scholar specializing in the devotional texts of India

Nature Spirits, Ancestral Spirits, and the Sangoma
Could the solution to what ails the world lie in investigating the beliefs and methodologies of the ancestors
Colin Campbell
Diviner and Sangoma (Shaman) in the Mbukushu tradition of southern Africa, whose practice as a traditional African doctor relies on living in alignment, respect and deep connection with the Spirits of Nature.