This morning I burned sweetgrass.

Two very strong thoughtways with it.

First, I had a little round carved wooden box Granny brought back from Hawai'i for me.  I used to burn incense in it, and use it to meditate.  It was ?before boarding school? So I was 13 or 14.  My mom found it and threw it out, as it was a) a fire hazard, and b) evil. 

The first Elder who taught me how to burn sweetgrass, and sage, L. - and how grateful I am for having that knowledge now.

I know this isn't my tradition.  The thing is, I don't have a spiritual tradition.  Estonian folk beliefs got lost. I don't know what the Indigenous beliefs are from the other side of my family. I know that the family was christian. That saddens me.

I am looking for meaning in dreams, in burning sweetgrass, in thoughts and prayer. It isn't something that makes sense to me, but it is something that "feels right". 

I can't understand this change in myself. It's so nebulous.

I read recently about Native students feeling a need to "leave their Indian selves outside" when going to school.  They were talking about the discrepancy between dispassionate knowledge, and personal knowing.

It really touched something in me.  Western knowledge has this deification of the impersonal observer, and the epistemology centers around distancing oneself from the knowledge.

Brain knowing, heart knowing.

this is interfering with my school. I had better get back to work.

This is valid work.