Metta Knowledge For Peace, LLC

Rachel Mann, PhD founded MettaKnowledge for Peace to heal the effects of trauma, violence, and conflict in order to foster a lasting worldwide peace with the best tools from the western sciences, social sciences, psychology, Buddhism and the new shamanism in the West. More»

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Rachel is available to give one-hour shamanic healing sessions at Sacred Circle Books in Alexandria, Virginia once a month: the next date is Saturday, April 20 , 11:30-7.  To make an appointment, call 703-299-9309.

Sign up for the next Great Medicine Wheel of the New Earth workshop: East Power Workshop: Transcendence, Friday-Sunday, April 27-29 .  Limited space available. To register, click here.

Featured Native American Peacekeeper: Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo

Every season, I feature a Native American who has been offering teachings on how to foster peace and live in harmony with the Earth.  The Venerable Dhyani is a rare and almost undiscovered jewel in a world where the names of Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn and the Dalai Lama are well know…..click here for more.

Events of Interest

Premier showing of “Peace Village”, an award-winning documentary that conveys the spirit of teachings by indigenous Elders from throughout the Americas offered at the Elders Gathering at the Sunray Peace Village in Lincoln, Vermont.  June 22, 7-10 pm at Tibet House in New York City.  For more information, click here.

Elders Gathering 2012 at Sunray Peace Village, July 27 through August 1.  Lincoln, Vermont. For more information, click here.

About Rachel

I am an educator, scholar, writer and shamanic healer working to bring understanding about the causes and consequences of violence and conflict and in so doing, to help us all heal the world and foster peace.  My work is directly influenced by my lifelong spiritual practice in Buddhism and in new forms adapted into the West from Native American spirituality, sometimes called shamanism.  I am actively involved in educating westerners about the power, truth and efficacy of the spiritual and healing practices of both indigenous peoples and their new forms in the West.  I seek to put these wisdom traditions on the same footing as Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and the Muslim faiths.  Indigenous and shamanic spiritual traditions offer all of us something very unique in service of healing our world in these critical times. We need not let go of our own belief systems, religions, or cultures in order to benefit from their power. To this end, I also link the words and works of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other renowned peacemakers to the teachings of peace, healing and compassion found in shamanism and other indigenous wisdom traditions. more

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News and Journal

• Contribute to the Peace is the Human Way Project

  I am here to invite you to participate in creating a vision of our future in which we embrace the truism that peace is the human way.  What do I mean by this? I mean that if I were to walk in a room and ask a group of 20 people if they think violence is “normal,” they would adamantly disagree and say that peace is normal and violence is abnormal.  This is precisely the opposite of what happens in my university classes on the contributions and M. K. Gandhi and the Native American peacekeepers.  Indeed, they think violence is normal.

  Native Americans have experienced for 4.5 centuries how abnormal and destructive violence truly is.  With nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to, instead most succumbed to the desecration of their cultures and lands until the survivors were driven into prisoner of war camps often called “reservations.”  Others managed to survive by assimilating or by fleeing into remote areas and retaining what they could of their cultures.  A very few, like the Hopi, retained some semblance of their lands and cultures.

  From out of this destruction and despair, great teachers and teachings of peace have come forth.  Peace is the Human Way is a project devoted to putting their work and messages on the same footing as the contributions of great peacekeepers such a the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thich Nhat Hahn, the Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela.  In this newsletter, I am introducing you to this vision and inviting you to join me in building the foundation of a movement based on the compassionate and caring foundation of this spiritual wellspring that is native to this continent.

  The Peace is the Human Way project will be a digital archive and educational resource for scholars, educators, activists, and spiritual seekers of the contributions Native Americans have made and continue to make to promoting peace, nonviolence, and responsibility towards the environment.  It will compare and contrast these contributions to the works and actions of M.K. Gandhi and other well-known peacekeepers and activists in the 20th and 21st centuries.  The project will discuss how their perspectives support or challenge present day nonviolent movements and will link the discussion of environmental responsibility into a historical, anthropological, and religious studies framework with a particular emphasis on the Native American point of view. It will also situate the work and teachings of Native Americans in the emerging contemplative sciences movement in the West and will provide a forum for their voices to be heard.  To that end, it will put Native American teachers on the same footing as contemporary spokespeople for peace and Nobel Laureates such as the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.  I

  The project will also raise awareness of the struggles for survival and basic human rights of Native peoples.  It will make their history and religions more visible on the world stage and will advocate for their equality to other religions. In this way, this project will seek to improve the plight of Native peoples around the world that are so much under siege not only by corporate interests, but by many Christian missions whose aim is to demean and destroy Native religions and cultures.

  The project will be developed in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. Work will begin this year. Currently, the project has an international advisory board of both Natives and non-Natives committed to its mission.  If you are interested in contributing your time, expertise, or financial assistance, feel free to contact me by phone or email.  Join us in this powerful endeavor to free the world from violence!

• The Mountains are Alive: Why I Believe in Native American Spirituality

  On August 18, 1991, the day after my wedding to my now ex-husband, I woke up in a honeymoon hotel in Virginia Beach, Virginia to be greeted by my husband holding up the front page of the newspaper with a photo of Boris Yeltsin dancing on top of a tank in front of the White House, the seat of government in Moscow in the now former Soviet Union.  I had recently finished a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and literatures and had returned just a week before our wedding from a summer post-doctoral fellowship in Moscow.  During our ensuing week-long honeymoon on the island of Ocracoke, North Carolina, I was glued to the television while I watched the overthrow of the communist regime and the end of the Cold War unfold under pressure of peaceful protests by Muscovites against a military occupation fueled by then President Mikhail Gorbachev’s own ministers.  The Soviet leadership that had for decades maintained a well-deserved reputation for unrepentant brutality against and oppression of its own people, apparently relinquished the use of arms in the face of this powerful display of the innate human desire for peace and dignity. More»

• Walking in Balance: Sage, the Great Grounder

  Welcome to Walking in Balance, a section of the Peace is the Human Way newsletter that introduces practices from Native American spirituality to help us be more peaceful, heal,and connect more deeply with ourselves, others and the Earth.  Feel free to try them out!

  Burning dried white sage is commonly used in Native American practice to help us connect with the Earth, to clear heavy energies, and to enter a more heightened state of awareness.  Sage (Salvia Officinalis) has long been known to have medicinal properties. It is said to be antiviral and antifungal and has other curative properties, some of which have been studied by western medicine.  More»