mamatôwisin:
A Spiritual Practice
with
Nia Ininiwok
The Cree sense of mamatôwisin is “to walk in beauty” as described by the Diné People. It is a philosophy for living, it is not a religion, but it is deeply spiritual. It cannot be defined in words and is not an idea or concept. It may be lived but not seen, felt but not conceived, initiated but not categorized, intuited but not explained. It comes directly from the heart and is often communicated through story, dance, and poetry. It is “inscendent” (of the gene, not the brain) and transcendent simultaneously. To better understand this, we turn to both Indigenous cultures and contemporary voices for insights on what it means to live a life of mamatôwisin.
mamatôwisin: A Spiritual Practice
PART ONE: mamatôwisin: Awakening to the nature of things
In Part One we explore the meaning of mamatôwisin as an integral aspect of our spiritual self-realization. mamatôwisin reminds us that the moment of our birth is the beginning of a never-ending exploration of our origin story—of an awakening as Carl Jung intimates when he describes a beautiful view of the world where we come to understand the unfolding of our own personal myths that are awakening in each of us because we are no longer content with borrowed sunlight.
PART TWO: mamatôwisin: Balancing and unifying earth with sky
In Part Two we “story” mamatôwisin, coming to know that there is an implicit unity within duality as exemplified by the culture and lifestyle of the Inuit People of the far North.
PART THREE: mamatôwisin: Centering in the mandala of self and cosmos
In Part Three we turn to the Beaver People in Canada who lived mamatôwisin with a profound awareness of the cosmic cycles of the sun and moon that served as a constant backdrop to the seasons of their daily lives grounded within the mythic dimension of the “bush.”
PART FOUR: mamatôwisin: Becoming through sacred rites of transformation
In Part Four we sit together in mamatôwisin “dreaming” with the “The Glorians," the overlooked presences—animal, plant, memory, moment—that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world.
About Nia Ininiwok
Nia grew up on Turtle Mountain Reservation in ND (her Father’s Reservation). Her tribal ancestry is Cree. She has a Ph.D. in Literacy (as viewed from the disciplines of cognitive psychology and linguistics). Her master’s degree is in counseling, and her teaching experience is multileveled covering grades 5 to graduate degrees. As Department Chair of Indigenous Studies at Augsburg University her specialty became teaching Indigenous Spirituality and other interdisciplinary courses at Augsburg University in MN. Then, she was called to return to Turtle Mountain Reservation to begin the baccalaureate programs at the tribal community college, which is now named Turtle Mountain College. Her other specialty is teaching about historical trauma of Indigenous Peoples. She has worked with Reservations in MN, AZ, NM, MT, NY, ND, and Canada. In the early 1990’s she lived and worked with the Maori in New Zealand.
Program Details
Dates:
4 Tuesdays: Jan. 5 - 26, 2027
Time: 9:00 - 11:00 AM LA / San Fran 10:00 - Noon Vancouver | Noon - 2:00 PM Eastern