The Talking Stick

When Nathan, a Native American boy, moves to a new town the other children make fun of his long hair. With the help of his talking stick, Nathan teaches his classmates about his tribe and his way of life. Will the talking stick also help him make friends in his new home? Based on a true story, The Talking Stick is a tale for all ages and cultures. Includes tips for caregivers and instructions for making your very own talking stick.

Practices for openhearted speaking and devout listening to restore harmony in families, relationships, schools, workplaces, and communities • Details how to approach life with a listening heart and create a sacred space for communication • Offers exercises for new peacemaking circles, ceremonial ways to begin each circle, and peacemaker tools to unmask the needs and feelings behind conflict • Explains how to apply this practice in multiple ways, with groups large and small People are afraid of conflict: it is something “bad” that must be managed and resolved. In the face of conflict we focus only on facts--who’s at fault and who should be punished--rather than seeking to restore harmony. But conflict is inevitable and presents an opportunity to establish deeper connections with others. By learning to speak honestly and listen devoutly, we can overcome our culture’s hierarchical and punitive approach to conflict. We can learn to relate to each other in a sacred manner and create relationships and communities that are egalitarian, liberating, and transformational. Revealing that we are all peacemakers at heart, Steve Beyer details how to approach life with a listening heart and create a safe and sacred space for communication: the peacemaking circle, centered on the talking stick. Whoever holds the talking stick gets to speak. There are no interruptions, no questions, no challenges, no comments. People speak one at a time, honestly from their hearts, and they listen devoutly with their hearts to each person who speaks. And, as Beyer shows, the effect can be miraculous. The author explains how to apply this practice with groups large and small to deepen relationships, heal old wounds, and restore harmony among families, spouses, classmates, coworkers, and communities. Sharing stories from his work as a peacemaker, he offers exercises for new talking stick circles, ceremonial ways to begin each circle, and tools to ensure the telling of complete stories in cases of conflict. He addresses the nature of apology, forgiveness, and the urge for revenge, and he explores the spiritual challenges faced by those who walk the peace path. Exploring the shamanic roots of the talking stick practice, the author extends the lessons of the healing circle and the listening heart from our homes, schools, and communities into our relationship to spirit and the Earth.

Maska and Taima are two Native American boys who enjoy playing with sticks. When one special stick causes an argument between them, they learn about a different stick that is even more special. This new stick can actually solve arguments!

The Power of the Talking Stick makes the case that, reaching back to the beginning of the nation-state and all through the current period of corporate-led globalisation, our governments and social institutions have been engaged in activities that will ultimately extinguish the world's ecological life support systems. This book offers an alternative, listening to indigenous leaders and others whose voices often go unheard in the din of contemporary culture. Sharon Ridgeway and Peter Jacques offer a stark warning, but their insights are firmly grounded in traditional knowledge and provide a way to see past the politics and rescue the earth. An important resource for climate activists, students and academics.

Four women find humor, truth, romance, and a better path forward by deconstructing memory and emotion—and expose a wannabe cult leader along the way. Hunter is lost. Her husband left her for Angelica, her former best friend whose new hit memoir is spreading unsavory lies about Hunter. She’s unemployed with no prospects, and the San Francisco flea market she’s wandering on a weekday is so foggy that she literally doesn’t know where she is. It’s only after a helpful visit and a gift from a stranger who appears from the mist that Hunter finds her resolve. She begins a support group for women looking for new beginnings—only to have Angelica start one, too. In the next room over. One that feels very cult-y. The Talking Stick is the adventure of Hunter and the three women who join her reclamation journey. Together, they reexamine their pasts, explore their grief, addictions, parenting, and marriages, and discover that some of their most-cherished memories are romanticized versions of the truth. Meanwhile, they unearth other memories—memories that challenge how they’ve been living for years. And, with the help of a lawyer who prefers life on a houseboat to the pretensions of the city, Hunter unravels Angelica’s scheme. The Talking Stick is a fast-paced dramedy set in the Bay Area, told with the characteristic humor of Donna Levin, an author whom Kirkus called “A witty, modern voice” and the Los Angeles Times deemed “a novelist to keep high on your reading list.”

When two red foxes have an argument which breaks apart their community, a gentle buffalo decides to take a braid of sweetgrass to a local elder and asks her to help with a sharing circle for all the animals. Medicine Wheel Publishing is committed to sharing diverse voices and perspectives, creating a platform for stories that celebrate Indigenous cultures and inspire understanding and respect among readers of all ages.

This book is a collection of children's stories or lessons whose topics generally follow the church year beginning in September and ending with Pentecost. An overall aim throughout the stories is to lift up the Divine Image that is planted within each child in order to promote equality, justice, and the inherent worth and dignity of all children.

This is the story of a boy called Hohepa and how his efforts to create a talking stick reflect his desire to reawaken respect for the traditional ways in his family. Hohepa has a dream in which he is in the meeting house with his family. He is waiting for a talking stick to be passed to him so that he can speak, but there isn't one. His family begin to leave. He begs them not to go, but no one listens to him. When he wakens, Hohepa decides that he must make a talking stick for his family because they are forgetting the old ways. He chooses a piece of kauri, and works on it every day. Little by little the talking stick begins to take shape. What had seemed to be dead was coming to life.