Native American Healing And Spirituality Religion Essay

Native American Healing And Spirituality Religion Essay It is a long held belief that Native Americans migrated to the Americas from northeast Asia, hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. Their culture and religion travelled along with them and were further developed and transformed over time according to the environment and region in which they finally settled. Together we will examine some of the different spiritual and religious beliefs and healing techniques that have remarkably withstood the test of time. In modern European and American cultures, examining both healing and spirituality would result in a rather broad spectrum. But in traditional Native American culture that many still honor today, healing and religion are very much hand in hand. To heal the body, one must simultaneously heal the soul. All healing ceremonies begin with prayer and are led by a medicine man. We will refer to healers in general as healers rather than medicine men or women simply because there are far too many terms in different languages and nations that would in some way translate into medicine men or women. In different Native American cultures, healers do much more than just heal. They are the spiritual leaders of their people. To an English speaker, a medicine is something used to treat disease or enhance well-being. Native Americans accept this definition, but in the context of traditional culture, the word medicine has a much broader and richer meaning. Medicine means the presence and power embodied in or demonstrated by a person, a place, an event, an object, or a natural phenomenon (Cohen, 2003, p. 27, para. 5). Healing and religion, in traditional terms, is deeply rooted in the natural world. Nature itself has incredible healing powers. From the many trees, plants, and roots that are important curative ingredients, to the simple practice of walking along and reveling in the beauty of the tremendous gift our Great Creator has given us, it is all good medicine. In fact, the practice of walking amongst nature and allowing your spirit to communicate with nature has a name; it is called, walking the truth. Walking the truth means to walk a spiritual path through life and remaining in motion; that is, realizing that spirituality is dynamic rather than passive. The spiritual person does not meditate in a cave waiting for enlightenment. Instead, he or she values what Tibetan Buddhists call meditation in action, a spirituality that is fully engaged with life (Cohen, 2003, p.92). There is also another reason for walking with nature, to locate and obtain herbs, plants, and roots that aid in the healing of common ailments. For instance, if you come down with a stomach ache, you might try chewing some pine resin. Or if your child develops Thrash, try boiling some bark from a Persimmon tree and using the infusion to wash his or her mouth (Speck, 1944). There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of natural remedies that have been used for thousands of years by indigenous peoples. They may sound absolutely absurd to a modern physician, but one must respect the fact that there is a reason for their continued use; they work! Another important concept in Native American healing and religion is finding and understanding your own spirit and getting oriented in the realm of the sacred. The sacred hoop and the four winds represent everything in the natural world. Think about all of things in nature that are spherical in shape: the sky, clouds, stars, the sun, the moon, rain drops, snowflakes, and even nests of birds. The evolution of life itself begins, comes full circle, and in the end the spirit goes back to where it came from. The four winds represent the power of nature. The power of wind can move, at will, all other basic elements of nature. The four winds are also indicative of breath. We humans, and a lot of other creatures, cannot live without it but for a few minutes. In medicine wheels, the four winds are represented by the four directions: north, south, east, and west. Each direction represents qualities that contribute to spiritual health and harmony. East represents birth, new beginnings, spiritual renewal and development. The south represents growth and youthful energy. The seeds that are planted in the east come to bloom in the south. The west represents the autumn of life and is a place of spiritual vision and transformation. We stand facing west to give thanks to the Great Spirit for all the blessings of life. The west is also where we prepare for the sacred journey; the journey our body takes back to Mother Earth and the journey of our spirit back to the Great Creator or Spirit. North is the direction of wisdom and old age. North is where we examine all of lifes struggles and challenges. We focus on the wisdom of coming full circle with life, the lessons of this world and the cleansing of impurities created by it, all in preparation for the next world. Just as medicine wheels are located in places considered sacred, all healing must take place in a setting that is conducive to healing. Blessing and smudging are essential in making the home or setting where healing is to take place ready. Smudging is taking the ash of foliage such as cedar or sage and rubbing a small amount on all participants of a healing ceremony. Smoke from the burning foliage is allowed to spread through the area and also waved over the heads of the participants. The smoke and scent is believed to help purify the space of toxic and negative energy, feelings, thoughts, and spirits. The smell of nature also invites and welcomes healing power and positive energy. Not all plants are intended for smudging and they vary by tribe. According to Milne and Howard(2000, p. 545, para. 3) Ceremonies may address specific illness and life problems, or they may be prophylactic; they may be intended to ameliorate the cause of suffering, or they may be intended to enhance health, the quality of social relationships, and financial well-being. Praying and chanting is an important ingredient in religious ceremonies as well as healing ceremonies. In traditional Native American, praying begins and ends each and every day. Praying with friends and family is done regularly. Praying heals the spirit and strengthens ones faith. Healing chants are usually performed by close family members who have gathered around a loved one who is seriously ill. Chants are also performed during meditation sessions, pipe ceremonies, and in sweat lodges. Sweat lodges, or purification lodges, are one of the oldest of Native American ceremonies. The sweat lodge is a place of physical and spiritual purification and an occasion to commune with the great forces of nature-earth, water, fire, and air-and the Great Spirit who created them (Cohen, 2003). Participants sweat away illness, pollution and negative thoughts and energy. According to Cohen (2003, p. 257, para. 4), The ceremony is generally divided into four rounds, after each of which the door flap is briefly opened to let unneeded forces out and to allow refreshing energy in. Many attend a sweat lodge ceremony on a weekly basis. It is a place of incredible spiritual rebirth and mental and emotional clarity. In recent years, medical anthropologists have taken a closer look at the traditional medicinal practices of Native Americans, how those practices interact with modern medicine in the United States, and how they are perceived and used by Native Americans. One project that has made incredible strides into understanding these differences is called the Navajo Healing Project. One of the most striking ways in which this complexity is evident is in the large area of Navajo life in which religion and spirituality are intimately entwined with health care and healing. Indeed, healing is the central theme of Navajo religion, while the sacred is the central element in Navajo medicine. Just as Navajos orient themselves geographically within a territory defined by four sacred mountains aligned with the four cardinal points, today they orient themselves medically in a field of vital interaction among four modes of healing: conventional biomedicine, Traditional Navajo healing, Native American Churc h (NAC) healing, and Navajo Christian faith healing (Csordas, 2000, p.463, para. 1). Happiness has always been and will always be the best medicine. While modern physicians focus on the battle for the cure to an illness, native healers feel that it is best for the patient to focus on the positives in ones life-family, love, spiritual health-all the things that bring pure joy to us all. Native healers realize that joy of life is the best medicine and patients should keep their attention drawn towards the gift of life and not towards the repercussions of particular indulgences. It is true that some things are not truly healthy but focusing inward and listening to our inner spirit and letting it guide us is the best way to stay healthy and happy; maybe that is the reason the Great Spirit gave us twice as many ears as mouths. Listening is the key to wisdom and understanding. If only we could merge the ethical values of Native American healers with the technology and science of modern medicine, we might discover a deeper sense of healing and stronger medicine for all peop le.

Purpose of a SWOT Analysis Essay

Every business to include the largest ones that control their areas of industry–has a limited supply of manpower, production capacity and capital. Evaluating the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats helps it determine how to allocate these resources in a manner that will result in the highest possible potential for revenue growth and profitability. The management team examines where the company can compete most effectively. The company more times than not discovers competitive strengths that have not been fully utilized in the past in addition to critical areas that needs to be improved in order for the business to more effectively compete. A realistic assessment also prevents strategic blunders like entering a market with products that are clearly inferior to what well-entrenched competitors are offering. Continuous improvement in all areas of a company’s operations is an important aspect of staying ahead of competitors. Weaknesses and opportunities can–and must–be turned into future strengths. PURPOSE OF A SWOT ANALYSIS 3 Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is a necessary, straightforward standard that assists in direction and serves as a foundation for the development of business’s marketing strategy. It brings about this process through assessment of the organization’s strengths (what it can do) and weaknesses (what it cannot do) in addition to opportunities (potential favorable conditions for the company) and threats (potential unfavorable conditions for it). SWOT analysis is also an important step in the planning process but sometimes its value is often minimized in spite of how simple it is in creating it. The role of SWOT analysis is to take the information from the environmental analysis and separate it into internal issues (strengths and weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats). Once this is completed, SWOT analysis determines if the information indicates something that will assist a business in meeting its objectives (a strength or opportunity), or if it identifies an obstacle that must be overcome or minimized to achieve desired results (weakness or threat). The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to get managers into the mindset and thinking about everything that could possibly be an impact to the success and failure of a new project. Failing to acknowledge an essential strength, weakness, opportunity or threat could and usually does lead to terrible management decisions. Take for example, a software company that might hold a patent for a new computer processor failed to recognize a threat from its competitors who were also developing comparable products, it might overestimate conceivable sales of its new processor and assume debt to finance the growth of its project only to notice down the line that the company’s promising product will not make enough money to make a profit or even pay off the assumed debt. A SWOT analysis could have helped this company’s management avoid expensive mistakes early on and alerted them to which products were more likely to succeed. PURPOSE OF A SWOT ANALYSIS 4 With SWOT’s origins dating back to the 1960s with Albert Humphrey, it is as useful now as it was back then. Businesses utilize the process in two different ways-as an easy icebreaker assisting individuals come together to â€Å"kick off† strategy development or as a more serious strategy tool. A great SWOT analysis case study is Starbuck’s Coffee. By 2010, the company was losing money and had a major drop in its stock price. Its stock price had dropped to around $10 in 2009 from its high of $35 a few years earlier. The economic crisis throughout 2008 and 2009 really hit Starbucks’ stock price hard (â€Å"SBUX Basic Chart | Starbucks Corporation Stock – Yahoo! Finance,† 2011). Even though Starbucks’ stock price took a huge hit, its net revenues did not. Starbucks’ profits went from $7. 8 billion in 2006, to $10. 4 billion in 2008, down to $9. 8 billion in 2009, and back up to $10. 7 billion in 2011 (Starbucks Corporation, 2010). The amazing thing here is that the company endured an economic crisis and still come out stronger than when its stock price was at its highest. Lauren Roby (2011) performed a well researched SWOT analysis of Starbucks covering this time frame and identified the following strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths: #1: Market leader in the coffee industry including almost 17,000 stores as of the end of the 2010 (Starbucks Corporation, 2010). #2. Starbucks is recognized by customers worldwide due in part to its high quality products and consumer friendly environment. #3. Starbucks is on good footing financially. Its stock price might have fallen in the late 2000’s, but its profits barely took a hit (Starbucks Corporation, 2010). Weaknesses: PURPOSE OF A SWOT ANALYSIS 5 #1: One of Starbucks’ biggest weaknesses is what its customers have to pay for the product. McDonald’s uses Starbucks’ high price directly against the company in their attempts to lure customers away from the company and into the arches. #2: 75% of the company’s profits come from its coffee products and other specialty drinks (Starbucks Corporation, 2010). This means that when global coffee bean prices fluctuate, the company will take a direct hit every time the price of coffee rises. Opportunities: #1. International Markets. With Brazil being one if not the world’s largest coffee consumer in the world, it offers a huge market for Starbucks to enthusiastically enter and develop (Murphy, 2011). #2. Starbucks has joined forces with Tata coffee in India, which is the fifth largest exporter of coffee, to begin selling their coffee worldwide (Bose, 2011). This gives Starbucks more access to coffee. Threats: #1. Competition. One of Starbuck’s biggest competitors, McDonald’s, can open their McCafe brand beverages in current franchise stores globally to include Europe. This gives McDonald’s an upper hand on Starbucks who has to invest over $300,000 to open a brand new store in Europe while McDonald’s investment would run around $100,000 (Liu, 2009). If McDonald’s continues down this path, it could greatly reduce the geographic scope advantage that Starbucks currently has over McDonald’s. These days, It is not enough to just recognize the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business. In exercising a SWOT analysis it is essential to reduce or avert both PURPOSE OF A SWOT ANALYSIS 6 weaknesses and threats. Weaknesses should be viewed as something to be turned into strengths as threats should be turned into opportunities. Strengths and opportunities should be allied to optimize the business’s potential. Utilizing SWOT in this manner can help a company gain the leverage most so desperately need these days. (Ferrell, Hartline, Lucas, Luck, 1998).

The Sole Method You Should Be Using for Examples of Process Essay Topics Uncovered

The Sole Method You Should Be Using for Examples of Process Essay Topics Uncovered Process essays are popular concerning assignment in schools as it is quite useful in our day-to-day lives and it supplies a practical approach too. Your essay might incorporate the explanations for teen pregnancy and talk about the present rates of teen pregnancy and potential solutions. College essays might be of various styles and might serve slightly different purposes. Example college essays can be quite useful in terms of formatting, language usage, and fashion. Top Choices of Examples of Process Essay Topics Main paragraphs of your essay should have a list of steps the reader should take to accomplish the end result. The real key to the process essay is that the reader does not need to jump around the piece seeking to get the significance of a specific phrase or abbreviation whilst still attempting to get to comprehend the approach. It explains stages in a sequence, which is why transitio nal words are to be used as well. Basically, a process analysis essay is a how-to paper which should inform readers about how to do something and teach them essential things to do to reach certain objectives. What Is So Fascinating About Examples of Process Essay Topics? Some students prefer doing everything by themselves, but the issue is that a number of mistakes are overlooked. Whatever subject you pick, teachers expect you to submit a thorough and total account of the way to undertake a specific activity. To begin with, find out more about the process you're likely to be explaining. The process essays are generally written for companies or people who need tutorials. The secret to a very good process essay is making sure the different phases of the processes are transitioned in a way that does not feel superficial. In case you haven't already mastered the process, it'll be tough to learn and compose all at one time. Each course of action differs. Evidently, every appro ach differs. The True Meaning of Examples of Process Essay Topics The cost of an essay rides on the quantity of effort the writer has to exert. Even in case you have a suitable example, essay writing does take plenty of effort and time. The essay topics are categorized in various groups only for the ease of readers. When you've decided on this issue and the chief notion, you should examine the examples of essays of the same sort. It is going to be easy when writing something which you're knowledgeable about. It is possible to select a wonderful topic and begin working on that assignment. It is probably that a man or woman may not locate a specific topic interesting which others might. The Fight Against Examples of Process Essay Topics You may also profit from our on-line thesis statement examples and writing assistance if you must finish your paper fast. You are able to also learn to tie the many regions of the paper together to supply a cohesive reading. Feel free to request adjustments if you believe that any component of the paper fails to satisfy your expectations. Any expository paper has a particular tone and manner. Don't neglect to keep each one of your paragraphs and sentences short and make certain that your words are a breeze to comprehend. For example, if a specific step has a lot of moving parts, writing a distinct paragraph to discuss it's a wise decision. Now, you are going to want to compose your outline. No matter whether you require thesis statement examples for a persuasive essay or any type of writing assistance, you're in the proper location. Since it's such a huge subject, you are going to want to narrow your paper down to a particular angle. Don't be afraid to get some additional support to create your paper stick out! If you wish to succeed in delivering an outstanding paper, you should begin with getting acquainted with its definition. There are two kinds of process essays. If you believe you are content with the stream of the essay you've written, you might publish it with ease. You may also perform many experiments for your Process essay and you'll have many aspects on that particular process and you may easily compose a top-class Process essay. A methodical strategy is required to compose a process essay. Your pick of process essay topics is important. The above mentioned process essay topics list will make it possible for you to compose the very best process essay for colleges and universities. There are several different topics that one may use in writing process essays. Deciding upon a topic for the informative essay isn't a troublesome matter to do, provided that you understand what you will need.

Vaccinations And The Prevention Of Infectious Diseases Essay

Kristen DeFlorio Student ID: 22339369 Introduction to Biology, SCI120 Research Project Number 25011100 11/29/2016 VACCINATIONS Throughout history, vaccinations have been used to help the prevention of infectious diseases; some of which can produce serious illnesses, crippling disabilities, and ultimately be the cause of death. There is evidence of ancient culture’s attempting to treat transmittable diseases with various forms of inoculations. Developments in the research of vaccinations increased during the mid-twentieth century because of the established of more advanced laboratories, improved equipment, and new innovations. The progression of medicine during history has helped further the development of research into vaccinations. Several cultural, ethical, and religious issues have resulted from the development and use of vaccinations in our society. The topic of vaccinations has caused a strong debate amongst our culture about the safety and danger of treating infectious diseases with such methods. Through the understanding of infectious diseases, researchers have been able to create several types of vaccines to help prevent a variety of life-threatening illnesses. Scientists develop immunizations using different techniques to treat diseases. These types include: live, killed, toxoids, subunit, and conjugate vaccines. Vaccinations that are the live type use a specific process which when administered will expose the patient to the actual disease, but in a muchShow MoreRelatedImmunization Program And Its Effect On Children1107 Words   |  5 Pagesmedical technology, and healthier lifestyles. Moreover, development of vaccines for numerous infectious diseases and implementation of immunization program in early childhood have reduced number of infectious disease such as rubella, polio, and small pox. 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One of the best ways is a new way using DNA to customize a way to stop viruses in people. With new technology DNA is being able to be used in our vaccinations. DNA vaccinations offer many different and effective ways to stop viruses and prevent them from recurringRead MoreVaccination1215 Words   |  5 Pageshave declined tremendously and in some diseases, there are zero cases to report. b. Thesis Statement: Research shows that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks because vaccines can prevent serious illness and disease in individuals, vaccinations can also prevent widespread outbreaks of diseases in populations and the side effect of vaccinations, though occasionally serious, are vary rare. c. Preview of Main Points: i. The benefits of vaccinations far outweigh the risks and vaccines doRead More The Impact of the Tuberculosis Vaccine Essay1630 Words   |  7 PagesTuberculosis Vaccine Abstract Tuberculosis is one of the most infectious diseases in the world. 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