During this plenary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq and Mindahi Bastida will share their wisdom, experience and insights around the following questions:
With a 5 minute opening blessing from Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr. is an enrolled member of the Ihanktonwan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations and is an internationally recognized leader in human, community, and economic development. During the past 54 years, Chief Lane has worked with Indigenous Peoples from the Americas, Micronesia, South East Asia, China, India, Hawaii, and Africa. He served 16 years as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (1980-1996). In 1982, Chief Lane co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) with Indigenous Elders and Spiritual Leaders. As well, Phil is Chairman of Four Directions International and Compassion Games International.
Chief Lane has been the recipient of multiple awards and recognition. He was the first Indigenous person to win the prestigious Windstar Award, presented annually on behalf of the late John Denver and the Windstar Foundation. In 2000, he received the Year 2000 Award for Freedom and Human Rights awarded by the Swiss Foundation. Other winners of this award include Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, the Dalai Lama, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Yevgeni Velikhov, Vice President, Soviet Academy of Sciences.
In 2008, Chief Lane received the Ally Award presented by the Center for Healing Racism. Particular emphasis for this award was for his dedicated work, for more than 19 years, as one of the key Indigenous leaders in the resolution of Canada’s Residential School issue, which involved the sexual, physical, cultural, psychological, and emotional abuse of thousands of Aboriginal children in Canada. The process resulted in a more than $4 billion settlement for Residential School survivors. On August 15, 1992, in recognition of his hereditary lineage of leadership and longtime service to Indigenous Peoples and the Human Family, Indigenous Elders from across North America recognized Phil as a Hereditary Chief of the Hinhan Wicasa and Deloria Tiospayes of the Ihanktonwan Nation, through a Traditional Headdress Ceremony.
Chief Lane currently serves as a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, (AISES), Council of Elders. http://www.fwii.net/
Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq is a shaman, traditional healer, storyteller and carrier of the Qilaut (winddrum), whose family belongs to the traditional healers of the Far North from Kalaallit Nunaat, Greenland. His name means ‘The Man Who Looks Like His Uncle’. Since he was a child he was trained by his family- especially by his Grandmother Aanakasaa – for becoming a shaman. The spiritual task given by his mother is: “Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man”
Angaangaq bridges the boundaries of cultures and faiths in people young and old. His work has taken him to over 70 countries around the world. He conducts circles, seminars and Aalaartiviit – traditional sweat lodges. His teachings are deeply rooted in thewisdom of the oral healing traditions of his people, which enabled people over thousands of years to survive in one of the harshest places on Earth. Angaangaq is a Keynote-Speaker at international conferences about climate change, environment, spiritual and indigenous issues.
Since a ceremony in Greenland 2009 where the “sacred fire” has been brought back to Greenland, he is carrying the title “Angakkorsuaq” – “Great Shaman”.
Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz is the director of the Original Caretakers Initiative at the Center for Earth Ethics. He serves as the General Coordinator of the Otomi-Hñahñu Regional Council in Mexico, a caretaker of the philosophy and traditions of the Otomi people, and has been an Otomi Ritual Ceremony Officer since 1988. Born in Tultepec, Mexico, he holds a doctorate of rural development from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and is the President of the Mexico Council of Sustainable Development.
Bastida Muñoz is a member of the steering committee of the Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative, and has served as a delegate to several commissions and summits on indigenous rights and the environment. He has written extensively on the relationship between the State and Indigenous Peoples, intercultural education, collective intellectual property rights and associated traditional knowledge, among other topics.