Statements Of Beliefs
STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
CREED
We acknowledge the Great Spirit as the Creator of all. We are aware that the Earth is a living entity. Our Mother the Earth harmoniously produces and provides all that gives us life. Therefore, it is an essential part of our religion, to work with entheogenic plant medicine in order to connect to our Creator, through the sacred medicine of Mother Earth. This cornerstone of our faith allows us to have profound insight into our place in the world.
Through the use of sacred plant medicine, we connect to our own personal healing and solutions are provided for us by connecting to the Great Spirit, or Creator. This Sacred Medicine also connects us to our rightful place in the Universe.
The source of our individual strength is this force of life and is alive in all people. That is why we humble ourselves in the practice of our religion. As we sing, dance and express ourselves through prayer and ceremony. All beings strive for the harmony that Nature displays. To be a contributing force that is compassionate, sharing, intelligent and honest. Our responsibility is to perpetuate these natural inherited traditions from diverse cultures around the world.
We are cultural custodians and appointed cultural stewards, carrying out cultural exchange across borders on ancient trade routes through sacraments, ceremonies and communications.
Our goal is to facilitate a global communal way of living through intercultural teachings of ancestral knowledge. This includes deep introspection into ourselves and our place in the universe, through Ceremony and prayer with and without entheogens.
Formal Code of D octrine and Discipline Code Points
Respect
To honor all of our relations, including immediate and extended family, as well as all things in nature. In all situations, including disagreements, present your position as an opportunity to teach your view and learn about others. The members of the Church of the Natural Law shall always remember that Mother Earth is a living being and needs respect and homage. Respect for Elders, ministers and ceremonies is essential to our culture. The members of the Church of the Natural Law will maintain Peace and Harmony with all faiths.
Ceremonial Formula
This ancient Ceremony derives from Southwestern and what might be considered Mesoamerican roots. Being that the New Mexico region is our origin and our elders were a Pueblo and Colombian indigenous cultures, we work with the same secret medicine wheel formula as our ancestors did from time immemorial. Because the elders of the church who trained our ministers were not concerned with gender or race, they were open to training diverse people as long as they met the qualifications.
Education
In an effort to extend our knowledge to a more diverse group of people, we have standardized the language and concepts in a way that makes it more accessible to the modern urban person. Since almost no one is living from the land anymore in tribes we cannot use tribal language to communicate with modern people. However, the necessity of using Ceremony to go within persists. Human beings in order to resolve some of the more difficult questions and life must always look within and get closer to Creator.
Regular Services
We have several locations where we hold regular services. We have a sweat lodge, or Temescal, which is a traditional place for purification through heating the environment and singing and drumming and praying. We have another location for retreats which has teepees on a 2-acre piece of property in the mountains. We also hold ceremonies in the city in a contained environment where we take people’s keys and phones and keep them within safe locations.
Outreach
To work building bridges for all people to unite and learn from each other. Through retreats, ceremonies, and the establishment of a spiritual and solid foundation for the sharing of spiritual culture, beliefs, and knowledge of how to live in harmony with our home, our mother, Earth, and all living things.
Sacred Sacrament
Knowing that spiritual advancement can be forwarded through direct communication with the divine, we have integrated the use of sacraments that enable the experience of higher consciousness. We develop a relationship with Spirit through working with the plant kingdom, in order to open ourselves to higher thought.
Our Ceremony has certain stages and is begun by Consecrating sacred space. The person who facilitates, or runs, the ceremony is a minister who has been trained in the rituals and philosophy of the church with a natural law for five or more years.
Each ceremony has five stages which are connected to our spiritual compass, what used to be called by natives the medicine wheel, and every Ceremony uses this same formula.
The first stage of the ceremony is where we connect with each other and that is also the same stage we return to when we depart from ceremony. Before we enter into secret space we use special herbs and procedures which cleanse the energy body of the participants as well as reduce the load of airborne bacteria and viruses.
At this stage we often enter the sacred space. Traditionally this would have been a Kiva or any other round structure even including a Tipi, which represents the sacred circle of life.
We often asked participants to sit in a certain order from youngest to oldest or by the seasons in which they were born in their appropriate quadrant or sometimes just separating men from women. We have a specific set of guidelines for ceremonial conduct and
we ask new members to read and sign to acknowledge that they will behave with respect to their agreements. We do not allow any outside substances that are scheduled, neither alcohol nor cannabis, to enter into our sacred ceremonies.
We do not allow any sacred medicine from our church to live with anyone either. We only work with this sacred plant medicines during the ceremony in a spiritual way.
Once we begin the ceremony, we are generally surrounding a fire that represents the sun or the nucleus of an Adam and the purifying benefit of the element of fire.
In the accompanying literature you are welcome to familiarize yourself with our literature, which goes into some amount of detail about the significance of these different directions.
For us, the elements are living things earth air fire water and air have consciousness and can either help or harm us based on our relationship with them. It is often through the use of plant medicine that we come to see the unseen which is hidden behind the veil of the physical. Plant medicine brings us closer to a higher state of consciousness and awareness and we are meticulous about the ceremony because it is a secret container to keep people safe and give them the highest benefit possible from their journey.
These qualifications include but are not limited to a powerful spiritual practice to be able to look within in order to be able to guide others. These can include many traditions such as yoga, tai chi, chi gong, Meditation, Sweat Lodge/ Temascal, and drumming and more.
All ministers in training will also be expected to have a solid understanding of biology, biochemistry, physics, history, psychology,
sustainability and seed sovereignty, sustainable building, the sacred orientation of structures and sacred ceremonial areas, divination, and last but not the least herbalism and how to heal with plants you can wild forage in your local area.
In a traditional native setting, the minister, spiritual guide (otherwise known as a medicine person) would have the ability to help people to heal both on a psychological, physical, spiritual level. Though not all of our ministers are full blood Native Americans, (we do not have any requirements as per blood quanta) we still do have a very traditional native lineage which comes from a Taita in Columbia and the son of the last medicine man of the Tiwa Pueblo in Las Cruces New Mexico, as far as working with plant medicines.
Justice
To be fair in your dealings with all people even when doing so would not be in your favor, implying that we share a common good and well-being in unity.
Activity
To strive to learn with every new experience and innovate with new opportunities. Spend the day being productive and positive, working in tandem with others wherever possible.
Philosophy
To have the awareness that all sentient beings deserve the love, honor, and respect that we give ourselves and our families and that the planet that we live on is a sentient being that deserves the same.
To envision and share knowledge of clean, alternative energies and to limit our own use of any fuels that pollute the air and water.
To do our best to stop toxic waste from entering our groundwater, streams, rivers, oceans, and lakes, and to limit our own personal measures of toxic waste and consumption of products that lead to toxic waste.
Culture: Holistic Living
To strive to learn with every new experience and innovate with new opportunities. Spend the day being productive and positive, working in tandem with others wherever possible
To do our best to eat clean, unadulterated food, uncontaminated by poisons and/or genetic modification, grown locally and hand tended as much as possible.
To do our best to maintain good health, good health care, and to care for our members in their vulnerable stages such as childhood, pregnancy, and elder-hood.
To do our best to respect the inherent right of each person to develop their sexuality and gender as their authentic self, safely and with appropriate cultural dignity and respect.
To temper honesty with kindness and maintain sensitivity in your words with all people.
Ministerial Training
- 5 years minimum of training in the areas of traditional ceremony, herbalism, nutrition, astronomy and sustainability.
- 2 years of residency with direct supervision in performing duties.
- Continuous ongoing contact with church elders for training and education.
- Familiarity with the ancient cultures that spawned our religion.
Youth Educati on
- Educational activities and nature based teachings through storytelling and play, as well as outdoor activities such as camping, hiking and crafts.
- Education in groups led by older youth, ministers or elders, which convey our core values and creation stories
- Planting of crops and preparing plants for use, as well as seed saving.
