Red Wind Councils fosters spiritual consciousness & a restoration of social justice through awakening into the promised return of ancient indigenous Council ways.
Thanksgiving & Holiday Appeal 2023
We warmly invite you to read about the important work that has been accomplished in the last year in our annual newsletter. Our projects with the Maya, including the Emergency Medical, Agro-ecology, Fogon stove & craft projects, are saving lives and benefitting hundreds of families. We hope you will join us in supporting the restoration of dignity & hope in the lives of the Maya people by making a generous donation or becoming a monthly supporter.
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Red Wind Councils
Founded 35 years ago by Ohki Forest (About Ohki) in Chiapas, Mexico, Red Wind Councils became a U.S. charitable non-profit organization in 2005. We are a 501(c)(3) charitable U.S. non-profit supporting the spiritual renewal & social justice struggle of the Maya indigenous people.
Our entirely volunteer efforts have helped create essential stabilization & restored dignity through sustainable programs in rural communities, impacting hundreds of families. Red Wind with Ohki Forest (ohkiforest.com) has also contributed to the building of 2 Medicine Centers for Vision Quest retreats in Chiapas & a Center in NM, U.S. for imparting her native ways & assisting the renewal of Maya & Native spirituality in the face of 5 centuries of repression. Red Wind Councils has been building alliances with the Maya, creating a core of strength & sanity despite their extreme poverty & oppression.
Based on the ancient indigenous Councils, Red Wind Councils strives to restore the ancient spiritual & cultural traditions of the Maya before they disappear. Despite the spiritual & cultural devastation of the indigenous who have been marginalized & impoverished for centuries, the Maya legacy is one of the most profound on this continent.
To preserve & restore Council ways, our volunteer members work at different levels by assisting indigenous families & communities, always respecting their decisions, independently of any political or religious affiliation. Our efforts provide them support, advice, ideas & funds for sustainable development, spiritual renewal & cultural projects such as Water & Solar systems, Craft & Sewing projects for Women, Permaculture, Communal & Micro-clinic buildings & many others.
Please see a detailed description of ongoing projects below.
Everyone wants to do something to help heal
the disastrous imbalances on the planet in these times.
By taking action with Red Wind
to help the indigenous who live closest to the Earth,
you are protecting Mother Earth herself because,
as an ancient people & conscious Maya,
they are themselves taking many actions
with self-sustainable eco-projects to protect our natural world.
In recent years our funding partners have been: Rudolf Steiner Foundation / Levinson Foundation / James H. Woods Foundation / The Sayler-Hawkins Foundation / One Heart Many Rhythms / Society for Shamanic Practice / Bioneers: Collective Heritage Institute & Everywoman’s Leadership Regranting Fund / & thousands of individual donors.
The First Wound of the Americas
The majority of the world does not find its roots in Western culture or traditions. The majority of the world finds its roots in the Natural World & its traditions, which must prevail if we are to develop truly free & egalitarian societies.
— Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World
from the Iroquois League of Peace
The oppression of Native people, which continues to this day, is the first wound of the Americas. From the central core of our projects, we seek to not only create a way of life for the marginalized, but to join in healing this wound from which our native brothers & sisters still suffer.
Red Wind’s unique approach raises both spiritual & social justice consciousness for the people.
Spirituality is the highest form of social justice & it is everyone’s responsibility to awaken into greater spiritual awareness of our planet Earth & to sustain indigenous-defined social justice efforts.
According to ancient Native Council ways, social justice cannot be rooted & fully effective without a synchronous movement toward developing spiritual awareness. Red Wind provides a unique opportunity to achieve this purpose by helping the impoverished Maya people feed their families, deepen their spiritual growth & renew their cultural traditions & artistic skills while continuing their struggle for justice. Red Wind provides an inclusive circle of healing, not only for the Maya, but for people of all backgrounds who seek to heal & undo the mind-set that has separated matter from Spirit & has enriched itself materially at the expense of the Earth & indigenous people.
Yet the indigenous, in spite of their impoverishment, have maintained a rich, vital connection to Spirit & the Earth that is missing in many Western societies & from which it is of urgent importance that we all learn, for the indigenous form their ancestral wisdom holds the solution to the world’s imbalances & destruction today.
In the natural return to the Council ways given by the change of eras, no one will be able to be above the others. Our leaders must ‘command by obeying’ the will & the decision of the people.
— Ohki Forest
Shifting into more circular & reciprocal ways reflects the ways that are returning to the Earth & of organizing ourselves in human societies in order to meet the intense challenges that humanity faces today.
According to ancient Maya, Mongolian & Native Canadian prophecies that Ohki Forest shares with the world, the time has imminently come for this crucial shift. Indigenous seers of past times have predicted that all peoples of the Americas would return eventually to Council Ways wisdom when we realized that our current institutions can no longer be in balance with the Earth. It is critical to undo the harm unleashed by the arrogance of imperialism in past millennia, & to heal the ways of the people with the natural world.
In her book, DREAMING THE COUNCIL WAYS: True Native Teachings from the Red Lodge,
Only at the “lowest” circle of people can we truly start creating the Council ways. At the bottom circle, we can hear the voice of the poorest people of this planet, the ones closest to the Earth. We must understand their reality & attend to their needs. When the people closest to the Earth—women, children, & the poor—are still not able to be heard, the spirit of democracy is not reached.
Why Red Wind models the Council Ways
The Council ways are the oldest form of relationship within a community, & this requires that every individual align toward their own spiritual learning & growth.
— Ohki Forest
The Council ways underlie some of the most stable & free societies that ever existed by exemplifying the circular principles that hold the universe together. In human terms, these Council principles resolve many cultural differences, & provide a map for directing our awareness & actions. They offer a matchless model for harmonizing all the tendencies of a society, both democratic & communal, leading us toward a united government guided by the people themselves. These important ancient archetypes are now re-emerging in one of the most balanced approaches to relating to one another in a larger planetary sense. Council ways are primarily a way to deeply heal the planet, encompassing the highest universal laws by including all forms of thinking, religious, political, & social. The most transcendent principle within the Council laws is inclusiveness of all. This is entirely opposite to the separation of individualism that the Western societies promote & has lost the understanding of how to live in community.
For all these reasons & the sense of emergency we felt to create our projects, Ohki Forest & her Maya companions established Red Wind Councils in 1987. As board members & practitioners of Earth Medicine & Council ways under the compelling vision of Ohki Forest (ohkiforest.com), we share the effective principles of this indigenous wisdom with the aim of igniting spiritual transformation.
We welcome every one of you in the quest for true spiritual & social healing of the first wound of the Americas within ourselves & with indigenous people, based on a renewed respect for our beloved Earth. By donating to Red Wind Councils’ sustainable & charitable projects for self-determination & spiritual initiatives you can participate in this visionary action.
35 Years of Projects
We seek & feel an urgency to support the Maya in their struggle to preserve land, water, jungles & trees, & organic food supply to communities. We seek to help women & daughters to continue their ancient, exquisite traditions of weavings. We seek to help the Maya recuperate their ancient spiritual ways. We seek your help to bring hope & the fulfillment of their dreams of a better world to the Maya.
Projects completed over the past 35 years include:
- Medical Emergency Fund: brings life-saving care to the Maya left to die on cold floors of hospital corridors simply because they are indigenous & poor
- Medicines: for remote communities where people would otherwise die of curable diseases
- Micro-clinics: provide care in remote communities where there is no medical care
- Greenhouse & Agroecology project: makes it possible for communities to grow a greater variety of foods improving overall health & allowing people to grow additional crops for sale
- Assistance, Shelter & Legal Aid: for women & children affected by domestic violence
- Droughts & flood emergencies: bring food & supplies to the affected
- Communal Schools: provide school buildings & education to children & adults who would otherwise have no access to education
- Solar Systems: bring light & energy so women can work on their crafts in areas where there is otherwise no electricity
- Communal Stores: promote collective administration of the resources & goods & provides emergency health funds
- Water Cisterns & Pipe Systems: reach people’s homes ending decades of women hauling water from distant wells
- Trees Planting for Reforestation: creates a healthier environment & protects the water springs for generations to come
- Fogon wood-saving stoves: solve acute problems of firewood scarcity in rural areas & reduce the high risk of serious lung & eye diseases in women & young children
