IвЂ™m rebuilding my sweat lodge now, and IвЂ™ll make 25 tobacco ties for each direction and tie them to the inside walls of the new lodge. When you offer the ties, you have got to have sincerity and good intention.

You need patience and real focus when you sit and makes ties, because itвЂ™s tricky, and it takes a long time. You can also use ties for protection by making them with that intention then hanging them in your house. If you want help, consider the problem and ask the Great Spirit how many ties you should make for each direction. If you want something done, ask the Great Spirit to help. One way is offering the tie to the Great Spirit as you make it - but offer it to whatever name you use for the creator. When you make the ties, do you hold an intention? Make ties for each of the four directions south is red, west is black. Or arrange them in groups, according to the prayers and intention. Connect the ties with string to make a long string of them. The act of making ties requires focus and attention, recalling many well-known mindfulness meditation practices.Д¬ut a square from cloth and put a pinch of tobacco in the center and tie it off (see video). Zintkala shared instructions about making and using the ties for those who would like to celebrate Earth Day the Lakota way. We still use it, and thereвЂ™s still a lot growing locally.вЂќ Zintkala says, вЂњIt is picked and dried, and has been used as tobacco for generations before white men arrived. But the traditional plant material used in the midwest and western parts of North America is not the smoking tobacco grown in the southeast - it is what the Lakota call cansasa (chun-sha-sha) the native red willow that grows wild along creeks and rivers.

вЂќ Zintkala summarizes the Lakota peopleвЂ™s indivisible relationship with Maka Iyan in the simplest possible terms, saying,вЂњthe earth is first.вЂќДЄll his life, Zintkala has ceremonially offered the tobacco ties he learned to make as a child. Generations of Lakota people have made tobacco ties a traditional offering to the earth, the spirits, and the creator, called вЂњ Wakan Tanka. In the Lakota tradition, honoring the earth, known as вЂњ Maka Iyan ,вЂќ is a way of life.

One spirit lakota