Teh Luh Lah
Learning and Healing Center
Teh Luh Lah Learning and Healing Center
Abstract
“This is your world. What do you want to do?”
“Who are you as a human being?”
The vision for the Teh Luh Lah Learning Center arose from a desire to give young people and children an experience that deliberately allowed them to build a sense of self. Modern culture provides a lifestyle where “separateness” is reinforced and cultivated. Parents, often unconsciously, pass on habits, demands and expectations that limit human development, create barriers and harsh judgement according to values about success. Modern culture, for the most part neglects, connectivity and spirituality, and the message to children is that, unless you meet a certain criteria you will drown..
The Learning Center enables a process that engenders equality, allows kids to try on a role of leadership and determine what it is they want to learn about. It creates an environment of safety, where the demands from adults are absent. Children have the opportunity to address real situations, to express their feelings about the life they are living, and to create the life that can be. The Center imparts “life skills” essentially.
Some kids who come to the camp just want an opportunity to play, because in their lives at home, they are often responsible for their siblings, and/or their parents. Others focus on developing a relationship with themselves, with others, with the earth, wind and trees. Children are exposed to a whole range of cultural traditions, and spirituality which in our view, is the ability to feel connected to everything and everyone around you, is imparted through individual and group teachings.
The Center does not promote a “religion”, nor a single culture. Instead it exposes kids to a wide variety of traditions allowing them to explore the void of tradition that exists in some of their lives. The center intentionally provides a process that breaks down barriers of race, class, culture and tradition allowing children the opportunity to find they have a great deal in common with all kinds of human beings.
Teh Luh Lah Center Learning and Healing Center / 1-505-351-2404
P.O. Box 918 Chimayo, NM 87522 US / info@tehluhlahcenter.org
VISION STATEMENT
Indigenous Elders have maintained that Turtle Island (North America) is known as a great gathering place of all tribes. The indigenous soul of all peoples is awakening to the multiple challenges we face as human beings. It is crucial that we learn to listen in contemplative silence to the wisdom of the land, for our Elders tell us that Mother Earth is in us and we in her. The Elders say that Mother Earth is in the shape she is in today because we, as human beings, are in the shape that we are in. Therefore, to heal ourselves is the greatest gift we can bestow upon Mother Earth.
It is the young people upon whose shoulders is placed the greatest burden of finding their way through this world which has been created by the generations before them. How do we, the adults, guide them to discover their gifts of spirit, of creativity and leadership, and allow them to offer their unique gifts to their communities? How do we provide an anchor to ground them in the wisdom of the old teachings, to equip them with the tools needed to survive and achieve their greatness?
The vision of the Teh Luh Lah Center is to establish just such an anchoring environment. Located on 16 acres of woods along the Santa Cruz River in Chimayo, New Mexico, the Center offers an experience of spiritual learning, healing and recovery of self, families, communities, Nations and Mother Earth. The teachings of Mother Earth and the elements of fire, water, earth and air are essential to our understanding of connecting and listening to the ancestral teachings contained in all things. Respect, faith, honesty, caring and sharing guide our actions with every aspect of the Teh Luh Lah Center vision.
Contemplative practice is an integral part of indigenous spiritual practice which awakens the spirit to guide us in how to listen to our dreams and visions. The spiritual healers of the encampment bring their earned expertise to interpret and share with others. This guidance is an important validation of the young people's dreams and visions which is not often understood in the outside world. We see our role as vital to the spiritual development of our young people.
MISSION STATEMENT
We are people of many cultures, committed to providing a safe place for our children of the four directions, to learn Faith, Honor, Respect and Love for all Life through the spiritual teachings of our ancestors.
We come together in the spirit of community, to guide the children in the development of their natural abilities.
Our purpose is to create a center for learning and healing that will:
--recognize the uniqueness of each individual;
--nurture the free expression of our many cultures;
--encourage children to understand the importance of their sacred place and purpose;
--restore universal knowledge systems to allow us to live in harmony.