I suppose I do not understand the meaning of the word "magic."

Seem to have been distracted from the original question?

ThankYou for Everyone'sTime

>Another arguably better approach would be to learn what grows around you and participate with those plants directly. And they will share their medicine and magic with you.<

Renee makes a few very good points in her posts...

Gwe~

I' m indian, from the northeast bioregion, more commonly called the Wabanaki confederacy, which encompasses as far south as northern Virginia and as far north as the Canadian maritime (ancestrally speaking).
While I cannot speak on the part of other nations, here in the Northeast, there are no shamans...we have elders, healers, gifted people, lodge keepers, and of course the hollywood term 'medicine man'/person. Shaman is a term that did not come to this part of the world until the mid 1800's and originated someplace in the middle east. It is also not generally a North American Indian term...more of a South American.
The term shaman is usually used by self proclaimed holy people, we refer to them as plastic medicine men....mostly wannabees trying to appropriate our culture. These would be the ones more inclined to use "magic/k". Any of the traditional people who are involved in ceremony or lodge keeping communicate with the elements and the creator by use of prayer. There are no spells, herbal magic, incantations, et al.
The use of the term magic to describe what goes on in our culture in terms of ceremony, prayer, and communicating with the world around us is a euro centric colonialist label...right along with " shaman","heathen", "savage" and the like..
I would also add that when we chant, drum, etc...we are not referring to that as incantations...we chant and drum to welcome the ancestors, to praise them, to summon the ancestors, also to call the spirits of the four directions in ceremony. Then of course, there are the formal songs of our people, used for specific purposes, such as The Gathering Song, or th Eagle Song. I would think that incantations have words? right? It appears that one is speaking and one is singing. Incantation clearly implies the use of magic, chanting does not.

> incantation - the uttering of words purporting to have magical power.

> chant - a short, simple melody, esp. one characterized by single notes to which an indefinite number of syllables are intoned, used in singing

We use herbs in our prayer, but I would not describe those as having magical qualities...we view all herbs, bark, leaves, roots, etc as having healing powers and even protective powers...we call these medicines and view all creation as having these powers, as given by the creator. I would say that medicines are not used for magic.

Shamanism is not the same thing as Native American spirituality.

The word shaman, used internationally, has its origin in manchú-tangu and has reached the ethnological vocabulary through Russian. The word originated from saman (xaman), derived from the verb scha-, "to know", so shaman means someone who knows, is wise, a sage. Further ethnological investigations shows that the true origin for the word Shaman can be tracked from the Sanskrit initially, then through Chinese-Buddhist mediation to the manchú-tangu, indicating a much deeper but now overlooked connection between early Buddhism and Shamanism generally.
Thanks to the New Age craze that has spread around the world, there are many self-proclaimed "medicine men" and "shamans"—people who claim to follow our spiritual ways, having "learned" everything they know from books bought at the local book store. contrary to popular opinion, a "shaman" is not an Indian medicine man, and "shamanism" is not a Native American religion. In fact, many Native Americans find the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" offensive.
Again, this is a North East viewpoint. This may differ in other bioregions, such as the Navajo and Inuit...they may employ the use of magic in their rituals, but as I said originally, I cannot speak for those nations.

Why would that be a weird statement? It's actually quite true that they are invasive species. Just like Eucalyptus trees in California. They are not native species, they are invaders.

Domina