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SEED (Source for Educational Empowerment and Community Development) www.seedgraduateinstitute.org was founded in 1996 to bridge indigenous wisdom and modern knowledge, established disciplines and new leading edge fields, and experiential and academic learning. SEED is a 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit educational organization. In the year 2006, SEED is launching a Graduate School called the SEED Graduate Institute, granting an MA degree in “Original Thought” with areas of study in Indigenous Way of Knowing, Ecology, Science and Cosmology, Integral Healing, and the Expressive Arts. The 2005 Language of Spirit Conference serves as a kick-off the Native American track program. This track will be integral to the Indigenous ways of Knowing degree program and the overall Graduate School. 

The mission of SEED Graduate Institute is to provide a synergistic interconnected holistic education that can empower individuals to find their true calling in service to their community and the natural world.  Our school is located in the heart of Albuquerque’s West Side community, just south of I-40 and Coors Blvd.

The master's program in Integral Healing (Fire) looks at healing in a holistic context, with the human body seen as integral to community, Earth and cosmos. Alternative healing methodologies will be explored from this context, understanding that healing is not a state but a process of moving into integration, balance and wholeness. Practica are completed in conjunction with the Ayurvedic Institute, NM School of Natural Therapeutics, The Institute of Chinese Medicine, and other approved organizations or apprenticeships. Students obtain certification in their chosen practice while obtaining their MA in the field of Integral Healing.

The Ecology program (Earth) addresses the social/cultural/political nexus surrounding the world's ecology. Students will seek to discover the underlying, tacit assumptions that were made in Western culture as we moved from coherent, holistic ways of imagining our relationship with the Earth to more specialized methods of how we can apply the Earth's "resources" toward human needs. We will explore the world ecology in relation to the economic needs of the nation-state or Multi-national Corporation, and revision business philosophy and the global economic paradigm in terms of promoting a sustainable economy that is in harmony with the Earth. Basic business skills, in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, will be addressed. Students prepare for or enhance their careers as policy advisors, cultural liaisons, socially responsible entrepreneurs, managers, diplomats, lobbyists, teachers, writers and foreign correspondents.

The MA program in Expressive Arts (Water) explores the myriad ways of human creativity as an expression of the world we live in and our relationship to that world. The program nurtures the blossoming of the student's artistic work and living, enhancing or launching the student's professional life with a completed body of work that demonstrates an existing connection with society. The overall historical context of art in relationship to the Earth and society will be explored, with particular attention paid to art therapy, which emerged as a field during the middle of the twentieth century, offering healing through art to a population that has become alienated from the natural world and is now seeking reconnection.

The master's program in Indigenous Ways of Knowing (Spirit) emphasizes a deeper exploration into the indigenous worldview and how it informs and interweaves with all paradigms throughout history. The program gives the student time to develop an understanding of Native art and science that is grounded in the practical applications of Native thought, and emphasizes learning by doing, both in the classroom and, when appropriate, through on-site participation in storytelling, ritual and ceremony. The second year of the program includes some of the political and legal issues facing indigenous peoples today and the ramifications for the Earth and society at large. A basic language course in Blackfoot, Tewa or Navajo or previous experience as a Native speaker is required. Students who graduate from this program become the leaders in working on the issues facing indigenous people today, and/or the bridge people between indigenous and mainstream culture.

The master's program in Science, and Cosmology (Air) integrates Native science and new scientific models of wholeness, including quantum theory, general systems theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory with comparative philosophy and religion, mythology, depth psychology and cosmology. Students practice many ways of thinking and knowing, and give attention to process as well as content, and practical action as well as abstraction. Students prepare for or enhance their careers as writers, philosophers, psychologists, teachers and leaders in developing new paradigms for future society. For more information on all the Graduate programs beginning in 2005, please see www.seedopenu.org and click on About Us. The chair of the Science and Cosmology program is Nancy Maryboy.

SEED sponsors four annual conferences: The Language of Spirit (former Language of Spirituality) in the summer, the Art and Soul Conference in the winter, the Ecology Conference in the spring, and the Integral Healing conference in the autumn.

Since 1999, SEED has sponsored the Language of Spirit Conference, featuring quantum physicists, Native American elders and linguists, conducted primarily in a talking circle dialogue format. Leroy Little Bear, former Director of Native Studies at Harvard University, has been the moderator of all dialogues. The conference is part of the Science and Cosmology curriculum, and attendees may receive one credit toward enrollment in the Graduate program. Little Bear is overall Academic Dean of SEED Graduate Institute and chair of the Indigenous Ways of Knowing Program.