Shawn Stevens

Shawn Stevens, who also goes by the names Red Eagle and Standing Eagle, belongs to the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican community as an enrolled tribal member and lives in his community's present home of Bowler, Wisconsin. His people's ancestral homelands lie in the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires, and for around thirty years he has travelled back to them, and around the Midwest, as a storyteller, historian, musician and spiritual mentor. He has chaired his tribe's Language and Culture Board for more than twenty years, served as vice chair of its repatriation committee, and now chairs Red Road Reclamation, a Native-led nonprofit devoted to ceremony, storytelling and keeping Indigenous ways alive.

His talks weave together history, prophecy, song and personal experience, often with drum and flute, and keep returning to the idea that each living being belongs in the wider circle of creation. He studied at the College of Menominee Nation and is an ordained minister. Kripalu stands on Mohican land, and there he teaches fire-making by friction to trainee guides in the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership. He has also spoken in its free Amplify Voices of the Global Majority series and gives an evening of stories and teachings at its yearly Rewilding Summit.