In this paper, I relate how I was taught about and experienced mana in the forms of wind and weather behaviors. I highlight the role of personal and ancestral relationships in those experiences and describe some mana and mana-like phenomena (hereafter referred to simply as mana) so that personally lived experiences might move toward the center of the discourse about mana. I argue that by considering personal experiences of mana, we will better understand it.
How is mana experienced? Can anyone experience mana and mana-like phenomena? How do practitioners interact with it? This paper describes experiences of mana as wind and weather, the wind/weather predictions of mana practitioners, and how modifications to wind/weather are made by interacting with ancestors. I contrast the accuracy of mana as weather-work that is ancestrally linked, with inaccurate meteorological predictions that evaded personal and ancestral connections and attempts to modify wind or weather. I relay how wind/weather-workers define mana, and explain how it works, and how to engage it. I observe that technocratic and mono-phasic/mono-ontologic framings discount such experiences as unverifiable or unreal.
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