Native American Spirituality In Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine

When one reads Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, you are instantly aware of the Native American spirituality and Christian dualism in the novel. We see characters connected by nature’s touch and roped into a tangled web of people, places, and time. If readers look into the leaves of the book, wrap their mind around the message of interconnectedness of nature and life, they will see the same ideas mirrored from the transcendentalists in American history. Native American spirituality is based on nature. Native Americans look to nature to explain the world around them, incorporating it into their oral narratives and art work. They have a deep set belief that nature and our souls are connected. They use nature to explain life and death. Native American spirituality incorporates a nonduality with the world around them. They realize their part in the world and focus their lives on its connections. This interconnectedness is the foundation for their lifestyle. Interconnectedness, in itself, is the philosophy of American transcendentalism. Deriving from British and German Romantics, American transcendentalism ties itself into nature. One of the most well-known of the group, Ralph Waldo Emerson, writes an essay on it known as “The Over-Soul.” Sharing the same name as the title, …show more content…
His soul is compared to the spider’s web, making connections continuously. It never stops, it expands outward, much like the idea of the Over-Soul and how it touches everything. It expands to every cell, every particle. His soul does not rest until it finds its connection to the universe. His strands reach out for understanding, while Erdrich’s strands reach out and connect to