Listening to Our Youth

Bizindaaw Oshkiniijig or Listening to Our Youth was the title of the 17^th Annual Traditional Pow Wow hosted by the Georgian Bay Native Friendship Centre in Midland earlier this month.  Held in Sainte-Marie Park in partnership with Sainte Marie Among the Hurons, this Pow Wow is open to everyone.

Upon arriving and paying the low entrance fee, I was presented with an excellent brochure on pow wows, protocols, etiquette, the different kinds of dances, drums, songs and many other interesting cultural facts.  This seemed to be a very generous way to reach out to non-Indigenous people and share this celebration in a meaningful way.

Here is the opening of the brochure:

The Pow Wow:  The Heartbeat of Mother Earth

Every weekend throughout the summer, the Pow Wow has become the heartbeat pulsing tempo of drum groups reverberating across North America.  Men, women, and children gather in communities across the continent, in intense celebration of what it means to be one of us… to be First Nations peoples.

What is a Pow Wow?  The word itself comes from the old Algonquin word for medicine man.  “Powwow, he dreams.”  A Pow Wow is still a ceremony that sets a person to dreaming of the old days, the old ways, and most of all, looking ahead to the future.

Like the ceremonies performed by the ancient medicine man, the Pow Wow is a healing and unifying ritual.  It is a time of singing and dancing, sharing and laughing, crying and teaching, learning and loving.  By remembering the past, we celebrate our future.  We celebrate with the dancing and dress.  We are proud of the colour of our culture.  As soon as the drum groups begin, the dancers gather in full regalia. 

The Emcee lets everyone know which dances can be photographed and which cannot out of respect.  He invited people to post pictures of the Pow Wow on social media.  I have included some of the photos I took.

View from the public viewing area

It was good to see young people proud of their culture, celebrating with their families and friends. 

The strength of the traditional women dancers who always have one foot on the ground was powerful.  The male dancers stood to honour these women and the role they play in protecting the water and the earth as they danced around the circle of the dance arena. 

Young hoop dancer

If you have never been to a Pow Wow, I invite you to attend one sometime.  They are held all across the country in the warm months and are a way to see and feel the strength of the past and the possibilities of the future.  They are celebrations that are welcoming and if you go to listen and learn and celebrate respectfully you will come away a richer person.

Ancient Buddhist Prophecy Predicts a New Story

I just came across The Active Hope Show through an email from the New Story Hub.   Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy and medical doctor Chris Johnstone co-authored the book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy in 2012.  The Active Hope Show is a series of short youtube videos that they have created. 

Chris Johnstone

In the first episode Chris Johnstone introduces the video by saying, "Our ability to respond is shaped by the stories woven into our view of reality.  If we want to be empowered and inspired, we need stories that are empowering and inspiring.”

Joanna Macy

Joanna Macy goes on to share an old Shambala Warrior Prophecy from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.  Although the prophecy is 12 centuries old, it is surprisingly relevant to what we are experiencing today.  Macy and Johnstone find this story to be inspiring and empowering which is why they shared it.

Here is the summary of the story quoted from the New Story Hub but you can also listen to Macy tell it here. She invites you to listen to it as if it were about yourself.

 “There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. At that time great powers have arisen, barbarian powers, and although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common. Among the things these barbarians have in common are weapons of unfathomable devastation and death and technologies that lay waste to the world. And it is just at this point in our history, when the future of all beings seems to hang by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges. Now, you can’t go there because it is not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors….

“Now the time is coming when great courage is required of the Shambhala warriors: moral courage and physical courage, and that’s because they are going to go right into the heart of the barbarian powers to dismantle their weapons. They are going to go into the pits and citadels where the weapons are made and deployed. They are going to go into the corridors of power where the decisions are made, to dismantle the weapons in every sense of the word. The Shambahla warriors know that these weapons can be dismantled because they are made by the human mind. They can be unmade by the human mind. The dangers that face us are not brought upon us by some satanic deity, or some evil extra-terrestial force or some unchangeable preordained fate. They arise out of our relationships and habits, out of our priorities. They are made by the human mind; they can be unmade by the human mind.

“Now is the time the Shambhala warriors go into training. They train in the use of two implements. One is compassion and the other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. You need both. You need the compassion because that provides the fuel to move you out where you need to be to do what you need to do. That means not being afraid of the suffering of your world. When you’re not afraid to be with that pain, then nothing can stop you. You can be and do what you’re meant to.

“But by itself that implement is very hot – it can burn you out. So you need that other tool – you need the insight into the radical interconnectivity at the heart of existence, the web of live, our deep ecology. When you have that, then you know that this is not a battle between good guys and bad guys. You know that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And you know that we are so interwoven in the web of life that even the smallest act, with clear intention, has repercussions through the whole web beyond your capacity to see. But that’s a little cool; maybe even a little abstract. You need the heat of the compassion – the interplay between compassion and wisdom.”

This ancient prophecy gives us clues about how we can go about solving the problems that face our world today and the solutions are not new.  Although we seem to have forgotten that everything is connected, we are being reminded by science, by extreme weather and by ancient cultures of this reality.  And being compassionate is within every person's reach.  But the story calls for a change in perspective.  Perhaps this ancient story can inspire and empower us to create a new story out of, to quote Chris Johnstone, "this mess."

Celebrating 10 Years of Positive Change Through Music

This is a good news email from the Playing for Change Foundation.  I am reprinting it in its entirety:

You can watch this video here.  
Check it out for a good news story!

"The Playing For Change Foundation celebrates its 10^th anniversary, a decade creating positive change through music and arts education around the world. Free classes are provided in safe and nurturing environments for children residing in some of the most challenged environments on the planet. 

By supporting the foundation’s programs over the past decade, you made a difference in the lives of children.  The results are in!

·  Students report increased confidence, learning skills and a belief in a positive future.

·  Students say they feel more connected to their teachers, families and communities.

·  Parents and community leaders note multiple positive changes including improved language skills, self-esteem and relationships with others

·  Girls are learning traditional music and instruments for the first time in villages in Mali and Nepal. 

·  Special initiatives are bringing clean water, dance studios and open-air classrooms built in PFCF schools in Africa. 

·  Live connection between Thailand and Nepal programs have stemmed from support for Nepal after a devastating earthquake. 

·  Technology and media training are being integrated across several programs.

The foundation broke ground with the first school in South Africa.  Today, thousands of children are provided the gift of music in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa and Thailand - and emerging domestic “sister-school” programs in the United States have been piloted this year. The mission is building momentum across diverse communities, resulting in reduced conflict, increased collaboration, improved academics, higher self-esteem, resilience, and joy.  In addition, Playing For Change Day, a global event bringing joy, unity, and peace building through music, is a blossoming experience, as scores of simultaneous events take place across the world each September raising awareness and resources for the foundation’s mission. " 

You can be a part of this good news story by supporting the foundation and making a difference in the lives of children and their families.

New Relationships Created in Canadian Roots Exchange

While we watch the slow progress of the federal government to decolonize its relationship with Indigenous people in Canada, a whole new relationship is being built between Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people in this country.  It doesn’t make the headlines in the same way but it is a story that is growing and building strength and it is the beginning of our new story I believe.

I recently was sent an email from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit Education Association of Ontario that gave a link to a news story from Inside Toronto by Justin Skinner. 

The story is about a mural that was painted by Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth that came together through the Canadian Roots Exchange (CRE).   This organization has been working since 2008 to bring youth together from various backgrounds with a focus on Indigenous youth to promote dialogue and respect for all.

The mural entitled Truth and Reconciliation was painted on a shipping container at the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto which has been repurposed to create a rental space to provide jobs and training for Indigenous young people.  This new building is called the ENAGB Youth Cedar Basket Social Enterprise building.

The CRE has a Wall to Action Collective which organized the mural based on Indigenous themes with funding from ArtReach Toronto.  “We wanted the mural to show what we value as young people,” said Sage Petahtegoose of CRE in the Inside Toronto article.

It took a while to find the location for the proposed mural but it all came together when Edward Cyr from the NCC told CRE that they were looking for someone to paint a mural on the new building.

Chief Lady Bird was one of the mentors of this mural and is one of the artists that took part in the Call to Action 83 project.  She was quoted in the Inside Toronto article as saying, “When we think about reconciliation, we want to find ways to connect and move forward in a good way.  We want to make people think about their actions.”

The mural is done in the Woodlands style of painting.  The baby in the mural reminds people to think ahead to future generations.  The seven feathers are for the seven grandfather teachings of wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth.

Canadian Roots Exchange is described on their website as “a community of Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth committed to building honest and equitable relationships.”  

Since 2009, CRE has collaborated with dozens of host communities to build face-to-face relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth.  CRE’s Youth Reconciliation Initiatives have taken place in Vancouver, Sudbury-Manitoulin, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.  In this program volunteer leaders are trained in team building, facilitation, conflict resolution, the processes of reconciliation and decolonization, Indigenous histories and contemporary issues facing First Nations, Inuit, Metis and other diverse communities in Canada. 

These youth leaders then have an 8 month contract to coordinate reconciliation programs in their communities including intergenerational events, workshop facilitation and exchange coordination. On their website you can see youtube videos of some of the exchange programs and a map of Canada highlighting the programs.

This is only one of many programs that are in action with young people across Canada.  While the politicians labour under the heavy weight of colonial history and law, our young people are slipping from under this weight and doing what young people do best, making new relationships, listening to each other and creating new stories that are about healing and respect.  I feel deep gratitude to all the youth who are taking part in these reconciliactions that will create our new story, person by person.

The Next 150 Years

“Now we begin in a new 150 years... we leave behind the first 150 years…   The ones with one big problem: trying to wipe out our Indigenous people…. .it is time to listen to the stories of the Indigenous, to hear stories about now….   Yours is the first generation in the new and real Canada.   I love you!”  So said Gord Downie to thousands of young change-makers at the WE Day Canada  on July 2, 2017 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  Gord was joined by Chanie Wenjack’s sisters Pearl and Daisy. Daisy, Gord and Pearl at WE Day Canada  Gord, Pearl and Daisy were there to usher in the next 150 years as representatives of the Downie-Wenjack Fund   An email I received from this fund went on to say,  “The Downie-Wenjack Fund believes it's time to look ahead to the next 150 years - a new era, with a new opportunity to learn and celebrate the Indigenous history of this land. If we all work together, we can start to build a country where Indigenous culture is woven into the very fabric of our collective Canadian identity. Indigenous oral history says that what we have today, is a product of the seven generations before us and what we do today, will affect the seven generations to come - welcome to the next seven generations!” You can watch the video of Gord speaking to the young people and then Pearl telling some of her story.  Pearl goes on to sing a Cree healing song for everyone.  She repeated the song four times for the black people, the white people, the yellow people and the red people.  The young people at the event were visibly moved by this powerful healing song as were the presenters.  You can watch it here.   You can learn more about the Downie-Wenjack Fund here.  That is just one way to be a part of this new story.

One Shining Day

“In this stillness, I am the trees alive with singing.  I am the sky everywhere at once.  I am the snow and the wind bearing stories across geographies and generations.  I am the light everywhere descending.  I am my heart evoking drum song.  I am my spirit rising.  In the smell of these sacred medicines burning, I am my prayers and my meditations, and I am time captured fully in this now.  I am a traveller on a sacred journey through this one shining day.”

Richard Wagamese in Embers (2016) Douglas & McIntyre, p. 30.

Richard Wagamese began each day in silence and the smoke of the sacred medicines of sweetgrass, sage, tobacco and cedar.  Then he wrote and that collection of early morning writings form the book Embers.  It is the kind of book that you can open at any page and so one early Sunday morning, I opened it.  And the quote above is what my eyes rested on.

The last line, “I am a traveller on a sacred journey through this one shining day,” spoke very loudly, very clearly to me.  This reminded me to bring all time into this one moment, to bring the wisdom earned on past roads to this present moment, to bring my dreams of the future to this moment and to bring my focus and attention to this moment, on this “one shining day.”

Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway tells the story of one woman’s day which includes a party, a death and all the consciousness that Woolf spills across the pages.  Her idea was that the whole of a woman’s life is captured inside of one day.  I recently read All that is Solid Melts Into Air by Carol Giangrande which follows Woolf’s idea, telling the story of a woman who is on holiday on the island of St. Pierre in the St. Lawrence.  The day is Sept. 11, 2001 and her husband, son, her son’s partner and her son’s father are all involved in what we now call 911.  As she waits for news, her consciousness takes her to the memories of these four men, her hopes for the future and the pain of the moment in which she can’t connect with any of them except in her mind.

I have been clearing the collections of six decades for six years now.  I am both getting good at this finally as I ironically reach the light at the end of the tunnel.  As I sort through papers and objects that represent my life, I discard some and keep others.  Some represent stories that have taught me much and i take that wisdom forward as I acknowledge it in the moment.  Some, I hold onto because they were my children’s and it is still painful to realize that they are grown and gone.  They are both children in my mind and adults to my eyes. 

Recently, a friend shared this quote with me.  It speaks to how we handle change and time passing.

“... We leave things undone because we sometimes prefer loose ends to closed doors, situations that are bad to those that get worse.  We want to avoid the finality of endings and to preserve the illusion that things haven’t changed, that they are just the way they have always been.

And yet things change on us even as we try to hold them together.  Endings multiply and unless we can make peace with this truth we end up living in dreams, our lives filled with unfulfilled hopes and worn-out loves, our hearts turned into attics so filled with things we cannot let go of that there is no room for anything fresh and new.  When we cannot manage the endings of our lives we rule out any new beginnings.  We kill hope because we have no real faith, nothing to allow us to see the seeds of what is to come in the ashes of the things that are over.”

Eugene Kennedy in Free to Be Human

The line that jumped out at me in this quote is that our hearts become attics with no space for new things.  This image fits in with the culture of consumerism where we buy things to use and to help us feel good and then are stuck with the things.  As I clear the stuff of my life out, I wonder at the magnitude of it all and the difficulty in letting it go.  This comes out of a narrative of scarcity that makes us scared enough to hang onto things and relationships because we are afraid of being left with nothing.

In contrast, Wagamese’s quote tells the narrative of abundance.  The whole natural world is open to us.  We are the sky everywhere, the snow and the wind, the light.  We have hearts and spirits and that is all we need to carry as traveller[s] on a sacred journey through this one shining day.

Of course these two examples are at opposite ends of a spectrum but that helps us to see the difference.  In a narrative of scarcity, our attics become too full for anything new and we miss out on the moment.  In a narrative of abundance, there is no mention of holding onto stuff because everything is available to us as we need it and as travellers, we need to be light, not weighed down.

Holding onto the stuff of my children, the memories of them as children, my identity as the mother of young children can, depending on the day, weigh me down in sadness, or take the energy that I need to create new relationships or at best, slow me down on my journey.  Focusing on the wonderful adults that they are and the interesting lives that they are leading while realizing that we will always be connected in a non-tangible way frees me to move through my days appreciating the people that I spend time with, the beauty that surrounds me and the opportunities to try new things with more fluidity and grace.

Here is an example of that from my life.  Last Friday, I took part in the Alliston Potato Festival Parade with friends and people who I hadn’t met yet.  As I walked from my parked car to the place where the float was waiting, I passed the high school that three of my children attended.  My mind was flooded with memories that played out as little movies in my head.  I remembered when my daughter was in this parade, I remembered past parades.  I walked past the dog groomers where I took my little Sheltie before she moved to her new home when my own move precluded having a dog and not only the weight of my big African djembe drum weighed me down. 

I found the float which was a huge flat bed truck and as the drummers began to gather, I chatted with friends, met new people and took part in the chaos of the set up.  Suddenly, the organizer yelled, “We’re moving” and we all climbed up and took our places.  The lead drummer began the West African rhythms and we all joined in.  It began to rain and we pulled garbage bags over the drums and tarps over our heads but we kept drumming.  Suddenly, I was moving down the same street I had just walked down, but this time, I floated by at the height of the flatbed, facing the back of the truck, surrounded by my fellow drummers, the intricate and powerful rhythms of the drums and streets lined with eager faces.

I noticed that children, mothers with babies and senior citizens were the ones that dared move to the beat of the music. Some waved, some danced, some smiled while others seemed unaffected by the infectious beat.  So I began to search out the faces and movements of the children, moms and seniors giving them a big smile, a wave, a nod.  I made a point of connecting with those people.  I noticed that small Alliston had grown and had become more multi-cultural as well.  Near the end of the parade a young man dressed in clothes from India with an Indian drum joined in with us as we passed.  What appeared to be his grandmother waved at us and I waved back. 

We continued on the flatbed back to where the cars were parked even when the parade was over.  We played to the empty streets.  I looked up and saw beautiful old trees floating past with the beautiful evening sky between them.  Rain clouds had turned into pink fluffy ones as the sun set and I marvelled at riding down the street facing backwards and watching the trees and sky move past me.  I drummed for them, I drummed with the other drummers, I drummed my own heart beat as I at the age of sixty had had one more adventure.  When I look back at it, taking part in the parade, I was a traveller on a sacred journey through that shining evening.

As I walked from where the truck let us off, back to my car, I was a bit tired and the drum still weighed the same but my heart was lighter.  I passed the same buildings but now I had a new memory, the view of all of these from the truck, surrounded by friends and music and smiling faces.  I had emptied the attic of my heart enough to let something new in and had felt connected to all of it in that one shining night.

Three Stories of Amazing Humans

My daughter sent me a link to BBC Three which has short clips called Amazing Humans.  The website has lots of stories but here are three that I liked. 

The first is a story about clowns and artists from Europe working with kids in refugee camps.  In sharing their gifts, these people are allowing the kids to be kids bringing them hope and some happiness.  Watch this 3 minute video here.

The second story is about a Scottish medical student who has fitted a bike out with seats in the front to give senior citizens from nursing homes a ride out in the country.  By getting them out, they experience the world once again as they did when they were young, changing their outlook on life. Watch this 3 minute video here.

The last story is about a young woman who paints henna tattoos on the heads of women who have lost their hair.  She wants to do something to make this time better and to empower the women.  Watch this 3 minute video here.

These are just some of the examples of ordinary humans sharing their gifts with others to make difficult things less difficult, to empower others and to share their love of life.  I think that the amazing thing in these stories is not that the people are extraordinarily gifted but that their simple sharing brings amazing results.  We all have the ability to create these kinds of stories in our own lives and perhaps these stories will inspire you to create amazing stories of your own.  You can check out more stories here.