First Contact

First Contact is a TV series that takes six average Canadians who have strong and mostly negative opinions about Indigenous people on a 28-day journey across Canada into Indigenous communities in Winnipeg, Nunavut, Alberta, Northern Ontario and BC.  The six participants meet a wide variety of Indigenous people who share their stories, history and information.  The journey is an inner journey for the participants as well as an outer one as their opinions and beliefs are challenged by their experiences that they feel in their bodies, hearts and minds.

The six participants

The show aired on APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) in September and is now available for viewing on its website.  The show is hosted and narrated by social justice activist George Stroumboulopoulos and is modeled after a show by the same name that was created in Australia in 2014.

Participants go on patrol in North Winnipeg to keep the neighbourhood safe.

The participants have experiences that range from patrolling North Winnipeg by night, going on a seal hunt, visiting Indigenous inmates in healing centres, dragging the Red River, learning about boiled water advisories that are thirty years old, going to a pow wow and other ceremonies and hearing about the effects of Indian Residential School from most of the people they meet.  

The participants go out onto the land with their Indigenous hosts.

Some of the participants were quick to change their attitudes as they took in the new information while others were slower and one appears to be unchanged after all of the experiences.  However, the show is about more than the journeys of six people.  These “average Canadians” reflect the attitudes of much of Canada and it is informative although at times infuriating to listen to their reactions when they experience a brand new reality.  There are also beautiful moments where individual participants connect with the story of an Indigenous person and it becomes just two people sharing.

Much of the show is of the two groups sitting around tables talking and listening to each other which is not what usually happens for most Canadians and yet this is an important part of the reconciliation process.  The producers of the series had trouble finding a station to air it because the major stations don’t want to tell this story.  However APTN and TVO agreed to show it and bring this important dialogue forward.

 You can check out the trailer here  and if you like it, watch the episodes and talk about what you learned with a friend!

Half a Fairy Ring

Last week’s blogpost included a video in which the speaker suggested that the forest is a blueprint for teaching us how to get along together.  As I hiked through a forest this past weekend, I was thinking about that statement.  I waited for inspiration to arrive from the trees and the forest floor.  I thought about the diversity that I saw all around me.  There were hardwoods and softwoods, wild flowers and shrubs.  I thought about how they all found their niches, their space in the canopy or in and around the trees.  I thought about how they supported each other and provided food and shelter for the forest animals that in turn spread seeds and fertilized the soil.

Eventually, we came to a cedar grove which is one of my favourite places to spend time.  I stopped to look at it and felt immediately invited in.  Very little grows on the forest floor beneath cedars so the path was open and easy.  I wandered through the family groupings of trunks and past some very large grandmother trees.  The light filtered down through the branches onto the ground, all rusty brown from the dead cedar needles.

Suddenly, something orange caught my eye.  Bending over, I found a colony of bright orange mushrooms growing in a line.  Then beside them, I discovered a line of blood red mushrooms following the same line.  Then there was a patch of white lacy fungus still in the same line and then beige mushrooms.  Stepping back, I could see that they formed an arc that looked like half of a circle.  Immediately, I thought of the fairy rings of European legends where fairies dance within a circle of mushrooms.  My mother used to talk about fairies at the bottom of the garden and this ancient belief that Roman enforced Christianity never quite managed to squelch still captured my imagination.  The fairy rings were sacred places where mortals shouldn’t intrude according to legend.  This was only half a circle though.  But somehow it did feel kind of magical to see so many different fungi growing in an arc.

My partner felt that likely, the fungi were growing out of a dead and rotting cedar root that curved.  I tried to picture the root deep under the earth and all the fungal networks there as well.  Which tree did it come from?  It’s very interesting to cast one’s imagination deep into the earth. I wondered if this was part of the forest blueprint and what it was telling me. 

Walking on, I came across a large boulder covered in bright green moss.  It was just the right height to sit on and I greeted this ancient grandmother as I sat down.  I wondered what she - since she'd been around for a very long time- might know about the blueprint and what the mushrooms had to teach me.  Straight away an idea popped into my head.  “Don’t forget about hidden resources.”  

The dead and buried root had become a resource for the mushrooms and they were transforming its life into another form.  Their networks would let the trees communicate underground and share resources as well.  What I could see above the surface was minuscule compared to what was below.

As I continued to walk I thought about all the resources that seem to be invisible in our world such as the wisdom of elders, the insights of women that are often ignored, and the brilliance of children.  So often, only the loudest, most competitive voices are heard and the information they share is the same old story of scarcity, might over right and greed.  The forest blueprint was showing me that the hidden resources and voices were important to pay attention to.  That they could give life and voice to something magical, to something new.

The Ancient Dance of Earth and Sky

Dark cumulus clouds rolled ominously across the bay.  The still humid air began to move as well, bringing with it the smell of ozone.  The weather report warned of thunderstorms but for us it was the chance to see a great evening show.

As the sky began to flash, we could hear far away rumbling.  So, we picked up speed as we walked back to our car, parked at the water’s edge.   Safely inside the car, we could see the entire expanse of Sturgeon Bay through the windows.  The clouds to the south began to light up with brighter flashes of sheet lightning.  Then the clouds to the north began to send brilliant forks of light to greet the earth.  The thunder rumbled back and forth.

We knew that the electrons in the clouds were attracted to the positive charge of the earth.  As the negative charge made its way to the earth, the positive charge moved up to meet it.  Their dramatic union created so much electrical energy that light was produced and the heated air created the thunder that made its way to our ears some time after the light.

This exchange of electrons restores the electrical balance between earth and sky.  Our atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen but the nitrogen atoms have three electron bonds between them, making it so stable that we can’t use the nitrogen we inhale even though we need nitrogen to make proteins.  The plants can’t use it either. 

It takes a great deal of energy to break these bonds which is exactly what lightning has.  As the electrical current moves through the air, it knocks electrons from the nitrogen atoms.  Then the nitrogen atoms can combine with oxygen and hydrogen to form nitrates which are washed to earth with the rain that follows the lightning.  Plants can then synthesize these nitrates into proteins which can be used by animals and humans.  Lightning provides about twenty per cent of the nitrogen to the soil every year. 

Lightning also produces ozone which as we know, shields all of us from harmful ultraviolet light from the sun.  That’s why you can smell ozone as a thunderstorm approaches.

So, by restoring electrical balance, new materials are liberated that can be used to create life and materials are created that will protect us. And it is estimated that lightning hits the ground one hundred times a second worldwide, or over eight million times every day.

As we watched the lightning strike over and over, more cars came to the water, their occupants drawn by this Saturday night spectacle.  The wind picked up and the rain began.  Eventually the rain obliterated the view except for bright flashes and loud cracks.  I thought about all that nitrogen being washed to earth and into the lake where the plants could use it to create proteins that animals and fish would eat.  And I would eat local plants and fish and meat.  The lightning was bringing life to us all.

For some people the storm would have been terrifying and they would have hidden in their homes. But I kept thinking about how the storm was restoring balance.   Earth and Sky knew their ancient dance so well.  It was big, it was cosmic, it was bright and loud.  There was nothing subtle or half-hearted about electrons rejoining their positive counterparts.  I could almost see the Thunderbirds of the Anishinaabe in the clouds sending healing energy to the people.  And I could feel that healing, that life giving, that beauty in my own body as the water and fire came from the sky that summer’s night.

Green Renaissance Breathes New Life

Green Renaissance is a “passionate collective of four creatives” who make films with positive stories.  These films are on-line and free with funding by donation.  These are films without a corporate agenda, that are meant to inspire.  You can hear these four young people describe their dream here:

To get a taste of what Green Renaissance is creating, here is a short film on Regenerative Living.  The idea is that all the information that we need to be able to live together is offered by nature and by listening to nature we can create a new way to be.

And lastly, here is a short film called Love of Trees that features an eighty-four year old woman who talks about her relationship with trees.

   

You can check out more films on the Green Renaissance You tube channel.  Use it as an antidote to the madness on mainstream media and take part in this new story.

Otterwoman: A Full Moon Tale

If you ever find yourself on a boat in the Great Lake Huron and you find your way between the tip of the Bruce Peninsula and the magical island called Manitoulin, you will find yourself in water that is now called Georgian Bay.  It has not always been called that, but that is another story.  If you keep sailing to the southeast and find your way around Giant’s Tomb Island, then between Penetanguishene Peninsula and Beausoleil Island through what they now call “The Gap” you will enter the waters of Severn Sound.  If you keep travelling to the most southeastern part of the Sound you will find yourself in Sturgeon Bay. 

And there is you look very carefully and are in the right place at the right time, you could see otters swimming and playing in the waters near the shore.  You might get a glimpse of one catching a fish, or a frog or playing with its young.

Along the shoreline of Sturgeon Bay there is a trail.  It used to be a railroad track that carried passengers from the city to the north and back again, but that was a long time ago.  Now the tracks are gone and the trail is only used for walking or riding a bike.

Well it happened, one summer night, just as the full moon was rising in the east, that a man decided to take a walk along the trail.  He was making himself walk even though his joints hurt and he was worried about what the future might hold.  He could see the last oranges of the sunset through the trees that lined the shore.  After some walking he came to an opening in the trees and he stood on the trail looking out over the lake.  The stars were coming out and over the lake hung constellation of the Big Bear, almost touching the water, as if she was reaching down from the sky to get a drink of lake water.  Her stars were reflected in the glassy still water and the sight took his breath away.

Behind him the full moon was rising and the glow spread to the lake.  Suddenly he saw a small head moving through the water and the thick rounded tail of an otter.  He watched the otter dive and resurface, as the starlight made its wet fur twinkle.  Mesmerized he followed the otter’s progress.  And then it seemed as though the otter’s head got larger and part of it gleamed white in the moonlight.  The otter swam towards him now and he could see long strands flowing out behind the head.  Rubbing his eyes, he saw to his amazement that there was a woman’s head where the otter’s had been. 

As she got closer to the shore, she rose out of the water, long brown hair streaming over her body like the water plants that lived in the lake.  Suddenly she saw the man.  Her black eyes twinkled in the moonlight and her skin shone.  The man was frozen to the spot but the woman smiled, turned and dove under the waves.

The man searched the surface of the water with his eyes, looking for a sight of this magical creature, but to no avail.  He paced back and forth along the shore and climbed down to the water’s edge, straining for a glimpse of her.  The moon rose higher in the sky and the stars got brighter but even with all this heavenly light, there was no sign of the woman or the otter.

Just as he was about to give up and go home, she surfaced.  She was swimming on her back holding something to her chest with both hands.  The woman was heading straight for where the man was standing, knee deep in the water by this time.  He didn’t even notice that he was wet, so concentrated was he on her progress. He didn’t notice his joints and was completely absorbed in that very moment with no thought of the future.  When she got very close to him she flipped over and stood up.  Walking towards him she held her hands out and he could see that she was holding a beautiful big rainbow trout.  It was luminous in the moonlight and it’s colours seemed to vibrate.

The man put out his hands and she gave him the fish.  Then she burst into laughter, turned and dove into the water again.  He watched the ripple on the surface until far out in the bay, he saw an otter’s head surface.  He heard a far away laugh and then it was gone.

The man carried the beautiful trout home.  It seemed to glow and light up the path and it lit up his kitchen before he could turn on a light.  The man had always loved underwater creatures and found fish fascinating and beautiful.  But this was the most beautiful fish he had ever seen.  He sat up well into the night painting a likeness of the fish on a piece of wood, trying to capture it’s light, it’s beauty.

When the sun came up, he was finally satisfied with his painting and he knew it was time to honour the trout.  He lit a fire in the yard and filleted the fish.  The skin and entrails, he left in the woods for the fox that visited there.  The bones went into the garden to share their minerals with the plants that grew there.  And then he called all his neighbours to come to his yard for breakfast.  He fried the fish over the fire and his neighbours brought raspberries from their canes and plums from their trees.  They brought bread they had just baked and yogurt from the tops of their fridges.  He told them the story of the otter and the woman and the fish and they savoured the gift of the trout in their mouths and marvelled at its taste.  They told stories of gifts that had come their way just when they were needed.  The fish and the friendship and the magic of the lake fed and sustained them for days to come and the story became one that was told on warm summer nights when the moon was full.

I am the Light of Happiness

Tunirrusiangit is Inuktitut for “the gift they gave”.  It is the name of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario of the art of Inuk artists Kenojuak Ashevak and her nephew Tim Pitsiulak.

Here is the Inuktitut “about the artists”.  

ᑎᑎᖅᑐᒐᖅᑎᓅᖓᔪᑦ

ᑭᙵᕐᓃᓐᙶᖅᑑᒃ (ᑕᐃᔭᐅᖃᑦᑕᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ Cape Dorset) ᓄᓇᕗᑦ, ᕿᓐᓄᐊᔪᐊᖅ ᐋᓯᕙᒃ (1927–2013), ᐃᓕᑕᕆᔭᐅᔾᔪᑎᑖᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᑲᓇᑕᒥ, ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᔪᖅ “ᐊᓈᓇᑦᓯᐊᖅ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᓴᓇᐅᒐᖏᓐᓄᑦ.” ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᑦᓯᐊᖅᑐᖅ ᑎᑎᖅᑐᒐᖅᑎᒍᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᖅᑐᐊᖏᑦᑎᒍᑦ ᑕᐸᐃᕐᓇᖅᑐᓂᓪᓗ ᐊᑐᕈᓐᓇᕐᓂᖓᓂᒃ ᐊᒥᐊᕈᑎᓂᒃ. ᐋᓯᕙᒃ ᐱᕕᐊᕆᓪᓚᕆᑦᓯᒪᔭᖓ ᐱᑦᓯᐅᓛᑉ (1967–2016), ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᒻᒪᕆᓕᓚᐅᕐᒥᔪᖅᑕᐅᖅ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᓴᓇᐅᒐᖏᓐᓅᖓᔪᓄᑦ ᑮᑕᑲᐃᓐᓇᐹᓘᒐᓗᐊᖅ ᑎᑎᖅᑐᒐᖅᑎᐅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᐆᒪᔪᙳᐊᓂᒃ ᐊᖑᓇᓱᑦᑎᐅᑉ ᐃᔨᖏᑦᑎᒍᑦ, ᐊᑐᖅᓯᓐᓈᖅᓱᓂ ᐅᐊᔭᒨᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᖃᓪᓗᓈᓃᙶᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓂ.  

Kenojuak Ashevak (1927 – 2013) lived much of her life in Kinngait (previously known a Cape Dorset, Nunavut and is known as the “grandmother of Inuit art.”  You may recognize her iconic “Enchanted Owl”.

 

Enchanted Owl by Kenojuak Ashevak

Her art speaks for itself but the exhibition included a video of Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (Iqualuit) performing her poem I am the Light of Happiness about Ashevak.  Bathory is an uaajeerneq (Greenlandic mask dance) performer, an Inuk artist and a co-curator of Tunirrusiangit.  I found this performance mesmerizing and her Inuk perspective will make you think about what we call Canadian art. You can see Ashevak's art behind her as she tells the story.  This is part of the new story of Canada that is emerging.

The Future, Day by Day: A Grandmother's Story

Here is a lovely summer story that a friend shared with me and has agreed to share with you.  She wrote it for her granddaughters.

This summer day, time moved slowly.  We were in the middle of a heat wave, steamy. hot and humid with no relief day or night.  After another restless hot night Gramma decided to go to the lake just as the sun’s light was bringing in the next day….

With blanket, towel and tea flask I walked down the stairs at the beach onto the already warm sand.   I settled near the water’s edge.  The sunlight had not yet cleared the tops of the big trees and so the beach was still in shade…

The water was still, like glass.  The surface was so flat and quiet…not a ripple to be seen.  Looking out over the bay, a haze left over from the previous day, hung in the air, a promise of more heat to come.  Only a few people were there so early, all of us looking for some early relief from the heat.

At one end of the beach, a husky and its owner stood in the still water while a mother wood duck quacked insistently – quack, quack, quack.  She had a family of four young ducks to protect and she was loud and persistent.  She quacked, her alarm breaking the morning hush-- Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack!  Then the husky, cooled and wet, walked away with his owner.  The morning’s hush returned and the duck family swam on….

In the quiet another woman and I slipped into the lake, moving out beyond the buoys into deep water.  Swimming slowly, without making a sound or splash, matching the lake’s morning message, I felt the cool water’s caress.  While I swam I noticed several feathers left from the previous day's adventures… floating now on the surface of the water.   Apparently weightless, small, white, downy gull feathers were balanced on the water’s surface.  Each feather touching the lake’s surface at a tiny point, while the rest of the plumage curved up dry, in a graceful white smile. 

The water reflected each feather’s beauty in a perfect mirror image.   I swam wide slow circles around several feathers to see them from all directions without disturbing them… I wanted to remember this beauty and lightness of being forever.  I breathed in deeply, “Ahhh.”

Feeling cooler from my swim, I walked out of the lake to my blanket. The sun was just spilling its rays over the tree tops as Gramma sat and started to sip her tea.  Sunlight touched the water as a new day was beginning.

Then two young girls, not yet 10, slim, all arms and legs—one taller, the other shorter, passed me on their way to the water.  They were in their “own world” quietly talking to each other, excited and holding ‘something’ in their cupped hands.  They spoke Cantonese.

They had long straight black hair and were wearing dresses. The taller girl with a pony tail wore a short dress and the shorter girl who had  loose black hair to her shoulders wore a green velvet dress.

They walked directly into the water, touching it with their toes, giggling and happy.  When they were knee deep in the cool lake they bent to place their treasures carefully on the water.  They each launched two tiny boats on the water and since there was not a breath of air they proceeded to make little ripples with their hands to move the little ships along.  They, like the feather earlier, were perfectly mirrored in the still surface of the lake.

Of course, they started to get wet and the boats moved into deeper water.  Distressed about this the younger girl ran back to her Mother and asked in English for her help to get the boats.  Her Mom came to the water’s edge and after stepping into the water quickly said “Oh! Too cold!” and went back to her blanket.

I paused, and then spoke to the girls, “I’m a Gramma,” I said, “and I’m already wet --I could get your boats if you’d like?”  They talked and the younger girl said “Yes please.”  

In I slipped, to retrieve the four boats.  When I got to them I discovered lovely origami boats – each one coloured differently, each one with a tiny folded piece of paper inside! 

I brought them back to the girls and immediately told them how beautiful the little boats were.  The younger girl proudly replied, “We were up at 5 o’clock to make them today!”  I told her I noticed the little pieces of paper inside, she took a moment and then thoughtfully replied,  “Those are our wishes…”

Standing in the lake, a Gramma and two young girls with wishes for the day I asked “Do you want to keep the boats? Or would you like to have your boats take your wishes out on the water today?” 

  

They talked amongst themselves and the younger replied to me,  “To the lake… “  I handed the boats to them and once more they launched their boats  this time their hands made waves which took the boats and their wishes out to the larger lake.  We  three stood together, a Gramma and two young girls, witnessing.

I returned to my tea and blanket while the girls continued to play in the water.  The younger girl’s mother was now sitting near me with her mother.  She explained, “We just flew in from China two days ago and the girls were up very early making the paper boats. The younger girl is my daughter and we came back to this place for a holiday.  Once years ago we lived here, and were very happy.  This year we brought an older cousin and my mother for the holiday.”

Curious I asked the mother what her daughter’s name was …. she replied her name is the same in Mandarin and English.  It is Future.  Our pet name for her is Day by Day.  "I tell my daughter," her mother said, “Day by day, you walk into the future.

I had asked Future when we were in the water if she might share with me their “wishes” or were they a secret?  She had taken a long moment to answer and then whispered, “It’s a secret”.  “All fine”, I said, “I understand.”

It was time for me to go.  The sun was higher and my own daughter was waiting for me, having returned from an early morning run.  I said goodbye… 

…remembering :  The water knows the wishes from Future --- day by day we will move into them….

… pondering : what would your wishes be if you were a child dreaming…