A Window to the Future

Location of window in Parliament Buildings

In 2008, the government of Canada formally apologized to former students of Indian Residential schools.  As part of this apology, as a gesture of reconciliation, it commissioned a stained glass window to commemorate the legacy of these schools.  A number of Indigenous artists in Canada, submitted designs for the windows.  The design of Metis artist Christi Belcourt was chosen.  The finished window was permanently installed in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill over the door that the MP’s use to enter and exit the building.

The window is entitled  "Giniigaaniimenaaning" which means 'Looking Ahead'

Christi Belcourt

At the dedication ceremony for the window in Nov. 2012 in Ottawa, Belcourt talked about her inspiration for the design of the window entitled  "Giniigaaniimenaaning" which means "Looking Ahead".  This edited version of the government website is from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Summary.  These are Christi’s words:

“The stories of residential school students were never told in this building, so I’m going to tell you one now… I asked Lucille [Kelly-Davis] who is a residential school survivor what she wanted to see on the window.  I had assisted her through the residential school settlement process, and like so many survivors, her story is horrific… Despite her childhood, she married ,had four children and now has many grandchildren.  She is a pipe carrier, attends traditional ceremonies, and helps younger people learn the traditions.  She’s a powerful Anishnabeg grandmother who is generous, loving and caring, and gives all she can to her community and her family.  She is not a victim, but a survivor.  When I asked her what to put on the window, she said, 'Tell our side of the story.'… She said, 'make it about hope.'… It’s about looking ahead, as the name of the window says, ‘giniigaaniimenaaning’ looking to the future for those yet unborn…"

"Because she told me to make it about hope, what I’ve tried to show in the design is all the positive things I’ve seen in my life.  Despite residential schools, children, adults, and Elders dance in full regalia in celebration of who they are as Indigenous people.  We see Metis youth learning fiddling and jigging with pride across the country.  We see arenas full of Inuk Elders drum dancing, with little kids running around, speaking Inuktitut.  We see whole communities come together in times of joy and in times of great grief.  The lodges are growing, the traditional songs are being sung, the ceremonies are being taught, and the ceremonies are still practiced."

"I wish I could show the government that reconciliation has the potential to be so much more.  I wish I could convince them that reconciliation is not an unattainable goal.  If there’s the will and the courage to discard old paternalistic ways of thinking and of behaviour.  We need action, and where we need action, don’t meet us with silence.  Where we need support, don’t accuse us of being a burden… I wish I could speak to the hearts of MPs, whether Conservative, or NDP, or Liberal, and let them know that renewal and reconciliation can be found between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canada through the sustained wellness of generations of Aboriginal people to come."

You can watch a short video from the government website about the creation of the window.  It shows the stained glass artist transforming Belcourt’s design into glass. 

Here is the transcript of Christi Belcourt describing the design on the film:

"It begins in the bottom left corner in a lodge, where a grandfather is smoking his pipe. This is before residential schools when everything was whole… when everything was intact.

The middle panel of the left hand side is the panel that depicts the residential school era, where 150,000 children were forcibly removed from their families. The children were abused sexually, and abused physically, and mentally.

In 1990, Phil Fontaine was the first national leader to publicly acknowledge that he had been abused in residential schools. There was something that happened when he did it that made the rest of Canada kind of wake up to the idea that this had happened. So within the design there's a shattering of glass. And that represents the shattering of silence and the shattering of lives. Then the drum dancer…the Inuk drum dancer is there. The drum is our heartbeat, and so it's awakening the people. The dove is there as a hope of reconciliation.

In 2008, which is the middle panel, the Government of Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly apologized, and our leaders were for the first time able to be on the floor of the House of Commons and respond. As it moves down into the right panel the lines and the colours are meant to bring a feeling of bringing it forward into the future.

The jingle dress is a sacred dress. It's a healing dress and so the jingle dress dancer is there. She's dancing for the future of her grandchildren. The child is now with the mother…no longer being separated…no longer being taken away. She is able to tell her child "I love you". The grandfather in the back is practicing ceremonies and able to pass on that traditional knowledge.

And so the bottom panel is the other half of the circle where the grandmother sits in the lodge and she's smoking her pipe for her grandchildren. And it is a restoration of cultures…a restoration of traditional practices. If we look at the history, we won't repeat it. If we remember history, we'll be able to move forward from it."

Top panel of the window

The TRC Summary (p.288) states:  "Commemoration in highly visible public spaces such as the parliament buildings creates openings for dialogue about what happened, why, and what can be learned from this history,  Through dialogue citizens can strengthen their ability to `accommodate difference, acknowledge injustice, and demonstrate a willingness to share authority over the past.'  In the context of national reconciliation, ongoing public commemoration has the potential to contribute to human rights education in the broadest sense."

It is said that history is written by the victors.  For too long, Indigenous stories have been told by those colonial voices that had power over them.  Jesse Wente of the CBC and TIFF Lightbox feels it is critical that we listen to those stories as they are told by Indigenous people.  This is why I have used Christi Belcourt's words to tell this story.  Listening from the heart is an important part of healing and reconciliation.  As you listened to her explain the significance of the window and the vision of healing, you are an active participant in this window to the future.  You are a part of our new story.

Let Us Stand Together Whatever Our Differences

Here is an email that I received this week from the Malala Fund  which supports the work of Malala Yousafzai.  I liked Malala's response to recent world events and thought I'd share them with you in her own words: "As we look around the world today and see so much fear and uncertainty, many wonder what this means for the most vulnerable among us. What this means for girls denied an education and a better future by poverty, war and discrimination. The girls we serve have never asked for our pity or fear — they don’t want it. They want the world to know they are strong and ambitious. They have high expectations of themselves — and of leaders whose decisions affect their lives. So let us not be afraid. Let’s stand up and move forward. In the face of fear and hate, I do what my mother taught me: be patient, persevere and always speak the truth. To those who have asked for my thoughts on turbulent elections, divisive referendums and the isolation so many feel, I say this: I am just a committed and even stubborn person who wants to see every child go to school, every woman have equal rights to men and peace in every corner of the world. There is not a lot I can do alone. But together we can keep fighting, believing and working for a world where all girls can learn for 12 years and lead without fear. For all who believe as I do and most of all, for refugees and girls fighting for their right to go to school, Malala Fund will be here — today, tomo‌rrow and as long as it takes for every girl to get the education she deserves. So let us stand together, whatever our differences. Our sisters need our support, now more than ever."

What Will You Do?

After the recent US elections, some people in Toronto decided that this gave them license to be openly racist.  This disturbed the majority of people who became equally open about their beliefs.

One incident involving an angry young man on a Toronto street car was of course filmed by an onlooker and put on youtube.  Apparently it all started when an older woman asked the young man to turn down the volume on his device.  The young man got angry and another passenger became involved.  The young man started hurling racial slurs and then a group of younger women got involved trying to get the man to calm down and get off the street car.  The young man kept going, invoking the name of the president elect.  The driver also tried to calm the young man down with no success.  He eventually got off of the street car still yelling.  Although this was a disturbing incident for all involved and for those viewing it, what stood out for me was how the young women stood up to the man, protecting the racialized man who became the target.  They did not sit by and watch it happen.

Around the same time, posters showed up in an East end neighbourhood trying to solicit “white people” to join the alt-right movement.  Residents took them down and the police are investigating.  Now a new neighbourhood group called the East End Anti-Racism Collective is organizing an event to celebrate diversity and to speak out against racism and violence.  Their posters which are also on plain white paper say “I heart Diversity”.  Local politicians and the local community association say they will take positive actions to counteract the racist ones.

Poster put up to replace racist one

In the same newspaper that I read about the pro-diversity event, I learned that Toronto has become a model for other countries working at integrating newcomers.  Toronto started to get attention earlier this year when over five thousand Syrian refugees were welcomed by private and government sponsors to the city.  Hundreds of people from The Netherlands, Britain, Sweden and the US have come to learn about the resettlement program.  Montreal is modelling its own Newcomer Office after the one in Toronto. The article in the Toronto Metro News quotes Councillor Joe Mihevc as saying “that most of the countries visiting have been plagued with ‘anti-immigrant sentiments,’ and it’s encouraging that Toronto remains a ‘city of hope even in the middle of all the Trumpism.’”

The shocking results of the US election have many people thinking about what their own response to this outcome can be.  I said the day after the election to some people that I felt that I need to be more respectful, kinder to balance this fear and hate.  A few people told me that that was exactly how they felt. Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning that “evil is good people doing nothing.”  That definition which appears counter intuitive when we like to think of evil as something out there, has always challenged me to find a response that feels true to my values.

Some people believe that working in the negative is not very effective, especially when communicating with animals and children.  They don’t understand negatives very well. Saying, “don’t jump on the couch,” makes them first picture jumping on the couch and then trying to picture the opposite.  It is complicated.  Likewise, hating racists will leave us feeling bad.  It’s like taking poison and hoping someone else dies. Instead, I think we have to look inside of ourselves and discover what we would like our world to look like, to sound like, to feel like.  And then as Gandhi said, “be the change we want to see.”  That might look like standing up against injustice and it might also look like creating communities where diversity is celebrated, where we learn from one another and enjoy our differences.

This is not a new idea.  But in the face of overt racism and sexism doing nothing is like tacit approval at best.  Perhaps the sheer ugliness of what is being promoted in the US will shock us out of complacency and draw the goodness out of us into the light of day.  Not only do we have to stand up for our values, but we have to live them, be them. That will be good for us and for the world.

The Social Action of Music

"Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion.  And it has the ability to unite an entire community, and to express sublime feelings."  So said Venezuelan educator, musician and activist Jose Antonio Abreu, founder of what is now called El Sistema.

Jose Antonio Abreu

In 1975, Abreu began offering free music lessons to eleven impoverished children in an underground garage in Venezuela.  He got government funding for this project and it grew and spread around the world.  The program provides free classical ensemble music lessons and practice every day after school to promote personal growth and positive social change.  It is about more than just individual musical ability.  Playing music together is just as important.  

Abreu was born in 1939 in Venezuela.  He studied economics, worked in the government and taught at universities.  He concurrently studied music.  Abreu brought these two streams together when he created “an innovative youth education method in which music was the primary avenue for social and intellectual improvement.” Hi motto was “Social Action for Music.” (Wikipedia) He has since received numerous awards for this ground breaking work.

Today there are over 100 Sistema chapters in 60 countries around the world. They target children who would not normally be able to take music lessons or play in an orchestra.

A few years ago, a Sistema chapter was started near me in Midland, Ontario which is when I first heard about this program.  This group’s website states that “Our mission is to build and sustain an intensive social program that provides free, ensemble-based music lessons to inspire children to realize their full potential as students, musicians and citizens. “ 

Sistema exists in almost every province in Canada now and there are over 20 programs in existence.  Here are some examples:

Saint James Music Academy in Vancouver (2007) serves 480 students from Downtown Eastside inner-city schools and it is an official community partner of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. 

OrfKidstra in Ottawa (2007) serves 400 students from Centretown inner-city schools and is partnered with local community organizations including the National Arts Centre. 

YONA-Sistema in Edmonton (2013) is partnered with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and other partners. 

El Sistema Aeolian, London (2011) serves 75 students and includes a youth string orchestra, a choir and an adult orchestra.  They give 15 – 20 performances a year.

Sistema Toronto says that it is a “social development program that builds a sense of community, self–respect and mutual support in children.”  You can see a very beautiful 6 minute video of cellist Yo-Yo Ma giving instruction to some of these children on the website.  It is lovely to watch this famous musician be totally present with the three young cellists and get them to “feel” the music they are playing which is Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  He gets them to imagine what looking at the night sky feels like and then play that. 

The website for the London groups states, “Music transcends language and takes us directly to our limbic brain; the emotional core.  It allows us to express the flow of intellect and emotion.”  This is exactly what you can see Yo-Yo Ma doing with the kids on the video.

“Sistema is a social program first and foremost. We use music ensembles as a model to teach students their role in the success of a team. By working toward a common goal, our students learn about cooperation, mutual support, empathy, self-respect, perseverance, and resilience,“ says the Sistema-Toronto website.

“Our world needs creative thinkers; young people with high social and emotional intelligence.  We need to foster leadership, volunteerism, mentorship, pursuit of excellence and a commitment to community,” states the El Sistema Aeolian website.

I first heard of El Sistema from a friend who was starting up the local chapter in Midland.  The board is constantly fundraising and looking for donations of instruments.  I saw some of these when my partner donated his time repairing and refurbishing donated violins for the kids.  He and I plan to do a fundraising house concert for the group as well. Many local people are involved in supporting this program.

We have all heard the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child.”  To me this is the village stepping up and offering music to kids who wouldn’t be able to participate otherwise.  And of course they will also contribute to the village while they are children and as adults.  It is a good example of how one person’s idea can spread and inspire other people to work in a framework that is about cooperation, not competition, about the joy of creating together.  If you want to feel the magic of that, watch the video with Yo-Yo and the kids.  

People and Nature: Better Together

What would you call a place where people were inspired to live and work in harmony with nature?  A place where they worked to create sustainable jobs, clean energy and to support biodiversity ?  A place that used current science, traditional knowledge and global sharing to make life better for people and for nature?    You might like to visit such a place.  You might already live in such a place without knowing it.

I discovered that I live part of the time in one of these UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Biosphere Reserves while watching a documentary series called Striking Balance on TVO.  Striking Balance tells the stories of eight such areas in Canada.  They are areas designated by UNESCO that find “creative and effective ways for people and nature to thrive together.”  says the narrator of an informative video describing this work. 

There is no legal authority making people do this and the reserves are not strictly about nature preservation.  This is about people deciding that they want to work together with each other and with nature, that they are better together than apart. According to the UNESCO website they are ”an area in the world which is deemed to demonstrate a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere.”

Striking Balance  is a series of 8 fifty-minute documentaries which are available on DVD or they can be viewed on the TVO website  or on TVO for a limited time.  I have watched two episodes so far.  In Episode 5 on the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve (where it turns out I live part time), the people in the reserve are trying to balance an increase in cottagers, the expansion of a major highway and the protection of endangered turtles and the Massassaga Rattlesnake which is a threatened species.  The Magnetawan First Nation within the Biosphere Reserve hired biologists to conduct a survey of Massassauga Rattlesnakes  on their land. Members of the First Nation report sightings of turtles and snakes as well.  

Biologists catch Massassaga Rattlesnakes on Magnetawan First Nation

The new widened Highway 69 will have animal corridors underneath it and will be fenced to protect wildlife from coming onto the road creating one of the safest roads for wildlife.  A biologist was brought in to study the winter hibernation area of about 100 rattlesnakes which would be disturbed by the new highway.  Those involved are looking for the best way to protect the snakes. The people on Magnetawan First Nation tell the story of how traditionally the rattlesnakes protected certain areas of blueberries.  People knew not to pick in those areas, to avoid the snakes.  This allowed the blueberries to drop their fruit containing seeds so that more plants could grow.  They feel that the rattlesnakes are once again protecting the land.  This traditional knowledge and respect partnered with biologist’s findings are both important in this model.

Oyster farming in Bras d'Or Lake

In the Bras d`Or Lake Biosphere in Nova Scotia, coal mining and steel production has come to an end and oyster farming was seen as a sustainable alternative for work.  However, a parasite destroyed much of the oyster population.  Both traditional Mi`kmaq knowledge and current science are being used to save the oysters.  In Quebec, Mont Saint-Hilaire`s old-growth forest and glacial lake are loved by the communities around it but they must balance growth to protect it.  In Clayoquot Sound, BC, communities deal with conflict over logging by looking to the past to learn how to help the environment, cultures and economies to thrive well into the future.  Redberry is a salt lake in Saskatchewan where the community is part of social and scientific experiments as it tries to thrive while being threatened by industrial agriculture.  In the Bay of Fundy, people are working to bring back the Atlantic Salmon which is on the edge of extinction. And in the Waterton Biosphere Reserve, in Alberta, ranchers find new ways to coexist with grizzly bears.  The series tells the stories of 8 of Canada`s 18 biosphere reserves.

 

Atlantic Salmon in the Bay of Fundy Biosphere Reserve

UNESCO first started the Man and Biosphere Programme in 1971.  There are now 669 sites in 120 countries.  The members can and do share ideas with each other.  The benefits of living in a biosphere reserve are many.  There is increased recognition of the community to attract people including tourists to the area, the promotion of sustainable economic development, support for groups already working in this way, improved relationships with First Nations and their knowledge of the land, and greater access to information and funding.  For those living in Canada’s Biosphere Reserves,” the environment is only healthy if human communities and the ecosystems that sustain them are both thriving - today, and for hundreds of years to come.”(TVO) 

 

Waterton Biosphere Reserve in Alberta

I was surprised to discover  that I lived on the edge of one of these biospheres for part of each week.  I had seen the signs posted and had probably visited a booth describing the reserve at some festivals  and possibly looked at the literature, but I didn't “get it”.  However, in watching the videos and hearing the stories of some of the people who were part of the UNESCO program, I started to get interested.  That is the importance of stories.  

There are two images that stay with me from the Georgian Bay episode.  One is of two young biologists catching rattlesnakes with a snake stick and carefully measuring them in a clear tube, to take an inventory on Magnetawan First Nation.  The other is of an Indigenous elder patrolling the side of the highway on his scooter, dog at his side, looking for wounded or dead turtles and snakes day after day.  

Redberry Lake, Saskatchewan

These biospheres are “proof that a sustainable way of living is not only possible but is already happening.”  In the trailer for the series, one man says, “I hope that living in a biosphere reserve will give people a sense of being a part of something that the future of the planet is going to depend on.”  I am going to see if there is a way for me to take part in the Georgian Bay one.  And I am looking forward to watching the other episodes.  Check them out.  You might end up feeling hopeful!

Being Beech Leaves

Forestry specialists once thought that the only tree that could flourish in an area with sandy, nutrient-deficient soil near Bamberg, Germany were pines.  So that is what they planted.   They also planted beech trees to help the pines by neutralizing their acidic needles in the soil with their fallen beech leaves.  They did not expect to harvest any of the beeches and saw them only as a helper species.

What the foresters discovered over time was surprising.  As they expected, the beech leaves added an alkaline humus to the soil that was able to store water, unlike the sandy soil.  In addition, the leaves of the beeches slowed down the wind that blew through the forest which reduced the amount of water that evaporated from the forest.  This added water allowed the beeches to grow more and they actually grew taller than the pines.  

Forestry students found that a beech forest was up to fifty degrees Fahrenheit cooler than a nearby thinned pine forest on a hot summer day.  The thinned pine forest allowed sunshine to heat up the forest floor and the wind could dry it out as well.  So the supposed “helper” trees, the beeches, actually changed the microclimate of the forest to their benefit and they grew better than the pines because of this.

I heard this story in The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester who is challenging some of the commonly held ideas that the forestry industry holds about trees.  Wohlleben has been observing trees for decades and is investigating his ideas in a forest which he now manages.

Since I have a passion for trees and I think we can learn a lot about life from them, I wondered how this particular story could instruct human life.  I liked the idea of changing a microclimate.  Well, I didn’t have to wait long before a news story caught my interest.

The story  was that Charlie Angus, MP for Timmins-James Bay and NDP Indigenous Affairs Critic was putting forth a motion to get the government to make an emergency injection of $115 million for Indigenous Child Welfare Services to comply with legal orders from the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal.  In January, this tribunal found that the Canadian federal government has “consistently failed to provide” services to First Nations children compared to what the provinces provide for other children in Canada.  The tribunal has issued two compliance orders to get the federal government to take immediate action to end funding shortfalls.  The government has committed $635 million dollars in its budget but the bulk of that won’t be spent for another five or six years.  Meanwhile children and families are suffering.

Charlie Angus

Angus who represents Northern Ontario communities such as Attawapiskat knows first hand what this suffering looks like. To read more about this check out an earlier blog post .

Senator Murray Sinclair of the TRC said, "Canada's discriminatory policies have led to greater failed, and failing, interventions into the lives of Indigenous families than residential schools, and serious changes must be undertaken," he said Monday. "I cannot overstate how important it is that the federal government immediately comply with the orders of the independent Human Rights Tribunal."

A member of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s economic  advisory council, entrepreneur Carol Anne Hilton wrote, "I support this motion to call on the federal government to take immediate measures to implement the human rights tribunal's direction for compliance with the immediate measures to end racial discrimination of First Nations kids."

Well, this reminded me of the story of the pine and beech trees.  The pines which were the trees of interest, supposedly the more hardy, powerful and financially important species seemed to me like the status quo of government inaction on this issue.  Picture, if you will, evenly spaced out pine trees, not touching each other with pine needles high in the sky, far from the forest floor. 

However, the climate in Canada  for this issue has been changing.  There are more news articles and TV coverage of Indigenous issues than ever before and we hear about kids committing suicide and the sad state of affairs on reserves.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has publicized the stories told by Indigenous people of their experiences in residential schools.  Artists and musicians are telling these stories and personalizing them.  Canadians are learning about these issues and are often shocked and horrified at the fourth world conditions that people are living in, while feeling hopeless about their ability to make any difference.  

It seemed to me that all these artistic expressions, personal stories, news stories and the people who are hearing them are like so many leaves on the beech trees.  They are filling in the spaces amid the pine trunks.  They are shading the forest floor and slowing down the wind so people can listen, really listen and learn.  They are slowing down the evaporation of stories that are here one day and gone the next in the mainstream media.  The stories are staying with us, we are digesting them, we are feeling all kinds of emotions and we are wanting change.  The climate is changing in the midst of government bureaucracies and policies.

And so on Nov. 1, 2016, the motion was brought before the House of Commons and it passed unanimously.  The beech trees are flourishing.  Certainly, the NDP will play a big role in making sure this money gets spent in the right places to affect change.  And for the rest of us, it is easy to email politicians and encourage them to do the right thing or to congratulate them on making a decision you think is good.  The important thing to remember is that all the beech leaves together changed the climate in the forest.  Fallen beech leaves, new beech leaves, mature beech leaves and papery brown dead leaves that stay put on branches even in the winter -- they all played their part.   

This is a different way of understanding how things work.  It bears thinking about because it is our story. This is a story that the trees have been telling and now so are we.

Wohlleben, P. (2015). The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How They Communicate. Vancouver: David Suzuki Institute.