Memory Serves

I am reading Lee Maracle’s Memory Serves.  The book is a collection of her speeches and lectures.  As an acclaimed Indigenous author, knowledge keeper of the Stó:lō nation, actor, and teacher, Maracle’s voice is one that is important to me.

Lee Maracle

On page 32, she writes, “My memory begins with an imagined world – my vision.  A world in which I dream and see peace…. I make a map.  On this map legions of bodies engage an imagined peace. They desire to concatenate, to link together, and to make this common dream roll forward.  I envision a tidal wave of different beings.  These people clean rivers, save trees that purify our air, clutch desperately to recycling, to writing letters, to calling their governments to stop the slaughter.  They write poems that may be heard by children who will never stop dreaming of peace.”  These words jumped out at me because they speak of my own vision, my own map.

Maracle describes memory from an Indigenous perspective.  “We remember events as obstacles to connection, community and relationship, rather than from a position of blame, excellence, exceptionality or success.” (p. 38)  I struggle to imagine this worldview, so different from the one that I grew up with, so different from the one I hear over and over again in the media.  I start to imagine seeing events through the lens of relationship. It feels like turning the Titanic.  It is hard work to change my well trained mind to see events from a different perspective.  But I can see the value in this worldview and it is one that I want to explore.

Maracle speaks about many things including the importance of story. “Story, poetry, word art, engage the imagination of the community, the heart of the nation and the spirit of the present, past and future.  Word art must move people from where they are to where they need to go to ensure community concatenation [linking together]. They must activate the community-based thought process of the listener without prescribing a response.” (p. 48)

As I worked my way slowly through Memory Serves I realized that Maracle’s words flesh out the concept of decolonization, changing the ideas that have led to the situations that we live in here in what we call Canada.  She describes Indigenous worldviews in a compelling way that become a map for finding our way out of this place, a map of vision and collaboration.  She calls for people to think in a more community-based way and therefore in a less individualistic way.  This makes sense to me.  Maracle’s writing indeed activates that kind of thinking in me.  She talks about the power of story, poetry and word art to elicit that kind of process in people without being prescriptive.  That of course leaves room for new thinking, new ideas, new discoveries instead of the old, standard ways of doing things which seem to be leading us to increased discord, damage and destruction.

So, I began to wonder what such a story would sound like in this very time that I am living, in this very place where I live.  In fact, for two and a half years, I have been writing this blog, once a week, in search of those very stories, hoping to elicit a community-based thinking process for myself and those who read this blog, hoping to fill in the map.  I am bombarded daily with stories of war, divisiveness and disagreements.  I now live in a place with a populist premier who rose to power on the flames of hate and fear. 

This is not the world that I imagine when I think of peace, when I vision my own map.  And so, I search for the stories from the ancestors, the stories of the people who value the land, who value community, who protect the vulnerable and empower the youth.  This is where I put my energy. This is what I link myself to with my feet, with my voice, with my on-line connections, with my wallet, with my ears and eyes and with my heart.

Tent Caterpillar

This past weekend, I encountered a young mom with two little boys on the edge of the forest.  They were looking at something in the older boy’s hand.  I went over and asked what they had found.  A tent caterpillar moved around the boy’s hand.  The mom quickly explained that the boy had learned to be afraid of bugs during a school hike in the woods and she didn’t want that to be the case.  She had read them the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and had come to the forest so the boys could encounter nature, well, naturally, with curiosity and amazement.  So, I let another caterpillar crawl onto my hand so the boy could see an adult doing this.  I asked him how the caterpillar felt by gently stroking the hairs on its back.  We talked about what the caterpillar would eat and how it would eventually turn into a moth.  I congratulated the mom on doing a great job and she talked about how she is trying to combat the allure of screens by getting the kids outside.

The next day, my partner and I met a family at the Wye Marsh with a four year old and an infant.  My partner pointed out frogs, turtles, turtle nests, Tree Swallow nesting boxes and a nesting osprey.  Once the dad knew what to look for, he got down to the boy’s level and patiently showed him how to look for these things.  The dad’s enthusiasm was infectious and the boy started to ask questions and look for himself.  The mom talked about how she grew up in nature and how she wanted that for her kids.  I congratulated her on doing a great job too.

Ebony Jewelwing resting on an Ostrich Fern at the Wye Marsh

As a "grandmother-at-large", I want to encourage parents who are limiting the tech culture and teaching their kids to appreciate and love nature.  I want to congratulate them, empower them with information and share my own enthusiasm with the kids.  Could this very simple linking up for a few minutes with families be one of the stories that elicits community thinking?

Lee Maracle (2015) Memory Serves. Edmonton: NeWest Press.