owikiskichikew

We're just out here trying to make a splash without doing the work of getting all wet.

Orange shirt day is just around the corner - buy Indigenous made - support the foundations local to you - that support Residential School Survivors.

Indian Residential School Survivors Society We are a provincial organization with a 20-year history of providing services to indian residential school survivors.

When I saw this image it reminded me of a moment in my own life - and I'm sure we've all been where this boy is right here.

The story goes like this; my first time being tossed in the drunk tank - I was stone cold sober.

I pi**ed off the intake officer when he made a racist remark about "Indians" - so I responded with - "how many generations you been here?" (In my best Cree accent) he looked up and said - what? "you heard me, how many generations? One two at best? Your Grandfather came over on a boat I bet, he followed the railroad to Alberta and staked a claim on our land. Which makes you just a visitor here - your time here is like a drop in the bucket - all this stuff (as I point with my lips - around the room) will be long gone just like you - and guess what - we'll still be here."

Yes - That actually happened - I really did say that to a cop and guess what - That didn't sit well with him - so he escorted me to the dunk tank - not just any cell - the one at the end of hall reserved special for "us".

I have to say it was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life - I was 18 - I've never been locked in a room with no benches and no toilet with seven big "Indians" - I even remember a few of their names - three were Siksika, one Tsuut'ina, two were Iyarhe Nakoda Stoney (we Cree called them Cutthroat Indians - wapamathe) and a mysterious guy who I think was from up north or maybe the big city like Toronto or Montreal - he was one those mystic weird "drunk Indians" and probably the most awesome dude there.

I was a tad over dressed for this party - with a raw silk blazer, white shirt and fancy trousers - yea for real - meanwhile - since there was no toilet - someone (I have no idea who) defecated in the corner and pretty much everyone had pi**ed their pants - and - a couple guys took it a step further by chomping down some charcoal and puked all over the place. In short - it was pretty far from civilized in this room. Which brought me to my moment of having a five minute massive break down - you probably can't even imagine the emotions circulating through me - these are my folks - my kin - we're connected by a spiritual bond - and they're so far gone that - the entire concept of hitting rock bottom is meaningless to them. In fact these guys didn’t just hit rock bottom they embraced it - they revelled in it and laughed in the face of "white hypocrisy" - they loved the fear in your eyes when you looked at them. Which actually reminds me of another profound story of meeting a down-and-out Kainai and doing a prayer with him at the top of sacred Napi coolies along the edges of Lethbridge.

Anyway - not to digress - the most amazing thing about being locked in a tight cell with natives - is that they are fu***ng cool people - I mean - this delusion of the mad crazy angry Indian - these guys - they're just wounded - warriors that have been put through a meat grinder - you can not for a moment go without compassion for a wounded spirit - I’m not even going to touch on how fk'd up these guys probably really are - yet I’m the one who spent the night with them….I have to laugh about the moment they started waking up and we’re getting served breakfast and me being “new” of course I’m not eating that s**t they’re giving us (I’m one of those tofo eating uppity natives - like in Thunderheart) - which makes me the star because I’m giving out my bread and ham and cheese - it’s a party.

Yet in amongst it all - the humanity of the experience was profound - here - a pi**ed off cop was trying to teach me a lesson (let's see how this kid fairs with a bunch of hard boiled Indians) - well - I faired just fine, and all story telling aside this image really grabbed me - as it's always good to remind ourselves that our children are watching and their spirits are raw - riding high in their purity as nature intended - it only takes a few rough rides to knock them off their horse.

Photo: Aaron Huey --> the beautiful people of Pine Ridge changed his life for ever..

owikiskichikew - the words and Indigenous perspectives of K. J. McCusker Love, kindness, mindfulness, acceptance, culture, connection, and pathways to positive being.

Love is a power.

In the old tradition of a whale hunt, it was taken so seriously and considered so sacred that a ceremony would take place between a man and a woman, unlike any other. Before the hunt, the hunter (as you see here) would prepare himself by sitting in the waters for several days; he would acclimate his body and attune himself to the ocean’s energy while his wife would prepare herself for a fast. As the hunters planed in readiness their boats, equipment, and weapons, the ceremony would begin. She would build a hut and make a bed where she would lay in waiting completely motionless.

This was a ceremony of love and communion where all of her thoughts and energy is to the water, the whale and, her beloved husband. It is understood that the ocean will carry her prayers to the whale, and the whale will hear her. She lays motionlessness so that her actions speak as loudly as her thoughts; she will share many things with the whale among those things will be to ask the whale for the ultimate sacrifice so that her people may eat, so that they may thrive and prosper well. She will l*l the whale with her gentle, thoughtful song, so the whale would remain calm and not harm the hunters (as hunting a whale is a life-threatening endeavor). She will tell the whale that her husband is a great and skilled hunter and that he will be cautious and compassionate so that s/he will feel no suffering. She tells the whale of how grateful she is for her sacrifice and that she will live up to her covenant and vows to protect the waters and keep them sacred.

She does all this in the name of love.

Someone once said - “Healing is more about accepting the pain and finding a way to peacefully co-exist with it. In the sea of life, pain is a tide that will ebb and weave, continually.

We need to learn how to let it wash over us, without drowning in it. Our life doesn't have to end where the pain begins, but rather, it is where we start to mend.”

There's a great deal that I wish to express regarding pain and trauma. My life experience has been deeply tied to these words - "letting go." I survived a tenuous and abusive childhood (that was always enshrined in love) due to the fact that this wisdom came to me to help guide my understanding that the cycle of abuse can end in my hand and become something so beautiful. The lesson came to me through my very skin and blood - from the age of five, I talked to my ancestors through my skin, asking my little tiny cells to tell me something tell me how I can move and live in the space of transformation, in the space of acceptance and compassion. One message was most profound - let it wash over you - you are more than what you're exposed to - your spirit is filled with profound essence, and no real harm will ever come to you - unless you let it. So take in the lessons that the pain is teaching you and allow it to wash over you like rain, like the words a story, let the lessons seep in, let the power of each experience feed your beauty.

Learning this lesson didn't change everything. Yet learning it gave me so much more vitality and compassion towards myself even in moments of darkness - and there was much darkness - letting it wash over was the lesson that allowed me to reshape the horror, the terror, the sadness, and come out with love.

Misatimucimuwin

"The Plains Cree believe that nearly everything has a spirit essence. All living things, plants, animals, people, storms, and some inanimate objects have souls. This belief demands a deep respect for the natural world.

This fundamental belief is reflected in the religious ceremonies of the plains Cree. Besides the thirst dances, known also as sun dance or rain dance, there are society dances. One of these dances are called the Horse Dance. This dance is very old.

The plains Cree performed the horse Dance after the arrival of the horse on the plains. Prior to the arrival of the horse, their main source of moving was by dogs and travois.

In the Horse Dance, there are two spirit powers, weasel and horse, they are connected with this ceremony and it was made for them. A man named little paul said of this dance: "It is not very hard to give the misatimucimuwin, the Horse Dance, but only a few men are able to do it. On this reserve (Little Pine) only two can make it. Only certain people are able to host a Horse Dance. Night Traveller was taught how to do it by his father. William Sap was given the power in a dream. I myself couldn't give the dance. But if I had vowed it, I would give the necessary things to Night Traveller and ask him to make a Horse Dance. I would send him two offering cloths, sweetgrass and berries. He wouldn't take anything for himself, but he would always be willing to do it. The food is provided by the women. Those who come to the dance bring as much food as they can spare."

The Horse Dance summons spiritual energy. It began with rituals conducted in a long lodge. Guests reclined in concentric circles sitting according to rank, men on one side, women on the other. The fire burning smelling sweet, pipes were offered, servers came around and offered berries, and can be heard like a heartbeat as songs were sung. In front of the pledger was placed a stake to which bells were attached. He shook this in time with the song. Men, like the earth that bears them, have two faces: one in sun and one in shadow. Each may chose for himself the face he turns to his brother. The bright side is beautiful, but the dark has its purpose, as do night and winter and death. At the Horse Dance everyone believes in harmony.

A young man who is chosen by the pledger to be leader of the ceremony dances carrying a weasel hide. He finally dances out of the lodge and ties the hide around the neck of his horse. The other young men file out of the lodge and start to paint and decorate their best horses. When the riders are assembled, the pledgers and the singers come out of the lodge and stand near an upright pole The pole is laden with many cloth offerings.

The bright day brings whirlwinds and the dust and sound of horse hoofs as the horsemen ride around the group, rearing and prancing their horses. At intervals they dismount and join in the dance, this continues for a day.

Horses and the warriors that rode them, the participants at the Horse Dance all experienced that supernatural energy from echoes of the past. Horse of grey or white, pinto, black, brown, bay, buckskin, shaggy haired, roan and dappled, can be seen rearing and neighing prancing around at the Horse Dance. This was part of living for the plains Cree after the arrival of the horse on the plains."

Martha Ironstar: 1993 Indigenous Cultural Centre

CROSSING THE LITTLE BIG HORN / PHOTOGRAPHY: ERIKA HAIGHT

Love is the most profound gift of evidence that there is a continuous circle of being that far supersedes all explanation and all possible intellectual interpretation.

It's the hook that binds us to our greater self - our most profound being of benevolence. It is also the source of incredible misinterpretation as feelings are only as complex as we define them to be - only as complex as we manifest them to be - it's the entanglement of expectation and our most intimate compulsion to feed our fears with our emotional injury - our trauma.

Drop all expectations in love and simply live in love.

Live in the space of realization that you are the greatest thing to ever happen... That your presence alone empowers others and lifts the world that surrounds you.

You are the partner and lover, mother, father, daughter, son with the greatest potential and holding the most powerful gifts to raise us up - so far up.

When you're in the space of your truth - you're angelic, you're radiant, you're brilliant.

It's that demon inside that bites hold of your ankle and drags you down into your darkness - bringing you to your lower self - where all your self-doubt - your pain and trauma and anger reside.

Being in that space makes you do things - say and do terrible things - taking you so far out from all the beautiful incredible gifts that lift you up - support you - love you - see you for who you really are.

Ceremony has always been there to bring us together - our pathways as hunters - our traditions and collective way of living has always been about living in our truth - identifying our strengths - regardless of our differences - we're human beings - we're compelled by the way we deal with our relationship with love, it's the blanket that binds us. Yet when the blanket is torn we are the absolute worst of each other.

There are so many lessons I take away from everything you've lived through, and those lessons you've shared have taught others an incredible amount. What you shared in living in your best self has lifted others and helped manifest even greater outcomes around you.

Let go of the demon, that dragon thriving beneath you - at least recognize when its bite takes hold and kick it off before it pulls you under - and remember that even when it can't grab hold it will swim around you and set fire to your fears and pain and anyway it can.

Living in the space of love you can manifest incredible things - others around you do it all the time - and you do as well - in fact, you're powerful at it.

So go out and manifest the very best in yourself and in others around you.

Let go of any negative or disempowered thought - any cruel thought - transform those thoughts into light - you can manifest things for others - you can transform pain and fear into love - take the thoughts and transform them into outcomes that come from your highest most beautiful self.

owikiskichikew updated their business hours.