For those of you who are interested in ending violence to women in this world, a beautiful and poignant film about the Rising movement in Sudan, a land where women have very few rights and humiliation towards girls and women is still lawful, including the threat of being stoned– in 2013. Please take the time to watch this film, and then send as many prayers and healing to the women and men and children of this very troubled area of our world. namaste, Leigh
Last February 14th, more than a thousand young women and men rose together to demand an end to violence against women and girls in Khartoum, Sudan. Organized by Salmmah Women Resource Centre and Open Mike, together with the support of civil society women’s organizations and youth groups – Ahfad University for Women in Khartoum became the site of an extraordinary rising in a country where participation in public spaces by women is not easy – and where laws that continue to humiliate Sudanese women and girls, and remove their dignity, and where discriminative legal systems are still in place. The university rang with cheers as the women and men danced to “Break The Chain” – opening a five- hour program that included Sudanese dance and music by performance groups Nuba Mountains dance, Makaan, Sudan Roots and Solo Band. On One Billion Rising Khartoum, Fahima Hashim, Director of Salmmah Women Resource Centre said “the way it has been taken, the way the energy transferred and travelled – and the involvement, even of the people….they just took the idea and made it their way”. Sudan is Rising to end violence against women and girls! Watch their Rising in this incredible new film.
“It is very important for every human being to forgive him or herself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. If we all hold onto the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror, we can’t see what we’re capable of being. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that, we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”– Maya Angelou ( http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/i_don-t_know_if_i_continue-even_today-always/9187.html)
What hasn’t already been said on the topic of forgiveness? It is intricately connected to our deepest heart, our most painful wounds, our most intimate places. We are human, we make mistakes. It is impossible for us not to err while we are in these limited human bodies, using our human minds to muddle through our lives. We know the old adage, ‘to err is human, to forgive divine.’ Actually, though, to truly forgive is precisely what all of us need to learn more about while in human form, as the practice of this art is one of the greatest assignments of the times we are living through.
Nearly every day, it seems, headlines appear of yet another covert scheme which has been uncovered, another wrongdoing exposed, another human being admitting their deception and lies, another scandal unfolding. Whether the mistake or misjudgment was huge, affecting many thousands, or small is simply a matter of scale. The issue remains the same, that of recognizing human frailty and human error, with the same opportunity: to forgive.
This is a tricky business in many ways. A typical human reaction to pain is to want to strike back, usually with anger. Another is to run from it as quickly as possible. We come up with all sorts of ways to continue the fight, with many justifications for our response. No one wants to feel they were wronged or mistreated, so we invent all sorts of reasons why we are right to be angry, to pass harsh judgement on another, perhaps to hurt the other in kind. It truly takes a larger perspective to turn away from wanting some kind of vindication or revenge from our tormentor.
Humans have created a world filled with heartbreak. One small example comes from the local Danish newspaper, which ran a story about a family of refugees from Kosovo, who came to Denmark in 1999, when Serbians began a horribly violent campaign against their neighbors. About 2800 Kosovo-Albanian refugees came to Denmark to escape the violence. Of those, over 500 gained asylum. This particular family stayed in Denmark for a year, and then in 2000, it seemed that things had improved in their homeland, and they were offered a package by the Danish government to return to Kosovo, in the form of some funds and a promise that they could return if things went bad again. So they returned, finding their home destroyed and their city in a shambles. Then they discovered, to their dismay, that it was impossible to get back to the larger city in order to obtain visas and return to Denmark. The mother of the family, Florie, told the reporter that nothing functioned, everything was in chaos, and the officials would not give them permission nor passports so that they could get their Danish visas. They were stuck in Kosovo with nothing and no possibility for more help from Denmark, or the EU.
Now it is twelve years later. The family somehow manages with very little money, and still misses Denmark, longing to return. Even though there is formally peace there again, the Kosovo-Albanians and the Serbians do not live in harmony. There was too much bloodshed and violence. Florie told the reporter that in 12 years, the Serbians have never apologized for harming their children and raping 20,000 of their women, whom will never completely heal and be human again. She said, “We are trapped. Kosovo is a little closed land, that the EU has abandoned.”
How do people forgive each other for such extreme trespasses against them? For raping, harming, hurting one’s family, one’s children? Conversely, how does a person live with himself, ‘look himself in the mirror,’ and forgive oneself for the pain he has wrought upon another? To my mind, there is only one way, that of compassion. Only through coming to a heart awareness and sense of the other’s pain, can a person find the place of forgiveness within. The story of the Kosovo-Albanians and the Serbians is an extreme, though sadly not uncommon, example of how humanity abuses itself through unawareness. It seems an unfortunate fact that humans learn best through experiencing pain. The act of forgiveness is a radical one because, if done completely, it will give total freedom to one’s soul. Yet, complete forgiveness is difficult to achieve for most of us, and it takes practice and patience. Wounds go so deep that one can live for many years without being fully aware that they remain, until one day something happens to reopen the wound. Though painful, this is actually very healing– what was festering for so long can finally be soothed and cared for, much like a physical sore which has been left for too long, enabling it to heal.
A powerful process for healing is to practice looking at yourself in the mirror, without judgment of any kind, just gazing…. and softening as you do, breathing deeply, until you can see yourself for who you truly are: a flawed human being who is nevertheless beautiful and holy. If you practice this, in time you will be able to have much more self-compassion, which in turn will enable you to have more compassion for all others. As Maya Angelou says, ‘If we can’t see our own glory in the mirror, we can’t see what we’re capable of being.’
The definition of apathy, according to my Oxford American English dictionary, is the state of indifference; lack of interest or feeling. Surely this is an important word for our times, given the woeful state of current affairs in our world. The majority of Earth’s citizens, especially in the industrialized world, are in a state of apathy towards our global plight and the changes that urgently need to happen in order for our planet’s living populations to survive, and even to thrive.
Today is May 16th, and I took the opportunity to bring my laptop into the eighth grade class where I teach English, and together we sat and watched the film Do the Math, by the environmental group 350.org. It was a sobering main lesson for them, and an important one, I felt. Eight Danish teenagers and I watched as Bill McKibben, 350.org’s founder and one of the leading environmentalists on Earth today, explained to us just how serious the problem of the fossil fuel industry’s grip over the world’s economics really is.
The numbers are staggering, dear Readers. In a nutshell, then: The world’s scientists and leaders have agreed that raising the Earth’s temperature over 2 degrees celsius will have devastating consequences for all life on the planet. The next number, 565 gigatons, means that they believe that the Earth’s atmosphere can only hold a maximum of 565 Billion tons of CO2 and once there is more than that (and that is a whole lot of carbon dioxide sitting around the Earth, folks) then all of nature, including us, will be unable to live, basically. The third number, 2795, refers to the amount of gigatons of CO2 that is ALREADY in the world’s existing fossil fuel reserves under the Earth at this very moment: five times as much carbon dioxide than the world can tolerate, without any further exploration, drilling or otherwise locating yet more of this deadly stuff. Oh, and here are a few more important numbers to consider: The top five producers of oil in the world made 137 Billion dollars in profit last year; that is 375 million dollars a day. The top guy at Chevron makes a cool hundred thousand dollars a day himself, not bad for a day’s work. So each time you fill up your gas tank, consider the consequences of that small act, for they are Huge indeed.
This film, Do the Math, takes about 45 minutes to watch. After we had watched it today, I stood up before my sweet, innocent Danish pupils and spoke to them. I asked them if they understood basically what the film was about. They nodded, silently. They all looked very somber as I told them a bit more from the movie, especially about what the Keystone Tar Sands pipeline project is, what it means to extract oil from tar sand, and how it would travel from the Native people’s lands in Alberta, Canada, down through the entire length of the United States to the gulf of Mexico, to the oil refineries there.
Then I explained to them that, although this situation is threatening to take place in North America, and we are up here far away in Denmark, it is a global problem. I told them that this Earth is theirs, as much as anyone’s. That it matters very much what happens, that it is extremely important to stop this, to change from an oil-based global economy to one of renewable resources, for their and their children’s and grandchildren’s sake.
It is the future of humanity, along with all of Nature, which is at issue now. As one of the people in the film stated, “What is at stake now is civilization itself.” Bill McKibben and his colleagues lay out the main points to change the direction of Earth’s economy thus: 1) Divestment of stocks from Big Oil and Coal companies; 2) make them pay for polluting the world and stop government subsidising of their business; 3) make the leap to Renewable Energy, by investing tax dollars in clean energy sources; 4) the world’s citizens must stand up and voice their desire for change, in order to restructure the world’s energy sources in the next decade. In other words, civil disobedience is absolutely necessary, because we have a moral catastrophe on our hands, and it is up to us, The People of Earth, to do something about it. And we can, it is not impossible.
This environmental movement of The People is gaining momentum. When 350.org held their first World Action day in 2009, over 5200 demonstrations took place in 170 countries. By now, they are working in 188 countries. People are slowly waking from their apathetic sleep as more and more realize just how serious this situation truly is. Especially when someone finds out they want to bulldoze their property to run a tar sand pipeline through your backyard, well that’s a pretty big wakeup call.
Dear Readers, I can imagine that all of you who take the time to read my blog will agree that the times are calling for action, for raising our voices in loud unison, for saying firmly to the fossil fuel industry: No Thanks, we want to live, we want to preserve our planet for our children’s children. I encourage all of you to make your voices heard on this issue from this day forward. Organize in your town or join an ongoing environmental group. Start with your church, your kid’s school, your local gardening group, whatever it is, but Do it. We simply no longer have the luxury of sitting idly on the sidelines, meekly filling our gas tanks and denying that we have any responsibility towards these changes. Do anything, but do Something. Apathy means Big Oil and Coal keeps winning, keeps destroying, keeps getting ever-richer and ever more monstrous. My last blog was about words and silence. Today I say that some things in this life have to be spoken aloud, they are far too important to remain silent. This is one of those.
Please take the time to watch Do the Math, and then forward the link to all your friends around the world.
“More than any other thing, language has the power to alter the outcome of events.” Boccaccio
“In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.” Henry David Thoreau
Hello again, dear Readers. I am a person who truly loves and appreciates language, and the words which create it. People who know me well are fond of telling me that I never seem to have a lack of words at my disposal, for better or worse. Yet, curiously, these days find me at a nearly constant loss for words. If language can be seen as a kind of out-breath, then just now I am certainly all about the inhale– and consequently, the holding of that breath.
It isn’t writer’s block or anything like that. This lack of words is something altogether new and strange in my life experience. It is not a conscious phenomenon, nor something I am trying to do, like when one attempts to let go of all thoughts during meditation. Rather, what I am experiencing right now has more to do with some kind of metamorphosis, a type of fundamental change deep within the soul. Language as I have known it, no longer seems to be enough.
The times we are now living in, as I have often stated herein this blog, are simply extraordinary and rare. We are living through a fundamental change in the way humanity operates: in simple terms, we are collectively upgrading our operating system as we move into higher dimensionality. This is a fact, dear Readers, it is happening continually and most certainly for many years to come. As the changes occur, what went before, what was considered acceptable before (in words, thoughts and deeds) continue to give way to new and improved modes of being human upon Earth. And so, the words and languages that have served us all our lives up to this point, are beginning to seem nearly irrelevant at times. And yet. As Boccaccio stated seven hundred years ago, language is one of the most powerful tools we humans have at our disposal. Change we must, and so must our language and ways of communicating.
Living in a foreign country for the past three years has taught me a great deal about the problems inherent in language, its limitations, its judgements and its importance. Non-verbal communication, I have learned, will only get you so far when you are out of your native tongue’s area. In a foreign country, people become again like small children, dependent and often helpless to communicate at the same level of sophistication as they are used to doing at home. I have never before in my life felt as stupid as I have since coming to Denmark to live. Why? The answer is basic: if I cannot find the right words to express myself to the outer world, then I simply cannot express who I am, what I think, believe or feel to another, which leads me to feeling embarrassed and stupid, even though I know I am not.
We have all had the experience of trying to tell someone close to us how we REALLY feel about something, searched for the right words to try to tell our story, but no matter how hard we try or how many words we use, the other person still cannot understand us. This is, for me at least, an extremely frustrating situation, that leaves me wondering how in the world I can make this person understand me, what I am trying to tell them, what is in my heart. All these myriad emotions and thoughts swirling about inside of me, dying to get out, to be heard, felt and most of all, understood– and I hit the wall. Add the problem of being among people who don’t speak your language, and the situation is multiplied exponentially. What to do?
Given that it is indeed ‘new times on Earth,’ and the old ways of speaking and communicating no longer really work, then I guess we need a new plan. Perhaps we need a new form of language altogether. Today I was reading a short science fiction story in English to some of my Danish students. In the story, some beings from a far, far distant planet were attempting to communicate with a man here on Earth. They had a lot of trouble even finding anyone with whom to telepathically speak, and then when they did find one, he was very drunk and thought he was simply hallucinating. I asked the students, do you think there is anyone here who is telepathic? They all just shrugged, and then I commented that no, I don’t think that any of us are really able to read each other’s thoughts. But what if we could?
Of course, more and more humans are now finding it possible to hear messages from beings who are not human, not of Earth. Just do a Google search for channeled messages and the amount of webpages and blogs dedicated to this endeavor may astound you. I think it is entirely possible that, with time, humans will be able to learn a different level of communication that is far more sophisticated than using constructed language made up of words. I cannot help but think that the problem of language interferes with the people of the world being able to truly feel at one with each other, at least on some level. A good friend of mine here has illustrated this point to me by reciting some old and, I assume, lovely poetry in Danish. He can remember many poems and verses in his native, beloved mother tongue. And it sounds rather nice, nearly lyrical, as he recites the words. But only when he has afterwards made the effort to translate it into my own precious English do his Danish words give meaning.
When I was a child, I loved to watch mimes, whether on television or on the rare occasion to happen to see one live at a performance. There is something so magical about them, how they can say so much in silence, simply with their facial expressions and body language. With the amount of time that I spend in silence, within my own mind and heart, keeping it all inside of me, I have come to have enormous respect for both silence and for the power of language when used succinctly and well. Boccaccio is right, language well used can affect enormous change in the world.
Here are some quotes about silence, showing very clearly that there are always myriad ways to look upon this particular subject…. you decide.
“A voice is a human gift, it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.” Margaret Atwood
“True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” William Penn
“Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.” Charles Colton
“The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.” Rabindranath Tagore
“We need silence to be able to touch souls.” Mother Teresa
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” Alice Walker
Dear Readers, Right now I am feeling particularly uninspired to write much on this blog. So I would like to instead introduce you to some fellow bloggers whom are quite inspiring to me. Here is an eloquent post from Zen Doe of Windhorseblog.wordpress.com. Much food for contemplation here, enjoy! Namaste and blessings, Leigh
How deeply poignant, our struggle to “accept”. How painfully overwhelming to wrestle with surges of agonizing grief, the black ocean of shame, the fear of what may come, or the steadfast desire to make things right.
We know beyond any doubt, and from our own experience, that some kind of acceptance would resolve, at least to a degree, the ferocity of the conflict within us. And yet, the imperative to hang on to our idea of how things should be is so strong that it feels as though our very identity will die if we even imagine moving into harmony with our pain.
And there is a measure of truth in that.
There is courage in the struggle for what is right. There is an uplifting quality to our fervor when we plant the flag of outrage and refuse to move from it. It makes us feel as though the ground beneath our feet has substance, if only temporarily. And, we find it preferable to settle for this illusion of being right, because it gives us a little strength in the face of the thing that we can’t accept. But, the pain is still there.
It is natural, it is our nature, to rise up against that which is wrong, or hurtful, dangerous or frightening. We are compelled to act, and to act courageously. The result is that we can, and do, improve our lives, our world, or even just a tiny portion of it. Though the way is fraught with loss and heartache, we are willing, both alone and collectively, to do what is necessary.
And yet, although it is our nature to take a stand against what is wrong, there are times when we recognize that the battle or the event has come and gone. The damage is done. The world has moved on, but we have not. We continue to fight – to fight the pain, the scars, the woundedness. There are times when we realize that acceptance is called for, but even the idea of acceptance is abhorrent. It seems an affront to our very nature to back down. On what ground would we stand if we were to “accept” the source of our suffering? What would that mean? Who would we be?
The battle or event has come and gone. The damage is done. I can’t go backwards in time and change the myriad conditions that made my mother the person she was. It is not possible to un-do the trauma.
We beg to know why. If there were a reason, it might make sense. In our desperation, we generate reasons – I was bad. I was ugly. I am broken. We know in the depths of our hearts that this is not so. It is our nature, it is the human way, to be able to put something to rest if there is a reason. Human mind loves order, even at the expense of a lie that cripples us.
So, here we are, chasing our tails. We can’t get in, we can’t get out. Around and around we go, in denial, in anger, in pain. We see no way out and no way through. We cry out silently for someone to hear us, to help us. We await the rescue that never comes, and out of the corner of our eye, we see acceptance as the only doorway.
What might that acceptance look like? What if it weren’t as much like “giving up” or capitulating as we imagine it to be? What if acceptance opened our hearts, gave us peace, made us stronger, and gave us back our dignity in such a way that we not only felt whole, but lighter, more spacious and loving? And perhaps most important, what if we could do this in such a way that we get to keep the truth about what happened to us?
Peace does not appear when we push our pain away. It appears when we stand hand in hand with it, in compassion. Peace, real peace, arises when we stop struggling.
And there’s only one trick to it. You must hold your own situation with as much tenderness as you would that of someone you love.
Hold it gently, in hands so kind that you begin to see the courage that you have had all along. Recognize that your fight, your struggle, has been the human experience of rising up to right a wrong. Have respect and compassion for that. Recognize that your inability to make it right, or to find a reason for what happened is also the human experience. It is not your failing. This very brokenness, this uncertainty, is the ground upon which we all stand.
Envision this struggle, this pain that you carry, as the most precious thing in the world - not as something to cling to and identify with, but as the radiant core of our very human-ness. Carry it with a child-like wonder that continuously expands and includes everything with heart-breaking tenderness.
It takes a little bit of practice. Our habit of struggle is very strong. But it erodes remarkably easily. Don’t be deceived by the comfortable familiarity of your pain. It would tell you that you are doomed to be plagued by your anguish for all eternity. We like what is comfortable and familiar, even when it’s killing us.
Peace, real peace, arises when we stop struggling. Peace begins with the love that you already have, and the courage to shine that light on your own heart. Please be gentle.
It is said that music is the universal language. It is a language that cuts through all social and cultural barriers, and hits us straight in the heart and soul. Some also say that humans have our origins in the music of the spheres, that we are literally ‘frozen music.’ The first time I heard that phrase it captured my imagination utterly. Frozen music?! How lyrical, how beautiful, how mysterious!
Music has many meanings and messages for humanity. It can be made on many levels, from the most basic level of rhythm and simplest melody, to the most complex and intricate weavings and layerings of a symphony orchestra. We all have our favorite songs and melodies, our tastes change and grow over the course of living, and yet, I believe that inside us all there is a place that music touches our deepest feelings, brings us alive, gives us a particular kind of joy that cannot be had anywhere else. Music is one of the greatest gifts we have been given by our creators, which we then give to each other in turn.
These days I have taken to listening to music often through Youtube. I love Youtube because not only can I find nearly any song or piece of music I would like to hear in the moment, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because of the opportunity it gives to almost any musician to upload their music and share it with the world. It is an unprecedented opportunity for young musicians of all backgrounds and cultures (nearly) to play music and be heard by people across the globe. How amazing is that!!
Recently I discovered a wonderful group of musicians and supporters, called Playing for Change. This group of people goes around the world, finding and recording musicians who come together to play a particular song together, through the use of virtual technology. The results are brilliant. A street musician in Los Angeles might start the song, and then others join in, playing perhaps in Rio de Janeiro, Jamaica, France, The Netherlands, Israel, various countries in Africa, the list goes on. The music is simply wonderful, filled with spirit and heart and hope. They often record well-known songs, carefully chosen to be uplifting and joyful, spiritual and soulful. The introduction on Playing for Change’s website tells their story:
“Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world.
One thing that never changed throughout the process was our commitment to create an environment for the musicians in which they could create freely and that placed no barriers between them and those who would eventually experience their music. By leading with that energy and intent everywhere we traveled, we were freely given access to musicians and locations that are usually inaccessible. In this respect, the inspiration that originally set us on this path became a co-creator of the project along with us!
Over the course of this project, we decided it was not enough for our crew just to record and share this music with the world; we wanted to create a way to give back to the musicians and their communities that had shared so much with us. And so in 2007 we created the Playing for Change Foundation, a separate nonprofit corporation whose mission is to do just that. In early 2008, we established Timeless Media, a for-profit entity that funds and extends the work of Playing for Change. Later that year, Timeless Media entered into a joint venture with the Concord Music Group. Our goal is to bring PFC’s music, videos and message to the widest possible audience. Now, musicians from all over the world are brought together to perform benefit concerts that build music and art schools in communities that are in need of inspiration and hope. In addition to benefit concerts, the Playing for Change band also performs shows around the world. When audiences see and hear musicians who have traveled thousands of miles from their homes, united in purpose and chorus on one stage, everyone is touched by music’s unifying power. And now, everyone can participate in this transformative experience by joining the Playing for Change Movement. People are hosting screenings, musicians are holding benefit concerts of every size, fans are spreading the message of Playing for Change through our media, and this is only the beginning. Together, we will connect the world through music!” http://www.playingforchange.com/journey/introduction
If you go to Youtube and type in Playing for Change, you will find many of their wonderful songs. Last night I spent a couple of hours listening to their playlist of nearly 50 songs, by musicians around the world. Some of the most touching songs were covers of Higher Ground, by Stevie Wonder, One Love by Bob Marley, an outstanding version of Over the Rainbow & What a Wonderful World combined, Imagine by John Lennon, and a super-great cover of I’d Rather Go Blind by Etta James. I heard songs by wonderful African musicians, Columbian musicians, Jamaican musicians, and a very soulful and mystical song by a large group of musicians from all over Anatolia, singing and playing an old folk song for the Black Sea region and it’s nature.
Listening to all of these songs and watching so many beautiful musicians singing and playing from their heart and soul, filled me with a kind of awe and the realization that music may be the most powerful force for change that exists in our world today. In the face of every conceivable degradation and destruction of our earth and her people, when the odds seem so against Life itself, as the forces of evil and death seem nearly unbeatable, hearing all of this extraordinary music, played simultaneously by people around the world who are united in the cause of Peace, Love and Humanity’s worth, was a revelation to me. A quote from their video of Imagine, by John Lennon, says, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality.”
Dear Readers, if you love humanity and music and peace, please go to Youtube and watch Playing for Change’s videos. Go to their website and read more about their organization and see their videos there as well. Find out all of the wonderful things that bringing people together for a united dream of peace is doing in our world. And then, if you are inspired, find a friend or a dozen, and make music together! Music for love, for change, for a peaceful future world. We are united in our hearts and souls and spirits, those of us who want it. We only need to reach out and realize that, no matter what it seems from outer appearances, we are One People, and we have tremendous power in that. http://www.playingforchange.com/
“God doesn’t give you the people you want, He gives you the people you NEED, to help you , to hurt you , to leave you, to love you and to make you into the person you were meant to be…”– anonymous
Hello again, Dear Readers. This morning the sun is shining and the sky is blue overhead. There can be no denying that Spring has finally come to Denmark. Thank goodness.
Many thoughts are spinning around in my head today. I wish to try to write something cohesive but please bear with me if it comes out a bit of a mess. Guess my soul is in a process right now (is there ever a time when it isn’t?) If I had a life motto, it would be, Work in Progress.
Last night my husband and I watched a movie by the filmmaker Robert Altman, called Short Cuts. It was made twenty years ago. The story takes place around Los Angeles and Bakersfield, and is filled with many characters who are neurotic, dysfunctional, angry, lustful, bored, frustrated, and just trying to get by in this crazy life. There are stories within the larger story, and they are woven loosely together through their relationships to one another. There is much irony in this film, just as there is in life. It was a long story, three hours running. Within this time, we witness people living in the middle of modern life’s sicknesses and excesses, trying to cope with themselves and each other. All the large themes are present: love, jealousy, avarice, lust, deceit, vengeance, desperation, despair, death. People living lives of not so quiet desperation. We watch, helplessly, as the characters hurt one another, lying to each other and themselves, without much compassion. Few of them are innocent, and the one character who is blameless (the good wife and mother, played by Andie Macdowell) is rewarded by having her just-turning eight year old son get hit by a car, go into a coma, and die during the course of a couple of days. This film takes no prisoners, there is no redemption for these people; only the continuation (for most of them) of this endless, sometimes utterly senseless and absurd theatre we know as Life.
The film did what all good stories ought to do; it showed us ourselves in the rough, without gloss or soft lighting. Whatever else you can say about life in a human body, you can also say that, shortly put, we’ve got issues. We’ve ALL got them, there is no one walking the planet today who is immune. We are in turns small, scared, angry, frustrated, guilty, guilt-ridden, loving, sweet, selfish and selfless. We toil, endure endless drudgery and suffering of many fools, not the least of which is our own self. We suffer, and suffer some more. We make decisions out of need, desperation, and desire for relief. What helps, what heals?
Facing the trouble, whatever it is, is a help. Naming it, speaking it out loud, seeing that we are not, are never alone in it. No matter what the trouble is, no matter how ashamed or filled with pain and remorse we may be, we must remember that we are not alone, not the only one with that heartache. On the contrary, there are many others with that same wound, carrying that same pain as us. Rilke once wrote that ‘perhaps all the dragons of our lives are simply princesses who are waiting for us to see them for who they truly are.’ My interpretation of his words is that even the most dark and terrible secret that a person can hold is something to help us learn how to love, how to become more human. The holes in the heart of one can and are healed by sharing them with another. It is painful to share these, yes. It takes time, maybe many years, for the healing to happen. But it CAN happen, it does happen, the miraculous thing is that by sharing one’s wound with others, instead of hiding it away, the wound can be cleansed, dressed, cared for, attended to, healing balm applied, sunshine and fresh air given it until it becomes smaller and smaller, and finally is gone.
We all want healing. We all have wounds and broken places. We are all of us singing over the lost bones of our lives, singing them alive again, calling them back into being. Yes we have lost our way and forgotten totally who we actually are and where we come from. Anyone looking around at the current state of the world will readily agree with that. The question is, are we lost forever? Will we continue sleepwalking through our lives, unwilling to feel or see that others’ pain is equal or perhaps greater than our own? Will we succumb to our own feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, letting the weight of life’s cares crush our spirits and smash any small sprouts of hope?
sometimes all you can do is laugh….
There is no one solution to this problem of living, but there are wise ones who have found some tools to help. I have a slip of paper (one of many) at my desk that states, “Practice looking at each situation in your life and forgiving everyone and everything throughout this lifetime, and most especially, yourself.” This is ongoing, daily practice. And it makes good sense, because if I cannot forgive myself for the messes I have made and the hurts I have given to others, then how can they ever forgive me? We are our own judge and jury in this life, ultimately. As in the Robert Altman film, each of us is walking about trying to keep our heads above the swirling waters of insanity which are all around us. How can we cope, unless we begin with self-forgiveness? And after that, forgiveness of everyone else, as difficult as that may seem, is really essential. We cannot possibly change this world into something kinder, more loving and peaceful, as long as each of us still carries hatred, greed and revenge around in our souls. In the movie, there is a woman blues singer who sings at a jazz club every evening. One of the songs she sings talks about being a ‘prisoner of life.’ You could say that this idea is the main underlying theme of this film. It is so easy to feel this way! I have, a thousand times over, and have felt quite justified in doing so. And yet. I am realizing more and more, that if I am life’s prisoner it is because I myself have been my own jailer. Realizing this makes finding the key to unlock the door much easier.
In the end, it is true that Life gives you what you need to grow and become a better, not a worse, human being. In the kitchen last night, after the intense experience of watching the three-hour long film, my husband and I spoke together. He mused, “I actually suffer much more than you do, however I carry my suffering with a lot of dignity.” I gazed at him a moment, and then replied, “Yes, you certainly do. You really have a lot of dignity, and it is one of your most beautiful qualities.” He was pleased to hear my words, and I meant them sincerely. Carrying one’s suffering with dignity is extremely important. So is the ability to laugh at the craziness of this life.
The rumbles of change, internal and external are currently reverberating across the face of the planet. Are you open to change happening in your life?
We are the angelic legions of the Divine Mother and speak as a collective. We are One with the Mother / Father God, one with Creator. We are one with you, also.
We come to you today to speak of the necessity of letting go of expectation and even of disappointment.
Dear Readers, In light of what I have been thinking about and experiencing lately, I would like to share this message with you, from Blue Dragon journal. It is a channeled message, and contains much wisdom and clear advice for all of us on the path of love and evolution. I will be back again soon with some thoughts of my own. Blessings and love, Leigh
Some of you may remember a song on the radio several years ago, with the refrain, ‘What if God was one of us?’ The singer asked us listeners to consider that God may be any one of us, walking around in a human body, and ‘trying to find a way back home to Heaven.’ I kind of liked that song at the time, it stopped and made me think. These days, however, I am thinking of that idea in the reverse, so the question then becomes, ‘What if we were one of God?’
The word or name God is laden with many meanings and connotations for many people, and unfortunately quite a bit of them are unhappy or unhelpful, so it is not easy to talk in a simple way about it. But, if we could simply say that the word ‘God’ refers to beings who are not human, but universal or divine, who exist in a place beyond what we conceive of as space and time, and who are utterly benign and wise, existing as pure love, then our definition and conception of God changes into something beautiful (potentially, at least.) Moreover, let’s expand this definition to include that these benign, wise and powerful beings of love have created the world as we understand it and all things upon it, including us. Now let’s go a step further and say that the old stories that some of us were raised with, telling of a vindictive, warring God figure who slays certain humans and exacts punishments for bad behaviour, are in fact stories made up by some beings who wanted to control other humans, which have no basis in Reality and never did. This would mean that the concepts of guilt, shame and fear actually have no basis in Reality, only in human constructs. Now, dear Readers, if you have followed me thus far, you will be able to see that the term God becomes something very wonderful, like having a best friend who is also your mother and father, sister and brother, grandparent, and wise elder all wrapped up into a lovely package. This is my current conception of God.
Now, what if we understood that, just as your child is a part of you, born from your own flesh and blood, all of us were born from this Divine mother and father in the same way…. this would mean we were not separate nor alone, floating out here like so many tiny, helpless islands upon the planet. Instead we would see that we are actually one very large family, made up of countless members and all connected in a very fundamental way. Accordingly, we would also see that we are made from the same stuff as our Divine parents, brothers and sisters and grandparents, and that would mean something extremely important: that in Reality, we humans on the planet Earth are actually not any different than them, only perhaps not as far along the path of understanding Who and What we are.
I hope you can see just how revolutionary this idea actually is, dear Readers! If the truth is that We are ONE of and with God. It changes everything once one actually accepts this as the truth, which it is indeed. According to one of the gospels in the New Testament, Jesus once said to his followers, “This and much more will you also do,’ and he meant literally. Perhaps it is time, high time, to finally accept the fact that we humans are Incredible, Amazing, Beautiful, Powerful, Benign, Loving and Wise Beings too, just as our Divine family is.
One has to be deaf, dumb and blind, and also living in a cave in the middle of nowhere, to not notice that we are living in the midst of incredible times, times of crisis and of opportunity. The old power structures are crumbling and falling to pieces on a daily basis now. Far from a terrible thing, the demise of these old structures signals the end of the illusionary world we agreed to live in for far, far too long. I say, Hallelujah and Good Riddance to that old self-serving, enslaving system. Good bye to greed, violence, and a world based on the gains of a select few and the enslavement and exploitation of the many to serve those few’s unending needs for materialistic gluttony. The time for major self-correction of the species called Human is in full swing. Some religions put forth the idea that a second coming of Christ will mean the end of human suffering, some talk about a messiah coming to save humanity. It seems quite obvious, and becoming ever-clearer, that the second coming and the messiah is within every single human being: We each contain the light of Christ, and must each learn how to let it shine ever more brightly. Together we make up the salvation of our earth and ourselves, through the awareness of love and the Christed light within us. Once it is lit strongly enough in enough of us to reach critical mass, darkness will no longer be able to have a place in the world, and the ‘New Earth’ and ‘New Jerusalem’ will have officially arrived.
This is not fanatic born-again Christian doctrine, nor is it simply New Age fluff, dear Readers. The light shining upon us on Earth has become much stronger than ever before, this is the fact. The light has nothing to do with any particular faith or personal belief system, it simply IS. Religions of the past served a purpose in their time (including some very low, egoistic purposes of the religious elite), and now humanity is at a new point in our evolution, along with the Earth itself. Essentially, we are beginning to learn how to be our own gods and goddesses, to create and manifest like the ones who created us. The new rule, given to us by many wise souls over the course of eons, is that we put love and kindness first. That we respect all other life. That we respect ourselves and love ourselves but not to the exclusion of others. That we understand our living connection to everything else and work for the common good. For freedom. For the betterment of Earth and society.
It is so simple, really so basic, to live in this way. Harm no one. Love everything. Have compassion towards all. It is basic human nature, what we are all born with, to love and be peaceful. We now, finally, have the real opportunity to go beyond the small ego self, to move out of living with fear and separation and into living in light and love. Every minute of every day. All we need to do is to drop the old storyline, stop believing the old lies fed to us and say to ourselves and to the ones who still wield power, No More. Now we want the new world, and we are creating it. To stop believing in fear and separation is the most powerful and immediate thing a person can do to change the world in a hurry. Here are some eloquent words that sum up what I have been saying here today.
“Recognizing that we are deeply connected with all life is the basis for a sense of community at a global level. The heart of the transformational path is this deepening into ourselves while, at the same time, deepening into the universe. It is in that inquiry that we find the common ground with all humanity, all nature, all life. It is out of that common ground that we transform ourselves and our society. If we experience all as one, then we also feel injured every time any other living creature is injured. All the major movements during my lifetime…all of them are grounded in the common core that is at the heart of transformative inquiry and practice. Without that we are forever fragmented, separate, and conflicted. It’s nothing short of awe and full appreciation for all of life; it’s fundamentally understanding that we are one. It’s how we will construct a global society. It’s out of this deep well of understanding that we’ll find our common ground……Wink Franklin (thanks tohttp://makebelieveboutique.com/2013/04/17/5675/)
Leanne Simpson is a multi-talented Mississauga Nishnaabeg writer of poetry, essays, spoken-word pieces, short stories, academic papers, and anthologies. Simpson’s books, including Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Protection and Resurgence of Indigenous Nations and Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence, have influenced a new generation of native activists.
At the height of the Idle No More! Protests in Canada during this past winter, her essay, Aambe! Maajaadaa! (What #IdleNoMore Means to Me) spread like wildfire on social media and became one of the movement’s central texts. In it she writes: “I support #idlenomore because I believe that we have to stand up anytime our nation’s land base is threatened—whether it is legislation, deforestation, mining prospecting, condo development, pipelines, tar sands or golf courses. I stand up…because everything we have of meaning comes from the land—our political systems, our intellectual systems, our health care, food security, language and our spiritual sustenance and our moral fortitude.”
Naomi: One of the reasons I wanted to speak with you is that in your writing and speaking, I feel like you are articulating a clear alternative. In a speech you gave recently at the University of Victoria, you said: “Our systems are designed to promote more life” and you talked about achieving this through “resisting, renewing, and regeneration”—all themes in Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back.
I want to explore the idea of life-promoting systems with you because it seems to me that they are the antithesis of the extractivist mindset, which is ultimately about exhausting and extinguishing life without renewing or replenishing.
Leanne: It was through some of Winona LaDuke’s work and through working with elders out on the land that I started to really think about this. Winona took a concept that’s very fundamental to Anishinaabeg society, called mino bimaadiziwin. It often gets translated as “the good life,” but the deeper kind of cultural, conceptual meaning is something that she really brought into my mind, and she translated it as “continuous rebirth.” So, the purpose of life is this continuous rebirth, it’s to promote more life. In Anishinaabeg society, our economic systems, our education systems, our systems of governance, and our political systems were designed with that basic tenet at their core.
I think that sort of fundamental teaching gives direction to individuals on how to interact with each other and family, how to interact with your children, how to interact with the land. And then as communities of people form, it gives direction on how those communities and how those nations should also interact. In terms of the economy, it meant a very, very localized economy where there was a tremendous amount of accountability and reciprocity. And so those kinds of things start with individuals and families and communities and then they sort of spiral outwards into how communities and how nations interact with each other.
I also think it’s about the fertility of ideas and it’s the fertility of alternatives. One of the things birds do in our creation stories is they plant seeds and they bring forth new ideas and they grow those ideas. Seeds are the encapsulation of wisdom and potential and the birds carry those seeds around the earth and grew this earth. And I think we all have that responsibility to find those seeds, to plant those seeds, to give birth to these new ideas. Because people think up an idea but then don’t articulate it, or don’t tell anybody about it, and don’t build a community around it, and don’t do it.
So in Anishinaabeg philosophy, if you have a dream, if you have a vision, you share that with your community, and then you have a responsibility for bringing that dream forth, or that vision forth into a reality. That’s the process of regeneration. That’s the process of bringing forth more life—getting the seed and planting and nurturing it. It can be a physical seed, it can be a child, or it can be an idea. But if you’re not continually engaged in that process then it doesn’t happen.
Naomi: What has the principle of regeneration meant in your own life?
Leanne: In my own life, I try to foster that with my own children and in my own family, because I have a lot of control over what happens in my own family and I don’t have a lot of control over what happens in the broader nation and broader society.
One of the stories I tell in my book is of working with an elder who’s passed on now, Robin Greene from Shoal Lake in Winnipeg, in an environmental education program with First Nations youth. And we were talking about sustainable development, and I was explaining that term from the Western perspective to the students. And I asked him if there was a similar concept in Anishinaabeg philosophy that would be the same as sustainable development. And he thought for a very long time. And he said no. And I was sort of shocked at the “no” because I was expecting there to be something similar. And he said the concept is backwards. You don’t develop as much as Mother Earth can handle. For us it’s the opposite. You think about how much you can give up to promote more life. Every decision that you make is based on: Do you really need to be doing that?
If I look at how my ancestors even 200 years ago, they didn’t spend a lot of time banking capital, they didn’t rely on material wealth for their well-being and economic stability. They put energy into meaningful and authentic relationships. So their food security and economic security was based on how good and how resilient their relationships were—their relationships with clans that lived nearby, with communities that lived nearby, so that in hard times they would rely on people, not the money they saved in the bank. …So I think that that’s very oppositional to colonial society and settler society and how we’re taught to live in that.
Naomi: One system takes things out of their relationships; the other continuously builds relationships.
Leanne: Right. Again, going back to my ancestors, they weren’t consumers. They were producers and they made everything. Everybody had to know how to make everything. Even if I look at my mom’s generation, which is not 200 years ago, she knew how to make and create the basic necessities that we needed. So even that generation, my grandmother’s generation, they knew how to make clothes, they knew how to make shelter, they knew how to make the same food that they would grow in their own gardens or harvest from the land in the summer through the winter to a much greater degree than my generation does. When you have really localized food systems and localized political systems, people have to be engaged in a higher level—not just consuming it, but producing it and making it. Then that self-sufficiency builds itself into the system.
My ancestors tended to look very far into the future in terms of planning, look at that seven generations forward. So I think they foresaw that there were going to be some big problems. I think through those original treaties and our diplomatic traditions, that’s really what they were trying to reconcile. They were trying to protect large tracts of land where indigenous peoples could continue their way of life and continue our own economies and continue our own political systems, I think with the hope that the settler society would sort of modify their way into something that was more parallel or more congruent to indigenous societies.
Naomi: You often start your public presentations by describing what your territory used to look like. And it strikes me that what you are saying is very different from traditional green environmental discourse, which usually focuses on imminent ecological collapse, the collapse that will happen if we don’t do X and Y. But you are basically saying that the collapse has already happened.
Leanne: I’m not sure focusing on imminent ecological collapse is motivating Canadians to change if you look at the spectrum of climate change denial across society. It is spawning a lot of apocalypse movies, but I think it is so overwhelming and traumatic to think about, that perhaps people shut down to cope. That’s why clearly articulated visions of alternatives are so important.
In my own work, I started to talk about what the land used to look like because very few people remember. Very early on, where I’m from, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, you saw the collapse of the salmon population in Lake Ontario by 1840. They used to migrate all the way up to Stony Lake—it was a huge deal for our nation. And then the eel population crashing with the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Trent-Severn Waterway. So I think again, in a really local way, indigenous peoples have seen and lived through this environmental disaster where entire parts of their world collapsed really early on.
But it cycles, and the collapses are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s getting to the point where I describe what my land used to look like because no one knows. No one remembers what southern Ontario looked like 200 years ago, which to me is really scary. How do we envision our way out of this when we don’t even remember what this natural environment is supposed to look like?
Naomi: I’ve spent the past two years living in British Columbia, where my family is, and I’ve been pretty involved in the fights against the tar sands pipelines….And of course the anti-pipeline movement on the West Coast is indigenous-led, and it’s also forged amazing coalitions of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. I wonder how much those fights have contributed to the emergence of Idle No More—the fact of having these incredible coalitions and First Nations saying no to Harper, working together…
Leanne: I’ve chosen to live in my territory and I’ve chosen to be a witness of this. And I think that’s where, in the politics of indigenous women, and traditional indigenous politics, it is a politics based on love. That was the difference with Idle No More because there were so many women that were standing up. Because of colonialism, we were excluded for a long time from that Indian Act chief and council governing system. Women initially were not allowed to run for office, and it’s still a bastion of patriarchy. But that in some ways is a gift because all of our organizing around governance and politics and this continuous rebirth has been outside of that system and been based on that politics of love.
So when I think of the land as my mother or if I think of it as a familial relationship, I don’t hate my mother because she’s sick, or because she’s been abused. I don’t stop visiting her because she’s been in an abusive relationship and she has scars and bruises. If anything, you need to intensify that relationship because it’s a relationship of nurturing and caring. And so I think in my own territory I try to have that intimate relationship, that relationship of love—even though I can see the damage—to try to see that there is still beauty there. There’s still a lot of beauty in Lake Ontario. It’s one of those threatened lakes and it’s dying and no one wants to eat the fish. But there is a lot of beauty still in that lake. There is a lot of love still in that lake. And I think that Mother Earth as my first mother. Mothers have a tremendous amount of resilience. They have a tremendous amount of healing power.
Naomi: But it’s such a different political project, right? Because the first stage is establishing that there’s something left to love….There aren’t enough people who are articulating what it means to build an authentic relationship with non-pristine nature. And it’s a different kind of environmental voice that can speak to the wounded, as opposed to just the perfect and pretty.
Leanne: If you can’t swim in it, canoe across it. Find a way to connect to it. When the lake is too ruined to swim or to eat from it, then that’s where the healing ceremonies come in, because you can still do ceremonies with it.
Naomi: In the book I’m currently writing I’m trying to understand why we are failing so spectacularly to deal with the climate crisis. And there are lots of reasons—ideological, material, and so on. But there are also powerful psychological and cultural reasons where we—and I’m talking in the “settler” we, I suppose—have been colonized by the logic of capitalism, and that has left us uniquely ill-equipped to deal with this particular crisis.
Leanne: In order to make these changes, in order to make this punctuated transformation, it means lower standards of living, for that 1 percent and for the middle class. At the end of the day, that’s what it means. And I think in the absence of having a meaningful life outside of capital and outside of material wealth, that’s really scary.
Naomi: Essentially, it’s saying: your life is going to end because consumerism is how we construct our identities in this culture. The role of consumption has changed in our lives just in the past 30 years. It’s so much more entwined in the creation of self. So when someone says, “To fight climate change you have to shop less,” it is heard as, “You have to be less.” The reaction is often one of pure panic.
On the other hand, if you have a rich community life, if your relationships feed you, if you have a meaningful relationship with the natural world, then I think contraction isn’t as terrifying. But if your life is almost exclusively consumption, which I think is what it is for a great many people in this culture, then we need to understand the depth of the threat this crisis represents. That’s why the transformation that we have to make is so profound—we have to relearn how to derive happiness and satisfaction from other things than shopping, or we’re all screwed.
Leanne: I see the transformation as: Your life isn’t going to be worse, it’s not going to be over. Your life is going to be better. The transition is going to be hard, but from my perspective, from our perspective, having a rich community life and deriving happiness out of authentic relationships with the land and people around you is wonderful. I think where Idle No More did pick up on it is with the round dances and with the expression of the joy. “Let’s make this fun.” It was women that brought that joy.
Naomi: Another barrier to really facing up to the climate crisis has to do with another one of your strong themes, which is the importance of having a relationship to the land. Because climate change is playing out on the land, and in order to see those early signs, you have to be in some kind of communication with it. Because the changes are subtle—until they’re not.
Leanne: I always take my kids to the sugar bush in March and we make maple syrup with them. And what’s happened over the last 20 years is every year our season is shorter.
The rallying cry from indigenous people in Canada is being heard around the world.
Last year was a near disaster because we had that week of summer weather in the middle of March. You need a very specific temperature range for making maple sugar. So it sort of dawned on me last year: I’m spending all of this time with my kids in the sugar bush and in 20 years, when it’s their term to run it, they’re going to have to move. Who knows? It’s not going to be in my territory anymore. That’s something that my generation, my family, is going to witness the death of. And that is tremendously sad and painful for us. It’s things like the sugar bush that are the stories, the teachings, that’s really our system of governance, where children learn about that. It’s another piece of the puzzle that we’re trying to put back together that’s about to go missing. It’s happening at an incredibly fast rate, it’s changing. Indigenous peoples have always been able to adapt, and we’ve had a resilience. But the speed of this—our stories and our culture and our oral tradition doesn’t keep up, can’t keep up.
Naomi: One of the things that’s so difficult, when one immerses oneself in the climate science and comes to grips with just how little time we have left to turn things around, is that we know that real hard political work takes time. You can’t rush it. And a sense of urgency can even be dangerous, it can be used to say, “We don’t have time to deal with those complicated issues like colonialism and racism and inequality.” There is a history in the environmental movement of doing that, of using urgency to belittle all issues besides human survival. But on the other hand, we really are in this moment where small steps won’t do. We need a leap.
Leanne: This is one of the ways the environmental movement has to change. Colonial thought brought us climate change. We need a new approach because the environmental movement has been fighting climate change for more than two decades and we’re not seeing the change we need. I think groups like Defenders of the Land and the Indigenous Environmental Network hold a lot of answers for the mainstream environmental movement because they are talking about large-scale transformation. If we are not, as peoples of the earth, willing to counter colonialism, we have no hope of surviving climate change. Individual choices aren’t going to get us out of this mess. We need a systemic change.
That’s the hopefulness and inspiration for me that’s coming out of Idle No More. It was small groups of women around a kitchen table that got together and said, “We’re not going to sit here and plan this and analyze this, we’re going to do something.” And then three more women, and then two more women, and a whole bunch of people and then men got together and did it, and it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of planning and strategy and analyzing. It was people standing up and saying “Enough is enough, and I’m going to use my voice and I’m going to speak out and I’m going to see what happens.” And I think because it was still emergent and there were no single leaders and there was no institution or organization it became this very powerful thing.
Naomi: How do we balance the dangers of cultural appropriation with the fact that the dominant culture really does need to learn these lessons about reciprocity and interdependence? Some people say it’s a question of everybody finding their own inner indigenousness. Is that it, or is there a way of recognizing indigenous knowledge and leadership that avoids the hit-and-run approach?
Leanne: I think Idle No More is an example because there is an opportunity for the environmental movement, for social-justice groups, and for mainstream Canadians to stand with us. There was a segment of Canadian society, once they had the information, that was willing to stand with us. And that was helpful and inspiring to me as well. So I think it’s a shift in mindset from seeing indigenous people as a resource to extract to seeing us as intelligent, articulate, relevant, living, breathing peoples and nations. I think that requires individuals and communities and people to develop fair and meaningful and authentic relationships with us.
We have a lot of ideas about how to live gently within our territory in a way where we have separate jurisdictions and separate nations but over a shared territory. I think there’s a responsibility on the part of mainstream community and society to figure out a way of living more sustainably and extracting themselves from extractivist thinking….To me, that’s a shift that Canadian society needs to take on, that’s their responsibility. Our responsibility is to continue to recover that knowledge, recover those practices, recover the stories and philosophies, and rebuild our nations from the inside out. If each group was doing their work in a responsible way then I think we wouldn’t be stuck in these boxes.
Naomi: Can you tell me a little bit about the name of your book, Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back, and what it means in this moment?
Leanne: I’ve heard Elder Edna Manitowabi tell one of our creation stories about a muskrat and a turtle for years now. In this story, there’s been some sort of environmental crisis. Because within Anishinaabeg cosmology, this isn’t the First World, maybe this is the Fourth World that we’re on. And whenever there’s an imbalance and the imbalance isn’t addressed, then over time there’s a crisis. This time, there was a big flood that covered the entire world. Nanabush, one of our sacred beings, ends up trapped on a log with many of the other animals. They are floating in this vast sea of water with no land in sight. To me, that feels like where we are right now. I’m on a very crowded log, the world my ancestors knew and lived in is gone, and me and my community need to come up with a solution even though we are all feeling overwhelmed and irritated. It’s an intense situation and no one knows what to do, no one knows how to make a new world.
So the animals end up taking turns diving down and searching for a pawful of dirt or earth to use to start to make a new world. The strong animals go first, and when they come up with nothing, the smaller animals take a turn. Finally, muskrat is successful and brings her pawfull of dirt up to the surface. Turtle volunteers to have the earth placed on her back. Nanibush prays and breaths life into that earth. All of the animals sing and dance on the turtle’s back in a circle, and as they do this, the turtle’s back grows. It grows and grows until it becomes the world we know. This is why Anishinaabeg call North America Mikinakong—the place of the turtle.
When Edna tells this story, she says that we’re all that muskrat, and that we all have that responsibility to get off the log and dive down no matter how hard it is and search around for that dirt. And that to me was profound and transformative, because we can’t wait for somebody else to come up with the idea. The whole point, the way we’re going to make this better, is by everybody engaging in their own being, in their own gifts, and embody this movement, embody this transformation….When people started round dancing all over the turtle’s back in December and January, it made me insanely happy. Watching the transformative nature of those acts, made me realize that it’s the embodiment, we have to embody the transformation.
Naomi Klein wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Naomi is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, and author.
