STORIES / Okara’shòn:’a
Coincidence
I remember when we left Standing Rock, we were just taking a stroll and there were two bald eagles sitting in the tree very low. As we drove back home, we hit the state of Michigan, and I looked up at the sunroof in the car and there was a bald eagle circling the car making sure we got back safely.
Our strength
Almost all Indigenous people have a deeply rooted spirituality that is the basis of how we see things in this world. It’s that mentality that has helped us to survive horrendous stuff in these last 500 years.
We are no longer sovereign
So, we really need to understand to what degree we are colonized. And we need to begin the process of decolonizing ourselves. And that requires us to go back to step 1. Step one is the spiritual realm where we all come from.
Ground ivy
This was the first time I felt a true connection with plant medicine. The plant heard what I was thinking and was ready to help. It made the cultural teachings more real: 'All our relations.'
Could've died
When I was a kid, I remember seeing the older women, the grandmothers, swimming in the river. They were very modest and they wore handmade black dresses, even for swimming. I think they would jump into the river behind the church and float way out in the middle of the river. We could hear them laughing and laughing, floating down with their dresses that would make an air bubble around them.
Living that dream
I met Onkwehón:we who didn’t even speak English all the way from Manitoba, BC, and other Western provinces. Many came to me and said, “I got no education. I never went to school. But I worked in my community for many years. I know my culture, I know my traditions, I know my history, and I know the church.”
All deception and lies
The Earth is our mother in our Creation story. She gives us all this unconditional love and that gives us all these things from water, to animals, to corn, and beans and squash. Tell me then, what gives you the right to say that you’re going to buy it and that you have the right to sell it?
Death Feast
I never attended a death feast until my younger brother, Irvin, passed away in December of 2009. A few days later, his wife, Dale, called me to tell me that she was hosting a 10 day death feast and she was inviting me.
Otherworldly experience
When I was about six months pregnant with my daughter, I had a very surreal experience. It was late at night and I was watching the Academy Awards. My boys were asleep. I was sitting on the sofa all by myself.
Left handed twin
In our Creation story, the left-handed twin is the Creator’s brother. I don’t hate him. He’s still my grandfather. But Christianity says, “No, you’ve got to hate the Devil, be at war with the Devil.” All this made up stuff to confuse the hell out of humans.
Day and night
In order to comprehend the Longhouse creation story, you have to see the birth of the twins as sacred energies.
Our spirituality
There is so much to be taught and there is so much to bring back. I think a lot of it has to do with our spirituality and understanding life. It isn’t life affecting you, it is you affecting life.
Dawned on me
I always remember how it started. I was working, it was very shady during those summer days. And all of a sudden, it dawned on me, what I wanna be.
Creation story
I don’t know if Spirit up there, somewhere, is watching over us. When things happen, you go back to your Creation Story, and Creation Story tells us that when we’re born, we come from Spirit World, and we come into this physical world to have an experience of what it’s like to be physical.
Rock audition
There’s a Tlingit legend that if you don’t pass the knowledge, Creator will turn you into a rock. I don’t want to be a rock.
The Baptism Book
My mom baptized me, but when I got older, I re-learned my culture, my history and my language. So me and another friend of mine, we went to the church to go talk to the priest.
