Statement

Marilyn and I met for the first time in person when she passed her work off to me. We sat and had tea at her house. We took the time to learn about each other and our personal/cultural roots. Marilyn told me how when The Black Car came to her community to gather the children for the Residential School, the parents tried to hide their children. She talked about how the Residential School Policy tore the families and community apart.  We talked about the past and how it shattered hearts, individuals, families, communities and Nations. She gave me the image of the Eagle holding the First People in its tear drop.

That night I had a big dream. It gave me the image of our great responsibility to heal from the illness of our internalized intergenerational colonial experiences. To heal a family, a community and a nation we must begin by healing ourselves. It means taking the time to honestly suffer the truth and courageously integrate the pieces in a new compassionate and unimagined healthy whole. It means to humbly return to the spirit of the Two Row Wampum of the 1600’s that committed our cultures to friendship, respect and peace as we travel, side by side, down the River of Life in our respective vessels (canoe and shop/boat).

The Creator is giving us a second chance to wake up and find a way forward together in harmony....in Reconciliation. We cannot pass this on to another generation. Now is the moment to work together, to play together. We cannot be spectators or delegate our responsibility to the truth, to healing, to reconciliation. Let’s start. Let’s Throw and Catch the Ball of Life like the White Buffalo Woman instructed the Lakota Sioux to do (Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe, pg. 127-130. University of Oklahoma Press, 1953).
All of Creation is asking us to do this, one person at a time.