publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2022/rncan-nrcan/NM3-2-61-1973-eng.pdf

The leader asks for the door to be closed. And the water splashes on the glowing grandfathers

As the darkness envelops me, I quickly surrender to my aloneness, except for the hiss of grandfathers voice calling for my attention. First the steam and heat distract me, as I struggle to focus, listen, and breathe, all at once. My senses distract me, as sweat pours from my body, fear for my physical safety well up in my mind, emotion. Mentally, I wrestle to remain calm. My spirit awakens.

As I focus spiritually, mentally, emotionally, a calmness comes into my physical body. I will be okay.

The distant voice of the Sweatlodge leader comes ever closer and I relax, assured of my well-being. Then quiet. My breath, the hiss of steam, grandfathers voice.

Steam explodes somewhere near me as the leader splashes more water on the grandfathers. The hot steam rolls into me from all sides, the cleanse intensifies. I fight for my next breath as grandfathers shows me the sacredness of breath.

An eagle bone whistle screams it’s presence and an eagle wing fan stirs the hot air, intensifying the cleanse. Sacred songs and drums, rattles stir within my space, at times startling me with closeness, but I remain focused, and calm.

I see the glow of the grandfathers before me, showing me, for my eyes only, my beginnings, a glow in the darkness which becomes the light of life. Sound is the theory of everything, sound grows and ebbs in frequencies, that create and transform the life force, my life force into being. Grandfather shows me my humble beginnings, further entrenching my understanding of my place in creation.

I give thanks for all that is and my place in Creators plan.

I realize that the intensity of the cleansing has a purpose, and I am swept along, I surrender everything of my being…..

A voice calls for the door. Light from the east door signals a new beginning, as the darkness is dispersed. Darkness and heaviness in my being miraculously disperses into the universe.

Thank you Grandfathers

We are looking forward to a family road trip to Burnaby this spring. Our youngest granddaughter will be graduating high school.

So proud of our Alice, that she has completed another important part of her education. It will be a one week road trip.

Looking forward to the celebration

As we move into spring and summer in Gitxsan Territories…

What a relief to drop the masks and gain a sense of freedom from these restrictions. It certainly has been a long haul since March 2019 when the pandemic was declared.

It seems so much has changed in my social landscape. The isolation, anxiety, mistrust, loneliness is still fresh in my mind and it will be awhile before I can really say and be confident that this has truly is in my past.

One of my passions, photography, has helped me to get through these trying times. It kept my occupied and a provided a outlet for my loneliness and social restrictions.

Social media was a mixed blessing. On the one hand it allowed me to connect with family abroad and locally, even if it was to let everyone know we were okay. On the other hand it brought the bad news of death, sickness globally and regionally and locally. FaceTime with the family was the only safe way to stay in touch at the time.

Now social media brings hope as I see more and more social events being posted in sports, culture, and even family events. But there is still a bit of hesitancy, because of the surge and ebb of the pandemic. Today there is a prediction of a ‘sixth wave‘. So we’re not entirely out of the woods yet, but I have hope.

Vaccinations have been a point of discussion and anxiety. But I hear that it has diminished the risk of death if you happen to get exposed to this highly contagious sickness. So we’ve made efforts to keep up the inoculations. We are now up to 3 jabs and I’m hearing a fourth jab is being recommended by the experts.

My chance of extreme sickness or death is immensely diminished if I take the recommended doses. So I do.

Hello

Sitting here in my living room and reflecting on the ever evolving and changing situations, environmental, social, and health. I have more time to sit and absorb all this quickly changing landscape around me , regarding the global pandemic, climate change, social issues, bombarding me constantly.

I also have to do constant self check to gauge my own well-being mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The struggle is real in the effort to maintain balance in all aspects of my life, both daily and my long term expectations. If I lapse or neglect to do this I’m sure my well-being will slip into chaos in all aspects. Without realizing it anxiety, panic, and other states of turmoil and chaos will grip me and drag me into depression, sickness, and imbalance in my life.

Some of the methods I use to help me include relaxation through quietness, rest, connection to nature, light exercise, and touching base with family. Constantly reminding myself of how fortunate I am to have my lifelong partner constantly at my side. I feel safe and know that I also give her comfort that I am here for her. Over the past few years we have struggled to adjust our lives to shift our attention to each other, after years and decades of raising children into adulthood, raising grandchildren, and foster children. Public life in the community has taken so much time and effort, sometimes we wonder if there was ever enough time to achieve harmony, safety and balance for our younger generations. Regardless, I know I have done my best and worked side by side with the best and we have together help to bring our community to a good place.

Over the last three decades, ceremony, especially the Sweatlodge ceremony has helped immensely for my physical, emotional, spiritual , and mental balance. I cannot say enough about how this has helped me to shape my view and understanding of what is happening around me every day. Every week, usually on Sunday, I dedicate four to six hours of my day to the Sweatlodge ceremony, and look forward to it as the week moves along. I think it’s a small sacrifice for the immense benefits for me. I know the Sweatlodge ceremony isn’t for everyone because of it’s powerful effects but I know it helps me and keeps me aware of my feelings and in tune with my well being.

After so many months of isolation, restrictions and enduring the impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic, the anxiety and uncertainty, fear was constantly in our lives, as we struggled to understand and cope with our situation. After a approximately eighteen months of this we are finally emerging into somewhat of a normalcy, or a new and different normal.

There has been so many changes and and shifts from previous ways of life, that keeping up with my well-being and health has been a moving target.

Climate change, although we have been warned, it’s still a shock to finally realize that it has arrived and will forever be a part of our daily lives. The wildfires, the heat waves, the cold winters, pollution of the earth, air and water, droughts, earthquakes, floods, slides, melting of the glaciers, rising sea levels.

Pandemics and seasonal viruses, vaccines, isolation, government restrictions, tampering with genetic codes and bacteria has its impacts, both good and bad. I am always anxious about the wellbeing of family and friends. Whether we are protected with hastily concocted vaccines, or if we are taking enough precautions personally. The hand washing, social distancing, masks, hand sanitizers, we’re never a constant factor in our lives before and we had a steep leaning curve to adjust. It seems now these are and will be constant in our lives moving forward.

Drugs and alcohol are laying waste and devastation through our social structure in every community. The resulting violence, over dosing , death, theft, are now a factor in our view of our community. Where and when will it stop, or how can it be stopped.

Social and personal issues emerge from all of these. Some of us can recognize the trend and make adjustments and practice good coping skills while many a swooped along feeling helpless and vulnerable. Each person for themselves, and hope that the teachings and teachings of the ancestors will emerge and be remembered to help each of us to help ourselves.

Racism…the lifelong struggle for recognition and equality for my nation, the Gitxsan, and every indigenous person in this earth. Missing and murdered indigenous men and women, the PTSD of residential schools, and the inequality of opportunities on our own land, constant reminders of the struggles of our ancestors and continuing today with no end in sight, or hope for even a break from this. The rage, the fear, the anxieties for safety of our women and children, the list goes on and on. In this world there is no relief from racism and oppression. We just do the best we can.

These are some of the many challenges we must face daily, and ask myself, why? No answers… maybe someday. Perhaps when I take my last breath on this earth walk will I know if I was worthy to be a Gitxsan and look back on my life and judge my time here.

Hello

How are we today? After over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m getting the pandemic fatigue. Wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing, family bubbles….it’s been stressful

Media reports seem to be in agreement that this will be the norm in the future. As I am moving into retirement mode, travel restrictions have certainly taken the excitement and anticipation of travelling abroad to visit family and grandchildren. In the meantime I am exploring ways to stay busy around home. Photography and other creative tasks are proving to be my salvation from boredom and slipping into a sedentary life. At my age I must stay active or my well-being will most certainly deteriorate.

In our close Gitxsan community, the isolation, restrictions and pressures of social distancing and the constant vigilance is taking its toll. We have seen the heartbreaking loss of my peer elders, I’m sure not only to the virus but from the loneliness and the stress of trying to cope daily

Soon to be a year since we’ve been in lockdown because of the COVID-19 virus.

At this time there is no end in sight, regardless of the immunization happening in nearby communities. There is no indication of when we can expect vaccinations in our community.

In the last month or so, the virus has wreaked havoc on the lives of our loved ones within the communities along the Skeena, commonly known as gali _aks. The infections continue to climb in numbers and several families have lost loved ones to the Covid-19 virus. As feeling of optimism swept over the area as we heard of several vaccines being developed and vaccination programs began to be rolled out around the world and across the country..

In the meantime we have continued to isolate within our household bubble, hoping and praying for our safety, never knowing when any of us would begin showing symptoms.

All of this has caused stress, mentally, emotionally, and physically. We keep our grandchildren home from school, only essential travelling to Smithers or Terrace for medical trips and essential supplies. We do our best to stay in contact with loved ones abroad and within four community by telephone or social media.

Our society is based on kinship, during times of grief and celebration, and our close knit society has been suppressed that we can’t offer our support to our extended families and friends , when they lose a loved one, and we have lost many, toung and old in the last year. Our immediate famihas lost two members, our brother Mel and just recently, our sister Brenda. Although our losses weren’t from COVID-19, none the less it has been difficult as we must be mindful of the risk of infection as we plan and carry our our tribal duties. Large gathering , for funerals, feasts, ceremonies, are restricted so we must defer our vital societal obligations to an unknown future and no promise of when we can again gather communally.

In the meantime, further isolation and pray for safety of our families. Continued vigilance and attention to our situation, never letting our guard down for a moment.

Today is December 26th, Boxing Day 2020. This morning I have some time to reflect on the last week leading up to Christmas Day. I anticipated that everything would be different this year with the pandemic and restrictions that we have been encouraged to be mindful of. Social distancing, keeping our social circle to household only, keeping masks on when we’re in public. It’s certainly a different level of awareness and another level of respecting others around you. This year, when the holiday season began and the Christmas spirit strengthened and Christmas approached, we knew we had to try and make it as memorable as we could for ourselves and for or great granddaughters. So with that in mind we revived our Christmas lights display which had been neglected over the last few seasons as we were usually travelling or dealing with medical challenges. Thanks to online shopping we were able to find replacements and dig out our light collection from storage. From there the creativity grew and we are very pleased with the outcome

We even made our own Christmas wreaths from cedar boughs. I crafted one and then help Aubree with hers. Very satisfying for us.

As Christmas for closer we turned our attention to our menu, and determined the turkey we had received from the Gitanmaax Christmas hamper would be much too big for the three of us, so we purchased a smaller one, and kept the larger one in the freezer until we can once again have large family gatherings. Which turned out to be the best choice.

As we sat down and offer a prayer to our Creator many things came to mind. The loneliness, the separation from family and loved ones, memories of friends that have been taken from us by this awful pandemic, frontline workers and gatekeepers in our communities. But we also reminded ourselves of the good thing we can be thankful for. Our continued safety and good health, bounty of food and water , each other’s company and support. These are things that will carry us through this pandemic.

As we look forward to the new year, we also look forward to once again be in the company of our family and loved ones.

At the same time we can look back in this past year and reflect on things that have forever changed us.

Today I celebrate another year of living

Today I celebrate another year of living on this beautiful planet.

can you hear

I can’t wait for spring…when the drumming of the grouse echoes through the woods. As it finds it favorite log and drums the air and announces it presence and the arrival of another spring.

The dance of the grouse is a nox nox of Wilps Dawamuux….used to invoke spiritual powers at the beckoning of the dancer……

Every movement is crucial as the dancer is choreographed by the rhythm of the singers voice, drum,and rattle….