RE-MEMBER: AN ACT OF TRANSFORMATION
Re-member
12"x 9" mixed media on paper
I re-member my father today, we honour within ourselves our loved ones who survived attempts of cultural annihilation in Indian Residential Schools.The elders from my father's village said he died a troubled man. This is true. It is also true that there was a courage in him, a beauty that found its way into us, his offspring. I can't articulate it clearly as a definition or a phrase. But I do have a metaphor.The heat in the sweat lodge by the third round can be very hot. It is the round for males and the round where we let everything go--we lay it down for the Great Mystery to transform. One learns to go into the heat, to be with the heat, to find a place deep within the soul to agree with the ancestors and in doing so, there is change and we see the world in a different way. As in the early days of Autumn, trees let go of their leaves to become minerals for the earth.May it be so, may all that we let go of as Indigenous people be compost to grow what is needed by all people--vital minerals for growth.
