The Paradox: Mourning and Celebration of What Can Be

Respectful Friday!!

Last year on Canada Day, many were honouring and mourning the tragic death of so many Indigenous children discovered. Over this past year, I've been meeting with a group of people where we focus on learning the truth of Indigenous history and raising our awareness about what is still needed for the Indigenous children among us today--who are still suffering from the trauma and genocide impact upon their elders and ancestors, their communities. We walked the trail from the Woodland Cultural Centre (a former residential school, approx 21km to Chiefwood Park, where the children would have ran to go home.

I remind myself daily that I'm a treaty person. I live on land that was stolen, even though it is now my home. This paradox is oftentimes an uncomfortable truth to keep in front of me, but this truth does bear acknowledging and repeating. When we don't keep it in front of us, it can be far too easy to become unconscious by the ever pervasive colonial narrative that still wants to diminish and distort the history Indigenous people have actually lived.

I believe it's important that we each know the territory or unceded land upon which we live—That we know the treaty that governs us in our territory. It's worth knowing because it tells us what kind of citizens we said we were going to be and how we were going to engage with our Indigenous neighbours and also with this land.

Last year I wrote the following. I share it again so that whatever activities you participate in today, I ask you to join me in offering prayers, in offering deep gratitude for an unprecedented hospitality extended to us, in acknowledging the truth of the past and in reading the 94 Calls to Action---again! 1 Or read the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights (resolution adopted Sept. 2007) 2 and Bill C-15 that brought it into law in Canada, receiving royal assent, June 21, 2021--14 years post the original resolution. 3

"In honour of the over 1000 Indigenous children discovered in unmarked graves and with as many more to be found; in honour of the many children that did find their way home, broken and traumatized; in honour of the many children who survived residential schools but no longer knew where they came from and never found their way back; in honour of the childrens' children who were denied their Indigenous knowledge and knowing and ceremonies like their parents and grandparents who had the 'Indian killed in them'; in honour of the all the lands and waters and trees and animals who have grieved and held in sacred ways, all these children that had no other parent, no other community who recognized their light, their beauty, their inherent dignity, their Indigenous, Metis, Inuit, Innu, spirit and identity. To you all, I bow in deep respect, in deep sorrow, in deep sadness for all that you have endured, for the genocide you have suffered and through a miracle of your own soul, are still here, speaking up and speaking truth.

As I continue to learn and change my ways, I am grateful to listen and find respectful ways to be of service to my Indigenous friends and neighbours in ways that heal and restore balance between our nations and ourselves. May true and humble love and healing have the last word, the last act and be the last thought so our way forward is transmuted by our transformation--out of colonial sickness of heart and mind and into humble balance with the Great Life. Peace."

1 https://www.documentcloud.org/.../2091412-trc-calls-to...

2 https://www.un.org/.../sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf

3 https://www.canada.ca/.../government-of-canada-advances...

?Shirley Lynn Martin