When the way seems long, or any burden heavy, we have songs Witness how love and courage lift and reweave the broken strands Ue O Muite Arukou, by Kyu Sakamoto, was a huge hit in 1961, and the English version – ridiculously titled ‘Sukiyaki,’ which is a bit like translating, for example, Unchained…
Tag: respect
In Honour Of Lifelong Learning, on this Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos
With love to Margaret, and all my many beautiful teachers. You are the Gift. Today, I am an adult. I read, long ago, that Cherokee people count 52 as the age of majority, when one attains to the full rights/responsibilities of adulthood. It resonated with me, the notion that, by 52, one’s had kids (if…
2007: Metaphor
it’s 2007 and our city has fielded a committee which has won a competition we will have our year as canada’s cultural capital with all the project money this entails. since, she said, the committee couldn’t find any indigenous artists they went ahead and decided what to write, since they all agreed your community had…
Skirt, The Issue: A Moment to Address the Headdress
I go out with the regalia I’ve earned – usually, a pen and book of some sort, because I’m a writer. I know that having the pen and book doesn’t make me a writer; using them does.
Skirt: The Issue – Part Two
Fist-Fight at the Sunrise Ceremony, circa 1996. Okay,there wasn’t any fist fight. Not out loud. Not with physical fists. But, i wager that, on some level, it looked just like a fist fight. What it was billed as was an interfaith ceremony. I was attending because i was working, at that time, with a Traditional…
Skirt: the Issue – Part One
Illegal religions make for subterranean ways of saying things. That’s the only way these religions can survive. And sadly, just as humans exhibit a natural pull toward organising our spiritual lives, we seem to find it al too easy to make the jump from sharing and coordinating our impulse to acknowledge Deity, to proscribing the…
Prairiepomes 