Monthly Archives: January 2019

how we find home – assignment 2:3

no place/ everyplace/ my own/ someone else’s – home – assignment 2:2

A few years back, I spent 4-months on Haida Gwaii-

I’d stand in the company of eagles on kilometre-long stretches of beach, no person in sight. Under grey skies, I’d watch the waves lap onto rocky shores. Inhaling fresh, salty air, I found peace.

Tlell, Haida Gwaii – photo by Georgia Wilkins

I’d stand in celebration and remembrance of the power of the Earth. The power of the Ocean.

I felt grounded and humbled.

It is from this Earth that I sprung. And, when I die, my body will turn to soil, to Earth, offering nutrients for lives to come.

Moments of silence and stillness in the face of epic beauty, offer a homecoming of sorts. A remembrance of the interconnectedness of all life and form. My being, in all its complication and simplicity, was and is part of the big play – Life, Earth, Death, Universe, Sun, Moon, everything, nothing.

And I am home.

Yet in this home, on the beaches of Haida Gwaii, my reverence was directed to the people. I was home, but still a visitor on someone else’s homelands.

The Haida people.

They’ve cared for and loved those lands and waters for thousands of years. This relationship is embedded in their culture, their ways of life, and language. They know through their clan system and oral histories and relationships to Land, Water, Spirit and one another, and, I think, in their souls, that they’ve been there for a very, very long time.

Since time Immemorial.

And, because oral histories and knowing the land and seasons and a feeling in their souls aren’t enough to prove the Haida’s home to British Columbia or Canada, who have tried to occupy their territories with their governance structures and who’ve raped their land, uprooting and selling cedar and spruce ancestors for profit, in the national interest of Canada, the Haida also know through western science, through archaeology, and the village sites the Haida Watchmen care for that they have been there for a very, very long time.

And it is home.

Gwaii Haanas, Haida Gwaii – photo by Georgia Wilkins

The Crown tried to name the place in 1778. The Queen Charlotte Islands, the colonizers called it. After decimating the Haida populations with smallpox, banning the potlatch, sending the youth to residential schools, and imposing reserves, Canada wrongly thought they’d claimed it.

The Haida persisted.

In a moving ceremony in 2010, the Haida regifted the name to British Columbia and The Queen. The Queen Charlotte Islands wrapped in a bentwood box.

For their home, the Haida chose the name Haida Gwaii – islands of the people.

The Haida are the people. The islands, theirs.

I learned that being at home in my own body, in my own knowingness of self and that which is beyond self and identity allowed me to be grounded enough to offer my respect and to show up as a good guest at someone else’s home.

I left Haida Gwaii feeling full but homeless. Uprooted and unfurled, I sought a home on the land.

Was home 108 Prospect or 4484 W 15th? No.

Though they housed me, and were places where I felt loved, cared for, respected, they were on stolen lands or lands (un)settled through dishonoured treaties. When all my relationships were gone from those places, I knew, deep in my soul, that those places were someone else’s home- homes that need to be returned to the Indigenous people to be governed and cared for.

Was home where my ancestors came from? South Indian Lake or in England, Ukraine, Russia? Maybe, but I’ve yet to visit. Perhaps when I do, there will be a sense of knowingness.

Home is not Canada, though it is a nation to which I belong (in an administrative sense and, in the sense that I am warmly welcome as a cisgendered, able-bodied, educated and friendly white lady). The imposition of Thunder Bay and of Canada on already occupied, already loved, Indigenous lands, has, and continues to be, one of violence, dislocation, and fractured relationships. And I know violence is not home.

When we are home, in an embodied sense, there is no harm.

Home is a place of ease. Closed eyes, deep breaths, quiet mind. I meditate, to bring myself home, or I stand on the beach under eagles, or by the cottonwood tree, or with my palms feeling cement, or in the arms of unconditional love. I guide myself home in moments of silence. Home is without thought, without action, without personality, neediness, attachment. Home is without touch, taste, smell, sight (yet, in another sense, home is all these things).

Home, ultimately as I understand it, is a sense of belonging found within and beyond oneself. Beyond reality and imagination; life and death.

Home is awareness. The witness consciousness. That which is aware of thoughts, aware of emotions, yet unmoved. It was not born, and it will not die. Home is deep peace. Simple, yet elusive.

The potential to connect with home rests inside all of our bodies, yet it is beyond the body. Beyond form.

At the same time, home is the body, for without the body, there would be no vessel to carry the awareness of beingness. We nurture and care for the body because it is our home. And, because life is confusing and challenging, we forget, too, that the body is home. We abandon it by failing to offer it care and rest. But it is still home.

And, at the same time, home is the Earth, for without the Earth, there would be nothing to nourish and house the body, there would be no vessel to carry the awareness of beingness. And, because life is confusing and challenging, we forget, too, that the Earth is home. We abandon it by failing to offer it care and rest, by manipulating its cycles through carbon emissions. But it is still home.

And, at the same time, home is the Universe, for without the Universe, there would be no place to hold and heat and revolve the Earth, there would be nothing to nourish and house the body, there would be no vessel to carry the awareness of beingness. And, because life is confusing and challenging, we forget, too, that the Universe is home. We abandon it by ignoring its majesty and grandeur, by forgetting to see the stars, or gaze at the moon. But it is still home.

And, at the same time, home is noplace, for even with the death of the body, the Earth, and the Universe, there is still a sense of awareness, resting somewhere and everywhere.

Home is everyplace and noplace. Home is also very specific places, lands, waters, but not really for me. And also entirely for me.

For I know, that the trees and the waters and all the people are, somehow, my relations. I seek to respect and love it all.

Home depends who you are. Depends where you came from.

Works Cited

Brown, Brene. “Finding Our Way to True Belonging.” Ideas, TED, 11 Sept. 2017, ideas.ted.com/finding-our-way-to-true-belonging/.

Hall, Chris. “Trudeau gives his definition of National Interest.” Analysis, CBC News, 16 April, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pipeline-kinder-morgan-analysis-chris-hall-1.4620823.

Hume, Mark. “Underwater discovery near Haida Gwaii could rewrite human history.” The Globe and Mail, 2014, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-researchers-may-have-found-earliest-site-of-human-habitation-in-canada/article20737278/.

Mooji. “An invitation to freedom.” Youtube, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5_sbzSXs0E.

Richard, Graham. “Back from whence it came.” Art, Council of the Haida Nation, 2017, http://www.haidanation.ca/?p=4717.

once a story is told, it cannot be called back – assignment 1:5

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The following is my rendition of Leslie Silko’s story of how evil came into the world. Originally from Silko’s book Ceremony, I learned this story in Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories.

Here is an audio recording of me, Georgia, reciting the story to my dog, Sita, by the fire:

Here is a transcription of my version of Silko’s story:

I have a great story to tell you.

They were sisters.

Some by blood, some by choice, some, maybe, by habit or proximity or comfort – whatever it is that lands us in imperfect yet deep relationship, where our neediness is apparent, but our love is boundless. Forgiving. Selfless…. Sometimes.

They braided one another’s hair, shaved one another’s heads, cooked rice bowls, abundant with nutrients, and ate spoonfuls of peanut butter before bed. Some smoked cigarettes with their morning coffee as they stretched their legs, others woke to lemon water, the sun, running legs, pissing puppies.

They drew delicate lines, beaded one another jewelry as some of their grandmothers had done long ago, and they chopped wood, hauled water, changed tires, rode quads and snowmobiles.

They were tough and tender. Soft and stubborn. Bush queens.

Independent but in love with the collective- their community of sacred sisters.

Peace princesses prone to mistake-making, expectation-breaking, bread-baking wonder.

They were a living celebration of womanhood. Of the moon.

Sometimes, they howled to get one another’s attention.

Often, they took deep breaths and danced freely.

No fear of judgment.

One evening the women came together around the fireplace in their living room. Sprawled on cushions and one another’s shoulders, Basil asked the girls what frightened them most.

Paradise pointed to a dead mouse by the kindling box. Dusted and rigid, her shoulders tensed and her jaw clenched with the acknowledgment.

Astrid walked to the doorway where she picked up their gun. It had never been used, but all the men in the area carried them for protection so they kept one too to dispel the power dynamic created when strange men came wandering onto their property with big guns and big egos. She lifted it, scanning the dark night with piercing eyes, and then took it apart, set it down, and softly bowed her head in reverence to life and to the power of that machine.

Ember inhaled deeply and acknowledged the alter the women had built for loves lost, through death and distance. Basil passed around a stone from her pocket, each of the sisters thumbing it softly until it made its way to the alter.

Silence.

The women looked to the last sister.

And all Peaches had was a story.

When the telling was done, the room was teary eyed, shaking, repulsed and silent.

Peaches had clouded the room with a darkness that couldn’t be undone.

Stoke the fire!

Shine a light!

Dance like rivers!

Flow like the sea!

Pass like the clouds! the women cried.

But, of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. (King 10)

—

Reflection

I would never call myself a storyteller, orally at least.

I love to move. I dance my stories. Other times- silence and presence are my stories. My dad is an author, a storyteller. And, perhaps through some sort of Freudian slip, most of the men I attract into my life are elaborate, detailed storytellers. So I spend much of my time listening to, watching and reading stories. Entertaining other people’s development as storytellers. Noticing the stories people choose to repeat, and the way details, emphasis, and dramatization is added overtime. I can be a babbler, but I don’t feel the stories I tell through my rambling carry much importance… I try to keep myself in check and speak my truth deliberately.

Where I live in the bush on the Nass River, I am alone, aside from a nice fellow, Corwin, who lives a kilometre away. Together, we are in silence. We only speak of necessary matters of the present moment- like whether the generator has run too long, or the wolf tracks are coming close.

The only being I speak to is Sita, the dog, so, I shared this story with her, and with the fire.

Sita- the witness; the listener

As I wrote, I spoke the story aloud, again and again. An exercise I enjoyed. My dad tells me I have a lisp, so I practiced clarity of speech each time I repeated myself.

Clearly, in this loneliness, I am longing for my sisterhood. Revelling the strength of the women I love. All the names are pseudonyms; the fears, real as can be.

Though I did take note of King’s storytelling tips, like making the audience wait by building suspense (King 7), or crafting the story as a performance (King 22), or, on King’s wife’s advice, “don’t preach. don’t try to sound profound,” (King 26), I had to surrender to my own flow, my own truths, and my own creativity to finish the assignment.

I can’t say I am proud of this story, or that I’ll go back to it, but I sure did appreciate the exercise of writing from the imaginary.

Thank you for taking your time with it.

Works Cited

CBC Radio. “4 Story Tips with Thomas King,” October 13, 2016. Online.

Hunt, Sarah & Holmes, Cindy. “Everyday Decolonization: Living a Decolonizing Queer Politics,” 2015. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19:2, 154-172, DOI: 10.1080/10894160.2015.970975. Online.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough: Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

I don’t believe in Canada – assignment 1:3

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“Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87). Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada?

Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index). Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78). Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.”

The history of many of the world’s conflicts is a history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or of misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages.
– J. Edward Chamberlain
If this is your land, where are your stories? (p. 78)

I don’t believe in Canada- our home on Native land.

A nation brought together through myth- terra nullius, empty wilderness, the Canadian Pacific Railway, a national government imposed to diminish and disappear already functioning systems of Indigenous governance, a nation imposed to bring civility to those perceived as savage through strategies such as the Indian Act, residential schools, the 60s scoop, the ongoing crises of Indigenous youth in care, away from their communities and cultures (see work by Cindy Blackstock). Indigenous communities and cultures, which, today, are still diminished and discriminated against by the RCMP, the Supreme Court of Canada, provincial education systems, Justin Trudeau, Gerald Stanley, the manager at McDonald’s, Brayden Bushby, and that nice white lady who taught you (a convoluted and flawed) history in second grade.

All this violence, vested by, her majesty, the Queen.

All this violence, upheld by white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist, colonial bullshit, often in disguise- as nice guy Justin Trudeau, or Debra, the shopkeeper who follows Indigenous youth around the store “just in case” (still – white folks – we must exercise patience and care in educating these people, too, despite their hatred and the stories they tell themselves to feel at home, they are still here, and they have been taught to believe in the great Canadian myth. We all deserve opportunities to unlearn, but do not let this work of unteaching fall unconsentually on Indigenous people, screaming, again and again, see my humanity! Hear my stories! Respect my pain! Respect my culture! Respect this land! Respect me!).

Kent Monkman. 2016.

It is so problematic to figure out our home – Canada – because the nation was formed through genocides and violence and is maintained through the ongoing suppression of rights for Indigenous folks from coast, to coast, to coast. The nation is sustained on the false belief of Indigenous deficiency – that Indigenous ways of knowing, Indigenous governance, Indigenous economies, are not and could not have been enough to sustain and maintain this nation, this population as a whole.

As a society, we must recognize the strength of Indigenous resilience in the face of hundreds of years of colonial violence. Canada’s wealth has come entirely from the theft of land and the sale and degradation of natural resources, enabled by cooping Indigenous people up on small reserve lands, outlawing their spiritual and life-giving practices, taking their children, and languages, and pride away (or trying to – but failing in the face of Indigenous resilience). Capitalism and colonialism are inextricably linked, and both, are inherently harmful to (most) people and the planet (a whole and living being).

When we imagine Canada as a healthy, generous, and safe nation, we are doing just that- imagining. We are believing in the possibilities of a nation, without remembering the truth of settler-colonial violence that founded and maintained the possibility of this country. We are failing to acknowledge our privileges in experiencing health, generosity, safety through the nation state, Canada.

There is hope.

We must reimagine and relearn this country and our own communities and remain open to the possibilities of dismantling Canada. Of supporting the emergence of new governance, legal, and educational structures.

May we acknowledge Indigenous nations. May we allow them to be at home, on the land, in mind and in spirit (Chamberlain 84). May we see their strength. May we hear their stories. May we follow their guidance and offer our support selflessly. May we be humble. May we, settler colonial Canada, surrender our power, our privilege and the land that is not ours, back to the people who’ve known and cared for it for millenia. May we remember the Truth in Truth and Reconciliation. May we make moves towards decolonization- the return of land, power and privilege (Tuck & Yang) in our personal, interpersonal, and institutional engagements.

…and there may still be tension, pain, hatred, violence, but these moves to justice will, inevitably, bring health, generosity and safety to those who’ve been fighting. Those who’ve been waiting- for themselves, their grandmothers, their great-grandchildren.

Works Cited

CBC Archives. The Group of Seven: The myth of the unspoiled wilderness. 1996. Accessed at: https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/the-group-of-seven-the-myth-of-the-unspoiled-wilderness.

CBC News. Brayden Bushby to stand trial on 2nd degree murder for death of Barbara Kentner. 2019. Accessed at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/bushby-trial-charges-decision-1.4986393.

CBC Radio. The Millenium Scoop: Indigenous youth say care system repeats horrors of the past. 2018. Accessed at: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172/the-millennium-scoop-indigenous-youth-say-care-system-repeats-horrors-of-the-past-1.4503179.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

Coulthard, Glen. Urbs Nullius: Gentrification and Decolonization. 2015. Accessed at: http://ecosocialistsvancouver.org/glen-coulthard-%E2%80%93-urbs-nullius-gentrification-and-decolonization.

Francis, Daniel. National Dreams: Myth, memory and Canadian history. 2015. Accessed at: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/national-dreams-feature.

Friesen, Joe. Gerald Stanley aquitted in the shooting death of Colten Boushie. 2018. Accessed at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/gerald-stanley-acquitted-in-death-of-colten-boushie/article37929427/.

Hunter, Joyce. #everydayracism (Facebook post). 2019. Accessed at: https://www.facebook.com/joyce.hunter1/posts/10161443505405066.

Tuck, Eve & Yang, K. Decolonization is not a metaphor. 2014. Accessed at: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630

A Wilderness Called Someone Else's Home

Georgia Wilkins' English 470A Class Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2019

how we find home – assignment 2:3

no place/ everyplace/ my own/ someone else’s – home – assignment 2:2

once a story is told, it cannot be called back – assignment 1:5

I don’t believe in Canada – assignment 1:3

welcome – assignment 1:1