people ask ‘how long did this take to make?’

thank you for asking.

to answer your question, the trike took some time. naked, just steel and rubber, it sat for a while near my home altar, and i asked for guidance from those who always help (Ancestors, Spirits, Everyone, friends).  it took a few months before a vision solidified.

then, it took a while, concurrently, to talk with  folks, listen, to be in  community, to hear the call and response to ideas and to be open to suggestions, so it really feels like a group effort.

then, after that, it took a month to prepare the materials and do the drawings, to pick some and not others, to think of symbology and relevance. i received guidance from trusted confidants as to the pain and sorrow of it all. i thank them for their help and they are in this piece (in this era of time, auntie Emma, Robert, Andrew, Janice and Buddy, Johnny and Sarah, Frannie and Bill, and also William, Lorraine, Colin, Donny, Chris, Robin; many  folks at IRSSS, TRC/RC, SFU). it’s a small project but a lot of hearts are in it, thank Goodness.

then, after/concurrent to all this, when i started the weaving, putting it together, it took from late november to early february. it wasn’t hard technically, but super hard and long like a rocky row to hoe, as it brought up so many emotional and intellectual battles, internally and externally, for myself and my loved ones. these feelings showed through hands so much that much done had to be redone. that is how it is with making. i accept that reality.

thank you for your understanding.

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may there be enough to eat for all Beings, here and in the Spirit world

year of the horse lotus buns

red grey bird pecking though snow for seed

on hunger:

my friend who knows a few of my quirks often drags me out of the house to eat.

quirk: focusing to finish and ignoring stuff like meals, water, you get the idea
solution: pea leaves, lotus bun, black bean sesame ball, fried squash, eggplant.
i call these meals ‘christmas’; so much to eat, and so much variety!  i am like a queen, so much food.

may there be so  much to eat, for all Beings, here and in the Spirit world (this is my Grace before meals)

i think of the many who talk about having been so hungry at these schools when they were children and young adults.  Mr. Neumann from Heiltsuk testified that the schools taught him as a child to steal, as he was so hungry, and this is how he obtained a bit of food for himself and other children.

i have only a few pictures of my auntie, as a child, and in her young adult years. they  shows her rail-thin. i always thought this was her natural-ness, or a result of her tuberculosis.

‘no mami’,  she said.
‘my mother, your grandmother, always brought children home for them to eat.  i cooked, but there was never enough food for all of us. i was so terrible hungry so much.   better not to remember.’
she changes the subject.

today, on her table sits the constant companions; breads, cookies, hard candies, crackers, fruits, cracker jacks, jellies. she starts handing them out again, although we just had breakfast. this mini mountain competes for table space with stacks of correspondence from charities. ‘i like to give to the Indians’, she says. ‘the orphans.’

i know it isn’t the same.  she is angry that i want to talk about hunger.  ‘we are not like those poor people in Africa you see on television who have nothing to eat. ‘ she is so upset at me and calls me a liar. days later, i am still deeply saddened and i don’t know that i should say any of this. i know it isn’t the same.

‘little fat bananas cooked over charcoal was often all we had.  these grew by themselves outside at a neighbor lady’s ranch. she sometimes gave us a basket full.  there was always many children in the house that were not my mother’s, but your grandmother  she  took responsibility for them.  sometimes we didn’t have the charcoal, so we looked around for old paper, anything we could burn to cook.’

every bike needs a basket to hold super stuffs

bike’s basket

oh, little runaway. loneliness, abuse, isolation, forced assimilation, removal from home and family, how many more reasons would a child need to want to run away from these indian residential schools? there are at least one hundred more we could name.

ways to run:
airplane
train
car
horse
feet and shoes: bear tracks, deer trails, star paths

some children did run, to run away, despite the nearly hopeless odds of success. some were later found frozen, some were never found, some were caught and severely punished.

this trike is the magic self-propelled friend with the power to go, from there to here.

next to the box of treasures

position

at Reconciliation Canada event 2014

she told me to place ‘little red’ next to her box of treasures, and i was so happy to say, thank you.

who, what: reconciliation canada, indian residential school event
when: february 5 – 6, 2014
where: SFU Burnaby campus
why: healing

three arms, brain tanned twist fringe; clothespins are my extra hands

three arms with clothespin hands

* twisted red and black spirals = kelp beds, sea otters, cloud swirls, and wind

* twisted brain tanned leather = ceremonial clothing

* streamers: something a child places in plastic handlebars, they fly with the wind

branches

pretend

branch handlebars
arms of a tree
reach out, grab on
ride like the wind
climb high as a kite
run.

every parent, every child, all species

mother mary baby jesus eternal return

big bear

do you ever wonder?  what was it like for all of those children, taken from their mothers, families, communities, to attend Indian Residential Schools? and so young! and what of a home community, without its youth?

mother mary and her baby jesus are:
a. actual historic humans; b. transcendant archetypes of mother and child; c. divine beings manifest on divine Planet Earth; d. mythic creatures; e. reminder relevant to all species of all life forms; f. something else.

archetype examples: madonna and child; good v. evil; the ever patient and ultimately prevailing underdog; the dangerous witch; so many archetypes transcend era, culture, languages.

ar·che·type [ahr-ki-tahyp]
noun
1.  the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.
2.  (in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.
via : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/archetype

i’m pretty old, and my auntie is older.  i had been asking her about some strange things from mute photographic testimony and bad hard memories. to make a long story short, i just learned my mother and auntie were at the same church-run orphanage school.

no matter what may have happened in my family home, i had parents, every day. no one came to get them, or me. should they have?

late night stay awake it’s just starting to get good

late night

yes yes. that time of the night when all are asleep in the house, the phone has no chance of ringing, and the neighborhood is serene and still. george II looks out from his perch on kittymanjaro (the chesterfield), and he tenses as he notes the coyotes who have come up from the ravine, hungrily looking for his kind. he doesn’t mind eating birds and mice, so who is he to worry?

my eyes are heavy, and i am a little dizzy, but the call to make is stronger than that to sleep, so we remain, companions.

fender

bark on metal

start with the taking apart, and weaving those parts

which first?

yes! go away doubts, come on in, hands!
welcome dear ancestors, spirits, helpers.
welcome prayer and thanks to bark, wool, water, memory, story, friends and loves.