The web of life is a worldview that stresses interconnection and balance. Generally speaking, this is what we believe in and what sets our ways in opposition with those who attempted to colonize us.

Reverence for certain animals over others seems to be out of line with this belief system.

The way that our people cherish the eagle over the seagull almost seems like a non-Christian counterpart to the great chain of being that placed Jesus, the pope, cardinals and bishops at the top and ranked all other beings in descending order of importance.

The trouble with colonization is that we don’t know the full extent of its effect on us even we when are aware of its insidious pervasiveness. We are like fish getting used to polluted water. Its the water we were born in, so we really don’t know the taste and feel of unpolluted water. Even as some of us cling onto the ways of old, we are not fully aware of how those very beliefs and traditions are now tainted and distorted by colonization.

Irony: the further we stray from the wisdom of seven generations ago when all creatures were sacred, the tighter our grip on eagle feathers becomes.

Solution: cherish a robin, a blue jay, a loon, a chickadee and even a seagull. We don’t need a feather collection to show our connection to the Great Spirit.

That being said, the intention by those feather collections is admirable in some cases. It’s just that colonization, in most cases, has tried to erase our collective’s sacred connection to all processes, beings, and things. It’s a case of of ‘white-knuckle culture’, which is what happens when very few of the sacred cultural teachings are remembered and they are held onto so tightly that our figurative knuckles turn white.

Some of my most prized possessions are eagle feathers, mostly because of the very respectful people who honored me with them. The crux of my concern lies in the hierarchical rank of eagle down to pine beetle. That’s not traditional, not in the way I was taught.

Here’s the point of all this: let’s re-learn to appreciate and respect the less glamorous animals. It will strengthen and renew our sacred connection to Mother Earth, Father Sky and beyond.

Preparation for ceremonies and gatherings brings us together for a common goal. When a Sun Dance, Potlatch, wedding, or funeral are about to happen, there are few slackers.

There is just cooperative commitment and disciplined diligence.

The people in our communities who work the hardest are those who consider work to be sacred.

When we treat work as a ceremony, it transforms into something more than a simple exchange of time for money and should make all of us probe deeper into the concept of ‘Indian time’.

Work becomes the greatest expression of our deepest values and highest vision. The question is: how do we apply these sacred lessons to our daily work and the people we serve.

“No Man’s Land”. That is what they call Native housing in Vancouver. The reason for this is the almost total lack of fathers taking care of their children.

From a visiting alien’s perspective, it seems like someone is conducting a wide-scale social scientific experiment on the Native population in Canada to determine what happens when nations of children are raised without their fathers.

Preliminary findings of this grand experiment indicate low self-esteem across the board, a predisposition to a host of self-defeating behaviors, high incarceration rates, and widespread violence.

Single mothers, grandmothers, or aunties are forced to raise their children on their own without the support of the children’s father. Make no mistake about it: most of these women deserve superhero status.

This is such a huge problem in the Native community, yet no one talks about it. This is having a huge effect on the holistic health of our People.

Our children need a father’s love and concern to compliment the love they receive from their mothers. Without it, a child isn’t complete. And without it, a child can grow up out of balance.

Where are the fathers?

The crux of it is no one ever taught them to be men.

The coming of age ceremonies have largely vanished as a direct result of colonization and the long-lasting effects of residential school syndrome. Some of these ceremonies included the throwing away of all the child’s toys to both symbolize and actualize the child’s transformation into an adult.

Simply put, G.I. Joe and candy morph into guns and alcohol. They’re too busy acting like boys, shrugging off any responsibility or accountability. Detention turns into prison time for many Native men.

Adulthood is all about being a protector, provider and teacher. Playing video games all day long does not afford many opportunities for accountability and responsibility.

Now before you start to think that I’m putting all the blame on Native men, that’s missing the point. What happens in the Native community happens in others communities as well, especially in communities that have faced inter-generational trauma.

It’s too simplistic to blame just the men for the problem of single-parent families. The women must share in the responsibility for this wide-ranging phenomenon. When you point the blame at one party, it has the effect of polarizing the community even more.

Instead of focusing on entrenched positions of “He doesn’t have anything to do with raising his children” to “She is constantly being manipulative”, we have to shift to the common interests of how we can come together to raise our children. Co-parenting skills can and should be widely taught.

To end on an upswing, my father was and still is an excellent role model for all Native fathers. He is still married to my mom after 49 years. Along with my mother, he accepted and embraced the responsibility of raising both my brother and myself. Together, they overcame the long-term effects of their time spent at the Pelican Falls residential school–the place where they first met as children.

There are others just like my dad all over Turtle Island. The problem is there are just far too few of them. This must change.

Life isn’t a rap video. No one should aspire to be the old guy at the club. It’s more sad than laughable for many reasons.

Being raised under communism, this guy had to repair and invent, which is in stark contrast to our disposable culture. In fact, Ivan is more Indigenous in this one regard: that he throws out very little and makes use of every sprocket and gear (I actually saw the guy eat moldy salmon, to which he cautioned, “You just have to eat around the mold”).

To make the best with what you got in terms of a motorbike, you have to check out his channel at

http://www.youtube.com/user/theoverengineer

What’s wrong with considering yourself to be an adult? If you’re a First Nations person in Canada, then there seems to be a growing fear of this label.

Adulthood in the Native community has been deteriorating for years. Not only has the age for youth been extended several times since the 1960s, the age of Elders seems to be shrinking too.

Put the two together, and although we’re living longer lives, adulthood is shrinking.

As inane as this sounds, the First Nations community in Canada considers all under 30 years of age to be youth, and some even define youth as 35 and under. This is a problem for various reasons.

Firstly, whenever there’s a delay of entrance into adulthood, those affected face responsibility and accountability issues. That is, they are given a big excuse not to grow up and be a man or a woman.

When people are encouraged by the society in which they live to remain stunted, this, in turn, affects their behavior. They continue to do the things they did as a child because their opportunities for empowerment are not nourished.

Only 3% of the First Nations population in Canada practice their traditional beliefs. That means the turning of age ceremonies that used to signify entrance into adulthood are no longer ‘graduating’ our youth into adulthood.

When a Nation of People cease to practice their own ceremonies, frustration and turmoil ensue. African-Americans are still dealing with the effects of slavery. No one else mentions it, but the fact that a majority still largely practice beliefs that were forced on them by their ancestors’ former ‘masters’ should be viewed as a possible cause of the problems they continue to face.

Suicide is never an easy subject to discuss.

My sister’s own suicide still haunts over a decade later.

It would affect me even more today if it was not for the Sun Dance, where I gave my body and flew with the eagles for her spirit’s return to the circle.

Even now, I can’t help but ask the question everybody asks: why?

Suicide is about stopping the pain. It’s not about wanting to die.

When I think about her tragic life, there must have been lots of pain. She found herself living the worst life any woman can experience. She turned to prostitution to feed her addictions. For her, suicide was about stopping the pain.

The answer to preventing Aboriginal youth suicide can be found by looking to our Elders, says Aboriginal suicide prevention expert Darien Thira. Darien developed the “Through the Pain” Aboriginal suicide prevention curriculum, which he facilitates to First Nations communities. I find his ideas to be both profound and accessible.

Even though Aboriginal youth suicide rates are very high, the suicide rate for our Elders is extremely low.

There are four reasons to explain the low Elder suicide rate:

Emotionally, our Elders are cared for. There is a connection that the general population of seniors don’t experience. Connection is the sense that you are valued by those who are important to you

Physically, our Elders are respected. This leads to empowerment. Empowerment is the belief that you are in control of your life and that you are valuable for who you are and what you can do.

High levels of connection and empowerment lead to high self-esteem. People have high self-esteem when they feel lovable and capable.

Mentally, our Elders are given meaningful family and community roles. This, in turn, creates positive identity.

Spiritually, our Elders have maintained our sacred traditions. Spirituality and culture have the power to create vision and transformation.

With positive identity and vision, our Elders have a well-lived life.

Our youth need these four elements.

They need to feel loved. Attention and encouragement go a long way in building youth self-esteem.

They need to feel empowered. “They need more responsibility, not more entertainment,” says Darien Thira. Boredom stems from a lack of responsibility, but we think the answer lies in giving them more video games, I-pods, cell phones, TV’s, and cameras.

Our youth need a meaningful role in the community. So often, lip service is paid to the needs of our youth without fully involving them in important decisions. Before colonization, this was different and we need to get back to those traditional ways of involving the whole community.

And finally, our youth need our spirituality and culture for a greater vision and deep transformation. You can signs of this yearning in our youth, but many of them can only express this need in a superficial way. If they had a deep connection to their own clan, there would be no need to belong to an artificial clan based on brand-named clothing, rap music and sports emblems.

Many of us adults would be wise to heed this advice as well.

This is an excerpt from that apology: “Today we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country . . . The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.”

Five years later, programs designed to heal these survivors are losing their funding.

Help us stand up for our Elders in a spirit of healing as we hold the Prime Minister accountable for his apology and make sure his words are backed up by appropriate actions.

The online petition based on the postcard featuring Stephen Harper’s report card is up and running. Please email and distribute the following link to all your contacts and encourage them to sign the petition – Our goal is to collect 50.000 signatures!

Click the link below and follow the instruction on the right “Sign this Petition” to add your name as well:

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/stephen-harper-prime-minister-of-canada-continued-support-for-the-healing-of-residential-school-survivors

Ivan is the best math teacher I’ve come across. Maybe it’s because he’s not trained as a teacher, but as a German engineer and a Red Seal-certified carpenter who mysteriously speaks five languages.

What Ivan does that is so different from any other math teacher is that he brings the math class to the garage, tech department and kitchen to make math concepts come alive for Aboriginal learners entering the trades. I am going to make a vast generalization, but many Aboriginal learners benefit from tactile and visual learning. In Ivan’s class, they get to do calculations on real sprockets, chains, screws (yes, screws!), and other assorted items which give his classroom a distinctive junk yard feel (to the untrained eye, of course).

He has dozens of videos that infuse enthusiasm, curiosity and passion in all the learners who have the chance to learn from him. This is not the Khan Academy, which can be somewhat sterile and doesn’t cater at all to math for the trades. He pulls math concepts out of actual nuts and bolts, not just figurative ones. Ivan’s simple, yet elegant approach to math instruction separates him from most trades instructors who lack mathematical rigor, and also from most math teachers who lack his hands-on approach.

Find out more about Ivan at: http://tradesmath.org/maths

Sivasailam Thiagarajan (a.k.a. Thiagi) has great resources on everything related to training: thiagi.com.

Bernie DeKoven has a fresh blog that delves deep into fun: deepfun.com.