Thoughts About Dreamwork with Central Alberta Cree
B. Finding the Middle Ground
A second social action agenda I strive for in my work comes out of an curious phenomena Ravenwoman and I have repeatedly experienced during workshops, classes and personally. It is the naiveté that both cultures hold for each other. That is, the almost reverent awe that each culture can hold for the others "authority". This is not only in terms of dreams but many areas of the transpersonal/personal domains. Let me illustrate. I had Ravenwoman come to a dream class I was holding through the faculty of extension at the University of Alberta. The students sat in a circle around her in a hushed silence quite literally hanging on her every word as she spoke simply about her experiences with dreams and the spirit. Afterward as we walked through the parking garage to our cars, Ravenwoman turned to me and asked "What's wrong with those people?" We both shared a good giggle over her puzzlement and agreed that the classes attitude towards her was silly. But what we found equally silly was virtually the same reverence paid to me when speaking on psychology and even on dreams to Natives. The white "doctor" is seen with a deep respect that seems over done in its apparent depth as was the respect that was paid Ravenwoman.
The other side of the reverence attitude is the anger of the Native and the nonnative towards each other which I have also experienced.
This nicely spoken to by a student's poem which came to her while falling asleep. She was taking a Native Studies class where she was learning about the atrocities which occurred to her people around the time of colonization. Not normally a poet, the first two lines of the following poem came to her in this sleep transition state. She got up and spontaneously wrote out the entire poem.
Purging
At last I have found a voice from which to speak
To the Queen of England, from her subject so meek.
How can you sleep at night, mind peaceful, body limp
You enjoy life to the fullest with nary a hint
Of how your old money came into your hands . . .
On the backs of others in a faraway land.
Your monarchy grew by leaps and by bounds
Not once did you question how your fortune was found.
Do you let your mind wander to the days of old
How your ancestors reached out and went for the gold.
In their greed they staked claim with a flag and some rules
Saying "nobody's here, just savage fools".
You said you discovered the land, therefore, you own
All riches and resources the Indians call "home".
We thought you spoke truth with your treaties so grand
We lost our lifestyle and you took the land.
Some tears, some bitterness and plenty of hurt
A people worn down by your laws and your dirt.
Exploitation, Assimilation, words . . . not easy to say
From a people who survived and won't go away.
Like the Phoenix we're rising, from bended knee
From alcohol, poverty and racism, we'll soon be free.
We'll learn your language, your laws and your game
While we nurture our own and be rid of the shame
Of being an Indian, scorned by the whites
We'll keep our pride and get on with the fight.
Should your sleep be disturbed with dreams of fright
Reach to the Creator for visions of light.
Undo the wrongs done to people of old
With harmony restored the truth will unfold.
Linda Anderson
Spring, 1993
It seems that there is little middle ground in relations between our cultures in Canada. Thus a second agenda I have in all of my work with Natives and about Natives is to strive for a middle ground. Too many of my "New Age" contemporaries refuse to see that Nintendo is as popular with Native children as it is with our own; that although violence and abuse is rampant it exists along side an incredible sensitivity to what we have come to call the transpersonal or the spiritual; that hockey is the way "out" for Native teens just as basketball is for inner city blacks in the U.S.; and that young adult Natives feel the same pressures to go into the "family business" as whites do - in other words to honor the families heritage/teachings.
Let me illustrate this last middle ground with the story of Deb, a Native woman in her early 30's who is resisting becoming a medicine woman as her mother, her grandmother and her great-grandmother before her had been. She would prefer to be a lawyer and help her people in that way but the "call" to the family "business" is strong. It is not so much because of her pressure from her mother but rather due to her own transpersonal experiences.
As is often the case with those called to such spiritual work the predilection showed up early in Deb's life (Gackenbach, 1992). Deb can trace her earliest memories to nine months of age when she first walked. She was at a Sundance with her great-grandmother who was blind, but Deb did not know that at the time. The music came which "just made me want to dance." "I got up and started dancing." Her parents told her she walked up to the Sundance pole. Deb says, "what I remember is seeing a man . . . it wasn't a pole it was a big man . . . he was dancing." About him this Native woman says, "he wasn't dressed in anything, he was clear. . . like a cloud . . . he had two legs, two arms, head, a deep voice . . . he was singing and he was dancing . . . I saw him and I wanted to dance . . . he made it so happy . . . everyone around me was so serious . . . I held his hand and I danced with him."
Deb's early life was by her recollection unstressful for the most part at least within the family core. The emphasis in her memories is on these preschool years with remarkable detail and clarity and apparent continuation of this state of mystical being. However, being the first born and a girl Deb carried a lot of responsibilities for her siblings starting quite early in life. This was exacerbated as her parents started drinking. By 14 years of age she was dramatically acting out in order to communicate to them the reality of their alcohol and violence. Additionally, Deb was raped while in early adolescence by a family friend. These events brought to a virtual standstill the almost constant state of "bliss" or what might be called "mystical" awareness she had enjoyed in her preschool years.
In adulthood Deb has gone through considerable self healing and has been able to reclaim much of the experiences she started life with. Of her life she says, "I went through a lot of difficulty in my life, there was a lot of confusion, a lot of pain, a lot of suffering but at the same time I can't hang onto that, I've got to let that go eh . . . and I've let that go and life is beautiful . . . a lot of people don't know how to let it go . . . they let all that past garbage control them."
More recently as Deb sleeps she "protects" her mother from enemies who would do her harm while she works as a medicine woman. This very bright and articulate woman is torn between the demands and "realities" of her many duality's, Native-nonnative, waking-sleeping, real world-spirit realm AND which hockey game of her four sons to attend!
A Native lawyer friend of mine represents the other side of the dilemma many find themselves in in striving to come into the 20th century. Despite the fact that all three of his siblings speak their Native tongue and have had a lifetime of spiritual experiences he rejects these as irrational. Yet as he is recovering from alcohol abuse, an ugly divorce and a move to the big city from the Northwest Territories he is beginning to ask himself is there anything to the experiences of his siblings. My scientific approach to these matters has been refreshing for him in his own seeking. At this point he would be reluctant to approach another Native with these questions.
There are many places where the middle ground is being found. One of the most powerful is the annual pilgrimage of 15,000 people, mostly Natives, to the Catholic Lac Ste. Anne mission on the shores of Lake St. Anne for over 100 years. They believe that the waters of the lake have special healing powers. Catholic priests say masses 4 to 6 times a day at the lake side for the five days of the pilgrimage. This is an aspect of a movement of Natives which integrate drumming and sweetgrass into Catholic ceremonies. Here finding the middle ground is done in the context of religion.
Conclusion
I have sketched in this chapter the pattern of relationships I have developed with aboriginal people in central Alberta. These relationships range from personal to professional. Through them all I have tried to support who they are in their full range as complex, fully functioning members of Canadian society as well as the inheritors of a rich spiritual tradition for whom dreams are central.
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