Hello everyone –
This week I’ve been asked to do the FYI email – thinking about the email I was trying to pick a topic to discuss – domestic violence, trafficking, stalking? Then I realized a slow feeling of exhaustion came over me – because my cup is heavy and full. I don’t know about you all, but it feels like our “in box’s” and the news are FULL or OVERSATURATED with the “hard” in life. We’re constantly reminded about climate change, violent storms, violence, war, and it’s overwhelming. It’s not that I don’t want to know what’s happening around me – it’s just that it feels like joy is getting harder and harder to find -like a memory that I just can’t quite reach. Then – a friend sent this to me on Facebook. When I read it through I found myself just resting with it. I even printed it off and put it next to me desk. It’s a great reminder of joy – and finding joy – so I thought this week our FYI will be about getting just a bit closer to that illusive thing called joy.
I hope it makes your day a bit better –
(originally posted on the Native American Heritage Facebook page)
Indigenous joy.
“I saw this gorgeous photo that Twyla Baker posted from a collection at the Minnesota State Historical Society of Arikara/Mandan/Hidatsa girls laughing, it reminded me of this piece I wrote last year in my endeavors to gather old photos that embody Indigenous Joy:
Indigenous joy. The laughter emanating from these faces, the pleasure of the sounds of corn husks rustling as harvests roll in. The essence of pure joy on those faces is the embodied wellspring to which I make my daily offerings.
We are sowing seeds of Indigenous joy. When the days are long, when the row is long to hoe, when the smoke fills the sky and uncertainty creeps into the corners of my mind. I bring my embodied prayer back to this; that the fruits of our labor and also our creativity will continue to carve into being a world where it is safe and nourishing place for grandmas to teach their children the stories that are held inside the seed corn, that the deft hands of grandmothers conjure up magic in the simple beauty of knot being tied or the way a knife is handled.
Remember this. They want us to be defined by our intergenerational trauma. Yet the blood in our veins carries wild rushing rivers of intergenerational resilience, reverence, pleasure, joy and collective creative force and a spirit fire that could never be extinguished against all odds and acts of atrocities.
Let that be our North Star, our ancestral blood memory of beautiful resistance. Make yourself into a vessel where that song can be sung…
Don’t despair. This resistance is intergenerational work and it is alive and sprouting. The seeds of hope of this movement have been planted a long time ago, by loving humans who cared so deeply that you might know no hunger. These prayers have been whispered around many fires, in birthing rooms, in final breaths, heaved towards horizons at first dawn light, to the winds, under rustling dry corn stalks during the harvests…
Don’t despair. Those seeds of hope are sprouting. We can hear the seed songs of generations in that reverent inhale.
Let us hold the vision of Indigenous joy as we move in community and tend the hearth of dignified resurgence.
These ancestors in sepia remind us.
Haven Office Hours: 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Monday – Friday
HAVEN Does NOT provide 24- hour service. After hours please call:
StrongHearts Native Helpline https://strongheartshelpline 1-844-762-8483 (call or text) or Community Crisis Center, Miami, OK 1-800-400-0883
StrongHearts and Community Crisis Center have 24 hour service
HAVEN is a tribal advocacy program offering support for all victims of crime, specifically domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. We serve all ESTOO tribal members REGARDLESS of where they live and local community members within Ottawa County and the cities of Vinita, Jay, Grove OK and Seneca, MO.
Please call the HAVEN office during business hours for more information.
918-554-2836 or Text Line: 918.533.3070
Program Website: https://havenprogram.com/
Program Email: havenprogram@estoo.net
Facebook: HAVEN Tribal Program, Twitter: @ProgramHaven, Instagram: HAVENTRIBALProgram.
