From four-year old Finn today:

“Night comes when the earth yawns and the darkness comes down from space.”

It’s nice to be back home after 8 days in Prince George. Great to reconnect with the little ones and be privy to this sort of wisdom.

Prince George, BC

I’m in Prince George again, in the middle of a week of all kinds of work. Today is day two of an Open Space meeting with a group called Communities Against Sexual Exploitation of Youth (CASEY). CASEY is wrapping up a year long project by using OST to connect people and ideas to community based action on these issues.

The theme for the gathering is “Lanterns of Hope” and indeed after the action planning today, there is a lantern making workshop which will precede a nighttime walk through an inner city neighbourhood to literally and figuratively bring light and hope to these dark parts of the city.

This morning there are thirty people working on six projects to talk their work out of the room. Thirty people showing up on a Saturday morning to create community based action around these issues is actually quite a feat. Despite that however, one of the organizers is struggling with expectations that more people would see this issue as important. In the large room next to where we are working, dozens of families are packing into the Prince George ATV and Motorcycle show. Our thirty participants provide an interesting contrast to that.

To answer the question of “what does it mean that only thirty people have shown up” I began this morning by telling the part of the Ojibway creation story where Giizhigokwe – Sky Woman – falls to earth and comes to rest on the back of a turtle. The earth at this time was covered by water, and the animals had no idea how to create a place where Giizhigokwe could give birth to her twins, the children who would be known as Anishnabe – the original beings. Giizhigokwe asked them to find one of them to swim to the bottom of the ocean and bring back some soil from which a new world could be created. The animals all tried without success, but the muskrat, the least of all of them, finally pulled off the feat and returned to the turtle’s back with a small morsel of soil in his tiny paw. Giizhigokwe spreads the soil around the turtle shell, blows into it and the world comes to life.

There are five key teachings from this story that apply to the idea that “whoever comes is the right people” and that numbers don’t matter for action:

1. The world is created collaboratively. These animals worked with each other and Spirit, in the guise of Giizhigokwe, to create the world in which humans can be born.


2. The muskrat – the smallest and least of all the animals – was the one that got the soil and created the transformation. We can never discount anyone’s contribution to transformative moments.


3. Transformation only requires the smallest seed, or William Blake “world in a grain of sand.” Seeds contain the potential and the map for the growth of the whole plant. Douglas-firs, which can grow to 350 feet are pollinated by dust that is microscopic. The smallest actions, when allowed to unfold in all of their potential, change everything.


4. The animals had no story about the bottom of the ocean. When Giizhigokwe tells them to find the soil at the bottom, they believe her even though they have no reason to. And when they can’t find the bottom, Giizhigokwe continues to hold faith and trust in them that they can do it, inspiring the muskrat to almost kill himself in service of the project. When it looked like everyone would give up, the story that Giizhigokwe held for all them propelled them forward. This is holding space, trusting in the emergence of transformation even when it seems like a remote possibility.


5. Finding the seed is not easy work. The muskrat almost dies in looking for that soil. Tremendous sacrifice is required to find the smallest things, but those things are worth almost dying for if it means that new worlds can be born from the effort.

This is a story that defines in many ways my practice of working with groups that are in tough and complex situations for which the transformative moments seem so far out of reach. Simply playing the role of Giizhigokwe – holding space and trusting the story that change will happen – is an important role which creates a container in which all of this work suddenly takes on meaning. But it’s not easy, and that’s a key thing top remember. Transformation comes at a tremendous price. Cracking open the world that we create for ourselves to find a better future always costs something, and one must be prepared for this work if one’s contribution is to be sustainable.

Technorati Tags: ojibway, transformation, change, leadership,

Prince George, BC

This week I’m here in Prince George, smack dab in the middle of British Columbia facilitating a two day roundtable conference on economic opportunities for Aboriginal communities. There are people all over BC here, and we’ve been treated to a performance tonight from Juno nominee (and new friend) Marcel Gagnon as well as tastings of the wines of Nk’Mip, North America’s first Aboriginal winery.

As fun and interesting as all this is, today’s proceedings were stolen by several acts of overwhelming generosity. It all began in the evening news part of our program, during which I invited people with anything to share – projects, ideas, partnerships.

One of the groups in attendance here are the executive of Building Our Legacies Together, the youth network I have been working with over the past couple of years. The youth forum in Fort Rupert last month was planned by them. They received a little planning money from the federal government, but then locally they raised funds to hold these forums. They are now embarking on bringing this forum model all over BC. It is a two and a half day event whereby we line up inspirational speakers, rappers, and other musicians to do an evening of fun, and then launch them into a day and a half of Open Space to work out small scale local solutions to the issues they face.

So the coordinator of this most excellent scheme, my friend Crystal Sutherland, rose today to give her pitch. She began by introducing herself in her language and recited her connections to her families and clan at Ahousaht on the west coast of Vancouver Island. She quickly told the BOLT story to these leaders and then cleared her throat and said “Now here’s the hard part: we need money. We raise local money to hold these forums and we need money to put these on around the province.” She invited people to get in touch with her if they could help.

Without dropping a beat a man from Campbell River stood up and pledged $500 from his organization and challenged other Aboriginal development organizations to the same. Within five minutes there was $3000 dollars in the bank and then Chief Shane Gottfriedson of the Kamloops Indian Band rose to say that he would be happy to host a forum, that the youth would have the pick of the facilities in his community (including a new meeting centre and their new school gym) and that the band would take care of all the food while the youth were there. By the end of evening news, ten minutes later, the youth had cash, a host for their next forum in Kamloops and two other offers for the same.

And, as one leader said in rising to pledge his stake, it was all about respect and the way these young people came to ask for funds with a track record of work and with integrity and honesty in their request. Real leadership recognizes real leadership.

If you want to add to the pot, supporting the work of these young leaders, drop me a line (chris at chriscorrigan.com), or leave a comment and I’ll hook you up.

Technorati Tags: aboriginal, firstnations, youth,

My four-year old son: Mom?
My wife, Caitlin: Yes?
Son: You know when you get really old?
Caitlin: Yes.
Son: And when you’re just about to die?
Caitlin: Yeeeesss….
Son: Just in that moment…
Caitlin: Yes?
Son: Can you tell me where your wallet is?

The kid’ll do anything for an advance on his allowance!