From a post on the OSLIST, a poem from Neruda:
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve
And we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be a delicious moment
without hurry, without locomotives;
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.
The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.
What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity;
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go
This is the logo for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler winter Olympics. It was unveiled on Saturday in Vancouver.
Now I’ve nothing against inukshuks, and I have plenty of Inuit friends and colleagues, but this is just plain wrong. These Olympics are being held in the territories of the Squamish and Lil’wat peoples, of whom there are many excellent artists. This is a huge opportunity to show the world an image from the rich tradition of west coast art, and instead the Olympic committee chose a figure from a culture that lives thousands of miles away.
Using an Inukshuk to signify winter games in Vancouver is like using the Egyptian pyramids for selling the London bid for the summer games. The two have nothing to do with one another and Vancouver and Iqaluit are separated by about the same amount of distance as London and Cairo.
Given the significant presence of Squamish and Lil’wat and Tsleil-Waututh people in the Olympic promotions, and the fact that there is a big partnership on several of the facilities with these Nations, it strikes me as just plain dumb to use another indigenous symbol to represent the games. For a committee that has been trying to go out of its way to court First Nations, choosing this design says to me that they haven’t a clue what they are doing.
To think that this thing, a smiling inukshuk, is going to be on EVERYTHING including the medals makes me feel sick for the local First Nations artists and designers who have been denied this once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase the 9000 year old legacy of their work. The committee has dropped the ball badly on this one. I’m hugely disappointed.
Prince Rupert, BC
Here is a powerful idea from Australian Aboriginal playwright Jack Davis about how to reconnect kids with nature:
It’s quite simple…give us love of country whether white or black. Give every kid at school something to protect of our flora and fauna. “OK,you look after the beetles…the quokka, the ladybugs…that’s your totem.”
Imagine doing this. A kid has responsibility for a fern species, a tree, an insect, a bird. You identify closely with this thing and do everything you can to steward it’s survival. In an interconnected world, giving someone responsibility for a small part will quickly lead them to an appreciation and engagement with the whole. You can’t protect something in isolation – you need to also care for it’s context.
Now imagine if we did that in organizations too? And communities. And families. Imagine what we would learn as we worked to protect our totem in a living system.
Prince Rupert, BC
My friend Crystal Sutherland, my partner in doing a whole bunch of work with Aboriginal youth, has legally changed her name. She is now using two hereditary names from her Ahousaht ancestors: Pawaskwachitl Haiyupis. We just call her Pawa for short!
These are Nuu-Chah-Nulth names. Pawaskwachitl was a name of one of her grandmothers, and it has a powerful translation “she gives in the feast like bees coming out a hive.” That’s an outstanding description of the kind of leader she is becoming.
When I was in New Zealand last year, I was amazed and awed at how many Maori people use their traditional names. Reclaiming names is a powerful statement of identity and I extend my congratulations to Pawa for the courage to stand up and do it.
Prince Rupert, BC
The sun goes down at 9:00 up here, in the TRUE Pacific Northwest (of Canada, anyway). It’s a beautiful day here on the north coast of British Columbia.
I’m here meeting with the group that is planning the appreciative summit on Aboriginal youth suicide prevention, and we are making great progress. We are two weeks away now, the agenda is largely complete and I am starting in on the workbook for the summit and the design for a policy roundtable the following day which will involve World Cafe process with policy makers and leaders to act on the recommendations from the summit. It’s getting exciting.
This week I was in Nanaimo as part of another initiative I am running, a community engagement process on child welfare. I had the great privlege of working again with Dr. Martin Brokenleg, who went over his circle of courage model again, and this time I took copious notes. We are applying the Circle’s principles – Belonging, Mastery, Independence and Generosity – to redesigning the child welfare system on Vancouver Island. If you want to know more about Dr. Brokenleg’s thinking, which arises from traditional Lakota teachings on raising children and youth, you can download this .rtf document of the notes I made of Martin’s full morning session.