Living the indigenous life is about the questions we ask
My friend Dustin Rivers is locked in a perpetually generative inquiry:
…what are the next steps to become liberated?
The best questions are the ones we ask ourselves, and require us to act differently once we come to an answer. “How do I contribute to the things I complain about in my community?” is an example of that. I speak of liberation; the action of becoming free from constrain or oppression or control. Most Settlers will not think of Indigenous peoples in Canada as ‘needing’ oppression. That’s mostly due to the discourse on indigenous issues moving away from the root of the cause, into more a colonial mentality direction. I seek to look deeply into the root of the problem, and to see the 55”²000 ft level of awareness of our context as Indigenous people.
If we do live a truly indigenous life, it is in spite of the temptations, the desires, and the allure of colonial model of existence. The truth of the matter is, indigenous way of life is beautiful. It is not savage, it is not backwards, it is not ‘stuck in the past’. It is something we as Indigenous peoples must identify as a great thing, despite the systemic racism society that says our ancestors are inferior to modern day society.
