The Anishinaabe and Ojibwee people have been kind to me. They have invited me into spaces where I was able to glimpse what is bigger than my small existence.
While attending my first sweat lodge, I learned the words “mitakuye oyasin,” spoken at the end of each of our prayers. I was told that it means “all my relations.” This confused me at the time, as I struggled to feel a sense of belonging in my family. As an oddity, I believed the stork may have dropped me off at the wrong house. Yet in the sweat lodge, my bloodline connection was refernced at the end of each of my prayers.
I recently went to see my grandfather as he entered his dying process. He had not recognized me in years, and I honestly was never close to him when he was of clear mind. A stoic man of few words, he struggled with relating to girls and women. And I was a girl and then a woman who was constantly coloring outside of the lines.
At our last meeting, we met for the first time. We looked at each other without words and saw each other as we truly are. I noticed how much he looked like my great grandmother, who was a kind and beloved member of the family. She accepted people as they were and lived life gracefully and with great compassion.
I remembered that when I moved out at age 17, my grandfather was the only one who came to visit my dumpy apartment. He fixed the bathtub area so that I could shower. Once he brought groceries, saying he had “accidentally purchased too many.” My grandfather and I shuffled along in our pseudo-relationship until I did the unthinkable. I converted to Buddhism and went to India.
And I went to India alone. Armed with only a Lonely Planet book and some advice from those who traveled there before me, I jumped on an airplane and flew to Delhi. My meditation teacher at the time offered me simple instructions in broken English; “When you arrive in Delhi, go to the old bus station and take the bus to Dehra Dun.”
My teacher’s advice wound up being far from simple. Upon my arrival at the airport, I could not find a rickshaw driver who spoke any English, and I did not speak Hindi. As it got later in the day, I did what the Lonely Planet book advised all travelers NOT to do; I took the help of an Indian businessman who offered to share a rickshaw with me as we were both going in the same direction.
For the entire ride, the rickshaw driver and the businessman argued in Hindi. The businessman told me that the rickshaw driver wanted to charge me double for where I needed to go, and that he was trying to get the rickshaw driver to be reasonable. When we arrived at the businessman’s home, he and the rickshaw driver were still arguing. The businessman got out of the rickshaw and invited me in for tea. He said the rickshaw driver would charge me an extra 500 rupees to take me to the old bus station, and the businessman made me an offer. Rather than allow me to be cheated, he would ask his driver to take me to where I needed to go, after we had our tea, of course.
At that moment, it felt like someone punched me in the stomach. It was something that I had never felt before. After I caught my breath, I thanked the businessman for his offer and told him that I would be continuing my journey with the rickshaw driver. I was fine with being cheated for another 500 rupees.
The rickshaw driver and I left the businessman’s home, and he drove up the road. He found someone who spoke English, and that person told me that the businessman was trying to get me alone at his home. Where I actually needed to go was on the opposite side of town. The rickshaw driver would need to charge me an additional 500 rupees to get me to the old bus station.
I agreed to this plan, and then I watched as we drove by the landmarks that I had noted passing on the way to the businessman’s home. I was, in fact, needing to go in the opposite direction.
Finally arriving at the old bus station, someone grabbed my bags and shoved me into a crowded bus. Relieved when the driver confirmed the bus was going to my destination, I took note of what was around me. I noticed that I was the only woman sitting in the bus, outside of a couple of women who were traveling with male family members.
Alone and wondering what was going to happen next, a businessman from Assam approached me. He told me that the gods sent him to make sure that I got to where I need to go. What a strange thing to say to someone! Yet his words felt true, so I accepted his offer to sit with me.
Later that evening, the bus had a malfunction that resulted in a long delay. We ended up stuck on the side of the road, so the businessman from Assam helped me find a hotel room for the night. He asked the innkeeper that I have a room at the end of the hall, and that he take the room next to mine so that he could hear if anyone came close to my door.
The next morning, the businessman and a waiter carrying breakfast arrived at my hotel door. The businessman left the door of my room open while we dined; he said this was so that everyone would know there was no funny business going on.
After breakfast, we took a rickshaw until he found some monks who were able to deliver me to my monastery destination. Three days later, a monk came to tell me that the businessman from Assam had returned to make sure that I was well and safe. I never saw the businessman from Assam again, but he was truly sent by the gods to get me where I needed to go.
The auspicious connections didn’t stop there. While attending teachings at the monastery, I met my next teacher. One evening, I was sitting under a tent with the monastics as they recited the dharma protector practice. My eyes were closed in meditation when Drupon la walked by, bent down to me, and asked in a low voice of perfect English “who is your teacher?” I stumbled in my response. I knew the answer, but I didn’t speak it.
Drupon la often invited me to his guest house for tea. His room was always lively with visitors, and I was delighted to hear Drupon narrate their stories. One night, Drupon told me the story of a monk they called “Sweet Tea”; a story that somehow, I knew I would need to keep close. Sweet Tea was a spirited monk who was Drupon’s attendant at the guest house. Today I still think of him as “the laughing monk,” as he would laugh so hard while telling stories that he would start to cry, and then wipe his tears with the small towel that he used to serve our tea.
Some years ago, the monk, Sweet Tea, had been robbed at a train station while transporting relics for the temple. He was offered tea by a man who approached him at the train station, and he felt he should not refuse the alms offered to him. His tea had been drugged, however, and after some hours, he woke naked, even robbed of his robes. Sweet Tea tried to get help from a number of people who ignored him, thinking him a crazy man. But one person at a refugee settlement recognized him when he was standing at the gate, delirious. That person took him in with great compassion.
My teacher told me this story and then he asked me to look closely at Sweet Tea and observe how happy he is these days. I swallowed the knot in my throat and watched the laughing monk holding a tea towel. Time and space are strange things. Sometimes the past, present and future happen all at once. Stories are the threads that are woven between them. They are the marker of place.
On the other side of the world, there were more connections woven together while I was traveling in Canada for work. Many people may not identify Canada as a place of pilgrimage, but in fact, every place is a place of pilgrimage. Events got jostled with my itinerary, and I ended up being gifted time in a dome with two Bear Clan sisters.
In addition to the Bear Clan teachings, the Bear Clan sisters shared stories about their dreams, and we agreed that past lives are possible. One of the sisters told me that she saw a dream image of herself as a white colonist girl. She is certain that she lived that life once. And I remarked that, while I don’t know why, I cry every time I hear Ojibwe prayers. We laughed at the mere thought of it.
Mitakuye Oyasin. My bloodline, without which I would not have been able to walk this path of many directions.
Mitakuye Oyasin. To all those who have touched my life, both softly and sharply, and to those who have allowed me to touch theirs through these moments as they become stories along the road of time; the kaleidoscope of stories that give us a sense of place and purpose as time weaves itself.
Mitakuye Oyasin!
Horse and Sheep
Bear and Stone
The sky is red with fullness
Miskwagiizhig
Bloodlines
Threads tied
The grand spider's web
Of life
Butterflies show the way
In their fleeting existence
Goodbyes become hellos
And then goodbyes again
Water keeps a record
Of all that imprints it
Endlessly
Like photographs
The nagas know
Time is the only vessel
Giving meaning
To moments
©Cardinal Speaks