The Anishinaabe and Ojibwee people have been very 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,” but I was confused at the time as I had always struggled to feel a part of my family. I was an oddity, and I felt like the stork had possibly dropped me off at the wrong house. Yet here my bloodline was at the end of each of my prayers.
I recently went to see my grandfather who entered his dying process. He had not recognized me in a while, and I honestly was never close to him when he was of clear mind. We rarely talked; he was a stoic man of few words, and I also noticed that he struggled with relating to girls and women. I was a girl/woman who was constantly coloring outside the lines. As I looked down at him in his dying bed, I felt like we met for the first time. His gaze fixed on me, and we took some moments to simply look at each other without words. I noticed how much he looks 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 for others. I remembered that when I moved out when I was 17, my grandfather was the only family member who came to visit my dumpy apartment. He fixed the bathtub so that I could shower. Once he brought groceries, telling me he had “accidentally purchased too many.”
During my first trip to India, I traveled alone. Armed with only a Lonely Planet book and some advice from those who had traveled there before me, I jumped on an airplane and flew to Delhi with only simple instructions from my teacher at the time. “When you arrive in Delhi, go to the old bus station and take a 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 any Hindi. It was getting late in the day, and 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 was yelling at the businessman, and they were arguing back and forth. 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 in Hindi. The businessman got out of the rickshaw and invited me in for tea. He said that the rickshaw driver wanted to charge me an additional 500 rupees to take me to the old bus station, and the businessman offered that, 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. At that moment, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. It was like something that I never felt before. When I caught my breath, I thanked the businessman for his offer and told him that I would rather continue with the rickshaw driver. The businessman insisted, but I ultimately told him that I was fine being cheated for another 500 rupees.
After we left the businessman at his home, the rickshaw driver drove up the road until he found someone who spoke English. The person told me that the businessman was trying to get me alone at his home, and that where I needed to go was on the opposite side of town. The rickshaw driver would thus need to charge me an additional 500 rupees to get me to the old bus station. I agreed, and 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.
When I finally got to the old bus station someone grabbed my bags and shoved me into a bus, but the driver confirmed the bus was going to my destination. I was the only woman sitting in the main bus, outside of a couple of women who were traveling with their husbands, and I sat alone wondering what was going to happen next when 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 safely. We talked as we rode together, and when the bus had a malfunction that resulted in a long delay stuck on the side of the road, he helped me to find a hotel room for the night. The businessman asked the innkeeper for me to have a room at the end of the hall, and he said that he wanted the room next to mine so that he could hear if anyone came close to my door. The next morning, the businessman from Assam knocked on my door with breakfast, and he left the door of my room open so that everyone would know there was no funny business. After breakfast, we got in a rickshaw together until he found some monks who delivered me to my monastery destination. Three days later, one of my monk friends came to find me 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.
While attending the month of teachings at the monastery, I met my next teacher. He often invited me to his guest house for tea in the evening. His room was always lively with visitors sitting on his floor, and I was delighted to hear their stories. The story of one monk who was one of my teacher’s attendants struck me as a story I would need to keep close. I thought of him as “the laughing monk,” as he would laugh so hard that he would start to cry, and he would wipe his tears with the small towel he used to serve us tea. This monk had been given the name “Sweet Tea” as, some years back, he 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, and when he woke, he was naked as he had even been robbed of his robes. The monk 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. My teacher told me the monk’s story and then told me to look closely at the monk and observe how happy he is these days.
Once while traveling in Canada, I was gifted time in a dome with two Bear Clan sisters. They told me stories about their dreams, and we all agreed that past lives are possible. One of the sisters told me that she has seen a dream image of herself as a white colonist girl and is certain that she lived as one once. And I remarked that, while I don’t know why, I start crying every time I hear Ojibwe prayers. We laughed at the thought of it. One of the women spoke of her admiration for me in being able to travel and have a sense of myself as an individual. She told me that she only knows herself in relation to others.
There is a beautifully simple movie called Welcome to Happiness. The first time I watched it, I watched the clapping scene near the end over and over. Mitakuye Oyasin to all those who have touched my life, both softly and sharply, and to those who have allowed me to touch yours through this kaleidoscope of stories connected by time; time that is the only marker of our existence.
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
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