licky fingers

five minutes ‘til the stuffed portabella mushrooms are done and you can’t wait because although you don’t really like mushrooms unless they’re in a sauce glowing in a decayed tree or in a hard-to-find obscure book about anishinaabe wajash med’cin that nobody really cares about except you and probably two other people in the world (because all the other people who used to care are dead) you do really like what’s being served on the side the squinch that the smell of freshly chopped coriander and more freshlier squeezed lime triggered when it permeated your noise and olfactory bulb launching your brain into gleeful convulsions followed by a sweet release not unlike la petite mort

and really
who doesn’t dig
a little death
in the middle
of a spirit moon

drab with hardly any snow (where did gabiboonike go?) even though the blood curdling scream of lime juice in the raw paper cut on your left index finger that you got flipping through your first edit on a draft response to some normalized woman-hate in social media indian country and the burn-tingle in the one day old cardboard cut you got on your right pinkie finger stuffing some late christmas gifts for x on behalf of the perfect makoons you both created you don’t care because right after you stirred that juice into the brilliant green heaven polka-dotted with red fruit and got some on four fingers (so thorough you were in the stirring) and you had to lick that homemade off leaving sticky making licky fingers a lovely little bit of don’t-take-the-down-side-shii-so-serious-ly squee in post-triggered day

where you sit back, take a dip, let the taste of cool on a hot summer day cover tastebuds think about that little blues bar the green door seen on sunday reach over to spotify and wonder if the old anishinaabeg would like this dish, how they would say guacamole and freedom in the language

winaadjimowin about people

all the time i’ve been here, i’ve been thinking of gathering a little bit of giizhigaatig to tie into a little bundle and hang on my office door as there is a little strip of cork board for hanging notices and the like on it.

i keep thinking of it.

i haven’t found any along the regular paths and trails of my days in this place despite the miskwa giizhigaatig ziibi meandering just alongside the building where i work. admittedly, i’ve not ventured too much into looking for it. the constant expanse of farmland is depressing. i miss the landscape and waters of my gichi gaming home and nogojiwanong home. aki is much more me there. i am not a farm-ikawe.

i keep seeing that little bundle of giizhigaatig on my door, though. a welcome. a medicine. a warm, reverent, woman.  a queer person having all the relationships with giizhigaatig and then some. a man comforted by her, inspired by her, honouring, loving. a child and their pillow, elder and their tea. an intimate poem. a dream, a wish; a want, a desire. a disciplined teaching and learning; a cleansing and preparation. a mourning, heavy heart harvest, a laying down of floor and gentle passing of manidoo to epingishmok. a long hair wash, face refresh, sore muscle rub, a summer burn refresher. a ceremony cooler. a cushion. a heart-break healer, inside and out. a smudge. a deep and deeper inhale of aromatic anishinaabe life filling all the places you didn’t even know were lonely or empty, topping off all the joys. all the things come back to me with this mashkiki. all the things.

what a way to greet people who come visit you at work.

there’s giizhigaatig where i live but it’s used as a hedge to cover one of those electrical things which is massive and silver and emanates a constant hum. in times of crisis or emergency, if there was none to be found elsewhere, i would harvest from there. but definitely not in this case. it’s not that necessary.

anyhow, yesterday, a non-Anishinaabeg woman who heard me talking about giizhigaatig last week, gifted me with two beautifully and carefully harvested and prepared bundles of this mashkiki. they were perfect. like an old, loving anishinaabe ikawe would do it. but here, the work of a thirty or forty some year old loving non-Anishinaabeg woman. i could see the thoughtfulness and time put into the preparation. my heart filled up. these two bundles were placed in a little cloth bag with a draw string. i asked if she made the bag and she said her husband sewed it as he is the sewer in the family. i thought it was perfect and was so grateful. i wanted to talk to her about asemaa but realized that she already has her way. her work clearly showed loved and respect for her relationships with the land and people.

today, the place where i work has been graced.

*zaasaakwe*

winaajimowin = a good story, a good news story

giizhigaatig = cedar

Because We Need to Fill the World Up with Examples of Humans Taking Care for Our Relatives When Our Artifacts Harm Them

http://boredomtherapy.com/bucket-bear-rescue/?as=6022364049084

On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”  ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://peoplesworld.org/dr-king-spoke-out-against-the-genocide-of-native-americans

and,

“It made me think about the kind of work I want to do and the kind of person I want to be.” ~ndaanis, on “Selma” (2014)

digital maziniganan. free. because learning is cool.

https://www.tumblr.com/flanneryogonner/40237682151/free-pdf-books-on-race-gender-sexuality-class

it is everything

putting it down, is everything
how else to keep ourselves humble
bowed to life, bimaadiziwin
bending close to aki, every ishkigiizhigad
how else to stay focussed on what matters
the directions, the manidooyag that live their
with their families
the gifts that live there
responsibilties

never bowed to nothing
nobody
except life itself
Anishinaabe life,
and do so with reverence
gratitude, humility, meekness

a cedar tree leaning over
the White River
in four-day drizzle, thunder and mist

giizhigaatigoog leaning over
raised up in dewy air

i want to be that one

tall, graceful, limber, strong
sweet smelling, beckoning
come here, love

my first
ninitaam
asemaa mashkimodens

my first
tobacco pouch
smells like
brained tan deer hide
smells like
maadjimaadiziwin
smells like
manoomin in bloom
smells like real
asemaa
smells like life
smells like soft
velvet, suede
smells like a sugar bush poem
written from an open heart
playful hips
from love

a love poem

my first
asemaa mashkimodens
smells like a gift
for a little baby
a little baby-girl
a ricing family baby-girl

*zaasaakwe*

Bawating Press Coverage of Research by David Helwig Highlights Coordinating Council of Women in History. Kudos!

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=85118

the latest in my research

in the ‘about’ section of ‘anishinaabewiziwin’ i talk about how i started this blog in 2012 as a way to resolve my angst and anxiety with writing—a much needed skill given i am doing graduate studies. thanks to the encouragement and support of my research committee; family, friends and colleagues; and, many Anishinaabeg throughout Anishinaabe’aki who are invested in maadjiimaadziwin–keeping the life-line going, this is where things are at today:

http://www.trentu.ca/newsevents/newsDetail.php?newsID=8938

i have a ways to go in my writing skills, which I’ve learned is an on-going life process, but I have excellent teachers and mentors in this research in both the western and anishinaabe academy. it’s a good time to be engaged in gikendaasowin–the art of coming to know, Anishinaabe style. if you were thinking about doing research within the formal education system, that is important to Anishinaabeg using our methods, now is the time.

ps – it’s  a tough world to navigate, especially if you come from a working class family, but with a constellation of people operating in a similar terrain of research goals, methodologies, work ethic, and sense of what it takes to get the work done, it can be done.

pss – this may be considered my first entry for a new blog category called “Dissertation Meta-Text”

hiy hiy manidooyag!