What does it mean to be connected to PLACE?Our spirituality isn't based on faith... |
What does Indigenous mean? Relationship: Place |
If human beings resolve problems between themselves but continue to destroy the natural world, then reconciliation remains incomplete...Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous laws stress that humans must journey through life in conversation and negotiation with all creation.
Elder Reg Crowshoe
What we Have Learned: Principles of Truth and Reconciliation
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
PLACE:
Learners respond to what they're presented with Relationship with place is important - it shifts the focus from objectification to reciprocity, opening an array of curricula, activities, and pedagogies. A SHAMAN SONG PREDICTING WINTER Daniel David Moses The sun is running down, so the White Bear says, circling and wearing the track it cut into the sky right through. Soon it will roll into the ocean. Though it can't drown, that'll sure cool it off. If you kayak out far enough and look in, you'll see it looking up through the night black waves, looking right at you jealously, shivering like the moon. From: A Matter of Spirit: Recovery of the Sacred in Contemporary Canadian Poetry |
Interpretation of A SHAMAN SONG PREDICTING WINTER:
"The literal meaning of this poem is that the sun becomes low in the sky when the season turns to winter. The spirit of winter is the White Bear. The sun does set and cools everything off, while the moon is now in the sky. If you take a kayak out onto the water, you would see the reflection of the moon in the dark waves... The speaker is the Shaman singing their song... someone who is in tune with the changing of seasons and has experienced the coming of winter before... 'The sun is running down', 'It will roll into the ocean', the sun 'looking up through the black waves, looking right at you', the sun 'jealously, shivering.' These are all human characteristics being attributed to the sun. It makes it seem like the sun and the weather is its own being and has a personality. It’s what the Shaman is seeing in these human-like characteristics, that he is able to predict the coming of winter. The setting of this poem is important because it is in the Shaman's way of life to be connected to the earth and the weather. The poem is a reflection of the history of the Inuit people, and allows us to become aware of that way of life." Cassandra Hanson is a non-Indigenous student in the Faculty of Academic & Career Preparation, Vancouver Island University |
PLACE INSPIRATION for instructors & learners
FOLLOW THE IMAGES!
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Elizabeth LaPensee has developed amazing, engaging, respectful, instructive, interactive and thought provoking materials for all learners.:
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image credits
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moonrise over Admiralty Island, Alaska: Joseph
video games & thunderbird strikes: Elizabeth LaPensee circle of stones: Learn Alberta red-winged blackbird: Jon D. Anderson place: J Carnahan ancient stone circle: pixabay story: A Hilker mentorship: A Hilker All other images from pixabay or Weebly. No attribution required |
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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