Indigenous Peoples Day
Some days I wonder…What if I wasn’t an Alaska Native?
What if I didn’t grow up with a blood quantum card…a card that only dogs and Native Americans have.
I am 13/16th Alaska Native…if I have children and my children marry others who are not Alaska Native and they have children, the “Native” will be bred out of us. This was a slow and calculated decision placed on us to limit our citizenship to our own tribes and to slowly eliminate our cultures and our people.
What if I didn’t grow up and experience subtle racism?
What if I didn’t grow up and realize I am a “minority” which at times can be an advantage and disadvantage?
What if I didn’t grow up and have to learn about ANILCA, ANSCA, tribal councils, Alaska Native Corporations, federal subsistence meetings, environmental impact statement comment periods, and everything else that entails being Alaska Native?
What if I didn’t grow up with brown skin?
>>> Then I slip out of the questions of “what if’s” and appreciate the other side of the coin of what it is like to be an Alaska Native woman who cares about so many things.
I grew up with my mother telling me stories of the Elders she interviewed.
I grew up with my grandma speaking Dena’ina to me.
I grew up with my dad hunting, trapping and providing for our family in the traditional way.
I grew up in community.
I grew up learning how to bead, drive a boat, honda, and snow machine; process meat, salmon, and birds.
I grew up learning how to listen with my eyes, ears, and heart.
I grew up at fishcamp.
I grew up with deep reverence for the salmon, the moose, the water, and the lands that provide.
I grew up outside.
I grew up on the lake.
>>> I grew up remembering ceremony and how to tap into the hum of the earth that reminds us to celebrate each other, celebrate our indigeneity, and celebrate life.
Today and every day I celebrate Indigenous Peoples, those who came before; those who are here now, and those who will come after.
What makes you come alive?
Last May I did my first ever Artist in Residency and did a presentation on Science, Art, Culture and Mindfulness:
Science, Art, Culture, and Mindfulness…to me, they are all deeply interwoven and I cannot see where they differ.
Science is how I was trained in high school, in college and in my career.
Science is a lens that I view all life through.
Through science, I’ve been able to pay for a roof over my head and food in my body.
Science is why I recycle, why I care about the earth, why I know how animals adapt…and why I know salmon need us as we need them.
Science is so beautiful and magnificent.
Art has always been put on the backburner because “there’s someone better at writing/drawing/beading/painting…and you can’t make a living as an artist”
Art is also a lens in which I view and live life.
Art is meditation in action, it’s when my true self unfolds into a piece of jewelry or drawing or dreamcatcher.
Art is dancing in the snow, singing songs to my loved ones, being drawn to beautiful gem stones and integrating them into my earrings.
Art is vital to my well-being.
Culture and Mindfulness are one and in the same, to me.
I used to think Mindfulness was only learned through meditation, yoga, or therapy.
I was wrong.
Dena’ina and Koyukon Athabascan people have had mindfulness for thousands of years but we didn’t call it that.
We call it going out on the land,
We call it beading/sewing/singing/dancing,
We call it potlatch gatherings,
We call it harvesting salmon,
We call it K’etniyi which means “it’s saying something” – “it” being a rock, the water, a mountain, an animal. “It” is deserving of respect.
All beings and all of nature is deserving of respect.
Science, Art, Culture, and Mindfulness are avenues of which I express my true self in this world, they make me come alive with wonder, appreciation, and love.
What makes you come alive?