tonight I really want to thank and and
offer
humblest apprec–
all for this opportunity for myself to
share something that has been with me
for some time you know just the the roll
out of this evening with the other
speakers and the topics even Binet
Browns talk in terms of vulnerability
seems to be so appropriate in this
subject that is so personal it’s
intensely public in fact the
observations began today in schools with
the color orange as you know tomorrow is
the official day of acknowledging and
remembering children those lost children
of the residential schools certainly my
family comes from this history but over
time I’ve really developed and and
investigated and questioned reality in
such a way that is this story to date
even as the TRC’s work and such that is
beginning to unfold and share and
educate is it is there still something
else because there’s still something
else that we can see to this that may
help us bypass so much of the
reiterations of textbooks of stories of
presentations even such as mine that can
speak right to that heart and those
moments that you know we know know about
riding the bike or remembering how to
swim or for those of us who others in
the room or you know you remember your
own parents when we come into this world
I’ll never forget that day and certainly
we don’t forget the day that we leave
this world so before I begin to get to
this topic I want to give you a little
context certainly is how I ground myself
in where I have framed this subject this
idea and where I would acknowledge the
person who began this journey for me and
this is my grandfather my Tonka Sheila
his name is Phil Lane senior
the old people had a great great
viewpoint on gaining an education so to
speak and they realize that wisdom as
opposed to knowledge there was a vast
vast difference so you can go to school
you can go to school and learn a lot of
you can gain a lot of knowledge but
unless there’s at least a minute
it really doesn’t have that much meaning
and that was one of the things that the
old people were very very high on and so
though that’s the reason why they had
the you could go to old people to gosh
you are a grandfather tell us about
such-and-such you see those old men
would sit down there hey okay and they
and they would tell you a story and you
say you wonder how that story hooked
into what the lesson was and eventually
all of a sudden it would come to your
attention
oh I see now easy I see what they were
trying to teach me we learned so much
through the old people as opposed to the
little school we went to I went to a
school and and the bell rang and
everybody leave and then I just go home
because they’re you know but the the
knowledge that that they were passing I
gunner didn’t have that much meaning to
me and and I think that the wisdom of
world all people were had so much more
to offer as far as a person living on
his life that story he told when he was
first taken to school and no one told
him that when the bell rings and you go
to your classroom and he would stand in
the hallway the bell would go and
everyone disappear and they’d be
standing around and he just walked back
home he always loved this question he
would ask it all the time and statement
and presentation and almost perhaps is a
bit of a seed that he
with all of us to help us understand
that despite all the culture the
teachings our relationship in the
language is called techie hulk sheila
which means the boy beloved which the
first grandson traditionally would
receive so much of the guidance and
teachings from the old ones his travels
in the court army corps of engineers his
building of a ranch far away from his
home and yet this this question he would
always pose seemed to allow for us to
know that were once again a culture of
humanity despite our different places
that we come from the things that he
also tried to teach me he tried to teach
me to be a cowboy but i fell off the
horse one too many times for my own
comfort so i didn’t take that very far
I’d like to now speak about my father
Jacob Morris Bighorn this is a man who
to me
exemplified what a teacher was an
educator and they say that teachers save
their best lessons to the end and that’s
certainly true of my father in his last
breath there are there are 35 of these
homemade arrows that have been
distributed to two staff members I’d
like for you to remember who those staff
members are you see the names on the
wall they’re there to represent a
foundation those names are the bricks of
a foundation your names are up in the
clouds next year that’s all that’s going
to reason that’s all that’s going to
remain of you here at Maxwell is the
sound of your name your bodies are gone
most of the staff members will still be
here they will be they will be nurturing
the character of other young people but
just as they did with you they are the
foundation of your
character what they did for you in the
classroom even when you didn’t know it
Lee that night at home preparing your
lessons having discussions with other
staff members about how they could help
you or your parents some of them are
your parents who are staff members all
the activities those that have been here
for six years five years four three two
and one one year is still over a hundred
and seventy five days and in all of
those experiences the effort I think the
effort was to create you see that target
was to create straight arrows your
character was going to be a straight
arrow and that whatever you aim for you
would achieve my father used to love
asking this question of his of his
students how would I get to how would he
get my students to value that which they
know without knowing how they know it
now I never learned martial arts and he
didn’t know it either but I still think
he really had a relationship with mr.
Miyagi with this kind of stuff and the
way that he was able to transmit in my
opinion the essence of traditional
indigenous culture and teachings and
spirituality in such a way that those
seniors who had just come off they had
graduated already and they just come off
there all night kind of going out and
hanging out and everything so they’re
already dead tired they’re already been
crying all day and then my parents used
to do this circle where they would
really give it to him because this was a
boarding school as well so students had
lived there growing relationships etc so
they really would ball their eyes out
this painting is called Jacob’s Eagles
this quick story I’d like to share just
in regards to this last less than he’s
given me certainly in his life he set a
bar of achievement that I’ll spend the
rest of mine trying to get there but he
said it in death
which I don’t know if I’ll ever get to
so he beat me there I’m gonna have words
with him when I get to the other side
camp and he did it in such a way that
you can’t write this stuff and I think
it’s something that as I passed down to
my children and otherwise to remember
that there was a way to live this life
there’s a way to see things that perhaps
can tell you about those other
dimensions so this story from this Coast
Salish artists who painted this picture
it’s on this massive mural called the
unity wall in Ogden point in Victoria BC
and she said in October 2008 my father
lay dying of cancer in the Victoria
Hospital across from his room lay Jacob
Bighorn from the Lakota tribe a man of
strong spiritual beliefs and a native
Baha’i jacob often told those for whom
he cared if you live a life of service
to your people the Eagles will come to
guide your spirit when it’s time to
leave this earth one morning as my
mother headed to the hospital she
noticed dozens of bald eagles flying
across the water and over the highway we
– on our way to Victoria notice many
eagle circling the hospital when we
arrived my father told us Jacob had
passed on many people called the
hospital asking of a holy man had passed
away now he wouldn’t appreciate that and
he certainly wouldn’t consider himself
that but he knew about Eagles and he
knew about what they meant another key
element
is that there you see a eagled staff mr.
Murray is holding the staff and you
might consider there are no feathers and
we say yes there is a feather there’s
one feather from one the eagle and if
you’ve ever seen an eagle outstretched
his six-foot wingspan and if you’ve seen
them in particular out of the prairies
high high high up in the sky during the
summer months especially you see them
circling circling and most people say
with their sharp eyesight they are
looking to the ground for food another
way of looking at this and that the
interpretation was wait a minute know
what they are doing because they’re such
spiritual beings is there cutting a hole
there cutting a hole between this world
and the next world because their
spiritual beings and when you see them
you are being blessed with this
opportunity to access the powers of the
next world he goes on to share that it’s
very risky to engage in these kinds of
things and we have examples all over the
world of spirituality and practices that
are whether the fanatical superficial
superstitious traditional ritual etc but
allow a people and perhaps an entire
nation to move one way or the other
based on a vision and in this case he
goes on to describe that perhaps through
that hole through that access you can
see your future that you may have always
wanted or that future that you’ve been
trying to avoid all your life and so in
my case and I respectfully blame
somebody in this audience oh I’ve been
married to for the past ten years she
brought me up to Winnipeg and between
her and I we’ve been working you know
rather hard at this to become parents
where this quote from this film now
we’re here just to be memories for our
kids once you’re a pair
you’re the ghost of your children’s
future so my wife and I have effectively
killed each other
because of these people now the oldest
is 10 the youngest will be 2 in a week
and this guy here is 7 and over time
it’s I mean if you’re a parent and this
is of course I called my mother who’s
still alive every other day to say okay
I get it
I understand I’m sorry because they just
they bring so much of an understanding
of future in a way than that quote in
that film I tried to read Kip Thorne’s
book and I couldn’t get through it I’ll
have to read yours that it made so much
sense there’s no need anymore for the
rest of my life what is the purpose of
anything that I could acquire for myself
with them here and so it helped me bring
me to a point of really understanding
this question the point of this
presentation and a real terror in a
history of my ancestry a history that
we’re really struggling with a history
that will observe tomorrow that may have
just another way of looking at it as we
all know 500 some years ago we had some
folks role boat over here they thought
they were going one way they ended up
over here and they described this place
as the new world paradise there was an
elder named Ernest to toussis in pound
maker who also described the same story
and tied it to a very another ancient
story which comes out of a book very old
book Genesis and he described that the
reason why the peoples of this land were
living in such the way that they were is
because they never disobeyed their
Creator in effect they were never kicked
out of paradise and I always used to
really that really worked on me a lot
because certainly again with this
history of this of this part of the
world with the church and such it’s hard
to tease apart the
use of both messages and understand the
balance between these spiritual
understandings of how to view the world
around us of things that we can’t see
like the access my father was talking
about these children who I could have
said they were gonna be in my life 20
years ago I might have children here
they are my life is over what’s next so
I really am interested in trying to
understand why native peoples in
particular in this part of the land had
to go through this history and more
importantly why did all of you come to
this part of the world and Ernest story
helped answer that I mean if this is
paradise well it makes sense everybody
came that’s why native people haven’t
left I mean why haven’t we had an exodus
to the Bahamas or sought asylum in a
stir damn why are we still here
this must be paradise so it led me to
another question of thinking of a if
this is paradise if oh I know all the
troubles that we know are happening what
more could there be what are we working
for if we think of this place and of
course only in nineteen sixty eight or
nine I believe was the first time we
even saw this place we know of this
place I don’t recall I don’t know when
the technology was about available for
the first time to see where we all came
from and of course the relationship
between the two and how we all fit in
this space and wrap together to say that
there we are a part of all worlds
simultaneously and at the same time have
our own experience our own individuality
our own world that that we came into and
so if paradise is the wound for that
fetus what is birth if this is paradise
for us and what we think we can make it
what is death and when I think of this
history of
and where we go from here and how it
could be woven together like this sweet
grass the only reason why some of these
of smudge and we have ceremonies so that
we can create a transformation a
Transfiguration if you will from
something material to something
spiritual I’m easy to say we burn it
turns just to smoke and smudge and
something occurs just like we heard
sounds with technology that we can’t
hear right now but it exists you burn
that smudge and laughs over you
something occurs if it’s possible to say
that this history of our people here was
to bear the burden of the pain of the
world to come back to paradise if you’ll
come back to the garden to be embraced
in such a way that we have no precedent
in our history of this kind of treatment
famine war anger hatred pain shame all
the language that we’ve heard throughout
the presentations perhaps the purpose is
because that will consume one another we
will wrap it ourselves around one
another I don’t who I hope it’s not
nuclear fire but something that consumes
our edit our identities consumes our
histories to reveal something transform
them something new it’s taken me a long
time as a indigenous person to come to
terms with that consume my language
consume my ceremonies consume my
grandfather and my father but if there
was a chance that it could lead to
something beyond what I already loved
about my culture this country this
planet my wife my children if there’s
something beyond that I would hope that
I would have one more shot to get there
after watching my father accomplish it
after watching my wife accomplished it
three times number four right we’re
gonna try try again
that for the future of either Canada
North America and certainly our planet
there could be something there if we’re
willing to let those things burn away to
reveal new forms thank you
[Applause]
offer
humblest apprec–
all for this opportunity for myself to
share something that has been with me
for some time you know just the the roll
out of this evening with the other
speakers and the topics even Binet
Browns talk in terms of vulnerability
seems to be so appropriate in this
subject that is so personal it’s
intensely public in fact the
observations began today in schools with
the color orange as you know tomorrow is
the official day of acknowledging and
remembering children those lost children
of the residential schools certainly my
family comes from this history but over
time I’ve really developed and and
investigated and questioned reality in
such a way that is this story to date
even as the TRC’s work and such that is
beginning to unfold and share and
educate is it is there still something
else because there’s still something
else that we can see to this that may
help us bypass so much of the
reiterations of textbooks of stories of
presentations even such as mine that can
speak right to that heart and those
moments that you know we know know about
riding the bike or remembering how to
swim or for those of us who others in
the room or you know you remember your
own parents when we come into this world
I’ll never forget that day and certainly
we don’t forget the day that we leave
this world so before I begin to get to
this topic I want to give you a little
context certainly is how I ground myself
in where I have framed this subject this
idea and where I would acknowledge the
person who began this journey for me and
this is my grandfather my Tonka Sheila
his name is Phil Lane senior
the old people had a great great
viewpoint on gaining an education so to
speak and they realize that wisdom as
opposed to knowledge there was a vast
vast difference so you can go to school
you can go to school and learn a lot of
you can gain a lot of knowledge but
unless there’s at least a minute
it really doesn’t have that much meaning
and that was one of the things that the
old people were very very high on and so
though that’s the reason why they had
the you could go to old people to gosh
you are a grandfather tell us about
such-and-such you see those old men
would sit down there hey okay and they
and they would tell you a story and you
say you wonder how that story hooked
into what the lesson was and eventually
all of a sudden it would come to your
attention
oh I see now easy I see what they were
trying to teach me we learned so much
through the old people as opposed to the
little school we went to I went to a
school and and the bell rang and
everybody leave and then I just go home
because they’re you know but the the
knowledge that that they were passing I
gunner didn’t have that much meaning to
me and and I think that the wisdom of
world all people were had so much more
to offer as far as a person living on
his life that story he told when he was
first taken to school and no one told
him that when the bell rings and you go
to your classroom and he would stand in
the hallway the bell would go and
everyone disappear and they’d be
standing around and he just walked back
home he always loved this question he
would ask it all the time and statement
and presentation and almost perhaps is a
bit of a seed that he
with all of us to help us understand
that despite all the culture the
teachings our relationship in the
language is called techie hulk sheila
which means the boy beloved which the
first grandson traditionally would
receive so much of the guidance and
teachings from the old ones his travels
in the court army corps of engineers his
building of a ranch far away from his
home and yet this this question he would
always pose seemed to allow for us to
know that were once again a culture of
humanity despite our different places
that we come from the things that he
also tried to teach me he tried to teach
me to be a cowboy but i fell off the
horse one too many times for my own
comfort so i didn’t take that very far
I’d like to now speak about my father
Jacob Morris Bighorn this is a man who
to me
exemplified what a teacher was an
educator and they say that teachers save
their best lessons to the end and that’s
certainly true of my father in his last
breath there are there are 35 of these
homemade arrows that have been
distributed to two staff members I’d
like for you to remember who those staff
members are you see the names on the
wall they’re there to represent a
foundation those names are the bricks of
a foundation your names are up in the
clouds next year that’s all that’s going
to reason that’s all that’s going to
remain of you here at Maxwell is the
sound of your name your bodies are gone
most of the staff members will still be
here they will be they will be nurturing
the character of other young people but
just as they did with you they are the
foundation of your
character what they did for you in the
classroom even when you didn’t know it
Lee that night at home preparing your
lessons having discussions with other
staff members about how they could help
you or your parents some of them are
your parents who are staff members all
the activities those that have been here
for six years five years four three two
and one one year is still over a hundred
and seventy five days and in all of
those experiences the effort I think the
effort was to create you see that target
was to create straight arrows your
character was going to be a straight
arrow and that whatever you aim for you
would achieve my father used to love
asking this question of his of his
students how would I get to how would he
get my students to value that which they
know without knowing how they know it
now I never learned martial arts and he
didn’t know it either but I still think
he really had a relationship with mr.
Miyagi with this kind of stuff and the
way that he was able to transmit in my
opinion the essence of traditional
indigenous culture and teachings and
spirituality in such a way that those
seniors who had just come off they had
graduated already and they just come off
there all night kind of going out and
hanging out and everything so they’re
already dead tired they’re already been
crying all day and then my parents used
to do this circle where they would
really give it to him because this was a
boarding school as well so students had
lived there growing relationships etc so
they really would ball their eyes out
this painting is called Jacob’s Eagles
this quick story I’d like to share just
in regards to this last less than he’s
given me certainly in his life he set a
bar of achievement that I’ll spend the
rest of mine trying to get there but he
said it in death
which I don’t know if I’ll ever get to
so he beat me there I’m gonna have words
with him when I get to the other side
camp and he did it in such a way that
you can’t write this stuff and I think
it’s something that as I passed down to
my children and otherwise to remember
that there was a way to live this life
there’s a way to see things that perhaps
can tell you about those other
dimensions so this story from this Coast
Salish artists who painted this picture
it’s on this massive mural called the
unity wall in Ogden point in Victoria BC
and she said in October 2008 my father
lay dying of cancer in the Victoria
Hospital across from his room lay Jacob
Bighorn from the Lakota tribe a man of
strong spiritual beliefs and a native
Baha’i jacob often told those for whom
he cared if you live a life of service
to your people the Eagles will come to
guide your spirit when it’s time to
leave this earth one morning as my
mother headed to the hospital she
noticed dozens of bald eagles flying
across the water and over the highway we
– on our way to Victoria notice many
eagle circling the hospital when we
arrived my father told us Jacob had
passed on many people called the
hospital asking of a holy man had passed
away now he wouldn’t appreciate that and
he certainly wouldn’t consider himself
that but he knew about Eagles and he
knew about what they meant another key
element
is that there you see a eagled staff mr.
Murray is holding the staff and you
might consider there are no feathers and
we say yes there is a feather there’s
one feather from one the eagle and if
you’ve ever seen an eagle outstretched
his six-foot wingspan and if you’ve seen
them in particular out of the prairies
high high high up in the sky during the
summer months especially you see them
circling circling and most people say
with their sharp eyesight they are
looking to the ground for food another
way of looking at this and that the
interpretation was wait a minute know
what they are doing because they’re such
spiritual beings is there cutting a hole
there cutting a hole between this world
and the next world because their
spiritual beings and when you see them
you are being blessed with this
opportunity to access the powers of the
next world he goes on to share that it’s
very risky to engage in these kinds of
things and we have examples all over the
world of spirituality and practices that
are whether the fanatical superficial
superstitious traditional ritual etc but
allow a people and perhaps an entire
nation to move one way or the other
based on a vision and in this case he
goes on to describe that perhaps through
that hole through that access you can
see your future that you may have always
wanted or that future that you’ve been
trying to avoid all your life and so in
my case and I respectfully blame
somebody in this audience oh I’ve been
married to for the past ten years she
brought me up to Winnipeg and between
her and I we’ve been working you know
rather hard at this to become parents
where this quote from this film now
we’re here just to be memories for our
kids once you’re a pair
you’re the ghost of your children’s
future so my wife and I have effectively
killed each other
because of these people now the oldest
is 10 the youngest will be 2 in a week
and this guy here is 7 and over time
it’s I mean if you’re a parent and this
is of course I called my mother who’s
still alive every other day to say okay
I get it
I understand I’m sorry because they just
they bring so much of an understanding
of future in a way than that quote in
that film I tried to read Kip Thorne’s
book and I couldn’t get through it I’ll
have to read yours that it made so much
sense there’s no need anymore for the
rest of my life what is the purpose of
anything that I could acquire for myself
with them here and so it helped me bring
me to a point of really understanding
this question the point of this
presentation and a real terror in a
history of my ancestry a history that
we’re really struggling with a history
that will observe tomorrow that may have
just another way of looking at it as we
all know 500 some years ago we had some
folks role boat over here they thought
they were going one way they ended up
over here and they described this place
as the new world paradise there was an
elder named Ernest to toussis in pound
maker who also described the same story
and tied it to a very another ancient
story which comes out of a book very old
book Genesis and he described that the
reason why the peoples of this land were
living in such the way that they were is
because they never disobeyed their
Creator in effect they were never kicked
out of paradise and I always used to
really that really worked on me a lot
because certainly again with this
history of this of this part of the
world with the church and such it’s hard
to tease apart the
use of both messages and understand the
balance between these spiritual
understandings of how to view the world
around us of things that we can’t see
like the access my father was talking
about these children who I could have
said they were gonna be in my life 20
years ago I might have children here
they are my life is over what’s next so
I really am interested in trying to
understand why native peoples in
particular in this part of the land had
to go through this history and more
importantly why did all of you come to
this part of the world and Ernest story
helped answer that I mean if this is
paradise well it makes sense everybody
came that’s why native people haven’t
left I mean why haven’t we had an exodus
to the Bahamas or sought asylum in a
stir damn why are we still here
this must be paradise so it led me to
another question of thinking of a if
this is paradise if oh I know all the
troubles that we know are happening what
more could there be what are we working
for if we think of this place and of
course only in nineteen sixty eight or
nine I believe was the first time we
even saw this place we know of this
place I don’t recall I don’t know when
the technology was about available for
the first time to see where we all came
from and of course the relationship
between the two and how we all fit in
this space and wrap together to say that
there we are a part of all worlds
simultaneously and at the same time have
our own experience our own individuality
our own world that that we came into and
so if paradise is the wound for that
fetus what is birth if this is paradise
for us and what we think we can make it
what is death and when I think of this
history of
and where we go from here and how it
could be woven together like this sweet
grass the only reason why some of these
of smudge and we have ceremonies so that
we can create a transformation a
Transfiguration if you will from
something material to something
spiritual I’m easy to say we burn it
turns just to smoke and smudge and
something occurs just like we heard
sounds with technology that we can’t
hear right now but it exists you burn
that smudge and laughs over you
something occurs if it’s possible to say
that this history of our people here was
to bear the burden of the pain of the
world to come back to paradise if you’ll
come back to the garden to be embraced
in such a way that we have no precedent
in our history of this kind of treatment
famine war anger hatred pain shame all
the language that we’ve heard throughout
the presentations perhaps the purpose is
because that will consume one another we
will wrap it ourselves around one
another I don’t who I hope it’s not
nuclear fire but something that consumes
our edit our identities consumes our
histories to reveal something transform
them something new it’s taken me a long
time as a indigenous person to come to
terms with that consume my language
consume my ceremonies consume my
grandfather and my father but if there
was a chance that it could lead to
something beyond what I already loved
about my culture this country this
planet my wife my children if there’s
something beyond that I would hope that
I would have one more shot to get there
after watching my father accomplish it
after watching my wife accomplished it
three times number four right we’re
gonna try try again
that for the future of either Canada
North America and certainly our planet
there could be something there if we’re
willing to let those things burn away to
reveal new forms thank you
[Applause]
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