Contents
- Celebrate National Aboriginal Day!
- Is That All We Get
- DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE CENTRE FOR THE ARTS
- New Board Member
- CCCA Board of Directors (Elected 5 June 2008)
- BULL
- Residents, Friends and Mayor/Councillors
- The wretched wasted earth
- THE NOSE KNOWS -If Love Has A Smell
- News from the Library
- If Money and Time Were No Object…
- OPEN COMMUNITY MEDIA GROUP
- THE PRESENT
- Why an Apology is Wrong, and Deceptive:
- THIS COUNTRY: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
- the Government of Canada formally apologized (media)
- The Apology
- Turtle Island (Canada).
- Apology or Acknowledgement?
- Quebec Native Women’s Association
- To Whom It May Concern:
- Beauty….
- EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS SESSIONS
- The Community Play Symposium and The Downtown Eastside
- I Want to Run Away
- Passing as Sane – Coming out Crazy
- PERSONIFICATION
- You Are the Answer
- FREE DENTAL HELP in the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE
- Where Life and Death Hold Hands
- Healing Oneself
Celebrate National Aboriginal Day!
Former Governor General Roméo LeBlanc signed the proclamation formally designating June 21 as National Aboriginal Day on June 13, 1996.
June 21 was chosen because of the cultural significance of the summer solstice, the first day of summer and longest day of the year. Many aboriginal groups mark the date as a time to celebrate their heritage.
"On June 21st, this year and every year, Canada will honour the Native peoples who first brought humanity to this great land," said Leblanc. "And may the First Peoples of our past always be full and proud partners in our future."
National Aboriginal Day was 14 years in the making:
1982: The National Indian Brotherhood (now the Assembly of First Nations) calls for the creation of National Aboriginal Solidarity Day on June 21.
1990: The Quebec legislature recognizes June 21 as a day to celebrate aboriginal culture.
1995: The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommends the designation of a National First Peoples Day. The Sacred Assembly, a national conference of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, chaired by Elijah Harper, calls for a national holiday to celebrate the contributions of Canada's Aboriginal Peoples.
1996: June 13: Gov. Gen. Roméo LeBlanc declares June 21 as National Aboriginal Day after consultations with various Aboriginal groups. The inaugural day is celebrated with events from coast to coast to coast.
Frequently asked questions about Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples:
How many Aboriginal Canadians are there in Canada? In 2001, 3.4 per cent of Canadians were Aboriginal, a total of 976,305 people. Of those, 62 per cent were North American Indian, about 30 per cent were Métis, and 5 per cent were Inuit.
How many live on and off reserves? About seven out of 10 Aboriginal people live off a reserve, according to the 2001 census, with almost a third of those living in large cities. Nearly 30 per cent live on reserves.
Where do Aboriginal people live in Canada? In 2001, the provinces with the largest Aboriginal populations were Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
What are the projections for Canada's Aboriginal population? By 2017, there will be an estimated 1.39 million to 1.43 million Aboriginal persons, according to Statistics Canada. Aboriginals would represent 4.1 per cent of the Canadian population, up from 3.4 per cent in 2001. Canada's Aboriginal population is expected to grow by 1.8 per cent annually, more than twice the rate of 0.7 per cent for the general population. The Aboriginal birth rate is 1.5 times the Canadian birth rate. In the Downtown Eastside this year, National Aboriginal Day will be celebrated in Oppenheimer Park.
By ROLF AUER
Is That All We GetIs That All We Get
“ABORIGINAL DAY, JUNE 21” Wow..
Considering what many Indigenous People
have gone through since first contact of
The Non-Indigenous, non-Indian, non-Aboriginal
non-Native, non-First Nations people
or white people. I wonder if this was to be
lobbied for as a Statutory Holiday?
Just maybe we as Indigenous People
may get the acknowledgement by
the public or better yet, the
Federal Government.
All my relations,
Priscillia
(fr the witsuwit’en territory)
DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE CENTRE FOR THE ARTS
We had our first and very successful meeting for the Downtown Eastside Centre For The Arts this past week and now the work begins.
This centre came out of my desire to initiate a community space that would provide for young & old, from diverse cultures and those in need to have the opportunity to experience art in a positive setting; in other words, a place where people can create.
This is not a new idea, in the sense that it has been tossed around for the past ten years or so, however, we all feel it is timely and it provides for maximum opportunity.
This project will take a lot of work but I am confident we will be successful with patience, hard work and a steady hand.
I will update periodically and there will be a point where we will make an official announcement and begin the fundraising campaign.
Thanks to all for your inquiries and we will be looking for volunteers (we're not ready yet).
Dalannah Gail Bowen
New Board MemberNew Board Member
I went to the Carnegie Community Centre Association Annual General meeting last Thursday as a regular interested party and I came back as a board member along with 4 or 5 other brand new members. I had been asked to run so I knew that I would be putting myself under public scrutiny and I don’t really like to do things like that but I really didn’t think that I’d get elected. Now that I am elected I will try my damnedest to do a good job and be an asset to the board. I’ve been on boards before and I have an idea of how they work. I’ll probably spend the first while getting to know the lay of the land before I do anything slightly amazing or anything at all. I plan on attending all the different committees and finding which ones I’d like to be a party to. I’m hoping to do an honorable job and more importantly a good job of getting things done for the membership. I’d like to be a leader during these tough times as the DTES is facing a massive onslaught by the builders of this beautiful city. They’re trying to tear down our homes so that they can build Condos for the richer people or even worse so that they can make MONEY during the upcoming Olympics and therefore leave us poor miserable people on the street without homes and even worse they don’t want us on these streets we know as our home territory. We’re gonna have to put up not only a fight but a damn good one in order to keep our homes no matter how good or bad they seem to be to us. Personally, I’m looking forward to a year of learning and at the end I hope to have contributed to the betterment of the lives of everyone in this area. I imagine working on the Board will be good for me too. It’ll give me a way to measure myself and hopefully a way to help others as well as myself. As I said I do have some experience being on a board and I was actually a president of some different things like a bowling league and that other board. My experiences should help me at this time although it’s been over 20 years since I was involved in community issues. I feel this is a challenge that I can somehow meet and beat just because of the things that I’ve learnt in the past. Of course I’m gonna need some guidance and hopefully it won’t be too much so as to be a distraction during the upcoming year. I hope my two cents will be worth something and from what I’ve seen so far we have a pretty good roster for a board. There seems to be a lot of experienced people in this group. Wish us all some luck and a good bit of guidance in our upcoming year. Thanks. -hal
CCCA Board of Directors (Elected 5 June 2008)
Harold Asham
Rolf Auer – Corresponding Secretary
Norma-Jean Baptiste
Bernie Boyd
Paul Campbell
Colleen Carroll – Treasurer
Lisa David
Craig Hathaway
Joe LeBlanc
Adrienne MacCallum
Matthew Matthew – President
James Pau
Margaret Prevost
Sandra Pronteau – Member-at-Large
Gena Thompson – Vice-President
Executive (signing authority)
The Annual General Meeting of the Carnegie Community Centre Association (CCCA) saw a greater turnout of voting members than all AGMs since 1986. That was when members got together and voted 131-1 to throw the then-Board of Directors out and hold new elections. Results were good!
Ditto for 2008’s AGM! With 19 people nominated for 15 positions, each person had 2 minutes to speak and convince people that voting for them would be good for Carnegie, not just to make the nominee feel better. Both intelligence and gut feelings led voters to select the people named above. Hooray!!!
PRT
BULL
(An old story retold)
So that bull in that China Shoppe
True to form AGAIN
Has managed to
GET OUT THE DOOR
It's not only Pigs got wings, chile
Four little feet scurry fast
I have seen it happening in another city
On another coast
Loyal and dependable he may have been
Probably still is.
But to what?
'Tis a broad field, n'est-ce-pas?
It remains that animals be animals
Apologies to you, animals of 4 feet
'specially the higher primates
Even the jackals, hyena and honey Badgers
So childrens - Sorry for that [Ole Bull]
We try to keep them away from the
Bossies those dear sweet moo cows
But ya'll know how hard it is
To fight agin NATURE
Where there's a bullish will there's a WAY OUT
They usually have kinship connections
LAWYERS, DOCTORS, INDIAN CHIEFS
Le plus things change Le plus la meme chose
Wilhemina
Residents, Friends and Mayor/CouncillorsResidents, Friends and Mayor/Councillors
As I was cruising down Hastings on my way home from Carnegie I noticed a new sign up ALL along Hastings. It's a By Law telling the homeless they can not put up tents or bed down on the streets/ sidewalk, if caught they will be fined and more.
This morning a friend of mine notice a City Garbage truck dumping ALL belongs in a shopping cart in to the truck and behind the garbage truck was another to pick up the empty shopping carts, while residents pleading with the truck drive to please let me get my personal belongs. But it fell on deaf ears and away went people's personal belongs with sleeping bags, ID'S and ALL their life belongings went up and down Hastings, my friend said people were down on the ground crying and begging these City Works for the necessities they needed to sleep either at the park or under the via duct and/or where they felt safe.
Now they have nothing, they were striped of so much and left with nothing, NOT even letting our homeless people get the sleeping bag and the little food they had. Isn't it bad enough for the homeless who have NO where to go, because of a By Law that has been post ALL along Hastings and probably at the parks. So where are they suppose to go, sleeping in the alley, is only putting them at risk of being beating up and/or for our women to be raped and beaten, all because they are homeless.
Sam and Council don't think about the consequences that comes with these STUPID By Laws, I have to be honest and say you all have no heart and flicking care about what happens to the homeless people when you take away their personal belongs.
The only true Politician that took on living here in the Downtown Eastside and learned so much while living on very little money was Emery Barnes, the other people said they lived at Crab Park for the weekend. However NO one saw them there and they had sleeping bag where most of the homeless don't even have that.
Get real Mayor and Council, if this happened to one of your own, there would have been at least 5 police cars and maybe 8 officers. If the homeless had put up a fight today rest assured they would have been charged and jailed also given a fine for breaking this By Law that was just put up recently. SO Mayor and Council where was the fairness on this day Friday the 13th, 2008?
Concerned Resident, MDPrevost
The wretched wasted earthThe wretched wasted earth
The still born
The headless Maenads of horrific genocide
Collecting deaths design in spasms of evil origin
Cubicle dissolution
Enlightenment
Disinterestedness
A man sleeping or dying on the sidewalk
something wrong here
Better go home
Keep shopping, see a movie, get some entertaining substance
Distract myself with groups of similar identity
The valour of the dead
Mystical unions
A loveless bed
We cannot even touch anymore
The common ignorance and the self interest
of zombies
A child in contrast, waved, smiled
A brief moment of sincerity, joy signs of life
The savagery by which we relate
The bitter taste
The bread of ash
The poison of the souls disappointment
The loss of love
The enterprise of consciousness
Hopelessly wasting
Walking busily frantic
Addictions
Pretentions of charity and kindness
A false humanity a spiritual ass
The principle of childlessness
A world of orphans
Bloated but not full
A wraith obesity
The monarch
The feeding
The excretions
The bloated gullet
Fifty cents
Five million dollars
Global aspirations of cynical mendacity
A philosophic boredom
Scraggy cats never grow up
Can’t sleep at night
Easy fix
Wasted energy
Fighting the damnation tarnation crags
Hits unpleasant ambulant
Soma unconscious directive
Can’t measure up to expectations
Of a free society or even a working class
Dispelling mythology about existence is as meaningless as regret for a life unlived
The brain only glimpses the possibility of genius and forgets what it remembered
Sleep is small comfort a relief
A moment to procrastinate another waking moment
LESADEETREE
THE NOSE KNOWS -If Love Has A SmellTHE NOSE KNOWS -If
Love Has A Smell
You tell me you like it
When I wear your clothes
Because when you put them on,
They smell of me.
You are clearer,
You say to me,
As sage bums
In the shell of your hand
Cupped upwards
Protecting.
I can smell
The rain
That tells me
This is Vancouver
And the sweat
On the clothes you wore
Into the lodge.
They won't let you touch
The sour cream and chives
At the fancy restaurant in Merritt Glancing at the worker's grease
On your hands
But I scent them, their bleach
And the freshly
Slaughtered
Veal Parmesan.
Phoenix Winter
News from the LibraryNews from the Library
Take the Six Book Challenge
This summer, Carnegie library is challenging you to read a book a week. From July 2 to August 16, we are running a Six Book Challenge. Read books, win prizes! Never read a western? Why not start now? For details, look for the posters in the library from the end of June.
New Books
The Impossible Takes Longer, by David Pratt (808.88) is a unique book of quotations that claims to be “the 1000 wisest things ever said by Nobel Prize laureates.” It includes brief biographies of all the Nobel prize winners quoted.
Food, Sex and Salmonella: Why Our Food is Making Us Sick, by Dr David Waltner-Toews (615.95) brings us tales of the bacteria, viruses and parasites that have made their way into our food supply. He describes pandemics, climate change, cultural shifts, agriculture and trade, all of which have led to the emergence of new diseases. And before we start to panic, there’s practical advice for what we can do.
Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, by Tom Zytaruk (971.07) tells of how an ordinary man became an extraordinary MP. Chuck Cadman was a typical suburban couch potato until his sixteen-year old son Jesse was murdered. Cadman was inspired to advocate for tougher prison sentences for offenders, and eventually became an MP.
Internet got you puzzled? Check out Internet for Seniors (004.67), which explains the web in illustrated, easy-to-follow steps. Instead of talking in general terms, this book gives step-by-step examples to do things like play sudoku online, upload photographs, listen to Internet radio, and get started with e-mails, blogs and even web pages.
How to be an Illustrator by Darrel Rees (741.60) contains some valuable advice for budding illustrators on everything from creating a portfolio to copyright. It’s a bit of a dense, wordy read, and could have done with a plain language editor, but it’s a very attractive book, lightened by interviews with real-life illustrators.
Beth, your librarian
If Money and Time Were No Object…
Who I Would Have at Dinner for Two
I have the chance to see you again. The fireplace is crackling while we sit on the couch with our feet up on puffy beige footstools. Iggy, our rabbit, lies peacefully as a cat on the rug. The flames flicker across your face, making their presence known and then leaving, like the anger you hold towards me.
I'd like to say we hold wine glasses, but we both don't drink. Our crystal goblets are filled with cider we pressed ourselves with apples fallen on the farm. I show you how to wet your
finger, and make the crystal sing.
Phoenix Winter
OPEN COMMUNITY MEDIA GROUPOPEN COMMUNITY MEDIA GROUP
We intend to develop media materials, strategies and contacts to increase public awareness of community conditions and needs on the DownTown EastSide.
We are currently focusing on housing issues, including inadequate shelters, unsafe/unhealthy SRO's and the need for more social housing. If there are any other issues you think we should address or you want to contribute to our work in some other way, please join us on:
TUESDAY JUNE 17, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
2nd FLOOR CARNEGIE CENTRE
THE PRESENT
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. They talked for hours.
Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene. Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn and look out – the window faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and couldn’t even see the wall.
She said, 'Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.'
Epilogue
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy. 'Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present.
This article below was offered to the Canadian media as an exclusive piece last week, and was rejected or ignored by the following newspapers:
The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun, The Winnipeg Free Press, The Edmonton Sun, The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Alberni Valley Times, The Epoch Times, and the Victoria Times Colonist
Why an Apology is Wrong, and Deceptive:
Bringing Humanity to Bear on the Residential School Atrocity
By Rev. Kevin Annett
"Rend your hearts, and not your garments" Joel 2:17
Imagine for a moment that your own child goes missing and never comes home. Years pass, and one day, the person responsible for your child's death is identified, but he evades arrest and imprisonment simply by issuing to you an "apology" for your loss. He even speaks of seeking "reconciliation" with you.
How would you feel?
Hold on to that feeling, and now multiply your loss by many thousands of children, and make the guilty person the government and churches of Canada. Do so, and you will have arrived in a human way at the Indian Residential Schools atrocity.
One of my former parishioners put it another way:
"What we did to those native children was an abomination, and abominations aren't resolved with words and money. We need to have our hearts torn in two and be changed. We've got to stand, ourselves, under the judgment of God. "
I doubt that Stephen Harper would be satisfied with an apology if his own kids were hauled off and killed for being practicing Christians. Yet on June 11, 2008, he will stand up on our behalf and try to apologize to other nations for having exterminated their children.
The whole effort seems more than ludicrous, or obscene. One cannot, after all, apologize to the dead. But the truth is, the government's planned "apology" to native people is an enormous exercise in deception - primarily selfdeception.
Do we even know the meaning of that easily uttered term, "apologize"?
It actually has a double meaning, according to the internet Dictionary: a) "an acknowledgment of regret for a fault or offense" and b) "a formal justification, defense or excuse for one's actions".
That is, in our vernacular understanding of the term, an "apology" can be a genuine regret for one's acts; but it can equally be a way to evade responsibility for one's acts, by justifying oneself before one's victim.
The legal understanding of the word, however, is more specific, and has nothing to do with regret: "apology" is defined simply as "a disclaimer of intentional error or offense". A disclaimer.
Now, I'm assuming that the government of Canada relies on legal definitions· operating, as it claims, "under the rule of law" - rather than popularly understood ones. So we must realize that when the government and its Prime Minister use the term "apology", its understanding of the word is the legal one: namely, "a disclaimer of intentional error or offense" . In other words, on June 11, Stephen Harper will issue to the world a disclaimer to the effect that the Indian Residential Schools were not an intentional offense.
It's not surprising that the Prime Minister will be making such an outrageous and unsupportable claim, since if he ever admitted that the residential schools were intentional, he'd be the first defendant in the dock at an international war crimes trial.
But more important, this effort by our government - and the churches it is protecting - to be absolved of their own crimes is taking place under the illusory pretense of making amends with native people, when its purpose is simply to legally exonerate itself of culpability for the deaths of thousands of children.
This, indeed, has been the norm for both church and state ever since the first lawsuit was launched by residential school survivors in February of 1996. An army of court scholars and legal experts has generated a mountain of "holocaust denial" at every level of Canadian society during the past dozen years, to convince the world that the daily death and torture at the residential schools was not intentional at all.
Such an "apologetic" agenda defies logic and common sense, as in the statements from the government's misnamed "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" scholars that, while evidence shows that residential school children were being buried "four or five to a grave", and that the death rate in these schools stayed constant at fifty percent for over forty years, these deaths were "not intended".
To believe that, one has to ignore the evidence of senior government officials like Dr. Peter Bryce, who found that children were regularly being "deliberately exposed to communicable diseases" in residential schools, and left to die untreated. The word Bryce used was "deliberately". How else, after all, do so many children die?
All of this legal hoop jumping and evasion of responsibility might make sense to the government, and pay the salaries of their intellectual mercenaries, but it does nothing to advance the cause of truth telling and humanity in Canada, and snuffs out the lives of victims ever more quickly.
I know this all too well, having spent most of my waking hours for years as a counsellor, advocate and chronicler for many aboriginal survivors of the death camps we like to call residential schools. And what I've learned from such work is that we cannot come to grips with something that we don't understand.
The truth is, Euro-Canadian society still doesn't understand what these "schools" were, either at a "head" or a "heart" level. If one believes the officers of the churches and government, the residential schools "issue" is all about money and verbal gymnastics. Yet none of these officials, as far as I know, have broken down and wept in public over the deaths of so many innocent ones; nor have they even offered to return their remains to their families for a proper burial.
Oddly enough, the very same officials continually and glibly speak about "healing the past", without even knowing their own history, and about "solutions" to the "residential school problem", as if they understand what that problem is - not realizing that, to quote William Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
For in truth, there is not now, nor has there ever been, an "Indian problem" in Canada. Rather, the problem is a "white" one. The problem is with us.
I won't point to collapsing eco-systems or troops in Afghanistan to prove this point. Nor need I pose the paradox of how educated men and women, with families of their own and a professed "Christian morality", could drive needles through infants' tongues at Indian residential schools, throw three year olds down stairs, sterilize healthy kids, and deliberately allow children to cough their lives away from tuberculosis, and then bury them in secret graves.
The evidence of the problem is more immediate, and far closer to home, in our continued segregation of aboriginal people into a lower standard of humanity that allows them to die at a rate fifteen times greater than other people of this country.
After all, if we Canadians are who we imagine ourselves to be - an enlightened society that "assimilated" native people into our ranks, and made them our equals - then why has not a single person ever been brought to trial for the death of a residential school child? Why is the disappearance of tens of thousands of native children in these schools not the subject of a major criminal investigation? And why is there an Indian Act, and not an Irish or an Italian Act?
Being, in reality, an unofficially apartheid society that operates, in practice, with two standards of justice - one for native people, and one for the rest of us - Canada can no more cure the legacy of the residential schools than it can stop chewing up the earth for short-term comfort and profit. At least, not this side of a fundamental moral and social revolution.
The fact that we are far from such a change struck home to me a few months ago when the government's fraudulent "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" announced that, although-criminal acts did indeed occur in the residential schools, there would be no criminal investigation of these schools: an unbelievably brazen subversion of justice that evoked not a murmur of protest in the media or among the good citizens and politicians of Canada.
Regardless of this, there are things that can be done to overcome the genocidal residential schools legacy, and do justice, for once, to the survivors.
Rather than issuing verbal and self-serving "apologies" which change nothing, or staging a sham "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" that has no power even to subpoena evidence, the government and all of us could take these kind of bold measures:
1. Declare an Official Nation-wide Day of Mourning for Residential School Victims, dead and living.
2. Fully disclose what happened in the residential schools - naming the crimes, the perpetrators, and the cover-up by launching an International War Crimes Tribunal with the power to subpoena, arrest and prosecute those responsible.
3. Bring home the remains of all children who died in these schools for a proper burial, and establish public memorial sites for them.
4. Create National Aboriginal Holocaust Museums.
5. End federal tax exemption for the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada, in accordance with the Nuremburg Legal Principles concerning organizations complicit in crimes against humanity.
6. Abolish the Indian Act and Indian and Northern Affairs.
7. Recognize indigenous sovereignty and return all stolen lands and resources to indigenous nations.
An Irish relative once told me that the way her country is evolving away from eight centuries of warfare is through a simple formula:
"First you remember; then you grieve; then you hear. Instead of skipping the first two steps, as Mr. Harper and too many of our people are trying to do "apologetically", it is time that Canadians found the courage to truly remember, admit to the world what we did to the first peoples of this land, and grieve our actions in the manner of people who truly rend their own hearts and want to change.
Perhaps then "healing and reconciliation" can become something more than a political catch-phrase.
THIS COUNTRY: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
THIS COUNTRY: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: ONE MAN'S FIGHT FOR THE LIVING VICTIMS
Globe and Mail 9/6/8 By ROY MacGREGOR
Wednesday, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologizes on behalf of the country for the many abuses of the residential school system, there will be those who say it is only the proper thing to do.
There will be those who will say it is going too far.
And then there will still be the Rev. Kevin Annett. How far would he go?
Sit down, take a deep breath, and listen up:
*A full International War Crimes Tribunal with the powers to prosecute those who can be held responsible for crimes or cover-ups at the native schools.
A nationwide search for the remains of children - Mr. Annett estimates some 50,000 - who died at these schools, by neglect or abuse, and were never given proper burials.
*The creation of a National Aboriginal Holocaust Museum so Canadians will never forget the crimes against humanity that took place in these schools.
*An official nationwide "Day of Mourning" for all victims, both dead and living, of residential schools.
*An end to any federal tax exemptions for churches that had any involvement in establishing and running such institutions.
*The abolishment of the Indian Act, the winding down of the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs - and the return of all "stolen lands and resources" to Canada's indigenous nations.
Don't worry about upsetting Mr. Annett if you disagree with him. He's used to it. He's used to being dismissed. He's been called a troublemaker. He's been accused of exaggerating to the point of making things up entirely just to draw attention to himself.
And yet this 52-year-old defrocked former United Church minister who looks uncannily like Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer says what he really is trying to draw attention to is the likes of Vancouver's Harry Wilson, and the unnamed woman from Saskatchewan who isn't yet sure she can tell her story in public. They are, he says, the living victims of residential schools - the ones who desperately need far more than a simple apology.
Mr. Annett, who now ministers to the homeless along Vancouver's East Hastings, helped Harry off a bus last week. Harry is an alcoholic, a middle-aged man who was beaten and sodomized at the Port Alberni Residential School, and who claims that, when he was 13, he found the naked, bloodied body of a young Haida girl on the grounds. He also says he was tortured for months until his tormentors persuaded him he had never seen a body.
As for the woman from Saskatchewan, she remembers having to hold open the furnace doors in her residential school as small bodies were shovelled in for incineration.
Mr. Annett's critics say no such things ever happened, that such stories are either imagination or some sort of false memory.
Mr. Annett says the only way to know is through "forensic investigations." He says there is anecdotal evidence of mass graves at many residential schools. He wants digs. Others say there is no point in digging because there is nothing to find.
Going against the grain is nothing new for Kevin Annett. He was an unnoticed United Church minister until he began questioning the church's role in shifting native-held lands to logging operations and then became increasingly involved in the residential schools question as persistent challenger of church responsibility.
In 1997, he was removed from the pulpit and defrocked. "My faith is stronger now," he says, "but not in organized religion."
His strong public stands have brought him praise from the likes of Noam Chomsky, but his battles also helped destroy his marriage - although he says he is reconciled with his two teenage daughters. He still regularly challenges the churches involved in residential schools to come clean on what happened.
That bad things happened, no one denies - that they were as bad as Annett believes they were remains the question.
He points to such historical evidence as statements by Duncan Campbell Scott, long-ago deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs, who mentioned the much-higher native death rates in the schools and how this fit with Ottawa's policy of "a final solution of our Indian Problem." And he points, as well, to Harry's story, and the Saskatchewan woman's story, and hundreds of similar stories that still stir in native circles across the country.
The Rev. Kevin Annett, understand, is not against the apology coming down this week. He agrees, in fact, that "amazing progress" has been made since the possibility of a formal apology first surfaced. But, he says, the apology is at best only a beginning.
"It's important in theory," he says, "but it's the wrong direction."
He wouldn't have the Prime Minister address Parliament, but come down to East Hastings and sit in a healing circle and listen before he says anything at all. And once the apology has been issued, the real work should begin.
"An apology," he says, "should not have any sense of 'We didn't mean to do it and we're sorry.' That would have no substance. It's not an action that will have meaning.
"I don't know if we can really talk about resolution until we know the truth about what happened."
[Editor’s note: For those with access to a DVD player, watch Kevin’s documentary UNREPENTANT.]
On June 11, 2008, the Government of Canada formally apologized to the First Nations peoples for the terrible abuses inflicted upon Native Aboriginal children who were taken from their families and put into the now-defunct Indian residential schools.
"The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal Peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly," Harper said. "We are sorry."
In September, the government formalized a $1.9-billion compensation plan for victims. The government has also established a truth and reconciliation commission to examine the legacy of the residential schools. The commission was scheduled to begin its work on June 15.
Although the Conservative government initially was not expected to allow Aboriginal leaders to respond directly to Harper's statements, and those offered by all party leaders, the Aboriginal leaders were ultimately given an opportunity to address the Commons, and thus officially go on record in response.
National chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, who was himself sexually abused at the Fort Alexander residential school in Manitoba, had high hopes that Harper's statement will help him and others move on.
"We've all waited a long time for this," he said. "This is going to be a very emotional time for a lot of people. It's going to trigger a lot of memories, and these people are going to need support."
The Assembly worked with Health Canada to ensure counsellors would be available on Parliament Hill and at the many gatherings planned in most provinces.
A 24-hour, toll-free crisis line can be reached at 1-866-925-4419. Other support information is available on the Assembly of First Nations website.
The Apology
The Apology
As we gathered in the Carnegie seniors lounge to witness the Federal Government deliver an apology on behalf of all Canadians for the genocidal practices of the Residential School policies of past governments a comment was made in the room “what’s so important about an apology?” Almost in unison a chorus rang out “this is important! the Prime Minister is making an apology to the survivors of Indian Residential Schools “Oh that” she said, why do we have to watch that?” Then another comment “if you don’t like it then leave.” With that she left the room.
On my way to work this morning the legacy of the Residential School is that young Aboriginal women are standing on the street corners selling themselves throughout the downtown eastside and in every small town and major city across this country to make money to feed their families, pay their rent or to feed their addictions.
The Residential School legacy is felt in every community across this nation. We are still on small reservations not large enough to house our own people. We are homeless, we are living in abject pov-erty, we have the largest represented population of our children in care, and we have the largest population of diabetes and diabetics in the nation. We have the larg-est population of high school drop outs. We suffer from under-employment or unemployment due to the still prevalent racist hiring practices of non aboriginal people within our own towns and in our territories. Yes Canada, racism against Aboriginal people is thriving across this nation.
Just before the apology the ceremonial formalities of the House of Commons were suspended -“allowing” eleven non sitting Aboriginal people to stand on the floor of the House; Chiefs, Matriarchs and survivors of a genocidal policy. This symbolic gesture and that of removing the “staff” from the table that allows non sitting house members to address Parliament was like taking back a part of our rightful space, our right to exist as Aboriginal people and to address the nation on their racist history and genocidal practices.
Prime Minister Steven Harper walked in with a 94 year old survivor. One person said “think of the gener-ations within her family that endured the Residential School System”.
The Indian Residential School system was designed by former Canadian governments to assimilate the Indian children by removing them from their culture, language, homes, parents, role models, people and communities. As they put it to “kill the Indian from the child”. The effects of this government policy are blatantly clear today. 132 Indian Residential Schools, 150,000 children torn away from the bosom of their families. 87,000 survivors whose lives have been forever changed, Generations of kids who had parents who did not know how to parent... put a price on that!
Aboriginal people throughout Canada gathered in community centres, recreation halls and places to just be together to hear the apology issued almost as a “task” that must be completed.
Harpers apology was very mechanical in nature. As he read from a script he did not address the issue of who was responsible for carrying out his government policy, the churches. He stated that the “government recognizes that this policy of assimilation was wrong.” He addressed the living condition of residential school children “inadequately deprived of food, clothing and suffered abuse, and that some died, others did not.” He went on to state the impact this has left on First Nations people and the tragic accounts of individual survivors and that the consequences were profoundly negative. The abuses suffered in residential school included “emotional, physical and sexual abuse and the legacy of social problems that continues today.
Harper acknowledged many residential school survivors are not with us today, having died before they received an apology from the government. To the 87,000 living survivors we were wrong for forcibly remove children from their homes and rich and vibrant cultures. Far too often abuse and neglect endured in the institutions. Harper then stated “The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgive-ness of the aboriginal people of this country for failing them so profoundly.”
The Canadian government has begun a settlement agreement process in 2007 to include a Truth and Reconciliation commission as an opportunity to edu-cate all Canadians.
The other party leaders issued comments like “the darkest chapter in Canadian history with children stolen from their parents, denial of the truth, and acknowledgement of the role of the Liberal govern-ment in this history. Mention was made of the role of the churches in this abuse.
One leader spoke of statistics, deaths of children in residential schools, and that “apologies once given are only as meaningful as the actions taken”.i.e. Aboriginal affairs not investing enough money and repeating errors of the past. Painted a picture of village where all the young school age children were absent, where there were none left in the village and that they were torn away.
Another spoke to survivors of Indian Residential school and said “we are sorry for what has taken place.” “This is a shameful era in our history.” Aboriginal people are entitled to equal footing and mutual respect. They have been denied love and nurturing from their families, language and cultural traditions. They have learned to “be ashamed of who they were.” It is a fact that this government has not signed on to endorse the United Nations Report on Indigenous Peoples and must reverse the horrific shameful living condition of Aboriginal people.”
Grand Chief Phil Fontaine commented that “this was the achievement of the impossible.” A condolence ceremony was held for those who died, who have not survived to see this day. Chief Fontaine stated the “memories cut like a knife at our souls” and that we “reach out to all Canadians in the spirit of reconcile-ation.”
There was a hush in the room, some people wiped tears from their eyes, their voices were choked up with pain as they tried to speak about this horrible past.
When I went home my husband was very sad, angry and deeply hurt and no apology will erase the truth of his emotional pain, spiritual pain and physical pain. As a very young boy he was slapped across the side of his head with the open hand of a nun at the St. Paul’s Indian Residential school. He fell to the floor writhing in inconsolable pain that was reverberating into his ear drum.Tthe ear drum was shattered, he passed out from the pain. Fifty six years of enduring ear infections one after the other, constant ringing in the ear, pain that never ceases for one moment, day in and day out, the only thing that changes is the severity of the pain. Can you imagine?
At a gathering one survivor stated “if Steven Harper were here I would say to his face, I do not accept your apology. I would like my language back, my mother’s language. I would like my language back, my father’s language. I would like my culture back; I would like my land back before I accept your apology.”
With that being said the reality is actions speak louder than words.
Submitted by Marlene George,
Cultural Sharing Programmer
On Wednesay June 11, 2008 the Canadian federal government, along with the three parties, formally apologized to residential school survivors in Ottawa.
There were many satellite stations across parts of Turtle Island (Canada). I was hoping this event would have been mandatory for the public to watch and just maybe all Canadians will respect and acknowledge Indigenous people.
I was at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, whola never seen so many young to old Indigenous people together packed in the gymnasium. As I stepped in to the crowded gymnasium those there stood silent. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated his apology, one statement that stood out for me was, "Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions, and cultures and to assimilate them into the dominate culture." He did not say anything about reconciling financially to the Indigenous communities. Much is needed: proper housing, education, health care and economical aspects to revive the communities.
Silence echoed in the gymnasium after Harper's apology and a finger gesture towards the screen with anger by an Indigenous elder. The rest of the parties like Bloc Quebecois, New Democratic Party, and Liberals had also apologized to the residential school survivors. These parties had much more to say than Harper and they were more sincere. And many of the witnesses at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre had applauded and had hopeful emotions that just maybe with this epic many may go on with a positive approach in reconciliation of many Indigenous communities.
One of the parties mentioned that Canada did not sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Here at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre were much applause and cheering. I even raised my hands in acknowledgement myself. You see my late grandparents on my dad's side attended the LeJac Residential School-the language, culture and identity was still within. However, the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual aspects were somehow affected. Trauma has been passed down generation to the next. I am affected, like many Indigenous people are in their territories or in the urban communities such as Vancouver.
There were many Indigenous leaders who had spoken on behalf of their organization and the one that stood out for me was Beverly Jacobs: President of Aboriginal Women's Association of Canada. She is from the Mohawk territory. She stressed that women are the life givers, caretakers, and who look after the children. Respect is what she requested from Harper and " What is going to be provided?" Many witness-ses in the gym applauded. Overall, I found this phe
nomenal event as a stepping stone towards, action.
All My Relations,
Priscillia
(wit suwit'en territory of the tsyu (beaver) clan) Apology or Acknowledgement?
Apology or Acknowledgement?
As I sat and watched Steven Harper deliver the country's apology to its Aboriginal people, I am torn between tears and anger. My tears are for those, our elders, who suffered abuse, sexual, mental, and physical. My tears for those who have lost their identity and culture.
My anger and the questions that cause this anger run around my head. I want to believe that now we will start to heal, and things will be better. Before this can happen, and the healing begin, I feel that there is a motive for this now, and only the future will tell how much the apology is based on this motive.
I want to believe the apology is worth more than the paper it's written on, but again we will see how sincere this government and the people it represents are.
The apology is a first step, but we still have a great distance to go. When will we see a more equitable sharing of the country's natural resources, a sincere move to adequately house our people, and not in places where nothing grows.. the water contaminated. A place that as a people we can call home.
I want to believe, I want to believe, but I sincerely hope that this government and the people of Canada realize that apology is also a verb.
All my relations.
Robert Bonner
"Apologies may be recognized but they are not necessarily accompanied by forgiveness as no nation or groups have ever been forgiven for genocide."
Quebec Native Women’s Association recognizes the Prime Minister's official apology concerning the genocidal experience of Aboriginal people in the history of the Residential School system. While the apology to Aboriginal peoples is long overdue it is contradicted by oppressive policies: the Indian Act.
The heinous crimes committed against Aboriginal children who were victims nd survivors of the Residential School experience must be dealt with beyond mere apologies and monetary compensation. The damages to our languages, well-being, social and political structures and sexuality caused by Residential School, demands attention. The policy of assimilation through the Residential Schools system constituted a waragainst an identifiable group of people.
And while we commend the Canadian Government on the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission we cannot ignore the Auditor General's recent report substantiating that budgets for child welfare agencies in Canada continue to focus the majority of their efforts on the placement of Aboriginal children outside their communities and Nations. This type of practice is reminiscent of the Residential School policy.
Consequently, the Canadian Government must acknowledge that Residential School was an act of genocide; a crime against humanity. Apologies may be recognized but they are not necessarily accompanied by forgiveness as no nation or groups have ever been forgiven for their acts of genocide.
In order for this apology to be considered genuine, more efforts must be undertaken to correct current oppressive measures under the Indian Act that prevent Indigenous peoples from prospering socially, culturally, politically and economically.
The actions of the Canadian Government in opposing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes the apology feel hollow.
Their opposition to the UNDRIP perpetuates the insidious, archaic Indian Act that continues to discriminate and deny Aboriginal nations their rights. The facts and arguments reflecting the manner in which the Canadian Government continues to undermine the rights of Indigenous peoples, can be
found in Amnesty International's 08 Annual Report.
We therefore urge the Government of Canada to adequately fund Indigenous languages in a manner that is equivalent to the support given to the French
and English languages; to adequately consult Aboriginal peoples in good faith on legislation that addresses issues such as matrimonial real property, Bill C-21, Bill C-47; Bill C-30 and to eliminate the sexual discrimination that exists under Section 6 of the Indian Act.
In order for Aboriginal communities to emerge from the negative impacts of colonization they must have access to their lands and resources; they must have the opportunities to build strong and healthy nations by taking to task the social, economic problems whose roots are firmly based in colonization.
Canada has established itself as a rich and prosperous country at the expense and blood of Aboriginal peoples. And while we may recognize the Government's admission of guilt, the fact remains that many obstacles must be removed in order to give meaning to the spirit and intent of their apology.
To Whom It May Concern:
To Whom It May Concern:
The people who are living in the Downtown Eastside and do drugs should be getting health care treatment like everyone else and Insite is a safer place to do drugs as long as there’s supervision by health care professionals. It’s a better alternative; no more overdose deaths, and HIV/AIDS, Hep C and other STDs can also be prevented. To the people who are working at and fighting for Insite, to keep it open and doing good, you have a lot of support. Insite is not illegal and should continue to be exempt from Canada’s drug laws.
Hospitals in Vancouver can at least keep the crowding of their Emergency Rooms down and maybe fewer surgeries will be cancelled, waiting times shortened and other benefits, thanks in part to a service like Insite. Right now there are too many people in the ERs. This overcrowding is causing too much pain & stress and there’s no reason why more beds couldn’t be open for people who are expecting to give birth. It should never happen that these people are turned away for lack of space.
It costs too much for medical care in the States and we’ve got to stop closing Emergency Rooms. Keep the health care system in proper working order and don’t try to make it for-profit by default if the public system gets in crisis because of lack of funding. I say this to Gordon Campbell and Stephen Harper.
To Mayor Sam Sullivan (and Campbell) it’s your fault, not being fair to unions who bargain in good faith. These people have every right to speak out.
Insite should be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It increases public safety and helps people get their lives back on track. It saves lives.
All my relations.
Take a moment of silence to remember the women who have died or been subjected to domestic abuse over drugs, and celebrate those of us who continue to survive and keep our dignity after going through this kind of abuse.
Beauty….
isn’t black or white
or pretty pastel colours
it’s not flowing or soft
But can be
Hard as a woman on crack
dressed in hot heels
and a frilly white dress
pulling her sweater
close around her gaunt frame
walking through the rat-infested alleys
blossoming with pink and white flowering trees
silently scenting
a Vancouver Spring
Phoenix Winter
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS SESSIONSEMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS SESSIONS
Monday, June 23, Carnegie Community Centre
GET READY FOR THE BIG ONE
We see almost daily in the news natural disasters happening around the world. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, Vancouver is not immune to such things happening, and it is your responsibility to be prepared to look after yourself in such a case for at least a week. Are you ready? Are you sure you're ready? We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina in the poorest part of New Orleans. Many died because they were not prepared to look after themselves.
Let us not repeat history in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Let us all join together to show the world that in a natural disaster we are one organized community and we will not become victims as those of New Orleans. Let us today take measures to see to it that we are prepared to look after ourselves. Please join us for a session of Emergency Preparedness and Get Ready for the Big One. A documentary will be shown and a presentation made with handouts and door prizes for all attending. Sign up at the Carnegie third floor administration office to attend. Door prizes will be given out at sessions. (Mini emergency Kit). So get ready, get set and go to the Carnegie Emergency Preparedness Sessions.
The Community Play Symposium and The Downtown Eastside Part II
Loree Lawrence, founder of The Gathering Space, said the symposium is like Show and Tell. The Gathering Space was a storefront studio at the Junction, an old neighborhood in Toronto that is undergoing gentrification. Lawrence uses: “text, images, maps, and visual art to create dialogue at the Junction.” This studio attracted local residents who–once they found out that it was a community art project--began to bring in stories and created collages about the neighborhood. People got to know the history of the area: that it once had a meat processing plant, and that it was regarded as on the wrong side of the tracks. The Gathering Space studio became just that, a place for people to meet, socialize, and make art. Lawrence also felt: ”The people have more of an identity because of the Gathering Space. The question here is: Would something like this be good in the DTES?
David Diamond, the artistic director of Headlines Theatre, has done over 400 performances over a period of 27 years. He was doing Theatre of the Oppressed but has moved on to what he calls Theatre for Living. Headlines explores many of the social issues that we read about in the newspaper. When dealing with family violence say, Diamond always has the abuser in the room. He does not want to criminalize the characters; he wants to get at the root cause of the problem, not the symptoms.
Headlines has done three main stage projects: Practicing Democracy which dealt with poverty issues; Here and Now, a play about gang violence in the Sikh community; and Meth, a forum theatre piece about addiction. Diamond said that Meth resulted in almost 100 people entering the addiction program. This is an example of how a community play can benefit society.
One person in the audience said: “The arts are being recognized as a tool for healing.” Anecdotal evidence is one thing such as: music played to children before an operation speeds healing; people who sing choirs live longer than people who don’t; and making art reduces crime. But evidence-based studies are needed. Terry Hunter said that this is a role for academics.
There is also a dire need to document this work. It’s like a parade; once it’s over its gone. Scripts need to be edited and bound; videos and documentaries made of the performances; and community building projects undertaken. Judith Marcuse, Co-director of the International Centre For Arts and Social Change has come to the rescue. There will be an archive there that will store, preserve and make accessible documents and recordings relating to community plays.
The Downtown Eastside was well represented at the conference. Ethyl Whitty, director of the Carnegie Centre, and Earle Peach, musician, composer, and choir master, talked about the origin, making, and success of the Carnegie opera: Condemned. Whitty said a new opera is in the works; it’s about the relationship between the Native and Chinese communities. Peach hinted that there is a possibility of founding a Downtown Eastside opera society.
Several dedicated Downtown Eastsiders spoke about their experience with In The Heart of A City. Blues and jazz singer Gail Dalannah Bowen said: “I had almost given up, but when I got a part in the community play, it reminded me of who I am.”
Steve Lytton, First Nations poet, writer, and actor, made it clear to all that it is unfair and unacceptable that disabled people can’t go to many of the workshops and performances in the DTES. This is because some of the performance spaces do not have access for wheelchairs. This is true for the Ukrainian Hall and the Russian Hall.
Gena Thompson, singer, actor, and poet, thanked Carnegie for giving her opportunities. After giving fine performances in a number of plays, she says unabashedly: “I want a career in show-biz.”
Leith Harris is a long-time activist, volunteer, out-reach worker, and writer. One of the first things she said was: “I love the Downtown Eastside”. But she had a concern about the Romeo and Juliet play: She hoped that the people who the play was about can also see the show.
Sandra Pronteau talked about having multiple disabilities and going through addiction, relapse, and recovery. She credits doing the community play for her taking a new direction in life. “I continue to grow as a person, and I say hello to more people walking down the street.” She also wants to try out for the new opera.
Jim Sands, musician and actor, signed up for the community play after he heard about it at a conference. He said that you need: “trust, understanding and a leap of faith,” to do a community play. He also agreed with others that it has a healing effect.
Will Weigler is doing his doctorate at the University of Victoria. He has also written a book about creating community plays. His thesis is: how people’s opinions and preconceptions can be changed or challenged by seeing a play.
If this is true then this cuts to the core about the value of community plays. They can be used to change people’s perceptions, open channels for dialogue, and build strong community bonds.
The Downtown Eastside is on people’s radar now partly because the DTES community play: In the Heart of A City put it there. Other plays also helped: Condemned, the Carnegie opera about home and homelessness; The Shadows Project: We’re All In This Together, about addiction; and A Downtown Eastside Romeo and Juliet, a comedy about love, loneliness, and friendship; addiction and homelessness; suffering and humor; beauty and poverty; relationships, lack of relationships, and everything else that makes us human.
All these plays, and those to come, will help take the scales off the eyes of people in the wider community. Hopefully they will see that the Downtown Eastside can become a beautiful, vibrant and healthy neighborhood, that people here are like everyone else: while some are just trying to survive, most are trying to build a meaningful life for themselves. Yes, “aware” is a start, but there is also a long way to go. In the meantime: Curtain Up!
By Patrick Foley
I Want to Run Away
I want to run away from this world,
To perhaps a shore that rests on a fresh planet,
Where turquoise waves wash away troubles,
On a vacation that will last an eternity.
Let the nectarous fruit dangle from the branches of trees,
Looking as if they belong to the vineyards of Babylon.
Let the streets stay quiet and abandoned forever,
And the seasons never change from the warmth of summer.
As I awaken every morning from this enchanting dream,
And wish I wouldn't have to go through the motions of the day
I know when it's time to depart from reality,
We will meet again on the earth's final day.
A Carnegie Poet
Passing as Sane – Coming out CrazyPassing as Sane – Coming out Crazy
Every day I pass as sane
pretending control and serenity;
Appearing reasonable, average, normal.
I confess to taking pills that alter my state,
that bring optimism, steadiness,
A less subjective reality
Also church in small doses, exercise, plenty of rest
staying away from the market – any market
Temptation to come out ate at my sense of honesty
but I had done that before, remember? most of the time I gave away all the books and records and
Suddenly I was “crazy” in your eyes!
Overnight I was changed into
one whose word could not be trusted
whose touch could contaminate
So I will continue my careful ways, passing as sane
Faking it but not till I make it
Because I will never make it: I’m Crazy for Good.
Because the prizes go to the Winners
the Whole – the Sane – the Happy
… and sure, I want to win – I’m not that crazy.
Wilhelmina Miles
PERSONIFICATIONPERSONIFICATION
Out to lunch, gone to pot, we’re sure a wild bunch to simmer, steam and baste. Youy’ve heard this old standby – ashes to ashes n dust to dust – who rules this roost, the uncompassionate brain drain, stormin’ confessing sessions, here’s luck to you to tear it to pieces, to carelessly debunk and desperately deconstruct who’s keeping score. When hearts are feelin’, runnin’ on, when your mind is on a hunger strike & parched with thirst, we better watch our peas and cues rise up don’t get so down when life ain’t quite level, when you’re stewin’ in your own juices…
When your applecart’s at its wits end and you’re at an extreme low point – most upset, disarrayed, disheveled – that’s when ya gotta hit the brakes, ride the binders and ease off those damn peaking, freaking, polluting carbon gases from within and without … and expand into blue skies with the sun above, wingspan magnificent, majestic, glorious – a bird ascending, transcending ties of earthbound realms, you slice off the binding chord and taste perfection...
What’s your name? I sure do wonder who you really are. Do you ever feel that your mortal soul is precariously suspended, swaying to and fro on a single silver thread, that fairly cannot deny the crisis of feeling good/ungood and only wanting acceptance?
Explore evolving spirits, there for glitter in a multitude of celestial serene pools of eyes, if and when and why this potion of dreams leads to a profound illuminescent magickly altered state of being divinely transpires . A clear, concise mind opens with a pure path to follow, finally bereft of uncertainty and desperate wishes. It passes softly to the netherworld ancient realms reaching from forever yet always relevant, wisping off without a clue to where it has always been going, supremely, rapturously retrieved with stretching motions cherishing the place within you.
ROBYN LIVINGSTONE
You Are the Answer
You Are the Answer
You, unlike others, eventually resisted; backed off; so steady as she goes on cue clandestinely, bravely and challenged but, yes, relentless... then dodged the Illuminati’s cordons, strongholds and restricted, bastioned, invisible borders; stark as they laid them out stupidly – only you ruled your underground tensions stretched and labelled subversiveness as pride, pain, contained & controlled – taut while righting their wrongs, you’ve won the war of nerves; you have closed the deal giving up not an inch of ground, your clear heart calm, steady as ever, eternal.
You ruled your own sublime private realm and when the chips were down patriotism; to be gone, cast off, shredded as you kissed the sky amidst the gathering clouds. You were admired, surely you remember, when you reigned among the also-rans; you who cared the best when the day dawned dark for those torn and alone
A new reality when something’s lost and something much more is regained; your thoughts were sharp, your mind set, profound, a one-woman mission and you were blessed, shining and unstoppable with a benevolent wrecking crew, with love and death all mixed up together in a precarious balance.
You always retained and served your intuition. The scales of justice just did not count there; with their phony farce of betrayal doomed and strokes of poisoned pen decrees scribbled illegibly you sorted it out and meticulously sifted through false idols, shattered myths and shallow thought-controls passed off by faceless demigods who mouthed deranged, distorted, cruel gospels of waste, rack and ruin.
You are an extraordinarily peaceful, joyful warrior; also extremely genuine and intuitively unique, so preciously rare... and quite possibly beyond our masses’ earthly reach
ROBYN LIVINGSTONE
FREE DENTAL HELP in the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE
FREE DENTAL HELP
in the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE
The Eastside Walk-In Dental Clinic
455 E. Hastings 604-254-9900
Open Mondays and Fridays, 9:30 - 12:30
Volunteer dentists will help with fillings,
crowns, root canals, etc.
The Vancouver Community College
604-443-8499 For cleanings
Where Life and Death Hold Hands
Where Life and Death Hold Hands
I Don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know if I want to know what’s going on, it’s going wrong. Another of God’s glorious days unfolds before my eyes I have to laugh before I cry. At my wits end trying not to burn bridges again and again and All see in front of me is infrastruction, absolute destruction with complimentary corruption.
I’m fairly certain there’s enough fingerpointing to go around, from walking existence to spitting distance; push H for Hell, it really did look good on paper but you can never tell, like demanding financial understanding from a stranger barking commands could this be teh day I’ve heard about where life and death hold hands?!?
It’s a change to appreciate someone/thing until it’s gone. I won’t cry waterfalls on standby, we’re running out of time and water earth is screaming for help – no reply – someday some may want to know why, yet we will crawl with dignity to our defeat. It’s a fact: just like winning the Chernobyl Peace Prize you may pick it up in a hundred thousand years (curtail those mortal fears).
Now in bible lingo that’s just one thousand days spread over the next three years; like naming your racehorse Stunning Defeat and expecting nothing less, this will be your year of years, that ability to put one disappointment after another behind you puzzles me are you GOD as the wingless angels applaud. Your colourless colour has made us wonder are you really there and if so do you really care ...didn’t think so!
I’m certainly fair and try to care, enough fingerpainting to go around is a good thing I was there push H for Help it honestly looked good in wrapped paper, I can never tell, like demanding financial understanding from a stranger barking commands could this be the one and only day I’ve heard about
where life and death hold hands...
By ROBERT McGILLIVRAY Healing Oneself
Healing Oneself
Let all your emotions
Let them all go
Take your anger, scream,
holler or yell
Take it to the water
Cleanse yourself with the water
It will take all your hurt
& wash it away
Give cedar and tobacco
to thank your helpers.
Let the Great Spirit guide you
one day at a time
You will take your journey
It takes time to heal
but it will lighten your load.
So, my dear friends,
Have a safe, healing journey home.
All my relations,
Bonnie E Stevens
