Sep 29 | Fishing and the Round Dance

This is the second of three entries I wrote on my experience at the TRC. This gives my account of Wednesday, September 18th.

I arrive at the PNE grounds on Wednesday just after 8am and join friends and teachers by the Sacred Fire site. As we chat, a First Nations woman wanders among us with a strong voice: “All the ladies, come forward to stand around the fire. We are going to say a prayer and offer a song.”

Heartfelt prayers and invocations to the Creator resonate in the circle, which is really a spiral, composed of several rings. The inner ring is dominated by “grandmothers and great-grandmothers.”

Eventually, I hear the beating of a drum. We begin to sing, turning to face the four directions, then heavenward, toward Mother Earth, and finally upright, to the ancestors, as we invoke the powers and presence of each.

I reflect on how at home I feel, even as a white participant. These rituals, songs, and stories are written into the land in which I was born.

When we are finished, we are ready to make our procession to the Coliseum for the opening ceremonies. We are led by men with drums festooned with beautiful feathers and ribbons. Their voices are strong and resonant. I can feel the drums beats in my bones. I let the survivors pass ahead of me in the line, and walk beside friends from the Cathedral and VST.

We walk into the Coliseum. The singers and drummers enter and then loop back and exit as our MC outlines the program. The singers and drummers enter again, this time with a retinue of chiefs, elders, government officials, church leaders, and survivors.

We are led in prayer by three beautiful First Nations elder women, who display great pain, deep heart, and humour. Thereafter in the program they are referred to as “the grannies.”

Many others speak. It is solemn but not heavy. There is laughter as well as applause and tears. An Inuit woman attempts to light a traditional fire but can’t get her wick to light properly. A protester with a sign stands underneath the podium when Christie Clark stands to speak. People joke over the time – “We haven’t kept to the white man’s schedule. By now we’re on Creator’s time.”

When we are done, I leave and go back to the Agrodome. I end up at the Church’s Listening Area, where a pile of blankets and cards signed by children is placed in the middle.

We join in prayer for each other and then the tent is open, with private or semi-private places set aside for survivors to speak one-on-one to church officials, trained volunteers, and smaller listening circles. I eventually don a volunteer T-shirt and join the greeters. I meet many people, and some of them refer in passing to their stories.

1000277_10152228773576963_2073611916_nWhen finished, I go outside and see a circle of six or seven men and women around a large drum which they beat together while singing. I’ll stay for one song, I think.

I end up standing there for about an hour. Some other women and I even join in a small round dance, the second I’ve done in my life. The first was much larger: in the middle of Georgia Street during earlier days of the Idle No More movement.

Later that night, during Evening Prayer, I happen to read the “fishing for people” story from Matthew 4:18-22, and it reminds me of the importance of the salmon as a source of physical and spiritual sustenance for the Coast Salish peoples. I marvel briefly at that beautiful synchronicity of cultures before reflecting on what this passage could say to me – and all of us – in light of the events of the week.

During a round dance, one or two dancers begin the movements, but then invite and acquire more participants along the way – like fish gathered into a net. This is definitely the kind of liturgical gesture that fishes for people! In these times of gathered support, testimony, transition, and escape from old lives of bondage, I believe the Creator calls us to cast our nets – or extend our hands – and reel in those who will enrich our bodies and spirits, or widen the circle of our dancing.

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