~Chief Dan George (Tsleil Waututh)
Before beginning a teaching, we are asked to prepare ourselves, clear our minds, and prepare to listen. As an oral culture, the old people, for our cultural and spiritual safety, repeated their stories until in their hearts they knew we were prepared. You will find repetition here. My grandfather, Adam Jimmy, always said to our mother, Kay George, especially after she got out of Kuper Island Indian Residential School, “Did you hear what I said? Tell me what I just said.” She did the same thing to her children when we were growing up.
Rocky Mountains
After four days of travel—it was around mid-July in the 1990s—we are back at a very special spot in the Rocky Mountains. My student and I were excited to return for a third annual trip to a magical place, a place where songs came from, where Coast Salish specialists such as healers and seers might have returned with their students to prepare them for a lifetime of ritual and ceremony. Our visit echoed Sulsalewh (Elders) teachings about places of solitude, knowing, and feeling silence; about forming the basis of
