Teacher,
when you leave, who will see us?
My lovely Anishinabe professor, Vicky, told us a story
of when she was leaving a position some years ago. She worked with children who were deemed challenging. She taught them to dance to her pipes and she let them reveal their beauty in movement. She tapped into their spirit.
She was sharing a teaching from our people
about what children really want – what we all want…to be seen…to be experienced as spirit…to be seen in our
entirety…in all of our sacredness.
One of my other teachers, Gabriel George (grandson of
Chief Dan George), shared a teaching with us too: we are all born with 3 things: character, a gift and a struggle.
We cannot change our character. We are born with it. It is ours.
It is there as a teaching about humility and acceptance. I can’t change your character; you can’t
change my character – we can only learn to accept it.
We are all born with a
gift. It is our main purpose to share
our gift with our community and our family and the world. It is our link from the ancestors – our gift
from all we have become with them and because of them.
We are all born with a
struggle. Our struggle is what we have
left to do…it is another link to our ancestors – the lessons left over. Our struggle is our honour. It makes us more beautiful in the eyes of the
Great Spirit because our desire to live with a good heart and mind puts us in
alignment with the best we are…with our spirit.
Our job, as teachers, as adults, is to see the spirit
in the child and to make it strong – to help them make it strong…to figure it
out…so they bring their gifts to our families and communities. To let children feel that we see them...we "get" them and who they are is a profoundly necessary piece of our community, our family.
Our job is to find our own spirit, to honour it,
and to let it make the world better for having been in it.
We love Gord Downie because he saw us. He saw us – in our gifts and our struggles as
Canadians and he used his gifts to make us better…to show us our beauty.
To show us where we hurt each other.
Secret
Path
was the last thing he did - his parting
gift…a loving honouring of a little boy who only wanted to be seen.
Gord saw him.
And now Chanie sees Gord, too.
Bless you, Gord Downie. Bless you and thank you, from the bottom of
this broken poets broken heart for sharing your gifts. From one Starchild to another, thank you,
thank you
thank you.
Teacher, when you leave, who will see us?
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