TRANSFORMING INDIGENOUS FREEDOM
Trouble is a four letter word meant to disdain most
But Nanaboozoo, that great shape shifter knows both worlds the upper and the lower
That gray hare who knew what he didn’t know he was learning, heads into spring
Carries the keeper of all the laws inside that protector, healer bear under his arm
Bear is Mukwa, is the police, the protector and also healer
Guards with her nose to the ground and finds what heals in herbs along the road
Transforms, in a holistic way, teaches a restorative truth of connection
To the circle of justice, requiring all its people to be healthy In mind, heart, spirit and body,
Healing the trust in one and the forgiveness in another, transforming relations in each other
Places of spirit and earth are protected by the Sacred and the Natural Laws
Customs are protected by Customary Laws, leader’s voices were empowered in the Positivistic Laws
And all voices were honoured in the Deliberative Laws, in debwe, truth in all that you knew from all that you grew
Stories echoed inside the land in smoke and smudged into minds
Of Muscrat and Otter of Skywoman and Nanaboozoo protected in laws The Customary, Natural and Sacred laws
That Grandfathers remember into rocks and cliffs and high places
Sniffing to the west, inquisitive bear heard it inside a winter’s lair,
Those dreams on fire from the storms of an autumn’s era
Born onto rocks that cannot be erased by anyone’s book of white pages
A time of struggle alone and hiding, soulless they died seedless
Diseased in winters that would freeze, they starved on wounded knees
Crawled into places that Ancestors stood alone in the dark protecting
Deliberative voices speak low, of how butterflies now emerge from cocoons of deep biding
Some are still wrapped in that darkness of no moon
And some rise ceaseless transforming for a new spring season
Freedom from tethered snares, transformed fetter freed into those that dare
A culture hidden does not stop growing in a cocoon, when the earth’s heart is still beating
One day emerges into the air of new knowledge stronger from the times in the lair
And all the broken pieces one day become the pieces of healing
Like that mother bear, who is more protective of her babies born after a winter of deep sleeping
And butterflies who emerge into freedom, on wings of colour, grace strength and beauty after cocooning
Freedom to not be poisoned or jailed in resistance to those mining the places we live with Natural Laws
Freedom for all voices to be heard in a deliberative law,
And Honouring those places our ancestors are buried, in Sacred and Customary Laws
Freedom from those rules that keep us tethered to another’s nether
From an adversarial system meant to punish and satisfy revenge
Rather then Holistically care about community a society with Deliberative, Customary and Positivistic Laws
Sovereign in our own laws and constitution that honour every voice in Deliberative laws
Armed to the bears to butterfly free us to the dream that recognizes where transformation begins
In laws that protect and heal rather then punish and retaliate.
LauraLee K. Harris
Dedicated to the 2010 young women at Rocklyn Academy in Meaford where this raw piece of wood began its journey of freedom.
"Transforming Indigenous Freedom" 24"x 48" Acrylic on Mahogany
