Presentation for Feminisms Conference

In Education there are two things which are required for Indigenous student success: a sense of identity rooted in community and culture, and a sense of identification within the school community.  In honour of that, I offer my most recent statement of self-identification:

Do I gain your trust in writing about myself? In situating myself? Probably not. I have never aspired to gaining trust. I have aspired to gaining respect for the ways in which I assemble things to be more than the sum of their parts – I am a synthesist, whether with images, as in graphic design, something I do as a graphic artist, as a member of a print production department for many years, as an academic with ideas, and as a storyteller with words.

My mother referred to me when I was very young as “a philosopher” because I was, quite literally crying into my soup at the age of 7 over my understanding of the concept of eternity, and the ways in which fundamentalist Christianity was not offering sufficiently functional ontological reasoning to cope with my understandings of time, space, science and the cosmos.

I have always understood that there are two (or more) distinct streams of thought in my head – one which understands that there are some things which can be organized, sorted and forced to happen a certain way, and some which just coalesce into being, and must be accepted with as much grace as one can muster. 

Being queer in this culture does not inspire trust.  I am not a “nice gay” – waiting to have a family and a white picket fence.  I am definitely the wrong kind of gay – the leather and chains, in your face with the radical feminists, cutting people’s balls off feminist, kind of gay.  At least, that’s where I come from. I still haven’t stopped carrying a knife and wearing steel toed boots, even if I do walk with crutches.  Being mixed-race in queer culture makes you an object (of desire).  I’m too white to fit into much of the black queer community, and my light skin isn’t quite white enough to pass as white. 

Last year I passed as nothing, trying to get through my undergraduate degree in Education, not talking about myself or my life, and barely communicating with anyone.   This year I started looking at why I couldn’t stay away from Indigenous studies.  I can’t stop talking to people about it, dreaming it, feeling it. 

I wake up in the morning, and I hear music in the sound of the tap dripping, in the snow falling, in the way the wind outside my window moves, and I finally understand.   I am hearing willow notes: “If you know how to be very quiet, and open your heart, then a tune will start singing within you.” (Sarv 2003)

Toomas Köömel explained in 1913 to folksong researchers visiting Rannu village, Viru-Nigula parish: "… each singer has their own tunes and sings to them..." You can learn the willow notes when you go to a tree, stone, river or spring, on your own and without talking to anyone, and ask them to teach you a tune. If you know how to be very quiet, and open your heart, then a tune will start singing within you. Sing along to it and give your thanks to the place where you found the tune.”

Being Estonian and Jamaican, both peoples historically subject to cultural and physical genocides, I am living my Indigeneity in diaspora, and using Eurocentric academia as a strange route to reclamation.  Not ideal perhaps, but it is what I have. 

Knowing vs. knowledge

Today again there were two distinct thoughts, although one came during  - I am uncomfortable with the terminology - ceremony, ritual, prayer, process - nothing fits, exactly, it is as though I am being led by the hand, or by the heart through, well, not through darkness exactly, but through a mist, and again, I know that it is going to be alright, even if that means that my definition of alright has to change again.

I've been considering that.  I've been fortunate for a number of years now, and life comes in cycles of feast and famine.  I have not had much, but I have had enough, and I need to be prepared for that to change.

So, first it was more difficult this time to clear my head, to let the sweetgrass burn, to think, and when I finally got there, I felt the  moment of peace, and that opportunity for connection.  It  opened up this ongoing dialogue that I have been having about the dichotomy between western thought, and knowledge, and this, whatever it is, that is happening here.  Just opened the door.

Then I closed with cedar, and what came out was thanks for having a body that works so well, which was surprising.  I do not feel as if it does most of the time, so it was a bit of a shock, but somehow that needed to be said, so I left it.

Later, driving into town, the first thought came to the fore again, and there has always been a part of me that knows when things "are right."  It doesn't make sense, and often goes against logical sense, goes against reason, practicality, planning, and common sense.  Sometimes there are things which need to get done despite the fact that there isn't time to do them, sometimes they need to get done, despite the fact that it seems as if there are not resources to do them.

Generally I can tell the difference between real things, and procrastination, bad reasons, stalling, fear, shame, hurt, and other things.  I don't always listen, but it is usually clear.  Burning sweetgrass has been helping me to listen.

What does this mean?

I don't know if I want to be a person from the 7th fire. I don't know if I am.  I am afraid. Of knowing. Of not knowing. Of things being real. Of things being my overactive imagination.

This morning I burned sweetgrass.

Two very strong thoughtways with it.

First, I had a little round carved wooden box Granny brought back from Hawai'i for me.  I used to burn incense in it, and use it to meditate.  It was ?before boarding school? So I was 13 or 14.  My mom found it and threw it out, as it was a) a fire hazard, and b) evil. 

The first Elder who taught me how to burn sweetgrass, and sage, L. - and how grateful I am for having that knowledge now.

I know this isn't my tradition.  The thing is, I don't have a spiritual tradition.  Estonian folk beliefs got lost. I don't know what the Indigenous beliefs are from the other side of my family. I know that the family was christian. That saddens me.

I am looking for meaning in dreams, in burning sweetgrass, in thoughts and prayer. It isn't something that makes sense to me, but it is something that "feels right". 

I can't understand this change in myself. It's so nebulous.

I read recently about Native students feeling a need to "leave their Indian selves outside" when going to school.  They were talking about the discrepancy between dispassionate knowledge, and personal knowing.

It really touched something in me.  Western knowledge has this deification of the impersonal observer, and the epistemology centers around distancing oneself from the knowledge.

Brain knowing, heart knowing.

this is interfering with my school. I had better get back to work.

This is valid work.

Clearing out the cobwebs

So, I need to empty out my head. Put things down somewhere so that I can get to work on funding. My brain is full of ideas and thoughts and things are roiling around.

I went to talk to the head of IS. I feel like such a fraud. I needed to be told that it was ok to look into this. I know it is ok, but I needed someone to tell me that I'm not some white girl looking for her Indian princess grandmother.

I don't think I am.  He said he would have pegged me as Métis.  Mixed.  I don't know. Ifeel like everything I have been listening to and reading seems to be coming together into some kind of greater understanding.

J said it would be difficult.

I said that I was not afraid of difficult things, I just needed to know that it was not a wrong path.

I'm terrified and freaked out by this. In the same way that I have been freaked out by most of the revelations of the past year. Thing is, they're not wrong.  I take them, sit with them, dream on them, and they've turned out to be right.  I don't have to want them, but they're true.

I think this one is too.

IT feels right. It makes sense.

The myth of living consciously

My more rational mind tries to spend time "living consciously". Thinking about things before doing them, and putting a great deal of thought into every action as if life can be planned and organized into compartments, and sorted neatly. I think that far better than living consciously would be a return to caring, except that caring is messy. Caring gets you involved in other people's business. Caring means that rather than being careful you mess up, are yourself, make mistakes, and learn from those in your immediate vicinity rather than those creating theories to explain the world. Caring is about getting into arguments about the things tht you are passionate about, and not being afraid to piss other people off. About finding yourself, and people like you. About queer space without allies, and about queer space with them too. There is a moon tonight. I am going to go and sit with her for a bit.

Ways of Knowing

I am taking this course on Indigenous Philosophies, and it is getting under my skin.

I am seeing pictures in my head as I read the text.  I am reading work by Dei - 'Revisiting The Question' - and it began with images of Finland, and Eesti, then northern Ontario, lakes and trees, and sky, and the feelings of belonging that are here.

Then, moving into passages about belonging and connection, images of walking through a dark forest, and seeing sparks of light, and knowing they were people, and animals, connected with little strings of light. It was unreal.

This is not how I think. I think in straight lines, and angles, and took this course on purpose because I knew it would be hard for me.  I am having to look up concepts, and look up vocabulary, and I wanted something that would challenge me, and push me.  That is certainly happening.

A Very Personal ?Faith?

People pray to a god, invoke it's name when they need something, are facing a complicated problem, or are in distress.  They call upon it in moments of bliss, meditate on it in times of happiness, and relate it's power to their happiness.


For me, I believe in the ties I have with the people around me, with my friends and family.  I call on them, whether by actually calling, or by invoking them in mental conversation.  I choose who to call, or think of, depending on the circumstance.


Building something: My Uncle, VanaIsa, or Lee

Knitting/Crocheting: My cousin or Aunt M
Being Elegant: Granny, Aunt F

Baking: Granny, mom
Travel, Adventure: Mom, J, K, T, F

Motorcycling: K
Cooking or art: Mom, Granny, VanaIsa

Being kind through pain: VanaIsa
Being brave and fabulous: P, F,
Being silly and smart: Jos, Car, Lau
Being techie: J, K, Andy

Being authentic: B, K, L


I never ask WWJD,
I ask WW?D, and I fill it in appropriately depending on the circumstance.



Sometimes I talk to ghosts
Sometimes I talk to the dead grandparents, at the cemetary, or at the lake.


Estonians used to have a kind of ancestor worship. I guess this is kind of like that, only it's not all people who are dead.


*I do know that it's not real.*

I don't care.


It provides a kind of comfort, and that's the point, really. I do, however, think it is important to understand, and not lose sight of the fact that it is not, in fact, real.  These are people, yes, but in the moment that I am imagining them there, caring about me and helping me, it is myself doing whatever it is, not them.

It may be, in fact, due to their help and tutelage that I am able to do it, but it does not negate the reality that I am merely tricking my mind.


Should I ever lose sight of the fact that this is not real, I will have become delusional.


Religion/faith is, therefore, either:
people refusing to understand the things they take comfort in, and draw hope from
people engaged in singular or mass delusion
people lying to themselves and/or each other


I can respect people who admit that they believe things in order to be comforted, provided that they understand the inherent falsity of such an action. 


I think that people need to draw comfort from somewhere.  One has a life philosophy, of some kind, and within that, there is a need for sustaining faith in something, be it science, knowledge, language, relationships, nature, the inherent decency of humankind, cats, or one or more deities. 


I don't know why that understanding is so important to me. 

On the decline of civilization, or the death of “Supergirl”

As made evident by the box on my living room floor

There’s a box on my living room floor. It has been there for several weeks. Well, if I am being honest, it has been there for several months, and, to me, it represents the decline of civilization as I know it.

The box was originally a bus parcel from my Mother, full of oranges and tea, and other goodies, in the winter, when things were at their dreariest, and then has been waiting to be filled with filing to go into storage.  In the meantime it has become a plaything for the cat, who will no doubt miss it when it is full.

But the point is, that it is still there, lying on its side, and regarding me balefully me, as it were, with its gaping maw waiting to be filled,   reminding me of yet another of the things which I have hitherto failed to accomplish.  Filing is not particularly entertaining. It is not particularly time-sensitive, and it is not particularly rewarding, at least not until the job is completed, and so it is easy to fall into the belief that it is sheer prevarication that has caused me to fail to complete this evenings worth of work.

Clearly I have spent evenings on the sofa, apparently not otherwise engaged. Also, to, I have spent time in a reverie, or pondering, or sleeping when I could have been more usefully occupied.  I have enjoyed television programmes, evenings reading and listening to music, watching movies, sewing, crocheting, or doing other needlework, and all while this damned box, and other projects of its ilk lie unattended about my home.

Why this disarray?

Well, quite simply, I have a chronic illness. Once, I was supergirl, and could manage to work, see friends, do the filing, maintain the cleanliness and order of a home, and still have time for hobbies.  No longer.  With a limited supply of energy at my command, and a constant douleur, I must choose more wisely where to spend my energy, and rest whenever the pain becomes too much.  In order to keep my spirits up, a percentage of my energy simply must go into seeing friends, and doing things which I enjoy, and that does, rather unfortunately, leave less time for the filing boxes of the world.

I am slowly coming to terms with the death of supergirl. As I said, she was someone I quite enjoyed being, and it has been difficult not to castigate myself too harshly for not being her anymore. I have had to resign myself to the certain knowledge that things are not all going to get done, and that my choice is to know that in advance, and work within it, or to chafe against it, , and have the choice of what remains undone taken from me as I fall exhausted far before the finish line I have set. I fail often, and the fall is hard. 

The chasm between my hopes and expectations of myself and my endurance is wide and deep.  Friends and family do help to bridge it, but it is still difficult for me to comprehend that these twisted strands of love are not the highway I so desire, particularly when I am frustrated with my shortcomings.   I wish for something to enable me to continue as I was, even if with the hands of others.   Instead, there are these spun traceries, each leading to a single objective.

Here, I am supposed to say, that because of their fragility, and their wondrous strength, these fine threads make the accomplishment so much more precious to me, than if it was more easily won.  I have not found it so.  Adversity, sadly, is not so wondrous when one is living it.  It may breed fantastic courage once overcome, but in the moment, it is merely wearying, painful, frustrating, heartbreaking, and the cause of much despair for the one facing it, and for those nearest and dearest as well.

I am most grateful for all who have helped me, and I would not be without the love of friends and  family, both blood and chosen, without whom I would not be here. 

However, were I to be offered a choice of not having to endure this illness I would not choose to take it on.  Save, solely, were it to be able to spare someone I love from having to endure it. Then, gladly.  

Life takes the turns it does, and this is mine.