Sky Woman’s teachings about transformation and action
Prince George, BC
I’m in Prince George again, in the middle of a week of all kinds of work. Today is day two of an Open Space meeting with a group called Communities Against Sexual Exploitation of Youth (CASEY). CASEY is wrapping up a year long project by using OST to connect people and ideas to community based action on these issues.
The theme for the gathering is “Lanterns of Hope” and indeed after the action planning today, there is a lantern making workshop which will precede a nighttime walk through an inner city neighbourhood to literally and figuratively bring light and hope to these dark parts of the city.
This morning there are thirty people working on six projects to talk their work out of the room. Thirty people showing up on a Saturday morning to create community based action around these issues is actually quite a feat. Despite that however, one of the organizers is struggling with expectations that more people would see this issue as important. In the large room next to where we are working, dozens of families are packing into the Prince George ATV and Motorcycle show. Our thirty participants provide an interesting contrast to that.
To answer the question of “what does it mean that only thirty people have shown up” I began this morning by telling the part of the Ojibway creation story where Giizhigokwe – Sky Woman – falls to earth and comes to rest on the back of a turtle. The earth at this time was covered by water, and the animals had no idea how to create a place where Giizhigokwe could give birth to her twins, the children who would be known as Anishnabe – the original beings. Giizhigokwe asked them to find one of them to swim to the bottom of the ocean and bring back some soil from which a new world could be created. The animals all tried without success, but the muskrat, the least of all of them, finally pulled off the feat and returned to the turtle’s back with a small morsel of soil in his tiny paw. Giizhigokwe spreads the soil around the turtle shell, blows into it and the world comes to life.
There are five key teachings from this story that apply to the idea that “whoever comes is the right people” and that numbers don’t matter for action:
- The world is created collaboratively. These animals worked with each other and Spirit, in the guise of Giizhigokwe, to create the world in which humans can be born.
- The muskrat – the smallest and least of all the animals – was the one that got the soil and created the transformation. We can never discount anyone’s contribution to transformative moments.
- Transformation only requires the smallest seed, or William Blake “world in a grain of sand.” Seeds contain the potential and the map for the growth of the whole plant. Douglas-firs, which can grow to 350 feet are pollinated by dust that is microscopic. The smallest actions, when allowed to unfold in all of their potential, change everything.
- The animals had no story about the bottom of the ocean. When Giizhigokwe tells them to find the soil at the bottom, they believe her even though they have no reason to. And when they can’t find the bottom, Giizhigokwe continues to hold faith and trust in them that they can do it, inspiring the muskrat to almost kill himself in service of the project. When it looked like everyone would give up, the story that Giizhigokwe held for all them propelled them forward. This is holding space, trusting in the emergence of transformation even when it seems like a remote possibility.
- Finding the seed is not easy work. The muskrat almost dies in looking for that soil. Tremendous sacrifice is required to find the smallest things, but those things are worth almost dying for if it means that new worlds can be born from the effort.
This is a story that defines in many ways my practice of working with groups that are in tough and complex situations for which the transformative moments seem so far out of reach. Simply playing the role of Giizhigokwe – holding space and trusting the story that change will happen – is an important role which creates a container in which all of this work suddenly takes on meaning. But it’s not easy, and that’s a key thing top remember. Transformation comes at a tremendous price. Cracking open the world that we create for ourselves to find a better future always costs something, and one must be prepared for this work if one’s contribution is to be sustainable.
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