A Time of Change and Healing

A friend of ours who works in the field of education called us after reading our blogs last week.  She was feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of bullying.  It was bringing up memories from her own childhood, and that brought her to tears.

When you’re reading about a topic (such as bullying) and you begin to have recall experiences associated with emotion – sadness, anger, depression, helplessness or despair – it can be a gift. It means you have been carrying past experiences in your cellular memory, and are now releasing them. It means you can put things in perspective, and have the opportunity to move forward in a lighter and more loving way.

This is a time of change and healing. As children, many of us weren’t protected by the adults who loved us in our lives. That does not mean they didn’t love us. As adults, we have the power to protect our children, and the power to teach them to protect each other.. That is a beautiful thing.

Gakina-awiiya (We Are All Related),

Chief Robert and Terri Lynn TallTree
www.thetalltrees.com

“Teach us love, compassion and honor…that we may heal the Earth, and heal each other.”   – Ojibwe prayer

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Following the Bent of your Nature

A big “miigwech” (thank you) to Dianne in Oregon for her email today, asking us to expand on a statement we made “the key is to always follow the bent of your nature, and you will find peace and happiness.” She said she once heard a person explain that in the Bible where it says “raise up a child in the way it should go,” the interpretation of the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament is, “raise up a child in the way he is bent.” This is what she had to say about it: “The meaning being that we should accept individual personality and characteristics of each child, which was given to them by the Creator and use those characteristics to the child’s benefit and well being rather than changing them because we may think they are offensive or disruptive. If we try to change the nature of a child and want them to be someone they are not, they will be unhappy.”

That’s great! It reminds me of the movie about Tina Turner. I’ll always remember the opening, where she’s a little girl singing in church and no matter how hard they try to make her stop, she just has to sing with all her heart. I am grateful that she didn’t get that squelched out of her. She just found her voice and never stopped using it. Now that takes courage.

Whatever your “voice” is, find it. Follow the bent of your nature. And no matter what anyone says to discourage or disempower you, use the gifts you were born with to make the world a better place. That’s what we’re all here for. 

Gakina-awiiya (We Are All Related)

Robert & Terri Lynn TallTree

“Teach us love, compassion and honor…that we may heal the Earth, and heal each other.”   – Ojibwe prayer

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Wonder

Who are these people? That’s a question we saw floating around the ‘net about us today. Kind of made us smile…

That’s the best thing about being young. Not just young, even young at heart. There’s a natural sense of wonder…curiousity…that always pulls you forward. That’s a beautiful thing. It’s what we love most about being around children. They’re not afraid to just ask you straight up – there’s no pretense to it. Gotta love that!

It’s gotten really hard to trust that people are real today. There’s so many people pretending to be someone or something they’re not, just so they can feel like they “fit” somewhere. We knew a guy who created a whole “alter ego” on the internet. Like who he was just wasn’t good enough. That’s pretty sad. Mother Theresa once said, “The greatest disease on the planet is loneliness.”

And there have been many who have taken what doesn’t belong to them. There’s alot of unresolved grief from that. That kind of hurt takes a long time to heal. And it’s hard to heal a wound that keeps getting scratched open over and over again.

We are so blessed. We have the support of our family and in our culture, that’s so important. Wherever we go, before we speak we lay down a hand woven rug we were gifted from our clan matriarch, Akwagiishnaquay (Robert’s mother). She gave us permission to go out and speak about the things we share…and she told us to take that rug and stand on it, so that no matter where we are we will always know that we are not alone, that we are being held up by our family and our ancestors. Niishin…it is good!

So if you’re wondering about who we are and where we’re coming from (aniin di wayn jih bayan), we welcome you to come on in.  This internet “technology” is pretty new to us, so please be patient. We are doing the best that we can. From the generosity of others, we’ve had a site up for many years, but only recently started sending out messages and connecting with the world this way. But we’ve been walking this road for a long, long time – and we are grateful to our elders who have given us permission to share their wisdom with the world. Miigwech (Thank you)

Nin dinaway maganug (To All My Relations) Gigawaabamin miinawa (See you later)

PS (our friends call us “Trees”)

www.thetalltrees.com

“Teach us love, compassion and honor…that we may heal the Earth and heal each other.” ` Ojibwe prayer

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