DAKOTA EAGLEWOMAN
Dakota Eaglewomen is from the Ojibwa Nation. After 17 years with the airlines, she took a buy out from them and spent 10 years in the “art scene”. Then she ended up working inside the prison system. She sits on the Justice Domain for CUAI, as well as, work with the females coming out of the federal system through E-Fry. She also goes into some of the group homes in Calgary with the youth. In addition, she do work with the Aboriginal Youth Restorative Justice Committee with Native Counseling Services
Who was your inspiration when you were growing up?
My maternal grandmother and my great grandmother. They didn’t have their husbands. They were very strong and independent women. They both really grounded me. My mom’s mom, "my kookum" would teach me about the plants and the berries and until this day I love that. My great grandmother would make things. She use to take my mom’s clothes and take them apart. She would make matching outfits for me and my dolls out of my mom’s old dresses. So the creativity is from her. There is always something you can do with something.
What issues did you deal with as a young person that you see young people dealing with today?
My mom was a Native woman and my father was a French-German mix and I was the only girl and I was the oldest. I had four younger brothers. When I was eight years old, my mom left. That day my dad came home from work and said, “You are now the mom.” I kind of stood at attention and I knew nothing about being a mom but you do what you see the adults doing. The cooking, cleaning, babysitting, laundry and making sure my brothers were all accounted for. I come from a single parent home. In those days, the early sixties it was unheard for the children to go with their father. So, I shudder to think what went on in the court room that day they decided whom had custody of my brothers and me. I have memories myself that are just absolutely nuts.
My whole life I had this inner struggle that I didn’t fit in. When I was a little girl people would say, “oh what a cute little Indian girl.” Then my relatives would grab me by the shoulders and say, “Oh no, she’s not Indian.” Off I’d go down the street, trying to be invisible. All these issues, I share with the young ones that are coming now. They don’t know if they are coming or going. And how to go about anything.
I am grateful because I had eight years with my mom, so I knew how to cook and clean and do the dishes. My childhood was bizarre. There was always fighting. We had no dishes in our house because they didn’t last. We had to use plastic plates and forks. So trying to be a grounded individual coming out of an environment like that, it doesn’t work. You grow up thinking this is normal only to realize it is the furthest thing from normal and wonder why the world is hard. If you don’t know any survival tools besides, angry hatred and rage how do you make it out there… you can’t. Working with young offenders I am seeing the results of that. For me, I had a lot of protection I just never got caught. The only difference between me and those kids is I never got caught. It certainly wasn’t like I didn’t do it.
What is the role of a leader in the community?
A leader in the community is someone who can hold themselves up for inspection. Ro not be ashamed anymore or embarrassed. We all have a history. Until we get our pitchforks out and start dealing with that “Shit pile” that we all drag around with us, how do you do it? If you can’t stand there as an example and be honest of what you have gone through and show yourself that if I did it, you can do it. And if you want help, just ask. That is something I really try to drill into the young people I work with, just ask. We have come so far away from asking. I racked my brain to come up with something to help them remember to ask. This is what I came up with: A-Answers, S- serve and K-knowledge. Then we complete our circle, knowledge, serves all.
What role should traditions and culture have in the lives of our First Nations youth both in a rural and urban setting?
The very first thing is the seven sacred teachings, courage, love, respect, humility, wisdom, honesty and truth. It is similar to the Catholic Church’s the Ten Commandments. What we need is for every new life, all human beings coming in to the world can be taught these seven teachings. We need these tools to help build a solid foundation to build your house upon for the rest of your life. These teaching are just the beginning. Our culture can really help keep us humble. We are the low ones on the totem pole. The plant kingdom can live without the animal kingdom and without the human kingdom. The animal kingdom cannot live without the plant kingdom but they can live without the human beings. Then the humans come along and we can’t live without the plant or the animal. Humans have this arrogance about us. We need to be humble, we need to realize what gives us life is this earth and she shares with everybody equally.
From there when we have struggles in our lives and we are having rough times within. Yes, go sweat; go do the ceremonies because they do help. That is what connects us with the spirit more and brings us back down again to the earth where we need to be connected to.
Mind you in this day and age we also as far as I am concerned we need to understand what the new buffalo is for our people, that is education. Without that we are going to continue floundering on the Reserves. Kids are going to come off the Reserves; there is no jobs, no life out there these days
What advice would you give to young athletes and potential leaders in the communities?
Stay focused. Creator is going to temp you with so many things that are going to look really interesting. They are going to catch your attention and put a sparkle in your eye for a minute but it is kind of like the crow going after those shinning things, the tarnish fast. So stay focused on what you are doing.
If you are an athlete stay focused on your end goal. Keep your body fit. Yes, it is hard there is going to be a lot of people trying to get you off your path. That is Creator testing. Those are challenges. Look at it as a challenge and rise above it. That just makes us stronger and it helps us in our focus and to achieve our goals. You have to feed every part of your being on the journey. So as athletes, yes you have to look after your body but you also have to feed your mind and feed you spirit. Make sure you are balanced. Without that balance the body can go astray just like anything else.
If you had one message to send to the Aboriginal community in North America, what would it be?
I would love for each and every one of us to reach out and touch one another; to talk to each other, to share our experiences, to connect with one another, to share the tears, the share the sorrow, and the healing. Then we can heal as a group. There is so much comfort in that, knowing you are not the only one. We can encourage one another and focus on moving forward together in a good way.
What challenges did you have to overcome to be where you are today?
Well I bolted it when I was seventeen. I didn’t have enough credits to get my high school degree. I was a floater. I floated all over North America with my thumb. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was looking for. All I knew at the time was I had to get out of where I was. All I know at the time was I had to get out of where I was. I knew In order for me to survive I couldn’t stay connected to the craziness that I grew up in. I know in my guts, I had. So, I travelled all over North America. When I needed a few bucks in my pockets I would waitress. I would see a sign somewhere, grab a pair of shoes, and off I’d go.
I got hugely into the drug culture in my teens. It is weird to look back at it all. The bikers were my neighbors when I was four or five years old they lived a few doors down. I was just memorized by them. I would sit on my steps and I would watch all these big burley guys on their porch with their big machines. I would just stare at them. Finally one day someone asked me my name and I kept visiting. Then they started sending me to run errands. I would go get smokes for them, or this or that. Back in that day you could buy anything as a kid. I got to be like a little sister to them. So, I was fortunate in that respect I didn’t have to get initiated in and all the rest like they treated their women. I am so thankful for that to this day. I don’t think I would have taken it. I probably would have beaten one of them up.
So they took me as a little sister. They would do anything, always looking out for me and asking me, “Do you need any help? Do you need anything?” So when I got to be a teenager I needed money and I started dealing. Someone’s got to support the habit. I wasn’t one of those girly girls that could go and get a boyfriend to just pay for my stuff. I was really independent at that point. So I got lost in the drug culture. I got really lost into it. I could talk for days about some of the stories of that non-sense. Then one day I went to Safeway and the computer beeped. It was the first time a computer was doing my groceries. Something clicked in my brain. I was terrified of being left behind. If the computer is doing my groceries and I don’t know anything about a computer I am going to be in a mountain of caca really fast. So I went back to school. I took a youth development course up in Edmonton at Gran Quinn to work with juvenile delinquents they called them in those days.
When I was done with school the government was doing cut backs and the first people to get funding cuts were the juvenile delinquents. So it was volunteer or nothing. I did that for a while but then I needed money. I was married to a guy by then.
I had looked after my body, I had always fed my mind because I loved to learn, and my spirit I had been feeding but my emotional sludge was thick. All I can say is thank-god it was a good therapist because I probably would have gotten turned off by therapy. I realized I had to go buy a pitch fork because my pile of crap was so big. Thankfully through it all I learned that that pile of crap can be worked with my pitch fork and if you give it some water, heat, air and TLC it actually can turn into compose for the garden that is within each and every one of us, the spark that is inside of all our heart. Once I learned my crap pile inside me can be transferred into compose for the garden that is me, everything just started going for me.
My whole life has been leading me to this place, to this job working with youth in the criminal justice sector I just knew that I had come full circle. This is how I found my job at Remand. I had come full circle. It is a lot of hard work and you have to ask yourself, am I worth it or not. The question really is, Am I worth it. We are taking from a third party. Do I want this enough in my life? Do I want to be calm and feel some gentleness in my life? The young people know they can tell me anything. I can use my experience to have more perspective on what is going on in their lives.
I just realized right then I had come full circle and was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was a lot of hard work, you have to decide if you are worth it or not. The question really is, “Am I worth it?” We get so use to the referring to ourselves as you, but we need to get rid of the third party perspective. We need to transfer the you to I. Do I matter enough? Do I want this for my life? Do I want to be happy; do I want to be calm, and to feel some gentleness in my own being? Do I want to have some peace of mind finally? It brought me full circle finally. It was kind of crazy. There I am at remand and I fit in like a dirty circle.
The young offenders know I am not going to judge them. I can use my experience to give them more perspective of what they are going through. What’s coming next in their feelings if they are in that place and hopefully shed some light on them. This worked for me; maybe it will work for you. I let them open their own minds to the possibilities. It’s up to them if they want to open that door. I just let them know I am there. I will reach my hand out to them if they just ask me. Answers serve knowledge, knowledge serves all.
One time, my dad gave my mother his hunting rifle and said “Just go out there and get it over with would you.” He dragged her out to the back yard and waited for her to shoot that gun at her head. It was just bizarre stuff.
So single family units, terrible abuse, and violence. The motto was beat it out of them or beat it into them. There was no hugging, there was no “way to go”, “oh my god you got an A again in school, that’s excellent” So those issues in it of themselves. If you don’t have a solid foundation in which to build the house you are going to flounder until something clicks inside of you. Maybe you see something, hear somebody say something or someone does something kind to you and your questioning it for so long. The first thing you want to say is, “What do you want from me.” Because no one does anything with-out paying a price.
There was a lot of mistrust, suspicions, and problems with self-identity. I was raised white and I didn’t know I was Native until my grandmother passed. I got my hands on her journal. My mom had these diaries for a long time and I didn’t even know about them. I was in my adulthood and she called me one day. I came right over and grabbed everything. Those diaries, they were mind boggling to read them but as soon as I got to the point of who she was, I knew exactly of who I was.
We don’t know so we have to ask and it’s okay to ask. It’s how people learn. We don’t have those examples in front of us on a daily basis to watch. So we have to learn how to ask and expect to be frustrated because you have to be practicing everything. Just like we practice walking and talking.
So a leader has to be honest, it is enormous. Be able to stand up and share the good, bad and ugly. Be able to admit you don’t know everything. Be able to admit, that yes I make mistakes as a human being and if I stop learning from my mistakes, nudge me in my shoulder to remind me, because I am human to.
You have to be non-judgmental, diplomatic, compassionate, understanding, look at the whole picture, the whole being. Not just the behavior or words. A leader has to have faith in humanity.
What is your vision for your community?
My vision for my community that I have had for many years is let’s get rid of segregation inside the jails and outside the jails, please! If we can’t do anything else let’s at least learn how to be friends. We have the same experience; we all have the same history, the same sickness within ourselves. We talk about racism but we are our own worst enemies when it comes to this stuff. On December 21, 2012 the time when everyone was waiting for the big shift in the planet, I watched the news that day and I realized what it was that we have been waiting for. It was the first time in our history as First Nations peoples ever where every single tribe in this country came together under one umbrella for one cause. Not just for one another but for humanity and that was Idle No More. I would like to see more movements like that for our community. I was sourly disappointed afterwards a month later not even we have big guys in headdresses bumping chests. Come on, that was such an opportunity and It is not completely passed yet. I pray and pray every day that we can all come together as one peoples and teach the rest. We were given the job in the beginning of time to look after mother earth. This is the time see needs it more than ever before. So as First Nations people let’s put all this business aside, come together, bring our knowledge about looking after the earth, do it and others will follow. Other people are desperate for this information and desperate for things to change. They just need somebody to take the first step, and that is just humanity.
I hope that each Indigenous person brings this seed of connection back to their reserves in Alberta and plants this concept to help them open up to their neighbors to the ones down south, the ones up north and the ones east and west. That’s what I hope; we can be one because there is power in numbers.
Why is education important for our young people and their communities both as athletes and leaders?
Education now in 2013 is the new buffalo, it’s that simple. Back in the day the buffalo gave us every single thing we needed to live a good life. Now a day with all this technology and all this business, these concrete jungles we cannot survive in them knowing how to trap and skin a rabbit. The only way we can get in here and make positive change from within is through an education.
Education you need it in order to survive in the world, to move ahead in life, and to make that positive change from within society we have to know how it works. Without that education how are we going to know how things are connected and know where to go to be that voice for tomorrow's change.
There is nothing wrong with having your foot in both worlds. In fact, we have an advantage to have to have an education and to be able to go back into the bush and have our ceremonies. That is even more balanced. It is not going anywhere, we have spent a couple hundred years trying to get rid of it but we have to adapt. Unfortunately, it is just the heart of the beasts.
When I was 17 years old, just before I left home for good, I was sitting up at the lake, sitting on dock and I was just depressed about the world and how people treat each other. This fellow came down and sat on the dock and started talking to me, he was about 20 years older than me. He got me talking about what was going on and I shared with him, “this world is a freaking nightmare and people are mental. All I want to do is go hide in the bush and live my life by myself with the animals. He looked at me and said, “You would probably be happier that way but I have a question for you. If you went away into the mountains like that, into seclusion nothing would ever change would it? I am going to invite you to think about what about if you stuck around and tried to make a change from inside the system.” My whole brain exploded at the end of that deck and that stuck with me for my whole life. That is when I realized too if enough of us want that change and we start talking to each other about it we can get organized. So I stayed in the cities and towns. I never did skin that rabbit yet. Well, I skinned him but not trapped him.
Because of my history I picked up some guy that didn’t have two cents to rub together and I am like, “its okay honey, I have some money, and I’ll pay.” Like an idiot but you live, you learn. Thank god I learned because it’s all about the balance. Even in those relationships. Anyways, I had a couple of crazy relationships and I got a college education. Then I got my dream job working with the airlines. I thought I had died and gone to heaven because I had always wanted to travel. I ended up coming to Calgary in 1990. It is only twenty three years ago but so much has happened in 23 years it’s mind boggling.
My biological mother came for a visit with her boyfriend. She is a hard core alcoholic and has been since forever. They came to the city and I was at work on a Saturday. They called over to my work and I told them I would come meet up with them after. Then my mom called and you could tell she was in a little twist. “Well you will never guess what has happened to me.” I thought, dare I even ask. Well her boyfriend had left her in the hotel and had taken all her clothes. I asked her, “Well is the hotel paid for” and she said, “I don’t know”. I was like, “Okay, I will see if I can get off a little earlier.” I got off the phone call and shortly after my supervisor came over to me and took me to her office. She said, “What the heck is wrong with you.” I thought I was hiding it pretty good because I thought I was a good actress, you grow up thinking you are a good actress but it was catching up to me. I gave her a reader’s digest. My mom is having a problem at a hotel and I need to go get her. I went and picked up my mom and brought her to my basement suite. The first thing she wants when she gets in the door is alcohol. I was never a drinker, because when I saw her growing up I never wanted to be that, mind you I was a hard core addict anyway. I was like no, I don’t have any booze. We were just chatting for a while.
Finally, I looked at her and I was like “what is it you want to do?” She responded and said, “Well I think I am going to go back to BC and get my things and move back here and live with you with you.” Needless to say my brain oozed out of my ears that day. I couldn’t get her back to the greyhound bus stops fast enough back to BC. Then I had a meltdown. Nothing was fitting anymore. On one hand I was thinking, “Mom you left me when I was eight and now you want me to look after you?”
A part of my big question was, “Hold it, you're my mom but you left us when I was eight. So I had to be my brother’s mom when I really wasn’t a mom and now here you are all these years later, you want me to look after you?” it just wasn’t jiving anymore. It sent me around the bend and it was the first time I found myself in therapy for my brain.
What values and teaching stand out to you from the Medicine Wheel and Circle of Courage?
The Medicine Wheel, I teach it inside and outside of jail. I can’t stress enough the four quadrants. Did we learn to walk over night? Did we learn to talk over night? We are not going to learn to change overnight or learn new habits overnight. We are creatures of habit just like every other life form on this planet. We have to practice. I know for myself frustration and angry, oh my god. Thankfully I have a stubborn streak and I keep at it. With the Medicine Wheel, as a reminder okay I have gone from infant to youth to adult and then I slip, so I go back to youth because I need to practice something more. You can apply the medicine wheel to all parts of your life.
It combines all of the quadrants, all of the moons, all the clans. When you get familiar with your own Medicine Wheel, you can work it on a daily basis. Whatever stone or position catches your eye that day give it attention give it energy.
Circle of Courage, you have to be courageous. We have always had to be courageous but now in this day we need to be more courageous than before then back in the day. Back in the day we knew what a bear or cougar would do but in this concrete jungle we are living in we don’t know what is around the corner or in that building. A saying that really has helped guide me in life is, “To fear is to fail. To dare is to do. So keep that courage going. Don’t let that fear take over because it will. We don’t realize it is fear. We let it start running with us, and let it drive our car, which is our mind. We then end up in all these crazy places and it creates insecurities and madness in our minds.
So, ask yourself, “Am I fearing right now or daring myself to try something new. You try something new and fall over and you get right back up and try it again because like anything else we have to practice. It all comes back to that one thing, keep practicing, stay focused, keep trying don’t give up? Have the courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And if you are going to do it and be focused on getting healthy in a good way, I don’t care what avenues of life we are talking about you need to have that courage. You are going to fail at times in life and have weak moments when you don’t even trust your own mind So you have to be courageous and overcome own r worst enemies which is often ourselves.
