Hopefully these posts show some appreciation but also they're an opportunity to bring you along for the journey. I know I make mistakes as I attempt to convey ideas and beliefs I know little about but the disrespect of not responding in a conversation is an even greater wrong. I hope my First Nations friends will correct me. I urge you to reach out too.
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| The Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health |
I have always been a great admirer of Cardinal's work. My boys and I used to while away a cold winter's day in the bright, inviting Children's Museum within the Museum of Civilization. Douglas Cardinal's designs evoke nature -- undulating curves, uneven surfaces and textured sandstone. If you ever have an opportunity to visit the beautiful Wabano Centre, do it! If a building could spontaneously heal us, it's this one. And it's filled with inspiring First Nations, Inuit and Metis art from across the country. Dr. Cardinal will be turning eighty soon and a big party is being planned to help finance the construction of an indigenous centre, Circle of All Nations, at Asinabka (Victoria Island). Let's be there to support this great endeavour.
Chief Whiteduck spoke about our connection to the land and I hope this post winds up there too. European and First Nations peoples have such different views of land, nature ... and self.
Who am I? It's a question teens often ask as they struggle for a place in the adult world but it's also a question we adults should ask more often. As environmental and climate crises increasingly threaten our world, questions of identity and conviction become important.
Self in the European way of thinking is a distinct entity, apart from land and nature. It is bounded, separate and seen as self-sufficient. In the biblical sense, man has dominion over God's earthly creation and we are its master. In the economic and political spheres, I is the basic unit of agency, the actor in these dramas. For most Western people, this version of I appears to be self-evident and because of this, there isn't any other way of seeing self that isn't considered to be nonsense or wrong.
What if were to tell you that no less a figure than the great Albert Einstein saw self differently?
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.*While post-modern philosophy challenges this egocentric notion of self, many people in Western countries still believe it. But the Cartesian idea of separation of mind (self) and body will be generally understood to be erroneous someday in much the same way we no longer believe the earth to be the centre of the solar system.
Perhaps what I don't need to tell you is that modern science is still trying to catch up with Einstein. A short book that examines the biological paradox of physical boundaries and perhaps even self is My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Taylor, a 37 year-old Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, suffered a massive stroke in 1996. From the perspective of a scientist who specializes in the study of the brain, Dr. Taylor came back from the stroke to tell us what she observed during her recovery.
One of Dr. Taylor's more profound observations is that when the posterior parietal gyrus was shut down in the left hemisphere of her brain due to the stroke, her sense of physical boundaries was turned off. Essentially without a sense of boundary between skin and air, Dr. Taylor experienced a oneness with nature that she describes as very pleasurable. The question is did this shutdown of the posterior parietal gyrus also cause Dr. Taylor to lose her sense of self. Taylor does say that in the course of her recovery, the pleasure of this state was so intense that it took some effort to bring herself back.
Sometimes I try to imagine what Dr. Taylor might have felt as I float in my quiet lake at sunset. As the chatter of my mind temporarily ceases, I experience a deep appreciation for my surroundings and a sense of tranquility.
I assume Dr. Taylor is accurately describing the situation -- a distinct area within the brain that defines boundaries and perhaps self. But I also recognize that I am likely simplifying a complex phenomenon. Still there must have been an evolutionary advantage to awareness of self-boundaries and on the surface of it, it appears to be obvious. An organism needs a way to protect its integrity from injury and attack. Without this sense of boundary, we may see ourselves as one with the lion that is about to attack, which is not exactly a state of mind conducive to survival.
I suppose a similar question could be asked of the lion; does it simply have a sense of boundary or is it something more? I would guess that with similarities in brain structure, it probably does although it's likely fairly different from ours. Still from the perspective of a cat lover and former cat owner, there is no mistaking that cats have an overblown sense of self but dogs, on the other hand ... .
First Nations people have a sense of self that is moderated by philosophies, cultures and religious beliefs different from Western thinking. First Nations people talk not just about their connections to children, parents and perhaps grandparents but to seven generations. They also speak about connections to the land and nature in a similar way and about how all of creation is inter-connected.
Last Saturday, Grand-Chief Alice Jerome spoke about her struggle to keep her language while in a residential school. She explained that her Algonquin language is important as it gives her an ability to freely express concepts not readily available in other languages. For example, the words "open" and "life" are similar in Algonquin and they convey the idea that life is a state of openness to one's surroundings or openness toward the world.
I have come to believe that First Nations people have much to teach us ... and frankly if we are to survive, these are lessons we will have to learn. Humanity is coming to a crossroads -- either we come together to live in harmony with each other, the land and nature or we will all perish. And living in harmony means understanding that we are an intrinsic part of nature.
In this journey, I have been amazed by the time and patience Aboriginal people have given me and those around me. Still the ultimate question for us as Westerners remains do we have the humility and selflessness to truly listen, learn and change our practices. Do we have the desire to also help build bridges of understanding? For as Douglas Cardinal says, "We have the power to destroy this whole planet. We have to learn to be responsible for our acts."
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions only.
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