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| Along the Dock Catherine Al-Meten |
"To give voice to one’s identity, it is necessary to spend time listening to the spaces between what you understand about yourself, and what you have been told about who you are. For the most part our lives have been about responding to the demands of those voices around us. We listen and are told what we need to know by our families, and as we grow, the external influences expand to include friends, acquaintances, education, and the work we do. As we mature, we form partnerships and begin our own families. Throughout our lives, we can find ourselves responding to the external needs of our lives at the exclusion of the inner yearnings we have. Even in our relationships, we seem to long to discover those aspects of ourselves that we miss. Sometimes we are disappointed in the search; other times we are able to connect to something that allows our own voices to emerge. " (Catherine Al-Meten)
This quote came to me during the time I was beginning my work on giving voice to that part of my own identity that had been hidden from me. While deciding what my doctoral work would focus on, I was encouraged to go deeper into the exploration of my own family's history and the connections that were alive within me, that had not been explored. My mixed indigenous ancestry was affected, like many others in this region, by the system of adopting out native children. The adopting out system, along with the boarding school system, were two ways that children from tribes and clans that live up and down the rivers, streams, and coasts of the Pacific Northwest were rounded up and shipped, by barge, many across the dangerous bar at the mouth of the river, upriver to orphanages and boarding schools. Children were strpped of their names, culture, language, had their hair cut, and were forbidden from speaking their languages, practicing their traditions, and most horribly, made to feel ashamed of their indigenous identity. For many years, laws treated indigenous peoples as less than human and put restrictions on native people, keeping them from marrying, holding jobs, having access to education, and owning property.
All the legal and social restrictions were bad enough, but worse, in many ways it seems to me, was the restiction many of the adopted families inflicted on the children who were taught that their dreams were evil, their imaginations and love of the natural world was satanic or pagan, and that all that the dominant culture considered beautiful, good, or right, lay outside the access to one with mixed or indigenous heritage. Over the years, listeneng to those who have told me of their own experiences as adopted out indigenous children, or of the experiences of grandparents, parents, and other relatives. The familiar experiences of abuse, forced religious conversion, verbal and physical abuse, and most often, the complete denial of the person's authentic heritage and identity. This experience is in no way limited to indigenous or mixed indigenous people. For me, this is how I entered the journey to discover the secrets, the shame, the mysteries, and the dead ends to discovering the truth about my own family history. This story is common among many who have been taken from their families, or who have been cut off from their cultural heritage.
Why am I writing about it today? Because the wounded spirit of one who seeks to connect with and discover who they are,to discover their life purpose and to answer the call of their soul, requires that we go deeper into knowing who we are. Sometimes that journey is focused externally; other times it arises from within. For years this has been a singular journey that helps me not only find myself, but also to make the connection with all humans who carry the stories, traditions, experiences, conflicts, challenges, and questions with them from one generation to the next. Currently, I am using my photography and narrative and storytelling skills in creating a project of giving voice and vision to some of what life is like for many of us who live along the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Not only looking to the past to bring the stories to life but also to connect to those living now as a link between past, present and future generations.
What ways do we seek to discover our identity? This changes at each stage of life. Identity is revealed wherever we are in whatever we are doing. We learn through our dreams. We learn thorugh our spiritual struggles and practices. We learn about ourselves by quieting ourselves long enough to 'be' present of mindful of that inner truth and essence that we recognize as 'myself'. We also recognize ourselves through the aspects of ourselves we may not like so much, or may not have come to accept or tolerate very well. We often recognize in others, what we cannot see in ourselves, and this presents us with the opportunity to explore through relationship, those unanswered questions, those unexplored areas of ourselves. We have a treasure chest full of gifts, opportunities, and abilities to discover our authentic selves. Dreams, intuition, relationships, desires and dreams, visions and imagination, intellect and drive, and time. Yes, if you are breathing today, you have time. If you need a map, find a model that works for you, a help but not a concrete weight to tie you down. We all have time to appreciate the gift of life, to use it for some purpose that lifts us and others up, and to live with grace and gratitude that we have been blessed by the Divine with the ability to see the wonders of the Universe--within ourselves and our personal journey, and in others and theirs.
“The soul-Self doesn't follow the crowd. It encourages you to speak up when you need to and live by your truth.” Debra Moffitt, Garden of Bliss:Cultivating the Inner Landscape for Self-Discovery.
Join me and support my project, Ancient River Trails: Voices and Visions of N'chiawana, the Columbia River.
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