An Onkwehonwe in Kanata

I finally got around to seeing Shelley Niro’s feature film, “Kissed By Lightning.” It was actually on the The Movie Network’s OnDemand service, which pleased me to no end. I was hoping it would be visually stunning and provocative, the way all Shelley’s art is, but this – I have to say, I am feeling teary-eyed and awed after seeing it. The images haunted my dreams all last night and I woke up thinking about the film, which gave me the impetus to write this blog. I think everyone who ever wanted to know about Iroquoian philosophy and our values should watch this film. It was gentle and almost whisperingly quiet, the way Shelley’s art is, but it crept up on me and infused me with its lushly filmed, stunning visuals and the serene poetry of the story. Ostensibly the story of a woman’s journey through grief, it is actually the story of The Peacemaker and Hyenwatha, the two founding figures of our political and spiritual lives. The League of the Haudenosaunee could not exist without this...

Just wanted to take some time out and pitch the Toronto Roller Derby League and the 2011 season opener, which is being played at The Hangar at Downsview Park on Saturday, February 5 starting at 7:00 pm. I have become a roller derby fanatic since my daughter Carole joined the junior league in May of last year (Feral Carole #13 Baby). I love the speed of it, the hits, the skills, the tattoos and the fishnets, the raw punk power of these chicks. They rock and more importantly, they roll. If I was 10 years younger, I'd be in, but my knees have seen too much damage for me to get up on roller skates. I'm gonna be there -- and if you get a chance, patronize the roller derby league in your city. There's bound to be one. You'll be damn glad you did.

So I have to apologize for my silence on the blogging front, but I have a damn fine excuse. I was hospitalized for eight days in St Michael’s Hospital here in downtown Toronto about three weeks ago for what ended up being a bleed in my small bowel, brought on by an abscess which was ostensibly caused by some kind of parasite. It was the worst experience of my life. I was scoped, probed, x-rayed, CT-scanned, poked with at least seven different IV sites, and given three different kinds of intravenous antibiotics. It was not up there with my favourite experiences, to say the least. I also learned that I could never be a junkie because I got bored with the amount of morphine they were letting me have. I’m just now getting back to feeling normal. It cut the legs out from under me in a way that I didn’t anticipate, and made me realize just how much I take the normal functioning of my machine, my body, for granted. I will try not to do that again. However, I cannot say enough about the staff ...

This is completely off-topic, but I have to express my undying love and ecstatic joy for Amanda Palmer. The woman is a freakin’ Goddess, and if you haven’t experienced her, go out and get some of her music RIGHT NOW. I find myself so captivated by her, I want to write her fan mail and grovel at her feet and peel her a grape, that's how much I adore her. That is all. We will return you to your regularly scheduled blogging next week.

I was going to have a whole bunch of pithy observations on a whole pile of things – the amendments to the Indian Act that are going to restore status to a whole pile of people – and going forward, allowing my children to have their kids claim status – the changes being talked about in funding post-secondary education for indigenous students, the alarming rise in racist remarks that show an incredible amount of ignorance regarding the history and status of indigenous people in this country....but dammit I’m in Mexico. So I’m not in a headspace to give any of these things serious consideration. I’m concerned with hanging out by the pool, how much sunscreen I need to apply, or what drink I should have now. I should be all concerned with privilege and how the burden of north American greed crushes these polite, friendly people here all working for pennies to keep the drinks flowing and the pool clean and the tile free from sand and the sagauro cactus from overrunning the carefully-landscap...

I was overcome with an unaccountable melancholy when I woke up this morning and soon came to realize it was because of the weather. This kind of weather always reminds me of that March day so long ago when my mother called me to tell me that my friend, Karl, had been murdered when his car broke down and he gone to a house to ask for help. He was shot in the head because he asked for help. It was March 21, 1983. Karl and I first met each other in Grade 7 and went on to be very tight friends by the time we were in Grade 13. We at first had competed against each other for grades, especially in English – which I find really ironic for two Mohawk kids to be excelling at. My competitive nature didn't want to be friends but he won me over -- he was slyly funny and whip-smart. We both loved fiction and wrote reams of poetry and used to try and outdo each other with our short stories and poems, competing for prizes and then later collaborating on work together because we admired each other’...