This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.
- Paulo Freire
I am gathering berries while listening to the first day of the Dene National Assembly on CKLB radio. Each berry is small, a precious spectrum of reds, held in the nest my small woven basket. There is smoke in the air, and the sky is an eerie shade of grey. The red of each berry draws my eyes from the grey and green ground, medicines strewn across my yard in Ndilo. I gather berries on each break, each time the meetings recess, and after the meetings conclude. It helps me think, decompress - slow my racing mind.
At the start of the day National Chief Gerald Antoine mentioned ceremony offered to the River, the waters, by Francois Paulette days before the assembly opened, and reflected this gratitude in offering thanks and acknowledgment to Deh, the Spirit of the River, of water.
Following acknowledgements, and introductions, and other house keeping matters, there was some tension around the agenda, but K’atl’odeeche First Nation Chief April Martel almost single-handedly shifted the shape of the agenda.
Conversation around health took centre stage, and although there was a focus on upcoming changes to health travel, and ear aids, the dominant topic that emerged was trauma - how it is manifesting our communities, and what pathways forward might be given our current circumstances.
After hearing from myriad voices, Jim Antoine grounded the conversation speaking about the Dene wellness warriors intention to seek support for an NWT based healing lodge. Antoine spoke of how trauma manifests in so many ways, and the hope to shift these narratives for future generations.
The day ended with Lesley Paulette leading a dialogue about midwifery in the territory, its necessity, and how birthwork, and bringing birthing back into communities, is an expression of health sovereignty and Dene well being.
The berries - first raspberries and then little wild heart berries (strawberries) I gather, moving slowly across my yard one foot at a time so as to not step on any, hidden under leaf, bring to my mind the human heart - I wonder to myself whether the term ‘heartberry ‘ is given for more than its nutritional benefit, but also how (like a human heart) if not trodden on, and if treated tenderly, left to ripen and grow - grows warm and round, red and bright, full of nourishment. Even if tiny.
I listen to the voices of my leadership, and think about the future of leadership, governance, and the Dene here in Denendeh. I’m thinking about what it means to govern through hard times, challenges abound. And what it means to care for, and take accountability for, our traumas and trauma responses - how this is, in fact, one of the most necessary forms of leadership.
How, perhaps, we must become the medicine we wish to see in the world.
My mother, since I turned about 18, has told me ‘you are the leader of your own life’ and later, when I became a mother, ‘you are the leader of your own family.’
What I have learned in the few decades of becoming ‘my own leader’ is that that necessitates my self care, awareness, accountability and presence - my own way of perceiving and processing my trauma and trauma responses.
With elections coming up in the year ahead, I find myself gathering berries and thinking to myself that leadership in my life has become more about nurturing life - like these little berries - protecting their environment, gathering each one only as it becomes bright, speaking to me in its strawberry-way, so other berries, yet to ripen, may have the chance to grow - this protective spirit that allows the berries to ‘become’ their fullest - to love them into being.
I think to myself this is the kind of leadership I want to see, and we all need, leadership that allows us to grow, flourish and be protected in our unique growing.
Gathering berries, in between meetings, slows me down and reminds me to listen. To let the ideas from this first idea ripen, grow - rest. I think about the meetings that were held here, at the Willideh River Site, and how much has taken place since.
I thank the berries for slowing me down, because in this moment they are my leaders, too - taking me out of the hum and rush of the contemporary human world, into a quieter state of mind, like Elders and leadership slowing the pace of an escalating conversation. And for this offering of wisdom, and grace, I am ever grateful.