Life is Really a Slinky

The idea of the great hoop circle of life that some Lower 48 tribes refer to is echoed in the description that tribal systems “recognize multiplicity at every single level.” That circular concept is something that

I’ve always embraced. I teach it in my writing classes when I tell students that writing is recursive. We first write in a big circle and then, with repetitive rewrites, the circle becomes smaller and smaller, paying attention to minute details. However, the recursive process is never complete; the continuum is infinite. There is a point where we must stop and turn the writing in, but it is never complete - thus, the many editions of the same textbook. All writers know this. All parts of the writing process are interactive and overlap and circle back around. It only makes sense that all things in life are like this. Familial relationships - parents raise children who then come back around to take care

of the parents. Work life - we start out with a part-time job and eventually move on to a full-fledged career, only to ease off toward retirement, maybe even down to part-time before staying home altogether. My husband, 65, is now semi-retired, working only in the summers for Fish & Game, much like he only worked summers when he was a teenager. Also, a friend of his from childhood, Steve (who he has known since they were 4 years old), is also now retired and they often go fishing in the middle of the week, always planning where they’re going to go next, just like they did when they were kids, always fishing together. Adulthood came and took away the time for that, but now the time is back again.

In my head, I envision familial ties as a sort of slinky that goes round and round, never intersecting, but always connected, almost circling back on itself. My grandparents raised my father who circled back around to take care of them while raising me and then as I grew up, my respect for them increased and I wanted to learn more. As they faded into the next world, my dad was growing older and I was learning from him as I was raising my children, alone. He was a stand

in dad and the circle kept spiraling. Just as he passed on, my children started having children and now I am trying to share my wisdom with my children and grandchildren. As I walk through the garden, hand in hand with my grandson, I see the spiral continuing as he learns what flowers are edible and goes home with that knowledge to work in the garden with his mother, my daughter.

This brings me to the idea that “gynocracy is more about grandmothers’ femininity than about mothers’ femininity.” It was truly about the time my first grandson was born, 4 years ago today, that I first started understanding and practicing mindfulness. I was living offgrid on the Unalakleet River with my husband. I didn’t use one drop of water without thinking about it. Sunlight was precious. The river was our lifeblood. It all interconnected and we took care of our environment and it took care of us. Today, now having lived on the road system

for not quite 18 months, I still never brush my teeth without being thankful for the running water. I’m especially thankful for the warm running water to wash my hands. I’m a conservationist, taking short showers and not flushing the toilet every time. My husband thinks I’m a little crazy, telling me that we have a large septic tank and there is no need to conserve. I tell him that it’s not just about our septic tank; it’s about the environment as a whole. He just shakes his head and laughs. His ancestry is Viking - did they not conserve? Oh well, I will never let another food scrap go to waste or wander off the trail with my 4-wheeler or snowmachine. I will never leave trash on the tundra, and I will always recycle and reuse whatever I can. I will always garden organically; pulling weeds is a wonderful time for mindful thinking.

The understanding that “you can’t address health without providing water; you can’t address the need for water without protecting the environment” was so on track with my own understanding. It’s all a package deal. Actually, it’s more than that. It’s bigger than a package. It’s recursive. It’s circular. It’s a slinky. Economy, ecology, social constructs, and political systems are all interconnected. None can stand alone.

As I move forward with designing indigenous curriculum, this will be in the forefront of my mind. Even the idea of grade levels (first grade, second grade, third grade, etc.) doesn’t make sense to me. When I first started Kindergarten, we lived in St. Louis and there was a new elementary school using the “open concept.” My father, an educator, and my mother, Native American, chose to send me to that new school. It took the idea of the one-room schoolhouse and expanded it to a school population of approximately 200 K-6th grade students. The Kindergarten classes were the only classes held in a separate room. The rest of the school was designed as a big circle with a library in the middle. There were no walls, only 6-foot high partial dividers between classes, and all classes were open in the back to the library in the middle. There were no grade levels; instead, there were six teams. A student may be in Team 3 for Math and Team 5 for Reading. It all depended on each individual student’s needs. Each class could contain students with 2-3
years of difference in their ages. I went to that school until the third grade, when my parents divorced my mother and I moved to Wisconsin. It was quite a shock to my system when I went to a normal

Hoop Dance

school, but I eventually adjusted. I can remember Kellison Elementary School like I was just there yesterday. With all of the changes in education, the school has since been remodeled and reimagined into the same format as every other school.

My hope is that soon indigenous communities will be able to make their own decisions about what is best for their young people, instead of being governed by the state lawmakers. It is only when we return to this indigenous knowledge framework that we can truly begin to rethink education and what success looks like in those communities.