Never love a rez dog, all it's gonna do is die Chapter 2

Who decides

Who decides everyday

Who makes the choice

What to see

To believe

Make it truth

Before us

Who is speaking

to us

Who decides the

final fate

Who decides everyday

The decision before us

Who decides today

Decides the say

Who decides the way

Decides to stay

Who leaves

Who takes away

Deicide is 

not the way

And also another way

It doesn't change

in the end 
again

The question remains 

before us

Who decides today

Who decides every day

Who decides today

Walking Highway 6

The trucks fly by at 120 per
Throwing up dust or mist
depending on the weather

It must seem strange to them
those hurtling through
emptiness
on way to something that matters

to see a man walking alone
walking with purpose
and determined direction

There are noises in the bush
sometimes gravity and sometimes wind
sometimes age and sometimes decriptude
sometimes something else
unknown and unseen

One day a noise followed me
for a mile or so
not sure exactly
I said
Out loud
I believe that there are Sasquatches
I don't believe that you are something to be feared
and in NO WAY
do I want to see you

You don't see the refuse
the garbage
When you race along Highway 6
in your car or truck
it looks pristine
in a blur

When you walk along the highway
it's all beer cans
Mostly Blue and Bud Light
Monster and Red Bull for the kids
Tim Horton's cups and a couple McCafe's
thrown out for good measure

I saw about a dozen deer
and no sign of moose
some bear scat and wolf shit
you know something's around
all the time in the bush

But a man feels safe on the road
this man made strip of civilization
you're still naked to the world
all alone
but you can cling to this line
of blacktop
like it will protect you from life
what a strange thing to believe

But it keeps my mind of the journey
one step at at time
walking down Highway 6

Why Aboriginal Arts are the Greatest arts in Canada

Why Aboriginal Arts are the greatest arts in Canada?

By Miles Morrisseau

This isn’t a joke. I would rather have a Morrisseau hanging in my living room than a Picasso. I would rather see whatever Native Earth Performing Arts, De-Bahjehmuhjig Theatre or Kehewin Native Performance puts on the boards than whatever happens to be the hottest ticket on Broadway this season. I would rather spend an evening with Buffy Ste. Marie than an evening with the resurrected Beatles.

This comes from the heart and is based on spirit. What feeds my spirit and nothing else. Of course so many things come into play when given a choice between getting a free Picasso and getting a free Morrisseau (no relation, for the last time, we are not related, ok maybe distantly), that would probably end with me taking the Picasso. What comes into play is cupidity, which despite the root word has nothing to do with the spirit of love, or at least, not true love as we have come to believe in. Cupidity means an “unhealthy obsession with material gain.” So to have a Picasso, means that you would be the envy of so many people who share the weakness of cupidity. Or if I bought a velvet painting of Elvis or Dogs playing poker and then found a Picasso hidden underneath it, then I would not only have a valuable piece of art but also the jealousy of thousands perhaps millions after the story was posted on the internet. And it is those kinds of stories that always get front-page links on Internet news sites. That’s all that one can hope for in this world your 15 minutes of internet fame and money. Isn’t it? Isn’t it? 

And of course, if I found a Picasso in a garage sale and gained my moment in the bright, bright lights of the Larry King show. I would never want it to end. I would double up on my fame a few weeks later when I sold the painting at Christies or Sotheby’s and set the new record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a painting bought at a yard sale and once again garner further media attention and internet hits. With the money I could buy a Norval Morrisseau, a Jean Ash Poitras, a Carl Beam to hang in my log cabin in the bush. So those are all sadly, sadly, realistic factors. So that is not the question that I am basing this statement upon – I would rather have a Morrisseau than a Picasso (please feel free to insert, whomever’s name you like in place of Pablo, you can put in Van Gogh or Rembrandt as far as I’m concerned, I’m not picking on Picasso in particular, it’s just that Picasso and Morrisseau flow really well together, they rhyme and have similar syllables). In order to assess whether you would really chose between two works of art you have to remove cupidity, the desire to be envied, peer pressure and any other voice and vice out of the equation. 

The question should be, if you had to chose between two works of art and hang them in your living room so that you see them every single day for the rest of your life and you could never sell them or trade them and when you died they would be burned in your funeral pyre. Then which artwork would you choose and in that scenario I would rather have a Morrisseau than a Picasso. Now I’m never going to make that choice, but when living in Ottawa I did go to the Picasso exhibit and a few years later, I went to the Morrisseau exhibit. I can remember some of the Picasso, but the Morrisseau one still resonates in me like some kind of fever dream that I can’t escape. The colors, the passion, the spirit were like nothing else, something that has only been experienced in dreams or ceremony. In all honesty, when I think about it, I still can’t quite process it. That is an experience only great art can do. Yes, there is something to a piece of art that gives understanding, clarity of experience and helps you interpret the world. I say, in great art, something happens within you that you can’t quite grasp, it’s confusing and overwhelming and what it shows you is nothing less than the Great Mystery. It doesn’t make you bigger, growing secure in your knowledge of the world. It makes you feel less, insignificant in the unimaginable power of the universe. It reminds us, as do dreams and ceremony, to be humble. 

When I worked at the Canada Council for the Arts, I would go before my colleagues, I would go before the board and I would say, “we must support Aboriginal Art in Canada because it is the greatest art in Canada”. I know that many people thought I was being facetious. There was an attitude and I believe it remains in our Arts Councils just as it remains in the hearts of many Canadians. It is called paternalistic. “We have to help the poor Aboriginal people because they have been so downtrodden by our ancestors and our previous governments and we feel so guilty and blah, blah, blah.” No, that’s not it. That’s not close to being it. The point I was making and the point that I make today is that “we must support Aboriginal Art in Canada because it is the greatest art in Canada.” I am not merely taking a position; I am saying something that I believe to be the truth.

Though, I must be honest and admit that the realization was not always there and did not develop in a flash, striking me down with a thunderclap or less dramatically as a light switch flicking on. It was more like a peat moss fire smoldering under the ground for days and weeks until the right combination of fuel and oxygen come together to ignite the flame and bring it roaring to the surface. In my early days at the Canada Council for the Arts, I was a good little soldier who marched along to the same drumbeat that pounded out. One for all and all for one. But after awhile I realized that this wasn’t my job. It was my job to take a position. As the senior Aboriginal Arts officer at the Canada Council, it was my responsibility to take a position. I realized I had to do this when I came to understand that everyone else was already doing it. I had come to the periphery of this understanding when I was in the Theatre section and I questioned why millions of dollars were being handed over without question to a handful of companies.  I knew what Stratford was, I knew what Shaw was, I had no intention of ever going to see their work and I didn’t know why it was a foregone conclusion that they get the lions share of the funding meant for the entire country. The position was that this was the most important theatre in the country and had to be supported, no questions asked. Once I had come to that understanding I knew that I too had to take a position on why I felt Aboriginal Arts were the greatest art in Canada. I could say the words, I could make the case, it is what I do; but after a very short period of time I needed to think honestly about what I was saying. I’m not a salesman. I’m not the kind of person that can sell something I don’t believe to someone who doesn’t want it. I needed to take stock of my own feelings; my own experiences and in doing so I came to understand that this was what I had always believed. In nearly every single art form the work that has resonated with me was the work of Aboriginal Artists. I had no desire to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet; I would never plan a summer vacation that included the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival or Shakespeare in the Park by the Lake under the Stars or anywhere else. I wasn’t pretending that I believed that Aboriginal Art was the greatest art in Canada; it was the other way around. I had always experienced Aboriginal Arts as that which touched my spirit and stayed within my heart and mind long after the experience ended. It was this light that I was drawn into and hoped that one-day, in some way I too would shine out. 

I knew that day I walked into Urban Shaman for the first time that this was a place that shared the same conviction. On an absolutely blistering summer day, I walked down into the basement below Mondragon to a below ground space which provided no relief from the heat. The space was tight and cramped. The small office looking like it had been hit by a terrorist attack. People working feverishly to get the next show ready for an opening only a few days away. It wasn’t just the heat from outside; it was the intensity of the job, the commitment, and the deadline that was palpable in the air. They were courteous, they liked the fact that I was from the Canada Council and I had dropped by, but it wasn’t like they were falling over backwards to make a connection. They weren’t glad handing, kissing up or slowing down much from the task at hand. In fact, I had the sense that they really wanted me to get out of the way so they could focus fully on the job. I thought it was great because that’s how we are as Aboriginal People, when there is work to be done, help out or get out of the way. I was the money guy, but the money wasn’t what they were running on. That wasn’t the fuel to their flame. It mattered, of course it matters; but great work comes from the effort, from the sweat, that’s why they call it work. They were doing it because they wanted to give Aboriginal artists a space to create and to showcase their work. They were doing it because they believe that the greatest arts are Aboriginal Arts and they were doing more that just believing in this greatness; they were being this greatness.

(Originally published by Urban Shaman Gallery)

First Blog

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Things don't have to be this way. I believe that. We are really capable of incredible things. I know people have done and seen magic, seen and felt a power greater than this world here.
But make no mistake, we will be allowed to walk right off the cliff, singing, dancing, fighting, and jerking off all the way down. The Creator has given us way too much to step in and make everything better with a wink and a smile. This is our choice, even though we all pretend that it is not.

Who is being swept along and who is paddling the boat is hard to tell sometimes. Some think it's lemmings but it's really a buffalo jump. If you could only imagine what would have happened if those buffalo stopped their mad race to destruction and turned around to face those who were chasing them.

Knowledge of nothing

Knowledge of nothing is celebrated and rewarded

Old people working so hard to keep things going

Trying to keep it alive

The young do nothing

learn nothing 

Nobody cares and it's everyone's fault. 

When is young done? 

Ask yourself

Before you quote 

demographics 

Age 

is the least 

measure that matters 

Things that do not exist

I can feel the presence

Of things that do not exist

I can hear the party

on the 13th floor

I am tired of searching

Tired of wanting

To know

The person who

Said it is all

About the journey

Was at the end

When my days are done

I do not want to wander

As the Avett Brothers sang

Let me return to

The earth and not complain

Bear Dream

Moose Boy Dream

The One and Only and the War of the Humans

What is the war

Who is in battle

How simple

can the lines

be drawn 

Is it blurry times

Grey is grey
On every line

What is it

that everyone can see

self destruction

self destiny

of our own making

and watching

we won't change it

take the wheel

hit the breaks

take the ditch

walk away

act is act

fake is fake

fake is faking

*******************

The air and water

and the life

of Mother Earth is

all

in the all

of our known

of our here

of our now

of our existence

as far as anything

sent far to seeing

as far as seeing has gone

The one and only

everything 

in all the knowing

our Mother Earth

number one

nowhere else

that we are going

the one 

the one

the one and only

*************

we won't agree

especially

publicly

what is God

what is War

and which Way

we're following

as we follow a calling

or follow a following

No one can say

in such a way

that will

bring us peace

today

as we sit

silently

like we all agree

that we best keep fighting

that we best keep killing

and we best keep sending

our young

the willing

to do the dying

************************

Why bother

What gives

it's 2012 and some

it's game over

lights out

and packing in

who's up

for not trying

we'll soon

all

be dying

The ending

has already

begun

for everyone

Sooner or later

your time

and mine become

the same as everyone

times up

your done

*************

one mother

unknown father

in the beginning

of everyone

how did we become

to be upon

the only living

planet in all the one

the daughter

and the son

on the only one

today is the day

for everyone

enjoy the sun

it shines on everyone

***********************

Get up, get on, get in

and get right

get getting

until the getting's

gone

look out 

for number one

and you will be the one

slow down

slow down

slow down

take a look around

take a breath and now

is that how

it's going to go

when it's going down

going down without a fight

and fighting for nothing

at the same time

We all know 

what we know

the time is now

the who is you

and that's the way

it will be done

while it still can be done

that's why

we're living 

in the time of the now

***********************

The Creator

brought this world

to our shores

because

the flame 

still burns

from the day

we were made

and the way that we pray

to give thanks for this Earth

everyday 

in every way

but prayer is no longer enough

when enough is enough

and the last

of the last chance

last chances

is the one

staring at us

We still take everything

for granted

on this gorgeous

planet

I don't blame you

if you can hardly stand it

but you can't show weakness

you got to be in this

to win this

pass on a 

victory

for the

future witness

Never Love a Rez Dog All It's Gonna Do Is Die - 1

TIPPY

She chases the squirrel

when she has no chance

when there is too much far

between her

and the closest branch

who is the smarter of the two

it's hard to tell at a glance

The squirrel

goes only part way up

turns ands laughs

Tippy is barking

up the tree that is right

but it's just barking to bark

barking to spite

She's enjoying

herself

So what can I say

This is life

it is just that way

Smiling through your misses

and mistakes can be hard

But some days

I find a half eaten

squirrel in the yard

Gospel Tent

Lillian

After we belled the cat

Birthday Bash Pt. 1