Aboriginal Ritual Chant – Anonymous
The spirits of native people endures and lives on.
Heritage and human dignity passed on through centuries of sacrifice, resiliency and perseverance.
Nature – the land guarding its ancestral treasures.
With each chant we hear anguish turned to eloquence and forgiveness.
How human to include those who only knew how to plunder.
Counter Voices is an augmentation of the website Diversity-Threads.com. The vision and mission is to provide awareness, insights and understanding of the dimensions of Diversity in order to engage in conversations without fear and apprehension. As with the website, the podcast provides language, references, research, stories, and strategies on how to approach with confidence challenging…
“Pretend Reading” differs from culture to culture. It was a tradition and intervention by mothers who did not have formal education but pretended to read to their child.
All it took was some crumbled papers and a mother who would not allow her past to become her child’s future.
Such a nurturer was my mother who never saw the inside of a school. So she pretended to read to me by way of the oral tradition sharing stories of ancestors, respect for elders, traditions, resiliency and perseverance – sometimes even without having to look at the crumbled papers.
Trenzas ~ “¡Yo soy!” came to life during my youth watching my grandmother brushing and braiding my mother’s hair and my mother passing on the loving strokes to my aunts. Braiding was a time to ask and answer questions, for storytelling, sharing wisdom and always a time for caring and loving. There was an intimacy about it all that always finished with besos (kisses), lingering abrazos (hugs), and with a resounding emphatic ¡Cuídate! (Be careful! Remain cautious!) – The older “doñas” (elders) knew the reasons why caution needed to be ever present while “panzudos patrones” (fat cat land owners) roamed seeking their entitled desserts.
Every woman wore her trenzas with pride and dignity. There was a sameness and yet singularness as trenzas danced in the wind behind them with a story to tell. I remember how beautiful they were… especially my mother’s trenzas… how they made me feel safe and loved as they danced behind her.
William Stafford had a quiet daily ritual of writing focusing on the ordinary. His poetic style seems to invite a conversation that is close to everyday speech to remain alert and awake for there is many a small betrayal in the wind.
In a peaceful and yet stark manner, he urges that to know what occurs but not recognize the fact is the root of all cruelty.