Strawberry Teachings with Albert Dumont

you know it's just pulling up to the the burial ground and it makes me think about the bloodline you know how important it is to honor your bloodline you know whatever whatever your bloodline is like for me anyways you know they're exposing and I'm working in the garden or cutting something in the kitchen if I cut my finger somehow and I see a drop of my blood I'm looking at something that was just in my heart you know just a few seconds or moment before it was passed through my heart and there it is I see it on my finger and it's an opportunity for me to acknowledge my bloodline you know that that drop of blood was this was the blood that was in my father's heart and in my mother's heart and in my heart of my grandparents there's all that DNA and everything that that drop of blood is carrying at all and from my ancestors from the time of my ancestors to the present time it's an opportunity for me to say when I see that blood it's an opportunity for me to say that I grateful to creator for my bloodline an opportunity for me to say I'm grateful that I'm that I was born a human being and as a human being I can he prays and on everything creator placed here that helps human beings to live well I really that means so much to me of the bloodline you know it's whatever bloodline ending it's it's heartbreaking you know it's not something I'd want my family to ever experience so we're we're here at the reserve burial ground I guess say you could say that I don't know maybe at least 95% of the the Algonquian whoever buried here what we're Christians and that's the that's a fact and we we honor them and we you know we expect to see these good people again after we physically die you know our relatives my my grandparents and my parents and I guess my grandparents grandparents for all I know we're very true to her Christian fate and there were good human beings though and we I know I long I long to see them again and in that spirit land when my time comes I expected I will be buried here myself so we're going to have a spend a little bit of time together talking about indigenous spirituality and our beliefs and our identity and who we are as a human beings @s I want to say that my name is Albert Dumont I'm also known by all my relations as Osteen Odin which means new wind in the Algonquian language I was born almost 68 summers ago during the time of the BlackBerry Moon and I want you to know that I'm at peace and I wish everyone well so one of the for me enemies to touch the the earth the earth it's a good thing you know at which which your bare feet and so this morning odors there's do on the under grass and there so it do is healing it do is medicine you know it's it's very cleansing and and it's it washes it's a good way to wash your feet at 9:00 in the morning and Kitty gun ZB and I reserved there's a lots of sand and gravel and that's the case here and in the burial ground it's a there's no clay to speak of that I know event always did I think if you look you'll see it every there's hardly a square foot that there's not several ant hills and there's teachings at all about the the ants you know that I've come to know like I worked at a prison one time for a few years at a maximum-security prison and there was an inmate who told me he said you know he said I was sitting in the in the prison yard the other day and and there was an anthill there beside me and he said dawned on me he said that the ants are in prison there in the jail and then they don't know what he said and he said it made him laugh but to me it was very profound statement because to me it hold its that's the way it is in the world that's the way it is what a lot of human beings they've imprisoned themselves they they actually are in a jail of their own creation and what they don't know is they they have the key to escape from that prison and by the prisoner I mean the things of the economy or the things of that are against what creator intended you know for human beings and their behavior and to me that that's a form of a prison but you know all's we could do is is try to understand more clearly about what spirituality is especially indigenous spirituality because we had our word our spirituality for many thousands of years before any white people or anybody else came here before organized religion came here we had our spirituality our own fate and it served us so well and you know I gotta say that the Algonquin and snobby believed that the first raw berries grew on the grave of a deceased relative and that was to say no to the next of kin to those people those family and friends who loved that person that was the signal to them that death does not stop unconditional love and support from continuing you know whatever you do in life please don't ever forget that love unconditional love and support is still there for from that person that human being that died that relative that died you know people forget that they could summon their relatives by their side and at a time of emotional crisis or spiritual turmoil or physical sickness you know things of depression and addiction and those kind of things we can call that relative that we want beside us to come and dad you know that's what creator the message that creator gave whenever the the first strawberries grew on a grave I'd like to for you to visit with me at at the grave of my relatives some of the graves of my family you know I was so delighted this morning whenever I stepped into the graveyard and there was Robbins you know and there was a Rob and you know just nearby and it was it was doing its best to pull a warm out of the earth I guess to feed its little ones because a rock the Robin is a very important messenger to me the Robin came to me even even at the time whenever I was lost and you know my heart was filled with rage and those kind of things negative things and the Robin was there the Robin was there to communicate some stuff to me I didn't know at the time what the Robin was really saying I just felt the presence of that spirit and after my sobriety began well then I realized how precious it was to have the spirit helper like the Robin a messenger and I saw after my sobriety began and I totally 100% adopted indigenous spirituality for to heal from and to to to embrace spiritually and you know to love and find support in the Robin was there and since then I've adopted the depart Ridge and the rabbit and the turtle you know these these things are our dare endure they're so helpful in their messages and in the strength you get from them like like you know like a maple tree or the birch tree or the pine tree you know these are special trees to me and you know whenever I whenever I have my circle whenever I put like tobacco down they're part of my bundle and that that's what I mean whenever I say all my relations because you know there was a time in the past when when a human being didn't celebrate a birthday but they celebrated was their birth season you know it's especially the birth moon that they were born under I was born during the time of the BlackBerry Moon under so much on the land - tell me about how to better myself as a human being how to understand more about spirituality indigenous spirituality that creator gave to those first human beings on Turtle Island so I'm gonna go over here now to where the graves of my relatives are the graves that I've been here maybe for 400 years because there's a they've been years some of the graves I've been here for so long that the names on them are faded it's just a of stone with no no etchings on it because timers has worn them away and that's the way it's gonna be eventually for you know as the centuries passed even these tombstones that are new right now they'll fade cuz cuz that's what happens that's what happens in this physical world there is nothing that human beings can put together that's not going to rot and disappear at some point that's that's just what time does it you know the but you don't know one thing that time cannot attack time cannot attack the spiritual beliefs that creator gave to human beings it's not time that we'll do it we'll do it to ourselves and that it's wrong it's wrong whenever we turn our backs on a spirituality that creator gave to human beings you don't people just didn't stumble on to these things you know these things of a bundle these things of the our connection to the trees and the birds and the fish and the waters these these things came to human beings and dreams and visions and with a message from creator that said these things are there for you these things are there to help you this is the graves of some of my family members my dad was the first one to be buried here in 1983 and since then my mother's died and my sister Mary and actually I'm it has just made a mistake there's my sister died and then in 1979 my brother Russell in 1985 my brother Alan so they're all here this is their graves here if you could Cedars their stage and there's a an abundance of strawberries just like we said earlier you know the the strawberries are on these graves to say to me and to my children and my grandchildren that they're still here offering your unconditional love and support for us who are still here their relatives their loving relatives you know there are these words that I'm saying now oh no I say them in the presence of the the trees in the forest you know to to my ancestors to to everything of my bundle because the Braille ground is what it is our relatives are not waiting here to hear our words my dad doesn't linger here day after day and year after year but whenever I come here his spirit comes here with me my sisters and my brothers that are in this burial ground here they come to hear what I'm saying right now we have to really think about these things to think about you know - we have to realize that you really don't have to come to a burial ground for for your relatives to hear your words like I was told one day that have faith in the wind if you go to to a healing place weathers beside a river or beside the lake or on a hill or beside a tree and you want to speak to a certain relative then you put tobacco down and you bring an offering maybe of a strawberry or a blueberry or something some cloth maybe I guess and you call that relative and then you speak to that relative and you have to have faith that the wind is going to take your words to whoever is meant to hear them in that spirit land that's the beliefs I have anyways indigenous spirituality is is precious you know whenever we think about how broken are you being can get like I was in really bad shape at one time in the grips of severe addiction and I overcame them I overcame them because of the power of indigenous spirituality the beauty of indigenous spirituality and for me it's real it needs to be defended it needs to be embraced and the human beings who were here before white people came here in my opinion they should stop and think about the spirituality of their ancestors because at the time that at that time there was no need for prisons there was no addiction tings or suicide epidemics you know there were stories to teach young people about our precious life laws and stories to teach about being honest and about being honorable so let's you know let's get back to it because it's it really is ours we're going to put this strawberry here for my relatives with this tobacco they will have that they'll smoke there was smoke back tobacco and they'll feast on the on that berry and to me there's no doubt about it

Channel: ICMIsChannel

Views: 1,210

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Albert Dumont, strawberry, Algonquin, traditional, elder, teaching, Ancestors

Id: q6p9J4CEdLE

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018