 I do not consider myself an elder. I consider myself a conduit for the Creator. I have been given experiences, teachings, knowledge, assistance from those that you can see and those that you cannot see. And that has helped me become the person that I am. As a conduit, what I do is I take that and I share it with those who need it and want it. I don't like to force my opinions and my beliefs onto people. At the same time, should they come and ask me, I am always as willing to help as I am able to. Even if it's to give nothing more than support and encouragement, praise, these things are very important to me and that's what I do. Frequently in the last five years, I have been honored to take part with the women of traditional past society and the community in full moon ceremonies, in women's sharing circus, in baking and community kitchen type events, crafts, beading, sewing, lots of sewing. I like sewing. I like to sew. At the moment, we are working with a group of women from the traditional past society to make a star blanket, which they are doing very well with and at a very pleased with their efforts. This last week, we had an event for learning about sewing machines and sergers, how to use them, how to maintain them, how to be comfortable with them. It was open to both men and women. You had a sharing circle. Yes, that was earlier in the week. Now I lost my train of thought. The sewing was to... It was open to both males and females, age seven and up. I do not do as much in group situations with the younger people as what I would like to, strictly because of the fact that I don't have the opportunity to. I do on an individual basis or a small group basis. The sharing circle that we had was geared specifically towards young women, those who are just beginning their cycles and their moon time, so that they were more comfortable with themselves so that they didn't see it as being a negative thing. Understanding the teachings that I have received around it, the ceremonies that I have been taught around it, although we didn't get into that, we didn't discuss them, but openly allowing them to ask questions and receive knowledge from an individual rather than from a book or a sex education point of view. The women who took part were very involved and very enthusiastic about it and gave the impression that they found the information and the experience valuable, which was the whole purpose of it. My involvement with walking the red road has been going on for probably the last 30 or 40 years. I did receive as a child a lot of teachings from my grandfather and from different people. I did not make the commitment to work for the Creator until I was in my 30s. There was a lot of reasons for that. Living in two worlds is very difficult and it doesn't get any easier as I get older and that prior to making my commitment I was having a tough enough time being a wife, being a mother, being an employee. I couldn't take on more as my children got older and required less of my attention and my time. There was time to follow what I needed and what I needed was to learn to be proud of who and what I was and that started me on my journey. I have been very honored to spend a large portion of the last five years working with people connected with the Grand Prairie Friendship Center and other Friendship Centers. I served a period of time. That doesn't sound right. I was honored to attend the Provincial Elders Wisdom Circle for a number of years. I attended a number of I think 14 or 15 of the Elders conferences that are held provincially on an annual basis. I have done very little in the schools. I did more with the indoor playground when I had grandchildren and children attending it. I guess what they want the most is direction and encouragement and confirmation that what they are doing is a good thing. Everybody wants to be a better person in whatever way and often we don't know how to do that. We need positive role models and that's what I attempt to be. I don't always succeed and sometimes I'm not a very good role model because I'm not very conventional. I am not a typical little old lady. I am very outspoken. I am very opinionated. I am very high energy and that intimidates some people and makes them very uncomfortable. I do everything fiercely. I love fiercely. I work fiercely. I live fiercely. People come mostly because they don't feel judged. They know that they can come and talk plain straight words. They don't have to dress it up. If they use language that you'd hear on the street, hey it's not going to offend me. If you want to talk using proper English I can do that too. Acceptance I think is what I can offer. Encouragement and acceptance and I think that that's what a large number of people want to meet. I do try to be a positive role model. I don't define it as being indigenous. I do not like that word. Education is the acquirement of knowledge and experience and it does not matter age, race, color, creed, religion, sex or anything else. You're supposed to say gender now. I'm not saying you're supposed to say gender. I was told that. I'm trying very hard to be politically correct and I don't do that well. That's what to me education is, is being given the opportunities to learn, to acquire knowledge, to acquire experience. Hand on, hand on. That to me is very important and that is something that to me builds pride, builds self-respect, builds confidence. It by acquiring knowledge you lessen the chance of being a victim and unfortunately in a great many ways our people have been victims for a very, very long time and we have lost so much of our self-respect, our pride, our dignity, our self-confidence and I would like and I try to help people relearn that. Just talking to them, praising them. We had a lady yesterday that came, she's got a new sewing machine. She doesn't even know how to thread it. You take a few minutes, you teach her how to thread it. Okay, when we started this Star Blanket many of these women did not know how to use a rotary cutter. They now know how. That builds their self-confidence, that they have a pride in seeing that they have done a job well. They are the young ladies, the young women who came to the sharing circle. Some of them had never taken part in a ceremony before. We showed them the proper protocols of asking for a teaching. We showed them and explained the reasoning behind the tobacco. We allowed them to ask questions. All these things build their self-confidence. We showed them how to smudge by doing it. We did it and they copied it and that very direct very direct very fast on always all five senses. You were given five senses for a reason and we have to utilize them all in everything that we do. So it's a big piece of us gathering knowledge? Absolutely. Because if you don't taste touch and feel as you say it doesn't stay. It goes in and it goes out and it doesn't register. It doesn't become a part of you. When you do something, when you actually take part in making something and you experience all aspects of it, that stays within you. The good feeling stays within you but the knowledge stays as well. And then you have that gift to offer to somebody else in the future. And it's yours because it's yours and it's been given to you as a gift and so then you are free to give it to someone else and every time you get a gift and you give a gift you've got another gift and so it's just a cycle and it just keeps going and going and going and it's all good in my opinion. I don't see how you can educate anybody on anything or teach them anything if you're not being a role model and 24 hours a day seven days a week if I am in the company of another person I am being a role model whether I'm walking down the street and I'm passing total strangers or whether I'm sitting here with you I am being a role model you are watching what I do you are watching what I say you are watching how I act and you are deciding for yourself I don't want to be like that or I do want to be like that so I am being a role model I don't have to think about it it's part of who and what I am and what I do have to think about is what kind of a role model I am being I have to show respect myself I have to show respect to other people I have to be when I leave my house I have to be as neat and clean and tidy and properly covered as I feel comfortable with I cannot say to a young person walking around with their ripped jeans that or their low-cut shirts or their short skirts or whatever or boys with no socks that you know that people do react to the way that you present yourself I am not a well-dressed person I am not a fashionable person I live in skirts and t-shirts because that's what I'm comfortable with I am comfortable with being a woman and I wear a skirt because I am a woman and I'm darn proud of it and the skirt represents something very important to me it represents the home the family the heart I am the heart of my family I am the heart of my home that is my gift that I was given by the creator so I show it off not not just show it off in a flashy sense but show it off in a respectful well I hope it's a respectful sense coming together without televisions and telephones and computers and modern technology we have lost the art or just ignored it maybe of visiting you walk into somebody's home the kids are all playing or sometimes the adults are all playing the tv is on there's there's all these distractions people do not feel like they are important they do not feel then they are are worthy because of the fact that these distractions take away from that personal contact and I think opportunities to come together and not only formally informally as well and lots of times the informal portion I think is more important it's great to have classes for this and classes for that but a lot of that it doesn't get to the root and the root is that before colonization we were very community very family-oriented you never relationships personal relationships you never addressed an older person by their name it was always no come or coo come or auntie or uncle or muslim in your language those were terms of endearment or respect even when you knew somebody you didn't often call them by me it was my girl my boy this is my daughter this is my niece whether they were related to you by blood or not there was that connection there was that sensible lonely you knew who you were and you knew what your role and not only what your role was but what the expectations of you were so many people today have no idea what's expected of them they don't know how to be themselves they don't know who they are I would like to see people know and understand the difference between traditional teachings and cultural teachings you can take a lot of classes on reading right reading is not a traditional teaching okay it's not it's not a traditional art because prior to colonization we didn't have beats but moccasin making it's a beautiful art it's I mean I wear them myself but they're not practical we cannot we do not want to at least I do not want to go back to living a nomadic lifestyle and living in a TP and walking 500 miles a year and living off the land it's not reasonable it's not practical it's not it's not doable bottom line but the traditions of honor and respect and love and courage and humility the seven sacred teachings the relationship and the understanding of the land-based teachings the importance of smudge the importance of grandmother moon the importance of lodges the importance of ceremony and the reason why we make the sacrifices that we do is for our good health and the good health of those that we care about which should include everyone and I think the only thing that is really necessary is willingness on behalf of those who have the knowledge who have the skills absolutely and willingness on those who don't to acquire them I don't think we need more schools and more classes and more programs programs I don't like programs I like gatherings and that's what we need we need more gatherings where people get together and they share and they talk and they do and sometimes a gathering will be for a specific purpose we're going to do a barn raising or we're going to do a hide and sometimes a gathering can be just because we want to have coffee and talk I think more gatherings are very important I don't like the telephone I don't like the computer I understand that they have a role and they are a tool that are very useful but I would much sooner have you sitting here at my table and talking I would much sooner have my house bursting to the seams with people coming and going and making a mess like they were yesterday because there's so much else that you get from that as well as the project that we were working on getting done and it did get done but there was love and there was laughter and there was teasing and there was there was advice and there was sharing and there was was little considerations like somebody emptied the coffee pot and made a new one the sugar bowl was empty I don't use sugar I ever look at it I don't care somebody filled the sugar bowl little things like that that make me feel good because these people who came into my home felt comfortable enough that they could do that without saying the sugar bowl is empty should I you know where is the should they know and and to me that's what it's about at the same time they respect the majority of people respect my privacy they respect they don't take things that belong to me they have respect at the same time as they have the comfort and to me that's what's really important