WoLakota Project

To encourage. My relatives. Into homeland. After Homeland and even those that perhaps are incarcerated because of the lack of knowledge of their own history. History. That's the starting point. That's the starting point is to go back to the basics first and realize why I was born in this culture? Who am I? Begin with knowing your history first and taking it step by step by step. Learning. I believe you don't want to try to grab everything all at once and say, okay, I got it down. No, you got to begin to live it. You gotta start to practice it. Knowing your history. From the beginning. Where did Native people come from? The creation story. The creation story. The social system. The spiritual system. Slowly take these a little bit at a time. I think that's a starting point. I felt that's how I started when my grandmother used to talk about when I would do something and she was saying, “Did you think about it first? Did you give it some thought? What are you going to do? Or are you just jumping into it?” Sometimes we do things without thinking about it. So she always encouraged me. Think about it first. If I was going to help her with something like one time, she was going to take the drapes down because the curtains because she was going to wash them. But she said, “Look at the way it's put together. How it's all put together up there and how you're going to take it down, because that's the way that you're going to put it back up.” And after a while, I thought, “That's silly.” Yeah, but the concept was to look at it, to understand how it comes apart and how it's going to go back together. That's basically and and everything. People who studied TV mechanics or in any field, you've got to study first. So education, life is education. I tell these kids here in this school all the time, “The world is the book. Read it. And you know what? There's a chapter in that book that's about you. It's your chapter. What did you contribute to the world? What is your chapter going to say?” You know, it's going to say some good things about you. It's going to be some things that you're embarrassed about or that you're going to have to make amends for. You know, especially for our relatives who are being kept in lock up and begin with those amends. You have to forgive yourself first before you can forgive someone else. That it's something that takes a lot of deep thought. And saying, “What did I do to myself? Better choices I made. What am I lacking? Those aspects of my life, my physical. What was I putting in me? You know, inebriated me or controlled me to do something I shouldn't have done. Or my emotions. Did I have compassion for relatives or was it my anger? Why am I angry?” Question yourself. You're mental. “What am I learning?” Or am I just going through life, just taking and using and taking and using, taking and using and not giving anything and back and above all, your spiritual aspect. Do I take time to say a prayer, to make a connection? With creation saying. I understand where this comes from now. And I want to give thanks. So it's a process that's going to take a little time. We're not going to get it all in. One day, one week, one month, one year. It's going to become a lifetime. And the more the more the more and the more and the more you learn that knowledge and that. Decision making starts to become easier. I know I have to make the right decision, so let me sit down and think about this. I want to make the right decision. I'm not just going to jump into it. So I think I would talk to them in that sense. And let's think about it. Let's talk. Let's put our opinions on the table. Let's share these opinions. And then. Look, we'll come up with something out of there.