Monday, December 16, 2024
As the snow settles on the ground, covering Mother Earth with that protective blanket, we two-leggeds respond by settling into our lodges, and welcoming the warmth of connection and family that envelopes us. For Anishinaabe, biiboon/winter is the season for sharing stories.
Only when creation is resting, in the way it does during winter, can we tell certain sacred stories. Some are so sacred that if we tell them in the summer, when all of creation is bustling with activity, we disrupt the balance of things, as creation stops to hear our stories. So, in winter as creation rests and heals, we do the same. Stories are medicine.
As the nights become long and cold, all our relatives are resting. From the standing ones (trees) to the crawlers, from the flowers to the pollinators, all are resting. But we aren’t the only ones that hear the stories; creator listens, spirit listens, and ancestors join us as the stories are shared. Stories are spiritual.
We share stories of tricksters, the winds and of origins. We share funny ones, sad ones and stories that warn us. One moment howling, the next reflecting on how brother muskrat has taught us how to be. Stories are teachers.
Stories have always guided us. Grateful and obligated to those ones who protected the stories, we are returning to old ways and old wisdom as we reclaim ourselves. There are new stories about that reclamation, about that loss and about our futures. Stories are living.
—Kevin George, associate director, Indigenous initiatives
To hear great stories, register to join us for Keeping Connected: An Evening of Indigenous Storytelling on January 8, 2025, available both in-person and online.
