dusty boots is my given name. I am four years old. Three plus one is 31.
I wear boots. I like to walk this earth.
I am blessed to have had the clarity of vision to have joined a group of elders, medicine people, educators, artists, storytellers, and visionaries from around the world on a journey to Ireland in May 2008.
This gathering was the beginning of a movement called, Rekindling Indigenous Spirit.
Rekindling Indigenous Spirit is a movement of humans from diverse places coming together to reconnect with the land, to sit in circle, to connect with each other and to unveil the patterns of colonization that have repeated themselves through out history and around the globe.
At the time I decided to go on this trip to Ireland I was unknown to these people, I had four bucks to my name, I had just moved back home with my mother (which was wonderful but played with my ego), and I was unemployed… but I was going to Ireland. My faith and trust were strong.
Faith moves mountains and trust creates the space for magic to happen.
Spirit was with me.
I got an amazing job planting eelgrass in the ocean with marine biologist Cynthia Durance, Eimear O’Neill the coordinator of the trip and affiliate of the Transformative Learning Centre at OISE, University of Toronto, agreed to provide mentorship for me on this trip and for the project, A Spoonful of Honey. My role on the journey was to document the gathering and spend time in dialogue with the elders and educators who were in attendance. I was one of the youngest to be participating in the gathering putting intergenerational multimedia storytelling into practice. Blaze was the youngest! Thank goodness....putting intergenerational storytelling really into practice!
A Spoonful of Honey, is an intergenerational multimedia storytelling documentary film. We are in the research and development stage of the project. We have received development funding from the Interarts department of the Canada Council for the Arts.
The project brings youth and elders into storytelling and sharing circles.... but really people from all ages and places. From these circles the youth will use the art of storytelling and their chosen art form to tell their story and re-tell the stories of the elders within the structure of a film. The core question of the project is, “What is your connection to land?”
I am interested in the art of storytelling as a way to the truth.
If I am going to face the truth then I need a little honey.
“A Spoonful of Honey”
Humour is the honey and truth is the healing.
We have been meeting in circle.
Youth, elders, forty year olds, thirty year olds, twenty year olds, historians, musicians, poets, artists, filmmakers, carpenters, students, teenagers, people from all nations and cultures have been meeting in circle.
The circle is profound. Every time I sit in circle I am amazed by the simplicity of the action … people sitting in a circle together … and the profound energy and healing that is the result of sharing a sacred space like that with others.
To learn more about A Spoonful of Honey and the Rekindling Indigenous Spirit journeys please visit: www.rekindlingindigenousspirit.org
dustie boots and seamus at work in knowth.
