Orange comes to me with a story of listening.
Issapaakii, Crow Woman, speaks to me when I see the colour orange. Phyllis Webstad, too. I heard her voice a few years ago spiraling through the New Central Library in Calgary. They were survivors of residential school. I listened to them with my whole self. My mind still. My body still. I let their words in, like breath, like my own breath.
I breathed in their stories. It hurt me to do this.
I know the harm they suffered. I know the truth. Genocide is more horrific than we can imagine.
I’ve breathed in stories through books, documentaries, research, movies and APTN, social media– their voices aren’t hidden anymore. I’ve learned listening helps us all.
Listening made me a stronger listener. I learned to listen to myself. I practiced holding difficult stories. I fell in love with a people who survived. I wanted to be like them: a survivor. I learned ways they release and help each other with pain and suffering.
Crow Woman taught me about the healing power of dandelions, the joy of butterflies, the importance of listening to our young people.
My breath wanted healing, too. I put Indigenous people in a special place of high regard– like an apprentice of their ways. I wanted their approval. When I let myself down, I felt I let Crow Woman down.
I studied harder. I avoided the near-overwhelming impulse to mimic their ways, to try to become someone I was not. I found my own ancestral roots. The Irish, too, had ceremony and ritual. They grieved together. I breathed in the past through stories and speakers who still carry knowledge from long ago. I learned to listen to the Irish.
I want to return to Crow Woman, changed and strong and resilient. I want to return to her without crying about my own pain. I want to be for her what she’s always been for me, a listener.
It must be one of the hardest things about being an elder, holding the pain of everyone else. I learned from Pema Chodron about breathing in pain and suffering, breathing out peace and calm. I wonder if Indigenous elders have a similar practice.
Orange reminds me of honouring. Listening.
