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February 4 - February 6, 2021
Mindimooyenh says: “Ceremony is not an Instagram photo.”
Mindimooyenh says: “If it is a performance, the spirits refuse to show up. You guys are so full of shit you don’t even notice.”
Mindimooyenh says: “Pay attention to the moon.”
tell Akiwenzii that all the stories have been told. That there are no new ideas. You can try and make something up but chances are, it’s already happened or it just doesn’t matter. That we are stuck and anything that gets us unstuck seems trite. “So?” they say. “All the stories have always already been told. You just tell the same ones over and over and over and over and eventually, if you are patient, something you forgot breaks through. You aren’t patient.”
Nothing drives Mindimooyenh more crazy than “self-care.” “We are self-caring our way to fascism,” they yell. I try and explain. “That’s not a thing,” they reply. “It is just care.”
Repetitive thoughts and actions wiring and rewiring the brain.
Mindimooyenh believes this is the function of ceremony. Ceremony strengthens the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation and empathy. Ceremony is not just one big dumping ground of sharing circle. It is not a performance. It is not even necessarily designed to make you feel better. It is exercise. The repetitive meditative nature. The long hours. Continually bringing wandering distracted minds back into the presence strengthens the prefrontal cortex, releases neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine and melatonin, killing anxiety, depression, addictions
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Lucy thinks: Things unfold in good time. Lucy thinks: Sometimes you have to make things happen. Lucy thinks: There is a tension between unfolding and making.
They sing four songs to the water, and then most mornings, tears leak, because with water there is affinity.
They put that in their do-not-say bin.
Canoeists means white people in canoes. This is different than canoers, at least for Mindimooyenh, because they can remember when canoeing wasn’t a thing, it was simply a means to an end. If you got there in an efficient way, you were fine. Over the course of your life you became good at it or you became dead at it. There were no personal floatation devices, or expensive paddles or whistles or Tilley hats. There were no badges or levels. It wasn’t an exercise in choreography.
she says: there’s nothing about you i’m not willing to know.
