What IS an Indigenous Worldview?!

Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you, Sandy Boucher here once again with yet another week of videos. I really hope that you got a chance to watch the podcast yesterday. Millie and I are having so much fun with that, and I think there's a lot of valuable information in there. Please watch it, like it, share it, especially if you know some women that need to be empowered. And no, I'm not talking specifically, specifically Indigenous women. All women are marginalized. So watch the podcast and share it. Now. Today I have something exciting for you, something I'm excited about, something I think is pretty amazing. And that's because I had a viewer send me an email and put in a request. And seriously, if there's something you would like me to talk about, please send me a request. I would love to you hear it. This channel is not for me. I know this stuff. This channel is about building bridges. If you don't know, I am all about Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. There's so much missing information, misinformation, stereotypes and the like out there that education and respectful conversations is definitely a step in the right direction. And that's what this is. My YouTube channel is indigenous Centered Space. It's a safe space for an Indigenous voice and Indigenous worldview. But non Indigenous are free to join me here and to listen and learn. And actually, I want to touch on that today because when the viewer emailed me, what they asked is, what is an Indigenous worldview with so many nations being so different? What does that even mean? And they get kudos for acknowledging the nations are different and realizing that. But that doesn't mean there isn't commonalities. Commonalities that often put us at odds with mainstream, in the mainstream worldview. So today, let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. As I mentioned in the opening, my name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And today we're going to talk about the Indigenous worldview. Now, I don't want to see any attacks in the comments. There are commonalities. There are not hard, fast rules. Some Indigenous people have this worldview. Some have some of the points, not all of them. Some are more assimilated or colonized than others. And lots of non Indigenous carry these worldviews as well. But that's because they unpack the mainstream worldview. There's one thing I've noticed is there's a whole bunch of non Indigenous people that want to seem like they're on the right side of history. So they are very. They're still thinking of themselves, but they're very quick to point out that they agree with the indigenous people. That's all well and good. One, it doesn't make you indigenous. And two, you shouldn't be telling us that. You should be telling the non indigenous that are problematic. That because those really problematic people, they're on your side of the feather. We'll work on the healing in our communities and in our lives and in our own bodies. You fix that nightmare because we can't heal if the attacks don't stop. So let's do this. I'm gonna take a shot at this. And I'm so worried about the backlash. But trust. Trust. And I guess that brings me to the first one. Yes. Handy dandy index card. The difference indigenous worldview to mainstream worldview is the difference between acceptance and the need to understand so many different indigenous nations. I have yet to come across one that didn't feel this way. I'm not talking individuals, I'm talking nation as a whole. We just accept that there's so much we don't understand. I don't even understand why this just happened, why this person just called me. I will in time. I don't understand why this, why Easter is so important to Christians. I don't need to understand it. I need to accept it. I need to accept that the land and water and air are needed to live and therefore we need to protect them. I need to accept that some people really get upset if you show up late for a meeting. And maybe that's not my take on things, but if I want to work respectfully with them, I have to understand that and accept it and operate in that rules, as opposed to the many non indigenous people that I have in my audiences who want to understand as if they believe that if they don't understand it, it's not valid. That's an ego trip, in case you haven't figured it out. Like. Like there are many, many things. How to create a universe. I don't know how to do that. The universe exists, right? Like putting the ego in the back corner. So I'm often telling my audiences there's a really good chance you will never understand why we do the ceremonies that we do or why we do whatever. And you don't have to understand it. We are not required to express explain it to you. We do not need your approval or validation. We need you to accept it's important to us. So acceptance versus the need to understand another one. And I just Touched on it. And you'll see that all of these points I came up with are very interrelated. Indigenous worldview versus mainstream. Humility teaching versus ego. I am an essential puzzle piece. So are you. I am not better than you. It doesn't matter how big my bank account is or what car I drive. It doesn't matter how many degrees I have. My wisdom is not greater than your wisdom. It may be different. We can definitely share with each other. You can learn from me, but I can most definitely learn from you. Humility teaching. And I run often into mainstream ego and often in the hands of the academics. I have 52 degrees. I know more than you. No, you know more than me in your area of study. And I can definitely learn from you. I know more than you in my world experience, in my. My area of expertise. And if you would put down the wall a little bit, you could learn from me, too. Okay. So in my mind, and I talk about this all the time when people ask me questions, and I'm going to watch for this in the comments to this video, if someone comes at me with a question and they say, I don't understand why first nations people don't do this, this or that. That's humility. That's beautiful. The bridge has already started to be built. I have all the time in the world for those questions. But when someone comes at me with, why the hell don't they just. Excuse me? That's ego. That's an attack. That's judgment. I would do different than them. I know more than them. I have zero time to answer that question. You go unpack that and come out with me with respect and humility and we have a chance to talk. I am not a target just because I want to help. Next one. Okay, this one. I'm Red Thunderbolt Woman. I'm known for my bluntness, my lightning bolt moments, but even this one made me nervous. I heard an elder say it, and it definitely makes the point, but you better hang on to your chair for a second. The difference between indigenous worldview and mainstream worldview. That colonial European descendant worldview, the difference between seeing ourselves as caretakers and takers, and that's stewardship. The fact that so many indigenous nations. And again, I have never came across one that didn't feel that way. That we are the caretakers. We are in stewardship with the Earth. We have to take care of the land, the water, the air. Which is why we are so often at odds with resource development, because resource development are takers. We want to Come in. We want to get those minerals, we want to get those trees. Often without any care to what gets left behind. Tailing ponds, anyone? So that's a huge one. The huge one. The difference between wanting to take care of. Which brings me to the next one, because I can't explain the first without the second. The difference between taking care of Mother Earth and seeing the Earth as resources for us to use. We don't use Mother Earth. We take care of Mother Earth. And ages ago, in a video, I shared this story. It's worth sharing again. I was on an airplane. I get into the most interesting conversations on airplanes. Captive audience, I guess. This young man. Sit down, sat down next to me. He university student, business school was heading back home for reading Week to a northern city I know very well. So we started chatting. He asked me what I do for a living. I explained it, and in response he said, do you mind if I ask you a question which is always entertaining. And I usually, 99.9% of the time say yes, unless I can already tell this person's problematic and it's just going to be an attack or judgment, then I don't owe them that. It's my. I paid for a ticket. No time did it say, I have to teach the person next to me or with the person next to me. Anyways, he was very respectful. So he asked, can you explain Mother Earth to me? I hear the term. It just. It doesn't compute. I don't understand it. And I get that. I totally get that. So humility teaching, right? That's cool. You just don't. I can use a metaphor to help explain it to you. So I said to him, okay, well, let's try this. How much money would I have to pay you for you to allow me to take out your mother's kidneys? And the shock on his face, I will never forget. And he was like, are you kidding? No amount of money. You're not going to do that. Forget it. Why would you say that? I said, okay, well, that's how many indigenous people who practice traditional teachings feel about mining, that you're going in and ripping out the internal organs of Mother Earth again, often without any care or concern about the damage that's being inflicted on Mother Earth or the damage you left behind. No one's sewing up the wounds. No one's making sure that the earth is still healthy after this. It's that taking mentality. So Mother Earth versus resources, which brings us to the next one. To be indigenous and raised with those teachings is to Understand that we live a life of obligation and responsibility. The teaching I used to always hear is with a gift comes responsibility. Well, life is a gift. Your relationships are a gift. Your friendships, your children, your jobs are a gift. The fact Mother Earth is a gift. The air and the land and the water, we need to live our gifts. With those gifts come responsibility. To take care of them, to take care of the body we are given, to take care of the land that we were given the opportunity to live on. To take care of our relationships versus we see this so much lately. My right. It's my right to do whatever I want with my property. It's my right to do whatever I want with the water that flows through that property with no consideration of the fact that it doesn't stop, that the water flows somewhere else. So if you're poisoning it, you're poisoning somewhere else. The arguments over the imaginary lines on a map that separate provinces or even countries. It's ludicrous to my Indigenous worldview. So rights versus obligations and responsibilities, That's a huge one. Which brings us to another one that I've definitely had this conversation. The mindset that we must always think of the seven generations that came before and the seven generations that come next, acknowledging all they went through so we could be here, learning from their wisdom and experience while protecting what the seven generations in the future will need. Making sure they still have fresh air, fresh water and land to grow their food on, as opposed to right here, right now. My life, and maybe the life of my children that it's all about me feeding my bank account now. And I don't care what's going to happen four generations from now because I won't be around. Very self centered, very egocentric. The one that always comes to mind recent conversation that showed this difference was the burying of nuclear waste in Northern Ontario. And I don't know if this is still the case, but I know when the conversations first started, I would hear, well, the containers we're going to put the nuclear waste in, we're going to sink them into the Canadian Shield. And these containers are guaranteed for 150 years. My instantaneous question was, what happens in 151 years? Like how do we get to the container to fix it if it starts leaking? Are we going to know instantaneously when it does start leaking? Or are the Indigenous peoples of Northern Ontario, we got to wait till they start getting sick and dying before we even know noticing. Considering how Canada tends to value its Indigenous, not its indigenous people, I almost made a mistake there How Canada tends not to value the indigenous people living within Canadian borders. Like, are they even going to notice when we get sick? If you're going to bring nuclear waste up here, which I have an issue with, if it's not any big deal, then keep it in Pickering where it was generated. My 2 cents. Anyways, if you're going to bring it up here, I need it above ground in the container that's got all the gauges on it. So we're going to know the second that something happens and we're going to be able to get to it to fix it. And the fact that that won't happen for 150 years, well, we got to make sure that the people that come next are going to be able to deal with it. Because of my little blunder. I just want to explain that one of the worst things you can say is, is Canadians and Canada's indigenous people, we don't belong to Canada. That ownership, that paternalistic attitude has been one of the biggest problems and preventing us from reconciling. So I refer to the indigenous peoples living within Canadian borders. We are not Canada's indigenous people. So that was a little slip up on my part. Last but not least, and this came up a lot this weekend because Easter just passed. So you saw a lot of Christian posts all over. All the power to you. If that's your path, knock your socks off. If it works for you, great. I don't personally, it's not my side of the feather, don't care. But I saw a picture that so resonated with me and it said, christians go inside a building to hear their God. We go into the bush to hear creator. And the reason that resonated with me is I'm an author and I used to have the opportunity to go into the bush on a regular basis. And I used to always say that I loved it because in the bush it was quiet enough. I could hear creators speaking. Like, I swear I could write an entire book in one weekend in the bush. And the other thing that is incredibly different, I know this is true for some religions. I definitely don't want to paint them all with the same brush. But the belief that there has to be that middle person that interprets God's word for the followers or whoever the deity is, we just don't believe that. We believe that anyone can hear creator's voice, that that's speaking to us. We just have to be quiet enough to hear it. So there's my shot at explaining Indigenous worldview. And again, do not come at me with, well, it's not everyone who thinks that way. No colonization has happened. Assimilation has happened. But when I talk about an indigenous worldview, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about obligations and responsibilities. I'm talking about Mother Earth. I'm talking about humility. I'm talking about everything happens when it's meant to, not because some clock says it's time. So it's those kind of things, those base differences that I'm referring to when I talk about an indigenous worldview. To the indigenous watching this video. And by the way, if you're new here, welcome. I hope you found this video enlightening. Like share it subscribe. That would make me very happy. To the indigenous watching this video. I know I forgot some no ego in my game here. I thought of quite a few, but if you can think of another that this is the same as that I would love to hear from you the Indigenous Centered Space. I don't want to hear about other groups that believe the same. We're going to keep it focused on indigenous. But I do hope that helped. And if you do have a question and you want something, there's some topic you want me to speak to, then please send me an email. I'm always thrilled to receive those. Okay. I hope that helped. We have so many amazing things to talk about this week. I can't wait. I love you. Take care. Bye Bye.