Murdered and Missing Women of Canada

Missing Sisters

As the Indigenous Peoples of this land,--- I hesitate to say, 'of Canada', because as Indigenous People, we have never truly experienced inclusion within Canada--- we suffer collectively. That is to say that we suffer collective and common truths. We suffer in ways that we cannot always describe.
However, those of us who have women, murdered or missing without a trace, from our families, and from our communities, have begun to describe this form of suffering both for ourselves and for the world. Our voices spill out across a land that is peopled by a society that has, in large part, replied with a cool reticence to become involved in this issue.

Although there has been some police action around this issue, there is obviously not enough being done to find the truth and solution to this lingering tragedy that we live with. And as Indigenous People, we do live infused with the socially dynamic realities of this issue. This is an issue that haunts each of us as we go through our daily lives. It has created tensions within our lives that we may not always be aware of. These tensions come to bare upon us within our lives over the long term. As such they affect the dynamics of our families, the way we think, and our general day to day comfort level. In some ways it affects who we are and how we relate to the world around us.
This is an issue that occurs in, and that is relevant to, Indigenous communities, both rural and urban, all across Canada. By extension it is an issue that is relevent to Indiegenous People at the international level. History has proven repeatedly that ,'types of abuse', perpetrated against Indigenous People around the world, have common roots found in the interest of the subjection and the relegation of Indigenous People away from the realm of humanity.

The extent and the longevity of this issue make it an issue that stands as an assault against the humanity of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, and of the world. Although it may not as yet have been perceived as such, this is an issue that diminishes the level of humanity to be attached to the concept of 'Canadian Society.'
In the interest of maintaining our personal humanity as Indigenous Peoples, and the humanity of our memories of our missing loved ones, it is our responsibility to ourselves as individuals, and to each other, to move this issue beyond these lingering shadows of history. We must place this issue, and keep it, front and center on the stage of the Canadian Consciousness. It is up to each of us to pursue efforts of, and within our Leadership, at all levels across this land, to ensure that this issue be given no rest until we are satisfied with the results.

Greg Robinson, (Haisla Nation)

Color The Sun

Down streets of post-Cambrian cobblestone
On spirit horse back
Social spurs jangle
Desert dust, the wind-borne ode of rider across endless open landscape
Colors a blistering sun

Drum beat reverb
Down through steep sided valley
Eagle spreads long-feathered wings

Dipping off mountain crag
Enters crash dive
Down, down, down

Slowly pulling out
Veers away from
Sheer faced rock wall
Scans depth of spiritual river waters
Wanders with us out across this fabric weave of cultural time

Voices in chant, dance once again with evergreens
A long slow rhythmic drift across the ages
Northwest Coast dugout canoe spurned by thrust of cedar paddle
Quietly they smile, and...
In silence, call us homeward.

Greg Robinson June, 2009.

Art Bio(2009)

ART BIOGRAPHY: Greg Robinson

My name is Greg Robinson. I am a member of the Haisla Indigenous Community of Kitamaat Village, BC, Canada. I was born in the summer of the year 1956.
My late father was 'The Hamaas', Hereditary Chief of the Haisla, and Chief of the Haisla Beaver Clan. The Haisla are the northern most segment of the Kwakiulth Tribe. My mother, who is a descendant through her mother, of the Killer Whale Clan of the Tsimpshian community of Hartley Bay, BC, was born in Kitamaat and both adopted into the Haisla Eagle Clan and raised, by her grandfather David Shaw, who was a carpenter and dugout canoe builder. David built a canoe that was eventually painted by Bill Reid, and is now on display in the UBC Museum of Archaeology in Vancouver, BC., Canada.

At this relatively late stage in my life, I am learning to more diligently express my personal artistic vision. For me this process has involved a very steep learning curve, from being totally computer illiterate in 1999 to teaching myself computer graphics. I have always had a desire to describe the images and the statements that billow across my mind’s eye. My first efforts began in 1976, with the purchase of a Pentax 35 millimeter SLR camera, and figuring out how to use it. But it is only in the recent few years that I have begun a more serious practice of developing my personal expression. I began by learning through self-study, the basics of North West Coast form line design. Teaching myself to work with computer graphics software, I began to integrate these two art forms.
The more I learn, the more aware I become of how much more there is to learn. But also and more importantly, the more potential I can see in both myself and others around me, as well as in the tools that continue to evolve with time. And although it is at times overwhelming, I cannot help but to become increasingly exited at the constantly growing list of the things that I want to do. A major restriction that I have to deal with, and that serves to contain my personal development, is poverty. I do however, continue to work against this constraint.
I occasionally hear people complaining about how bored they are. I find it incredible that anyone can possibly be bored in this day and age! There is absolutely no time to be bored.

Canada a 'genocidal state': former Arab Federation VP

Happy Canada Day?

The following is an article published in The National Post Newspaper, on thursday, July second, 2009. Here is a man who obviously has some very deep convictions. It is apparent that he has taken the time to make himself aware of what is perhaps the most basic, and long standing of all Canadian national social, and political Issues. It is also apparent that Mr. Shaban has chosen to represent his deep, personal convictions, in a very open and honest fashion. The widely negative response to Mr. Shaban's open and honest portayal of the truth, simply reveals the level of denial that remains prevalent here in Canada, around the historic,and ongoing subjection of The Indigenous Peoples of this land.
This particular case reveals how successive waves of immigrants to Canada, continue to be infused with the historic Canadian practise of the denial of Indigenous rights, including human rights. What this says is that each successive wave of immigrants to Canada serve, to some extent, to reinforce the denial. Further, it is a testament that those who stand and speak this truth to the masses will be quashed.

Greg Robinson, New Westminster, BC, July,4th, 2009(blog: West Coast Indigenous Perspective).

Canada a 'genocidal state': former Arab Federation VP: "mvallis@nationalpost.com"

Open Flight

OPEN FLIGHT
by Thomas G. Robinson



The ocean air was cool to breathe, coming ashore in wild gusts off vast stretches of the Pacific. My hair flailed in time and rhythm with trees and grasses of the shoreline. A heavy, rolling, curling surf tumbled and roared. Infinitely wild, it leapt and bounded up the solid rock beachhead, blasting a relentless profusion of spray cascading high into the air, and drenching all in a salty briny bath.
Bright sunrays of midday beamed through water droplets hanging on my eyelashes, glinted into a constantly morphing kaleidoscopic blaze of rain bowed light. Above the deafening roar rose the shrill cacophonic choir of the climbing, diving gulls.

My brother was, in some ways, a lot like those gulls. He had a sharp, buoyant humor that would carry you up beyond the clutches of the staid reality, like those gulls dash over and beyond the ocean swells with the ease of their graceful flight. His soft laughter would carry you above the dull grinding roar of the daily slog.
There was a time when my brother would have braved those waves with gusto and excitement and even glee. He would guide his craft steeply up, over those breakers, and away from the shoreline toward the total freedom of the open sea. It was always freedom that he had desired most. More than money, more than possession for possession's sake, more than any fame or anything that fame had to offer.
Freedom is something that is in itself totally free of cost, yet it can be at once a thing of such great expense. It is a simple thing, yet a thing not so simple, but yet a thing profound.
It is something with different meaning for each who might take time to consider the point.
Freedom.
In the end, my brother did find his freedom, freedom from all things earthly. He found freedom from this life. In his youthful folly, he dared the reality of chemical poisoning,
and pushed the line a little too far. For that daring, he paid the ultimate price. He found his freedom in the endlessness of death.

Northwest Coast Landfall: Our Spiritual Heritage

Finish It Off...or Not.

The Universe Awaits

Picture in your mind's eye, a long road winding onward before you. This road stretches out across the horizon as far as your mind's eye can see. Although you have always been curious about what you might experience as you moved along that road, you have never stepped out to explore that road. The 'reason' that you have always allowed yourself to beleive, is that there is a gate that blocks your entrance to that road. You have always heard yourself say that the gate is closed and you do not have the key to open this gate.
This image repsresents that gate. And, that gate, is your gate. If you look closely, you may notice that there is no latch or other device locking this gate into its 'closed' state. The gate, 'Just Is'.
Here, the reality is, that the very effort of lifting your hand to open this gate, is the key to moving beyond this gate.
If you do not take this first step, your journey will never open before you.

Greg Robinson, Haisla Nation, 06, 2009

A Blue Light

It has been said that blue is the color of the soul. The soul of our ancestry has always been directly connected to the land and to all aspects of nature, including the waters and the skies. Through our Indigenous ancestry we have a direct and undeniable connection to our Traditional Territories. We must not allow ourselves to be persuaded to allow others to sever this connection.

Shaman's Moon

To me, the concept of a 'Shaman' within West Coast Traditional Cultural practise, represents a 'voice' or 'a spiritual aspect' of the community that appeared and evolved within the historic community, and was based in the will, the ability and the power of the human mind to overcome adversity. The Shaman played the role of attempting to activate that power within the individual and the community. Today there are aspects of the potential of the human mind that remain unexplored; which is to say that a rational mind must remain open at least to the contemplation of such potential.

TGR 2009

Time Passing