For All My Relations ~ A Wabanaki Perspective

Welcome to our First Peoples page.

I’m Nanci, also known as Little Shield. I am a MikMaq from the Northeast bioregion of the Wabanaki Confederacy: Massachusetts. My ancestral bioregion is Nova Scotia, parts of New Brunswick, and Quebec, Canada.

This blog is dedicated to all our relations. It is a place to share our animist perspectives and philosophies and a place to refresh, regroup, and regenerate in the spirit of all creation.

I am both excited and honored to be part of this project and site. I invite you to gather close by the fire,as our ancestors did in times past in the long houses. lodges, and wigwams to share in knowledge and information as it relates to First Peoples of ALL lands.

Tau Hau~

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One little drop of water is as complete in itself as the whole river or the entire sea. Even in the smallest way, a person is just as complete and miraculous as any smart invention on earth. It is only by words and actions that circumstances differ and lives take different routes. Each tiny part of anything if indefinitely important. Each petal on a daisy is necessary to give it balance to stand straight on its stem. Never say you are not important. You are not just important, you are essential. You have a definite purpose and it is a sacred responsibility.

For our people our spirituality comes directly from the one who created all things… Creator. We are told we are to live a spiritual life from conception through to the completion of our earth walk. All of our daily living is dominated and is permeated by and with spirituality. Since we are to live in a spiritual way throughout our earth walk, we have no need for intermediaries such as priests. We relate and communicate directly with Creator and all our brothers and sisters the two legged, the four legged, the winged people, the stone people, the standing tall people, all plant life and insect life, the sky people, the water people. We are star people. The Wabanaki are the people of the Dawn.

If our people were to give a gender to Creator it would be woman. As the ones who have the sacred responsibility to bring forth life, we therefore refer to women as Lifegivers. In the same way Creator creates life or brings forth life, so does woman create life or bring forth life. To our people Lifegivers create life just as Creator creates life

She gave our people “original instructions” or traditional teachings that we are to live by on a moment-to-moment basis. As light or light-energy, we are to live life, live in love, live in peace, live in healing; we are to live in awareness, forgiveness, truth, honesty, compassion, humility, respect, and wisdom.

In our Spirituality, man had no part in its creation. His responsibility is to receive and accept those original instructions, to preserve those teachings, to share them and to pass on those teachings.

There is no hierarchal structure dominated by man alone, who makes up volumes of “good books” with lots of rules that serve to control people, to keep women out and down and also serve to stigmatize “others” and exclude them.

Included in those original instructions are how we are to care for our Sacred Earth Mother. As she is the one who provides for us, nurtures us, protects us, and who demonstrates to us on a moment by moment basis her love for us, so should we demonstrate the same to her by showing our love for her by respecting, nurturing and protecting her.

Since she was made perfect by Creator in the first place, we do not try to change her nor improve her in any way, as that would be insulting and would demonstrate our complete lack of respect for both the Earth Mother and Creator.

The great Earth Mother is our spiritual connection to all things in creation, to the Ancestors, the Seventh Generation, the Light energy, the Universal Mind, and to Creator.

Ceremonies were given to us as a way of beseeching Creator, as a way of communicating with Creator, purifying ourselves physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and as a way of expressing our humility, our thankfulness and our gratefulness for the many gifts from Creator.

We begin and end all our ceremonies with the words ‘all my relations’ as a sign of respect for the very sacred relationship we all have with Creator and with each other. We say “Creator” as opposed to “the Creator” in the same way Christians refer to their god as “God” and not “the God.”

All my relations is a phrase of importance to our people. It is used in all of our ceremonies. It is a reminder that all of Creation and all that Creator has made is connected. All things are connected; we are all one and related. When we say we are connected to all things, we mean the past, present and the future. This has always been and always will be, whether we understand it or accept it. That is how it is.

Everything in Creation has a purpose. Everything in Creation has a task and responsibilities to fulfill during their earth walk. One of the most sacred of these responsibilities given to each of us is to recognize, acknowledge and accept our sacred relatedness to all things. This is the primary reason our people were able to retain and maintain perfect balance and harmony and keep our sacred Turtle Island in balance and harmony, clean and beautiful for those millions of years prior to contact.

During this time individuals and whole peoples lived a life that recognized, acknowledged, accepted, and respected our sacred responsibility… to know, respect, love, and protect our Sacred Earth Mother and all of Creation. We, today, must do the same.

Traditionally, we could no more harm or injure (and certainly not kill) our Sacred Earth Mother anymore than we could our own biological mother. That sacred relationship we know with all things, all of Creation, is the same sacred relationship we have with our Sacred Earth Mother. We must keep that wisdom in our hearts, our thoughts and especially in our actions. That is how and why we show our respect when we say:

For all My relations~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8LzOXVsC70