Honouring Indigenous Women in the Arts

I am so glad I made the time in an otherwise busy and chaotic life to go to this event. Dolores told me she was receiving an award at the "Honouring Indigenous Women" show because of her work at home with her language and drumming. I am so happy she invited me to go because I'm not sure I would have made the time otherwise. It was a great way to relax and celebrate the many talents of indigenous women. I displayed some of the art at the show above and in case you can't read the "Bear Woman" piece it says "Legendary Medicine Woman. could tranform into a Bear. became lovers with a Bear Mate. Birthed and Raised Many Children. She gives us Courage. to Shape Shift as we need. to Love who we Choose. and to Defend our Young."
There were several pieces of beautiful art displayed at this event but the main event was the best part of this show. One of Fyre Jean's (First Nations Studies professor) First Nations classes put on a play about the paradox of traditional and contemporary ideologies of women on their moon time (on their period). Whoa! Right! Did I just say that? Yep! We have been conditioned by social constructs to believe that being on our moon time or women on their moon time is gross, something to hide, something to be ashamed of. Traditionally, First Nations revered women on their moon time to have a lot of power, a power that was so powerful it would disrupt the natural powers of spiritual ceremonies. Women on their moon time were not allowed to attend sweats, attend a potlatch (for the first year) and prepare food or attend other sacred ceremonies. Women would gather together on their moon time to bead together, share stories and celebrate their womanhood. The play they did was amazing, there was a girl who wondered a lot, named Wonderwoman! Wonderwoman was trying to make sense of the traditional and contemporary ideologies about women on their moon time and so the play went on to tell the story of what I briefly and incompletely described above. There is much more to it than I have described here, but I would not be able to tell the story.
Thanks for reading...