Happy Persons Day

 Rebecca bought two tickets to the LEAF Edmonton's Persons Day Breakfast, entitled "Contested Legal Personalities: Indigenous Women".  

Rebecca shared one of the tickets with me; I attended

... Professor Val Napoleon ...

virtually -- I think the moderator said about 350 people had gathered together.

The speaker was Val Napoleon, whom I think of more, as a friend.

This morning I saw that the ReconciliationofYEG blog did their reflection on Val's talk.   I was curious as I read, thinking how reading someone else's notes capture thoughts I heard but didn't write down.

I was doing my reflections on the event in yesterday evening,  rereading the notes I had taken.  

I am lucky for I was in a class taught by Val and I am familiar with the Gitxsan story of the mother who raises triplets without the help of her family or community.  All abandon her.  The story has a happy ending: resilience from her and reconciliation with her family and community when her family is older.  I am left wondering about the bracketed story, the one of a lifetime of mothering in the absence of help from loved ones or community.

... painting by Val Napoleon ...

I thought I would read the Gitxsan story again, knowing that I have it in my notes -- but that is the trouble with my continued pattern of living with my loved ones across Canada -- Victoria, Annis Bay BC, Calgary and Montreal.

I have a string of notes, housed thousands of miles apart.  I love those notes -- not that I can always find them, but that I made them, know I have them, love them and know I will keep adding to them.  That is what fills my life with such happiness.

Thanks to Val yesterday for more ideas to collect.

Arta

ILRU Six Vignettes read by Val and Rebecca

Painting: Val Napolen

Raven Series

On the blog site of the Indigenous Law Research Unit is a post about a  series of conversations written by Val Napoleon, and read aloud by Val and Rebecca Johnson.

There are six vignettes.

I have only had time to look at the first, but I am surely going to listen to the other five, and also read Val Napoleon's paper, which I have only skimmed, but which I shall read again, probably taking notes.

Just my kind of thing.

Arta