Podcast Episode #21 Known to many as Nii Gaani Aki Inini (Leading Earth Man), Dave Courchene has touched many lives through his teachings. A respected Elder and knowledge keeper of the Anishinaabe Nation, he has devoted his life to creating a healthy environment for current and future generations, carrying messages of hope and peace around the globe, and learning the knowledge and traditions of Indigenous Peoples around the world. Serving as a member of the Wisdom Keepers of the United Nations since 1992, he has acted in an advisory capacity to the UN in areas of spirituality and sustainable environmental stewardship. In his efforts to bring a message of peace and hope to the world, Elder Courchene founded Turtle Lodge International Centre for Indigenous Education and Wellness – a partner in the Reconciling Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Knowledge and Science project – as a place of learning, healing and sharing for all people, in 2002. He has built alliances with institutions, academics, and policymakers across the country, and is known for his ability to inspire dialogue and cross-cultural understanding. Elder Courchene’s work has been recognized with many prestigious honours, including, most recently, an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Dave Courchene is A founding Elder of the Giigewigamig (pronounced Kee-gay-ga-mik) Traditional Healing Centre at the Pine Falls Hospital, which is independently managed by Elders from the Sagkeeng, Black River, Hollow Water and Bloodvein First Nations. Thank you for being here with us today Elder Dave Courchene.
- Please tell us your story and connection to nature.
Thank you so much Verla. That is quite a question. You know, I was reflecting this morning on that very question that you asked me. When we share our teachings as a people, it is always in reflection to story. We are known to be people that have always depended on oral teachings, that share our teachings, and our way of life. The best that I can do is reflect on my own personal journey in my life and what brought me to do the work that I have done these past years. It begins with a time that there was a resurgence across the country for indigenous people.
Many people do not know the story and the real history of indigenous people. For us the attempt to destroy our identity through colonization and domination, had a really deep negative impact on us as the original people. It is during this time, my early years, that I became very politicized in terms of wanting to do something…to what I believed… to take us out of this colonization environment.
It led me to the Knowledge Keepers of my Nations. It was there that I received the help and the guidance that would help me to understand the real truth of my identity and who I was as an Anishinaabe person. When we make reference to the Anishinaabe Nation, it is in our understanding that we have a uniqueness as a people. We have lived here in this part of the world for many thousands of years evolving in the understanding and knowledge. There was almost a race to attempt to assimilate us into another way of life.
It was during this time, that I found my way to the Grandmothers, who had seen that I was a young man really angry. When you are angry sometime you feel that that anger is justified…but it never was with the Grandmothers. I always remember my Grandmother, her Native name was Waskoning, meaning that she was a Being of Light. And that was the truth of who she was as a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful grandmother. She had the fullness of being of the Spirit of Kindness. She taught all of us that the most important way to live and to act was in the Spirit of Kindness. And I never forgot that. And my mother reflected the same spirit. My mother was so full of that Spirit of deep Love and Kindness…and that is why I believe today, that is going to have to be the Grandmothers who take us out of this world that has become so violent and so disconnected from the very source of life that we need in order to live and to survive.
All women have a gift to bring life into this world. All women have been given the gift that is like the power of mother earth. It is the women who are the voice of the land itself. It is said that in our understanding of our teaching of the Elders, that a boy will never become a man until he is initiated by a woman. And that initiation begins by truly having a loving and sacred relationship with your mother, to recognize that it is your mother who has given you life. She had to endure sacrifice in order to bring all of us into this world. Every child is reminded within our teachings that that relationship with the mother is essential in order to grow and to live one’s Spirit of being a kind, caring, compassionate being.
When I left the Grandmothers that had retained the teachings, the ceremonies, and the way of life of our People, it was there that I began to realize who were as People. One of the first experiences that I had with the Grandmothers is that they showed is that I cannot walk life in anger – that there is another way in order to deal with the frustrations that I was having with what was happening to our People.
The Grandmothers said that we will take you back to the beginning. This is where your journey will begin. We are going to take you into a Lodge that is considered the Beginning. What that lodge was is what they call the Sweat Lodge – the symbol of the Womb of Woman. When you enter into that Lodge you feel the warmth, that is brought in by what we refer to as the Grandfathers…that are brought into the Lodge to create the warmth. Then we start to remember. The memory is triggered by that experience of going back into the womb of your own mother — by entering into that Sacred Lodge.
My journey really took off at that point because I began to feel so excited, and I began to feel that there was a lot of hope to be able to turn things around in what I was experiencing in my life and what I was witnessing what was happening to the indigenous people. I began to feel the Spirit in a way that I do not have the words to describe the things that I went through and felt as I was going through the ceremonies. Then I was guided by the Grandmothers to go on a rite of passage, which we refer to as the Vision Quest for the young boys to be able to go out on the land and to reach out to the great spirit for a dream for a vision.
And equally important was to get to the Land and get to know the Land itself ..to feel the Land and to hear the voice of the Land itself that would come through the voice of the wind, the voice of the birds, even the voice that is spoken from the trees – if one is able to be open, to listen –the teaching that comes from the Land itself.
I developed a relationship with the Land over the years – which I could say was a sacred relationship to understand how loving Mother Earth is. And that every day she continues to express that love to all of us everyday and unconditionally in the way that most mother’s do. So that no matter what we have done to her, through the great love that has for creation, and the life that is borne from her and what we need in order to live and survive as a people
So I knew I was going inside spiritually, that something was happening inside, and I still had the passion that would help me to fulfill my own identity and purpose for this life. I knew I must have had a purpose like anybody else. I kept going on these vision quests hoping for a dream or a vision. It was during this time that I was given a vision by the Great Creator who gives us this breath of life. I saw this Turtle Lodge. And there is much more that I saw in that Turtle Loge, and we don’t have time to talk about all of that than, the significance of the Lodge as the Elders had told me, that I was blessed to be given this vision that was brought by the Spirit of the Grandmother Turtle, that they said was instructed by the Creator to come and give this Lodge to the People. I instructed to build that Lodge and to make it real. Over the years we were able to achieve that and manifest that dream that Turtle Lodge, that has become internationally known and recognized that it is a special place, where we have the leaders of The Knowledge Keepers of our Nation who have remained faithful to their way of life, held on to their languages, their ceremonies, and their teachings – they are the ones that carry the essence of the spirit of the ancestors that lived and survived by these laws that are within the Lodge itself.
Over the years, we have been able to reach out to our brothers and sisters to share why we love the land so much because it is the source of life. It is where we get everything that we need in order to live and survive. It is our duty and responsibility to take care of Mother Earth. That is a collective responsibility that we all have. And through the years if sharing these teachings, we were guided by the Knowledge Keepers to teach our brothers and sisters, who have arrived on our homeland, the rules of conduct on how you should live and behave on this part of the world that we have taken care of for tens of thousands of years.
The memory that we hold as a People is a genetic memory of the original instructions that we were all given, on how to live and behave. That our way of life should be based on teachings and values and laws that should act as the foundation of whatever we decide to create to make a better world. While the world has not done that.
The world has left behind the most important part of our nature. The most important part of our nature is the spirit. We came in here as spirit, to live our lives spiritually, and then we move back to the source of where we have come from, when we have completed our physical human journey in this life. But we all have a universal purpose – a covenant that we have made with our Creator, before we arrived in the wombs of our mothers, we carried the promise that we made with our Creator. The Creator said, I will give you that blessing to live that human life and you can chose which direction you want to live in. Because there were four original People that were created that represented the 4 directions, and the balance of life itself. We were given that choice to go wherever they wanted to go. I chose to be an Anishinaabe. This is where I was put. This is where I have come to fulfill the promise that I made with the great Creator. And the promise that all of us have made – all of us have made — that promise that we would bring love into this world – we would bring peace into this world.
In the very same way that we have been brought into this world by the love of the Creator, the same way that has been manifested physically through the great love of Mother Earth herself – because it is all about love. It is all about how to honor and reflect the vision of the great Creator who has given us this beautiful gift to come into this world to feel that love, and to be given the choice of the way we want to life – that I an expression of freedom – that is expressed through unconditional love. How do you love? Do you love with conditions? Or do you love and allow your heart to flow freely?
In the same way that love enters into your heart, that comes from the Spirit, that can come from the Land – that can show love for everyone. It is not restricted when it comes to Mother Earth or to the Creator itself. It is about expressing this love without conditions. Humans have not learned this because they have not connected to the truth of their own spirit. They have not connected to the Land itself as an expression of that unconditional love.
Our mothers are the best example of the expression of that love, in the way that they express love for their children. They will do everything. A real mother will do everything to make sure that that child is given maximum support to be able to live its identity and its spirit as a unique human being. A mother will always be there. A mother will always be forgiving. A mother will always show that kindness in order to nurture that spirit that is inside each of us.
So the Turtle Lodge today, I am very proud of because we were about to do something that I feel can have an impact on everyone because The Turtle Lodge is a model. It is about ensuring that people take responsibility for their lives – to be responsible for your own spiritual journey – to be responsibility for carrying out your own spiritual identity that comes from a purpose in life. The Turtle Lodge has always been about the teachings of that unconditional love that the Creator has for all of us.
We have been a people that have been hurt. We are a people that had to undergo a lot of pain because people did not reflect and show kindness …that we were also human beings. And we have had to suffer. And we still feel the impact of that suffering with the experience of the boarding school, where we were brain washed and assimilated to believe in someone else’s way of life and to forget about our own. And yet through the pain that we have had to endure, we have still been able to reach a level of forgiveness … to forgive those who were not at that level of understanding of that sacredness of that spirit of love and kindness. They did not have that spirit of respect and understanding – the very simple truth, that we are all brothers and sisters. We may look different, we may think different, but the spirit is all the same. We all carry the same original teachings and instructions that we were given on how to live and how to love as human beings. Prophecy has foretold that it would be here in our homeland, that the First Peoples, the indigenous people, would be propelled into the forefront of a movement – a movement that was nothing less than an awakening – that it would be the indigenous people that would try to inspire our brothers and sisters to wake up and see what you are doing to the Land. Wake up and see what you are doing to each other. Wake up and see what you are doing to the children by denying them the truth, by denying them that unconditional love to allow them to be free thinking individuals to be able to fufill their own dreams and their own visions – that would give them their own identity and why they were given this gift of life.
Today we continue to try to inspire people from all walks of life. We are open to be able to talk, to share … and most of all to give. The best part of our being is our heart, that carries that knowledge and understanding that we are challenged more than ever to come to terms with the way that we are living and the way that we are behaving.
Ceremonies to our people has always been important because ceremony is an act of gratitude to the Spirit .. and act of gratitude to the Land. Because everything we do and receive, we recognize we have to reciprocate by offering a simple word and prayer of gratitude … and say
“thank you Creator, that you have given me this breath of life here on earth again today”
“thank you mother earth that you have provided the sustenance —the food that I have been able to eat, and the water, and the medicines that I need in order to stay healthy.” So ceremony is a way for us as indigenous people of that spiritual connection to the Land and to the Creator…and that higher realm of where real intelligence exists. The higher intelligence is beyond our intellect. The intellect can only have access to so much information. We do not have the intellectual capacity to be able to understand the fullness of the great Spirit – and many have referred to as the Great Mystery. We don’t have the capacity to understand the greatness of creation. The best that we can do is listen to the teachings of the Elders that share a knowledge that they have evolved with over tens of thousands of years.
The best that we can do to really understand Mother Earth is to be able to go to the Land — to sit on the land, to feel the land – there is no words that can ever be offered that can ever describe the feeling. It’s about feeling – do you feel the land? Do you feel the Spirit? We cannot intellectualize the feeling of the Spirit. It is something that has to be lived. It is something you have to experience.
As indigenous people, we will never get involved about who the Creator is. That is something that each of us has the responsibility to feel within our own being. Once you feel that spirit and essence of the love the Creator, there is nothing to debate – you just feel it, you live it, and you act it out.
Ceremonies for our people are best expressed on the Land. The Land is everything. The Land is the foundation of experiencing our ceremonies and our teachings. The Land is where we are encouraged to seek our healing – where we need to go to access the teachings – that mother earth is always prepared to offer us teachings.
You know there is one story I like to tell of a group of young people that I had taken out on the land. And I said to them you know, today we are going to talk to the trees and the older ones of the group were kind of showing that maybe I was being a little crazy because in their mind, they think “who talks to a tree – a tree doesn’t talk.” But there was a little girl and th younger ones 5 or so years old and they got excited and said “I really want to talk to the trees.” They are jumping up and down saying let’s go talk to the trees. So we make our way into the bush, and we find this beautiful cedar tree and I set them in a circle. And I said, “ok, I am going to sing a song, I am going to talk to the spirit of the tree. I am going to ask it to teach us today. It is up to you to be able to open yourselves up to hear or you can even ask a question to the tree on what ever question you may have. I made some offerings, then I started to sing. And I told those children, just clear your minds, allow yourself to be open. Let’s see if you are going to be able to see or hear the tree itself. And then I asked if there was anything anybody wanted to say, maybe they heard a tree or whatever.. And this little girl put up her hand and jumps up and down. She says “yeah, yeah I got something!” And I said do you want to share it with the rest of the group? And she said “you know I asked a tree, and it was in the fall time, beautiful color.” The trees were all changing color, she said “I asked the tree – hey tree how come you don’t have one color? How come there is many different colors? And you know what the tree said?” And everybody was waiting to see what the tree had told her. She shared “And the tree said the colors are our way of celebrating our life that we got from Mother Earth. Nature’s way of celebrating.” Who would have told her that? It had to be the tree itself or nature speaking for that child.
And there was a young boy about 12 or 13 years old, and he still would not believe that this was real. So I asked the spirit of the tree, “what should I do with this young boy? He is very uncomfortable and he doesn’t want to believe.” And the tree said, “bring him over here and tell him to hug the tree.” So I say a song and he was hugging the tree, and suddenly he let go of that tree, something scared him. Then I stopped and said “what’s happening?” He said “that tree is breathing.” And I said “well, do you know the teaching here?” I said “you didn’t believe that that tree was alive, but it showed you that it was alive. It may not look like you, but it is a living entity just like you. There is a reason why the Creator created trees for us to be able to enjoy and the trees bring many blessings. The trees they say are the lungs of the earth. The trees give us medicine. The trees give us the poles for our lodges, the trees give us many many things and we are to treat those trees, like all creation with sacredness.
So ceremony is very very important for us. And the ceremony that I feel I need to encourage to all people is the ceremony of gratitude. When you wake up in the morning, a simple word of prayer of “thank you for the life that you have.” And yes we have many challenges and struggles in life, and sometimes it is so easy to lose faith. But that is why a continued repeat of prayer keeps you in touch with that Spirit – to have that faith and that belief that things will get better … that things will be ok. Because prayer and ceremony have always been the foundation of who we are as indigenous people. We are spiritual people. It is through these acts of ceremony that is expressed in gratitude for all that we are given. And that is what has helped us to survive the dark times that we had to endure as a people. It was those that kept faith in our beliefs and our ancestral way of life, that kept the sacred fires burning – underground – they went into the forest, to the islands, and into the mountains – to continue to sound the drums of our people to ensure that the voice of our people would always be heard – because that is the power of the drum – to carry the voice of the people. So ceremony is everything for us. To be able to be in ceremony is a way of life that is not practiced only one day a week – it is practiced every day. And we are taught to treat life as a ceremony. And every day, every day, acknowledge the Spirit for all that you have, and that we all have challenges, and we ask that we find the courage to be able to overcome some of these challenges whatever they may be.
When I reflect on the questions that you had like “what is the single most important thing to do help us to connect more deeply with nature whether we live near the bush or in thee city ?” and I have been asked that question many many times. And the answer is very very simple – and that is to make that journey to the Land — to go to be near a lake, a river, falls, rapids – and be within the environment of the beauty of nature itself. Go and find a tree that you are attracted to. Go and sit by that tree. Talk to that tree. And allow yourself to be open to the messages that nature brings. There may be a bird that will visit you and want to sing you a song. What is the message that that bird is bringing you – because you are reaching out – wanting to feel that life through nature itself. Nature is the ultimate healer because within nature comes the medicines and the teachings that we need on how to heal.
But you know we have reached a level now that we have harmed ourselves physically by all the foods that we have eaten, nothing less than poison has affected us, that sometimes there is not too much that nature can do. Because medicine is about preventing these sicknesses. You take the medicines on a regular basis to keep your immune system strong and to keep your spirit strong … so that our emotions are emotions of joy. Be happy, the intelligence of the mind is there to reflect what we see. What we see is violence today. We see so much that is in the opposition of the laws of Spirit. When you go to the Land and you fill your mind with the beauty of the Land, you see the Land is such a beautiful way. Nature is still the best artist. When we look into the night sky and we see the stars, and how they are giving us perspective, that we are not so big as we think we are….that’s nature. You know when you are able to take that time you will learn much and experience a lot of things, so no matter if you live in the city, which the majority of the people now are in the urban centres – that’s not an excuse not to feel the land.
One of the things that I notice in this area here is the long weekend in May the amount of traffic that comes out of the cities. And they are going to the parks, the lakes, because their spirit is hungry for the Land.
What’s unfortunate is that they are not coming to the Land spiritually. You know our attitude to the Land has to change. You know when I think about the laws of our people, that you are never to play with nature. And then you look at you know, sports fishing, sports hunting – you don’t play with nature that way. Nature was put there so we could survive. You don’t play with nature and that’s what we see. You know that man is playing with nature by feeling they can do whatever they want with nature. We can’t do whatever we want with nature because there is a law and a universal law that applies to all of life:
What you do to the Land; you do to yourself.
And what you do to another human being – if it is to hurt someone – will come back to hurt you. People call it the law of karma, but it’s the Law of the Circle – that be careful what you put into that Circle of Life. That is why the old people, particularly the Grandmothers say be careful about what you put into your Circle of Life because it will multiply into more kindness that people will show for you. People will want to be near you, because they will feel the spirit of the energy of that kindness that you have. You will attract that. But if you are an individual that is negative, hateful, racist – you are going to attract a lot of negative. And you are only going to hurt yourself in the long run because that’s against the law – that’s against the spiritual laws of the Creator.
So in saying that and going back to the Land – and I have said publicly – that we need to take our children to the Land. And we have to develop more opportunity for the children to experience the Land. And I have said that the whole education system has to be totally revolutionized and put the foundation of education to be learning about the Land – create Land based education and the experiences that the children need – so that they can begin to feel their own spirit that offers them their own identity and who they are…spiritual beings. If you take the children to the Land and they experience the Land, they will grow to be leaders, that will ensure that the Land will be taken care of. Not to be exploited the way we see it today.
Here in this area industry has damaged the environment. And today we live with the impacts of that. But nature has a way to restore the balance. It may take thousands of years but she will restore that balance.
What we are witnessing on the Land today is that the cleansing that Mother Earth is doing is becoming more evident every day. You know we refer to climate change, climate change is a symptom of what we have done to the earth because of our arrogance, our neglect, and this attitude that we can dominate the earth. Man has to learn this very simple truth that mother earth is a living entity that is to be absolutely respected, and to be taken care of. And the more of us that are able to do that , then we build a sense of hope. It is going to take as few committed faithful people that believe in the power of the spirit in order for us to move forward as humanity.
And that is a challenge we are all given today – which is the prophecy that I shared earlier – that in that movement indigenous people would lead – and in that leadership, they would invite the uniqueness of all of humanity to come and share their gifts – because everybody has something to share. It is to bring the spirit of the gifts that they may have to create a greater understanding of how we should live, behave, and create a better world. And there can be a better world, but it is going to take people that operate from the spiritual connection from the love that they have for the Land is how we will be able to ensure that there will be a future for our children. We can’t continue to spend the inheritance of our children with all these economic institutions and industries that are destroying their future.
It is up to us now to set the stage for a new world that is based on these values and teachings that we have been sharing and continue to share – finding that spiritual foundation that are based on laws and teachings that are universal for all of humankind.
We talk about the spirit of Respect – which is represented a lot at the beginning of these teachings, by the Buffalo. To know Respect is to know the essence of giving and sharing, the same way that the Buffalo had shared every part of its being so that our people could live and survive. And then what happened? They were slaughtered by the millions – by the millions. And then a people’s life was so deeply impacted that poverty became a symptom of that greed and that brutalness against an animal – that brought the teaching of Respect for all of us. The old people tell us “walk with the buffalo – be with the buffalo.” And what they mean by that is never ever lose the spirit of giving and sharing. And that has always been the essence of indigenous people – to be always willing to share and to give.
If we look for just a moment at the original land base that the Creator put us on here on Turtle Island, here in this country called Canada, we are expected to live on less than 1% of the original land base that our ancestors enjoyed – with freedom – in a way of life that took care of the animals. And today we are minimized in these in these little square boxes called reservations, and expected to make a way of life – not having access to the Land anymore – the way that our people had done.
But we still find a way, We find a way to make it to our sacred sites. We find a way to find trees that we can talk to. We find a way to make our way to the lakes…and sit by the lake and talk to the Spirit … of what is in the water because it feeds us and always has. So we find a way.
And one day, the Land will return to us – the Land will return to indigenous people again – because we are the true caretakers of the Land. This does not mean that we will not allow our brothers and sisters to join us in our leadership as the Land is returned back to us. We will show you how to take care of the Land. We will teach you the rules of conduct. We will teach you what Mother Earth is all about. And more important, we will help you to feel how important that love is … that how important that kindness is in order to live and to survive.
I have tried to answer most of your questions here.
You have and you have transcended them. Thank you. Thank you Elder Dave Courchene. We have had the opportunity to feel the spirit of love and kindness in your voice. . Miigwetch.
So Listeners to hear more Elder Dave’s voice and messages of Elders visit Turtle Lodge website: Turtlelodge.org links in show notes. On the Turtlelodge website Elder Dr. David Courchene introduces a new book by the Knowledge Keepers from the Turtle Lodge – “Wahbanung – The Resurgence of a People: Clearing the Path for Our Survival”. You Tube Beautiful and uplifting videos. Indigenous Teachings for Uncertain Times.
http://www.turtlelodge.org/wahbanung/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oBPNlu0LxI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7oW9HgIRsI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bgMcBNOoHY&t=277s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qktLJ4EUn7w
. If you have not yet left a review of this podcast please consider. Please check out my book and workbook: Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Prevent Dementia, and Control Your Chronic Illness.
Thank you for listening to the end, and please let Elder Dave Courchene and tens of thousands of years of Indigenous Knowledge to help you to rekindle the spiritual part of your nature. As Elder Courchene says “this comes through the heart, the love of land, the love of life. If we take the time to touch the land, we can feel mother earth’s heart beat. It is alive and it is sacred.” As Elder Dave says this is the way to connect to your own Spirit. When you are there show your gratitude. Use your gifts to benefit the earth. As Elder Courchene says “Let the land be your connection to a new world … in terms of your own health and the health of the earth. Let your own connection with your spirit, your love and your kindness be the feeling and foundation for Your Outside Mindset.
