MC: As the President and Chief Vision Officer of Cross Cultural Studies Program, Inc. (i.e., CCSP), I am always searching for new partners and allies to come along and cooperate with us, as this movement continues to honour the peace treaties and respect the long-term commitments to ‘walk together here’, as long as the land and waters are inhabitable. As we have completed our children and youth well-being project, it is with gratitude to Enbridge – Community Investment and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (i.e., LLBO) for coming along as our fiscal financial partners: In specific appreciation for Diane Osceola, LLBO Community Liaison and Faron Jackson, LLBO Chairperson, (c.f., Gaa’ Zagaskwaajimekaag, Blood Sucker Lake).

My effort here on Leech Lake Nation is twofold, first, is to Animate alongside the Anishinaabeg, and second, is to provide a skilful means toward community organising for desired  outcomes that directly influence and impact the well-being and self-determination of all my relations that co-tenant and inhabit these sacred waters and lands. It is with my deepest gratitude to my creative team, that I can report to you’se on the great success of our project.

Twenty-two children and adolescents were participants during this 8-day camp, along with 36 adults. All 58 participants (children and adults) are community members of either Onigum or Cass Lake, with 46 enrolled members at Minnesota Chippewa Tribe nations and 5 Red Lake Nation enrolled members. There is an estimated cumulative total of 2,453 contact hours spent on this project. 

These hours are significant for the purpose of Animating (inspiring) children and adults by drawing a natural bridge that brings them together here, where adults offer their undivided attention to a child, one-on-one, for at least 15 minutes (.25 hours) per an interval of time spent in direct support. We estimate that of the total contact hours, 65 % was spent on this natural bridge between children, adolescents and adults.

CCSP, aims to provide a minimum of 40% direct support for time spent on all of its Corporate Social Responsibility projects. We know that ‘natural bridges’ are always present in any co-inherent relationship, therefore we try to realise this average, that is a benchmark of excellence in the game of baseball, batting .400. In providing a skilful means alongside the community members, always sustains our long-term commitment to be in respectfulness of Indigenous Rights, as constituted by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). 

Furthermore, I leave it to my co-organiser and co-animateur, to provide a more qualitative grassroots understanding of the direct influence and impact at Onigum and Cass Lake.

JP: As we orient and reorient ourselves on this planet, there is a real thirst for more ways of being and relating beginning to crop up everywhere. I know, because I came to the United States of America from India only two years past, in order to complete higher education PhD in Counselling Psychology. My social work background in India was with the Adivasi (Tribal People, Indigenous) of central India. In this line of study and work, I have chosen to focus on suicide prevention of PhD dissertation. 

As I locate on the map of North America, I can find Leech Lake almost at the point of geographical centre. As I travel from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA to northern Minnesota, there is a population centre at Minneapolis and St. Paul (Twin Cities). Located over 220 miles north of Minneapolis, Onigum and Cass Lake are on the federally protected treaty lands of the Ojibwemowin (speakers of Ojibwe). The peoples refer to themselves as Anishinaabeg, and yet are also known as Chippewa. 

Our team of 6 arrived on August 5 to Cass Lake (Gaa’ Miskwaawaakokaag, ‘Where Red Pines Are’), and I immediately felt an attraction and affinity to this place. I think it is from my experience in India in the villages of Adivasi tribe. I felt something both strange, and yet very familiar. I felt that this place is filled with love, warmth, kindness, and compassion, which was observed in our warm welcome to create art murals with the children of the community.

The tireless efforts of Dr. Matthew Cobb through his non-profit organisation Cross Cultural Studies Program, Inc. have made possible a lot of the work he does for this community such as offering spiritual advisor services, mental-emotional, and social support to the people, as well as organising events such as the Suicide Prevention/Addiction Awareness program scheduled on August 19. Our Summer Art Camp team consisted of four professional muralists, one counselling psychologist, and one animateur/community organiser: Elizabeth ‘Elie’ Cano (Mexico City), Rufo Noriega (Los Angeles/Mexico), Dimitri Kadiev (Los Angeles/Bulgaria), Cameron Jarvis (Minneapolis), Jahnavi Pandya, PhD pending (Mumbai, India), and  Dr. Cobb (Greater Minnesota).

Elie and Cameron worked on an 8 foot by 12 foot painting together. Elie says: 

It is the second time I visited Leech Lake, the first was a quick visit, now I was able to share much more with the community, I love the way in which the projects are born, we arrived with a couple of proposals and in the meeting with the grandparents we were able to find a purpose and a broader vision for the community, who else than them who belong here to guide us and help us to land the message.

The day we finished we were asked what the piece was called, the answer was warrior defenders of water, we painted 7 grandmothers dancing in the cosmos with the stars, the 7 directions dancing with the divine beings, the grandmothers are dancing with their jingle dresses that have many bells that ring when they dance.

And a man playing the snail, making the call to all of us to pay attention and do what we are supposed to do on this earth, to take care of the sacred. He is accompanied by the smoke of the sacred tobacco, which rises to the cosmos delivering all our prayers, petitions and prayers, to the cosmos. prayers, petitions and prayers, so that they are heard. 

Every day we were visited by children from the neighbourhood with whom we shared laughter, food, hugs, painting, art and above all a loving vision of community and change. We were also visited by over 20 young people, 1 in particular who came back to take a drawing class, this meeting was very important, we tried to help them connect with the gifts and gifts they have, to have faith and hope, not to lose their dreams.

The people who were passing by loved to identify with the painting, to identify with their traditions, their traditions and their gifts. They loved to identify with their traditions, their ancestors. The girls and women liked to see themselves reflected in the power, strength and wisdom of the grandmothers.

As a woman it is very powerful for the girls to see me painting, because it is an example for them, of how women have talents, independence, we can travel the world, develop ourselves, we are free, confident, strong, creative and we will continue to walk together, no matter where we come from or what language we speak. 

Life sometimes puts us very big challenges determined by where we are born, as is our lineage, the history of our ancestors, the place or country where we are born, the economy of our parents, we are born with wounds that we must learn to heal, have the strength to not fall before the obstacles and move forward, because there will always be a light that comes and show us the right path, the art in the streets.

Cameron (aka, Ronnie) said his intention was to “support Elie” and depict the Ojibwe people in “as accurate and loving way as possible, which hasn’t often happened when outsiders visit this place.” He adds, “I want to paint and speak as much truth as possible. It was really nice to have Elie with the vision and I could use my hands and body as much as I could and let my mind be in service of that.”

Dimitri and Rufo, who come from Los Angeles, worked on a painting to depict the water walk of the native people engaged in prayerful walking to protect the sacred. Dimitri says his inspiration came from the drought experienced by Minnesota last year, where after painting several murals, he joined a “Water Walk” at St. Cloud with the help of Dr. Cobb.

Dimitri expressed his enthusiasm for this camp and pondered on metaphysical possibilities, “Does natural world respond to people humble praying?” And his answer to that was, “Lakes fill up, when people pay attention and walk for the water’s sake. Thank you, mother nature, indigenous leadership and the people walking for more protection of the sacred.” He was happy about the young people getting involved and making a sacrifice. He adds that the hands in the picture, “bring new life,” and it “connects the kids we worked with to the memories of this most creative week of cross cultural harmony.”

While Elie, Rufo, Dimitri and Ronnie spent their time with teenagers painting and sketching on the murals, Dr. Cobb and I were able to spend some time with the smaller children from several  foster homes two blocks away.

In my interaction with Dr. Cobb and the people here, I learned more about the community’s history of being subjected to mass extermination in the 1800’s, and how the aftermath of the genocide continues to plague this community as people live with trauma incurred over several decades.

The treatment given to indigenous communities in the past, as well as the present, seems to have a severe impact on their capacity for mental-emotional well-being among the many other damages they still bare as an unfair burden (c.f., Generational/Historical Trauma, ACES). While colonisation was able to bring English language, roads, and a new culture, it also brought drugs, alcohol, forced displacements, and now disconnections via foster care system, as some of the elders describe. Moreover, I have observed that, colonisation seems to have failed in bringing the required support system—medical, psychological, financial, and educational to name a few—to help the community. For now, this community seems to have a social force known as ‘dependence’ on drugs, alcohol, and suicide, not to mention the lack of economic growth opportunities and meaningful work. 

Among the interactions that I had with the people I met here, one that particularly struck me was with a boy who drew a person on the ground with chalk. And as I asked him to tell me more about the person he drew, the boy described that “he will die.” On asking him for the reason of the person’s death, he said “I don’t know” but he expressed that the boy would die young. 

On another day while bringing the children back home from the lake that we took them to for swimming, a 5-year-old started talking about death. And then, all the children had a story to tell about someone close to them who had died. While the children did not know what it meant and why they died, it seemed like for them, death was the norm. 

One child asked me, “How do you get so sick that you die?” and another child, almost immediately replied, “It just happens.” It almost seems like they do not know that having several people die in a family, and death in young age is uncommon in the wider US population, and yet more common here.

This town is struggling with substance use and abuse issues and suicide, particularly among the youngsters. The day before we arrived, Dr. Cobb shared that he buried a young boy who had completed suicide. He selflessly extended his support to the family through his presence and therapeutic listening and many hugs and blessings. During our stay, we met three cousins of this young boy who had ended his life. They were experiencing survivor guilt and complicated grief, basically devastated by their sudden loss. The poetry written by the father of the child in the obituary, also tells a story beyond just grief. He had lost his wife to suicide, and he wrote about how his ‘family chain links’ that has now been broken can only be complete when others will go and reunite in heaven.

It is painful for me and our team to observe, interact and connect empathically to this small, kind-hearted community, plagued with suicide. It is hard to let those thoughts go from my mind. It makes me think that if we, the people, have brought drugs and alcohol here, we also need to bring more support to help people cope using ancient cultural pathways blended with modern therapies for a way of being in cross cultural wellness.

It is hard to leave this town without feeling many mixed emotions including guilt, grief, love, a sense of duty towards the people who’s land we live on, work, study, progress and prosper. I also have tremendous respect for their resilience and gratitude for them choosing kindness and acceptance for others over prejudice and violence. 

During our stay here, Dr. Cobb took us to meet his friend Glenn and his wife, Robin. They were enthusiastic to show us their land, the trees, feed the fishes, and took us to visit his brother-in-law, a heritage chief and direct descendent of Chief Bemidji. We had a very warm welcome at Regan’s hermitage cabin, which was well hidden among the trees. 

He showed us his humble abode on his 80-acre land allotment, filled with the trees, plants, and animals he knows and personally loves. We were honoured to also receive blessings from over a 100-year-old pipe he received from his ancestors. While we stayed here, more townspeople showed up and interacted with the campers, such as Linda her husband Bob, who invited us to a community lunch.

Unlike the very anthropocentric life that we have created for ourselves in modern cities, the indigenous people here retain the essence of coexisting in, and with nature. You might often see them stopping a conversation abruptly to listen to the eagles or pausing in the middle of an errand to hear the sounds of nature.

Despite all the trauma the people living in the US have caused them, the indigenous people tended to express more gratitude instead of prejudice among the many mixed feelings they have about the colonisation in this region and town. We felt warmly welcomed by everyone we saw and met here. We were showered with gifts of rare coins, priced possessions, handmade bracelets, or even sharing all that they might have—lifesavers or cookies to appreciate our presence in their town and gesture to meet them. 

I was amazed to see how they coexist peacefully with the same humans who have hurt them, too. In my very short time here, I see their hearts, blossoming with love without much fear of the challenges they face as indigenous people. It made me commit that I must take personal efforts to come along again to this place, to support and respect those whose land we are guests.

Everyone in our little intentional community or chosen family, who came to Cass Lake for this project, stayed with love, shared their reflections every day at supper, and worked selflessly, without inordinate attachments to outcomes and within a tremendous forcefield of gratitude to have this opportunity to be with each other.