Sundancers Be Happy, Be Proud

Well it's the summer and with that come the Thunderbirds, the Ceremonies. The Sundance Ceremony is one of sacrifice.

Pictures taken after Ceremony competed

Pledging Before Sundance Ceremony

Complete Ceremony 

It is quite a thing making a commitment. You make a pledge to sacrifice for others. We dance for life; the good life - Mino Pimatisiwin.

So for all those who make the commitment to the Creator to try and live a good life, I think you should be happy and you should be proud.

I know from  experience life can be anything but kind. We can feel defeated, angry and hurt. Still it is amazing our people will still try to be good, to think of others.

I am so grateful for those who work at sharing their life of following a good path.
The feelings that come with being surrounded by positive thoughts is fantastic. Once the Dance is complete the amount of smiling faces, the hugging and the appreciative gestures to each other makes you wish it would spread all over.

There are those who wish to share their joy on social media and there are those who berate them for speaking about the experience.

I feel bad for those who try and mute the enthusiasm of the Dancer. You see it at many levels. For some arcane reason we are not allowed to share our activities with the Creator. Strange. There can be every form of notification and sharing of main stream belief systems but when it comes to Indigenous Traditions we are to be quiet or hide it? Doesn't make sense. Even some of our Teachers say not to share it?

Lot of shared happiness.

I think a lot of our misguided thoughts regarding the sharing of Ceremony, Traditional Indigenous Ceremony, and it may come from forced norms. The governments made Ceremony of Indigenous people illegal. What you going to do? You hide it. You pretend it doesn't exist. You can't share it without fear of repercussions. There is also the message made popular by media - film industry. We are so backwards that recording ourselves will steal our soul. The popular image in movies where they say we are afraid to have our pictures taken. The message being we are not sophisticated enough to understand a representation - like a picture. Yet Indigenous people have been recording events for ever with many different forms.

I think our people should be proud of their deeds, their accomplishments and share it with the world.

There is so much ugly happening in the world so why can't we share some good?

Share your pride. Share your dreams. Share who you are. Indigenous and great.

We need to love who we are more.

For too long the message has been not a good one. Now people are more open about the good life. I applaud you the strong proud Indigenous.