Tanya Tagaq Quotes

We are product of the immense torque that propels this universe. We are not individuals but a great accumulation of all that lived before.

This is where my lesson was learned: pain is to be expected, courage is to be welcomed. There is no choice but to endure. There is no other way than to renounce self-doubt. It is the time of the Dawning in more ways than one. The sun can rise, and so can I

If you are living in silence With violence in your bones Sorrow in your marrow Blood running cold Heal I beg you Heal I beg you Heal I beg you Heal

The foxes run. The foxes die. I mourn them, but I understand that there is danger in mourning for those who would not mourn for you in return. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged. Empathy is not for Nature.

There are secrets hidden in our flesh. Our cells being born and dying with the same force that makes galaxies form and deconstruct.

Time has a way of eternally looping us in the same configurations. Like fruit flies, we are unable to register the patterns. Just because we are the crest of the wave does not mean the ocean does not exist. What has been before will be again.

In the spring you smell last fall's death and this year's growth as the elder lichen shows the young how to grow.

Addiction is anything that feels good in the moment but ultimately makes you feel worse, a degeneration of the psyche that takes shape physically. All our weaknesses add up and become our strongest adversaries. It is fuel for self-hatred, insecurity, self-pity, and martyrdom.

the air is so clean you can smell the difference between smooth rock and jagged.

Murder can heal if applied sparingly. Murder can feed us. Life murders us every day.

The partiers will just demand that I echo their toxicity. Nothing bores me more.

We always live along side the dead. It's scary but the quiet is our true home. This is why we must make the most of our gristle and meat.

What happens to the energy once it leaves our body? Does it leave us or does it start vibrating at an unknown frequency? Does it cast itself into the wind and leave our vessels lonely? Do our spirits travel with the wind? Do our spirits retain our value and ascend into the Knowing or are we demoted when our bodies decay? Are we as worthy while we rot? How many layers of consciousness are there? Are we still giving? Is being inanimate really a lesser state?

These foxes will die of starvation; better to put them out of their misery. These foxes will harm schoolchildren; better to put them out of their misery. These humans will destroy the earth; better to put them out of their misery.

I never understood how foreigners could come and tell us where to die and where to live. Where to be buried and how to breed.

For the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and survivors of residential schools.

This is not the last time he will get himself in trouble with bravado that cannot be backed up. He ends up dying that way.

We are our ancestors. The spiritual umbilicus is apparent to all. The dead look upon us with the pure love of a mother’s gaze. But the dead love is even more because of our flawed flesh and eternal confusion. The removal from form allows for total and complete unconditional love. We carry our dead with us like helium balloons. There is no breaking the umbilicus.

I mourn them, but I understand that there is danger in mourning for those who would not mourn for you in return. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged. Empathy is not for Nature.

Just because we are the crest of the wave does not mean the ocean does not exist. What has been before will be again. We are reverberations of our Ancestors and songs of our present selves. It is very quiet in the future, as it is in the deep past. The Quiet. We always live alongside the dead. It’s scary but the Quiet is our true home.

What happens before birth and resumes after death - this is more real than the brief spark of life. Out lives just carry the physical burden of carrying energy forward. We put on suits of meat as training, as a challenge. We all know this is temporary.

Just because we are the crest of the wave does not mean the ocean does not exist. What has been before will be again. We are reverberations of our Ancestors and songs of our present selves. It is very quiet in the future, as it is in the deep past. The Quiet. We always live alongside the dead. It’s scary but the Quiet is our true home. This is why we

Wind on face, rhythm in chaos, and consolation in constellations.

We didn't know we would spend the rest of our lives running or we would have slowed down.

It's scary. I don't know what birth will be. I want to dig into the centre of the earth. I want to mourn.

...whoever said only humans can have the universe living in them?

I've always loved girls, and our insufferable town sees this love as deviance.

Wind sings but carries an axe instead of a note.

There is a siren that sounds in our small town to announce the curfew. At noon and at 10 p.m. Every time the siren sounds all the sled dogs howl, and I imagine that they think there is a large, loud god dog that rules the land howling. I equate this with religion. A short-sighted and desperate attempt for humans to create reason and order in a universe we can't possibly comprehend. The simple truth is that we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe.

When your body is clear there is control. When your body is clear you can choose whom to let in. There is love everywhere. Please cradle my rabbit heart. Please navigate yourself around me well. I know too much. I can recognize darkness because he is my brother, my maker. I can drink lightness because it is the only way to survive. I can shut off my heart but that leads to evil, so I express her and revel in the nuance of blood currents, and the sacred demons. I fear and quake with my eyes darting fight or flight love or die. The lightning comes from below this time and rips out of my throat for the world to see. They all see my rabbit and I have trained her to hunt. In her perfect glory she is shy and extroverted, chaste and perverted, my sweet near-death more alive than ever. Take her. Take me while I am ripe and open, rub berries on my lips and bear fat in my hair. Tattoo me with a needle and impale me with your warmth. Heal me, fuck me, and work my heart till she beats strong and unafraid. Haunches bared, teeth sharpened, wide-eyed and aware. Hurry. I want to feel safe.

It’s weeks later and I have told no one of that night. I told no one of the changes, the loosening of tendon and the tightening of muscle; the stitching of gristle and accelerated healing. My cuts heal in half a day. I no longer need glasses. I can see people’s words before they come out of their mouths.

I will not tell my parents about this. Parents let children work out their own social problems. I let the experience go down the drain with the water. No point hanging on to such things. Ultimately, in the scope of the universe, this is a small event. Trauma does not choose you, you choose if it is trauma or not, right?

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod

I feel something enter the room, coming in from the top right corner. I cannot see it but I know its there, plain as day. My real self recognizes the feeling, recognizes the place this being came from, where it lives. There are other realities that exist besides our own; it is foolish to think otherwise. The universe is conscious. This thing comes from the layers of energy beyond our physical perception. The place we go to after we die, the place we were before being conceived. These places holds us for millenia in Universe Time. We are on Earth and in flesh for only a moment. Before we are born, energy must be woven into spirit and then siphoned into a body. After we die the spirit must be consoled after the trauma of flesh and then unravelled back into energy. It feels good to remember this place, but the thing that has arrived here is not good.

Dreams will follow you into the day to force action, to change what caused the anxiety. We never like to listen to ourselves, even when we know we have to. We plod on ignoring what we must be, what we are meant to be. We are taught to fear instincts. We must hunt down and fall in love with the Fear, therefore defeating our self-doubt every day. This is followed by joy. This is followed by handing over control. This is followed by lightness. This is followed by freedom. This releases the dream.

Fox is more beautiful than any human I've ever seen. I can feel him. Clean, strong, devoted to survival, and unburdened by all the falsehoods that humans subconsciously subscribe to. Clarity. Dignity. All of what we have lost as humans is transparent in the eyes of one who lives from the Land. The tingling sensation returns in my face. It feels as if my face is elongating. I see you, Fox, and you are a child and a killer. You are bigger than I and you will have a better life and death. You are penetrating my body and changing my flesh with your eyes. Beckoning. You want me to Become with you.

The ocean is like a warm bath. I mount his back and ride him. My thighs squeeze him and pulse with a tingling light. We are lovers. We are married. He swims with incredible strength and we travel quickly. He keeps me safe and I am drunk on his dignity. The smaller bears shrink, only to be eaten by engorged shrimp. The ocean grows hot with life after the offering of food. My skin melts where there is contact with my lover. The ocean and our love fuse the polar bear and me. He is I, his skin is my skin. Our flesh grows together. His face is my pussy and she is hungry. My legs sprout white fur that spreads all over me. I can feel every hair form inside of me and poke through tough bearskin. My whole body absorbs him and we become a new being. I am invincible. Bear mother, rabbit daughter, seal eater. Bear lover, human lover, ice pleaser. I will live another year.

World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkála-Šá A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J.

Sound is malleable. Sound can be a spear or a needle. Sound can create the wound and then stitch it. Sound can cauterize and materialize.

Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkála-Šá A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J.

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkála-Šá A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J.

Sprigs of green begin to push their shy lives through the ice blanket. The songs of migratory birds are like alarms that awaken us from the torpor of winter. Life has arrived! The ice begrudgingly recedes, promising vengeance in a few short weeks. Winter always wins. The sun scoffs. Nothing can stop the cacophony of gluttony and procreation about to ensue.

Christians seem to love Shame: shame on your body, your soul, your actions and inactions. Put a cork in all of your holes and choke on the light of God. We have no power over a universe that we can barely comprehend. We are truly armed with nothing. Our ideologies impoverish us. They give us a reason to destroy Earth and ourselves along with it. How can Christians shame the process of welcoming spirit into flesh? How can Christians say we are born in sin?

Inhale small fears and they whisper and travel to your mind observe them and thank them for trying to protect you. Exhale acknowledgment of the beauty within your instincts and the courage to love small fears. Inhale hard love suck in the smell and reward reap eat chew swallow devour all the goodness and love that is given to you. Exhale calmness in acknowledgment of the beauty within the courage it takes to not fear love.

I've always loved girls, and our insufferable town sees this love as deviance. This little shithead is not helping.

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

What happens to the energy once it leaves our body? Does it leave us or does it start vibrating at an unknown frequency? Does it cast itself into the wind and leave our vessels lonely? Do our spirits travel with the wind? Do our spirits retain our value and ascend into the Knowing or are we demoted when our bodies decay? Are we worthy while we rot? How many layers of consciousness are there? Are we still giving? Is being inanimate really a lesser state? I think not. It is just a slower state. Is the air more enlightened than we are? Land always answers these questions for me. Land protects and owns me. Land feeds me. My father and mother are the Land. My future children are the Land. You are the Land. We destroy her with the same measured ignorance of a self-harming teenager.

What keeps you alive in crisis can kill you once you are free. One must not choose to die, though one must die anyway.

I show you my teeth Through a mouth mostly open Molars lost in whimpers Tongue smooth Sharp tooth Giant tooth Numbed by lost fists I show you my teeth Picked up off the floor Split tooth Growl tooth Dead tooth

There are evil beings in the room near the ceiling waiting to take over the drunken bodies, Grudges and Frustrations slobbering at the chance to return to human form, to violate, to kill, to fornicate; Old Spirits conniving and contriving more strife.

Spirit is already divine. We must feed Divinity with devout intent and Spirit grows stronger, cleansing and returning to reality upon Death. What happens before birth and resumes after death—this is more real than the brief spark of life. Our lives just carry the physical burden of carrying energy forward. We put on suits of meat as training, as a challenge. We all know this is temporary.

Best Boy and I retreat into the belly of the ship to meet our friends. He puts his cold hands under my jacket and shirt. It’s only common courtesy to warm the hands of those you care for.

Inuktitut translation by Julia Demcheson

This is where my lesson was learning: pain is to be expected, courage is to be welcomed. There is no choice but to endure. There is no other way than to renounce self-doubt. It is the time of Dawning in more ways than one. The sun can rise, and so can I.