BY: PHIL PRESTON

INDIAN TIME - VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 12 - MARCH 25, 2004 EDITION

The Maple tree is the leader of all the trees as we hear in the Ohenton Karihwatekwen (Thanksgiving Address). Long ago maple syrup used to flow freely from maple trees once tapped. There was little work involved and it tasted so good and sweet. At one point people developed such a taste and desire for it, that they would spend all day lying underneath the maple trees just drinking syrup until they were engorged, ignoring their lives and responsibilities. It became an obsession with a craving that could not be quenched once tasted, until Shonkwaiatison intervened. He changed maple sap into a watery liquid that we have to boil down and work hard to enjoy. This is a story of our people's experience with addiction and obsession and our recovery from it, with help from our Creator.

There are many examples of our addictive and impatient tendencies right back to Creation times. Sky Woman had an irrational desire for a tea made from the roots of the great tree of life in Sky World. This impatience and lack of self-management led to her plummet through the sky to this world. She learned from what she did and then began forming our lands. Already pregnant, she gave birth to a daughter. Skipping ahead in the story, the daughter died giving birth to two twin boys. The good twin Teharoniawakon (later Shonkwaiatison, our Creator) was born in the natural way. The second born twin, the mischievous one, Shawiskera, forced himself out through his mother's armpit, killing her. When we do things our own way regardless of what is instructed to us and natural, there are always negative consequences.

One day, after Teharoniawakon (our Creator, Shonkwaiatison) had already made the first human beings, he was cooking corn over a fire. Sky Woman smelled the delicious corn being cooked and in her impatient nature she wanted some before it was done, but repeatedly was told by her grandson that she needed to wait until it was fully cooked. Sky Woman became so angry that she hit the fire causing wood ashes to spray into the boiling pot of corn. Teharonhiawakon told her she had made a terrible mistake that will affect the human beings he created forever. Now that she had impatiently and angrily caused those ashes to fall into the corn, all people must boil this type of corn with ashes several times just to be able to eat it. Everything we do in our lives will be a part of our children's and grandchildren's lives. Every part of us is a part of them. Likewise, the work we do to heal ourselves will stop the negative cycles, though left untreated our secrets will show up in the lives of our children.

Shonkwaiatison has provided a choice of two paths that we may follow in this life. One path looks wide, flat, and straight; very easy to walk on, but also nothing much to experience or learn from. Indeed its shiny appearance hides evil and hurtful things that we do not notice until we do great damage to others and ourselves from being obsessed by things that look good and feel good. The other path is rocky, twisted, and more difficult. Every challenge brings a reward. This more difficult path is the one Shonkwaiatison prefers we travel. It is in our nature to make mistakes, and then learn from them, not to repeat them over and over. When we falter too much, Shonkwaiatison will help us if we just reach out our hands in an honest desire to change.