Details

Storyteller: Sharon
Tribe: Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: I am celebrating 43 years in recovery.  In the beginning it was not easy and I went to treatment 3 times.  I participated in a 12 step program for the first ten years maintaining my sobriety one day at a time. As my spiritual growth increased I began attending Midewiwin ceremonies. M’dewin is the Grand Medicine Society, the spiritual pathway for the Indigenous people. Today, this is what keeps me on the right path.  I’m one of 13 children. We grew up in northern Minnesota near the Bois Forte reservation. My father, Clyde George Day was an alcoholic and my mother, Charlotte Day was a saint. She did not smoke or drink or swear. The worst possible thing she ever said to me was, you are being foolish. My father was a hunter and trapper and guide. My mother was with us all the time, cooking cleaning and basically taking care of us. My mother would tell us stories when she wanted to teach us something. Once, when we were in town, we saw a man who had a disfigured face and we were sort of scared. When we returned home, we were making our face go this way and that way. She sat us all down and told us about a boy she knew as a child at Nett Lake. He was born with no arms but he learned to do everything with his legs and toes. She said there was a bully who would tease him and terrorized him. One day, he was walking down the road, and he saw the bully and his buddies coming toward him. He picked up a rock with his toes and hit the ringleader in the head. That boy never bullied him again. And the boy with no arms grew up and joined the circus and traveled the world. She said, when the creator makes you different, you are also given spirits that watch over you. Later on, my younger brother Mike and I realized we were different. We were both gay, or two spirit. My mother taught our siblings that we were different and to be loved. I noticed how she treated my brother with so much care and kindness. And myself too. If your mother loves you, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks.  

I am also grateful for the many traditional people who have been my teachers: Lillian and Kendal Rice, Fred Jackson, William Wilson and the people of the M'dewiwin lodges. I try to follow the M'dewiwin teachings every day to the best of my ability.