Good Life Project - 7 Ancient Teachings for a Life Well-lived | James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

What if ancient indigenous wisdom could guide us to live a good life today? My guest James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw, a descendant of the Ojibwe tribe, reveals hidden insights encoded in their language after dedicating over 20 years to studying and translating their stories. His fascinating new book, The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings,, unpacks unconventional yet powerful Ojibwe concepts of truth, humility, respect, love, courage, honesty and wisdom. James' journey to reconnect with his heritage and its uncommon notions of how to live a moral life delivered the soulful antidote our modern lives need. His insights and passion bring this everyday wisdom for living a good life into focus.You can find James at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Violet Duncan about the power of Indigenous wisdom. Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you really want to know the culture, the history, the spirituality, the ethics, the philosophy, it's all in the language. And what I think is so ingenious about this is that human beings are hardwired to speak. So we will put the teachings in an environment, in a medium that everyone has access to. And that maybe you reach a point in your life where you're asking, well, what is it to really love someone? What is it to be intelligent or to have strength apart and courage? And you could look into the word itself. And for me, when I began understanding that, it felt almost like I could hear the ancestors speaking to me, that I could hear their voice, that we too have had these experiences and we would like to pass them to you. So have you ever wondered what ancient wisdom might be hidden in plain sight?

What if the key to living a good life was right in front of us, encoded in the languages and stories of ancient cultures that we largely ignore in the name of trying to find the next hack or technology or platform supplement or intervention. Well, my guest today, James Vuklich Kagegabo, a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, has dedicated over 20 years to studying, preserving, and sharing the indigenous wisdom embedded in the Ojibwe language. And James's journey is a really inspiring one. After being largely estranged from the Ojibwe language stories and wisdom of his heritage until his mid-20s. This seemingly inconsequential decision led him back to immerse himself not only in the language, but in the rich cultural treasures and deep wisdom hidden within it. And that quest led him to work on the Ojibwe Language Dictionary Project,

recording and translating wisdom from Ojibwe elders and fluent speakers across North America and over time, uncovering, archiving, and sharing unconventional yet deeply resonant and powerful insights about what it truly takes to live a good life. And in his fascinating new book, The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings, James reveals how the Ojibwe notions of truth, humility, respect, love, courage, honesty, and wisdom can guide us all to living a good life. And you'll be fascinated to discover how similar yet profoundly different these concepts are from Western notions. And his insights and stories and deep passion for his culture and the wisdom that derives from it

truly drew me in powerfully and delivered just the antidote our modern souls need to heal and reconnect and rediscover a sense of purpose, meaning, and inner peace in these days. It's an incredible offering of everyday wisdom for living a good life with a different take, hidden in plain sight within indigenous languages and stories. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-nest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be

fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. I recently was watching, I guess, something that you were sharing, that familiarity with Ojibwe language was there younger, but it wasn't actually something that was spoken and truly understood for you until your mid-20s. I'm curious about that journey. It was fascinating. It has been the most exciting intellectual, spiritual philosophy journey of my life, but it didn't begin until I was 25.

I had originally intended to be a French teacher, and I had studied film and video, English, and I discovered French literature, became totally enamored of it, and decided the best way to learn was to become totally immersed. And so I moved to Quebec for a year. I studied at the Université de Québec, Trois-Rivières. And when I came back to Minneapolis, I needed to take another course to get my full financial aid package. And I saw Ojibwe was being offered. And at this point, I had studied French, Italian, some Latin in middle school, but I'd never heard the Ojibwe language. And my mom's Ojibwe, my grandma's Ojibwe, and I thought, well, I'll give this a try.

And I recall going to the bookstore, picking up this book, Portage Lake by Noah Kamagukwiban, the late Maude Keg, opening it up and seeing this word, Ishkwa Manomanekewad. And when it was written on the page, it took up half of the page in double vowel. And I was taken aback. I was like, who uses a word this long? What does this mean? And that's where I began learning about the Ojibwe language. It was the first time in my life I had ever heard the story about me told in the language. Pre-K through university, I had no exposure at all, really, to the language, to the history, to the culture, to the spirituality. And then it began. So I went all in at that point.

Despite having moved to another country to learn another language, whenever I had a chance, and I was a young man, so I could spend 12 to 18 hours a day working with the language. I was lucky I had learned how to learn a language going through the immersion process in Quebec. So it was a little more streamlined for me, but I delved in wholeheartedly. It sounds like the pull for you, it wasn't just the fascination by the language, but there was something bigger that was drawing you back into it. Well, when I lived in Quebec, I had saw people who were, you know, at that point proposing to secede from Quebec in acknowledgement of their language, of their culture, of their history, and that it wasn't being, I think in their opinion, acknowledged enough by the citizens and government of Quebec. And when I came back to

the United States, I asked myself, well, these people have come here to this country with their language, with their culture. Why isn't our language and why isn't our culture first and foremost? It's been spoken here for thousands upon thousands of years. So I went all in in trying to revitalize the language. It wasn't saving the language, it was breathing life back into the language. And that part was very important to me in the first part of my journey. I know you shared that your mom and your grandma were brought up, but neither of them shared the language. I'm curious what the why is behind that. I think I may understand it, but I'd love for you to share more. And also, even though the language wasn't present, were the traditions, the stories

present in your upbringing? The language wasn't present at all. And there's a very good reason for this. My mother went to a boarding school. My grandmother went to a residential school. There's a little difference in the nomenclature there. In Canada, they're referred to as residential schools. In the United States, it's boarding schools. And these were total institutions. A lot of people aren't aware that since the late 1800s all the way into the late 1970s, children were removed from their home and they went to compulsory boarding school. The mandate was to kill the Indian in order to save the man. That's how it began. So in these total institutions, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the language they spoke, the books they read, when they went to the bathroom, when they went to class, when they lined up, when they woke up in the morning, all of these things were determined for them by the institution.

This is very similar to other total institutions like the military or prison. And like many other Indigenous kids who went to these schools, if you were caught using the language, if you were caught practicing the spirituality or the culture, you'd be punished, in some cases, rather cruelly and harshly. So, you know, my mother and my grandmother did not grow up with that. They grew up at the boarding schools. So it was hard to deal with what they had gone through. I really couldn't appreciate it until I began learning the language and then hearing the history. All of my Ojibwe teachers were boarding school survivors. Each one of them had gone through that experience and

they had some very dark stories that they shared about their experience with it. There were a number of kids who did not survive the boarding school era, and a number of them went through. It's a dark topic, but I think it needs to be acknowledged. Mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and sexual abuse at these places. So I didn't really have a chance to grow up with the language because the language is so tied in with the stories and with the culture. That wasn't there as well. So it was a new approach for me. And it was one where when I began learning the language,

I began learning the culture. A totally uninformed place. I was just taking my first steps there. I'm curious, as you start your journey into really understanding both the language and the culture and the stories, did that serve in any meaningful way as a bridge to really understanding the experience and the stories of your mom and your grandmother? It did. Having heard the stories from the people who were teaching me, oh, boy, my mom and my grandmother didn't really share a lot about their boarding school experiences. Which is fairly common from what I understand. It really is. There was this one occasion I recall,

and I really appreciate it as an older man in middle age where I was maybe 11 or 12, and I was doing laundry with my mom on the weekend. It was Saturday afternoon, and I was complaining about it, of course, because I wanted to be outside playing. My mom got very angry for a moment, you know, just natural with a child who's complaining about doing chores and said, you should feel lucky you get to live at home, that you have a chance to do laundry at home. And as when I became an older man, I realized that she hadn't had that experience. And that so many of the people I would run into who were learning the language, who were returning to the culture, to the history, and to the spirituality, had gone through that similar experience where they weren't raised at home. They weren't raised with the

language. They were raised at the boarding school. And so that part, I really became sensitive to it and empathetic and compassionate. And it became a point for some people who were maybe resentful about not having the language or not growing up with it. For me, it became a moment where I was like, ah, you had gone through this as well. So had my grandmother. Those were two links in the chain that didn't have exposure to the language. When you start to really immerse yourself in it, and I know this leads to, almost rises to the level of quest for you, initiates at some point the Ojibwe Language Dictionary Project, which really brings the wisdom and the language and the culture of elders into a centralized place for a lot of people.

And it sounds like you start to really find yourself dropping into the wisdom in a much deeper way and distilling it. And then at some point, feeling like this is really important. And even though it comes from thousands of years old, This is ancient distilled wisdom. It's so poignant and relevant to our lived experience today. And you start to share in many different forms in many different ways, effectively turning around and becoming an educator, a teacher yourself. I think it's so fascinating. I want to, of course, drop into so many of the ideas here. But we live in this world now where we're so caught up in how do we tap technology? How do we tap tools? How do we tap science to get the things we want, to feel the way we want to feel? And yet we so often largely ignore this deeply embedded and embodied ancient wisdom that would not have survived if there wasn't

something in it. Oh, indeed. And your points about technology, I agree with. In the beginning days, what I wanted to do was make Ojibwe kind of a one-click, have a source so it could be one-click, like so many things I noticed with our youth. Although there had been kind of an internet divide at that time, most of them had a cell phone. And them an opportunity to hear their language in the same place they listen to music, the same place where they watch videos on YouTube, that was really important. But yeah, the idea to pass on the language through a dictionary project, I feel so grateful I had a chance to work on that project. I really began learning a lot. There were moments when I had a chance to talk with elders, with fluent first language speakers,

and this is when it really began to click about what was actually in the language. Because when you're writing a language, I mean, when you're writing a dictionary, the goal is to, you know, be as comprehensive as possible. And with a language as vast as Ojibwe, that's a lot of words. It's a lot of work. However, when I would begin speaking with elders, we would get on one word. And in some cases, they would have teachings that would go on for maybe 20 minutes with one word. It was the history of the word. It was when it had been used in ceremony.

It's what it had meant back then and how you could reinterpret it today. And how those ceremonies had changed, how people may do them today. And this would be one word. So, as I began, there was this a little bit of conflict inside because I'm like, I really want to know all of these words. At the same time, I really want to get a whole bunch of citations down for the dictionary. So I really began to take note that, ah, there may be something I'm not paying close enough attention to in the words. I had been told ever since I began learning the language that if you really want to know the culture, the history, the spirituality, the ethics, the philosophy, it's all in the language. And here I was listening to and learning from real-time examples of that, of people taking me back thousands of years and all the way up to the present moment. I had become at this point

totally enamored with it. Yeah. Is Ojibwe largely a spoken language, a written language, or is it just a blend of both? Because I know a lot of indigenous wisdom often, it travels through generations in an oral way. So I'm curious what your experience was of that. It's of course been spoken for thousands of years. The first published written text is in the 1630s. This is a French and Ojibwe document, a letter that's sent to France. So as a written language, it is only a little bit younger than Finnish, maybe 100 years younger than Finnish, and maybe 300 years younger than Russian

in the old Cyrillic alphabet. So there is a tradition of writing the language, but it has been passed down orally. and the main focus was on the oral tradition. And when I began thinking about that statement, that if you really want to know the culture, the history, the spirituality, it's all in the language, I discovered what I think is an ingenious investment in us. That people, in order to pass down these teachings, embedded them in the words that we use every day. They too must have gone through these experiences and asked themselves, well, how will I pass this down to someone I've never met, I'll never meet, I'll never speak to, I'll never listen to or hold? How will I pass this down to

someone seven generations from now? And knowing that anything they create will one day turn to dust. It's the nature of life here on earth. How did they decide to pass these teachings down? We will put it in the language. And what I think is so ingenious about this is that human beings are hardwired to speak in our minds. I learned this during my graduate studies in linguistics. We speak for the same reason that we can touch, we can smell, we can see, we can hear. It's hardwired into us. So we will put the teachings in an environment, in a medium that everyone has access to. And that maybe you reach a point in your life where you're

asking, well, what is it to really love someone? What is it to be intelligent or to have strength apart and courage? And you could look into the word itself. And for me, when I began understanding that, it felt almost like I could hear the ancestors speaking to me, that I could hear their voice, that we too have had these experiences and we would like to pass them to you. You'll have them as well as a human being. And I think that's where that relevance shows up, that language that despite being thousands of years old has some very important teachings to share with us in this modern age in 2023 on how to seek out a good life, how to find a life of peace and balance.

This at some point turns into, you know, what starts as a much broader immersive quest for you around developing a little dictionary to distilling down to, I guess, a select set of teachings, seven teachings in particular, really around the way that I experienced it. I'm curious if this was the intention. The Ojibwe lends on what it means to live a good life. Am I getting that right? Yeah. And there's a word that translates roughly to the good life, which, can you pronounce that for me? Because I was trying and trying and trying. I'm like, how do you actually say this properly? Minobamatsuin. Minobamatsuin.

Minobamatsuin. Okay. That is the goal. That is what we are seeking. And I found that from time immemorial to present, to seek out the good life, that would be the goal. And it can really mean to live well, also to have good health, and also to lead a good life. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. you describe the notion almost as a preamble to the teachings of there's a concept of seven generations. Take me into that. The concept of seven generations is one that shows up internationally in Indian country,

in Anishinaabemowin. For example, the Lakota warrior and holy man, He Hakasapa. And you'll have to forgive my Lakota, it's poor at best. He spoke of a time of seven generations after that terrible battle and massacre at Mudini. For him, this would be a unit of time. It would take seven generations for the Lakota to make the hoop of life whole again, the circle of life whole with the Americans, with the Wasichu. I heard of seven generations for the first time in my life in high school, briefly with Degana Wida, with the greatichu. I heard of seven generations for the first time in my life in high school,

briefly with Degana Wida, with the great peacemaker. And there I had heard that in every one of our deliberations, in every one of our decisions, we will have to think seven generations into the future. And when I heard that as a young person, that was very profound, a little confounding. Like, how do we do that? How do we come up with an action, a choice, a decision that affects someone seven generations from now? And what I approach in my book, The Seven Generations and Seven Grandfather Teachings, is an Ojibwe perspective of it. And for our listeners who don't know, Ojibwe, Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Iroquois, Haudenosaunee, they're as different from each other, comparatively speaking, as Mandarin Chinese, Somali, and German. Three different languages spoken on three different continents by three different nations of people. So I always like to point out that I'm speaking about an Ojibwe Anishinaabe perspective of that. And there's this word that shows up, Indanakobitchigan, Indanakobitchigan. And it really means my great-grandparent. It can mean my ancestor, but it also means my great-grandchild.

And when you look at that logically, if it implies my great-grandparent and my great-grandchild you have a span of seven generations that are punctuated by this word in Danako Bichigan. When I discovered what that word means in Danako Bichigan this was a case where I was looking into the words and not just a translation but an interpretation. I found this small word part, onik. And having learned from it by listening to and recording these elders, I began looking at what that onik meant. And it meant to be interconnected, to be interlinked, like a bike chain or a thread woven into a tapestry or blanket, to be interlinked, to be interconnected. So when I spiritually interpreted that word, rather than just a translation into English, when I interpreted it, it really meant

that one I am inextricably interconnected to, that being I am inextricably linked to. And in Ojibwe, it's our word for my great-grandpa and my great-grandchild. There I saw seven generations that are punctuated by this concept of being interconnected, of being interlinked. What's so fascinating about that to me also is the way that you're measuring time. It's not just in one direction. You're going backwards and forwards. And embedded in that is the assumption, and maybe it's my assumption, tell me if this is accurate or not, that the way that we move through the world in this moment, in our present, has the ability to ripple out in both directions.

Indeed. And this was something I had kind of discovered about myself, that I had only been looking at it in a linear fashion, that we begin now and everything we do affects someone seven generations from now. But when I understood that word, all of a sudden, past, present, and future, we're all taking place now. It's like all happening right now. And where I knew if I could lead a good life, a life of peace and balance, life without conflict with my environment or my relatives,

a life without contradiction where I'm saying one thing and doing another. Everything I do would be positively beneficial for someone coming seven generations from now, for my great-grandchild and their great-grandchildren. What I learned as I looked at it holistically was that by seeking out a good life now, we may be able to heal someone who is no longer with us. In my case, that could be my great grandparents, that could be my grandparents,

or even my father. He is no longer here. We have a chance to heal those people who may not be here with us because we're still inextricably interconnected to them. We're still living out their story. And so that became a different perspective for me. It became, how can I heal those who may no longer be here, as well as live in a way that I can bring peace and balance to people I'll probably never see, speak to, listen to, or hold? Yeah. It's such a powerful concept in that, at least for me, the notion of if we have somebody who's no longer with us, who we love dearly and who we saw suffer, struggle, deal with demons, whatever it may have

been, and left this place, this plane, this moment in a state where that was never resolved. The notion that choosing to move through the world in a particular way now, that may not only ripple out to children or children's children and many generations forward, but in some way, in some ethereal, energetic, intergenerational way, that there is a mechanism to reach back and help somebody close a chapter. Of course, some people will hear this and roll their eyes and say, that's absurd, that's silly, the door's closed. But I think others will be more open to at least some notion of the ability to be a part of a process of peace that is multidirectional and healing that is just deeply appealing in many ways. And for me, yeah, there was great appeal to that. Because having met so many people who had gone through colonization, through, you know, when I look at my great-grandfather's example, who was born 100 years before me, and how things had changed for him, he would see the creation of a reservation, a place he couldn't leave,

without express written consent from an Indian agent, where he could be arrested for practicing his spirituality or even speaking his language. And whereas children were removed, those people who went through that experience, those people who were boarding school survivors and may have dealt with that pain and anguish in ways that weren't healthy, who may have suffered from alcoholism through substance abuse, to have the opportunity to say, the life I'm living wasn't necessarily determined by the struggle you went through and by leading a healthy life now. we're still living out your story. We're still interconnected.

That wasn't the end of the chapter. It wasn't the end of the book. It was another installment. That's beautiful. One of the other, I guess, an ethos is around the notion of the perspective of the self as a part of a collective, which rings is just profoundly different than a more mainstream Western notion of that really elevates the individual as like the fundamental unit of life. And it seems like a lot of the stories and the culture and the teachings wrapped around the ancestral wisdom that you come from, it really is, everything is anchored in the

idea of interconnectedness and also your role, not just as an individual, but as a part of something bigger. It was one of those light bulb moments when I was learning about the seven generations. Finally, I had understood what I had heard about so often in English. Seven generations, think seven generations ahead. And I recall speaking to an elder who had related this story to me that when he was growing up, we would call them Gete and Ishinabeg. The translation he provided as an ESL speaker was an old-time Indian. These were people who were born on trap lines where they hunted, fished, and trapped. They lived in cabins or may have been born in a wagonagon, in a domed lodge, a wigwam.

And he was telling me that that generation of people, when they became elders, they would try to avoid using this word neen. And neen means I, me, myself. And I was really intrigued by that. As a linguist, I knew that it serves a perfectly logical linguistic function. The teaching I had gotten out of it was when I translated that word nin into Latin, it becomes ego, ego. The teaching they were trying to share was that this idea of I, me, myself, it might be a myth. It might be an illusion. For them, I'm a link in a chain going all the way back and going all the way forward.

I am all of my relatives. I'm inextricably interconnected to all of my relatives. And everything I do will affect them through that connection. For them, the spiritual teaching was that only the kind spirit, the benevolent mystery, God, the creator, can say, I, excluding you. Human beings couldn't. We are, at this point, interconnected. We're interlinked.

And when you come from that place, you make decisions differently. Absolutely. It just completely changes your orientation with the way that you move through the world in every way. Especially when your regard, when you say, do I do this or do I do that? Do I say this or do I say that? I think a lot of the sort of like the modern Western

and like lens on that is, well, how will it affect me? And this really asks you to say, how will it affect us before doing or saying any of those things, which I think really leads us nicely to the seven grandfather teachings that you share. I'd love to walk through some of these with you. The first one you tee up is, I guess it translates to truth, but it's not necessarily the way that I might understand the notion of truth. I love truth. That's why I wanted to open up the seven grandfather teachings with that particular one.

I want to make a point. And it's, yeah, when you're making these decisions and you're using these grandfather teachings that show us how to lead a good life, you're making decisions for people who will not be here. And one of the sacred laws, it's truth. And I've heard a couple of different etymologies for it. An etymology, it's the history or story of a word. One of the first ones I heard came from the late elder Marlene Stately from Gahazaga Squaw Jamay Cog from the Leech Lake Reservation. And for her, that word had in it, day, heart, and way to speak. I'm speaking to you from the very center and the core of my being. And that one I found very profound because I have seen petroglyphs and I had seen birchbark scrolls, which is how Anishinaabe

Ojibwe people traditionally carried knowledge through pictographs and petroglyphs, where you would see this image carved into stone or birchbark with a heart and a line coming through it. And this is coming from the very center and core of me. Another one I heard came from the late linguist Basil Johnson. He was an Ojibwe man. And for him, he described truth as being deb to a certain extent, an extent that you really can't surpass. You can't go beyond in way to speak. I can speak to a certain extent. And he had a rather very charming anecdote about this when he spoke about this at the University of Minnesota. He had talked about an isolated yet insulated community. It was a flying community, so there were no roads that led here.

To be able to get there, you had to fly in and land in the lake. And so once a month, court would come to this isolated community. There would be a judge, there'd be legal representation, and they would need interpreters. Because this was an isolated community, it was still insulated. So the people who lived there still used Ojibwe on a daily basis. They had no reason yet to use French or English. Everyone they spoke to on a daily basis used Ojibwe. And when they were asked in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, some of them said,

I can't do that. And it was a problem in interpreting. What they were saying is, I can tell you everything I saw, I witnessed, I was a party to, but that may or may not be the whole truth. I can speak my truth to you. So that was one interpretation I got of the word day boy. As I began to look into it more, I found like another level of teaching with that to be able to speak to a certain extent. I wondered if like maybe the spirit of the language was censoring itself here. If maybe the language was saying, I can't define something eternal to using words, which are the sounds of our thoughts. You're using the wrong tool for this. This is something that has to be experienced.

It has to be lived rather than using a word to describe it. And it's great because we can get in our lives, you know, get mistake the word or the thought for the thing. And I wonder if a word like truth in Ojibwe is saying, don't mistake the word for the real lived experience. You'll have to have this to really understand it. And it's like it builds a certain amount of inherent subjectivity into the notion of truth, which is our lived experience. Like five people can witness and be a part of the identical moment or experience and describe it very differently. And it sort of acknowledges the fact that this is just the nature of reality. Like I can speak to what I have perceived, but I cannot tell you that that is indeed the fact itself or what anyone else would have experienced in the exact same moment

or circumstance, which I think is pretty cool that it allows for that, actually. I was absolutely fascinated by the insight and by the knowledge. And then to embed that teaching into a word that we would use in, again, an everyday conversation. What a genius investment. Indeed. And that leads to the notion of humility, another one of these seven teachings, and really framing it up from what I could perceive as this notion that our dependence on other beings for survival is at the core of who we are. It relates back to that notion of interconnectedness, relatedness that we were talking about. So one of my questions when I realized, well, if truth isn't something

I can speak about, I may not even be able to comprehend in thought. It must be experienced. I asked myself, well, how did our ancestors seek out truth? And that's when I began examining the spirituality and the ceremony of our ancestors. And one of the most ancient ones I found, it's called Gita Goshamoen, the vision quest. And it is when a young boy will go out on a fast. He will fast from food and water. He'll be in isolation for up to four days and three strength. So as he's negated all of his relationships with food, water, medicine, even with his relatives as he's in solitude seeking this out, I wonder if this young boy who is out on a fast begins asking himself, well, where do I get my food? Where do I get my clothing? Where do I get my shelter from? And it's all coming from the earth. It is the animals who are feeding us and clothing us, the trees who are giving us fire, they're giving us the very oxygen we need to breathe.

The earth, the plants, the mushkiki, I love this word in Ojibwe, mushkiki, medicine. It really means mushk, strength, and aki, the earth. When the human being needs healing or nourishment, they seek out the strength of the earth. And the water, the Nibi, is giving life to all of it. What I think this boy is realizing is that in this word for humility, in this ceremony of fasting for a vision, on going on a vision quest, he realizes that he has a relationship to each one of these animals, to the fish, to the birds, to the plants, to the trees, to the water. And in that relationship, he becomes a relative. So, I think from some perspectives, to be a relative, it's either to have maybe a DNA connection to someone. Here, becoming a relative is through relationship. And he realizes, well,

what happens to a human being without food, water, clothing, or shelter? You will perish. You will certainly die. At this point, he realizes, ah, I can't live without my relatives. I'm interconnected with them. Whatever is going to affect them will affect me. And then he realizes humility. And that word in Ojibwe, dabasen dizo, he or she is humble. It has an dabas, which is low. Ein is to think and dizo is of oneself. Now, I think lowly of myself may sound like low self-esteem in modern contemporary English, but what I think he's trying to do is put the human being where the human being belongs in relationship. I am not more important than the relatives who give me life.

In fact, I know without them I can't survive. I can't live. So, therefore, I think lowly of myself. I don't exalt myself above my relatives. What an important teaching to have for your environment, your society, and also of people who may not be here yet, of generations who are coming to think I'm not more important than you. I am one of you, and I can't live without you. I feel like that ties very closely in this third teaching offer around respect as well. Those two really seamless.

Well, I guess all seven of these honestly tie really powerfully together, you know, but respect in the notion of it feels like gratitude is embedded in this notion of respect the way that you describe it. And that word for respect, it's menagietuin. It means to go easy on. And the moment you realize that, ah, when I'm harvesting corn or manoma, and I have taken the ear of corn off of the stalk, it's no longer alive. When I've knocked the grain of rice, wild rice, into the canoe,

I mean, it's no longer growing. When I've gone hunting for deer, for moose, which is our Ojibwe word for moose, for omashkoos, for elk, you know, they're no longer alive in order for me to be clothed, in order for me to eat. The idea is that you go easy on them. You take only what you need, because you acknowledge that they're giving their life to you so that you can survive. And you harvest only what you need. It would almost be catastrophically stupid to go and over-harvest, to kill all of the buffalo, to decimate the moose populations, to over-fish. And in that though, that word for respect, it's reciprocal.

From an Ojibwe perspective, they go easy on each other is really what that sacred law would translate to. From an Ojibwe perspective, it's the animals, it's the plants, it's the environment who is going easy on us, who is looking at poor pitiful human beings and saying, if we do not clothe and feed and shelter our younger siblings, they're not going to survive. We're going to go easy on them. We're going to acknowledge the sacredness of their lives. For me, I really think of humility being like to acknowledge the sancta diva relatives' lives. And the bidirectionality of that is really powerful also. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

The teaching that you build on that is one of love, which is at the center of these seven teachings. I'm assuming that you actually chose the order of why you would present them in a particular way. I was curious how intentional it was that this was at the center of the seven. As I began doing this talk in the first time, this was a natural flow when I began looking at them. But I think love was for me the most, they all work with one another. They're all interconnected, but I could find each one of these grandfather teachings, each one of these sacred laws in love. If you truly love someone, are you humble? Are you trying to exalt yourself above the person you love? Are you respectful? Do you speak the truth to someone you care very deeply about? Or do you deceive them with words?

And it struck me, and in the middle of this, and I was giving this talk, it was like, ah, well, who would feed us? And why would they do that? Why would they look after us? Why would they nurture us? Why would they give us medicine when we're ill? And it must be because they love us. And that's when I began really looking at what that word meant.

And it was hard because when I spoke about truth in the beginning, I was saying you can't define something eternal. And love is certainly eternal. The love we feel today, I don't think is different than the love someone felt thousands of years ago, or the love someone who hasn't been born will feel. So how do I describe that? And that was it. I wasn't seeking out a definition. I don't think the language tries to define it.

I think it tries to describe it. It's almost like something that emerges from deep within us. It's not something that's thought about. It's not coming from an intellectual pursuit. It's something that emerges from deep within us. It's not something that's thought about. It's not coming from an intellectual pursuit. It's something that emerges from deep within us. And when it comes out, it's for the benefit of all of our relatives. Yeah. I mean, it's so powerful as you're describing that. What flashed into my mind was a conversation I had not too long ago with somebody who was a foster parent and had brought a child into their family who had known nothing up until

that moment that could be described as love. And they were trying to actually explain to this kid what love was. And the kids simply had no concept of it. They couldn't relate to any of the descriptors, to a feeling that was within them. And we were talking and sort of like saying like, how do you explain love to someone who has no lived experience of it? And it was a really profound moment because it really made me realize that it is one of those words that I feel like you know it when you feel it. You know it when it's conditional, it's taken away from you. But it's so hard to put language, like truly descriptive language. And even if you could, it would only be relevant to you.

Absolutely. And along the same lines, I've never read a novel or a poem or heard a song or saw a sculpture or a painting that captured that feeling like I have for grandma and grandpa, that I have for my parents or for my son. It's ineffable. It's literally beyond words. And what I found in the language, in the Ojibwe language, was a description. The description of how something eternal can move through something impermanent, a human being, something with a beginning and an end. And when I saw that came out in different examples, like the sun coming out, Zagatue, and the sun rising and shining on everyone and everything, I found in that same morpheme Zag, Zagatue, that was in zagit, when that was in love. And I thought, well, that is, it has to be something for everyone and everything. And so rather than coming up with

maybe these rules and definitions of love, our ancestors were sharing a description. Maybe what does kizhe manatu, what does the kind spirits, unconditional love look like? And it's got to be something for everyone and everything. And then acknowledging that, yeah, that's something that can come through you as well. It's not reserved exclusively for the spiritual. You can have that as well in your life. Building on that, we move into courage, which is interesting because often I feel like people think about the notion of courage and there's a certain aggressiveness to it. And certainly there are stories of courage in the face of violence, in the face of battle, in the face of fighting. But the way you describe it is

also a much more heart-centered experience. Indeed, it has that word heart in it. Our Ojibwe word for courage is sungde'e. Its literal translation would mean he or she has a strong heart. And the example I use in my book, and it was an example that transformed the way I looked at that came from maybe even a centuries-long conflict that was here in Minnesota, in the state I live in. And this was between two different Indian nations, the Dakota and the Ojibwe. And they had been fighting over contested land for some time. Some people say 100 winters. It may have been even 200 winters. And these nations hadn't known peace.

Every year, sometimes only 5 to 10 people on each side would perish, but there wasn't peace. There wasn't balance. There was always the threat of violence. And the story I tell comes probably after the Great Dakota Uprising here in Minnesota in 1862. And a Dakota village comes under attack by American forces, by American soldiers. And's using a hollow reed to breathe through. And it's said she hides for life for three to four days. And when I say hiding for life, like the soldiers who had attacked her village, they weren't there to take prisoners. They were there to destroy the village. And it's said she has a vision from Wakantanka, the great mystery, the great spirit, who tells her that the Spirit is very

disappointed in how human beings are living their life. There's a great deal of violence at this time. The wars for the Great Plains are raging, and the Dakota aren't just fighting the Americans. They are also engaged in a war with the Ojibwe. She's told that if the Dakota were to bring a drum, a very special, particular drum drum to the Ojibwe, it would bring peace to both of their nations. And she's able to mystically escape with her life. She brings this vision back to the nearest Dakota village. She relates it to the holy men there. They begin at once creating this drum. And it's said when they present it to the Ojibwe, in some cases, this is at Mississauga Gining, at Lake Mille Lacs, the original Midewakan Mystic Lake.

And the Ojibwe accepted. They're able to sit at the drum. And our word for drum is very beautiful. It has in it day. Like in truth, the heart, we, is the sound in a gun. It's like an implement, an instrument. It's the instrument that makes the sound of the heart, the drumbeat. And these two nations who had brought the very worst of what war has to bring,

poverty, bereavement, anxiety, rage, terror, were able to sit with one another. And when they sounded the drum, it represented both of their hearts beating together. The smoke that was coming up from the Ophagan, from the sacred pipe, it represented both of their prayers and aspirations raising up to the heavens. And when they were singing, they were speaking with one voice. And I saw an example of what true strength of heart was. It was no longer for me to be totally unafraid to go and fight Dakotas. It meant to have the strength of heart to treat Dakotas as relatives, as they had always been. It had been our perception that was wrong.

And that was true strength of heart. It was an example of how reconciliation was possible when it's done the right way. But it absolutely demands strength of heart for it to be successful. I love the notion that courage is intertwined with empathy in this understanding of it. It's a little counterintuitive by the way that we've heard courage described so many ways, but it also, if part of what so many of us are looking for these days is reconnection and reconciliation and the courage that it would take to do that, how can that courage not embody empathy at the same time in some meaningful way?

Which leads us in an interesting way to the sixth teaching around honesty, which I thought was fascinating because we started out this journey with truth, truthfulness, and you make a distinction between truth and honesty. And it was an interesting one to make because in standard American English, if you tell the truth, you're honest. If you're honest, you tell the truth. These are kind of synonymous terms. The way the Ojibwe language described it didn't have to do exactly with what you were saying. It had everything to do with how you were living. When I looked at what that word, which is that sacred law, that grandfather teaching of truth, he or she lives correctly, I think would be the best literal interpretation of that. He or she lives correctly. I think would be the best literal interpretation of that. He or she lives correctly.

Guayaca is straight, right, proper, correct. And Otzi is to live. And when I looked at examples of what it meant to be truly honest, it meant to, are my words and actions in alignment? Do I walk the walk or do I just talk the talk? And I think everyone has the experience at one point in their life or another where you have someone who's telling you to act a certain way, to dress a certain way, to speak a certain way, to do a particular ceremony, and then you see them do something completely different.

Unlike a Friday or a Saturday night, everyone goes through this. It's hypocrisy. It's contradiction. And I think in the language they're saying is, if you truly want to know if I'm telling the truth, observe how I lead my life. The truth invariably comes out. It always does.

Am I leading a holistic life then? A life where my words are in alignment with my actions. Which really brings us to the seventh teaching around wisdom. And again, it's so fascinating to me because each of these words we've all heard countless times, and yet you describe them with some overlap, but also with some really powerful distinctions. Wisdom, at least it sounds like to me is, I don't want to say enlightenment because I don't really understand what that word means, to be honest with you. And to me, that's always been this ultimate aspiration that has

been connected to certain Eastern traditions that allow us to, quote, opt out of the cycle of birth and rebirth, reincarnation, or out of a cycle of suffering. But I don't think that you're teeing this word up really in that way. And see, I liked the word enlightenment because I think that word wisdom, its origin has to do with wit, light. And when you see it show up in different languages, Indo-European languages, it seems to deal with vision, with sight, with light, which you absolutely need to be able to see. In ancient Sanskrit, it'll become the Veda, knowledge. It'll become video or video. In Latin, it'll become video or video in Latin. It'll become idea in ancient Greek. That moment where you have sight, where you are able to see something as it is. In Ojibwe,

it has something very similar. The morpheme wa, which could be light, which could be energy. I wonder if this is to be able to see something, to be able to have vision, to be able to see things exactly as they are. And I wonder if that is enlightenment, that you will actually just be able to see things as they are without the delusion or prejudice that you're carrying along with you. One of the examples I use in the book is a wassigan, lightning. And I don't know if the listeners have ever had this experience where you're outside at night. Whenever there's a thunderstorm, I'll go outside and offer tobacco, I'll set down tobacco and acknowledge the thunder beings that are flying overhead,

let them know there are human beings down here. And it can be night and all of a sudden there will be this magnificent flash of lightning. And it can even become brighter than midday. And you can see everything as it is. And you're not really thinking about what you're seeing. You just see it. You have vision. You have a moment of enlightenment where you have just seen it as it is without, again, that baggage of prejudice in your opinions and your judgments of everything around you. You just see it as it truly is and then maybe be able to relate to it in that way. I love the notion of it. It's almost like turning on the light bulb.

Oh, this is the reality. Or at least as close as I'm capable of getting to that. Because indeed, so many of us live in a world that is semi-illusional, semi-delusional, partly factual and partly fabricated. And I often feel like the closer we can get to seeing clearly, more clearly, the reality of our own inner experience and external experience and bridge that gap, that we move through life in a more genuine way. We can make decisions and take actions in a more clearly informed way, and that the net effect of that has got to be more good in our worlds and in the world.

As we reflect back on these seven different teachings, and back to the earlier part of our conversation, these are teachings that just help us move through each day. Probably to a certain extent, we leave a certain amount of suffering, some of which is self-manufactured. But zooming the lens out really goes back to the beginning of a conversation, which is these are things that would help us experience a better life. And by that also, that can happen in solitude. This is a bigger thing. So I feel like that's a good place for

us to come full circle in our conversation because it leads us to the question that I always end every conversation with, that people in North America who have lived here for thousands of years, for Indigenous people, whose main goal, the main goal was, how can I lead a good life? How can we lead a good life? And to have that opportunity that a good life is one that's led with truth, with humility, not exalting yourself above your relatives, to acknowledge you are your relatives, to live with respect and acknowledge the sanctity of your relatives' lives, the sacredness of their lives, to have unconditional and compassionate love and blessing love for your relatives, to lead a life with a strong heart, with courage, with bravery, to lead a holistic life where your words are in alignment with your

actions, an honest life, to lead an intelligent life, life with truth, a life where all of your actions, a good life, will be positively beneficial for all of your relatives, not just now, but for someone coming seven generations from now. That for me is truly living well, living a life worth living. Thank you. Miigwech. Miigwech bizendawian. Thank you for listening. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode,

safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Violet Duncan about the power of indigenous wisdom. You'll find a link to Violet's episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelly Dell for her research on this episode. Good Life Project is a part of the ACAST creator network. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or

inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, That's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot himth. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.