truthfully I’m not sure where to begin. i know that I have a lot of things that I want to share about my experiences with Indigenous Peace Education, what I don’t know is where to begin. so how I usually begin workshops etc is by thanking the people that have shown up, so in virtuosity world, let me thank you for taking the time to read whatever malevolent thoughts I may have & hopefully engage with the program as well.
Then I must thank the amazing people that brighten my life & make the good fight easier. First my daughters, the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. I’ve found motivation, excitation, jubilation, chronic tension headaches (jokes) but really, without Chyler, Kateri & Sienna I wouldn’t be here blogging this blog. Who knows where I’d be, but I do know that everything happens for a reason & I’m blessed to be on this journey.
Next I’d like to thank the great network of people that I work with here at the Peace Café in Hamilton, Ontario. <http://www.peacecafe.ca> We're a bunch of humans collectively striving for something different, something away from dollars & cents, away from urban land sprawl & maybe even away from the exquisitely constructed society of capitalism, hierarchy, patriarchy & the inherent discontent that carries with such base ideas. There we enter with bright faces, loud laughter and a seething edge to the simple words that speak truth and resistance. Rob, Chelsea & Julia have been kick ass comrades in this journey so far. Kind of like Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tinman, Toto doing to see the Wizard of Oz, except we proceed down a fictitious yellow brick road (King William street) in a egalitarian style. Not one of us is Dorothy or the lion or Toto the dog. I think all of those characters are mixed up in us to some extent making us a motley crue of exception & motivated persistance.
So the Peace Café, our gathering place, the mecca of peaceful platitude in the perennially potent dose of enforced & overt patriotism of Western society, is housed in the Skydragon Centre <http://www.skydragon.org. To me, when I come here it reminds me of a gramma’s kitchen, you know where it’s welcoming, it smells good & there’s something that you’re bound to want to touch. The community that encompasses this worker’s co-operative are very much like minded individuals & I couldn’t think of a better place that I would want to work in Hamilton. Hamilton Freeskool <http://www.hamiltonfreeskool.org>, The Well & all sorts of great activities going on to feed any mental need for anything exceptional. The Peace Café works within a larger Culture of Peace Network in Hamilton & I would like to thank them for providing me with inspiration & motivation to continue debunking the mythologies perpetrated by popular Western education.
Lastly but not leastly I’d like the thank the McMaster community of academics, colleagues and organizations that have helped me to learn so much on my path to becoming an indigenous Peace Educator. The Indigenous Studies Department <http://www.mcmaster.ca/indigenous/index.html> , OPIRG McMaster <http://www.opirg.ca> McMaster First Nations Students Association <http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2405514332&ref=ts> are all some amazers that you may want to look into if you’re interested in what helped to make me what I am.
Most of all, i'd like to say chi miigwetch to Chi Manitou (a Great Mystery) for guiding me on one crazy, informative, life changing journey. Great mysteries and superficial histories spin my life round. I'd like to talk more about who/what/when/where/why my Creator is, but i'll save that for another blog. I feel grateful & excited to think about where this journey will take me next.
So as an introduction, I hope this blog entry has served you well. There may be some ideas or some words you’re not familiar with that I’ve used, but stay tuned. I like to write about writeables. I like to make up words. i’m a reformed academic; I like to read because it’s enjoyable, not mandated. So thank you, miigwetch & nia:wen for taking the time to step into my world, even for a minute to learn about who I am.
In a nutshell, three concepts that determine my existence are Anishnaabek, mother and learner. i can be reached at danielle@peacecafe.ca. Please comment and let me know what topics are of interest to you, what isn’t interesting to you or just whatever ... like 'today is so beautiful, isn't life grand?' because yes those kind of sentences are so necessary in a constructed reality that may not be so grand. Life is good and I’m glad you’ve taken a minute of your life to witness 
a glimpse of mine ☺