A SACRED DUTY

Indigenous People are obligated to follow the high moral standards set by our ancestors. We need to create a better life and a better social and natural environment than was experienced by the elders of the recent past.

My poem When Grandma Cries speaks to the terrible pain and suffering that my grandmother’s generation experienced. Such hard times also led to greater strength and hard-won wisdom underlining the duty of this generation to create a better future for the children today.

The poem The Prayer is a prayer for the wisdom to move forward on the path of sacred knowledge and tempered righteousness to create a better world for everyone.

Finally, the poem The Light speaks to a way forward through the grace within us.

–Calvin Helin

When Grandma Cries

When grandma cries
Tears fall like bombs
Exploding in my ears.

Her heartbeat slows
The drum strikes low
Pounding out hard years

Yet in the sadness
The pulse of gladness
The path to wisdom true.

When grandma cries
Tears fall like rain
And life it springs anew.

Calvin Helin,
The Economic Dependency Trap: Breaking Free to Self-Reliance

The Light

Burrowing along—
in the terrible dark.
Feeling ever so sorry
for life so stark.

Over and over
a constant refrain.
“Poor ol’ me
so much pain?”

Out of chaos
a mystical clue.
God is at hand
 knowledge not new.

 Insight at last
in this nocturnal place.
Light from within
enlightened by grace.

—Calvin Helin, The Economic Dependency Trap: Breaking Free to Self-Reliance

Contact Us

info@worldindigenousnetwork.org

CANADA

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