Relationships and Interconnections

Sandy McMullen

The most obvious elements in my quilt square are 4 hands, 4 trees, a circle and some interconnecting lines.

The hands represent people and the relationships that are important to us to build and appreciate. This includes the relationships that we have with each other in our TRC -Bobcaygeon group, that we have with other groups such as the Community Voices for Manoomin, the KTRSG, with folks at the Pine Tree Talks at Trent, with folks at CLFN such as Doug Williams, Anne Taylor, Dorothy Taylor, and all the people who have presented workshops, given talks or words of guidance over the years.

Part of our vision is to also reach out beyond Bobcaygeon to surrounding communities such as Fenelon Falls to the west and other areas like Trent Lakes to the east.

Trapper Kaaren Danneman presented the Medicine Wheel in her workshop “Gifts from the Moose”. One aspect of the Medicine Wheel alludes to how the 4 colours represent the 4 colours of people – Red, Yellow, White and Black. We are aware as a group of Settlers of our inclusion in the dominant white Settler society, and we are aware of our responsibility to be vigilant in checking our assumptions and our worldview. We are always seeking to see through a broader lens that places an Indigenous perspective in the centre so that Reconciliation can become a meaningful idea leading to action with impact.

Also during Kaaren’s workshop, we learned about how important it is for us to cultivate a personal relationship to the land and to the plants and animals that live on the land. The way Settler society refers to the land as resources has led to the mindset that perpetuates the current climate crisis. Anishinaabe refer to the animals as my relations and in doing so both expresses respect for these animals and acknowledges the interconnectedness of all things. We all need to make this shift in consciousness toward our true connection to Mother Earth and Indigenous Knowledge shows the way.

The circle plays an important role in my quilt square. It is a symbol of wholeness and integration – the antithesis of the hierarchical and linear models we are accustomed to in the dominant culture.

It is also a metaphor for me of the way we are trying to bring wholeness to how we relate to each other and to reconciliation in our Truth and Reconciliation Community. We start every meeting with a sharing circle. We do this following a clockwise direction according to Anishinaabe custom. Everyone in the circle has a voice and we recognize the value that each voice contributes. We operate by consensus and when we differ in opinion we use the circle as a way to talk things through to an agreed upon outcome. There is so much more to say about the symbolism of the circle but I will leave that for another day.

Finally a word about the lines of interconnectivity. As a painter I know that every mark I make shifts the relationship of all the elements in the composition and leads to another mark that attempts to balance things out. In our TRC-group we are both unlearning and learning. We are trying to re-contextualize our thinking and add new ways of being. We acknowledge that what we do is a work in progress and we hope that others will join us as we find our way toward reconciliation.