#009 As my fingers danced across the skin, ushering ink into a permanent home, I found a connection deeper than I had ever anticipated. Joining me on today's Transformative Marks podcast journey is Keith Callihoo, whose own hands have crafted stories into the skin, reviving the sacred practice of traditional tattooing. Together, we traverse the intimate paths of ancestral skin marking, discovering how each deliberate mark carries a narrative far beyond its visual appeal. Keith shares his enlightening transition from conventional tattooing to a role steeped in cultural significance and personal empowerment. We immerse ourselves in tales that celebrate the resilience of Indigenous practices and the heartfelt influence of maternal legacies on our identities.
With Keith's insights, we uncover the critical roles of women in shaping our journeys and the essential dialogue on men's healing in the face of historical adversity. The episode unfolds the layers of vulnerability inherent in the art of tattooing, acknowledging the sacred trust between artist and client. Through our conversation, we honor the stitches that bind our communities, weaving a fabric of shared experiences and collective wisdom. We delve into the heart of Indigenous identity, recognizing the power of face markings as a statement of defiance and cultural resurgence. Our discussion also navigates the contentious topic of reconciliation, advocating for an internal healing that radiates outward, fortifying community bonds.
Beyond the skin, we explore the diverse expressions of Indigenous artistry, from carving to painting, and how they inform and enrich the tattooing practice. We also examine the importance of knowledge exchange, particularly the mentorship of the next generation, as seen in the inclusion of Keith's daughter in his tattooing adventures. The episode serves as a tribute to the importance of parental presence, the enrichment brought by travel and shared experiences, and the careful transmission of cultural practices with respect and safety. Through this rich tapestry of conversation, we invite you to engage with us, celebrating the beauty of artistic mediums, the vibrancy of cultural influences, and the essential act of passing wisdom to future custodians of our heritage.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
#009 As my fingers danced across the skin, ushering ink into a permanent home, I found a connection deeper than I had ever anticipated. Joining me on today's Transformative Marks podcast journey is Keith Callihoo, whose own hands have crafted stories into the skin, reviving the sacred practice of traditional tattooing. Together, we traverse the intimate paths of ancestral skin marking, discovering how each deliberate mark carries a narrative far beyond its visual appeal. Keith shares his enlightening transition from conventional tattooing to a role steeped in cultural significance and personal empowerment. We immerse ourselves in tales that celebrate the resilience of Indigenous practices and the heartfelt influence of maternal legacies on our identities.
With Keith's insights, we uncover the critical roles of women in shaping our journeys and the essential dialogue on men's healing in the face of historical adversity. The episode unfolds the layers of vulnerability inherent in the art of tattooing, acknowledging the sacred trust between artist and client. Through our conversation, we honor the stitches that bind our communities, weaving a fabric of shared experiences and collective wisdom. We delve into the heart of Indigenous identity, recognizing the power of face markings as a statement of defiance and cultural resurgence. Our discussion also navigates the contentious topic of reconciliation, advocating for an internal healing that radiates outward, fortifying community bonds.
Beyond the skin, we explore the diverse expressions of Indigenous artistry, from carving to painting, and how they inform and enrich the tattooing practice. We also examine the importance of knowledge exchange, particularly the mentorship of the next generation, as seen in the inclusion of Keith's daughter in his tattooing adventures. The episode serves as a tribute to the importance of parental presence, the enrichment brought by travel and shared experiences, and the careful transmission of cultural practices with respect and safety. Through this rich tapestry of conversation, we invite you to engage with us, celebrating the beauty of artistic mediums, the vibrancy of cultural influences, and the essential act of passing wisdom to future custodians of our heritage.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
I've had people come and say well, our ancestors never wore gloves or never did this. And I say well, you know, our ancestors never had to contend with these super bugs or HEP, and HIV.
Speaker 2:The Transformative Marks podcast explores how indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers transform this world for the better, dot by dot, line by line and stitch by stitch. My name is Dion Casas. I'm a Hungarian Métis and Intlacopak professional tattoo artist and ancestral skin marker. I started the work of reviving my ancestral Intlacopak skin marking practice over a decade ago. I've helped, supported and trained practitioners and tattoo artists here on Turtle Island. In this podcast, I sit down with indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the globe, bringing you behind the scenes of this powerful, transformative and spiritual work, Sego.
Speaker 1:My name is Keith Callahou. I come from Treaty Six territory. I was born in Fort McMurray area and raised in St Albert in Edmonton.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So you know. The next question is just what's the journey that's brought you here to be talking to me today on the Transformative Marks podcast?
Speaker 1:Oh, serendipity, I'm just listening. A lot of times people ask me like, how did you get into tattooing? And I don't really have a one-shot answer for that. It was never really my ambition or I don't know something that I put my mind to do. It just kind of presented itself and I think that you know, when I met the first person I met that introduced me to traditional tattooing was Nahan. I was doing the travel journey in 2017. And then, when I returned home about a month after, I met Jordan Bennett and both of them had talked to me about traditional tattooing and Jordan was the one that told me to keep an eye out to Earthline. And I looked at Earthline website for like two years and there was like nothing. And then one day I opened it up and Earthline was in Halifax, I think it was. I was like that's awesome, that's dope, that everybody's there. And then I think it was about a month later that that's how I applied and then began the journey there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand Just because we're friends and I've heard your story a little bit that you had started tattooing prior to in a shop. What made you stop doing that and you know, did you find that that was a help when you started again?
Speaker 1:Okay, again, it wasn't like I was looking for it and it was. Somebody had witnessed my artwork and they said, hey, do you want to learn how to tattoo and be an apprentice? And I said, yeah, I'm kind of too old for the apprentice drama, so I'll do it. But what made me stop was, I think, after months of realizing what the environment was about and how it was monetized and how it was a lot of I don't know stunted Eurocentric view of what tattoo should be and is, and so I was always like finding myself being more and more put in a box, and that's not how I roll.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the real short answer is that the coffee pot overflowed one day and went down on the counter and onto the floor and then the shop owner freaked out about it and wouldn't let it go and put it on me, and I was like, you know, I cleaned it up, but I just realized at that moment that I didn't want to tattoo people.
Speaker 1:I didn't know, and you know be that one that put markings on people, that I didn't agree with the spirit and the energy of what that marking was. And I was always told, you know, hey, you got to suck it up and you know, you got to learn how to do this and you got to pay your fees to the shop, and so that was the deciding factor that I didn't want to have strangers listening to their stories, that I have better things to do, and some of them were not good, and you know, I see a lot of people try to come in and spill their therapy. So, yeah, I just left, I put my keys on the counter and I left. They wanted me back and I just said no, I made my decision. It was like it led up to that and I was. The thing I was thankful for is that I got to learn the technical, like everything from auto-cleaving to the setup, to making needles, soldering the needles, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because in your in your skindiginous episode, you say that you are not going to do anything. You say that you are honored to be part of the exchange during the process of the work that you're doing now with ancestral skin marking. So do you want to maybe reflect on what that is, because you know you did talk about it in the skindiginous, but I wanted to maybe ask you to expand on. You know what were you thinking about when you said that, that you're honored to be part of that exchange.
Speaker 1:Well, I was talking to Donita this morning about it because of her markings yesterday, and I told her. I said, you know, a lot of times I sit down when I meet people. I'm like this is medicine. I'm not a medicine person. And I don't like that word, catalyst, because I think it's lost its meaning. What being a catalyst is? Yeah, but being a person, a human being that can help a person tell their story. You know, I've heard time and time again that people say I feel strong. I feel powerful and that's where I find it's an honor to be. Help them do that to assist in leveling up.
Speaker 1:And someone just recently asked me about like, do you ever feel disconnected? Like you're present but you're not fully complete or you're not whole. And I said, for me it was like I know what that feels like and it's not something that my mind, my body or spiritually is gonna. I would say that like accomplish it. It's like I know where I need to be but I'm not there yet. And it means physically, sometimes it's just like I need to be there but I'm not there yet and I'm ready, yeah, and so when I'm there, then I'm like, oh, okay, and all things are more balanced and more ready to continue. Moving on to the next place I need to be, so I think that's where the honor is. There's always like visiting people's territories, their homes, learning from people and just being witness to people's growth and tears and laughter and hospitality. So, yeah, that's where the honor comes from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool, yeah, but you know, I think it mirrors my own experience of, you know, being in the shop and working in the shop, as opposed to say with the large body suit work that I've been doing where it's outside of the shop for the most part, and it's just more of an intimate experience of getting to visit, I guess, a little bit more than you do at the shop.
Speaker 2:Of course you get some type of visiting at the shop but even though you try really hard to make it non-transactional, it always ends up feeling that way, you know, even though you have that intention not to make it feel that way. So, yeah, yeah, I can relate to that experience of you know, the comparison between those two spaces, absolutely. You know, one thing I was thinking about and you can pick it up or not is just talk about because I found it so interesting to have you, a Mohawk guy, out this way. So if you want to take an opportunity to kind of share about your community and how your people ended up here, that's something to roll up to, or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's okay, 1794, 9. No, but in reality it was. It was like I think I was about 13, 14, 15, and I was watching, you know, my mom and my aunties, my uncles, grandparents and chop-ons. They would always be in the kitchen in the country and there'd be music and the conversation was always about, you know, the reserve. But I didn't grow up on the reserve, yeah, and that conversation at that age led me to kind of begin my own journey of like, where do I come from? Yeah, I think that that's that whole identity, purpose, belonging, self-worth and a lot of the questions that I had, like why are we out here? Yeah, A lot of people couldn't answer that.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Wasn't really a priority to know where we came from. Yeah, and that way we knew where we were. And you know I was thinking about this too, because a lot of our family identify as Cree, even though we're not Cree. We might have Cree ancestry and relations, but there was this narrative that we don't belong here from other communities. But when I journeyed on and I met a lot of the older people, they know exactly who we are. Yeah, and you know there's different narratives that are coming out about why we're out here and how we came to be out here. And I remember when I went out East, probably about 12 years ago, yeah, and I took that opportunity to ask one of the knowledge holders out there about like, hey, why are we out here? And he said I'm not going to answer that he goes. I want you to tell me why you think you're out there, yeah, and I said, well, it's going to probably sound really corny and romantic, but I said I think we were out here to warn everybody along the way about what was coming.
Speaker 1:And you know I don't have the complete story because there's so many holes in it, but when I look at different moments in our own families contribution to peace in the territory, to economic sustainability, just simply fruit sovereignty, like surviving, like we were talking about the Gradual Civilization Act and providing us with implements and ox, and then all of a sudden they said, oh no, it would be unfair of us or inhumane of us to take the Indian from the Stone Age and put them in the Industrial Age, so we've got to take all that back from them. Wow, but we're agricultural people and so we showed a lot of the Treaty 678 territory people how to grow, because they were provided. Hey, here's these seeds, grow them and live with the decline of the buffalo and their own ways of survival. We also had experience of how to build like dovetail cabins and show people that shelter. So a long story short, because it's a big one. I think it was also like when I think about what my part is and what my contribution like what we talk about the new, old is holding on to making a good life here, and I think that back there, like back home I call it home too because that's where our blood comes from A couple hundred years of experience as opposed to the West, but what it was like to live amongst the Americans and the British and the French. You know, we're keepers of the Eastern door and when two-tongue people get through the door we have a responsibility to backtrack and inform people about like look, we don't have a lot of experience about what money is how. I heard it was father, son and we're like no, brother, brother, and they kept putting that they determine that relationship and it's like that's not who we are. We're brother, brother, we're sister, sister. Yeah. So I know that in going back and looking at like what's his name?
Speaker 1:George Simpson, the Hudson Bay Company governor, he rolled back and he would say, like the Iroquois are spoiled, and it was like well, we weren't here. And I can't imagine what it would be like to just wake up one morning and say, okay, I'm gonna go on an adventure and leave my people, so for them to put that terminology or that name on us of like we're adventurers. No, it was like we're responsibilities and so and that's always been on my mind like how, what would it be like to just up and go, like you're not exiled, but what were the conditions so that you up and left at the age of 12 and 13? And I believe that it was more about the direction of what the responsibilities were. And I do like to this is where I do get romantic is that like we work undercover, you know we'll sing their songs on the canoe, we'll smoke the clay pipes and kind of like the.
Speaker 1:Jesuits right, you fit in, you extract that information and you bring it back to your people. So yeah, I mean it's, and it's still today. I really see how what we were doing then is very much like what we're doing today. The only thing that's changed is the model of truck. That's how I like to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool. Thank you for sharing that. You know, like I said, I found it absolutely fascinating to hear that for the first time. You know when you came out to the tattoo school and you know it's similar to you. Know, living now in Big Moggy and Nova Scotia and hearing the Big Maw story and that point you know, that earlier point of contact you know with the colonizer, as opposed to you know us in the 1800s, the first guy dipping his toe into our territory, right, and so just thinking of that, those that expanse of time and that difference of that story and how, yeah, how. It's just a pretty cool experience to hear those stories that you just never get a chance or an opportunity to hear about. And I would say that's one of the wonderful things I find about this work is you just get to meet so many people, just like you said, going going into different people's territories, hearing their stories. It's such a powerful part of the work of ancestral skin marking.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where I'm at too. Like, if I sometimes, when I'm hesitant, it's because it's like it's not it's how I heard it and I was recently reminded too is that when we go to share a creation story or we go to share stories, it's we don't own them. And in those moments, in those stories that there, there'll be things that I didn't hear, and maybe I heard like five times later I hear that story again. Did they add that no, it's new, and it's like, oh, I didn't hear that, but I'm connected to that part and that's what I I don't know reiterate or I share.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's what our individual contribution is is to continue to keep pieces of that story going. You know, like my ancestors were in your territory and you know like David Thompson came through and all those guys, and it was like hey, don't, don't go past the mountains, they'll kill you and ask questions later. But it was that competitive, like we need to get to the Pacific, we need to get to that trade route. And you know, the story that goes there is that had he listened to us, he, he wouldn't have endured the loss of all his men.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So cool. One thing I you know, and I would say I'm very much in the same place as you in that you know, the, the type of man that I am has really been shaped by the women that have raised me and brought me forward. You know, my aunties, you know, have such a large part to do with who I am as a human being here in this time of existence, and I know that you you mentioned that as well in your own experience, and so I just wanted to offer an opportunity to share more about that. You know you talk about even with the work that you do, with the beadwork styles. You know that is in honor of women past and women present.
Speaker 2:So just wanted to share that. Give that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my mom had me when she was 16. My, my cook, her mom, had a lot of influence on raising me, yeah, and then passed away at a very early age of I think I was like six years old. And on that, like Donnie to ask me years ago, she goes I want, when was the last time you felt safe? What do you mean? And she's like no, I want you to think about that. And I realized at that moment that it was like when my grandmother died, like when my cook died, I called her Baba, like you know, I don't know nobody, everybody's like how do you?
Speaker 1:why do you call her Baba? I'm like a young kid, I can't answer that. Yeah, but my memories are berry picking, going to like Swan Hills territory and lesser slave lake, which is, you know, even back to like my grandfather, michelle, living in Jasper territory, grand Cache and then also lesser slave lake. And I look at all the women that have raised me and I have a female perspective.
Speaker 1:I grew up I couldn't hang out with a lot of men. I felt like, and I knew then at a young age, is that aside from my family, but the men were trying to be something that they weren't. But I mean, okay, how can I say that they were what Hollywood told them to be, which is don't cry, don't show your emotions, make sure that you continue to keep women in their place. And that's not how I like. I could never do that, because I witnessed my mom abused by a lot of men and my mom said out of the blue years ago she says you know, when I knew you were a man, I said oh, I want to hear that she goes.
Speaker 1:It was that time that you told that guy that if you lay another hand on me or my mom I'll fucking kill you. And he left and you know, yeah, that moment was in my like, it's in my memory, but I didn't really think about that and my mom brought that up. You know, a lot of the mural work that I do, or painting, or even the tattoo, is that I always put like blueberries or strawberries in there, and the strawberry being one of the strong medicines and same with blueberries, and our daughter, Hayden, nicomina, nicomina, the wild blueberry. It's to honor the women that are in my life and have influenced me that whole way, you know, in today's MMIW. And so, yeah, I mean it's on a side story, tyler I remember when I met her and you brought her into Earthline.
Speaker 1:She arrived late from the plane, came in, said hi to everybody and okay, I'm tired, I'm going to bed, and Hayden and I went up to our room and I had a dream that night and I was in the ocean but I was looking in towards the shore and I was watching this old lady with long gray hair and she was sitting on the sand cross-legged and she was taking the water and throwing it up, and as soon as the water, it would like matrix, and then she would take her fingers and then she would put it in her bangs like this, and the bangs would go like that and stay there. And I think I was having this moment of realization. I was like, wow, and she was singing. And then I looked over and I looked over that way and there was like two rows of women and they were all dressed the same and I woke up and I was like, oh, okay, that was cool.
Speaker 1:And then Tyler shared her story about how the tattoo came to be and handed out of the water to the women. Well, I was weeping like a baby, so I had to tell her that and I think it's being connected to that emotion and that respect for life and being connected to that yeah, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. I guess it's probably suited that we broach that on today. You know the reality of the strong women in our own lives that helped us to become the people that we are. So, yeah, it's important to honor those teachings and those women, and also those who are no longer here because of violence and all of those type of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If anything, too, it's realizing like and I said this when I was on the Sunshine Coast, there in Slum and the crew were introducing ourselves to the community and what I had shared is that I really want to contribute the healing of men. You know, when I look at our brothers in the Pacific like, whether the Maori or the Samoan or Hawaiian, you have stretchers and you have men that are rubbing the hands and holding the hands and rubbing the feet and male contact and that's something that I don't know what that looks like. I'm just I manifested, I'm just saying it like it's okay for these men to heal. And Nahn's another brother that really sets aside what is my contribution to that?
Speaker 1:And lifting men up and I was sharing with a high school group the other day is that again, like got a lot of men that are. They don't know what it's like to be a man and how could we if it was made illegal for us to be together and share that? So we're not. I'm not trying to recreate something. I'm trying to just be in the moment and acknowledge my brother and my fathers and uncles and let's sit down in peace and ask questions and not get angry or knock someone down because they're asking questions. So yeah, that's where I think that female influence has come about, especially with tattoo. That's one of the things that I am aware of about what my purpose is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome, making sure all our cameras are on, still, still got red. So you know, of course, in preparing for this conversation, I looked at, you know, the variety of things that you've shared over time and one of the things you a couple of the phrases that stuck out for me talking about the work, is that you had mentioned that tattoos are an act of resistance.
Speaker 1:I said that yeah, in a lot of ways and that's also from what I'm hearing from my brothers and sisters is that moment that okay. It kind of starts with like I remember watching a Maori woman sit up and the amount of emotion that came through In witnessing their journey and vulnerability, but it was like it was always there. And there are so many times that after the marking and then the person rises they say it's like it's always been there and their family says that and so what? I don't know. There's probably lots of things, but it's like when I walk down the street or I walk into a store and someone just locks eyes with me or staring at me, I forget I have my markings. You know I'm not walking around, going to market. I marked, I marked. I look at the person, I go, what do you need for me? And they're either angry at it or they're enraptured by it.
Speaker 1:Those stories about when we pass on, our ancestors will know us by our markings and I'm not going to hide, and so I think that that's where one of those are. Words comes from, resistance, resurgence, revival, and it's being present. And it's like that story I shared with you about my face marking. I knew it was going to come, but I didn't want to arbitrarily mark my face. I didn't know what that meant, nor did I know when I was going to be ready for it, until I saw a group of young men turn on themselves and then turn on me.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know them.
Speaker 1:And I share this because it was like, okay, I'm going to mark my face now because I want them to see who they are and who. I am, and that you're not present. You're being manipulated and you're doing harm and violence because that's what you think you're supposed to be doing, and we already have enough of that against us because we're not that people. We're peaceful people. Don't mess with our peace. And then again, my contribution or my responsibility is to help those young men and my brothers and the older ones too.
Speaker 1:I'm a human being. We all have a place. One's not better than the other. So I think that that's what that resistance is, and it's like a stop, take inventory and look at what we're doing to each other and what's being done to us, and that's where I think that a lot of times we don't have a priority straight in the caribou and I could list out of the things that I think a lot of people are putting their energy into and I'm like you're creating more harm what you're doing. We need to stop and like the word reconciliation.
Speaker 1:It's like I met a woman doing a mural who said I don't like that word and I went oh, inside, I want me too, but I don't know why. And I immediately looked up the definition about what it is and I did my journey with that word reconciliation and I realized that again it's their forum with their rules. And then also like having been raised by nuns in that way, like had that harm, and then, being in Catholic school I sat through religion class I know what their stuff's about. And so again it's like you need to reconcile with who. And then I heard a Mohawk woman say we need to reconcile with each other and they need to reconcile with themselves. And so that's where I'm saying I can't assure blood memory and generational trauma about how that's passed on. And when I hear, oh, we are people never marked, I'm like I don't know about that. Or we didn't make masks, I'm like I don't know about that. And I'm not saying everybody, I don't know all that.
Speaker 1:But again I think certain people are regurgitating a narrative that is to keep us in our place and keep us down. And when we do our markings and when we participate in our markings, it's one of the biggest commitments. And like that Borneo young man. He said, oh, I can't get my markings and I'm like and how come? Well, because I don't have a head and I haven't killed a tiger. And I'm like, see, and I met some people that say I can't get my markings at because I don't know my language, or I still participate in this. I still do this, and I think that's where our friendship and our relationship has come. Is that you really helped me become less rigid in who am I to determine who can and cannot. I can determine who I want to or who I can be in contact with and help, and if I'm not that one, then I refer them to other people Because ultimately, I want to see people receive their markings. I can't have the ego to say I'm the one to do it or judge a person for what they're doing or where they're at.
Speaker 1:And then you've said that to me numerous times is that all that just shows the amount of healing that needs to happen? Which takes me back to like an elder saying oh hey, we're so-and-so at a ceremony. Oh, he didn't come because he didn't want to disrespect, he's high right now. And that elder said, well, that's okay, this would help him and some people have the perspective that that drug or that alcohol or the medicines are stronger than that and to have a perspective on the people that are using or participating in that have so much pain that they can't survive in the reality that we're in. So we need to stop that judging.
Speaker 1:Donita did say last night we were driving through an area of the city and you just see the I drove you through there. The amount of people that are under the influence of a very violent drug right now is having a ripple effect, even just on the whole, because that's what we are. We're community. It doesn't matter what culture we are, we're people living together and it's having such a ramification of disrupting the culture and the balance of our health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and our mind, our body, our definitely. You see it in the dust. I saw a street cleaner driving yesterday. Then we're putting water down on the road. They're just kicking up all the dust.
Speaker 2:Wow, I was just kicking it around, it'll just come down. Well, that's your metaphor. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking too. Yeah, that's very powerful. You know thought, well, you know consideration of bringing forward those marks and the ways of you know are people need these marks. You know so and you know the government, that process we talked about the Gradual Civilization Act. You know that was put in place to erase us right, generation after generation, out marriage and franchisement, for whatever reason that is, to erase our presence here as a political entity and also as individuals.
Speaker 2:And for me, when I think of that word resistance, that's what I connect that back to and for me it says like the fuck off you know, like I am, who I am and I'm standing in that power of that identity of who I am, which allows me, then, to live in this plane of existence as a full human being and to contribute to the society and the community that I live within, and I would say that's irregardless of whether that's our own communities or the larger community that we inhabit you know the resistance is allowing our people to be present, to show up and to come forward.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I just when I think of that word and then connect it back to the stories that you were sharing in terms of, you know, people coming in and not feeling prepared, and I would say part of that for me is also some of that training that comes from the religiosity of the colonization of our peoples and our communities. Is that fear, you know, sin, guilt and blame, all of those things coming forward from those teachers, and so for me it's like no, it's about you know, kind of who said you know, it's like when, when you put that mark on a woman's face, 500 years of colonization just disappears, right. And so for me that's what I think about, and of course, that doesn't mean as soon as you get the marks, all of those problems and challenges and things go away, but when you look in the mirror you're reminded of those badasses that you know lived before you and ensured that you made it to this place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What comes up is when people go after beautification I got nothing against that, our peoples did that and we've talked a lot in the past about pain and whether I'm the person that we're about to tattoo they might say, okay, what's it? Like I said, I don't know, cause I'm not you, and then somebody will come and witness and look down at it and say, oh, how's it feel? And these are natural questions.
Speaker 2:I get this.
Speaker 1:But there's something in it and I'll continue to ask these questions and think about it, because that conversation is going to stop. But what it is is what is pain, and so resistance is again. Donita said you know, as indigenous peoples we're taught to keep our head down, that we don't celebrate our successes. Because if we do, then it's like oh, who do you think you are? Or and this is an old narrative is that we cannot let an Indian succeed. They're afraid of a clear and coherent thinker.
Speaker 1:And so the resistance is speak up. You know what needs to be resisted, and so you can't hide your face, you can't hide your eyes and watching people get their eyes inked. So all of this is I do get irritated at times when people only think about the pain and but mock the pain Like, oh, how's that feel? I mean we can joke around, like when Echo was, you know, marking my face, I would ah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think she described it as grunting.
Speaker 1:But after witnessing people in ceremony that suffer purposely, like intentionally and sacrifice intentionally, I don't even know what the language would be, but when you're sitting there and you're praying for them, it's like watching your children, my daughter. I never want to see her have to endure a pain, a pain of heartache, a pain physical, but isn't that what is? If your child falls down and scrapes her knee? You don't run to them Because there's going to be bigger pains in life, but knowing that you're there because you're not going to be there one day.
Speaker 1:And I think about that a lot too, is that people have this they want to categorize what a pain is and witnessing loved ones endure pain for not just a moment, but like live in pain, and how it throws the mind, body, spirit and emotion all off balance. I watch how ego comes into play. Oh, I can handle anything. The moment you do that to show that you're strong, the thing that you didn't think was going to hurt you is going to bring you to your knees. Yeah, big time. So I don't know in response. There's so much unnecessary pain being inflicted and endured, and if we just had that unity to say stop, you don't have to endure that.
Speaker 2:We have you.
Speaker 1:I believe that's like condolence, like hold on to them, comfort them.
Speaker 1:I can't do it for you, but there's things I can't do. But I need my. I wouldn't be where I am had people not held and so I never know where I'm going. When I just wanted to acknowledge that conversation about pain and how it's, it can't be determined, it can't be predicted. I think I know we can just be present for that person. Yeah, definitely, and not all of us have that circle unity knowledge system in place to know how to bring ease and rise to that pain.
Speaker 2:Just in hearing you talk about that, I think it's important for me to just acknowledge that that's one of the things that I admire about you is actually your ability to hold people, throw challenges through. Whatever that may be Part of that is. You know, your willingness to feel emotion, show emotion. That allows us you know, maybe some of us who hold that a little bit closer, you know that helps me in my own life and my own experience. So I just wanted to hold you up and share with you.
Speaker 2:You know that's one of the things that I admire about you and makes me feel proud of you and proud to have you as one of my friends. So I just wanted to put that forward, share that and hold you up, because it's important to do those things. And I would say that, you know, for anyone who's listening, you know, if you have somebody who needs to hear or maybe even you don't know who needs to hear what you feel and how awesome you think they are, I would just say, you know, reach out. You know whoever is in the sound of my voice, reach out to someone, anyone who's in your life, and let them know how important they are to you, because you don't know how important it may be right at this moment for them to hear from you, so I just wanted to share that with you and lift you up publicly and let you know how high I hold you in esteem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's back at you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So we kind of already, you know, skirted around this, but you articulated it so beautifully that I wanted to highlight it and see what comes up for you when I reshare your own words back to you. So you said tattoos are a sacred, vulnerable act.
Speaker 1:Wow, the context.
Speaker 2:And I guess the reason I bring that up is not necessarily for you to take remember what that context was, but what comes up for you now when I say it, you know, because I think it's been a couple years since you said it. So what is your experience with that phrase and how do you relate to it now?
Speaker 1:Well, just the language of sacred. And then vulnerability I shared with a group of young people the other day, like I love you. Well, how can you love me? You don't know me. I say, well, I'm sending you my love, yeah, I'm acknowledging who you are. And that conversation, when we broke off, I heard a young people talking to some of the adults and the teacher and they said, hey, my family never says I love you. And I said, hey, yeah, some don't even hug. And then one young man said I told my brother when I was young I loved him. And the brother said don't say that, that's weird. And he's never said it since.
Speaker 1:Wow, and and the sacredness is. So I'm conjuring what that language of sacred means, and what it means to me, or what it evokes in me, is knowing that you're not the only one, that there are those that came before you and we're. You know I'm doing the best I can to have a positive influence, Because I know what it's like to have a negative influence and create negativity. And that which is sacred is life, and I think knowing that the mortality is that one day I won't be here. Vulnerability, I think, has come from when I was like 13 and I remember bawling like where you know just everything's coming out, and I said to the creator. I said you know, I promise I'm never going to be like them. Which, in that moment and this is how I tell the story today is that I'm not going to say oh, wait till you're my age or you don't know you're too young and I think at that age we do know the difference between right and wrong.
Speaker 1:Yes, we don't have an abundance of experience, but having endured moments of life and death, I've got nothing to lose by being a person being vulnerable. There are times I go away and I go. Oh, what did I say, what did I share? And I'll probably do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, but it's like we got a, and I struggle with this too, because everybody's entitled to their opinion. We hear, but I don't. What is it about an opinion that you feel threatened by? That makes you have to go out and ensure that that opinion gets muffled or silenced, and I think that's where that resistance comes from. That's where that I hate. I'm right here, you're right here, I acknowledge you.
Speaker 1:I see you, and if I want people to acknowledge and respect my truth, I definitely have to do the same for them, and you made me think about where that comes from is when I would hear older people say, oh, they pray for them, and I say why would I pray for them when they did that?
Speaker 1:And I think that the older I'm getting, the more I'm just realizing is don't get stuck in that anger, that revenge or vengeance, and let it go, because I guarantee they're not thinking about it. You're holding and so they've hooked you, they baited you. Now they hooked you, now they, you're just pulling you up. So that's where that vulnerability is and you know, there's never a moment that I'm going to recreate and I don't want to chase recreating moments or times, or I want to be present and I think that being present is sacred. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's what you were talking about when you were saying that, you know. In the beginning I asked you. You know that you are honored to be in that process, you know, and that I think that's really what you know. Connecting those two things together I think that's really what you were talking about is being present in the process of talking about, well, what is this going to be, you know, what is this mark going to be, all of that type of stuff is being present and that is that sacredness of two human beings connecting in a sacred, intimate way that connects us, you know, together in goodness and kindness and moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, I've become less hesitant and seeking an end result. A brother who they he had, he we tattooed just under a year ago and he had a story and I went away, I thought about it, I sat with it and I came back and what he had shared, I went here this is what it is From my like, this is what I can contribute. And he went, that's what it is. Okay, so we're both going. We both created that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was so I don't know. I was just I didn't want to how do you say that Like, determine what the outcome is? And I saw his mother sitting there and I saw his wife sitting there and his daughters were over there and I saw his mother up and his wife and I said grab each grab a hand and then lift them up. And they did, and that was one of those moments where it was you could feel it in the whole room that he later shared. He said that's the first marking in like 150 years for their people. Yeah, and that puts things into perspective and that's what I mean by I'm honored, like I honored. I acknowledge it, not about me. I brought the ink.
Speaker 2:I brought the needle.
Speaker 1:And the amount of healing and relationship building that we're seeing in that community and in those families is blossoming To the point where it's like you know, the Hatfield McCoy is always the kind of like reference about like family and family, but our families sometimes don't even know why they're still holding that resistance or that grudge. And to be a part of that, to witness it, really is what it comes down to. I just sit back and I think about, like even when I applied to Earthline and I said to my wife, I said Donny, I said I don't know they're not going to want some old guy, you know, but that again it was like I don't ask why I'm doing it, I just know that I need to acknowledge it and say, hey, I'm here and I recognize you're here and if it comes together, then it comes together and it did and here we are, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I just wanted to circle back and mention, maybe talk about a little bit just from my own perspective. You know, one of the reasons I want to do this podcast is to bring as many voices to the table as possible, and that's why I'm not only, you know, having conversations with, you know, cultural tattoo practitioners, ancestral skin markers, but you know, professional indigenous tattoo artists, so people that are, you know, maybe disconnected, you know, maybe haven't been connected in a long time, and or people who just feel like they don't want to do that ancestral work of you know, using their ancestral visual language and what. The reason I think about that is that, you know, we sit in a circle on purpose. You know we don't sit in a hierarchical structure and for me that's just an ancestral philosophy which says that every voice counts, and when we sit in those circles, you know you're not picking out oh, are you good enough to come into the circle? You're sitting in all sitting in the circle, having that conversation, because each voice brings forward something very important and we actually don't even know if the voice that's sitting across from us and that we feel is counter to our own perspective might actually be the voice that helps us to have that missing puzzle piece to the questions that we're having, and so for me, it's really important to acknowledge that the complexity and the reality of indigeneity in, you know, turtle Island, in the country that we, you know, inhabits our territories, you know it's so complex and firm.
Speaker 2:For me, it's important to bring forward all of those voices, and so I just wanted to, you know, throw that out there to whoever's watching that you know, I'm not making any claims for anyone and I'm allowing people to come forward and share their story, connected, disconnected or whatever they have to share. Yeah, so I think. So I think it's important to also highlight the fact that, you know, we touched on a little bit, we talked about murals, but you also do a lot of other stuff other than tattooing or skin marking, like carving, painting, a lot of other things. So how do those things interact? Inform your practice.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, I can't remember. I know a little bit about everything. I've always been an artist that's the term, but I guess an expressionist. In marking there was a Blackfoot elder that we were down at, writing on Stone, where they have those pictographs, and depicting the battle scenes in. Stephanie said it was like you're making your mark, it's not writing, it's make your mark.
Speaker 1:And I think that really got me thinking, because I was working with a lot of young people that do like graffiti art and when I walk through our neighborhood I see the alleys and how it's like graffiti art and tagging and I said that's just like the rock paint. They're going to their areas and making their mark. So I just got so excited as a young person going how did they do that? How did they? How did that looks like a photograph, whether it was pencil work or whether, and then I'll oh, that's air brushing. And so I saved up my pennies and got an air brush and I didn't know what I was doing and it wasn't like you could go somewhere and find out how to air brush. It was really like trial and error. Okay, I think the paint goes in here and I think I turned it up to this and boom, it explodes in your face, all those kinds of things. So that's what I love about the different mediums is just observing other artists and trying to recreate an image that they did not to sell or anything. But it was like that's how I learned color theory, that's how I learned application, that's how I learned jazzying canvases, I mean everything.
Speaker 1:And I think that I have so many projects on the go, I'll pick up wood burning and then I'll do carve this and then I'll move over here. And it always has to do with season. It always has to do with where I'm at, where the family's at, what space I can occupy, and then, oh hey, can you come and help these young people create this or make hoodies or do so? I think that's where I'm not just one doing one thing.
Speaker 1:My life is very, at this time, focused on skin markings, but I don't produce, I don't publicize or promote. That's the part where I'm just like let it happen as it happens. And the same thing with all my other art too. It's like somebody will fall and say, oh, we need three canvases. And I go oh, I don't have three right now, they're gone. Oh, yes, making jewelry with Hayden, and whether it's Fimo, whether it's Bone, and on that, like Hayden, she picks up the visual art and the hands-on art and she also picks up, like mom's singing, and the music component of that, and then she's also doing traditional pow-up.
Speaker 1:I think it's just having your hands in everything, and I really encourage everybody to just try something. Try it once. How are you going to?
Speaker 1:know, it's tied into. When someone's sitting in that circle, they might provide the answer. And a lot of the work that we're doing today, too, is about cultural safety educating people non-Indigenous peoples how to be culturally competent with building relations. And we enter into these difficult conversations where it creates this resistance from them, but I don't mean resistance like how we're talking about. I'm talking about like they just they don't want to do the work, they don't want to create a relation, and what ends up happening out of that is their reaction is about the work we're talking about, and sometimes everybody forgets that when it's happening right in front of you.
Speaker 1:So I see all the different mediums as like all the different people that are ping-ponging back and forth, so how it influences all color. I would say, like blueberries, beadwork, what I'm learning about, what pigments we did have and what we traded for. So what we painted with when we saw Cydynboles, buffalo hide, and it wasn't just like black or red, it was like multicolored. And that's where I met too, is like okay, we're the new, old, so we have access to all these different technology and pigments, so why not use them? Well, that's not traditional, because it's not limited to just black and red. So what I see is it's celebrating. Life isn't black and white and black and red. It's.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it brings forward one of the reasons I also want to have, quote unquote non-traditional people who are not doing excuse me, having people on who, maybe who are not doing those ancestral skin markings. And in my experience as a cultural tattoo practitioner ancestral skin marker I've noticed there is this almost unspoken, sometimes spoken, hierarchy of tradition and for me that's. There are so many complicated reasons why I don't think we should be using that binary, those definitions. I think those are colonial definitions that were put forward to freeze us in time as intercontinental people, as Mohawk people, to hold us to their homogenized understanding of who we are, and I would also say it has political ramifications as well that says that you know, we disappear as indigenous people if we are not doing things in the way that our ancestors did it.
Speaker 2:I definitely think there is a certain experience that you get when you use ancestral materials, when you use ancestral methods, but I don't think again that one is better than the other and I don't think there is a hierarchy in the way that I always describe it is we need to use the right tool for the job, because that's what our ancestors did and you can see, you know, I always love visiting the museums and I look at all of the old baskets and then I look at, you know, the coffee table that was made to look just like the one that's sitting behind us, and you know, I can see the beauty and the fact that our ancestors were like, oh well, this is what I need to make to make a living in this world, that I'm in, right, and so just showing that, you know, our ancestors evolved and changed and use the new tools, the new methods, the different materiality of their everyday evolving life, and so for me, you know, just bringing forward different voices, different ideas, different perspectives, and putting forward that just because it's not black, just black or just red, doesn't mean that it's not quote, unquote, traditional, because, you know, I think that phrase itself actually freezes us.
Speaker 2:For me, it's like, no, let's expand that understanding of how those ancestral practices inform our contemporary lives. Yeah, just an important thought that I thought I would share as it came to mind. You know, as we do, when we do, when we have these conversations, just a little spark goes off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I, like we've talked a lot about, like I find that word problematic is traditional. Yeah, I, you know, our ancestors didn't sit around saying I'm traditional and you're not. My braids are longer and you're not, and I'm darker skin and you're not. And it, what about? And I? It's going to sound contradictory, but there are protocols that have been in place, yeah, and it's okay to question them. Yeah, because then the and not shame a person for asking what that protocol is in place for let's not lose sight of the fact that we adapt, yeah, and all that. You know. Somebody said oh, that's not traditional because you're using a rifle and you're using a truck and you're using a? Yeah, exactly, or it's not traditional, you're using a machine.
Speaker 1:When it comes to tattoo, I remember being asked how do you, how do I call you a traditional tattoo practitioner, culture? I said oh. I said I, oh, if you need something, I guess. And I sat with it for a couple of days. I said I, cultural tattoo practitioner, and it's now. I go back and forth and it's not like one thing that's going to sit with me, because my perspective is what would it need to be in order for me to say it's traditional. Do I have to go and harvest the pigment? Do I have to go and hunt the bind, the like?
Speaker 1:bear the binder or can I use a pot?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know a whole other thing. But and then also understanding too is like somebody just also said out of the blue oh, the machine frequency is bothersome, I much prefer the sound of the clicking. And then we hear that oh well, that's what your ancestors would have heard too. Commitment, and when I mean commitment, it's a responsibility if you're going to sit down with bone and create a bone needle. And then I also question if someone requests that, why is it? Or how is it that they're requesting that, so that they can say that they or is it just sacred to them and then we can enter into that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, a person getting their markings is what's important and I'm learning that each day is kind of like a mantra not to shame someone how they got their markings and I think that that because even that has freed me up in that in my art early on I was always meticulous and it would keep me stuck in one area of a canvas and Donny would come and say get out of that area.
Speaker 1:And what did I do? I muddied it up, so I covered over what was there and I didn't trust that because I put my face right in it. And, in fact, what is beautiful and trusting is when I step back and see it and that's also I'm learning that from you too is that we're not. It's not and that's what they were going through at conventions and like competitions with tattoos and trying to achieve something that is more surface than it is spirit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I think about it, you know what I share and I've shared, you know, with different folks that I've worked with, mentored or had conversations with is that it's about the mark, right? And when I say that I don't actually mean it's just this thing. You know this design that's here. It's the journey that brought somebody to ask hey, keith, can you give this mark to me. It's the journey that they go through, sitting there to get the mark, to consider the thing, the artifact that's going to exist on their body. And for me it's also about understanding that aesthetic, that ancestral aesthetic of it's not meant to be viewed from here. And that's why I started to use the phrase ancestral skin mark as opposed to tattoo, because it's about the mark. It's not a tattoo in the western colonial sense of what a tattoo is, because we look at tattoos and we try to see is that perfect? Is that line perfect? Is that gradient, you know, nice and smooth or all those things there. For me it's. Does it fit the body? And can I read it from a distance? Because that's really where our ancestral marks are meant to be read from is from a distance. And when we look at that, we, you know and I always joke because I can say oh yeah, you're a homie, come on in or stay the fuck over there. I don't know who you are, I don't know where those marks are from, or I know where those marks are from, so I better get ready, right? So just understanding for me. That's from my own understanding, and I guess I really have to acknowledge Julia Mungal Gray, who is a Papua New Guinean skin marker, and you know, back in 2015, she was already using that terminology and it took me a while to catch up to her thinking and at the time I was also thinking Well, we're at the beginning of this revival movement, so I'm going to use tattoo because that's what people know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was always in my mind to start to transition, and then it just made sense Once we had enough practitioners and enough people doing the work. Then I'm like, okay, now's the time to start transitioning to this idea of the mark, and I'd also say that decision was informed by the work. Right, the work taught me that lesson that it's not about the perfection of the line, it's not about the perfection of the smoothness of the shading, of a saturation of the black or the color. It's about does that person wear it? Does it fit them?
Speaker 2:And I don't always necessarily mean does it fit them in terms of geometrically, Does it fit their essence, their being? And when they walk into that room, can you see that badass Right? That's what I mean by does it fit them Right, and that's a completely different understanding of that's a tattoo, or we're going to go have a competition around that. Really, they are showing up, you know, in the best sense of who they are, and that is where the perfection for me comes from. Yes, there are some tattoos that are intended to be very specifically, aesthetically symmetrical and all of that type of stuff. And if that's what you're intending and going for, I'm not putting that down in any sense of the word. But for me, when I think about our ancestral skin marking, it's really about does that mark fit that person? And when they show up, you're like oh yeah that was always there.
Speaker 2:Right, that's for me what that mark means and of course, like you say, sometimes I shift back and forth between those definitions. You know I just finished writing for the Oxford Handbook for the Anthropology and Archaeology of Body Modification. That's a mouthful, but you know they asked me well, can you use tattoo instead of skin marking? Because it feels a bit heavy? And for me it's like no, that is the resistance against that homogenizing of our work with the tattoo industry. Yeah, yeah Doesn't mean that we don't exist and live and work through the tattoo industry ourselves. You know, I'm a professional tattoo artist, so that's is part of my industry, but I try to do my work as a professional tattoo artist. You know I'm moving it further and further towards being an ancestral skin marker and that's what I do. So, yeah, just another, you know, little piece of lightning that came as you were sharing.
Speaker 1:You took the words like journey, of like what goes through my brain as well. Yeah, absolutely Cool. I'll brother Steve and my brother Gary, I'll share. So Gary, he comes in. He says I have a marking for each finger, each knuckle. Yeah, and so the first day we get it was only going to be one day, but the we were hand poking and his fingers were not taking. I was going over it like six times. I'm like dude I said, okay, so come back tomorrow. And he, it's like mountains and cedar and all this right.
Speaker 2:Was that the one that had the wave in it too? Did it have a wave? Yeah, there was a wave.
Speaker 1:But he came in the next day and he said okay, because we didn't know what we were going to put on this finger. He says, okay, I have two things this or this. I said okay. So then Steve comes over and I'm marking it out and we're tattooing.
Speaker 1:We got these two because I switched to machine and it was going in really, well, so Steve and Gary started telling hunting stories and I marked his finger and I started tattooing and I finished that third finger and he looks down and he goes whoa, he goes stars. I said star.
Speaker 1:Oh, and the whole room because other people were tattooing and we all just went whoa and I had one of these out of body moments where he's like, oh, his partner, she's going to like that, and all I heard was she's not going to like that. I'm like what did you say? And you said she's going to like that. I said she's not going to like it. He had to say it like four or five times and I said are you saying she's going to like it? He's like yes. I said oh good, because I was listening to her and the creator and it worked out the way it was meant to work out. And for me that's that perfection part too, of course, if someone comes in and they say, hey, look, I want a big arrow going up my arm and I draw a cedar bow on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what that brings out for me is thinking about that.
Speaker 2:Cool. Yeah, that also brings up one of the questions that I also asked Echo, you know, had a conversation with Echo last week and I asked, so obviously this conversation has to come out after Echo's. But you know, I asked her about what has her experience been with the tattoo gatherings? And so I would just toss that ball to you and share whatever you feel like sharing.
Speaker 1:What have they been like? They've been very. They're full, yeah, and they're very. It's not to compare Really, what it is is that an elder said one time is that only good things can happen when people come together. And I think that when we, as practitioners and hosts, and we're preparing that sacred space, is that when that work is being done and focused in a good way, those that come in because community members, they don't know what to expect. This is the revival, this is the resurgence of it. So they feel so assured that we're assured and that this is not a conference or a convention. This is there's drums, there's food, there's laughter, there's storytelling, there's elders. You just see it. It's like oh, you're related to so-and-so. Well then, we're related and you just see that reunification.
Speaker 1:And so for me, my first gathering was Ty and Denega and being with Haudenosaunee people, and now this year, hayden's gonna come and she gets to witness that and she's gonna tattoo as well. It's just belonging, which informs your identity, which then bolsters your self-love and then identifies a purpose. So that's what it's been like for me. It's exhausting, because you've been laughing so much and you're releasing so many emotions and you're also being present for other people and you're not determining what it should be. I think it's just again. It's like being present, being in the moment and also protecting One of the things that I do from thinking about marking language. When I say tattoo, it's like if there's certain people that are in the room, I'll use that because, like you said, that's what they know, but I will introduce. There's other language that we have.
Speaker 1:And what I was gonna say to that was it went out the year.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, yeah, one thing, the one phrase that I always think of when you bring that up, of like gathering and bringing us together, building those relationships. I think of the phrase that Nahan I remember him, I think it was in 2015,. I interviewed him in Aotearoa the first time that I met him. He talks about the stitching is stitching us back together.
Speaker 2:And he emphasizes that it's not just stitching us together as individuals, it's also as communities, as nations, as human beings coming together. So it's just a nice metaphor for the reality of what these gatherings do for us when we come together, and I think it's important. One of the reasons why I do this podcast in person is because I think it's important for us to visit, be able to see each other, hug each other, be present with one another in person. So I think so much of our reality is mediated. Yes, we're using technology to record this and to share it, but it's important for us to spend time with people, that we have relationships and try to build new relationships, because I think that is how we support the next generation is by lifting up those who are important.
Speaker 2:I would also say that's another reason why I want to do this podcast is because to highlight and to bring forward those examples of people to celebrate, so that when those young ones look forward, they have someone to look up to and to say I want to be that person. So, yeah, just important for us to visit. So I think that is also for me, one of the important values of the work and, or I would say, going to specifically the gatherings, because a lot of times we're as practitioners, skin markers we're out on our own in our studios or wherever we're doing the work and we don't have the opportunity to have important conversations with people who share the same experiences, have the same challenges and also to celebrate.
Speaker 1:We always come together at these gatherings and I know from experience and how we hang out. Is that what we talk about the next day we'll go into the gathering and then that conversation has carried over to other people because we're all listening and present and again it's like oh, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like minded people and from asking about technical to strategizing, to internal, and we're learning each time. I'll give an example. Is that one time we had that gathering and it was like we don't want to turn people away. But I also heard that we don't turn people away from sweats. Right, yeah, okay, but we don't have to tell them where it is. And then? And so when people that don't know and I question this for myself is it irresponsible of myself to knowingly allow unhealthy danger floating around and letting it be, when I could say not right now, you need to go check yourself and then come back? And then the other part of me too is that who am I to determine that? So that's why I'll talk with you. I'll talk with you. Know, say it's Echo or Robin or Jacqueline, like hey, how do we? I'm feeling on the ease here, like what's this about? Oh, we see it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's yours.
Speaker 1:Or so another, so we go to have another gathering and it's like, okay, let's make it more purposeful. And that came like we have a responsibility to protect the sacred space. If people are, they're going through the I'm ready, I've found someone who's going to commit to helping me tell my story and my hand and receive my markings. They wake up that morning, they think about it days before and they're preparing themselves, and then they wake up and they arrive. It's not, it's not. Oh, they arrive, let's do it. It's like there's all this energy and all the preparation that that person has brought themselves to come here, to do and then go.
Speaker 1:And so I think that that's important too and that's what helps me go that we have a responsibility to protect these sacred spaces. It's not enough to just say, oh, it's an alcohol and drug free event. No, there's lots of other things that come into play with that, and what I do love about the gatherings is that we're all so how we were raised. You don't hold that and protect or not protect, you don't hoard that knowledge. We're here to share because it's not mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah. I would say when I think about yeah again that one was gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just so many different beautiful things. Yeah, I'll just let it go. You know, one of the beautiful things that you know ever since the first time that I met you, when you came out to the tattoo school you know you've already you've always had somebody coming along with you and I find that to be such a beautiful thing always having Hayden along with you and sharing that knowledge. And, yeah, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to share about why you feel it's important to have Hayden with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, To have Hayden. When Hayden was born, both Donita and I made a purposeful decision that I would stay home, and I don't know if we or I were putting on this like outside narrative of while a daughter's gonna grow up and they're not gonna be with their father. You know what I mean so, but I wanted her and I because she's a mini mom, but, yeah, mini me and I think that by growing up without a father, maybe I was never one to say, oh, I'm gonna give you what I never had, and it wasn't that it was I want to be present for you and I want and she always comes into circles, she always comes into people will say isn't she too young to be here in this?
Speaker 1:And I say no, not at all, because both Danita and I prepare her, we talk it through. She's an individual and that's how I think that you nurture that, their confidence, their uniqueness. And I just said this to her yesterday. I said, when we go to Thailand and hey guys, I want you to feel like I'm never pushing this on, you Tell me if you feel that. Oh no, and I know if she didn't, she would tell me, she would tell us. And so and it's not just hating, like if other people that it just always comes together that hey, here's someone and I always go, hey, you want to come?
Speaker 2:I said no, no come, but you got to do.
Speaker 1:Well, is it important? No, okay, come, because I know how beautiful it's going to be for me, but you're going to get something out of it as well, whether it's going to Sundance, whether it's going to a gathering where it's you know, and to treat it with, if I have the ability to drive and you don't, or, oh, I don't have money, for we know that.
Speaker 1:You don't worry about that, like we're all taking care of each other in that way. So I always want to see people. I know what it's like to travel and how much it has an impact on my growth as a human being, and if I have that opportunity to help someone else do that, then I'm going to do that. That's just how I was raised in that way so and what ends up happening is oh, you were meant to meet that person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah, I would say. I just want to put forward that having Hayden along just brings such an important dimension to every space that the both of you enter together. And it's a blessing, you know, to have the two of you come along on all of those adventures and to see the work that Hayden's picking up. You know, all of that stuff is just beautiful and I wanted to highlight it and bring it forward and, you know, put that forward.
Speaker 1:I didn't know she was going to tattoo right. No yeah, she just happened to be taking the training and soaking in the knowledge that I was there to receive. She was there, so she was getting it too. And then when we got home she was putting gloves on. She was, you know, cleaning up and helping me prep, and I was like, do you want to tattoo? She's like sure, it wasn't like. And I was like, okay, well, here, let's do this, We'll do it together, and it's like Stacy.
Speaker 2:Feyant.
Speaker 1:I said I'm not going to stitch anyone until I'm comfortable with myself. And she called a couple of days later because we did a trade and the trade was one of her beautiful scarves. And she said one day you can stitch me. I said, okay. So to me, one day was like way off. In two days later she's like okay, I'm coming in, you're going to stitch me. I'm like, oh, no, no. And she sat down and this is what I tell people is like it was the best thing that could have ever happened, because she could see what I was doing. She talked me through it and helped reassure me in completing that. So now I'm okay to stitch it.
Speaker 1:That's like with Hayden she watches, she's there. Isn't that how we were raised? Just to watch and listen, and when the time is the right time or the moment that, then you'll do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you can tell somebody really skilled taught you how to stitch Nice, beautiful stitches, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we're beginning to wind down, I'm just wondering if you know, is there anything that's come up that you feel that you'd like to share or explore, or questions whatever? I always like to leave that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you ask me that I would. The most important thing for me and I've learned this from you and Amber Lee and Echo and lots of brothers and sisters is that if we're here to do our part in helping the individual heal and the community heal, we well, I'll speak for myself is that I send it out there to anybody that's listening or watching? Is that I'm not here to gatekeep and tell you if you can tattoo. However, I really want people to take into consideration the intention may be good, but if you don't know the dangers that may come into play with not knowing about bloodborne pathogens, about what it is to have cross-contamination, I've had people come and say, well, our ancestors never wore gloves or never did this, and I say, well, our ancestors never had to contend with these superbugs or HEP and HIV.
Speaker 1:There was a young woman 15, and I met her on the West Coast and someone dear sister of mine said hey, I'd like to introduce you to this young woman. I said okay, and she showed me all the tattoos she's been doing and I looked and I said the creator blessed you with a talent and a gift, and so we sat down and I acknowledged. I said they're beautiful and it's great to see you doing this. I said do you know anything about bloodborne pathogens? You know, it's just normal. And I said may I ask, how do you prep and cleaning your skin? Do you prep and cleaning snow? Well, alcohol, rubbing alcohol. And I said well, if you're open to it. I want to talk to you about a couple of things.
Speaker 2:She said okay.
Speaker 1:And so I talked to her about what I'd learned over the years and by the end of the conversation her job was open and she looked petrified and I said what's going on? She goes oh, I don't want to do that at all. I said I'm not preventing you from. I said you're going to be years ahead if you start to educate yourself in this and I'll help you. And I said Robin and Jacqueline and Echo they're in the room, they're here for you too. And so she heard it in a good way and, as I said, I'm coming back, we're all coming back. And in that time, go get your bloodborne pathogen certificate Read up on it, do this.
Speaker 1:I said when it comes time, if that's your journey, that you want to go and hand in portfolios to shops and do all this, I say you gotta be way ahead. Yeah, big time. I said because you have the talent. And this was taught to me is that you're not. You're all here because you have talent. Now that you're here, we're here to help you navigate your craft. So think about your canoe on rough waters. You're going to know how to identify when storms coming, what does calm water look like? So this is how to navigate your craft, your technical parts of it. So when my travels are coming back from Northern Quebec and witnessing that there's a lot of young people that want to be a part of it, and I'm full on for that. If I hear somebody say, oh well, our industry, I said you're wrong. There already Not an industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:Well, it's being oversaturated. And I said well, it depends on what you see and what.
Speaker 1:I see, and who are you to determine who can and cannot? And I say that to them because I say that to me. If I witness someone in my immediate vicinity who is has a huge potential harm, I'm going to gently say something to them and see if they're open to hearing things. So that's what I would send out as a we're here to heal and we're not here to bring harm into the communities. Take a step back. Don't just go and trust everything that you see on YouTube. Reach out. Take that motivation to reach out to practitioners. They may or may not respond to you, but reach out, but know what your asks are. Yeah, big time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I really appreciate that, because that has been ever since the beginning of the work for myself, and one of the reasons why Jordan Bennett and Amy Mulbuff and I started the Earthline Tattoo Collective was to bring forward some of those concerns around health and safety. And so, yeah, I really appreciate the fact that you're bringing that forward, and it's definitely something that we need to continue to have a conversation around is the continued lifting up of our communities in all of, as we say, a good way. So, yeah, take the steps, like you say, to learn the things that you need to learn to ensure that it's all good medicine. Yeah, right, so I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me have this conversation. I always enjoy having conversations with you. I'm just thankful that we're able to share this one with a larger audience and stoked to continue this journey with you. I appreciate you and I love you.
Speaker 1:I love you, Conalunkwa yeah awesome, thank you. Right on.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking this journey with me Through this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll just ask that you would go and subscribe, if you haven't already done so and if you have subscribed, thank you very much. I appreciate you following this journey. I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done or what you've been through, that you were amazing, that you were loved, and that we need you here today and going into the future, so that we can transform this world for the better through our collective thoughts, actions, feelings and our compassion for each other as human beings. Head on over to next week's episode, where I talk to Terry Kolotungi, a Tongan Tatau artist based out of Auckland, new Zealand. In this episode, we talk about research and the importance or the movement to innovation, and the last thing that I will ask you is to do me a solid and share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Thanks a lot and see you next week.