Tipawan: Achieving balance with Leona Karakunte

By Laura Mushumanski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – The word for a Cree person, nehiyawe, comes from the root word newo—meaning four. And in a nehiyawe understanding, we are a four-part person: emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual; the four parts that interconnect with each other also make up the four quadrants within the medicine wheel. Some also say to incorporate into our medicine wheel finances, and social relationships – taking time to visit with family and friends.

The medicine wheel is a holistic understanding that as a four-part person, we learn to balance all four quadrants of our own medicine wheel every day as a holistic understanding of how we take care of ourselves so in turn we can take care of others. With us being at the center of the medicine wheel, we are the medicine in our own medicine wheel.

Now imagine your own medicine wheel as a tire, and if you were to be driving down the street and your medicine wheel is not in balance—you would be driving around like Fred Flintstone down a severely bumpy road, perhaps a rez road while head banging unintentionally to the sound of your vehicle bottoming out.

Tipawan in nehiyawewin, the Cree Language, translates to balancing your emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health – an Indigenous understanding of how to take care of ourselves and everything on Mother Earth in a good way. This does not mean a person has to be perfect to be loved, seen, cared for, shown dignity, or acknowledged, instead this a practice of understanding oneself and in turn walking with humility towards all our relatives; and for our iskwew sister Leona Karakunte, balance and humility is a way of life.

“I am passionate about working with Indigenous people. It’s who I am… it’s not a job for me. And for me, working with Indigenous people is hard because you have to bring your authentic self to everything that you do… As Indigenous people, everything that we do comes with spirit, whether we know it or not,” shared Karakunte as she reflected on her role within human relations while walking alongside Indigenous peoples for almost two decades.

As Indigenous people, described Leona, a fluent nehiyawewin speaker, “We are inherently in tune to being humble. It is really hard for us to talk about ourselves because we don’t want to sound like we are bragging… We are taught not to brag about ourselves, to not think you’re better than everyone else, to really be on a level playing field with everyone.”

Over the span of Karakunte’s learning journey so far, she noted how many times she was ‘triggered’ when working within her vocation as a voice for Indigenous peoples to be represented. Over time, Leona came to the understanding about “[being] your authentic self and being triggered… When you are in that trigger space, I think that is when Creator is trying to show you where you need to heal and where you need to grow. And when you start to look at it from that perspective, is when you really start to grow and learn finally.”

As someone who grew up living the nehiyawe way, the teachings that were shared with her came full circle to how she walks in the world today. “I believe Creator has put me where I am at, I don’t believe that it has been my own…. I truly believe that there is a great power, and I have been put in these positions, and it is not about me. If it was about me, I would just mosey on, collect a paycheck and go home—I don’t feel right about that. If I am not creating space for Indigenous voices, no matter what I do or work, if I am not able to be a voice for our people—past, present and in the future—then I don’t feel satisfied, I don’t have peace”.

That peace feeling that Leona brings into conversation speaks to how her connection with Creator and the teachings along her journey so far have shaped what she has come to know differently. “It doesn’t matter what I do—for me it is about connection, connecting with people because I think inherently, we are born with that… I never really understood it at first… Why is this happening to me? …Why am I hitting all these roadblocks?…Why do I have to work so hard compared to the non-Indigenous Caucasian woman sitting next to me with blonde hair and blue eyes. Why do I have to work ten times harder than her?’… But then I started changing my focus and started looking at, what is this teaching me? Then there are days that I just think: okay Creator, I am done learning? … Just give me a little break… can I just have one easy day, just one hour?”

In those moments of heavy times, and what Leona was speaking to was what healing feels like, sounds like, and looks like—going into the unknown, the dark and mystery of things, to find light, all while trusting Creator that things will be okay. This is where Karakunte learned to let go of control, by transitioning what felt uncomfortable and unbearable into teachings and gifts.

“We have our own idea of what our life should be, but then there is Creator that has it planned out for all of us—and I don’t know what that looks like yet for me…and I hope that someday when my time comes to go to the other side, that whatever I have done, no matter what role I have done—that I have created a positive impact on people that I have worked with.”

The humility understanding that Karakunte has come to know is embedded in the challenging times that she went through, and she started to walk with a perspective of seeing people, places, and things as gifts and teachings. This too has supported her role of walking alongside Indigenous people as a helper within our communities to shift systemic barriers. … “and really planting those seeds of systemic changes for our people, the future of our children, and my grandchildren that have yet to come. And for me, if I have hit that mark, that is satisfying—maybe that is what Creator has in store for me, that is why I am here… in this form, to be part of that systemic change—to be in the dirt, in the grime and dirtiness [and] being that seed, to be able to hopefully create change for the betterment of our people.”

And this talk about seed planting—when any seed is immersed in soil, it too needs nutrients to be able to germinate, that the seed itself is submerged into darkness for as long as it takes until one day when it is ready to sprout and venture into an unfamiliar part of life—growth.

As Karakunte so eloquently spoke about connecting to spirit, this was only when she found what that feeling of peace within her own self was all about, and only after she came to exploring what the other side of comfort is. “That peace [feeling]—that is peace in your spirit—knowing in your intuition that gets into your stomach—I think that is our Creators way of keeping us in check and saying “okay, you are at peace because this is familiar to you.” The unfortunate part is, I have been in that space of toxicity that was familiar to me, so I also found peace in the chaos, and when I went through my healing journey, I realized that my sense of peace was obscured to some degree where chaos was peace to me— and then through the healing where Creator put me in situations where I didn’t have a choice but to heal.”

The healing journey itself—as noted by Karakunte, it is not all butterflies and rainbows, and within the body, these are growing pains, where it feels excruciatingly painful… what neuroplasticity is inside the body as we two-legged beings find courage to connect with spirit and engage in things that aid us in good health: emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Another lesson that Leona learned is, “if you are being stubborn guess what… Creator is even more stubborn than you are, and Creator knows what is best for you. So, in that time, in those moments when I am in that space where I am down in the dirt and on my knees and crying, and at my very lowest of low, is when I realize that hey this is not good for me, I need to move on.”

Like a seed of a spruce tree immersed in soil, the tree cannot grow into this magnificent being—unless it learns to outgrow its original space.

“You can’t grow in those comfort spaces—there is a time and place for that, for you to rest and for you to do what you need to do when your body needs to regroup, like I said there needs to be balance—there is a time when you need to go out of your comfort zone and go into the unknown and be uncomfortable, because growth is never comfortable—it’s just not. It is hard and it sucks, and it hurts, and there are so many different emotions, the fear of the unknown, and not being in control, and being out of control—especially traumatized people like to be in control, and when you finally just let go… that’s when it becomes the most scariest time. I do it with my hands and my knees shaking and I trust in the Creator to protect me and guide me no matter what I do.”

The spruce tree only reaches its mature size, by sitting in darkness and conserving energy until one day it outgrows its protective shell, and in turn shares its medicine with us.

“I was going out of my comfort zone—out of that zone of thinking only about myself. We are not meant to be here on earth just to think about ourselves, Creator creates us to serve. We are here to serve…That process was painful.”

The Mother of two, was gifted children during two challenging times in her life, Karakunte humbly said, “My children have saved my life…it has been the children—they are a gift from Creator, and that is the highest level of responsibility you can be given as humans here on earth, the responsibility of another life and the most honourable thing that you can do… that is a gift from Creator.”

Leona’s story and what she has done when transforming her own story into seeing it as medicine to help others and being of service with the understanding of sustaining life so that the generations to come can thrive.

“I speak my language quite a bit, Cree is my first language… I didn’t speak English until I was eight years old, and I had to have an interpreter in grade one, I used to be so ashamed. And now—it is completely opposite. I am so proud of how I was raised and how I grew up… I grew up the old way. I grew up trapping as a kid, going out and gathering berries, gathering firewood, water, and everything that you needed in life—and even to this day I do not allow my tap to just run freely, because I know the value of water. And I don’t take for granted the blessings that I have now, the good things that I have which is that I have running water, I have heat—I just turn on a wall and just push a button and my heat comes on. I don’t have to run outside and go get an armful of firewood and put it in the stove. My mom still lives like that, she’s 82 years old … I still go out there and experience that life and it is also humbling, and it is also a good reminder where I come from.”

Those humbling reminders, and how they connect to balancing our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health are what regulates our emotions and behaviours, through teachings of humility. That in turn grounds us. Leona came to this understanding as she sat with her own understanding of who she is and where she came from. “I think … for us Indigenous people, to live and work in spaces that we do, whatever that may be—we always need grounding. And how we ground ourselves is to remember where we come from, remember who we are, how connected we are to the land…When I am feeling chaotic and out of balance, I literally go out of town or go down by the river, go for a walk and be out in nature – because when you are out of balance, that is when you start making decisions that are not healthy for you … Creator gives us all that we need—we just need to be more open to that.”