Standing Bear Network

Standing Bear Network ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ
SBN is an Indigenous-led community media and cultural storytelling organization focused on healing, accountability, and relationship.

12/16/2025

Listening more than speaking.

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives.Some days the medicine is quiet.We still show up.Ekwa. 🤍
12/15/2025

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives.

Some days the medicine is quiet.
We still show up.

Ekwa. 🤍

12/14/2025

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives.

This page carries many medicines.

You will find prayer here, and you will find laughter.
You will find grief, and you will find warmth.
You will find hard truths spoken plainly, and you will find gentleness where it is needed.

We speak about the world as it is — not to inflame it, and not to turn away — but to remain in relationship with it. To remember that accountability and compassion are not opposites, and that healing does not require silence.

Some days this space will feel like a quiet fire.
Other days it will feel like wind moving through the trees.

If you arrive here open, honest, and willing to sit with complexity, the medicine will meet you where you are.

There is nothing to perform here.
Only a remembering of who we are to one another.

Ekosi.
You are welcome among us.

Kisâkihitinawâw mâna, êkwa miyo-pimâtisiwin kî-pimipahtâw ôma.

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives…I want to speak about what happened at Bondi Beach in a good way — not from panic, not from s...
12/14/2025

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives…

I want to speak about what happened at Bondi Beach in a good way — not from panic, not from spectacle, and not from the hunger of headlines — but from the place where grief, responsibility, and clarity meet.

A place meant for laughter, movement, and the steady breathing of the ocean became a place of fear. Innocent people were harmed. Families were altered forever in moments that can never be undone. No explanation, no label, no political argument will ever make that loss acceptable.

When violence shows itself like this, many rush to find something easy to blame. A group. An idea. A single story that lets us feel safe by pretending we understand it fully. But our old teachings warn us about this. When we rush past grief, we miss the lesson.

Violence does not begin with the weapon.
It begins with disconnection.
With unattended wounds.
With systems that abandon people long before harm ever reaches the surface.

That truth does not excuse what was done — not ever. Accountability matters. Protecting life matters. But if our only response is fear and punishment, we guarantee the cycle will repeat.

And yet… even in the middle of that chaos, something else rose.

In the midst of screaming, running, and confusion, one man stepped forward. Not because he was trained for it. Not because he wanted recognition. But because responsibility spoke louder than fear.

Ahmed Al Ahmed.

We are told he tackled one of the shooters and took the weapon away. In doing so, he was shot twice — in the shoulder and the hand — and is now in hospital. His family says he should be okay. They also spoke words that need no embellishment:

“He’s a hero.”

In our ways, heroism is not a title — it is an action.
It is fear being present, and responsibility moving anyway.
It is someone placing their body between harm and the people.

Ahmed’s courage does not erase the tragedy of that day, but it interrupts it. It reminds us that even when systems fracture community, the human spirit still remembers how to protect life. That memory lives deeper than thought. It moves the body before the mind has time to argue.

We hold prayer for Ahmed’s healing — not only for his physical wounds, but for the weight such moments leave behind. Acts like this change a person. May he be surrounded by care, gentleness, and time.

We also hold the victims, their families, and the witnesses who will carry this memory long after the cameras turn away. May their names be spoken with respect. May their lives be remembered for more than the moment violence entered them.

Bondi Beach shows us something uncomfortable and something hopeful at the same time: modern society is very good at producing isolation, and very poor at catching people before they fall through the cracks — and yet, even here, courage still emerges.

This is not a call to harden.
It is a call to return.

To community.
To listening.
To building systems that value human life before it reaches a breaking point.

Bondi Beach gave us grief.
It also gave us a reminder of who we can be.

Ekosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa
Standing Bear Network

Relatives, I want to speak to this carefully and in a good way.There has been a tragic and frightening situation unfoldi...
12/14/2025

Relatives, I want to speak to this carefully and in a good way.

There has been a tragic and frightening situation unfolding today at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Authorities have reported an active shooter on campus near the engineering buildings. At this time, at least two lives have been lost, and several others are injured and receiving care. Police are still searching for the person responsible, and a shelter-in-place order remains in effect.

I want to pause here — because moments like this are heavy.
They shake people.
They awaken fear in students, families, and communities far beyond that campus.

If you have loved ones anywhere near Brown, please check in with them gently. If you are nearby, follow instructions from local authorities and prioritize safety.

What matters most right now is life — the lives already lost, the lives hanging in balance, and the lives of those hiding, waiting, trying to steady their breathing.

I do not want to speculate.
I do not want to sensationalize.
I do not want to spread unverified details.

What I do want is to hold space.

In our teachings, when harm enters the circle, we slow down. We lower our voices. We remember that behind every headline are parents, siblings, classmates, and friends whose world has just been torn open.

If you are feeling unsettled, that is normal.
If this brings up old trauma, that is real.
If you are angry, confused, or numb — all of that belongs.

Tonight, hold your people close.
Say their names.
Check on your children.
Breathe.

And if you pray, pray not for vengeance, but for protection, clarity, and healing — for those injured, for those hiding, and even for the systems that continue to fail our young people.

I will share updates only when they are confirmed and necessary. Until then, let us move with care, truth, and compassion.

Kisâkihitinawâw.
I love you all.

—Kanipawit Maskwa





That morning, Waffles didn’t hurry.He found a quiet patch of grass, turned his back to the noise of the world, and did w...
12/13/2025

That morning, Waffles didn’t hurry.

He found a quiet patch of grass, turned his back to the noise of the world, and did what all good relatives eventually learn to do — he let go.

No shame.
No apology.
No explanation.

Just trust.

In our teachings, êkwa means “and then” — the moment after a choice is made.
The pause between holding and releasing.
The breath where we stop carrying what was never ours to begin with.

Waffles doesn’t overthink these things.
He doesn’t negotiate with discomfort.
He doesn’t carry yesterday into today.

He listens to his body.
He honors the moment.
And then… he moves on lighter than before.

There is medicine in that.

Sometimes healing isn’t loud or dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like knowing when to set something down — an old story, a burden, an expectation — and trusting the land to take care of the rest.

Êkwa.
Sometimes you just have to release what no longer serves you.

— Kanipawit Maskwa
(according to Waffles 🐾)








❄️

12/11/2025

When the smoke rises, it carries more than scent —
it carries the parts of us that are ready to be released.

êkwa… may this evening bring you softness, peace, and good relations.
— Kanipawit Maskwa







Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives…I want to speak to this in a good way — not to fight, not to shame, but to bring clarity wher...
12/10/2025

Kisâkihitinawâw, relatives…
I want to speak to this in a good way — not to fight, not to shame, but to bring clarity where the world prefers noise.

I see many strong words being shared about “pretendians.”
Some of it is true.
Some of it is medicine.
And some of it… carries a sharpness that can wound the very people we are trying to protect.

In our old laws — wâhkôhtowin, miyo-wîcêhtowin — identity was never proven through aggression, nor through public spectacle.
Identity was lived.
It was relational.
It was known through the footsteps a person left on the land, and the way their relatives spoke their name.

Asking someone, “Who are your people?” is our governance.
We have always done that.

But the moment we begin speaking from anger, from ego, or from performance, we stop protecting the circle and start feeding the very colonial wounds we say we are fighting.

I have lived long enough to see many kinds of voices rise — some loud, some soft, some carrying truth, some carrying pain disguised as authority.

Relatives…
Be careful when someone builds their platform on calling people out, on shaming, on stirring fires they never learned to tend in ceremony.
That is its own kind of identity politics — one that can hurt as deeply as the harm it claims to expose.

We must hold two truths at the same time:

1. Yes — Pretendians cause real harm.

They take resources, positions, trust, and space meant for our people.
Communities have the right — and the responsibility — to verify who belongs.

But also:

2. We must not become colonial in how we protect ourselves.

If our defense becomes dehumanization, humiliation, or cruelty, then we are walking the same road we warn others about.

Our ancestors taught us to be firm…
but they never taught us to be vicious.
They taught us to protect the lodge…
not to turn it into an arena.

Identity is sacred.
Identity is relational.
Identity is lived.

If someone is a fraud, communities will know.
They always have.
Our aunties, our Elders, our Nations — we have been vetting people long before Facebook, long before hashtags.

We don’t need to imitate the colonial courts of public opinion.
We have our own systems.
We have our own ways.

And I will say this gently:

When someone speaks with such aggression, such contempt, such eagerness to tear down — whether they are Indigenous, famous, or unknown — we must discern whether their words come from spirit or from ego.

Because true Indigenous leadership, real Nationhood, does not need to degrade anyone to protect itself.
It stands on truth, not hostility.
It stands on kinship, not spectacle.

êkwa — that is all I will say.
May we speak with the sharpness of clarity,
but also with the softness of responsibility.
May we walk the line between truth and compassion,
holding both like two sacred medicines in one hand.

That is the old way.

—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ


In our way we say êkwa — and so it is, and so we continue.Even in the storm, there is a path back to ourselves.Sit with ...
12/09/2025

In our way we say êkwa — and so it is, and so we continue.
Even in the storm, there is a path back to ourselves.
Sit with the breath.
Sit with the land.
Let the noise fall away.

— Kanipawit Maskwa





êkwa… this is more than news.This is a spirit returning home.When I saw the footage of those boxes coming off the plane ...
12/09/2025

êkwa… this is more than news.
This is a spirit returning home.

When I saw the footage of those boxes coming off the plane — carried carefully, reverently, onto a snowy Montreal tarmac — I felt something in my chest loosen, like an old knot finally remembering how to breathe.

Because these are not “objects.”
Not to us.
Not to the People.

A sealskin kayak, drums, tools, carvings — these are living relatives. Cultural ancestors. Pieces of memory that were taken from our nations at the exact same time our children were taken from their families. When our ceremonies were banned. When our languages were punished. When the laws of this land tried to turn our people into shadows.

To have those relatives stolen, displayed, hidden in vaults, and labeled as “gifts”…
mâci-ôma — that was another kind of wound.
One more chapter in a long story of erasure.

But today… êkwa… we witnessed a different kind of medicine.

Indigenous leaders — Inuit, First Nations, Métis — standing in the cold, waiting like family at the airport for a relative returning from a long, painful journey.
Waiting for pieces of our spirit that had been held in foreign hands for a century.

And those boxes touched the ground the way something sacred touches the ground — quietly, without spectacle, but with the weight of generations.

Even the Vatican, after all these years, finally said:
These belong with their people.
These stories must go home.

Pope Francis opened that doorway with his apology…
And Pope Leo, so early in his papacy, chose to walk through it.

This does not fix history.
It does not erase the hurt.
It does not bring back the children who never came home.

But…
it is a beginning.
A breath.
A step toward môniyaw-kiskinohamâtowin — a shared learning, a shared responsibility.
A sign that the world is finally beginning to understand what our Nations have always known:

Our cultures are not relics.
Our stories are not museum pieces.
Our ancestors do not belong behind glass.

Now these relatives will be unboxed, awakened, held again by Inuit hands, Cree hands, Dene hands — recognized, identified, re-rooted in the communities that birthed them.

They will teach the young ones.
They will strengthen the old ones.
They will stand as evidence that no matter how far our ways were scattered, they never stopped searching for home.

As National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said,
“We’ve come a long way, and we have a long way to go.”

But this…
this is one of those moments when the circle draws a little closer,
when the ancestors lean in,
when the land exhales:

“Yes. This is the direction.
Keep going.”

mîkwêc.
Kanipawit Maskwa
Standing Bear Network





Tonight, êkwa —let the day fall away from you.Our old ones said that evening is when the world exhales,when the spirits ...
12/08/2025

Tonight, êkwa —
let the day fall away from you.

Our old ones said that evening is when the world exhales,
when the spirits of the land gather the loose pieces of our hearts
and help us put them back in order.

Whatever was heavy today,
set it down for a while.
Let the river carry it.
Let the trees hold it.
Let the quiet remind you that you are still here,
still breathing,
still walking toward your purpose.

Rest is not a pause.
Rest is ceremony.
Rest is how the spirit returns to itself.

So breathe gently tonight, relatives.
Be soft with what remains undone.
The ancestors walk with you into the dark
just as surely as they walk with you at dawn.

mîkwêc for another day.
Rest in a good way. 🌙✨

—Kanipawit Maskwa






12/07/2025

Our old ones said that morning is not a time…
it is a spirit.
A living doorway.
A chance to begin again in a good way.

Rise gently.
Breathe deeply.
And step with intention.
The world listens when we greet it with a quiet heart.

mîkwêc, relatives. 🌿✨

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