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Standing Bear Network, 65 Johnny Cake Trail South, Wakefield, RI (2025)

11/14/2025

Something meaningful is happening in South Dakota — something that feels less like politics and more like a shift in the spirit of the land.

A Native woman, Allison Renville, has stepped forward with courage, rooted in Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota lineage and the long breath of her ancestors. In a state shaped by our stories, our rivers, our songs, her voice rises like a morning wind — gentle, steady, carrying possibility.

Her path began at Standing Rock, not as a candidate, but as someone who heard the call to protect nîpiy, the water. That kind of beginning changes you. It awakens a responsibility, a remembering — wîcihitowin — the call to help one another.

Now, she walks into a new circle, guided by the belief that South Dakota can be a place where community is stronger than division, where growth includes compassion, where people feel seen and supported. She speaks of healing the relationships between peoples, honoring the land, and lifting those who have been forgotten.

And for a moment, if we step back from party lines and elections, we can see the deeper teaching here:

êkwa — sometimes leadership is simply the courage to step forward with a good heart.

In a state where so many Native children, families, and communities have carried generations of weight, seeing a woman rise from this land — our land — carries medicine. It reminds us that our stories are still unfolding, that our presence is still powerful, that hope still moves through these prairies.

Maybe this moment is not just about an election.
Maybe it is about the land healing, the people returning to one another, the old teachings finding breath again.

pimâcihowin — the good path — is always made by those willing to walk it first.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

11/12/2025

Tonight, as I stood beside the bare bones of our lodge — those steadfast poles reaching into the dark — the northern lights came to visit.
Red spirits, dancing like ancient fires across a sky so clear it seemed to breathe.

Here, in the homeland of the Narragansett, under the same stars that watched over the first fires of this land, I felt them — the old ones — stirring in that light. The aurora isn’t just a spectacle; it’s a messenger. A reminder that the heavens still remember the language of our ceremonies.

I hear that same red glow was seen all the way in Treaty One territory — over the heartland of our relatives. The same pulse of sky, the same breath of creation moving from one nation to another.

Maybe that’s the teaching tonight: that the light dances not for one people, but for all who still look up with reverence.
From Narragansett to Pimicikamak, the sky carries our kinship.
The lodge stands, the poles reaching — and the spirits answer.

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/12/2025

Tonight, Creator, we give thanks
for those who walked into fire
so that others could rest in peace.
For every heart that carried courage,
and every spirit that still carries pain —
may healing find them like soft rain.

Let this night be gentle.
Let remembrance be our prayer.
And may the stars above
shine for all who never made it home.

We walk in their light now —
quiet, humble, free.

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/11/2025

Today we remember those who walked into fire —
not only with weapons, but with courage, conviction, and love for their people.

Among them were our own — the Indigenous warriors who stood for home and land,
for freedom and dignity, even when that same freedom was denied to them.

They carried not only rifles, but prayers.
They fought not only enemies, but silence, injustice, and forgetting.

Their stories live in the wind,
in the songs of the drum,
in the hearts of their grandchildren who still rise with that same spirit.

To all who have served — in uniform or in spirit — we remember you.
We thank you.
And we promise to carry your teachings forward:
that true courage is not found in battle alone,
but in the way we live — with honor, humility, and heart.

êkosi — the circle remembers.
— Kanipawit Maskwa (Standing Bear)

11/10/2025

There are moments when the lodge is stripped bare — when wind and time tear away what once sheltered us.
But the frame remains.
Those poles — the bones of the teaching — rise like prayers that cannot be silenced.

Our Mikiwâp teaches us this: the spirit of the lodge is not in the canvas, but in the intention that raised it, the songs that echoed within, the stories that breathed through her smoke hole.

Now she stands open to the sky again, ribs of remembrance against the dawn.
And maybe that is the greatest teaching — that healing is not in what survives untouched, but in what continues to hold its shape even after being broken.

êkosi, this is how the circle endures.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

11/09/2025

Last night, something unexpected happened here at Indian Lake Shores.
There was a late-night party next door — cars lined across our small dirt road, music spilling into the quiet. I was too tired to stay awake and keep watch.

When the sun rose, I stepped outside… and the world had changed.

Our Mikiwâp — our healing lodge — ripped apart .

This was no ordinary tipi. She had stood for nearly ten years. A teaching lodge born from the fires of Standing Rock, carried home with ceremony and purpose. Within her, prayers were spoken, songs were born, stories were remembered. She became a living relative, a circle where healing found its breath again.

Now, she will return to the elements — to the same wind that once carried the sacred songs of the river camps.

Here in this place they call Indian Lake Shores — where every road bears a memory of this earth, and a totem pole greets you at Arrow Head Trail — something ancient was held for a time.

But her poles are not fallen and her spirit is not lost.
She lives in every teaching shared around her fire, in every young one who sat within her circle, and in every song that still rises from this land.

êkosi, Mikiwâp.
You sheltered us well.
You taught us what it means to stand, to pray, to remember.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/09/2025

Today, November 8th, we pause to remember our warriors — not just soldiers in a uniform, but those who carried the heartbeat of their Nations into the storms of the world.

Our people — Cree, Dene, Anishinaabe, Métis, Inuit — we answered a call that was not written in colonial law but in the old language of duty: to protect life, to protect the people, to protect the land.

When the world went to war, our grandfathers and grandmothers walked forward from the trapline, the fishing camp, the residential school, the reserve gates — they crossed oceans and deserts carrying songs older than the Empire itself.
They spoke little English, some none at all, yet they understood the meaning of courage.
They left their families and ceremonies behind to fight in lands they had never seen.

When they came home — those who did — the promises were thin, the welcome colder than the northern wind.
Many were denied their rights, their lands, even their names.
But still, they carried themselves with dignity.
Still, they served their people — as chiefs, as teachers, as quiet protectors in the community.

So when we speak of Indigenous Veterans Day, we do not only speak of battlefields far away.
We speak of the battle here — to be recognized, to be respected, to be healed.
We speak of the fight to keep our languages alive, to bring our warriors home in spirit, to mend the wounds that colonization left behind.

This day is about more than medals.
It is about memory — living memory.
It is about those who walked in two worlds and never stopped being who they were: defenders of life, guardians of the circle.
It is about honouring their descendants, who still fight — not with rifles, but with drums, with songs, with teachings, with love.

So today, light your fire.
Speak their names.
Place your hand over your heart and whisper:

mîna kitâpamihk nitôtêmak — we see you, our relatives.
mîkwêc kinanâskomitin — we thank you.
êkosi — we remember.

Because remembrance is ceremony.
And every generation that remembers brings healing to the next.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

11/08/2025

The light is fading now.
The sky opens its great dark wings,
and one by one, the stars return —
each one a small remembering
of how vast and alive this moment is.

Close your eyes.
Let your breath slow.
Feel the weight of the day loosen its hold —
all that you carried, all that you could not fix,
all that you gave.

Inhale — the cool air of night.
Exhale — the warmth of release.
The land breathes with you.
The trees are dreaming.
The water hums softly beneath the ice.

Listen —
there is a teaching in the stillness:
that we are never alone.
We are threads in a great blanket of being,
woven by love, by story, by time.

Whisper to yourself:
“I am safe. I am guided. I am part of this great mystery.”

And as you drift toward sleep,
let gratitude be your final thought —
for the breath that moves through you,
for the ancestors who walk beside you,
for another day given beneath the endless stars.

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/06/2025

The world is being born again in this moment:
light rising from the belly of the earth,
water stirring,
birds remembering their songs.

Before the noise begins, listen.
The ancestors speak softly in the rustle of the leaves,
in the hush between heartbeats.

Say to yourself:

“I am part of this breathing world.
I rise with the sun.
I walk with purpose and kindness.”

Carry that knowing like a small flame in your chest.
Let it guide your steps,
let it soften your thoughts,
and let it remind you —
miyo-pimâtisiwin — the good life begins in gratitude.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

11/04/2025

They say even those who walked in power must one day return to the same earth that holds us all.
Yesterday , the world marked the passing of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney — a man whose decisions shaped wars, policies, and generations.
For some, he was a symbol of security and resolve;
for others, a name whispered in the long shadow of conflict.

As nîhithowak, as Pimicikamak people, we are taught that every being travels two roads —
one of deeds and one of spirit.
When a life ends, we do not celebrate nor condemn;
we witness, we learn, we remember.

Cheney’s path was carved through the heart of empire —
through oil fields, battlefields, and corridors of immense power.
The world that rose from those choices is still with us:
the surveillance age, the wars that reshaped nations,
and the rivers of consequence that still run red and restless.

But in our way, even power must one day bow to the Great Mystery.
In death, the spirit stands before the fire of truth —
not as a title, not as a nation, but as a soul seeking balance.

We send prayers not only for him, but for all touched by the storms of his era:
the soldiers who walked the desert sands,
the families who lost their homes,
the nations that still rebuild from ashes.

Let us speak his name, not to praise or curse,
but to remember that every choice ripples through generations.
Let this be a teaching —
that power without humility becomes its own war,
and that healing, though slow, must follow every ending.

êkosi.
We walk on.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

11/03/2025

November is called Native American Heritage Month, but for us, every moon is heritage. Still, êkwa, we use this window to lift the lodge poles of our stories so others can find their way in.

In our way of seeing, askîy (the land) is not backdrop — it is nîsta, our own body. Nîpiy is blood, sîpiy is breath. When I speak of “heritage,” I don’t mean museum glass. I mean footprints in muskeg, treaty words that still have a heartbeat, children laughing in a language that almost went quiet but did not. Miyo-wîcêhtowin — good relations — that’s our governance. Miyo-pimâtisiwin — living in balance — that’s our policy.

This month, let’s remember: stories are medicine. They travel like roots under the snow, feeding what we cannot see. If you sit by the fire and tell one to your kôhkom or your little ones, you are doing nation work. If you learn one Cree word a day — êkwa, just one — you are repairing a bridge the river tried to take.

To those who walk with us: come close. Listen more than you speak. Buy from Indigenous makers. Show up when the drum calls. Ask, “How can I help?” then help in the way the community asks, not the way your ego prefers. Kisteyihtamowin — respect — is a verb.

To our own people: take care of your heart. Ceremony can be a cup of tea with an Elder. Education, kiskinohamâkewin, can be reading a children’s book about our medicines to a classroom. Wellness is cultural — pimâcihowin — the steady work of making a life from what the land and our relatives offer in love.

When I look ahead, I feel the Eighth Fire warming. Not a fire of conquest, but of compassion. We light it one small act at a time: a story told, a river defended, a promise kept.

Tânisi êkwa? Let’s walk gently, speak truly, and make room for each other at the circle.

— Kanipawit Maskwa (Standing Bear)

11/02/2025

Ayâwa kîsikâw — Creator,
as the sun folds itself into the arms of the western sky,
I offer my breath back to You.

Thank You for this day —
for the laughter that carried medicine,
for the quiet that taught patience,
for the small kindnesses that rippled unseen.

Let my heart rest easy now,
like the lake beneath the stars —
still, reflecting all that is, without grasping.

If I have spoken in anger, forgive me.
If I have walked in forgetfulness, awaken me.
If I have turned away from someone in need,
turn me gently back toward them.

Watch over the ones who travel tonight —
those on the roads, those without homes,
those whose spirits are heavy with remembering.

Let the moon be their companion,
the wind their blanket,
the stars their prayers.

When morning comes,
may I rise again in gratitude,
ready to walk softly upon askîy,
the living land that holds us all.

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

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