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

11/20/2025

Breathe in slowly, nîstos.
The world is waking.

Light is rising from the belly of the earth,
stretching its warm fingers across the sky,
reminding you that creation begins again
in this very moment.

Inhale — feel the cool morning air,
fresh as new teachings.
Exhale — let the heaviness of yesterday
fall away like mist leaving the river.

Listen.

There is a whisper in this dawn:
miyo-pimâtisiwin starts with remembering who you are.
A child of the ancestors,
a walker of the old paths,
a heartbeat in the great circle of life.

The birds sing their first prayers.
The water gleams like polished truth.
The land — askîy — lifts your spirit gently,
as if to say, “You are held.”

Take one more deep breath.

Feel strength returning to your bones,
clarity returning to your mind,
and kindness settling into your chest
like a warm ember.

Then say softly:

“I rise with purpose.
I rise with gratitude.
I rise in the light of my ancestors.”

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/20/2025

A lot of people are feeling uneasy tonight.
News like this shakes something deep — because when you speak the name “Epstein,” you’re speaking about harm, secrecy, and the kind of power that hides behind closed doors.

President Trump has signed a law directing the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. And people are wondering what this means… what will come to light… whose names will surface.

But we should also understand this:
the release may not be complete.
The legislation passed by Congress allows the Justice Department to withhold personal information about Epstein’s victims, and anything that might jeopardize ongoing investigations.
So what comes forward will be light — but perhaps not the whole horizon.

Still, here’s how I see it, êkwa — with a steady heart and a clear mind:

Truth has its own ceremony.
tâpwêwin always walks toward us, even when the world tries to bury it.
Light doesn’t ask permission to shine.

For the survivors, I pray this brings validation, healing, and the beginning of deeper justice.
For the powerful who harmed others, may accountability arrive like thunder after a long storm.

This is bigger than one man.
Everyone knows he didn’t walk alone.
If releasing these files pulls back the veil, then so be it.
No one — not kings, governments, or billionaires — stands above the laws of Creation.

But we must move with discernment, not panic.
Rage is easy.
Balance is sacred.
Let the facts come.
Let the truth speak for itself.
Let healing rise from what is uncovered.

I walk forward with calm, with prayer, and with the ancestors at my back.
Truth is a cleansing wind.
And whether it blows gently or hard, it’s still a blessing.

— Kanipawit Maskwa 🐻✨

11/20/2025

Long ago, in the heart of Pimicikamak, there lived a small boy named Kîsik — “Sky.”
He was curious about everything: the way the willow branches danced in the wind, the soft footprints of the fox, the songs the river carried at night.

One morning, Kîsik asked his Nôhkom,
“Tânisi êkwa sîpiy sâkâwîyan? — Grandmother, why does the river always sing?”

Nôhkom smiled, her eyes bright like morning light.
“Because, mistahi-osîs — little one — the river listens. When you speak kindly, she carries your words to the animals, to the trees, even to the clouds.”

Kîsik liked this very much.

That day, he walked to the riverbank and knelt beside the water.
He whispered,
“Ekosani, sîpiy. Thank you, river, for watching over us.”

The river sparkled.
A tiny ripple touched his hand — soft as a feather.

Kîsik laughed.
“See, Nôhkom? She really heard me!”

Nôhkom nodded.
“She hears every voice that speaks with a good heart. Even yours, Kîsik.”

From that day on, Kîsik visited the river every morning and every night.
He told her his hopes, his dreams, his fears.
And whenever he listened closely, he felt the world listening back.

Because in Pimicikamak, even the smallest child carries a voice the river remembers.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/18/2025

Tâneni kîsikâw piko —
as the sky pulls its dark blanket across the world,
I lift my voice softly
to the One who moves in all things.

Kîhtwâm, Creator,
thank you for this day that has walked with me —
for every breath,
every teaching hidden in the quiet places,
every moment of strength I did not even know I carried.

Let the night wind, yôtin,
brush gently over my relatives,
near and far.
Let it carry away the heaviness of this day,
the worries, the noise,
the things that do not belong in our dreams.

Watch over the children, oh Great Mystery —
ôma awâsisak —
let their sleep be soft as moss
and bright as the embers of an old story.

Watch over the Elders —
kêhtê-ayak —
whose prayers hold the shape of our world.

Let the waters, nîpiy, find their rest.
Let the trees, mitosak, dream deep.
Let the spirits who walk the old paths
ramahkwê, move gently around our lodges tonight.

As I lay my head down,
kîhtwâm askîy ê-misiwêpahtam —
let the land dream me back into balance.
Heal what is frayed.
Brighten what has dimmed.
Strengthen what must rise with the dawn.

Creator, kîsikâw-pîsim ê-atoskân,
carry us through this night
in kindness, in protection,
in that sacred knowing
that we are never alone,
never forgotten,
never without love.

êkosi,
let this night be holy.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/17/2025

There are moments in history
when a people must remember exactly who they are.
Not who the government says we are,
not who legislation reduces us to —
but who we are in our bones,
in our ceremonies,
in the old language that still remembers the first sunrise.

Bill C-5 is one of those moments.

Because the ink has dried on a law
that moves faster than the rivers it threatens,
faster than the moose it displaces,
faster than the stories our children will need
to survive the world we leave behind.

But we —
we do not move fast.
We move right.
We move true.
We move in the rhythm of the drum,
in the circle of the lodge,
in the direction of the ancestors
who guide us without ever raising their voices.

They say this Act will build the nation.
But whose nation?
Whose future?
Whose homeland are you building over
when you fast-track steel and machinery
at the expense of the spirits who never left?

They call it
“efficiency.”
We call it
“erasure wrapped in paperwork.”

They call it
“national interest.”
We call it
“the old story of taking,
just told with new vocabulary.”

They call it
“consultation.”
We call it
“the illusion of being heard
while decisions are already waiting at the finish line.”

And I will not whisper this:
Treaty is not a suggestion.
Treaty is the ground beneath your own laws.
Treaty is the spirit-witnessed vow
that built this country in the first place.

If you break Treaty,
you break your own legitimacy.

But listen…

This is not a moment for fear.
This is a moment for memory.

Because our Nations —
Cree, Anishinabek, Dakota, Ojibwe, Métis —
we are not in competition.
We are not fragments.
We are not scattered voices.

We are the constellations of the land.
We are the original governance systems of this place.
We are the heartbeat under the pavement,
the breath under the smokestacks,
the law beneath the legislation.

We survived every tool Canada used to silence us —
and we are still singing.

We survived every policy meant to remove us —
and we are still rising.

We survived every time they said
“this is for your own good”
while cutting the roots of our world —
and we are still here,
rooted,
unshakable.

So when Bill C-5 tries to move faster
than the truth of who we are,
let the truth catch it.
Let the truth stop it.
Let the truth outlast it.

Because this land does not belong to money.
This land remembers its relatives.
And when the land stands up —
nothing can silence it.

We do not rise with fists.
We rise with ceremonies.
We rise with Nations.
We rise with the ancestors at our backs
and the children of tomorrow in our hands.

We rise with the knowledge
that sovereignty is not written on paper —
it is lived in how we walk,
how we gather,
how we protect the sacred.

We rise with the understanding
that no fast-track in the world
can outrun the spirit of a people
who have carried the land through every storm.

And so we stand.
We stand like old-growth.
We stand like mountain ridges.
We stand like truth spoken after too many years of silence.

We stand because the land is rising —
and when the land rises,
we rise with it.

êkosi.
All my relations.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

11/15/2025

Let this evening remind us
of the sacred web beneath all things—
wâhkôhtowin, the kinship that binds
river to stone,
wind to leaf,
heart to heart.

The sîpiy remembers our footsteps.
The yôtin carries the old voices.
The stars — atayohkanak in the sky —
keep watch over every wandering spirit.
And within us, a small, steady ember
of pimâcihowin— the life-force that connects us
to all our relations.

Tonight, let this be a returning.
A coming home to the truth
that no being walks alone,
that our healing is braided together
like sweetgrass in the hands of the ancestors,
three strands — body, mind, spirit —
bound in quiet prayer.

Wrap us now in mîyo-wîcêhtowin,
the good way of being with one another.
Ease the stones we carried through the day.
Let gratitude rise like smoke from the sacred fire,
curling upward into the vastness
where the Mystery listens.

And as we close our eyes,
let this knowing rest in our chests:

êkwa — we are connected,
kâ-mahmitonêyahk — held in one great thought,
and because of this, hope never leaves us.

May peace settle over our homes.
May kindness guide our words.
May our dreams be cradled
in the arms of all our relations.

êkosi.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

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

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