Inspiring Community at Michaelmas by Elizabeth Carmack

04 Sep Inspiring Community at Michaelmas by Elizabeth Carmack

Inspired out of Rudolf Steiner’s words in his 1923 Michaelmas Festival in Vienna: “Today humanity… must emerge, must get into the light, into the spiritual light of day. And the call for the Michael Festival is the call for the spiritual light of day!”

We start with a performance of “Echoes of Peace” by Squamish Elder Wendy Charbonneau.

When I first interviewed Squamish Elder Wendy Charbonneau at the time of Thanksgiving in October 2015, I asked her to sing me half a dozen of her own works. Although it appears Wendy Charbonneau’s music emerges from the same spirit as western oral tradition, her music is protected by tight copyright restrictions. Only Wendy Charbonneau is allowed to sing her music unless she offers to share the copyright of her work. Although Wendy Charbonneau stands alone in her performance today, I would like to express my gratitude for her generosity in sharing “Echoes of Peace” with the Cambridge Music Conference so as to develop an active dialogue with western classical music. Many thanks Wendy!

Today I would like to take “Echoes of Peace” as a point of departure for this Michaelmas talk.

In “The Working Together of the Four Archangels” from The Four Seasons and The Archangels (1923) Rudolf Steiner beautifully describes the relationship between the Archangel Raphael and Archangel Michael. At this time of the year you have the Archangel Raphael alive in the human breath providing healing and the Archangel Michael in the heavens providing light. The work of both archangels is ideally captured and portrayed in the first nations song “Echoes of Peace” by Wendy Charbonneau. The healing element of the song speaks for itself. The song inspires peace, echoes of peace, between nations, peoples and individuals. Peace in one’s heart leading to peace in the world. Rudolf Steiner in his Michaelmas cycle of lectures in 1923 in Vienna describes how the Archangel Michael is found in the super-sensory realm, in the heavens, in the stars, in a spiritual context that reaches beyond our sense perceptions. How better than to connect with the super-sensory world than through the spirit of the dead, through the spirits of those who have died. In Wendy Charbonneau’s song she specifically refers to her great grandmother Agnus Lackett-Joe who is the source of inspiration. Wendy Charbonneau’s gift as a Squamish Elder listening for the voices of the ancestors, specifically in her song “Echoes of Peace” inspired out of the voice of her great grandmother Agnus Lackett-Joe holds four lessons for us, which I would like to elucidate in detail.

1. The first lesson from this song is acknowledging our need for healing! “Echoes of Peace” calls forth inner peace within the individual as well as inspires peace in the world.

2. The second lesson is that “Echoes of Peace” in its very creation acknowledges the dead. The spiritual presence of the dead is imperative for a variety of reasons, not least to cultivate our creativity, but to keep our culture alive.

3. Thirdly, despite destructive forces that compromise our voice, values and identity, we need to learn how to transform whatever violates us into inner resources of healing and resilience.

4. The fourth lesson reveals that the quality of how we communicate our message is paramount. Despite the importance of “what” we want to say, “how” we communicate will be remembered. Whether through music or song or simply silent compassion we can offer others healing.

The first lesson which acknowledges our need for healing I have already touched. The spirit of the Archangel Raphael is palpable in Wendy Charbonneau’s song, especially relevant at this time of year. “Echoes of Peace” instills peace in the individual and inspires peace in the world.

The second virtue is Wendy Charbonneau’s auditory visionary capacity that allows her to listen for her ancestors who then speak through her like a shaman working for healing in her community. Drawing on the spiritual presence of her ancestors she is able to renew her community. In our time this is an unusual gift, but was much more common in the past when indigenous leaders cultivated healing and renewal through direct spiritual inspiration. Wendy Charbonneau’s unique predicament, which I am sure others face today, is that on account of her residential schooling she is now unable to understand her native language. Law enforcement in Canada having imposed legal restrictions forbidding a whole generation from speaking their own language, Wendy Charbonneau can hear her ancestors, but cannot understand their language. As a result Wendy Charbonneau has to write down what she hears, recording both the music and words. She then seeks further help to understand the words she hears communicated in the original Squamish language. Relying on half a dozen people in her community who still speak Squamish, she often turns to her relative Lucile Nicholson and other mother Margaret Locke, who then help in deciphering the language. So the songs evolve with the help of translation from others. Wendy Charbonneau’s auditory visionary experiences mean the songs come to her in daylight consciousness or in the dead of night, in a dream vision while she is asleep. She then develops the songs in dialogue with a person in her community who still understands the Squamish language. Wendy Charbonneau’s loss of her native language Squamish results in the third lesson “Echoes of Peace” has to impart.

The third lesson concerns anthropologists and linguists most. Whenever Wendy Charbonneau performs “Echoes of Peace” she always introduces the work with how she heard her great grandmother speaking to her in a dream, but also explaining how the meaning of the words and the dream eluded her. What touched me was her painstaking effort of conscience not only to decipher and understand, but to take action and quite unconsciously preserve her language that was near to extinction. Wendy Charbonneau tells us in her own way how when she went to her grandmother to ask the meaning of the words and dream, her grandmother was grateful, for as she said “these could have been lost words”. Hearing words in a dream vision not only help preserve the Squamish language, but re-engender life in the indigenous culture. Linguicide is a term coined relatively recently by the Finnish linguist rights scholar and academic Skutnabb-Kangas and from the anthropologist’s point of view “Echoes of Peace” introduces us to the inevitable impending death of the Squamish language. Although the song itself does not introduce us to the idea of linguicide, Wendy Charbonneau’s beautiful introduction of how she was compelled to seek help to understand the words and significance of the dream impart her urgency to act in the face of linguicide! Wendy Charbonneau’s great grandmother, Agnus Lackett-Joe (1873/6-1970), who lived on Squamish land at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, is an example of silent resistance and spiritual integrity. For although Agnus Lackett-Joe knew English she refused to speak it all her life. Granted she was born at a time when most of the Squamish Nation still conversed in their native tongue. Although just a generation a part Agnus Lackett-Joe’s example was noticeably different from Squamish Chief Louis Miranda’s (1892-1990) [http://site2.ewart.library.ubc.ca/node/35]. Louis Miranda was finally recognised and celebrated in 1981 with an honorary Doctorate of Law (LLD) from Simon Fraser University for his invaluable contribution cultivating dialogue and maintaining relations with the white European community settling in this region in British Columbia. However, on account of his advocacy for the Squamish language and culture, Louis Miranda is now acknowledged and remembered for being the first great Squamish linguist. However, returning to the voice of inspiration at the heart of the song “Echoes of Peace”, I would like to draw attention to how in a period of a 100 years or less the Squamish language now faces extinction, were it not for the efforts of bilingual education being taught in both English and Squamish languages to kindergarten and primary school children on the Squamish Reserve, as well as the Language Revitalization Program that starts this September 2016 at Simon Fraser University in an effort to reverse the trend of language extinction. Victoria, Laval and especially McGill universities in Canada have been teaching graduate degrees for many years in Applied Linguistics on how to preserve and revitalize indigenous languages in first nations communities that face losing their native language. McGill University has been extremely successful in a program intended to protect the Mi’kmaq first nation language through Language Revitalization.

To native English speakers linguicide may be an odd term, but it recognises the growing trend of how languages are dying quickly at a rate of 26 languages a year [The Guardian Weekly, 19-25 August 2016] in part on account of the threat English causes in terms of “linguistic imperialism”. Most of us here today would not associate ourselves with the oppressive power of colonization, but we are all more or less guilty of “linguistic imperialism”, the attitude that legitimizes English as the most acceptable language of communication for all forms of multicultural contact. Of course, English is justified as one of two official languages in Canada, so we feel our language should prevail, but think of the language diversity of all of the indigenous peoples of Canada who have been compromised by this law.

Today in a broader global context English is the language of neoliberal capitalism. As English serves the advancement of commerce, capital and technology, the point I would like to make is more subtle than simply linguicide. Do we not face the extinction of a language that can serve the spirit?

Wendy Charbonneau’s experience can teach us:

1. That we can only truly heal ourselves, when our sense of humanity and gesture of healing is intended for all;

2. That listening for the spirit of the dead is imperative, for their terms will keep the spirit in our culture alive. Spirits of the dead are speaking to us, even if we cannot hear or understand them;

3. That relying on the spiritual presence of the dead can help transform experiences that potentially   threaten our existence into presiding strength for the living; and

4. That if we don’t work to advocate and understand the spiritual terms and language of the dead, we may face another form of linguicide, the mortality of our language of the spirit.

The source of inspiration behind the Cambridge Music Conference, my sister Catherine Carmack (1957-2003) performed the closing concert of the third conference in August 2003. Catherine’s recital was called “Voice of the Spirit” (1). Her choice of half a dozen works for cello accompanied by piano acknowledged the presence of the eternal expressed through the music. But her performance of the program forged unique terms of immortality for her. In Catherine’s performance “Voice of the Spirit” you could see how the individual strength of her spirit, her human courage, to embody the universal terms of the music in one final act, spiritualised her will so she could move consciously through the moment of death forging a unique rights of passage. These are terms we must all seek to find the true spirit of Michaelmas. Not just reaching for the light, we need to create light consciously so we can speak to others of the “Voice of the Spirit”.

Aristotle in his work De Anima (Of the Soul) refers to the human being as based on four principles:

the mineral kingdom we share with the earth, the life forces we share with the plants, movement and perception we share with the animals, whereas the logos is attributed solely to the human being… specifically language and thought. These four principles mirrored again in Rudolf Steiner’s work find expression in the Waldorf School high school meditation:

“I behold the world, in which the sun shines, the stars gleam, the stones exist, the plants living grow, the animals feel and live and the human being creates a spirit dwelling for the soul.” A free rendering from    the German “Ich schaue in die Welt, In der die Sonne leuchtet, In der die Sterne funkeln; In der die  Steine lagern, Die Pflanzen lebend wachsen, Die Tiere fühlend leben, In der der Mensch beseelt, dem   Geiste Wohnung gibt.” [http://anthrowiki.at/Waldorfschule]

Canadian author Margaret Atwood not only espouses the importance of language to define us as human beings, but endorses story telling and the narrative art as imperative for human survival:

Language is one of the most primary facts of our existence. It’s something that you say, what is [it that makes us] human? Well many animals have methods of communicating with one another, but none of  them have our kind of extremely elaborate grammar. So it is… it’s right dead, smack in the centre of  what it is to be human, the ability to tell a story.

There is another theory that has it that the narrative art is an evolved adaptation on which we got in the      Pleistocene because those who had it had a much greater edge. They had a much greater survival edge  on those that did not have it. [Margaret Atwood: http://bigthink.com/videos/why-we-tell-stories]

Here we see a valid explanation of why and how Wendy Charbonneau has been able to survive the natural trend of linguicide, which is about to destroy the wisdom of the Squamish nation and their worldview. Embedded in the Squamish language as in every indigenous language and culture is a legacy of beliefs and wisdom that has been shaped out of the voices of the ancestors.

So first of all we have the crisis of linguicide that threatens to destroy a nation’s living language, voices from the past and cultural identity. Linguicide is underpinned by the adverse blindness of “linguistic imperialism” so strongly aligned with the English language in terms of capital and commerce that will potentially alienate us from the spirit. Then we have the idea of the logos – that from Aristotle’s point

of view was decisive in defining us as human beings. In Classical Ancient Greek the logos was understood as a universal principle, that created and defined our humanity. As a result at the time of Christ when the Greeks sought a word that best defined the quality of the spirit of Christ “logos” was chosen. So today you have the word logos that denotes two principles. On the one hand you have

the universal principle of human language engendering thought and on the other hand the universal principle of the spirit known as the Word. So we have one word “logos” that defines and embodies both our human and spiritual potential, ideally realised in developing our humanity.

Now I would like to present the interactive part of this Michaelmas talk. We’ll take about two to three minutes for each exercise.

1. Please find a partner to talk to. I would like you to talk about light. Please describe any form of light defining it in words that best capture your sense of light in any context. If you are alone, please write down words and phrases that help communicate your sense of what light is and what light can generate.

2. Now please focus in your mind’s eye and build up an imagination and picture of light. Please remember some of the words you have used to characterise a particular quality of light. Your active imagination creating a living picture of light as only you can experience it… is most important.

3. Now I want you to think of individuals who are helpless! Victims of inescapable misery. For example, i. children captured to work as soldiers fighting for a rebel cause, made to respond as automatically as the weapons they brandish; ii. children sold into bonded labour by parents to cover an unpayable debt… children who will work a life time in slavery with no thought of freedom; iii. children forced to marry against their will and then coerced into prostitution. You don’t need to use any of these examples, but think of a human being unable to escape such injustice. Now take your imagination of light and actively give it in any way you can imagine that will help your victim.

4. Now return to the individual you first spoke to and describe your experience. Has giving your light to an individual in peril transformed you? Has the quality of your light changed as you moved from an ideal or imagination to exercising your light as a form of practical concern? Has your understanding of community changed? How do you feel now in the face of such abuse and injustice?

To close I would like you to think of gifting your light to one of the missing murdered indigenous women and girls whose lives we acknowledge in Squamish Elder Wendy Charbonneau’s song “Women Are Gone” (2016) commissioned this year by the Cambridge Music Conference. In an attempt to build our new light-filled Michaelmas community we now turn our attention to individuals who have died in harsh and abusive ways without actively receiving light or love from others.

Is not love invisible light?

We shall end with a performance of “Women Are Gone” by Squamish Elder Wendy Charbonneau.

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(1) “Voice of the Spirit” performed by Catherine Carmack (cello) and Carolyn Roberts Finlay (piano) at the Cambridge Music Conference on 9 August 2003: P.I. Tchaikovsky (Russian) “In Church”, Frank Bridge (English) “Meditation, Arvo Pärt (Estonian) “Spiegel im Spiegel”, Ernest Bloch (Swiss born American) “Prayer from Jewish Life”, Max Bruch (German) “Kol Nidre”, and Srul Irving Glick (Jewish Canadian) “Prayer and Dance”.