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CURRENT NEWS
JOIN US!! JOINDRE VOUS
TO CELEBRATE THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF GRANDFATHER WILLIAM COMMANDA on NOVEMBER 11, 2018
He would have been turning 105!
Birth Day Party
CEREMONY, FRIENDSHIP, SHARING and Grandfather's Favourite Thing - BANQUET! That, he said, is how we finish the job!
2 pm Sunday November 11, 2018
506 Stratas Court, Kanata, Ontario K2L3K7
circleofallnations@sympatico.ca 613-599-8385
JOIN US - ALL ARE WELCOME!!
This photo is from our 2001 Birthday Party - Do you know after one birthday, I found Grandfather had saved all the candles under his pillow - I was so touched. We kept them there all year. As our Russian friend Elena said, birthday candles and wishes and prayers associated with them are very special - Grandfather's Remembrance Day prayers were for us to COME TOGETHER WITH ONE HEART, ONE MIND, ONE LOVE AND ONE DETERMINATION, TO CREATE A CIRCLE OF ALL NATIONS!, A CULTURE OF PEACE!
GRADUATION
This special birthday will be preceded by Convocation Ceremonies at Carleton University where we consider he now becomes PhDx4 - remember he received Honorary Degrees from University of Ottawa (2005) and l'Université de Québec en l'Outaouais (2011). This Carleton degree examines his thinking on environmental and related issues from both his and my perspectives.
His niece Lillian Dowling insists on us being there! Lillian is the daughter of William Commanda's younger sister Julia. In this she is a bit like her uncle - they love celebrations! Some folk will remember when William Commanda delivered the opening prayer and convocation speech (text and then free style!) at his University of Ottawa Grad in 2005 with huge enthusiasm and aplomb, despite being plagued by a severe bout of shingles.
Details at
www.carleton.ca/convocation.
(Lillian and her late husband Bob supported the 1998 CAN/Wolf Project Indigenous Prophecy Holders Peace Gathering and Millennium Peace Gathering (when we had Hopi Elder Martin Gashwaseoma and White Buffalo Calf Woman Pipe Carrier Chief Arvol Looking Horse with us), were with us when Grandfather received the Harmony Award in 2000, presented by June Callwood and Lt. Gov. Limcoln Alexander (I have WC stories about both of them!), were at the Rivers Canada event in Guelph Ontario in 2004, when William Commanda received the Bill Mason River Conservation Award, were at many Circle of All Nations Gatherings over the years, Lillian was at the OMB hearings about Chaudiere Site challenges, and their late son Peter is the one carrying the birthday cake in the Circle of All Nations posters from 2003 (see below). Their granddaughter Genevieve, named Pidabanokwe by William Commanda after his ancestral grandmother Piwanokwe Commanda of Lac Commandant (1760), now barely in her teens, continues with his great interest in the history of their peoples).
(By some intriguing coincidence, Karen Bisson presented our CAN POSTERS on Facebook yesterday, and we realized that we had created this EXACTLY this time of year 15 years ago - for Grandfather Commanda's 90th Birthday!! Karen did all the amazing design work entirely pro-bono! Study them - they still reflect the best BLUEPRINT for the GOOD LIFE that we see out there. Peter Dowling is there in the Red Community Poster. YOU WILL ALSO NOTE THAT GRANDFATHER's LEGACY VISION FOR ASINABKA SACRED CHAUDIERE SITE WAS ALREADY FULLY ARTICULATED - and in these posters, presented to the HUNDREDS of people from all over North America who attended that special 90th Birthday Party hosted at the MUSEUM of CIVILIZATION - designed by Indigenous Architect, genius, artist, shaman, pipe carrier and sweat lodge elder, Douglas Cardinal. The Asinabaka Legacy Vision was also viewed, studied and endorsed by literally thousands of people who visited his Teaching Lodge in his home in Kitigan Zibi over the years that followed).
At this link,
Presentation of Thumbadoo/Commanda Thesis to Academy you can find our correspondence to the leadership of the three universities in the National Capital Region that are linked with William Commanda's academic legacy. In this study, we have tried to show how Grandfather is 'more than a pretty face', to explain some of the science and complexities underpinning his approach to environmental stewardship, and to show how the academy can find meaningful ways of bridging cultural divides with Indigenous Peoples and their profound knowledge generation practices. Certainly he worked hard for them to do so - that is partly evident in his decades of outreach to the University of Ottawa (see link below).
Our thesis was completed at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, under the supervision of Dr. Fraser Taylor, Director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, the world renowned cartographer who has defined and advanced the concept of cybercartography over the past 20 years, integrating theory, practice, technology, with science, Indigenous, storytelling perspectives in innovative dynamic digital mapping. Elder Commanda met him in 2007 when he offered a blessing at the launch of the Nunaliit Digital Atlas Platform, and Dr. Stephanie Pyne's Lake Huron Treaty Atlas. It was at that time that our dot.com elder became intrigued with the idea of mapping his own history digitally. As his friends know, our leading edge elder came to the world of communications technology entirely on his own steam - acquiring every device as it presented - from slides to camera, to video camera, radios to television, and presenting himself on the internet via websites, blogs and social media, and thus well suited for cyber-communications. Our thesis is entitled "Ginawaydaganuc and The Circle of All Nations: The Remarkable Environmental Legacy of Elder William Commanda" and can be accessed at
https://curve.carleton.ca/aa4e3cbb-5b83-464d-8286-a901fcd77b06
Indigenous Architect Douglas Cardinal and Artist/Academic Simon Brascoupe were on my thesis committee.
BELOW, Our Thesis Photo Trail!
OTHER NEWS
We hosted our Annual September Peace Event on September 21 and 22, and the Fall Equinox and International Day of Peace were ushered in by four devastating tornadoes in the National Capital Region. Turnout was small, but we were able to cover all the items on our agenda, from the news of the first Donald Marshall Junior Wrongfully Convicted Award presented by
on October 3 at the Law Society of Upper Canada
to a presentation entitled
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
Anishnaabek Legal Traditions, Treaty 9 and Honorable Consent,
Circle of All Nations Presentation
by Andrew Costa, PHD Student, Legal Studies,
Carleton University, this research having been initiated by exposure to the Marshall story.
He examinedhow Anishnaabek legal traditions in the Treaty 9 region challenge common distinctions between Ceded/Unceded territory in the region
and how these challenges to divides between ceded/unceded territory may encourage a collaborative consent based regime to emerge in natural resource development through the Ring of Fire. Once more, our inspiring young scholar brought leading edge ideas to our event.
veteran policeman, social justice worker, teacher and elder, Bill Brant (William Tekasonnake Brant) took us back to Indigenous peace keeping approaches and Peel's mantra, the Police are the Community in his presentation on LAW ENFORCEMENT OR PEACE KEEPING.
We discussed the Part Three Section of the Commada thesis, which explored canoe epistemology, critical reflexivity and autoethnography. Luc Anne Salm performed her Eel Story, animating the storytelling sub-theme of this portion of the thesis quite unexpectedly and synchronistically.
THESIS PART FOUR
Come and learn about our foray into cybernetics and the cyberworld in the fourth part of our thesis discussion on November 11th. But here's a preview:
William Commanda has been a dot.com elder since 2000, and has been a presence on Facebook via several pages since 2009 - William Commanda, William Commanda Legacy Asinabka, Circle of All Nations, and via me, Romola Vasantha Thumbadoo,
All in all, our thesis queried the on-going relevance of William Commanda's thinking on environment and related matters, seven years after his death.
Our October reflection on the United Nations IPCC report on Climate Genocide scored over 3,500 hits in a few days. Subsequent posts on William Commanda's Environmental Work, and on the Closure of Victoria Island for seven years have also received a great deal of attention.
We believe William Commanda is still cyber-steering thinking and that he remains Encore Vivant to countless people.
The following link leads you directly to these reflections. Please go to the Facebook pages for photographs and other important posts. Here our messages are sometimes awfully long for social media - but we think it is our responsibility to share the nature and meshing and networking of our Circle of All Nations thinking in a world that is fast loosing the capacity for nimble right brain thinking. Like William Commanda, we believe the left brain will put things in order in the proper time. We are greatly encouraged by the attention to our posts. Social media on my Facebook homepage is the zone of accessible education, historical and contemporary, and I am so grateful for all the news our friends and colleagues from across the globe present - Facebook keeps Grandfather's Circle of All Nations global eco-community on the trail of ideas, connection and dynamic sharing! (While, consistent with his practice, I watch CBC and CTV regularly, it is on my Facebook pages that I really see what is happening in our global world.
CIRCLE OF ALL NATIONS LOGO and CAN TEACH UNI-TEE!
Attached below find a Discussion of our
Circle of All Nations
Logo. It was developed twenty years ago, and at our inaugural peace event in the National Capital Region, co-hosted with the Wolf Project, we created logo teeshirts which Grandfather presented to our guests. Our logo also served to structure our thesis entitled "Ginawaydaganuc and The
Circle of All Nations
: The Remarkable Environmental Legacy of William Commanda" (I have found that Carleton University has put it online, so I am adding a link below). The discussion elaborates on how the symbolic and semiotic messages of the logo informed the development of the thesis. You will recall that Grandfather Commanda received two honorary degrees. This thesis examines a certain portion of his environmental legacy and
Circle of All Nations
bridge building work and materials co-created by multiple
Circle of All Nations
colleagues in greater depth. These include Lucie Ouimet, Director of the NFB Documentary on Grandfather, "Ojigkwanong - Encounter with an Algonquin Sage"; and Valerie Pouyanne's pro bono contribution with Grandfather's Canoe Teaching Documentary, "Good Enough for Two" - Have you noted how EVERYBODY NOW wants to learn BIRCH BARK CANOE MAKING, including universities! (Well, we will have to get more determined with environmental stewardship so there will be bark for future generations.) Thanks to the unwavering persistence of Karen Bisson, Proprietor, Turtle Lodge Trading Post, who did the graphic design for our Learning From A Kindergarten Dropout Book, and who has maintained our
www.asinabka.com
pro bono since its inception, we now have CAN teeshirts again, and in our minds, it is legitimately a CAN TEACH UNI-Tee! After all, it is now associated with four PhDs! These items can be found at
www.turtlelodgetradingpost.ca
and help support our entirely unfunded
Circle of All Nations work.
From Learning From A Kindergarten Dropout to our Thumbadoo/Commanda PhD Thesis!
"Ginawaydaganuc and The Circle of All Nations:
The Remarkable Environmental Legacy of Elder William Commanda"
https://curve.carleton.ca/aa4e3cbb-5b83-464d-8286-a901fcd77b06
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Circle of All Nations Legacy Work
of
G
randfather William C
Indigenous Elder, Algonquin of the Ottawa River Watershed, Sacred Wampum Belt Keeper, Canoe Builder, Recipient of Two Honorary Doctoral Degrees, Officer of the Order of Canada, and
Encore Vivant!
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Grandfather William C
ommanda's
Circle of All Nations
The Circle of All Nations is a global eco-community unified by Elder Commanda's fundamental and unshakeable conviction that as children of Mother Earth, we belong together and with nature, irrespective of individual colour, creed or culture
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I
ndigenous Centre - healing, heritage, spiritual and cultural expression
Peace Building
- reconciliation, cultural exchange, peace and eco think tank conference centre
Central Eco City Park
- sanctuary for individuals and communities; biodiversity; Indigenous plants
Historical Park
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showcase for ancient Indigenous and recent collective history
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