Untitled #8

Cal Lane est une artiste canadienne. Depuis 10 ans elle fait de la dentelle à base de motifs floraux ou religieux avec des objets en métal et autres supports en tôle, feuille d’aluminium ou d’acier. Tout y passe, fûts d’essence, pelles, capots de voiture, containers.

"Did you know the name for Saturday is mātinawēkisikāw. This term comes from the y dialect. mātinamākīwin is the act of rationing food. sharing, distributing food offering, allotment, distribution, the act of offering or giving.

As the 7 day calendar became popularized amongst the plains a certain day became common. These were the days when the buffalo were gone, the people were starving. On Saturdays food was rationed at the forts.

Ration days were not a thing for northern dialects as the food supply came from other sources. Growing up, I would ask why Saturday was different from the rest of the weeks. If Monday to Friday were the first day to the fifth day, why wasn’t Saturday the sixth day. My th dialect northern people didn’t have an answer. Years later I would realize northern Manitoba people (n dialect) preferred to call Saturday nikotwāsik-kisikāw meaning the sixth day. When I started studying indigenous history in university and discovering how all our indigenous languages were oral languages it all started to make sense. It made sense how aggressive assimilation impacted southern Cree people first before colonial practices were directed to northern people. It made sense how language loss was happening at alarming rates in the south, amongst the y dialect. So in response y dialect speakers pushed back against language loss more aggressively. People in the plains Cree community pioneered the writing system. Many of the terms like mātinawēkisikāw, Saturday, were adopted into the written material.

Northern people, until the 80’s were very much fluent and did not make efforts to write down the language as the plains. Language revitalization efforts started in the 70’s and earlier down south as it became apparent culture loss was taking place.

As Indian control of education came about in the late 70’s all of a sudden there was a demand to teach Cree in schools. The only material available at that time was y dialect material. So certain terms came to me as a student sitting in my classroom like the term for Saturday. Cree class became a thing in my generation, I was about 11 in grade 5 when we had our first class. Older students were never formally introduced to Cree class until this time, everyone learned from everyone else until then, orally. In my northern community, syllabics were common amongst the old people. However, in the 80’s many kids didn’t go to residential school with this movement for Indians to teach their own and community devolution. The 80’s also saw this shift of Indian people taking on their own administrative matters locally.

The rush of Cree materials was abit of a free for all for the most part. Those fortunate enough to have a teacher be trained in standardized writing like SRO produced a generation of students that could read and understand the materials. Some communities if not most communities basically hired fluent speakers and much of the materials taught were either phonetic or a personal style comfortable to the teacher. However, the materials developed in the south would become the norm.

Some of the differences in the material taught in class vs the local terms sometimes confused students but only for a short while. Terms like the months of the year were slightly different. An example is the month of February and March.

Firstly, the months are named after observations taking place in nature. Secondly, months had different names but most folks settled on the most common terms. Up north the eagle didn’t come home until March. The name mikisiwipīsim, eagle moon was March. Down south, where it warms up a month earlier, the eagle arrives in February. For southern Cree, the goose starts to arrive in March which is why it’s called niskipīsim, the goose moon. And by this time I’m sure you realize the goose doesn’t come to northern areas until April.

In education we call this locally adapting the curriculum. You take what’s been produced and make necessary changes to reflect the local needs. This is why it’s important to bridge the gap between young teachers and elders, if you’re fortunate to have elders that still speak. If you don’t, please ensure you provide context to why things are the way they are when you can. Learning about history can be just as fascinating as learning about your own language.

Hope this helps."

As the audience, we already know that Ilya loves Shane because we heard him say it in Russian. But we also know that love is not enough - Shane loves Rose but they weren't compatible. Sometimes love isn't enough, for a variety of reasons.

This is why Shane and Ilya are terrified of coming to the cottage. Because we still don't know if they're compatible beyond the incredibly hot sex and psychic level hockey passes. The tuna melt date was nice before Shane crashed out, but that was just one afternoon.

"I like you" is the missing piece in their relationship. I know that I love you and I desire you and we play good hockey together, but do I like you?

The cottage scenes answer: yes. I like playing with you and I like cooking with you and I like talking to you and I like sharing space with you and I like sleeping next to you and I like waking up with you. I like you.

Finally had an idea for my mini quilt swap! My swap partner likes knitting too so I thought I'd try out a raw edge applique of knitting 🤔

Its coming together 😎

2026 January 3

Full Moonlight Image Credit & Copyright: Zhengjie Wu and Jeff Dai (TWAN)

Explanation: The Full Moon is the brightest lunar phase, and tonight you can stand in the light of the first Full Moon of 2026. In fact, the Moon’s full phase occurs on January 3 at 10:03 UTC, while only about 7 hours later planet Earth reaches its 2026 perihelion, the closest point in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, at 17:16 UTC. January’s Full Moon was also not far from its own perigee, or closest approach to planet Earth. For this lunation the Moon’s perigee was on January 1 at 21:44 UTC. You can also spot planet Jupiter, near its brightest for 2026 and close on the sky to the Full Moon tonight. But while you’re out skygazing don’t forget to look for rare, bright fireballs from the Quadrantid meteor shower.

Zhao Zhao (Chinese, b. 1982)

Constellations, 2021-2022

Constellations, 2017 (300 x 980 cm)

A First Nations child in Canada doing a traditional dance in front of a Catholic monument in a jingle dress with live singers accompanying her as an act of defiance proving that the residential schools failed to eradicate their people. Kids shoes have been left on the stone steps, presumably equivalent to the number of child graves recently found in an old residential school.

But I'll point out something slightly off topic from the question (but its related), that based on what types of weirdos I've seen & interacted with, it reminds me of a certain type of anti-Landback weirdos. There are ppl who are anti-Landback because they either 1. Don't understand what it is & just define it as "reverse colonization" with everything the exact same but with Native Americans as your new oppressive overlords and/or imagine us to be violent & vengeful (which it isn't) or 2. They DO know what it is but they don't want it to happen because they like the current oppressive system & are racist so they fearmonger about it. I mention this because I've seen people lament over the current political landscape and say that Turtle Island should be colonized by x European Country (again) or China or what have you, to turn it into a colony in order to "rescue" it, but at the same time very openly reject Landback because they imagine it to be Native Americans still reinforcing the Nation State with borders (and/or ethnostate specifically) largely the same as it is now & are like the first type I mentioned. So they're admitting theyre fine with colonization AGAIN but the exception is if its done by Native Americans. Which is crazy & speaks to how a lot of settlers haven't done enough to fully understand colonialism, imperialism, landback, & racism and how all those things are VERY interconnected, even when they claim to be educated leftists/communists/revolutionaries/etc.