A Journey
(Listening to this album while you read, is strongly encouraged)
This is a story about the power of music. This is a story about how music is connected to everything. This a story about letting the magic of music reach deep down inside of you and connect you to far deeper things than anything you could ever imagine. This is the story of my experience listening to Watin, by Aysanabee.
Aysanabee is an Oji-Cree singer/songwriter from Ontario, Canada. His album Watin is a creation of his soul, it was inspired by conversations with his grandfather, Watin Aysanabee. I encourage you to listen to this album from its beginning, and do not stop until you have finished it. Open yourself to hearing the truth and let this wrench your soul. I have never experienced anything like this.
Aysanabee opened his spirit and poured his authenticity into his art and then he gave it to us. Thank you, Aysanabee, thank you for being gracious enough to share your journey. I am not the same man I was before I heard your music.
Listening to the conversations of a man rediscovering where he came from has been a chance to take in something truly sacred. There is so much power, sadness, and beauty in this album. I am still sorting it out. This entire experience is an example of the deepest of magics in music. As you listen to Watin Aysanabee’s voice, let it reach within you, let it move you. I know of no other example that can demonstrate the power of music to move you better than this album.
I read with sadness that Watin Aysanabee completed his journey on May 9, 2023. His story will live on because his grandson decided to capture his beauty and weave it into his art. What they both have given us will take me some time to understand.
Music finds you when you are ready to face a truth. It could be a small thing or something that reaches through generations. That is how this is digging into my spirit; it is shining a bright light on the footsteps that brought me here.
I am the tenth generation of Beard’s that have lived in North America. John Richard Beard immigrated to Massachusetts from England in the 1600’s, he was a Quaker and given his father’s issues with the crown, he came looking for religious freedom. The Beards were here before there was a declaration or a constitution, but I know very little about who the Beards were. The little bit I do know is that Beards were hard workers and very dedicated to the service of this nation, but we have never really been that nice. The only stories of my grandfather Beard are those of his cruelty to his kids…and yet there is deep goodness in my father, his laughter, and his ability to dream are some of the precious gifts he has given me, but he has a place that can look away from the horrors of this world and even his own life, if he chooses. I can talk about this because it exists within me too. I know how to turn away if I choose to, but I will not turn away from this. Listening to the journey that these two men took together has grasped me by the shoulders and made me look into the face of colonization and try to understand my role in it.
I will not turn away.
Colonization, a term that will carry many different emotions depending on where your family came from. As a child, I never knew the term to be derogatory, on the contrary, I was taught the value of it, over and over. I was taught that the colonization of the America’s was Gods’ destiny for us, I was taught this in every church and every school I attended. Manifest Destiny is the constitution of colonization. We have to understand this ground that we are built on if we want to do anything worthwhile. Manifest Destiny, Eminent Domain and Documents of Discovery were the licenses by which countless civilizations were eradicated. We have to understand that this nation was founded on principles that will never align with our deeds.
Our foundation is built from the blood of the civilizations we destroyed by colonizing. We must understand this if we are to ever be truly free. We cannot turn away and push it on to another generation. Every day our civilization becomes less civil, children are gunned down at school, at church or at the mall… and we just walk on. I choose to not walk on, I choose to take responsibility for what my ancestors gave me, all of it. That is why I write.
I write so that my kids and my grandkids will never have a doubt about the direction I am trying to point them. This generation of Beard has no excuses because I am here, and I am writing so you can hear me. Do not look away. We all have something we create. Find yours, make it beautiful and pour your soul into it. I am writing because that is what I have to give you. I write to leave you a record…. You cannot say you didn’t know.
How would you survive having your children stripped from your home for the explicit purpose of eradicating your existence. How do you walk away from that?
We are blood thirsty people.
Being honest goes against all of our programming, it goes against all of the things that give me privilege, and privilege has nothing to do with my income status. Privilege is how I am treated by society and acknowledging my privilege requires nothing of me. That is the privilege of privilege. White Europeans know absolutely nothing about the trauma of having your ancestors driven to reservations and schools designed to hold them until they existed no more.
How many of you know the deep scars that move through generation after generation of a people?
Did your ancestors arrive in the cargo hold of a ship to be sold as livestock in this great “free” land?
How many of you know the horror of having all of your property confiscated because you look like the enemy across the sea, and now you live in a prison camp, in this great “free” land?
Remove these things from our history books and you take away any hope we have of surviving.
Indigenous people from thousands of nations lived on these continents for tens of thousands of years before Columbus or even the Vikings landed. They thrived in this land and survived every natural turn of the Earth. In the tiniest fraction of that time, we white Europeans have brought the wrath of this planet upon us all. She is giving us warnings, but she might decide she is done and just wash us away. We really are that insignificant in the grand scheme of everything. Your bank account will not get you or your descendants past this. Even if we get real and give all control of everything over to the stewards who were placed here first, I am not sure if this beautiful world will change her mind. She is angry…
This is not about god, or the end times, no one is going to whisk you away.
Every time I listen to this album, I peel back another layer of who I am and what my ancestors did.
Every time I listen to this album, I peel back another layer of grief for the things that were lost.
Every time I listen to this album, I peel back a layer and find hope.
I encourage you to read the lyrics of this album while you listen. Listen to Watin tell his grandson the words of his people and what they mean, honor that knowledge as you hear it, attempt to understand it. This is a gift, and we should treat it as such.
If you are reading this and hail from a white European family like me, I hope you feel some grief. With grief we might take a step forward, but without it we are doomed to repeat our atrocities and ultimately, we will evaporate. We will wash away like vapors on the horizon when the heat rolls up out of the desert.
We are not Nomads, we have not found the beauty of following the seasons. This is cemented in my understanding every time I have a customer come through my line complaining about the rain and the grey in the Pacific Northwest.
We are not Nomads… but can we strive to be wise? Can we just once understand that there is more to us than just our Bones.
“Believe your words before you shout them out.”
Does providing reparations mean we will heal? It will not restore the civilizations that have been lost but I know we have to do something. I do not believe that our nation can survive if we do not deal with the blood on our hands. Listening is our only chance to know the way forward.
I have been listening to this album for over two months now and there have been weeks that I listened to nothing else. I will continue to take this in. I wrote a letter to my grandson while listening to this, he turns eighteen this month and my hope was to give him some keys to walk through the challenges of life. I believe that is one of the steps towards healing. If our grandchildren don’t hear from us, then they are destined to spin their wheels just like we have.
My relationship with music is the thing that makes me weird, and it is that weird that lets me see my role in hope. In examining that relationship and writing about it, I am coming closer to the truth of me. I believe that finding that truth is one of the few things of value I can pursue. Pursuing my truth and supporting everyone’s pursuit for themselves is one step in creating a world we can all thrive in.
We need to find a path to coexistence, but I clearly do not have the answers. We need to stop acting like we know what to do and listen. Listen to what the world is trying to tell us and act on it. Listen to those who have tens of thousands of years of experience stewarding our home and act on it. I am part of the solution as long as I don’t look away and listen…
Listening, learning, and growing…
A Connoisseur's Lullaby 