Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Ethan Allen homestead museum's monthly lecture series. My name is Angie Grove. I'm the executive director at the Ethan Allen homestead museum. And before we get an introduction to today's program, I have a few remarks about the museum. We are a community nonprofit museum and we bring this lecture series to you as part of our larger community enrichment program, which is sponsored by some of our community partners. I'm going to pull those up right here. So I'd like to thank our community partners at North Country Community Credit Union, MNT Bank, AARP, Vermont, and Town Meeting TV. Town Meeting TV records this program and puts it on their TV channel as well as allows us to put it on our YouTube channel so it can respond to people. So thank you to our community sponsors for this and all of our community enrichment programs. Second up, I want to tell you about some upcoming events at the Ethan Allen homestead museum. Our lecture series continues in April on April 21st. We will have Rob Grandchamp who will be talking about the history of Masons in Vermont. If you are a regular attendee of our program, you might have heard Rob Grandchamp speak last October and he spoke about the Civil War and he went off of no cards, no presentation and was engaging for the whole time. So he's a great speaker and he'll be coming back April 21st for our next month's program. We also have, coming up, our spring book club is meeting on May 5th at three o'clock and the book club right now is reading the whole Bernard Cornwell. This is a historic fiction novel. It is steeped in primary source research and it is all about a Revolutionary War battle that happened up in what is now Maine and which is part of the Greater New England. So a lot of similarities to what was going on in Vermont as well. Anyone is allowed to join us for the book club, whether you've read the book or not, and this is just casual conversation amongst people about books about history over tea and cookies. So that's what the museum on Sunday made sense. The last thing about the museum I'd like to mention is that we are gearing up for our 2024 season, so we are in need of volunteers. We have lots of different projects you can get involved in if you're interested in volunteering. We have volunteers work the museum at the front desk, give tours. We have an archaeology team of volunteers who are sorting artifacts. We need educators for field trips and we also have some historical research and some digitization projects going. So if you have any time that you're looking to give it back to the community and you might be interested in one of these projects, please email me at ethanownhomestead.com and I can tell you more about the project and send in the volunteer application to you. Okay, the lastly is not with the Homestead Museum, but with one of the organizations that we sometimes partner with. Since it's very much related to today's program, I thought this audience might be interested in the Bridging Perspectives series, which is with the Abnaki Artist Association here in Vermont. We've partnered with them on other programs and their director Vera has given our lecture last year in January as well. So they have this upcoming series and the one that's coming up right around this one is March 21st, Intergenerational Trauma, Healing and Resilience. And like our monthly lecture series, their programs are also being recorded, so you can also catch them after the fact as well. That's with the Abnaki Artist Association. Now I just really quickly want to talk about what my role is going to be in tonight's program or this afternoon's program. I'm going to act as the facilitator watching the chat box and then at the end of the program I will also then be facilitating the Q&A session with Joe helping call on hands and calling on questions in the chat box. So if you have any questions, please save them to the end. But if you do put a question into the chat box in the middle of the presentation, we will get to it at the end of the program as well. So you can type it in there if you're afraid you're going to forget it. So now I am going to step down and I'll come back at the end of the program to help with Q&A and I'm going to introduce the man who is them going to introduce our speaker. So I'd like to introduce Glen Fay. Glen Fay is a board member here at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum. He also is independently a historian, an author, a researcher and an all-around great guy and he has I believe seen programs by Joe before that he might tell us a little bit more about and it was Glen who turned our eye to Joe. So thank you Glen and take it away. Thank you Angie. It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Joseph Bruchak today. Joe was raised in the Adirondack Foothills town of Greenfield Center by his maternal grandparents. He's the founder of the Greenfield Review Press which has published over 150 multicultural books and anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction. Joe has earned his BA from Cornell University, masters from Syracuse and his PhD in comparative literature from the Union Institute and was named the 2023-2025 Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs, New York. Joe Bruchak is a citizen and honored elder of the Nalhegan Band of the Kusak-Abonaki Nation. Joe can be seen with his son in the new PBS documentary Mananak, The Mountain That Stands Alone, posted on the website joebruchak.com. Our songs remember is a combination lecture and performance focusing on the ways in which the Abonaki oral traditions of storytelling and music play a part in the preservation of our indigenous ways. Incorporating, and I'm going to butcher this Joe, Park Hulligan the Drum and Abakangan the Flute, Joseph will take us on a journey to the enduring roots of the Western Abonaki nations, showing how songs carry the heart and meaning of this enduring Native American culture. Both English and Abonaki language will be heard throughout the presentation and several stories will be told that exemplify the way oral tradition has always served at least two purposes, to entertain and to instruct. I've seen Joe perform and I was left with the realization that this gifted man brings people together and we need more of that. Let's have a listen. Joe, you're on. Like why? He don't want. The reason so is up. I don't know. My name is Joseph with a piece of one. In the area called Saratoga, where the medicines bring place. A human being, one who stands up and tries to do right is what I am. I hope so are all of you. Of our older traditions, one of the ones that I'm very fond of is the way to open a gathering with the sound of the drum. For the drum is the heartbeat and that heartbeat is always held within us. That song of the heart is always being played, although sometimes we do not listen to it. And this song is one that would be used in a very simple way. When we traveled by the old super highways of the rivers and the lakes, we came to a community that was not our own. We would politely ask permission to lend our canoes by singing a song from the water. And those on land could respond with a song welcoming us. I should say that my son Jesse, who speaks the Abenaki language quite fluently and runs our Abenaki language program is both at our center and at the University of Middlebury, first heard this song when he was four years old. It was being sung as a Pasamaquati welcome to those of us coming from other nations to Pasamaquati ceremonial days in Pleasant Point, Maine. So this song. So I hope that I am welcome and that I've landed my canoe in a good way. By the way, I want to point out my drum. On this drum, it has four circles, one in each of the four quadrants standing for the four directions, standing for the four ancestors of grandmothers too, and grandfathers too. And also a teaching that was given me many years ago by Harold Tantequigen of the Mohegan Nation. He had this design across with those four dots on the wall of the Tantequigen Indian Museum. And he told me that the first one stands for the first step we all need to take to listen. We must always listen with both ears. Remember, we have one mouth and two ears. So listen at least twice as much as you talk. And then the second step is to observe, to look closely and make sure we know what we're seeing before we begin to speak about it. The third is part of what this story is about, part of what this day is about, this presentation, to remember. One of the most powerful things we can do is remember and by hearing and seeing that memory becomes clear. And then the last is to share, which keeps that circle going around. So listen, serve, remember and share. Memory is a powerful thing. Our song is remember. That is what I've called this particular presentation. And quite frankly, it's simply true that songs remember in our indigenous tradition, songs are not just words and music performed by people, songs are living beings. They're aware. They have existence beyond us as well as within us. Song is one of the most essential things that makes them human beings. Before we were human. So therefore, think of the song as a gift from creation that we must listen to carefully to understand. I'm actually going to not just look at our Abenaki traditions, but also draw in a few things from other places I've been and other people I've known. And one person I want to mention right now is a dear friend of mine, Kevin Lockea Inajin, the first to arise, his Lakota name. Kevin walked on in 2022. But his songs and his stories are still with us. He was a great flute player and a hoop dancer. And he told me a story that I've never forgotten. By the way, Kevin and I were performing together at the First International British Storytelling Festival in 1989.   And we heard on the wind coming to us, a song. Kevin told me that many years ago, he was performing at the Mesquaki settlement. By the way, the Mesquaki nation in Iowa, made a nation in the state of Iowa is not on a reservation. It is actually privately owned land. Many times, including near the St. Lawrence Valley, decided they would not leave Iowa. And so they sold their horse herd and bought 70 acres. That was their personal land. That's where the settlement is. And today, the settlement is 7,000 acres. And the Mesquaki people are still there. By the way, if you know any of Benikey, you'll hear the key at the end of their name, which indicates they're Algonquin speakers, like our Benikey people. For Ki means this earth. And Mesquaki means Red Earth people. Well, before his performance that evening, Kevin walked out into the fields there in Tama, Iowa, where the Mesquaki settlement is located by. And he listened. And he began to hear a song. And he took his flute and began to play that song that he heard, thinking he'd been given a new song and feeling really blessed by it. So that evening at his performance, he told that story, played that song. And then afterwards, an elder came up to him and said, Oh, I am so glad you played that old song of ours. I have not heard it for 40 years. You see, the wind had remembered the song had remembered itself. So too, it was giving itself back again. You know, when I was living in West Africa between 1966 and 1969, the power of song was made clear to me on a daily basis. Songs were in every aspect of life, whether it was weaving cloth or pulling the nets full of fish from the Gulf of Guinea, or in the funerals that were as strong as the throbbing of the drums at night and voices were lifted. You know, one of the saddest things about the Western world, for example, that all too often was afraid of the power of traditional music. Drums were banned in so many places, including here. It was actually several decades ago when the drum was finally returned to both the Abenaki people of Vermont and also the two reserves of Wollinac and Odenac in Canada. At the same time, those drums were returned. My son, Jesse, was part of the forming of the drum groups in both of those communities. Homer St. Francis, who was the chief of the Mrs. Goy Band, then called the, a slightly different name, St. Francis Sokoke, because Sokoke is one of our original Native people who made up what became called Abenaki, which is a conglomeration of a number of different Algonquin-speaking nations, all related cousins to each other, pushed and changed in their location by the forces of colonialism, especially British colonialism. In any event, what Homer said to me was he remembered when he was a young man, if anybody in the town of Swanton, any of the Native people, played a drum within five minutes, the state police were at their door, breaking it up and confiscating the drum. The same thing happened in Canada. The two reserves, which were made up of refugees from New England at those reserves, if you played a drum, the Catholic priest would quickly show up and take the drum and stop the gathering. So what they learned to do there at Odenac was to use the rattle, because when you use a rattle, a rattle cannot be heard outside of your house where the song and the dance are taking place. And also a rattle can just be shoved into your shirt when someone shows up who shouldn't be there, and then you can take it out again after they leave and to make it even more interesting. What would happen is it had these gatherings, if they had someone outside watching for the priest and they saw the priest coming, they warned the people inside and immediately the fiddles would be pulled out, and by the time the priest arrived, they were all playing the fiddle and square dancing. By the way, there is a song that remembers that, which I heard performed one year when my family and I were actually performing a part of the summer celebration at Odenac. And that song, which is done with the rattle and incorporates the dance, sounds like this. If any of you are fiddle players, you recognize that is Turkey in the straw, one way in which subverting the traditional of the European becomes a way of maintaining the traditional of the indigenous. When I lived in West Africa, one of the greatest composers of songs in Ghana was an illiterate, I use that word, illiterate, because he was certainly literate, a song that could be named Akpalu. And when I wanted to encourage my students to recognize the importance of poetry, that it was part of the dance, heading down some of his songs, which are their power, their poetry was so eloquent, I've never forgotten many of those songs in translation as well as one of the things Akpalu said to me when I visited him and met him was that the songs come to me in the night and they will not let me sleep. Those songs would wake him up and demand that he listen to them and remember them so that he could sing them. I have to say I'm familiar with that experience. I have to give in often in the middle of the night to get up and write what has come to me or try my best not to think of music or poetry before I close my eyes. When song is there waiting for you, your life is different. Songs are often critical or satirical or they may say something which someone doesn't want to hear. By the way, Akpalu told me a story about that. He wrote a particular song that was critical of the local government and the local government of the town banned the song but one day as he was walking through the market he heard that song being sung by a man from the Hausa tribe, a person from a different language group who did not speak the heavy language yet was singing that song and that delighted the old songmaker so much that he decided that he would write this song about it that even law cannot stop the power of a song. As I've traveled I've seen this happen in many different ways and I've also seen people saying that something is dead and gone. That's often been said about our culture, our traditions, our languages, our songs. In fact they will never come in. In 1992 I traveled to the part of Manavot, the Canadian territory that was seeded as partially self-governed by the Inuit people in the late 20th century. I was there as part of a film project looking at ways in which the indigenous traditions and prophecies had great meaning to a modern world where ecological devastation was threatening all life and still is. While on Baffin Island I was told by my Inuit hosts that I could not hear drumming because it had been totally forbidden by the Anglican church. In fact they told me there was only one drum on that entire huge island so I heard and recorded stories from the elders but did not hear one traditional song being sung. Let's fast forward 30 years and search the internet today. We'll find in 2024 recordings of contemporary Baffin Island Inuit people performing traditional songs on the drum including one lovely clip in which you can see a small boy with his own huge frame drum playing and singing next to the elder who sings that along with him. You know the story of colonization of the Americans and colonization of what we're going to call Vermont on Indakina, our land, is one of constant dislocation and the attempt to dissolution of indigenous people. It's a story still being told to this day by colonial voices in many ways and one of the things those voices constantly say is stop beating that drum, stop singing those songs. Native music although it's been distorted and misrepresented is ominous to the majority culture sometimes. Of course often the only things that they expected us to do were war dances usually something we made up on the spotter which was not traditional and they had created in the movies in Hollywood a certain drum beat which unfortunately we can still hear sometimes being uh being imitated at the football games. But if you see people performing oh I should mention one other thing which is kind of cruel living up to or down to majority culture's expectations is long been a part of indigenous life especially in the 20th century. In Swanton for example decades ago one of the ways that local eventic artists could sell their work was by coming to the train station early in the morning wearing everyday clothing like that of a typical rural Vermont of that period bringing along their craft work in several bags and before the train arrived taking out from those bags stereotypical Indian clothing complete with tall feathered headdresses so they would look real when sold their artwork to the white passengers. In fact western-styled headdresses were worn by prominent male leaders Native American nation until the last part of the 20th century when more traditional headcovers began to reappear which you can see on our elders and our leaders today in Vermont the new old way of showing your indigenous connection. And I should point out too an interesting thing about those headdresses is that they were almost always made of eagle feathers but they were found primarily in that particular form along the tribes of the great plains not here in the northeast and the idea of the honor of carrying the feathers of the birds on your head ties into another level of song the idea that songs were given to us by the birds that the songs that we hear can come from the wind and the birds now there's a little problem with audio so if I play this flute I'm sure that may be a little bit distorted so I'm not doing much of that but I will say that the story of the flute is a story of music and memory. The flute which we call pekongan the hollow object you blow through pekongan the flute we were given to us by the trees and by the birds that came to be pecker made holes in the hollow branch of the cedar tree that was broken off on the end when the wind blew across it it made a sweet sound now there was a young man who had not been able to think of any way he could tell this one young woman how he felt about her so his grandmother said go into kinsikapi we live in forest and listen and then you may hear an answer to what you need and he heard when he was asleep a whistling sound a pretty sound when he woke up that sound was still there he looked up and saw a woodpecker on the branch of a tree a hollow tree branch a cedar tree branch and when your boss was making that sound changing as the bird hopped from one spot to another and he realized that was a gift being given him that song was given him by the tree by the bird and by the wind and so taking that branch from the tree the first flute so how it was fashioned and then he began to practice because he knew that even though he couldn't speak he could still breathe a little bit when he saw that young woman and he made up a song for her he played it for her one night that she was in her lodge with her parents and hearing that song somehow she knew who it was and went outside as he stood there in the moonlight asked if that song was for her and he managed to say uh-huh they got to know each other they married and then when they married that song became hers it was like giving an engagement ring but one big difference because when that song became hers no longer was it played on the flute instead she composed words for it and turned it into a lullaby a lullaby playing the sound of the rattle and one of the interesting things about contemporary native music or actually traditional native music now is that the oldest recorded songs on wax cylinders were recorded on or of lullabies native american lullabies and about 25 years ago my son jessie and a group of other people from indigenous nations of the northeast were invited to the american philosophical society the american philosophical society in philadelphia has quite a collection of indigenous materials including a lot of these recordings where they didn't know what the recordings were where they came from or what they were about and in listening to them jessie and the other people were from algonquin nations said no oh those are lullabies and one of them the panabscot lullaby is from our people the so copies of those songs were recorded and repatriated back to the panabscot nation a song that had remembered itself even through the medium of a wax cylinder recording so that idea of memory and song can incorporate contemporary things as well i remember morise jenis madhawilasas an elder who lived in old forge new york telling me how when he was a young man he took a tape recorder and went from one elder to another all around new england gathering their stories hearing their songs and recording them so they would not be forgotten but our human memory is really important i remember morise saying to me joseph i want you to listen well and remember what i tell you because one day my children who are not listening to me may come to you and ask you to tell them the stories i shared with you thinking a story and song i also think of language i think for example of my dear friend jenie break an honored basket maker a language keeper a person who for generations here in vermont taught many other indigenous people those skills and those ways including dances and basket mating making they had not kept perhaps in their families as they once had and she told me a story and it has a song connected to it the story is that long ago the 18th century when the then community of odinak was attacked by rogers rangers the people ran for sheltered across the river not realizing that the one little girl was left behind her name was molly odd when they realized she'd been left behind someone went back to get her and she came close to the building where she was and by the way in those years in the 1700s the 1800s the 1900s many of our indigenous people did not live in wigwams they lived in frame houses just like their neighbors who were european and he could hear her singing a song that she just made up at that moment about how lonely she was and how she had no one as a friend to help her of course she was then taken and rescued and survived and that song was passed on down i'm not going to sing it to you because it is a genie brink's family song but i will say that my friend rejano bombs when i've got a link on here by the way to one of the songs and honored elder and spiritual leader also told me that story and that it was remaining as um it was told in the abenake language which brings me to sisi lowa no net sisi a teacher of the language who passed away a couple of decades ago she and her son elie worked with my son jesse in teaching and learning the abenake language so the others were not forget by the way abenake is how we say it word speaking abenake abenake is the way it's spoken in sort of the english way so i'm using both terms here you'll know neither one is wrong but uh one of the things that jesse quickly discovered with the language is that one of the best ways to teach a language is through music music helps you remember so instead of just saying um say thank you olione very good say thank you now say you're welcome and don't mention it very good now say olione now say and a lot of times people don't remember so we made up a song olione and thank you olione and thank you anodama we liuladamina anodama we liuladamina very easy to remember just like counting bazook nis nasyao one two three four we sometimes go to schools and we'll be telling one of these stories or perhaps singing one of those songs and kids pick it up immediately walk by a classroom later in the day and hear a bunch of third graders without our being there singing one of those songs that jesse composed using the abenake language as a memory tool as a powerful way to keep memory alive one of the things that connects to uh to song of course is poetry and uh it was mentioned that i am the uh poet laureate of seratoga springs so it is my duty to read to you a couple of my poems which tie right in to what i've just been saying the first one is called park holy god park holy god is our word for the drum park holy god a hollow object that is struck park holy god drum your voice is the oldest one the rumble of thunder that brought for a strain the music of life each of us heard before we saw the light of sun or placed our feet upon the earth hearing that deep felt sound of our mother's heartbeat yours is a rhythm all of our steps follow whether old or young no matter what tongue we speak or what words we may use to name ourselves we're always carried by that beat if we only listen we will hear you calling calling us together and one more poem for you this is called pekoan god pekoan god of course is the flute pekoan god pekoan the cedar flute hollow filled with a flow of breath pekoan god gift of the birds long call of loom hawks high cry pekoan god bright threads stretched from one heart to another sweet courting sigh pekoan god music beyond words from the place where songs begin I think that it's important for us to see song not as something someone else does and also not to see songs only for specialists there is the lyric of a popular song from a few decades ago it's the singer not the song I could not disagree more the singer is part of the song but the singer is guided by the song the song exists beyond and past any singer if that song is true and so it is that our songs and our stories remember and I pass these words on to you I think I'll pause right now and see if there are any questions because the question often leads to a story and a story can take a while to tell so let's turn it over to the audience now and see what you have to say and what you'd like to ask me remembering that I know a little but I don't know at all and you can't even say I know a lot but sometimes a little is more than others might have on their hands so over to you so I'm going to remove Joe as the spotlight so that I can see more people so if you have your hand up in your camera um I'll be able to see you you can also use the hand-raising feature in Zoom or you can put a comment or question for Joe in the chat box what do you need me to be thank you water uh s Papineau I can't tell if that was you having a hand up or if you're just waving say hi but you can unmute if you have a question I was just saying hi hi thanks actually when I hear the name Papineau it reminds me of um my dear friend Dewa Senta Alice Papineau who is the head clan mother of the eel clan in Onondaga and Alice is one of the people who told me that we must always give thanks we must sing or speak our thanks for all the things around us I just remembered that because I was just drinking water you said Joseph when you drink water always thank you to the water because without that water we would not be able to live and water too sings to us we heard the music of the brooks we heard the music of the birds we heard the music of the wolves singing to each other and it is said among the Haudenosaunee that human beings were the last ones to be given song everything else and creation had song and until we learned to listen properly we did not have those songs thank you for that I agree the audience is thinking about um some questions or comments they might have for you Joe I am going to share once again um the links that you asked me to share Joe with everybody they're going to come in as three separate messages in the chat box so that first link right there is joebruhack.com f slash the poetry of pop one so Joe what does that link about it's about one thing that I did begin uh doing back in the 1960s and that is writing about the poetry of popular music and the way in which music is a very significant part of culture and links us together so in fact we've been re releasing some of those essays I wrote on my website joebruhack.com and I tie it in with other cultural connections which are I think often not evident to people they don't recognize that indigeneity is not just limited to indigenous people and that we all need human beings to become more indigenous to become more of the place more of saving and containing and taking care of the place as well as each other to not forget the message of the wolves when they sing together their voices become stronger as they join together and the wolves taught us to sing together they taught us to care for our young that everyone in that wolf pack is responsible for every co these are lessons that human beings are constantly forgetting all you need to do is listen to some of the political campaigns going on these days and you realize just how much that lesson is lost on far too many human beings that's a really powerful message for everyone here joe so and your own words how would you find the word indigenous yes I think that indigenous is a good word the thing is people still use the word indian even though it's a result of a misunderstanding that's been used for so long it's in the constitution it's in popular native culture indigenous people on this continent constantly refute refute refer to themselves as being indian and make jokes about it as well but that idea of one of my friends or in lions who was an elder of the on indoctrination said thank goodness they didn't think they were trying to find turkey i need to think about that one by the way humor is a huge part of people who are truly in touch with their culture truly in touch with the land and with family because if we take ourselves too seriously usually means we're out of touch with those things it means that we think we are the be all and end all individually and that um everything else sort of is superfluous to our own particular pleasure at our own particular place and I think that is a huge mistake to make and it's often used in fact um we're going through a new period of genocide where people are literally trying to wipe out other people who are standing up and claiming and recognizing their identity as indigenous by indigenous I mean by blood by family by land by culture all those things define us as indigenous people rather than the just um you know a genealogy or a DNA test which means nothing and that idea that all of us are linked together is something that we need to recognize at the same time that every individual is different and every culture is different and needs to be listened to and needs to be respected I see a hand up mark lumbard yes thanks joe so much for what you're offering I was just I just finished yesterday a book um um and now I'm going to forget the name of it um in any case I I share a connection to Syracuse not only the university which I noted you have a connection to but as a but as a native of Syracuse and growing up there was a great deal shared about about Syracuse being um uh being the place of the Anadoga yes but there was a sense that while there while the Anadoga were a part of the the larger era coordination there was this sense that there was a division between um between indigenous peoples and and not so much of the connection and I guess I wanted to talk something or hear you talk about what's the balance of that that we should understand better maybe have a better understanding of and then the name of the book by the way was On Savage Shores sure thing I have that book actually and you know which talked about not not europeans going to the savage no but native people going to native people coming to what they saw as more savage which was absolutely which was the european theater just a tremendous book but it did also wrestle with that issue of the you know where there was those uh sorts of um competitions but also connections between indigenous peoples okay well let me I don't know if you have a perspective on them but I'll give you a quick a quick rundown because this could take days to talk about quite frankly but to begin with there are many different indigenous nations in north america and they did not always all get along there is history for example of migration so the Haudenosaunee the Iroquois people migrated into the northeast and their cousins the Cherokee migrated into the southeast and established themselves in the center of nations that were already there Algonquin speaking nations often this caused conflict but more often than not people would settle in two relationships with each other and trade was a big part of that so understand that to begin with no one nation's story is the same as another nation's story and quite frankly today I think we need to recognize that no indigenous nation has the right to tell people in another indigenous nation whether they are legitimate or doing the right thing we need to respect those boundaries which is traditional and understood also traditional and understood was the fact that there was adoption very frequently when there was warfare between Algonquin and Haudenosaunee people if someone was taken captive they could be adopted and made a full member of that society to the point where they no longer considered themselves to be Algonquin or Haudenosaunee but their identity had switched they had a new name they had families and there's a very funny story to me a lot of europeans were adopted that way there's a long history of that in fact in most of our native nations we have some indigenous and some native ancestry and we have some european ancestry because of that process of adoption and intermarriage that took place in fact often my friend Tom Porter who was an elder of the Mohawk nation the Ganyanke Gaha the people of the Flint or the stone Tom had to marry someone who was Choctaw because in his community you could not marry someone who was from your clan there are only three clans among the Mohawk Turtle Wolf and Bear so he couldn't marry anyone from his clan secondly by the way Bear clan secondly he could not marry anyone who was a cousin first second or third cousin and it eliminated virtually every young woman who could possibly be a belt so basically he had to go all the way down south to find his wife who was Choctaw and he said it was meant to be they were supposed to be together so you see often our cultures were made in such a way that they were exo they would draw people from outside within the culture so it wasn't in bread it wasn't just always marrying within the same small circle which is very helpful the second thing and again this is a big generalization but the europeans introduced a number of things to north america that were devastating of course diseases that was terribly devastating and of course warfare the french and the english brought a world war to north america and many of our aveniki people ended up as allies of the french while others like the joden osoni ended up as allies of the british and that caused great division and conflict between us which some people were remembered to this day but in general in general i would say that there is an understanding that we all share certain values and there are many things within our cultures that cross one culture to the other so that said i would also point out that there were always ways to make peace that peacemaking was a huge thing among our different native nations and the idea of using the pipe as a symbol of peace not as something to be smoked for pleasure unless you were very old elderly people could smoke tobacco but not young people it was done sacramentally a way of having ceremony to bring people together and again i am generalizing because it's different from nation to nation but many of these things are quite similar so i think if you take a look at the anadoga nation the anadoga are the center of the hudino sony confederacy a long time ago over a thousand years ago those five nations were at warfare with each other terrible war like what's going on in the middle east and the creator just said set a peacemaker who brought peace to them by speaking of the importance of peace by telling stories about peace and then they planted a ceremonial tree an anadoga a great pine tree and it was a tree with four white roots that stretched through all the directions you could come and be in the shelter of that tree and live together in peace ideas of american democracy come in large part from indigenous roots algonquin traditions that new england town meeting is a direct steal from algonquin traditions and the idea of the uh 50 senators there were 50 representatives of the league of hudino sony there were two houses on either side there was on anadoga where they met and that idea that everybody would have a voice and would speak was very important uh a number of my hudino sony friends my friend rick hill who is a really wonderful guy and a member of the tuscarora nation rick told me that there were two big mistakes that the americans made when they adopted their constitution they forgot important things were part of the league of the hudino sony one the women have no voice in the american constitution when it was written it was all men it was all men women did not have a vote they did not have anything to say and among the hudino sony the women always choose the leaders and the women are the heads of the family the ones who control the land and the ones whose clan has passed down from mother to daughter or son not from the father the second thing that they forgot or got wrong in the constitution was slavery how could you say that a human being is like three quarters or four fifths of human being that idea that you could have slaves that they weren't really fully people my hudino sony friends to this day shake their heads and be illogic of that particular structure so i've gone a bit far afield but the point is that there was and there remains a great variety of families and cultures and traditions among our indigenous people of this continent languages as well but there was always a lot of borrowing and back and forth between us in fact um this was uh something i heard i've heard said by various various different elders that um if you look at the songs and the dances we have among the hudino sony i'll just continue talking about them they have something called the alligator dance there ain't no alligators wild in new york city or new york state even they say they're the sewers there were no alligators where did it come from probably from the people of the south it was a good song a good dance and so it was taken and it was adopted became theirs and that connection was was really important one funny story about about song and dance is when i was in the when i was in alaska about 1983 i was at a big festival my friend norah dowan howard who was a wonderful clinkett elder was with me and there were different native groups of different like shemishan and then clinkett and sawn who were performing as they did this parade down the street and i was standing with all these clinkets and all of a sudden along came a float with all these shemishan people on it and they were singing and dancing this song with great vigor and every clinkett became quiet i didn't say a word i looked over at norah i said okay what's the deal she said well we sometimes have these contests with each other and if one nation of our people here wins the contest they get to keep the song she said that used to be a clinkett song but now it's theirs and we can't sing it anymore because it is gone to live with them she said it's gone to live with them like an adopted person it has gone to live with them i i could keep going far too long so i'll just leave it at that by the way indigenous continent is another good book for people to look at as well as 1491 and 1493 which talk about the colombian exchange i think that those books as well as savage shores are good to look at and i also mentioned a book of my sister marge is which is called savage kin just a book about the relationship between an anthropologist or ethnologist and native people here in the northeast it's quite a book one and a word from the american anthropological society savage kin k i n worth looking at thank you mark for that question thank you joe for the answer joe i'm going to type the names of those books into the chat box here um so there's savage shores uh savage kin 1491 1491 1493 and indigenous continent indigenous continent written by a british scholar about the uh the native communities and the native cultures of north america well done book and angie it was on on uh on savage on savage shores thank you yes okay um while i'm looking for another hand up actually joe there was a comment in the chat box for you from margaret lampman and she wrote so much gratitude for the gift of your words and music this afternoon thank you oh and i agree all you need me don't buy thank you my friend so those of you who are um looking in the chat box you might have noticed that i added in some more links these are from joe so the the next link joe was important expressions slash phrases in songs can you tell us a little bit more about what what's in that link that's part of what jesse uses to teach the abenneke language and the way to remember things is to sing one of these songs and when he does the full language immersion at middlebury college this summer a lot of singing is going to be taking place and a lot of memory is going to be carried by those songs and jesse was supposed to be with us here today i don't know if you mentioned it to the audience or not but unfortunately he wasn't able to to attend right we're too popular he agreed to be on a panel in brahmat at the same exact time at two o'clock and we look at our schedule at oh my gosh this occasionally happens um so we we try to coordinate as as good as we can but sometimes one of us slips up and fortunately it's done it joe don't worry we're really but you know what this is just a good excuse for us to maybe get jesse to come on as another speaker absolutely next year yeah um okay there's another the next link that you share you wanted everyone to have you described it as all the foundational patterns of the abenneke language in one song as a musician yes his music has been a primary driver in language reclamation reclamation efforts min course song right so take a look at it that's a youtube video correct yes great okay uh there is a message in the chat box from vera shean she says quiet joe your lifetime of dedication to the community and educating the public is so greatly appreciated thank you my friend my other person my other self and there's another message in the chat oh that one's just to me scenes they're not seeing the links in the chat so i'm going to send the links in the chat again everybody um so the first one i'm going to send uh joe can you tell us more about this link it's by rey jean obamsuin as for rey john obamsuin rey john obamsuin is one of the people in the community of odinac in canada who has been extremely important in keeping the songs and the dances and the traditions alive uh genie brink whom i mentioned regards him as a mentor and so do many other people and i have the deepest respect for rey john and his teachings and i always think it's important that when we learn something from someone we don't forget to mention them i'm always mentioning names and it's not meant to be name dropping it's just meant to be acknowledgement i always say that when you learn something that is a tradition from another culture you have a responsibility to do certain things one you need to acknowledge where it comes from two you need to know not just that one thing but all the background that makes it understandable for often people misunderstand things because they don't know the full background and then thirdly you need permission you need to have people say to you it is okay for you to share this i'll give you an example about 25 years ago i was working with symphony space in new york city to put together a series of programs called coyote walks around with traditional stories and songs and dances around the american continent and one of them was about the great plains and we had a number of folks from great plains travel nations who were performing and as the mc i was supposed to introduce people and maybe tell a story and one of the men um whose name was albert white man he was a champion uh bronc rider among the northern shyan told me i will teach you Joseph i will teach you the grass dance song for we are going to do a grass dance but you must promise me never sing that song unless there is about to be a grass dance and a grass dancer has asked you to sing it so i have sung that song three times in my life i've told that story three times in my life but i can't tell it right now because there's no grass dance going on so i think that's important for people to recognize and not to think that um you can just reach out and take something that's not the proper way to do it always give back more than you get thanks joe that's a good reminder for everybody in all context uh there's another message in the chat for you it's from dawn liana and willard p buddy now i don't know if don liana or willard would like to uh unmute and and say it out loud or if there's another avanaki speaker here maybe pat holly or vera might be willing to jump in i'm happy to unmute and say hi quiet quiet joseph chat was liwal al domina jesse quiet quiet oh you love domina thank you so much for that another message in the chat for you joe is from betsey fair she said thank you so much to joe and today's organizers i'm so appreciative of the chance to learn more about avanaki and other indigenous cultures okay if you have a question please either put it in the chat box or wave your hand in front of your computer screen mark go ahead just uh joe i noticed on your connected to the piece you had done speaking some about uh the iliad and the odyssey i did notice that there was a place for contact if we have other questions about culture would you mind if we dropped you a line to ask those that you you know when you have a chance to get to them absolutely i've got a feature in my joe bruschak dot com website where you can ask me questions in fact i got one today which i was kind of amused and pleased by my dad was a professional taxidermist and would actually uh wrote me a note saying they had a deer head my dad mounted in 1975 and they wondered if i'd like to see pictures of it and i said you bet actually 1956 excuse me 1956 so i love the fact that the world can be connected together in this way and that we can use it in a positive way there's far too much negativity on the internet and on various uh sites that you can find but i think if we use it as a way to enlarge our conversation and to share with each other and to ask questions if we have a question and i will always try to give an answer or at least say i don't know if that's the case for that question mark thanks for answering that joe okay everyone we have our last question um and before i read it out loud i am going to share my screen one more time um and this is mostly for the purpose of recording this program so all of the people who are not live with us who are watching this later can see all of those links that i shared in the chat box so i'm gonna leave that up for a minute while i find that question in the chat box i'm not sure i can find the chat box while i'm sharing my screen so if you're watching this as a recording and you want to type up those links go ahead and hit pause on the youtube video right now so that you can keep those or take a picture with your phone yeah that's another way so um this last question of the afternoon is from carol fornir and joe she says thank you for this engaging and deep learning talk can you speak to the indigenous communities in the adirondack region of history as well as the stories of the adirondacks region thank you yes actually yeah another book indigenousness which is by uh melissa otis and it's about the indigenous communities of the adirondacks and it's a really good book i i don't know anything else like this so i recommend this book and i actually write a lot i've got more that's going to be coming out about the history of our people in the adirondack region and saratoga region if you take a look at joe bruschak.com you'll find a few things but i would recommend this book of melissa's we had her at our our docuna education center when the book came out and she did a superb program so um the urocoin and algonquian people of the adirondacks rural indigenousness thank you joe and if you didn't already catch that i did type that into the chat box really quickly um so that you can look in there too if you need to see a visual okay so thank you everyone for attending this program i do really quickly want to announce that our april lecture will be in person so we're going back to in person at the museum on april 21st and again that's for the history of masons in vermont um with rob grand champ as our speaker um but before we all sign off can you please give a quick thank you to our presenter today thank you so much to joe very good i'm seeing lots of applause in the videos and joe there's a lot of positive messages in the chat box that are coming in as well from to all the people i know even you share hi everybody awesome oh joe okay joe is there any last message you'd like to leave us with for the afternoon well what we say uh to people as we're parting is uli farm kani which means have a good journey but i would also add uli galwi may you sleep well uli guasi may you dream well well thank you very much for those blessings joe thank you everyone for attending this program and i hope to see you at some of our upcoming events as well have a great day thanks and joe energy thank you everyone joe i don't know if you can see the chat box i can read out some of the messages for you if you like yeah what would you do that i don't see it right now absolutely diana would said thank you joe you're an amazing storyteller and i always enjoy learning from you vera wrote looking forward to seeing you on april fourth remembering the dawnland mark osbourne said thank you so much for sharing joe carol fornier said thank you joe nancy ravinelle said kachi willy me joe judy tomas says thank you so much for sharing your culture joe i appreciate you and you're sharing with all of us al bellucci said thank you for this awesome sharing don leona and willard p buddy um said kachi will newy and then they said geesh they gotta get their spell check to learn abinacchi so i know uh there's some people who might still be logged in because they may have just stepped away and maybe not realize programs ending but there's anybody who's um still on the program right now and had a specific question feel free to unmute and jump in thanks for that nice intro glenn i appreciated it you're welcome you deserve it and thank you for putting up with us you were really good at it glenn it's good to see you again thank you yeah and and thank thank you angie and joseph and and uh i don't know if veera had anything to do with this broadcast or not but i really appreciated it always and i can't say it in the language my kids can jesse's taught that yep that's our pleasure thanks for attending and joe one last message in the chat box from s papano so thank you so much so happy i found this great great okay well with that i think i'm gonna have us all log off and enjoy it sunday you can see all yoni and see what i want to see yoni


guys some volleyball vlogs and I've been playing for a little bit so I'm gonna show you some footage of me playing and me not playing and this is the higher level of play so you'll see a lot of different kind of players here you'll see co-ed you'll see women you'll see men so you'll see a lot of different things okay


What's going on fam? Raif DeRozzi here. It is officially Pride Month and with that being said I want to talk about the latest social climate when it comes to LGBTQ plus issues. I in the past few weeks, I've been called mentally ill groomer pedophile more times than in all the rest of my life combined. It's there's something wild going on right now and it's a narrative that's really being pushed heavily that anything essentially related to LGBTQ plus is related to pedophilia grooming, you know, indoctrination of kids and mental illness and basically discounting and invalidating the our entire community. You know, it it started out as specifically trans issues and then trans as it relates to kids and sports and then it's from there it it's it's a slippery slope and the reason why it's a slippery slope is because it was never about that in the first place it's always a bit been about not understanding our community and hating our community and wanting to discriminate but needing to start from somewhere and it and throughout history this call to protect the children, to save the children has always been a very thinly veiled excuse to discriminate and to inflict civil rights abuses that has time and time again, whether it's been with HIV, whether it's been with you know, interracial marriage. It's a time-honored tradition in using kids to justify your hatred and your discrimination and I you know, I posted recently that there are close to if not more than at this point, I don't know 500 anti-LGPTQ plus bills introduced into state legislatures in the US this year alone, which is already more than double that of 2022 and it's it's just continuing. There's no slowing down. There's no stopping it and things like, you know anti-trans bills don't say gay or anything else in schools bathroom issues conversion therapy being unbanned things like that and oh and the hospitals that are, you know, Christian or Catholic having the right to deny patients who they don't want to help and all of this, all of this is being driven by the narrative that we are trying to protect children and we're trying to save kids and I would argue that especially when it comes to education in schools that having LGBTQ plus education visibility, awareness is actually what saves kids and children. It's that is the answer not erasing us from school life and sure you can make the argument that oh, well, you know, that's not a place for for in schools sexuality especially at that age doesn't need to be taught by schools. They can learn that at home. They can get it from parents, whatever the reality is that's where kids spend most of their time as they're growing up. That is where they learn a formal education the alternative whatever your parents deem fit. Well, eventually that kid is gonna grow up to an age where they start to learn to figure things out for themselves not based on what their parents wanted to teach them. I mean, that's the real indoctrination is what your parents instill in you but by then it's too late as a child for me growing up gay not really having a chance to explore that on my own until I'm 18 years old and is or having a chance to learn that in school until I'm 18 years old it's way too late for me. It was way too late for me and I didn't have that exposure outside of school and the kind of education that you're gonna get outside of school is gonna be I don't know. It's that's the thing we don't know because it's kids are exposed to social media kids are exposed to TV and and cartoons and what they learn from their peers and exchange that way but to not have a formal education a scientifically founded based education that's that's a real travesty. I mean look at what happens with sex ed when sex ed is taken out of schools and then and then kids have to try to figure out how sex works and what their body is doing and and what menstruation is on their own and they don't and their parents are too uncomfortable to talk to them about it so they just kind of like hear myths and stories from kids and then they don't really understand how it all actually works it's and then it becomes this mess but when you have a formalized education backed by science that is standardized and taught across school systems. That's the best chances for success and so I just want to talk about my own experience growing up gay and and I and I want to do that because what these folks these extremists who are having a profound impact on I would say middle mainstream America the the non extremists if you will the people in the middle who kind of just want to like live their lives and aren't like hate filled and trying to like pass all these anti-discrimination laws are still impacted by hearing and witnessing the arguments from both sides and there's a lot of like rhetoric in the media there's a lot of stories that are untrue or they're blown out of proportion etc and so people in the middle kind of go well they have a good point that kind of make that makes sense. So yeah, maybe I agree with that What all of these bills are doing in most discrimination in anti-LGBTQ plus is taking us to a time that we've already been through we've already been there we've already done that I've already lived it and I can tell you that that that was not the answer that was not what was healthy in fact it was that was traumatic that is what fucked me up as a kid that is what made my childhood in so many ways unbearable to the point of you know getting to the point where I'm 16 years old and I'm ODing on pills because I have so much despair inside and hate for myself and a lack of self-esteem and then You know, it just compounds from there when I grew up being gay was definitely not taught in school at all. It wasn't mentioned. It wasn't mentioned in sex ed I had no idea the only frame of reference that I had to the notion of being gay was I remember one of the first times I like saw something and I felt different I didn't know what it was and I didn't know how to put it into words was like Seeing like an advertisement in a magazine. I remember it was a Marlboro ad and there was a Like a cowboy on a horse and it was like smoking a cigarette or something like that And then I remember thinking there was something about that guy that made me feel something And it was a good feeling but I didn't know what it was or how to put it into words and And then you know just seeing like pictures in National Geographic of like naked naked people and then Being more interested in looking at the naked men than I was in looking at the naked women Also, didn't explain it couldn't explain that and I remember the first time the concept of homosexuality that popped into my head was in junior high and I remember You know jokingly guys talking about like anal and like putting your Thing in someone's poopy butt and to me it was like what like that doesn't even make sense. Why would you do that?  And people were saying that to me People were saying that to me since I was I don't know in like fifth grade Calling me gay and faggot and blah blah blah and like I didn't have any Connection with what I learned was the definition of being gay and what my experience was So I legitimately was like I'm not gay like that's I'm not that's not who I am But then in the same instance I would have these you know Rare moments where I would like have this weird little like butterflies feeling experience like I remember when I was at home one time and The neighbors like right next to me our house. They were they were like in there in their teens to late teens I would say and I just thought they were so cool and I was baby I don't know 10 11 12. It's hard to remember and I remember one of the guys I was like was really really attractive and so but in my head It was like he's so cool Like he is so cool and I just want to be around him and I want to be his friend That's that's how I kind of like made sense of that feeling inside And I remember him like I was like kind of like oh one of the girls was really cute So I was like saying I was kind of like oh like being all like Giddy like oh, she's really pretty and it was his girlfriend and then and he thought it was like cute and funny So he like came over to me and I remember he was like whispering something in my ear and I could smell his cologne and like I just smelled this cologne and Like I just had this rush and this feeling again But anytime something like that would come up Immediately I was like if I start when I started to think about it in a sexual or romantic way It was it was like repressed that no, no, no, that's not okay. That's not good. We don't want that girls are good and And so I was like in extreme denial. I would not allow that to To be a part of me even though it invariably was So I'm being bullied since fifth grade Relentlessly like every single day Constantly on the other hand, I've got these feelings and these thoughts that I keep trying to push away And I'm telling myself it's just everybody experiences that a little bit and it's a phase and it's gonna go away And don't worry about it. Just focus on girls And just focus on myself and whatever these people don't know what they're talking about They're just being bullies and then at the same time There's there at that point. There really wasn't anything in media that I could like Learn from there wasn't like popular shows, you know, there wasn't like Will and Grace and Things like that. They're really just normalized it and made it seem like every day, you know If it did show up in the media, it was like extreme It was like this is not, you know, just friends having an encounter on a TV show and going through silly scenarios.   So That's not helpful either and I remember being in high school and and just like really starting to learn really serious things especially in history class about the world about Humanity about people and I just remember being so disappointed and so like sad That the people just were not Who I felt like I am on the inside I Assumed that everyone else was the same way inside and Has a really big heart inside and cares. I assumed that everyone was that way and if they weren't expressing it in the moment, it's because They were going through something and they just needed a little like a little nudge a little comfort a little help something that naive kind of sense that the world is just Just a hug away from being extremely good When in fact, it's a it's it's way deeper than that clearly as You know, most of us are aware at this point Yeah, do I think that all humanity is innately good? Yes But I don't think that it's that simple or that easy either And so that that facade that I created for myself and I'm sure part of that was a coping mechanism Mechanism in order to deal with all this crap that I had been dealing with for so long came crumbling down I could no longer hold that up for myself this Disney experience of life It just wasn't real and that realization, you know, that took me way down I Became a punk. I became a rebel. I was like I had like anarchy signs on my clothing I was doing that whole thing and experimenting with drugs and anything I could to cope and to look for people Who could relate to me and that they also had that same? just collapse of their view of the world and that pain that that trauma and I found that group and together we you know, we just Encouraged each other to keep feeling and being the way that we were so and that was destructive And it got to the point where eventually I was so depressed Consistently all the time on a daily basis. I couldn't bear to continue to be depressed like that It was so like what is the point of living life if that is how you are gonna feel all the time What is the point? You know other people have I feel like when I watch movies and stuff sometimes like these people who will go through Hell and high water and do anything and everything just to live I'm like Kudos to you, but I am not that person like there is a point with which I Question the purpose and the value of living like to me living is not the end all be all Like especially if you believe in an afterlife. It's like, okay life is just just a chapter like it's not it I Don't need to live if I'm gonna be you know like in a cave with you know Eating eating shoe leather and drinking water every day for 30 years like that is not to me worth Living so and I'm a little bit more philosophical about life. So going into depression with that kind of mindset I eventually was like I don't want to do this anymore. I can't do this. I Didn't want to die, but I also Didn't know how to help myself and there was no one who could help me It seemed like no one was helping me including my parents They didn't know how and I was just at a loss. So like I'm like well I'm gonna OD on all these pills and if I die then that's it And if I survive well, then maybe maybe that will wake someone up enough to like Do something help me. I need help. I can't figure it out on my own. I'm 15 16 years old and Clearly I survived and I went to a mental hospital for a week until I was deemed not a danger to my own health and And That helped I After that I I was like, okay, you know, I got it. I got to change something. I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I Really loved the idea of acting and being in the drama club So I joined the drama club and I really really really loved it Instantly and it was so time-consuming to be part of that drama club that I had to make a choice between doing drama in high school or hanging out with this group of friends and The group hanging out with the group of friends while fun and made me felt like I belong and other people understood me It was really it led me down a really destructive path So it kind of made sense for me to just pursue acting and I made friends with all these people Amazing like in our drama club in high school. It had we had football players.  You had all types. We were all friendly. We all got along for the most part And so that was amazing to be part of this group doing something that I loved that was super productive and they made me happy and While in the drama club, you know, it came to light that a lot of my friends that I had made went to church every week And so I started I started going to church too and I was like, wow, you know, this is another layer of like self-help here because Excuse me what I was learning in church Made so much sense self-love loving others You know having this connection with with a higher God with a higher purpose Having a purpose on earth, you know, all the tenants that it teaches you about how to live like basically as an Essentially a good person. Those were all things that I valued from the get-go and here was a place where everyone was coming together to Support the same ideology and it was great And there was there was a band that played every week and it was and we did worship and that worship was like meditation for me And it was like therapy and it was catharsis, you know, I could Connect with people in through music and that was that was really really awesome, too There was so many amazing things I made so many friends in church I found mentors in one of the pastors in In an elder in the church who I greatly looked up to and so things were going great for a while until You know, I had to come to terms with being gay And that didn't really happen until I fell in love with my best friend And again, there was no language there. There was no education there You know, there was definitely exchanges between us about like, you know, if I was gay No, if I sorry, he said, you know, if he broke up with his girlfriend He would turn gay for me like out of the blue out of for no reason whatsoever Like we were just close like that and I and I didn't think it was weird and I actually was really heartened by it and it felt nice to be connected to somebody like that and Um, but when I eventually, you know Just was direct with him and I said, hey, you know, I think I have feelings for you and I think, you know, I Have feelings for you and I said, but I'm I'm not expecting anything either way I just wanted to like talk to you about it and and here what you had to say it was like It was like what he flipped switch 180. I don't know what you're talking about and never said any of those things You know, you know, like don't message me anymore. Don't talk to me anymore It was like my best friend one day just became someone who wouldn't no longer even talk to me anymore after that and just instantly We all have the same circle of friends in drama in church, etc And suddenly whoa so and I kind of like just kept myself for a while because I was like holy shit that went really really bad and Um He ended up outing me to all my friends and so they all knew before I even had a chance to tell them Which I eventually did and they're these are like well, we already know and he of course won the story So that I just made everything up and I'm the crazy one and at that point again, I'm self-hating I Suppressing my homosexuality any Experience that I've had with being gay has been negative. None of it has been through school or a proper education or Having visibility in media or support from corporations like we have today at all nothing um and then at that point I Turned to my church.   There's there's like a ray of hope a ray of sunshine. I can still Have everything that I've I've gained Since I tried to commit suicide and still live my life and at that point I Told my parents because I was like, okay, I have a plan now.   Yeah, we support you. Great. That's that's that's a great plan We're here for you if you need anything. I was like, okay cool Do you know what that was? What that's called. It's called conversion therapy. I had no idea. That's what I was doing But that's obviously what I was doing. I was meeting with my pastor once a week one on one to talk about My homosexual feelings to eradicate anything in my life that could lead me to the temptation of being gay I had to read certain scriptures in the bible certain passages I had to refrain from masturbation from looking at any type of porn because all those things were Temptations that could lead me down the wrong path In addition to meeting with him once a week and telling him all my deep dark secrets and crying and confessing to him what I was going through The and then and then at the at the same time there was this guy that I met On a school trip that I had this connection with and he had a connection with me and it was amazing It was my first time I actually like reciprocated the feeling of like love with another guy And I had I had I told him I can't Be I can't like talk to you anymore. I can't like Consider you in that way anymore. Like we have to end it. We have to break it off Blah blah blah. I broke my own heart. I broke his heart and that was to please My pastor in the hopes that I was going to be straight In addition to that I was going once a week to a sex addicts group Therapy at the church a bunch of other christian guys who were sex addicts some of them were Legitimately addicted to sex and pornography and like and had cheated on their spouses What have you and then I think there was at least one other guy Who was a little older than me probably in his early to mid 20s who was also gay and trying to be straight And I remember being attracted to him And I wanted to like reach out and talk to him connect with him But I was like, no, that's exactly what the devil would want me to do in this situation And I'm here to be straight So and I went through that for about six or so months Until I was starting to get so depressed again that I Was starting to think about suicide again And told my stepdad and my stepdad finally said, you know, if it's making you feel this way Then maybe you should stop and I said Okay And so I did and I told my pastor that the one that I was Going into conversion therapy with and he said Well, you have to know that if you decide to stop conversion therapy Then that means that you're willfully living in sin And if you're willfully living in sin Well, then you can't be a leader in the church. You can't be in a leadership role And doing theater in the church, which I had been doing a lot of shows a lot of plays I could he said I couldn't do it anymore There was this thing that I love that I found that I'd passion for in a community that I loved with new friends and that I consider family and that represented everything that I aspired to be And he said if you want to be Gay then all that gets taken away And I was like Chad The pastor I was like I can't like I'm feeling suicidal. I it's not I don't have a like I can't do it I can't do it And so he's like, okay. Well, then, you know, it is what it is and I You know, my christian friends didn't understand and they didn't support me And while I was doing this theater in the church. I had also started doing theater at the local private christian university Known as vanguard university. It's in coast to mace of california And the head of the theater department loved me. She wanted me to go there. She wanted me to attend when I was ready to go to college Because I had taken a break right after high school to go to like community college So she's like we would love for you to transfer in and immediately join the theater department We need guys to be in theater here and I had done even though I wasn't a student I had done several shows at the university with and I had developed, you know friendships with the theater department and the other students I was so excited and In order to get into a private christian university. You need to have a pastoral reference aka a A letter of recommendation from a pastor from someone at the church of authority who can vouch and say that you are someone who is You know living a christian lifestyle and therefore, you know is should be able to go to this school and my pastor Also made it very clear that he would have to put in the reference letter That I was willfully living in sin and that Part of the letter forget everything else I had done was doing forget everything else about who I am as a person None of that mattered except for that one part of the letter that said I was willfully living in sin And That meant that my application to the university was denied I could no longer go there and That was it. I I mean, that's essentially what you would call excommunication. I got kicked out of the church I lost all of my friends and my christian family. I Couldn't do theater anymore. I couldn't do the thing that I loved. I couldn't go and and worship with with my fellow christians I tried to go to the church and and just try to like attend the services, but it was like The pastor was talking about Anti-gay stuff.  They don't want kids to have exposure to The gay community at all whatsoever via stories via books The argument is because Sexuality has no place at that age.  I mean using that same logic You you wouldn't be able to have straight Families or a story about a man and a woman or a boy and a girl either But we all know it's not really about that.  It's about love. It's about intimacy. It's about connecting with another human. It's about Understanding who I am in relation to another person and how I fit in the world. That's what it's about Who am I in the world? not What part of my body, you know interacts with another part of somebody of somebody else's body.   I did not know how to find a healthy relationship I did not know how to have healthy sexual relationships. I didn't know how to Determine who was good for me as a person in general I didn't have self-esteem. I was lacking in confidence Other people express it in different ways. They become cynical. They become drug users You know alcoholic You might become cynical You might lash out Be angry.  It's my fault because of the way I was born.  But that's the argument that's made is that these people are sick and twisted Look at the way that they behave that proves it Anyway, that's my rant. I know this was a long one. I just really had to like I was just really feeling really melancholy today I was feeling really sad Um I'm just kind of going through it Um, I don't know I just have days like that where I'm melancholy. I'm probably tired and I'm probably sore from working out a lot Because I've been going to the gym lately a lot And um, it drains my energy and it also kind of will take me to Darker places and things, you know bubble up that I've been going through lately and and stuff like that. So but nevertheless I felt like it was something that's worth talking about especially now that we're in in pride in pride month and Look around like all the stuff that's happening with All this cancel culture it's ironic because cancel culture is supposedly just for woke people but cancel culture is like everybody Cancel culture has always been here. It's called boycotts. It's just we're giving it a different name now and and saying Oh, it's woke people. Yeah cancel culture woke people. It's like no Everybody does it Everybody decides. Oh, I don't like what that corporation is doing.   Okay, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that Everybody can do that but the amount of hate and vitriol that's coming forth like these target Videos people going to target and just like Man just going off on the employees as if the employee has like any say In what is being displayed in the stores They're they're just trying to do their they're just trying to work Like if you're gonna give someone a hard time Go to the ceo go to the boards of these companies go to the decision makers But the reality is it's not about that. It's just about Social media is just about making a punchy video getting some clout, but it's so hate-filled It's so angry and it's so alienating and destructive Um Like and and and a lot of it's like manipulated like this tucking bathing suit People were saying the in the kids section They have this bathing suit for kids for tucking And then I read an article of ap news came out and said no it was only for adults There was no like kids tucking bathing suit So I'm like But you can you imagine just like being an average person an average adult you don't follow lgbtq stuff You don't really know many gay people or have that many interactions You're just kind of like you're living your life. You got your family. You got your kids Whatever you don't really care and then along comes this video saying can you believe there is this bathing suit for kids So that they can tuck their genitals in and be trans at like six years old can you believe that and then in your mind you're like wow that's Kind of crazy that a parent is doing that You know for a kid who is six years old and doesn't really know anything yet And we can have all kinds of discussions and arguments about whether it's okay or not at the end of the day But the point is stuff's being skewed. There's so much hate and discrimination out there and it's like Not legit information a lot. It's Um So What what next I don't want to end this on like a terrible note terribly negative. Um, I just think that You know, there was a time where we all kind of got a little bit complacent with our rights And you know, I've always kind of known it's fragile. We can't take our rights for granted, etc but you know, I'm of the mindset that once We reach critical mass where most people are level-headed and support something We're always going to have a certain amount of people who are extremists Radicals conspiracy theory, whatever you want to call it in the minority. That's it's whatever But once I see like a critical mass of people who are generally level-headed and and support things the right way In a humanitarian way Then I kind of ease up and I go, okay It's we've got some good momentum. I don't need to fix it on it quite so much But the fact that I'm making this video is the result Of the fact that I'm seeing a very big change in the discourse nationwide generally speaking And that it's getting a little scary And a little out of control and that I feel the need to speak up again this pride month. I I sincerely hope that Pride month goes by without incident um I'm not entirely hopeful of that but um, I really really pray that We can just celebrate our community in peace And get back to we all just want to live our lives, right? We all just want to go about our lives be happy um And that's it So I don't really know what else to say. I know I'm leaving on a weird note, but I just needed to get all that out and share that I know that I hope that it is helpful In some way to some of you who are watching this to know that You know, you're not alone and And for people who have been through it with me and understand what that was like growing up at that way During a time when it was also really um Really kind of um volatile because at that time that's when gay marriage was like being proposed and civil unions and domestic partnerships and that was like huge and it was exploding everywhere and it was Such a big deal and it was it kind of felt the same way as it feels now It was like so like blown out of proportion and they were saying, you know The next thing is going to be bestiality people are going to be marrying animals and And it's just a slippery slope from here and it's satan. It's Just going to destroy our country.   You know And it's that same ideology is happening now so um Yeah, I don't know I'm going to be thinking about it more and seeing if there's other content that I can I can touch on and at least maybe Maybe even if it's just news and kind of touch on new headlines that people are at least aware of what's going on Okay, thank you so much for Sitting through this with me. I hope it wasn't too boring or too Left field for you And um, please let me know in the comments everything you think Any questions that you might have Stuff that you like me to cover Whatever the usual communicate with me. Let me know you're out there. I always appreciate it and I will see you well soon. Cheers


Recent cheating scandals and ethics issues across all branches have challenged the image and integrity of the military. We recently spoke with CNO and asked his views on the way ahead. The Secretary of Defense has directed sort of two reviews, one on the nuclear weapon enterprise and the Navy and the Air Force are going to do that because they make up the predominance of the nuclear weapons enterprise. Now for us we'll look at our personnel programs, how we bring people into the nuclear weapons program, how we certify them, train them and the personnel reliability program and that's about maintaining proficiency and certification actually to be one that works around nuclear weapons. CNO also re-emphasized the importance of ethics and values in what he expects from sailors and leadership. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Tyrell Morris.


Dr. Sanjo Sanyal, Professor Department Chair. Today we are going to demonstrate the liver. So this is the right anatomical lobe and this is the left anatomical lobe of the liver. The right anatomical lobe is larger and it is under the right dome of the diaphragm. And that is the reason why the right dome of the diaphragm is one intercostal space higher than the left dome. This is the falciform ligament. Cut portion of the falciform ligament. One portion is attached to the anti-abdominal wall. That is the abdominal part. The other margin is attached to the liver at the junction between the anatomical right lobe and the anatomical left lobe. And this is what separates the right lobe from the left lobe and the free margin is this one. This also goes up to here. This contains two structures inside it and we can feel them and see them. This cord-like structure inside this is the round ligament of liver which actually is a remnant of the umbilical vein which carries nutrient-rich blood from the placenta to the fetus. And we can see that the round ligament of liver gets attached to a fissure here which we shall mention later. The second structure which is present in the free margin are we can see some of those here. They are the para-umbilical veins. These para-umbilical veins on one end they connect to the umbilicus. In adult life from where they connect to the superficial epigastric vein. And the other end they connect to the left branch of the portal vein. So therefore they constitute what is known as the side of porta-systemic anastomosis. The falciform ligament splits to form an anterior layer of the corneary ligament which attaches the superior surface of the liver to the under surface of the diaphragm. The diaphragmatic surface of the liver is known as the anterior superior surface and the visceral surface of the liver is known as the postural inferior surface. And separating the two of them is the inferior margin of liver. And we can see peeping out from the inferior margin of the liver is the fundus of the gallbladder. The gallbladder is located in the gallbladder fossa of the liver. Now let's take a look at the spaces. This space that we see here is called the sub-phrenic space and the sub-phrenic space is divided into two parts by this passive omeligament into a right half and a left half. Sub-phrenic space communicates with the general peritoneal cavity. This space under the liver, this is called the sub-hypatic space and if we were to go where my finger is going, the extension of the sub-hypatic space goes between the right lobe of the liver and the right kidney and that is known as the hepatorenal recess or the moriscence pouch. And looking at the depth of it, we can make out that this is one of the most dependent parts of the peritoneal cavity where fluid can collect. Just to continue with these spaces, this is the lesser momentum which has been cut and this is the structure of the portal triad which formed the right free margin of the lesser momentum. My finger has gone through the epiploid foramina vislo into the lesser sac.  So that is known as the superior recess of the omental bursa and the superior recess of the omental bursa is stopped after a certain distance. Similarly, the hepatorenal recess also stops after a certain distance and it is stopped by the posterior layer of the coronary ligament. So the coronary ligament is a quadrangular shaped ligament which has got an anterior margin which is reflected onto the diaphragm on both the sides and it has got a posterior margin which also gets reflected onto the diaphragm. The hepatorenal recess and the superior recess of omental bursa are limited by the posterior layer of coronary ligament while the sub-phrenic recess is limited by the anterior layer of the coronary ligament. When the patient is lying supine, the fluid from the superior recess of omental bursa communicates through the omental foramen of Winslow epipoic foramen and it communicates with the hepatorenal recess. And when the patient sits up, the fluid then tracks and the paracolic gutter and it goes down to the pouch of Douglas or the pelvis. So therefore, the hepatorenal recess and the pelvic cavity are the two most dependent spaces when the patient is lying down for collection of abnormal fluid in the bentoneal cavity. Now let's take a look at some of the important relations of the liver with the abnormal portion of the isophagus here. We have the stomach here and we have the pylorus here. So to continue further, we have the diodenum also related. Then we have the right supranial gland and we have the right kidney. So these are all the structures which are related to the visceral surface of the liver. And what has been removed from here is the transverse colon. The transverse colon is related along the inferior margin of the liver, the so-called colic area of the liver. Now let's turn the liver. We see certain structures. First of all, let's take a look at this depression here where I told you was attached to the gallbladder. This is the gallbladder fossa. This is one groove. The other groove is if I were to trace the inferior vena keva. The inferior givina keva also forms a groove in the so-called bare area of the liver. The bare area of the liver is the space between the anterior layer of the coronary ligament and the posterior layer of the coronary ligament. And in the bare area of the liver is directly in contact with the diaphragm. Going through the bare area of the liver is the groove for the inferior vena keva. So therefore this gallbladder fossa and the groove for the inferior vena keva, they together constitute what is known as the right sagittal fissure. On the superior surface, the line will be from here like this. And this imaginary line is known as the cantile line. Right sagittal fissure is also the main portal fissure and inside that is located the middle hepatic vein. Now again let's take a look at the liver on the inferior surface. We see two further grooves on the left side. This is the groove for the round ligament of the liver and we can see the round ligament is attached here. And this is the groove for the ligamentum venosum which is the remnant of the ductus venosus which connects the umbilical vein directly to the inferior vena keva. This groove is called the left sagittal fissure. In the surgical segments this left sagittal fissure becomes known as the left portal fissure also called the umbilical fissure. And inside that is located the left hepatic vein. And finally to the right of the cantile line there is an imaginary line further to the right. And that is imaginary line is the right portal fissure which contains the right hepatic vein. Now let's take a look at one more structure and that is this portion of the liver. This portion of the liver is the portahepatus. The portahepatus is one portion where it is not covered by the peritoneum and we see three structures either entering or leaving the liver. One of them is the pylduct, hepatic artery, portal vein. So these three structures constitute the structures inside the portahepatus. What are the structures in the portal triad? I have lifted up the structures of the portal triad here. This portion of the portal triad is referred to as the extra hepatic portal triad because they are outside the liver. And these were covered by the hepatodeodontal ligament which is the right ligamentous portion of the lesser momentum. And we have already seen that this constitutes the anterior margin of this foramen here which is known as the epidroic foramen of will slow and it leads into the mental person. Going from right to left, we have this, this is the common bile duct. Then we have the proper hepatic artery and posteriorly we have portal vein. So these are the three structures which constitutes the extra hepatic portal triad and these structures will then go inside through the portahepatus and they will divide and form interfacial inter lobular portal triad. So these are the bare essentials that I wanted to show you of the liver. Thank you very much for watching. If you have any questions or comments put them in the comment section below. Have a nice day. Dr. Sanjay Sanyal signing out.