Indigegogy with Dr. Kathy Absolon

♪ Two crees in a pot ♪ ♪ Two crees in a pot, two crees in a pot, A's in a pot ♪ ♪ That's all he means ♪ ♪ Yo ♪ ♪ As go ♪ ♪ They pushed us to this point ♪ ♪ Frustrations of a common man ♪ ♪ Manifest the destiny, preachin' ♪ ♪ Pleasure to promised land ♪ ♪ I'm stuck between takin' my journey ♪ ♪ Live with no honor ♪ ♪ Like what's the use of my kids ♪ ♪ Can't taste clean water ♪ ♪ Uh huh ♪ ♪ A child born into a world ♪ ♪ Revolution's how to choice ♪ ♪ I'm fighting to be her ♪ ♪ So we make them hear our voice ♪ ♪ Remember ancestors' anguish like me in our veins ♪ ♪ Hear it in the language when I'm cuisin' for the rain ♪ ♪ I am product of people that persevere persecution ♪ ♪ Paint me so creator sees me ♪ ♪ If I go ashore and experience our pain ♪ ♪ When our women disappear daily ♪ ♪ I'm anxious to be angry ♪ ♪ Pacifists might hate me ♪ ♪ Trolls on the internet constantly tryin' to bait me ♪ ♪ We move and silence cover up the night ♪ ♪ Learning from the woods in the forest ♪ ♪ Tracking enemies in the woods ♪ ♪ Reincarnations of warriors riding for salvation ♪ ♪ Or all we false prophets when we submit to him ♪ ♪ Reincarnation is a hell of a drug ♪ ♪ We all seem to know crazy when we fall in love ♪ ♪ Uh huh ♪ ♪ Uh huh ♪ ♪ Uh huh ♪ (bell rings) (bell rings) - Welcome to Two Crees in a Pod. I'm Biggest Seas Neatsy Gasson, Kinagomastic, Otsinia. My name is Amber Deon, and I'm from the Ki-Heein Cree Nation here in Treaty 6th Territory. I'm a mother, a social worker, an assistant professor with McHughan University School of Social Work, and I'm joined by my lovely co-host. Welcome. My name is Terry Sungens. I'm from Sally Cree Nation, and I'm the Director of Indigenous Initiatives in Ki-Heein, and I'm McHughan University. We are so honored that you chose to join us today. - Welcome to episode six of Two Crees in a Pod. Today we are joined by Kathy Absalom. Kathy is an associate professor in the Indigenous field of study and director of the Center for Indigagogy at Wilford, Laurier University. We are so excited to have Kathy join us on our podcast today. And so what we would like to do, Kathy, to start is to have, create some space for you to add anything additional to your introduction. Folks can see your bio on both our Facebook and our Instagram. And so if you want to read more about Kathy and her work, you can access it there. But again, we want to give you some space this morning, Kathy, to add anything that you would like to start off this episode. Let me switch. I'd just like to introduce myself in my language. Bojo, and in the way in Amarganadok, Minogiji-Gon-Quan-Dishnakahs, Wabshishimi-Mama-Kwando-Dem, Flying Post and Dunjaba, Treaty 9. Ojibwe-Nishinaabe-Quan-Dal, Nizhou-Madeh. That was me saying my Nishinaabe name is Shining Day Woman, the one that brings goodness and beauty to the day. I'm from Flying Post First Nation. Second degree in the day, when. And I am with the, I sit with the Bear Clan and the Martian Clan. And I'm going to Ojibwe Woman, Nishinaabe-Quan. Hi, hi. Thank you for that introduction. You know, Kathy, Terry and I have read your work, paid attention to the work that you've done in the field of social work, but not just social work. I think that one of the things that we really would like to explore and have you talk about this morning is around in Digigaji. I've never heard that word before. And so if you would like to explain what that means for our listeners, kind of, you know, going to depth about what is in Digigaji. Well, that's a good question. In Digigaji, it's interesting because the term in Digigaji, it's not an indigenous word, like it's not an Nishinaabe, it's not, but it's a word that came to us from, actually, creed elder and scholar, Dr. Stan Wilson. And the indigenous field of study program that I teach in, and that's been my, where I've been for the last 14 years, we have an indigenous centered social work program. And it's a graduate program. And when our program was under review and going through graduate school accreditation, Dr. Stan Wilson came to our program to review what we were doing. And what we were doing there was we were centering indigenous knowledge, we were centering indigenous ways of coming to know, and indigenous ways of learning and teaching in our program, which meant we had programs that were situated in circle work, we used the medicines, we integrated our traditions and our ceremonies, and we had a land-based learning spaces. And one of the words that Dr. Stan Wilson used to describe our program was in Digigaji. And he said that in Digigaji means doing indigenous education in an indigenous way. And he said that our program was as true to his indigenous, as in Digigaji, as he had come to know. So it's like pedagogy is like, and it's, but in an indigenous way is in Digigaji. And when I was at a teaching lodge over in Chimna Singh, which is a Manitulan island and another Anishinaabe community, one of the elders there said to me, asked me about that, what's in Digigaji? Is that like an indigenous word? Like, and I said, I don't believe it is. It's like indigenous is not an indigenous word. It's a word that's used to describe our position. And when we talk about who we are, we say Anishinaabe, or in our territory, there's the Haudenosaunee or the Oklahoma, or the Heyu people, make tea people. And so this elder said to me, so that's not an indigenous, that's not in the language. And I said, I don't believe it is. And so I said to her, if I describe to you what that is, what would you say in the language this is? So I said to her, basically, Digigaji means that we are using Anishinaabe, ways of knowing, we're using our worldview, our knowledge, we're using indigenous scholars and indigenous literature, and we're teaching and learning an indigenous way on the land in ceremony, using circle methodology and circle work. And so she thought about it, and she said, she thought about it for a little bit, and she said, Oh, Anishinaabe, Kenikandasua. She said, Anishinaabe, Kenikandasua is what you just described. So I just love that. So now I use both the word term and Digigaji, but now I also will say Anishinaabe, Kenikandasua. And it means using Anishinaabe knowledge, learning upon Anishinaabe knowledge, ways of learning, being and doing, and doing that in an Anishinaabe way, teaching and learning in an Anishinaabe way. So that's what an Digigaji means. That's so amazing. That's one of the things that this reminds me of. And so I just got out of a Sundance lodge yesterday, and my ten-year-old daughter joined me for the first time this weekend in that lodge. And it was the same lodge that she was named in as well. And it was interesting because the last day, she had a hard time. And she was having a hard time. And I looked at her and I was like, what am I going to say? You know, because I remember being in that space many years ago. But what am I going to say to help her at this time? You know, when there's nothing really, how do I teach her? And understanding and explaining the lodge, and we've done that, we did that previously. But in that moment, I said, there's going to be things that you're going to come across in life as an adult. That are going to be really tough. That are going to be so tough that you're going to want to either give up, or you're going to think that you can do it. These are one of those times. And you're going to push through it, and you're going to do it, and you're going to finish, and you're going to feel so proud, and you're going to know that in the future, when this happens, and when you hit this point again, you're going to be able to get through it because that's how strong you are. And so she was just like, okay, and then this cookin' beside her said, let her smudge, let her smudge herself to give her strength. So she bent down, and she took out my dad's smudge that my dad made for us. And she put it, and she put a lot of it. And she put a lot of it, and she just sat there. And then she got up, and she just danced hard. And I was like, see, there's things that, in those spaces, and when we're on the land, and especially in those lodges, that teach us, and not just teach all of us, but even teach our children, that there's just things that we can't do sometimes. as parents, right? And I think I want to go into my next question too and look at what is and ask you about the importance of learning about our languages, our culture, and our traditions within Indigenous programming and curriculum. You know, when you think about that in that story that you just shared about your daughter in the Sundance, that's such a beautiful story, that's such a beautiful experience that you're able to do with your daughter to restore the place of how we always learn. How knowledge was transferred and transmitted from one generation to the next, and the difference with Indigenous, I'm learning as I go through these things and reflect on, you know, the relationship between when we are in our healing and teaching lodges and when we're in our life doing our work, what's the relationship there, and making the connection between that was our way of life. And in those spaces of the lodges or the sweat lodge, like that's traditional initiative education, that's where the teachings get passed on, that's where we all have an opportunity to experience relationship with spirit, relationship with the ancestors, we get to experience being in relationship with our elders and the teachers, as that knowledge gets transferred, as that knowledge gets passed on from one generation to the next, and then we can see down the road, like even in my own experience of like, I was that young girl one time. I was that person who was in my memory, learned, being, but being very curious and having a desire to learn, what does it mean to be an Ishanabe? What does it mean to be who I am and what's my place in the world? And so these spaces of traditional education that we're here pre-contact, and that's what we have to remember is that we have thousands and thousands and thousands of years of education and ways of learning and being and doing that existed pre-colonial education. And when we return to those spaces, or we bring those, try to bring those spaces to our, you know, our contemporary academic context in the best way that we can, we are trying to, we are adopting, and we are trying to bring in those, we're trying to find ways to, to transfer the, not only that, like, there's so many layers in that story you described, there's like the setting, the traditional setting of the sun dance, it's not just about ceremony, it's about transferring a way of life, and it's about instilling and nurturing people's spirit and healing and learning, and there's the layer of the relationship that is happening between you and your daughter and you and the grandmothers, and the elders in the community there, and the sisters and brothers that she's dancing with, and then there's the layer of her core, of the layer of what's happening within her being and what she's learning about who she is and the beauty of what she's made up of that is in her inner spirit and in her heart and in her mind and in the strength that she has in her physical body, she's learning about that, and that is what is embedded in our Indigenous education and knowledge systems, it's not just about the ABCs, it's not just about learning to read and do math and, you know, the long-term vision about, you know, getting a job and having, you know, quote unquote, what is the success in the industry, Indigenous, you know, Indigenous or those traditional spaces of learning, it's about the whole person, becoming, and that whole person being, and that whole person is already comes with so many beautiful gifts, like your daughter already has her spirit, she has a heart, creator gave her a mind, and she has her physical gifts in her senses and in her body and all of her capabilities within, and we are her helpers, to help her nurture that what she's already been given, mainstream education treats you more like you have to be socialized, and within, within, with, with our knowledge systems, yeah, in terms of extermination policies, Indigenous peoples and culture, our knowledge systems have, there's been this huge attack on our traditional knowledge and education systems and this big erasure to erase it, and to get rid of it, because embedded in that is our connection to the land, and the connection to the spirit of the land, which is what colonialism has been about, so colonial education has also been steered towards disconnecting us from the land, and you know, when schools start instituting land-based programs, all of a sudden boards want to start creating all these policies around under the guise of health and safety, that create barriers to putting people on the land, and that's colonial education, and they still continue to try to disrupt and cover our desire, our life's desire to be in connection with where our life comes from, which is the land, yeah, and so when we take our place and start asserting that Indigenous education has to be on the land, it has to be in relationship to the land, that that's a big part of the work that we have to do with when we start bringing Indigenous ways of learning and Indigenous ways of teaching into spaces like mainstream education spaces, which is what we're doing most of the time anyways, and I don't even, I think I might have gone way out and about around your question, so I don't even remember what your question was, but you, I went on this little journey, it was a good journey, there is nothing, that journey was perfect. I walked back there pre, where our ancestors were, and then I came back here, and brought us back to, you know, we have to fight to stand up for like restoring those like those knowledge systems, I was with the, I did a session with the Waterloo District School Board last week on decolonizing education and one of the recommendations that I said to the school board is that in terms of teachers and administrators, you have to stop marking children or people absent when they go to ceremonies or when we go to those traditional places where Indigenous education is happening, where they're learning about who they are, what it means to be who they are, and their relationship, a healthy relationship with their knowledge keepers and knowledge carriers, and people that are trying to pass on these bundles to them, that is not being absent from education, they're involved in education, they're in a teaching and a learning space and a healing space, so when my children were young, I was every teacher, I was advocating with that teacher, do not mark my child absent, we're away for five days, but that child is receiving something you can never give them in terms of an Indigenous education, and so I would either have to talk to the teachers or I would have to go to the principal to make sure that where my children were in terms of their traditional forms of learning that that was being recognized and they weren't being punished or penalized by being marked absent. That's, I'm so glad that you said that, and right when you said it, I thought about when my 15-year-old when she had her first moon time, and we had ceremony, and she had to miss two days of school because she was at home with me, and I remember, you know, whenever you call the school, and you say, oh, you know, this child will not be in school today, oh, what's the purpose of their absence, and it's, and it's always been ceremony, we're going home for ceremony, or when we go home for a wake, or a funeral, and I always say it's ceremony, right, and not that their school has ever, has ever stated anything that would have been, you know, discriminatory or questioned that, but I really appreciate how that going further and saying, and my child should not be marked absent for these days. Because especially in those moontime ceremonies or when we're grieving a family member, like I lost a sister last year and my kids were gone from school for a long time. Because we were at home. We were with family, you know? And so I think it's really, I'm so thankful that you said that because this is now this other place that we can now push schools to start thinking about is that is not an absence and there should be no penalty for children being in those spaces like Terry shared with her daughter. That's a space that the school can't give Ella. They can't give Ella that space. And so I really appreciate that, thank you for saying that and I think that that's something that we need to, I think all folks need to hear. And maybe not even just educators and teachers but also social workers, right? So that ensuring that in our practices, you know, as social workers, that we are not, you know, if we are responsible as a social worker for, you know, working with a family and that we also can be advocating as social workers for those children in schools, not always the parents are able to do that advocacy for themselves or for their children. But that's where social workers can step in and say, hey, that family was out at ceremony that child should not be marked absent. And so I really appreciate that, Kathy. Even around as, as helpers, what helps us to do our work and we do this with our students around, especially around in, um, in Digogadri, like Anishinaabe, Kinakandasa, when that learning continues after you're done, you're social work, like your degree, the learning like the short degree is just a drop in the bucket and the learning carries on in your practice within wherever it is that you end up working. And but one of the things that that's important to remember with in Digogadri, it's like building your bundle, like our students start to build their bundles and bundles need to be cared for as they're carried. If you're going to carry your holistic practice bundle that's steeped in, you know, indigenous ways, whatever those who's ever nation territory that is, then that bundle needs to be sustained. It needs, you're in relationship with that bundle and you have to continue on with your learning and your practice and your healing and your inner work and how you carry those teachings and how you continue to grow as Ashikabeu as a helper, a helper to the people and a helper of this knowledge and these bundles and so I always encourage people to, when they're done to say, if you don't consciously have a plan on how you're going to sustain and maintain and care for your bundle, so you can carry your bundle, then colonialism as a huge, it's a huge beast, you'll go back into your community or you'll go back into your agency and you'll fall back into the default that you're, that we're all socialized in and unless you practice, practice, practice and go to those spaces where your cultural development becomes, this is my point, that your cultural development becomes supported equally as professional development. So if you, like people, organizations invest in professional development for conferences, for training, big bucks, huge dollars and so I hear some people say, well, you know, I'm going to ceremonies but I can't afford it or I can't get the time off work and my big question is why, why are we still fighting within our organizations to have this time and space recognized as professional slash cultural development? If we're working in organizations as indigenous social workers and as indigenous helpers, we have to be mindful of negotiating at the time of your hire that your professional development is supported and your cultural development is supported, that you're not using your vacation time to go to your ceremonies, that you are not going to ceremonies without pay, that that cultural development is what constitutes your bundle and your capacity to be a holistic practitioner. That bundle is what you carry when you're doing your traditional counseling or you're trying to reimagine or recreate healing practices or organizational practices that are steeped in indigenous knowledge, like we have to keep going back to those places to keep nurturing this knowledge bundle to have the confidence and the knowledge and the skills to keep trying to instill our stories, our histories, our traditions into whether it's, you know, we talk about, you know, dismantling child welfare. How are we going to know how to reimagine it if we're not tending to our knowledge bundles? So we have to make sure that we keep advocating either at the point of hire or in our collective agreements or our union agreements or within our organizations that professional development for indigenous social workers is cultural development. They're one of the same and whether it's language, that involves language that involves like supporting people to go to Sundance, supporting people to go to sit with elders, supporting families to have their ceremonies and to do whatever it is from cradle to grave that we do that honors those traditions and this way of life so we can have that minimal mod so in in how we walk and then be able to, you know, be that change that we're striving towards and have the courage and the confidence to say, I might not know how to do this in the organization but I trust our circle process. And when we bring a circle process to the group, the answer will emerge. I trust our medicines. I trust our helpers. I trust those the the eagle feathers. I trust our travelers that come in that that we bring into the circle. I trust these drums that are sitting here. These are the helpers and we're just the facilitators. When we bring our helpers to our circles and our organizations or our classrooms and say somebody's holding the eagle feather and they get, they start feeling things and they start getting all emotional. It's it's not us that's doing the work. It's the spirit of Megazeth that that person is sitting with and we create that space and hold that space in that circle so that that person can do what they need to do with the sport of those helpers like those spirit helpers that are there. Whether it's through the grandmother grandfather stones or the medicines that are in the room and anytime the medicines are set out and we acknowledge the spirit of those medicines or the spirit of the drum or the spirit of the eagle feathers as they're in our classrooms or in our workspaces. Something happens that is like has to do with the pathway of what it is the spirit wants us to do or what we need to heal from and like the spirit is always working for us and we have to facilitate those pathways. That's how we're you know a digigodgy is both a way of teaching and learning but it's also a way of life how we live and like life is a journey. Life is a journey man. And man what a ride. Would you like have spirit involved when you integrate spirit and you build a relationship with the spirit and the heart of our helpers it's like we're not alone and that's what and there's so many layers like it's so amazing you started with that story with your beautiful young daughter because there's so many layers in that story and this is what we're doing is we're like we're like walking and trying to restore this holistic it's like a big holograph a circular holograph of with that spirit in the center and each one of us is a holograph with all those layers and then the people we work with are holographs with all those layers and in our knowledge and our traditions we know that yeah and so trying to pass on those knowledge bundles of what that holistic practice looks like requires us to move beyond we include the books because indigenous people have done a lot of amazing writing yes so we include indigenous knowledge through the scholars through the books that we're doing and we include those taking people out on the land taking people into ceremony sitting with elders the experience self-reflection and that's where the transformation comes from did you got you yeah absolutely I was just telling Amber before we started recording and connecting with you Kathy was that I started Sundancing in 2012 after my sister was in a accident a tragic accident and I went to the lodge two weeks after her accident for her and committed for her to dance for four years but it was interesting because again like this healing and we talk a lot about trauma we talk a lot about healing practices and healing ceremony is healing and I remember those those four years and how difficult they were and how emotional we talk about our sentences in the first years of you know and then I was telling her I said this weekend I I just felt so good I felt strong I could have kept dancing I didn't four days later still going next week I was like and and just there was so much joy in that lodge rather than you know tears with yeah I experienced a lot in my first few years of Sundancing there was so much emotion there was so much tears and there was so much healing that happened and you know and then this this weekend and it was different of course because my daughter was there but just I think it was really good point I just want to make about to our listeners who create policy or who are in administration is that there's so much policy that's created around ceremony time off which some organizations will give one day some organizations will give four days I think again like not limiting those because they create barriers for our staff and I've always said I have a team that I supervise and you know I have always encouraged that any time that there's ceremony to take that opportunity to engage in that you know because when I know from just from my own experience is that when we start to engage in ceremony and we do our own healing and our own work and our own connection we're able to do our jobs more effectively and we're able to help others more effectively and so thank you for for saying that and I think it's really important for those who are listening who are responsible for being a part of those policy processes that they recognize and hear that and while Kathy you were talking and you talked about trust and you talked about how we trust our medicine we trust the drum we trust the rattle we trust you know the the beings that exist that we can't necessarily see all the time and so I think that again I believe that's really important and I believe it's important because there has been a legacy of mistrust of our people of our practices of our languages of our knowledge knowledge systems and there has been this long legacy of mistrust of who we are and and we see this you know you know currently you know we there's different movements that are coming up again because they've always existed these movements of you know justice for indigenous and other other folks of color and I think that you know we see it in everywhere in every system we see this mistrust of indigenous folks and as someone who has made my way through academia and and through different positions as a social worker I recognize that that level of mistrust still exists and that we need to constantly justify ourselves or our ways of knowing doing and being in some of these in some of these spaces and so I just I want to ensure that our listeners also have an understanding of you know when we talk about trust and mistrust that there is always a space for possibility always always always a space for possibility because I think that's the only way we're gonna get us get out of this you know this this mess that colonization has created is that we always have to speak a language of possibility and that even if you don't fully trust you know a specific process because it's not your experience doesn't mean that it is completely untrustworthy and so I think that creating a space for those who are listening indigenous and non- indigenous folks that there's always a language of possibility within policy development within classroom spaces within you know circle processes etc. and so I just yeah I just want to make that comment about trust because it's true we you know I like my medicine and I just trust it I don't I don't question the the the power in that and so thank you for talking about trust Kathy one of the things that I want to just say you know what you're bringing up is that in our holistic way of knowing, being and doing as Nishinaabe people we have it's so we have it's important for us to have a vision like you think about the medicine wheel in that Eastern doorway Wabanong it's important for us to dream of the possibilities to have a vision of what is for example what does it mean for us to take over and have a shot a system that actually supports children and families could be well knowing that the colonial system was set up to to to disrupt us and so we have to we have to give ourselves permission to dream we have to give ourselves permission to make mistakes and to fail and we have to begin allowing ourselves to have vision of what does what do we want what do we want that's going to be different and engage in that like a relationship takes time when you meet somebody you don't automatically trust them that takes time to nurture that takes time to have conversations and the and so forging those relationships even with ourselves like we like some people have so much internalized self-hatred that they don't trust themselves and even relationships between each other trust has been broken treaties have been broken and there's a lot of there is a lot of mistrust again there's so many layers to that but when we like say we say to our students when they build their hand drums for example that hand drum that no commas do wagon that grandmother hand drum is you're not gonna necessarily trust that that's a holistic healing tool right away or people that get their first thump wagon their first type that or sitting with the eagle feather like sometimes they'll say to somebody you know sit with your eagle feather you have to be friends those helpers you have to build a relationship with those helpers and that's gonna take time only by building a relationship will you learn to trust that so I trust my medicines because I've been working with those medicines for a long time I've been sitting with these helpers for a long time I have over the years of practice that trust has built and I've experienced the power of spirit I've experienced that relationship I have with our culture and our teachings and our traditions and so I trust them but that didn't just happen because of all the internalized colonialism the internalized racism that I had about who we were and about who I was and so a lot of people still have a lot of unpacking to do yeah with internalized racism and all that is a product of a racist society of institutional racism and institutionalized colonialism so sometimes and even in our program with our students they want the bundle but they're not sure and it takes time and they just have to take baby steps we don't go running to the lodge just take your time pick it up and practice you know that's much spending year with that's much spending year with that one medicine it all takes time and that's how we build trust with those with our helpers is that we we recognize it's like any relationship you're gonna have to invest some time into that and then because in colonialism when we're having a hard time people don't automatically think about oh I could like my smudge oh I should make a feast plate well maybe I could go and put my tobacco down and or I'm gonna go I'm talking to my Tikka Narbe, the true one. out there where I'm going to sit with my MIG as I make wants we're not that's not automatic for us because of colonialism. Sometimes people will go even myself I might have be having a I might be having an argument with myself for having a hard time with myself and I might be like and then my friend will go you know go feed your spirit make a little feast basket and I'll be like yeah you know what I know how to do that but I forgot yeah because I was so busy feeling sad or feeling like my feelings and then so I would stop and I would go and put my tobacco down and and we remind each other we help each other to do those things because that's that's how we start to unlearn and then build that trust so for me now it's more automatic to my tobacco down or lightest margin practice practice practice yeah built that trust yeah thank you Kathy we would like to we're enjoying this I'm sure we could talk for all day but I know this is podcast and my hope is that that folks are still very much tuned in when they're when they're hearing you and and so we want to again just create another space where if there's anything that you would like to wrap up our conversation with if there's anything that you felt you know that you weren't able to say throughout this conversation that you would like to end our our episode with please do Kathy oh I do I want to say she made which to the both of you for the invitation because I can't underestimate the power of invitation like when you invite somebody to share and the way in which you did it it's a podcast but I want to make it visible that you sent me this beautiful bundle in the mail with those beautiful like gifts card and the shampoos and the self-care things and I just I just want to acknowledge that beautiful bundle the mug the Q and mug and the way in which you approach this podcast is in the spirit that reciprocity and you both showed me the generosity of spirit and that respect and that's what I wanted to make sure I acknowledged as well is like your invitation and the generosity of both of you you're just beautiful young women and I'm so happy to you and you have lovely COVID mail it's got really nice little mail beautiful coming at a sunday and this is like wow I just want to acknowledge that spirit that you both like this was really nice and and at me which for mailing those gifts and the spirit that got transferred to me throughout this little exchange and sharing that we had and I just wish you both well thank you very much I appreciate that and I want to end with one of some of the work that I've read of Kathy's is about story sharing and story gathering and story being a story listener and a story gatherer and a talker a teller a storyteller and so I want to thank you again Kathy for sharing your stories with us today and those stories are a gift and so I thank you very much which have a wonderful day same to you okay bum cookie two crees and a pod