We have the power to affect the future of humankind with every interaction we have with a child. We have the most power as parents, and then as allies to parents, as grandparents, teachers, counselors, and as friends to all children. Elders of the First Nations taught that we should consider our actions as affecting the unborn generations that we will never know. This book is rooted in the soil of the traditional ways of caring for children of First Nations communities in North America which have been little documented in print. It also derives from the family workshops and camps, which use the approach and techniques of Re-Evaluation Counseling in a blend called The Circle Way, that Manitonquat and his wife Ellika have been creating for many years. Children today are entering a society that is hostile to them, that ignores their thinking and feelings as valuable human beings, values them only for the profit of industries. It turns them into competitors who are measured on Procrustean beds of a common standard, drugs them when they do not conform, and offers little help to parents struggling for ways to provide a home, food, healthcare, and find the time to spend getting close, playing with, and guiding their children as they grow. Through this book Manitonquat encourages all of us to make children our priority, put them at the center of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, return childhood to children, the joys of play and connection and of nature, the wonder and delight of learning, and the marvels in every moment of awareness. This not just for them, but also when we do this for them they enrich our own lives, our learning, and our joy beyond measure.
About the Author: Manitonquat (Medicine Story) is a storyteller, an elder and a keeper of the lore of the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation of Massachusetts. Author of ten published books and a former columnist and poetry editor with the internationally acclaimed journal Akwesasne Notes, he has also edited Heritage, a journal of Native American liberation. He continues to develop tools for creating a more humane society based upon teachings of the elders of the First Nations and the explorations of his camps under the designation The Circle Way. More on The Circle Way and Manitonquat's writings can be found online at www.circleway.org Manitonquat has spoken to peace conferences and groups on 3 continents, was the keynote speaker at the United Nations observance of the 50th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, directs prison programs for native spirituality, advises a nature school, and, with his wife Ellika, makes workshops and annual international family camps and advises new communities in 10 European countries and the US. His ambition is to work with like-minded folks to create a community based on the Circle Way of relating and centered on the care and respect for children and elders, a community in which he would be glad to spend the last years of his life with his beloved Ellika.