Storying up through circumambulation

Oral knowledge systems perceive the universe as participatory and co-creative thus we are always in experience. Foundational to this work is understanding that we are co-creative beings consistently engaging with life forces that are inherently always in relationship. Our participation with all of creation is always circular and cyclical.

The circle, which is a key element within oral knowledge systems, is both symbolic and processual. Circle, as symbol, is imbued with philosophical associations such as: unity, wholeness, and interconnection while circle, as process, denotes practical ways to conduct gatherings or events in which we assemble, relate, discuss, learn, understand, and make decisions.  As you will see in photo of the beaded medallion, the spiral represents the cyclicality of the circular processes with the cosmological scenery in the background signifying the importance of understanding and enacting the theory and ontology of oral knowledge systems as enlivening of the circle. On a general level, circles are a process for validating knowledge and stories which are guided through various protocols and enactments. Each circle, based on who is guiding the circle and for what purpose, may have different ways in which the circle is facilitated. For us, smudge is the conduit that guided our process and convened our circles.

I have come to understand the circle is reliant on Elders’ participation and guidance. Elders that hold the stories and knowledge of processes ensure the circle is facilitated in the proper way. Moreover, they too are part of the truthing process and are looked to when validating knowledge. For this research project, Reg and Rose Crowshoe participated as the oral knowledge keepers and technicians of the process. Graham Andrews and Edmee Comstock participated as my Michif relatives and cultural advisors.

The circle as practice relies on cyclical iterations for knowledge generation and truthing (Maracle, 2015; Simpson, 2017; Styres, 2017). Circularity reveals patterns and consistencies by way of observing stories, experiences, and situations that describe the interactions of us and environments. Through keen observations, understandings, and wisdoms of oneself, relationships are kindled and reaffirmed. Iterative narrative and kinetic processes activate a framework that can broaden understandings of ourselves in our relationships. Maracle (2015) deems ambulating through narratives as storying up; “the story calls upon listeners to lend their imagination and voice to it, contribute to it's unfolding, and reshape their conduct based on their personal understanding of the relationship or the absence of relationships” (p. 246). Symbolized through the beaded medallion, storying-up suggests circular iterations guided by a specific epistemological understanding. Circularity is intentional and guided by the purpose or mandate of the gathering. In our gatherings, I understood this as storying-up it was also apparent to the collective.

Aligning with Maracle’s (2015) storying up, I connected this with the term, circumambulation — “a ritual term meaning literally ‘to walk a circle around’ a holy place, person, or object….One walks around what is set apart, circumscribed as charged or sacred; one might even say that circumambulation sets something apart by circumscribing it with one’s own body” (Eck, 2005, p. 1795). This process is a time old practice in Indigenous cultures all around the world. Through my own experience, I have seen circumambulation occur, for example, certain ceremonies rely on the number four to guide the amount of rounds the process will be performed in a circle. The reasons behind the circuambulatory rounds is deemed by the natural and absolute laws and will differ based on the worldview it is being enacted from. Engaging in a collective dialogical and kinetic process with myself and co-researchers by capturing moments in our lived experiences and then narrating them in the collective exemplifies circumambulation. By this, I understand storying up as a process that is reliant on circumambulation through dialogue and engagement to expand and generate understandings that were previously unknown, hidden, and/or unconscious. For time, we repeatedly circled our own experiences and shared them in ritualistic ways. Although the gatherings included us being seated around a table in a circular fashion, we were still relying on the understandings of circumambulation to inform our practice. In a way, we were talking a circle around, instead of physically walking.

The auspice of the iteration is “searching for what lies beneath the obvious” (Maracle, 2015, p. 232) to “transform the way we see, to broaden the field of vision, [and] to inspire us to ‘turn around’” (Maracle, 2015, p. 250). In the video: storying-up, I describe having a conversation with one of the Métis kin Bob to assure him he’s in the process in his own way. Storying up does not happen in isolation, the collective is needed.

“Indigenous rationality considers self to be in-relationship – we exist together here in this place and therefore I do not consider the individual distinct and separate from connected and interdependent relationships to the Land and to the energies that exist within all of creation (human/non-human, animate/inanimate)” (Styres, 2017, p. 112).  

Expansion and generation rely on observing others, that are part of a collective, to be able to mirror beliefs, values, practices that assist in allowing one to understand themselves, as relational beings, in reaffirmed or new ways. This showed true during our research gatherings wherein individuals began to see their experiences differently via the stories of people in our research collective. Building upon already established narratives and understandings vis-à-vis other Métis kin is generative and restorative; it is beholden to a truthing process that is both individually and collectively situated. Stories need other stories to indicate nuances and similarities; stories are culturally and collectively validated through comparison and dialogue in relation to a specific mandate.