"We may not relight the fires that used to burn in our villages, but
we can carry the embers from those fires in our hearts and learn to
light new fires in a new world."
Ojibwe tradition calls for fathers to walk their children through the
world, sharing the ancient understanding "that we are all, animate and
inanimate alike, living on the one pure breath with which the Creator
gave life to the Universe." In this new entry in the Seedbank series, an
intimate series of letters to the six-year-old son from whom he was
estranged, Richard Wagamese fulfills this traditional duty with grace
and humility, describing his own path through life--separation from his
family as a boy, substance abuse, incarceration, and ultimately the
discovery of books and writing--and braiding this extraordinary story
with the teachings of his people, in which animals were the teachers of
human beings, until greed and a desire to control the more-than-human
world led to anger, fear, and, eventually, profound alienation.
At once a deeply moving memoir and a fascinating elucidation of a rich
indigenous cosmology, Walking the Ojibwe Path is an unforgettable
journey.
