Film Thirteen

The Language of Transformation: The Etymology of Who We Are

{62 minutes}

The Language of Transformation: The Etymology of Who We Are

with Tiokasin Ghosthorse

In this deep-dive with Tiokasin Ghosthorse of the Cheyenne River Lakota, we dive deep into the language of transformation required to bring us back into contact with Mother Earth. Lakota, like many Indigenous languages, is a verb-based language that voices relationship. It has no word for domination, and Tiokasin brings us into the frame of reference of Lakota so that we can begin to feel what it is like to live in a language that gives authority to relationship.

Related Practices:

See our Film The Original Language: How to Talk to Everything. See Exiting the Language of Domination. See kotodama. Related to Relational Mindfulness, Ways of Knowing, Self-Compassion. See Indigenous Voices , Follow Your Heart, Becoming a Real Human Being, Hawa'iian Indigenous Natural Farming, and The Yawanawa Light.

Who taught us this?

Tiokasin Ghosthorse—a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota—is an international speaker on Peace, Indigeneity, and the Mother Earth perspective. A survivor of the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Lakota Reservations in South Dakota and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” Tiokasin has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He is a guest faculty member at Yale University’s School of Divinity, Ecology and Forestry focusing on the cosmology, diversity and perspectives on the relational/egalitarian vs. rational/hierarchal thinking processes of Western society. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of the twenty-nine-year-old “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”), a one-hour live program now syndicated to one hundred and eight radio stations in the US and Canada. A master musician and a teacher of magical, ancient and modern sounds, Tiokasin performs worldwide and has been featured at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the United Nations, as well as at many universities and concert venues. Tiokasin serves on boards of several charitable organizations dedicated to bringing non-western education to Native and non-Native children. Tiokasin describes himself as “a perfectly flawed human being” who is a Sundancer in the tradition of the Lakota Nation.

Who taught us this?

Tiokasin Ghosthorse—a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota—is an international speaker on Peace, Indigeneity, and the Mother Earth perspective. A survivor of the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Lakota Reservations in South Dakota and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” Tiokasin has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He is a guest faculty member at Yale University’s School of Divinity, Ecology and Forestry focusing on the cosmology, diversity and perspectives on the relational/egalitarian vs. rational/hierarchal thinking processes of Western society. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of the twenty-nine-year-old “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”), a one-hour live program now syndicated to one hundred and eight radio stations in the US and Canada. A master musician and a teacher of magical, ancient and modern sounds, Tiokasin performs worldwide and has been featured at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the United Nations, as well as at many universities and concert venues. Tiokasin serves on boards of several charitable organizations dedicated to bringing non-western education to Native and non-Native children. Tiokasin describes himself as “a perfectly flawed human being” who is a Sundancer in the tradition of the Lakota Nation.

Video: Distill | Photography: Stein Egil Liland | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.