Healing with self-concept of what it means to be indigenous

Marina, I read your entire recording carefully. It’s long, layered, and full of pain, clarity, memory, and courage. I want to give you something that actually helps — not a shallow summary, but a structured reflection that honors what you said, shows you I truly heard you, and gives you a way to use this material if you want to turn it into future podcast episodes, writing, or healing work. Below is a clear, organized synthesis of your recording, grounded directly in your words. I’ve included brief quotations from your document, as required: “I feel erased. I feel like I'm invisible.” “I grew up with my brothers and sisters… and yet they refuse to treat me good.” 🌿 Core Themes in Your Recording Your story moves across several interconnected layers. When organized, they reveal a coherent narrative about identity, trauma, family systems, and survival. 1. Family Estrangement & Emotional Erasure You describe decades of being excluded, dismissed, and treated as if you “don’t exist.” This shows up in: Siblings planning housing decisions behind your back Nephews and nieces withholding information Your Mormon siblings refusing contact Being treated as if you are already gone: “As if you've already died. You're invisible.” This is emotional abandonment — a form of lateral violence that Indigenous women experience disproportionately. 2. Intergenerational Trauma You repeatedly connect your personal experiences to broader patterns: Alcohol abuse in your family Your father’s death Your mother’s confusion and vulnerability The legacy of residential schools, AA, Moral Rearmament, and Mormonism The long-term effects of systemic racism on identity and family cohesion You frame your family as one example of a widespread Indigenous reality: “I'm just using my family as an example because it's all over.” 3. Religion as Control, Coping, and Conflict You describe Mormonism as: A tool your siblings used for sobriety A system your mother joined to appease others A source of shame, judgment, and caste hierarchy A structure that encouraged your siblings to see Native spirituality as “witchcraft” You also compare Mormonism to other “cult-like” systems: “It’s like a cult, like AA and the twelve-step program.” 4. Your Role as Caregiver You cared for your mother for over a decade: Managing her brittle diabetes Pushing her wheelchair Neglecting your own health Handling responsibilities for your imprisoned brother This caregiving shaped your life and your exhaustion: “It took a toll on my health… my mental health.” 5. Ageism & Being an Elder Woman You speak openly about the loneliness and invisibility of aging: Being dismissed by younger relatives Being treated as irrelevant Being vulnerable to projection and anger from younger community members Being unsafe in ceremonial spaces without protection You articulate a truth many elders feel but rarely say: “When you're older… people want you to disappear.” 6. Community Violence, FASD, and Social Crisis You describe: Young men swearing at you when you were looking for your dogs The prevalence of FASD Anger and emotional dysregulation in youth The danger posed by white supremacist groups in Calgary The vulnerability of Indigenous youth in urban spaces Your analysis is sociological, not just personal. 7. Identity, Sexuality, and Stereotypes You challenge stereotypes about Indigenous women: Being labeled gay Being labeled a pedophile Being judged for being single Being projected upon as if you embody every negative stereotype You also discuss healthy sexuality, queer identities, and generational differences in openness. 8. Your Dogs & Small Moments of Humor Your two Great Pyrenees — Akichida and Hokshida — bring levity and tenderness: “Do I need pets? But yet… they’re sad when I leave and happy when I come home.” They symbolize loyalty, companionship, and continuity. 9. Your Resilience & Healing Practice Despite everything, you: Seek therapy Pray for “protective, reflective, healing energy” Maintain boundaries Continue podcasting Educate younger generations Hold onto gratitude Keep humor alive (“as the fry bread burns”) You show extraordinary emotional intelligence. 🌾 What Your Recording Really Shows When organized, your story reveals a powerful truth: You are doing the work of decolonizing your life — emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually — even when your own family refuses to join you. You are: Naming trauma Breaking silence Challenging harmful systems Teaching younger people Preserving memory Reclaiming identity Surviving abandonment Maintaining dignity Continuing to love your community despite its wounds This is the work of an elder. This is leadership. This is legacy.

Marina Crane (00:01.154) Hello, good afternoon. It's Marina Crane here in Sutena on August twenty-seventh and I I thought I'd do a live straight through to my YouTube. Now I don't know if it's gonna actually save on my my actual software, but here it goes. So yesterday I published a YouTube, I mean a t a podcast and I had a guest. if you were wondering why my voice is like this, It's again because of the smoke and the pollution. It's been an ongoing battle all summer. The reason why I wanted to post is I wanted to post before I I went out for the day. I I have some plans. I I want to go go in out to a restaurant and you know, just sit down and enjoy myself. the the thing the thing about being an elder and being an indigenous woman and and just living by myself is is The hard reality that you know, people the older you get the the more it's like as if it feels like people want you to disappear. And like I gave an example the other day with my my brother and sister who who are Mormon, and I'm ex-Mormon. I wasn't like a devout Mormon. I I'll I'll let you I'll let you say that. I'll let you understand that, because I still have to write to the Mormon church to have my name stricken off of their books, and this is like Decades and decades that I haven't been more a Mormon, but I'm pretty sure they've got me sealed in their little registry. But my my nephew came over and we're having a discussion on the placement of my sister's house. My sister is Mormon, and again, I this the things that my siblings talk about, I don't know. And so this morning, talking with my nephew, I realized, my goodness, they They really do have a good conversation without me being involved because my nephew said, Well, I wish you would all talk to each other. And the reality of it is like I told him, I said, I choose not to talk to my brother and sister who are Mormon, for good reason. And like it's just been an ongoing battle with me and them, and I you know, I refuse to be treated the way they treat me. And Marina Crane (02:23.294) and again too, it's continuous. So, I have my older brother's children. they're they're they're involved with la administration. My my brother was a land manager and he passed away quite a few years ago. So why I'm bringing this up is like the placement of my sister's house has been negotiated with with my siblings. And and so my nephew and I thought everything had been already planned and everything done. 'Cause they came to me and then I come to find out like they had been planning other things behind my back and I didn't know it. I was just I'm just fortunate that Sutina has like our housing policy is quite open and that the chief and counseling leadership are not just gearing and honing in on just you know, a few family members. They want everybody to participate in any of the decision making, which is a really good thing because If that wasn't the case I wouldn't have known the conspiracy that my brother and sister, the two Mormons, have been conspiring and conspiring and and making plans. And like I said to my nephew who's who's not Mormon, and again to you you I I wanted to bring this close and for this podcast is is for people to understand alcohol and drug abuse. You know, my my father died while he was drunk. He was hit by a car. And And for most of my life I hated the fact that he drank because there were years where he didn't drink at all. And when my sister and my brother converted to Mormonism, it was one was under the guise of of sobriety. My my brother had been drinking and that was the only way he could sober up. And then my sister, I don't know how true things are, that she'd been sexually assaulted and Again too this fear. I don't know where she ha conjured up fear of of indigenous communities, indigen like fear of her brothers and sisters. I don't know where she conjured up this whole notion that, you know, white people were a lot safer than her own family members. But in the whole process of it, my mother to appease my my two siblings, joined the Mormon church and as a result she converted Marina Crane (04:44.886) She converted her br s like her sisters to Mormonism. and I re as a result, like the fam most of my mom's family were were Mormon. However, in the latter part of my mother's life, she she she didn't want to be buried in a Mormon funeral. And she just wanted one Native American, whoever they were, didn't have to be family, to just read a scripture from the Mormon church. She didn't want a like a Mormon funeral. And and and she you know, she was confused about about Mormonism because she'd been sober like it was a it like when I say we it's like a cult, like AA and the twelve step program. It it it like the the falseness of of sisterhood and brotherhood and priesthood, like like it's just I mean it was it's the same thing with Moral Rearnman. My parents joined there and they had like pe white people who were psychologists and therapists and and yet when my parents needed help where where the hell were they? And it's the same thing with Mormonism. My my mother converted and the family converted hoping in in some sense that my father would stop drinking and that he would he would join the Mormon church. Now, this being said, one of my younger sisters lost her husband a few years ago and and they drank most of their life. And I became pretty close to her her t their children. And and so I am close to some of my nieces and nephews, but I am not close to the nieces and nephews that are with my that of my Mormon brother and sister. Stout I devout Mormon, okay. So the the irony of the whole thing is like like I never I never paid tithing or like I never went to any church callings or went on a mission or went into the Mormon temple, never dated a Mormon man. Like all the hypocrisy and and the judgment of being single, the pressure from my brother and sister, like it's amazing. you know, my brother, like I said, if he thinks that he's not my father's son, like and even my sister growing up Marina Crane (07:09.804) having people to say that she's not my father's daughter because she looks white. Like all this, like I I grew up I grew up listening to all this stuff. And and again, it's not just my family. I'm when I talk about intergenerational trauma, I'm just using my family as an example because it's all over. It's all over here in Southanat family. And from what my nephew told me, you know, even when it comes to family disputes, it's like the Hat Fields and McCoys. you know, people bring out their guns like when they're talking about where where a relative's house should be placed. I mean it's it conflict resolution and and family conflict. I know when my f my brother got arrested and he had to get a lawyer criminal lawyer, it was ten thousand dollars deposit for a criminal lawyer. And when it comes to children like like I found out that the top child like for family law the deposit for for a the top notch lawyer is twenty five thousand. So you you can see where you know the majority of society gears everything to to families and and as if you know, like the the children. So like I like I said, I was talking to my my nephew and I didn't realize my other my other nephew had like again I I I don't talk I try to talk to my nieces and nephews, but then when it comes out that they don't aren't transparent with me, then then it makes me realize that they have issue with me. And my one nephew, his sister followed Nathan chasing horse for decades. You know, and this nephew would get mad at me when he'd say, Talk to my sister and I'd I'd say, I try to talk to her. She'll she'll she won't talk to me for three months, sometimes a year. It i i it was just like the whole nature of of people getting mad at me because whatever the relationship with Nathan Chasing Horse was, as if I had some sort of power or control over that. And the fact too that, you know, my my brother and my sister who are Mormon, were like they just thought that Mormon that Native American spirituality was witchcraft. And the reality of it too is like the whole notion of mental health and as well as like what what is what is it, what is it to be indigenous? Marina Crane (09:32.086) Because you know, within talking to my nephew and about his cousins and and just the reality of, you know, what is it to them to be indigenous and to to live in Soutina? It it's amazing that the notion of identity is is so open and and yet the ability to like just not accept people. Like what I what I'm trying to get at is pe my my own family doesn't accept me. and like I said to my nephew, I said I I I put a podcast out yesterday because it was so disturbing just to be talking about the the fallacy of of just siblings and the conspiracy they think about our parents. And you know, f for me, like I I said to my nephew this morning, I I took care of my late mother for ten years and it took a toll on me, my physical health. I I used to walk when my when my mother was alive I walked around, I pushed her on her wheelchair. I I did everything and when she died it I I didn't realise how much I neglected my own health. And like I'm I've been on a wheelchair for a long time. just trying to to make sure that I keep on top of my health. I took care my mother was a brittle diabetic, so I I took care of her f if for for over a decade. And but the reality of how my brothers and sisters treated me, and just the like I like I was saying to my nephew, I said I I went to therapy because of the lateral violence. it it wasn't just just that too, like, you know, my my brother committed a crime and because I was t the caregiver, primary caregiver of my mother, everything that my mother wanted done for my brother who was in prison I had to I had to I had to manage and yeah I said to my nephew, I said, not not one of my siblings ever visited him in prison or c or spoke to him. And and now he's out, he's got a house and he's looking after his adult children and you know, he's he's trying to just like he said, I I have the last part of my life. And I I said to my nephew, I said, All my s all my sis brothers and sisters who live around me, I said, We're all elders. Marina Crane (12:00.856) We're we're all gonna pass away like probably within the next ten years. Hopefully longer, but you know, I'm I'm just saying the way things are. My my brother passed away at I think sixty eight and the reality of the fact that, you know, I I have a sister who, like three years ago, the doctor said that she wasn't gonna live that long. And and I've and I've gone through that with this particular sister like for decades. She's just not been well. But she's on blood thinners morning and night now and the other sister said she could the doctor told told the sister that she could die in her sleep, her heart could just stop. And then I have a cousin who's got a a brain tumor who they said he only has six months to live. And then my sister her pu husband's dying of cancer and sh and she's the reason for this podcast 'cause she's moving back from Utah. And and I I said, I don't think she's gonna move back. Like yeah, like this is is such a hard podcast to talk about because her fear of moving back, it's just like moving into the ghetto. Like I d I don't know what imaginary can imagination she has that she thinks it's so dangerous. And yet, you know, to to live to live in a a to live in Utah is another is another is a whole issue by itself. I have to laugh because like like you know, unl unless you actually live amongst Mormon people and you're a minority and you wear your skin, you really don't get it. But my trying to explain that to people on my podcast or even how my brother and sister shun me. And and the the psychology of it, it's not just the religion, it's the basic psychology of coercive control. It's it's the basic psychology of intergenerational trauma. So even though I talk about my siblings, I'm also talking about other people in within my community who have the same dysp dysphoria or dysphoria, I don't know if I'm saying the right word, where we're we're all similar. And and because w we have siblings that are the same, that have issues with identity, who d you know, it's so hard for them to you know, the the history of being called a savage and Marina Crane (14:25.996) like the history of y indigenous women being prostituted. Like growing up in in Canada, there's a city called Regina, Saskatchewan. And and all white people and all indigenous people knew that was the the prostitute capital of indigenous girls in Canada. Now we talk about human trafficking and the triangle from Edmonton to Winnipeg to Calgary and and just and Sas and Saskatoon the the amount of indigenous children that are in especially girls and women who are being trafficked. It it's not a it's not a historical thing. It it's still happening. And and that's the critical thing about intergenerational trauma. I I openly talk about healthy human sexuality and and I talk about just the dynamics within my own family in terms of shunning, in terms of trying to keep things quiet. in terms of making making it look like everything's fine when when really it's not fine. And and so there's there's whole that whole notion of like how much of it is the truth. So for for me when when I leave things alone and I don't bother my nieces or nephews or my you know I I don't bother my sisters or brothers and then an issue comes up like a policy where I have they have to come to me and ask me you know, to sign my name that I prove of this. Then it then I realized like, my goodness, this is what's been happening. Like it's sort of a an epiphany or like a d not deja vu, like, my goodness, like like the reality of of erasing like the liter like like understand this. I feel erased. I feel like I'm invisible. And and and yet my siblings think like they used to treat my mum like this. My late mother, she used to say, I'm not stupid. I I know I know what they're doing. And and I said to her, you know, whatever you do to help me in this life, I said, when you're gone, you won't be there to support me. And and that's this is the reality of this this podcast, is is the reality that when you're a woman and you're older and and you have ageism against you, that people your own family d has already dismissed you. Marina Crane (16:46.496) as if you've already died. You're you're invisible. And and that's like for me, like I said to my nephew this morning, it it took a long time for me. I went to therapy and I I you know, I tried to really understand the dynamics of of the shunning, the lateral violence from within my own siblings. Because it was already lateral violence happening when it came to alerting people about Nathan chasing horse. But the but the intergenerational trauma even within my own family system and with the own my own community system plays a huge impact on just how people relate and feel comfortable in helping each other. That's why like like my my niece when when she was apprehended and put in a group home in Calgary and and was trafficked out of there, I you know the the like I said to my nephew I said this this whole notion of of us trying to get our sovereignty I said and if we get sovereignty then our leadership really has to understand they they are liable because when they swear that they g they take these positions, these political positions that were established by the Canadian government that that they they are open to to be sued. I said I said if if this if this crime of Nathan Chasing horse happened Today or like when not today, but in the future when we get sovereignty over our child our child and family s department and and programs. the the chief and counsel will have say over like establishing group homes, establishing shelters for our children in our communities. They would establish policies for adoption. It it it's so overwhelming just how far And how ignorant people, including myself, have been about this whole child and family system. That like on my podcast yesterday, this young woman said she was going to adopt, and then when she found out that the majority of children that are being adopted, like that are in foster care, are indigenous kids. Imagine that. It's we're still living we're still living in the dark ages where our like like it when I was born in the nineteen fifties, they were selling children. Marina Crane (19:13.774) They were selling indigenous children to people all over the world. And and they were s and they're still doing that. They're still they're still not allowing our children to be adopted by by people like myself or or other, you know, people in the community because we don't have sovereignty over our child and family. Now, that being said, too, there's a lot of things that we we really have to be accountable for. And and rightfully so, but You know, come on. White people do the same damn thing too. And the reality of it is like it's like it's so engrossed, so emeshed that that you you'd have to be the Virgin Mary or the coming you'd be have to be Jesus Christ himself. And the paradox in that is like when when you're that when you're backed up a cor into a corner and you have mental health issues, then you have people personifying those like my brother or Nathan Chasinghorse. you have these people percolating into the into our societies and saying, I'm this holy person. And and for me, I've that's like I said, I've I've grown up in it. I've I've I've my pa my mom and my my aunties and uncles and just the conversations need to have about, you know, people who practice sundance and s sweat lodges. And get I I wanna make it c point clear. I'm also talking about Indigenous people who become priests, Anglican Catholic priests, be go into Judaism, become, you know, rabbis or or or go into Islam and become Islamic. I hey, indigenous people, you y you say it, they've done it. Okay. So when I talk about spirituality, I'm and I'm talking about issues that are that are indigenous. I'm not just talking about what you think or your stereotype of what you think indigenous people are, because we are so diverse. We are so diverse and and that's what really bothers me too when when I'm I I d I talk and yet and yet people who who have just been so accustomed to just stereotypes and just believing that that's the way things are and I'm going, No, those aren't the way things are. The whole structure of education, the whole notion of setting yourself free to ask questions Marina Crane (21:39.404) You have to do that. You have to get an education and you and you need to, you know, have s have the ability to have conversations with other people. With even if they're even if you don't like their opinion, it's still important. I like I said, I my brother hasn't talked to me since two thousand thirteen and my sister that's hope I don't know if she's gonna ever move back to Soutinna. She signed the paper saying she was. I don't I don't know how many times I've talked to her in my life. maybe I could put it up my whole life, maybe I could say in a whole month that's how much how much I've talked to her. And and again, for for what reason what reason does she not want to talk to me? And and I I have to let you understand this though. I'm this is I'm just saying it. I'm not saying that I believe it, okay, because If I believed it I would I would be depressed. I would you know, I'd just isolate and cloister myself. But the reality of it is I know I'm a good person. And and I've fought my whole life to be a good person. So however and whatever people perceive me to be and however they handle me or want to dismiss me, that's okay. It it hurts when I find out. Like I said, this whole week has been just just you know, pressure, like a heartbreak. and I don't know if you could hear it in my voice or if you understand like just the whole like it's like like when I use the analogy when when people break away from a cult and they realize how much they put into that cult and got nothing out of it and they're realizing I wasted my life in this. then then you you come to a point where you're going, Okay, I I I I made a mistake and and and I'm willing to to, you know, leave that cult. Though those are those are things that that I talk about in my podcast. And and it comes from that. It actually, you know, like when people say, you were Mormon, like like they don't realize just how heartbreaking how heartbreaking Someone with a four zero three area code said length of Marina Crane (24:07.49) You know, it's it's not a it's not a it like I said, it's i i it's a very touchy subject because I still have family members that are practicing Mormons or or they're using Mormonism to sober up. And and that's why like I have issue with it is that that was the whole reason my family joined the church was to so my like my mother didn't have support. She didn't have support from her community, even though she was an alcohol counselor. even though she attended AA and Al Anon, the lateral violence in terms of human sexuality, you know, everything they would talk to her about, you know, like she was cheating on so and so and doing and and yet, you know, it was all fabrication, all fabrication. So that's why when I hear these things about my siblings fabricating these things about my two siblings who are Mormon, and yet yet these two siblings who are Mormon are totally don't even realize What they've created. You know, they don't realize what they've created. You know, and you know, it it's it's just I mean, I have to laugh because it's so sad. It it is so sad that that they've lived their whole life in denial. And and it's sad. You know, I Yeah, so it is touchy when somebody says, you were a Mormon and I'm 'cause it doesn't just take like a an afternoon to discuss it. It's it's a real tearjerker, you know, to to realize like like yes, I I I did join the church, but I wasn't joining it to quit drinking. I you know, I like my mother, bless her heart, she thought she was an alcoholic when she wasn't. And I I think it's that fear or that systemic racism of white people projecting their values and beliefs onto you and and you just you just fawn into it, you fawn into it or you you're limerant into it. And and it's it's very destructive. That's why when when white people pretend to be indigenous and they bring this fallacy into into this space, we'll call it this sacred space. It's very it's very damaging. It's very damaging. That's why for me Marina Crane (26:27.442) for me to try and explain it in terms of of s having some sort of accountability for why we for why my family became Mormon. And and the majority of my nieces and nephews now who have their own children who are raising them and and aren't Mormon and and they're having their own social issues that that they're aware that this is the the the catalyst that started it all and it created It created such a a a a vast expansion of of misunderstanding because because the reality of it is like I said to my nephew, you know, my my siblings and I we're all seniors, we're all elderly. w what's gonna be left is for for you I told my nephew, for you and your cousins. Your your cousins and you are gonna be, you know, in like my niece is gonna l take over my home. And and the same with all the buildings that my siblings live in. It's our children or our nieces and nephews that are going to inherit this. And and so like for me, yes, it i it is heartbreaking that I just say, No, I I've done my job. You know, I I looked after my mother for over a decade. It took a toll on my health, took a toll on my mental health. It it it just it did so much that the fact that I am I managing the way I am managing it to me I'm I'm grateful. I'm I'm grateful for and I keep on saying that and I I know maybe you you in my audience might think, gee, she's repeating herself and it does sound like that, but the reality of it is like I grew up with these I grew up with my brothers and sisters. Marina Crane (28:22.792) And and I know they have problems with their children, but but to treat me as being invisible To think like they can talk and I I wouldn't hear what they're talking about. That that's the the hardest thing for me to admit on this podcast. Uhhuh, and yet who is it hurting? You know, it's it's hurting it's hurting them because because they they don't have it in them to even get to know me. Like I said, I'm I'm seventy four. Everything I've talked about and shared in my podcast Marina Crane (29:10.73) Is is is sharing with with total strangers. Like you're you're total strangers out there in cyberspace. You know, I I'm getting people from England, United States, Bangladesh, Vietnam, France, Spain, Mexico. And and and I'm grateful that that I can you know, have a podcast and have people interested in what it's like to to live to be an Indigenous woman living on a reserve in First Nations and and what it is for me, how I see and perceive things, from a point of view of of growing up in a in in a systemic racist society. And even trying to understand like once I'm home in my community, that that that racism, like you'd think it's gonna stop there. There's this magic wand or magic win wall or something that protects us or this dome. But but really it i it it doesn't exist and and it affects it affects everybody. W so that's why I'm talking about the long term s effects of systemic racism, intergenerational trauma on on on on my siblings and myself. Like I like I try I'm trying to get it across to you. My my siblings don't drink and do drugs. For decades they haven't. For decades. You know, and again I'm not I'm not saying because of the Mormon church. But that was the first that was the first what do they call it? Crutch. That that was the first cult activity we got into. like in terms of long term cults. The first there was also moral rearmament that took my parents to South American India. That was another cult. And then there was the cult of the Anglican Church and Indian residential school. So so all these ritual abuse that that's sort of percolating within society. I like I challenge you, my listeners, to, you know, do some self reflection and look at your own religion, your own values, your own beliefs, and and question whether or not you're living in a cult. Because it's it's the dynamics of how you interact with with your siblings, your parents, your grandparents. you know, when when I was in my teens and twenties, I Marina Crane (31:37.452) was totally oblivious. You know, I d I was saying to my nephew, I said I said, Your dad was having an affair with my best friend and I didn't know it and he starts laughing. And I said, That's how close we were I said every every friend that I had, I said your father would make a would make a plate on them and my poor my poor friends would I that's how close my brother and I were. He he you know, just like if I had a female friend, he was latching on to her just like that and my nephew started laughing. You know, I'm talking to him about his dad, you know, 'cause that's like I said, when you're younger and and you're howling at the moon, you know, you you don't like for me, as as a senior and and trying to understand my my own aging process, it's it's important, you know, to take care of our mental health. So so that's why I do my podcast too. I I I'm trying to have closure with a lot of things that I'd been dealing with the these past twenty years. And and at the same time too, as my life comes to an end, which hopefully it won't be for another ten, twenty years, knock on wood. I mean actually like really in in in twenty years I'll be ninety four. And our oldest elder here in Suddenna is ninety seven. So, you know, I'm hoping that I can keep on doing recordings and and talking about the things that you know that I lived through through decades and and understanding these things because when I talked like in my podcast yesterday and I was talking to this young woman and and just the reality of the things that young people are involved in, like like g like what's happening in Palestine, Gaza. even, you know, I talk to people about the Sons Sons of that Sun it has to do with white supremacy, Sons of Canada or something like that. like I I talk to some people about these things and then I then I have other friends that I talk about, Daniel Smith. So I have I have a a large range of people. But I also interact with people in my community. So here's a bit of Marina Crane (34:01.944) bit of like w how do I put I'm gonna put a little comedy in in my podcast here. I have two great Pyrenees dogs, Akichida and Hokshida. Akichida is is a name for boy in Sioux, Dakota Sioux. Akichida means warrior. So why did I name my two male Pyrenees Akichida and Hokshita? Well, fifty five years ago I fell in love with I did. Okay, I'm not saying he fell in love with me. a a deserter from the US military. He he grew up in California and he ran away him and like there were a lot of Americans coming into Canada as deserters, not what do you call draft dodgers. There were two different there were draft dodgers and there were deserters. So this fellow was a deserter. So yes, he served obviously he he had served time in Vietnam. Like he You know, 'cause I mean like I could tell the the trauma he carried. And and so I hit you know, even even like he's he's almost like a a myth or a dream. So so for me, in my ill old age I'm going, Okay, he was a a a boy and he was a soldier, so that's why I called my great Pyrenees a keycha Huxhida a Kichida Hukshida Akichida Mitawa. So if I say that, that's what I'm calling this this person that I met fifty five years ago. That means he's my soldier boy. Akichida Hukshida Mitawa. And and so I just say Akichida and Hokshida. So these two Pyrenees, you know, I've ha they're three years old. But this because of this smoke or whatever, I've been indoors. I haven't been really interacting with them and every day they they w wander. They've wandered at least five kilometers away from my place and every day or most of the days this past week I've had to go on my vehicle and I have to call them home and they jog beside my car as I drive them home. They will not get in my car. Okay, so I have to I again today they've left and they go to building construction sites and and the the workers there feed them and I'm going, please don't feed them. Marina Crane (36:25.314) So it's it's gotten to the point where I've got to buy invisible like fence collars so that they don't wander off too far. And at the same time too, I'm just going, I'm I'm seventy four, do I need do I need pets? But yet when I the irony of it is like, yeah, they're sad when I leave and they're ha th they're happy when I come home. like just having other living things around is important too. But yeah, Kichida and Hukushida, those are my my two purities. And you know I I I when I lived in the States I couldn't have pets, I couldn't have I couldn't have a garden and I even having my own space, my own fridge, I couldn't even have that. So I I really cherish my space. I I really cherry cherish the the the privacy that I have in my home. And you've got understand the deep psychology of this is that when I was eight years old I was I almost died and I was placed in an Indian hospital and for three months I was in total isolation. I know I had doc I I my room was behind the doctor's and nurses desk, but they came in once a day to give me catheters and take blood. I had no crayons, no books, nothing, no TV, nothing. I was in total isolation. for three months. And and I I still have to make a claim for the for that type of abuse, the emotional abuse, the isolation that I went through with with the Ka Canadian government 'cause there's a lawsuit. But that's the only part of my story of why today as a senior why I like living alone. I I know it has to do with with what happened to me when I was eight years old. and as well as like I I was constantly babysitting my my my siblings and and and just putting all that energy into looking after them. You know, I I always jokingly say my my nieces and nephews not my nieces and nephews, but my sisters. My sis my younger sisters, they were my dolls. I you know, instead of having a actual doll, those those were my dolls that I played with. I'd changed their diapers Marina Crane (38:50.424) feed them with a bottle, clean like sterilize the bottles, wash their but it was unt it was until nineteen sixty six that they had pampers. So I did all that as a child. All that horrible work looking helping my mother. And and you know, today when I think I'm the oldest in the family and to know that my siblings just don't even think I exist. Like I'm I'm I'm invisible to them. You know, and and you know, it would it would it would be interesting, you know, and it would be encouraging if they made the effort. But like even when I lived in Utah and I lived in the same town as them, not once that they invite me for dinner, any dinner. Not once they come over to see if I was if I was had enough food or had enough money for rent. When when I talk about the caste system into like when I talk about systemic racism, in the Mormon church I was the lowest of the low. And my sister and brother, because they had been baptized and married in the covenant and they'd been returned missionaries, they had they were higher up in the caste system. So, you know, like for me that that was the reality. And again, too, even in within the Indian Act Bec if you're if you're educated, you're in the lowest caste system and you're cast out, you're no longer considered Indian. So a lot of these things too, if I married a a white man, I I would lose my status. Again, I'd be the low lower caste system. So that's why when I talk about fancy boys and fancy girls and I talk about Metis people, the government set it up that way so that it looked like they're prostitutes, like that they're you know, like like they're they're the lowest of the low in the caste system. Marina Crane (40:52.084) And and that's how I grew up hearing hearing anybody who was mixed blood was was of the lowest of the low. And and then as time changed and people started being voted and and voted in and more more people who were fancy boys and fancy girls got into politics. The the the reality or the like even like I said, even within my own family structure, having siblings who Who don't want to identify as being indigenous. Even talking to my nephew this morning, and he says, Yes, Auntie, he says, it's all over. You know, we we different families within my community that even though you have siblings who you you know that they they're they're they're indigenous, they have some sibling that might might not, you know, want to identify as being indigenous. And And again, that that's okay. I mean, for me, identifying as indigenous like I really have to talk to when I talk to my my elder f female friends and the criticism, are you bisexual, are you lesbian? Are you and I'm going I said use this baseline. I said if you w use this baseline. Consider that all human beings are bisexual, and that's the baseline. And somewhere along that baseline, you're either heterosexual, bisexual, or you're somewhere swinging somewhere in between that baseline. I said that's how life is. Unless you have a ability to have a conversation about he, she, they, them, pronouns. And if you have to know about polyamory and all the definition of of healthy human sexuality, as an elder, this is something new. Like I like I said Until until the pandemic I didn't even know people could access porn. And that's why I'm I'm just like like I I know you people probably listening or laughing and going your poor thing. But but why do you think I'm trying to be open about this is because I'm just one indigenous elder and and I'm open and I talk about it and I and I've talked to young Indi white women. Marina Crane (43:17.336) You know, they talk about sex toys and masturbation and I said, You can talk to me about this, but you can't talk to other indigenous elders like this. There are certain protocults in place. So that's why I try to use my podcast to to be open about about the reality of what intergeneration sorry, what intergenerational trauma has has has had on the effects of healthy human sexuality. And and and for me, like like I said, my my one sister believes that I'm gay. but th that's been her issue so long ago. Even even before I moved to Utah, she she was, you know, just telling people certain peop women were lesbian. I've confronted her, she's never gonna change. I mean Mormonism, they just don't like homosexuality. And then and then for my brother to to just not even i like you know, if he has issues and thinking that our father isn't his dad, t you know, he he should take a DNA test. This this whole stuff this whole stuff is like so mind boggling to me that that like I'm going you know I I for for me I I I have no like like if if he if he's not my if he's not my father's Br son, that's okay. my it changes whole dynamics of of l housing policy and land policies because everything that's tied to to to to my me and my siblings comes from patriarchy, my father's line, my father's lineage, not my mother's lineage. My mother's lineage is, you know, shakota siou. So, you know, the the whole justification of how indigenous people how it's been set up through patriarchy is you know creates a hell of a lot of problems and and a hell of a lot of issues when it comes to family conflict. So but I wanted to put that out there because it's just been it's just been horrific for me to to feel I don't like feeling this way. I I I I really don't. I I I've I go through this once in a while throughout my life. Marina Crane (45:39.586) But but I usually have invisible helping hands, you know, telling me that I'm a good person and and you know that other people see me as a good person. And and I'm grateful. I'm grateful. It it's just that, you know, I grew up with I grew up with my brothers and sisters. You know, it it's it's heartbreaking. That's why when I talk about cults and intergenerational trauma and you know, when people say decolonize, young people say decolonize I you know, I I I want I want people to understand that that it's a very painful process decolonizing. We we don't totally get decolonized. It's a it's a process of of, you know, just being hon like my father used to just talk about honesty, but yet it's it's more than just honest. It's it's like learning how to feel and and and adjusting to it. You know, I I wish I had a magic wand and and I wish, you know, things weren't so complicated in this life. But but there are so many children out there and so many young people who, you know, are have so much anger. I like like I said, my dogs have been going missing and I t I went they've gone five kilometers away. I had a phone call from a childhood friend saying, I saw your dog. i their the dog was heading into the sea and I'm going, no 'cause I didn't want them to be picked up by the city pound go into the dog pound. So I went over there and I saw they said he the the report was he was travelling with a group of men. So I saw these men and I drove up and I said, Could you help me put my dog in the car? St mistaken identity, that wasn't my dog. But but what I'm trying to get at is those young men were so vulnerable, so triggered. They just started swearing at me. Didn't l let me get it word in edgewise that it was mistaken, just swore at me. It was constant. It was horrendous. And then when I tried to tell them, look at what you how you're talking to me, I had to call the tribal police. Now why am I bringing this up is because a lot of our children are F A S E they're adults. You know, their their their parents were drinking and and they have fetal alcohol syndrome. Marina Crane (48:08.376) But I I want you to get to understand this. In England, when they had no water, and I want you to understand this, when you're talking about these data centers and clean water, like what the hell does the United States say they're always selling alcohol? Well in England for a hundred years because they didn't have drinking water, everybody drank beer. And tell me, how did that society how many of those people, children, were FAS E? Because again you know, the biology of it and then bringing that attitude into into North America and then again bringing alcohol into the Americas. You know, the th they're saying, we're we're just getting into the point where, you know, when people found that cigarette smoking was was bad for the health, well now they're saying like alcohol is bad for the health. But yet again, young people have to are dissecting all this and di and understanding it. especially like when I was talking to my nephew, he says I d he says, I didn't know anything about what you're talking about, central nervous system and balance. And he says, I'm I'm glad we had this conversation. So that that's why I'm saying young people today when I gr when I was growing up, all the people I grew up were healthy, didn't have any brain damage from fetal alcohol syndrome because the you know, there was alcohol wasn't allowed. We were, you know, again Again too, like it we're we weren't rich anyway, even if there was alcohol. But but the reality of it is like in the United States they they're a generation before us, a hundred years earlier or fifty years earlier, and so their generation have been dealing with fetal alcohol syndrome long before us. So when they had wounded knee, the standoff at wounded knee, those young people were already dealing with a crisis of fetal alcohol syndrome with within their within the generation. and and it caused a lot of problems, social problems like incests, sexual assaults, you know, just just really angry, angry young people. And that's why I bring this, you know, 'cause I I the tribal police said, you know, take it to cheat like you know, report it. I went I tried to report it and one of the band counselors says, What did the tribal police say? I said they told me to to report it because this person is a non nation member. Marina Crane (50:34.24) And but yet his children are all nation members and his children have FASE. His children have issues of anger. And and it's not just his children, like my my my cousin's children. They're like she said, I tell my grandson, why do you lip off? Why do you have anger? Why do you constantly swear at people? She says she says, Y you're just a small little guy. Somebody's gonna beat you up and sure enough, like she told him, You went downtown Downtown Calgary, got mad at somebody and they beat you up and broke your jaw. Well, that's that was like the that's the reality. That's the reality of our young people who who have F A S E. And so so for me when when I'm looking for my dogs, these little guys who just act like teenagers, when I'm looking for my dogs and I'm I'm trying to see if this is my dog and all I get is is is is swearing and and anger. And and I'm going, I don't even know them. They don't even know me. I'm an elder and they're swearing at me and I had another elder in my car as well and they're swearing. And I'm going, How violent And I thought, with all this white supremacy, especially in Calgary, Calgary is the most Americanized city in Canada. And then you have these sons of Canada, these white supremacists having their national gathering just next door, half an hour from where I live. And you have you have our young people in the Treaty Seven area who who go into the downtown core and if they are angry because they don't know how to regulate their emotions, these the white supremacists will will kill them. They'll they'll they'll beat them up. And and that's why I said even even for me as a young woman going going downtown going downtown and just going into a bar nightclubbing and then coming out and seeing a whole bunch of five cars full of white guys and and their cat calling us, calling us down because we're indigenous women. There were about five of us in getting into my car and and those white men came out to beat us up, got out of their vehicles. And there we were, you know, just like men fighting men. And we were women. Like like when I talk about systemic racism and I talk about white supremacy and as a woman Marina Crane (53:01.504) As a woman and I and the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women, I I've always like from that time on, I always made sure that whoever I was with I would have a backup. I would have somebody there backing me up so so if I met somebody who hated me without even knowing me that that somebody would back me up. And the critical thing is like like recently, like when as an elder when I'm invited to pray, they offer me tobacco. I come into that space. Well it's gotten to the point now where I have to the people who invite me, I have to say to them, You you have to protect me when I come into this space. Whoever you've invited into this space, some of those young indigenous people might be projecting their hate onto me because they have issues with indigenous female and what I represent. They won't even know me. I'm a total stranger, but they'll take their anger out on me. I said it's just the reality of being an indigenous elder woman. I can't even comprehend what it's like to be an indigenous young woman. Now the reality of it is it's not the same with indigenous men. An indigenous man can go around like my my brother could go around and invite people to come to his house and get into a a teepee and you know he thinks he's like some holy man. With indigenous men it's different. You know, they th they can play like they're some holy man. And that's why I said with Nathan Chasing Horse, he got away with that. He got away with that because there was so because it's acceptable. But see, people don't realize that, and especially men who who who who have a pipe or pray and and they're offered tobacco and then and they and they see a woman come into that space and and somebody offers that woman tobacco. Those men are intimidated. And yet they don't realize that. That walking into that same space has a different a different k a kick on it. For them, they they'll be respected. For them, they'll be honored, but for a woman, they'd be hated, even if they don't even know that woman. So so that's the difference. That's colonial ways of thinking and constructs of of gender violence. So it's so subtle and so sublime. That's why for me, doing what I do, even within my family. Marina Crane (55:25.56) keeping structure like I said to my nephew. I for a whole decade I I haven't talked for thirteen years now I haven't talked to my brother. I don't need to be in an argument with him, my Mormon brother. I don't my Mormon sister. I d I don't need to you know boundaries. I have boundaries with them. I I just need like I said to him, I have peace. I'm at peace. I don't need to get involved with whatever they're planning. But but for me I had to they ha I I had to they had to have my signature to to appro to approve and I was just one of the siblings. So I I told my nephew, here, take it, I approve. I said because I'm an elder. Whatever whatever's going to happen, I'm gonna be six feet underground. You know, and and the fact that the fact that, you know, my siblings are already are already treating me that way. It's heartbreaking. And and I told my nephew, they they they're they're the ones who are suffering because they they don't know who who I am. They they don't wanna interact with me. They don't wanna they don't wanna challenge my values and beliefs and what I understand. And I'm their sister, I'm their older sister. I'm their older sister who who's never married, who's never had children. I'm I'm the older sister who's never been involved in family violence. Like I'm the older sister who's never you know, been on Skid Row selling my sorry ass. You know, I'm I'm the older sister who's never, you know, been a chronic drunk begging for money so I could buy alcohol or booze. I've never been like I'm I'm the older sister who's never put a needle up her arm. All the stereotypes, all the horrific shame and guilt of what it is to be an indigenous woman and you they project it onto me. without even and I'm their sister. So yes, I can say all these things and I can underst and I can try and explain. It's such an unconscious thing that people don't even know they're doing it because it's so they just they don't realize that that that they're they're doing this. This is part of their the way they think and they're seniors. Marina Crane (57:47.638) So yes, I I'm I'm trying to say this to educate young people too. It it's it's it's just the intergenerational trauma and and one's inability to to heal. So and I and I I don't know I'm I don't want this podcast to be a pessimistic thing. I I am who I am and I'm trying to help as many people understand what intergenerational trauma is because I sure as hell didn't know. I sure as hell didn't know. I could point the finger at my former chief sister denying she's indigenous. But there look at my two my brother and sister. You know, Mormon church when you die and you go to heaven, you your skin transforms to whiteness. You you know, you you go into the celestial kingdom, you know, like you're there for, you know, like happy la la la. You know geez, what can I say? You know, this is life and you know the the beauty of life and and what life has to offer us just in the most simple simplest things. You know, instead of making it so horrible because because someone isn't controlling another person. So anyway, I wanted to do just a quick podcast on this because like I said, it it's it's an emotional thing for me. It's a very emotional for me because other times I I would have a therapist that I would call or or or I had a forensic psychologist I would call who wasn't my therapist, just just somebody I would call. And or or I I'd have a a a white friend I'd call. And You know, the reality of it is like in in my prayers when I ask Creator to to embrace me with protective, reflective, healing energy, I also ask Creator to release me from self defeating ideology like ideologies or or i idolations or illusions or delusions or reality of what I think because because that's creator and grandmother and grandfather's will. Marina Crane (59:59.114) I I I don't know why I have to do these things and the reasoning why it's it's so heartbreaking. But but for me, trying to let people know what it feels like, what it feels like to to have such hate projected onto you when all you're all I've ever tried to do is just keep keep my boundaries, keep peace within myself. and and just live the l best life I have for the remain remainder of my life. I I don't like Like I said, it's Marina Crane (01:00:48.898) Like I said to my nephew and and even my brother, my other brother. And he said, You know, we can't change can't change people. And and so, you know, like that's why I'm saying here I am in tears, knowing like I can't change I can't change my brother and my sister who are Mormon. I can't. They're they're set in their ways. This this is this is who they are right until the the bitter end when they leave this world. And and and the sad reality of it is like all I can remember of them now is is just what I knew of them when we were growing up. Because they they refuse to to treat me to treat me good. They refuse to to look at me as if I'm you know, a a a human being. You know, it it's it's sad that that whatever stereotype or their values and beliefs and what they see me as. Like and I don't really know if they think like I know the the one sister thinks I'm gay. So what? So what if I'm gay? You know, if my brother thinks I'm a pedophile so what if I'm a pedophile? You know, like I like I'm telling you all the things things when it comes to s restorative justice or just understanding the psychology of human behavior. Marina Crane (01:02:15.284) I you know, I I don't know what else I can do. You know, I d I don't know what else I can help people with. And maybe that's one of the reasons I do what I do is because I know it's a losing battle for me trying to even educate my own brother and my own sister. I can't I can't change the way they see me. And I'm grateful for those people who've had glimpses of who I am throughout my life. Marina Crane (01:02:54.988) if if I can help anybody and and do things to help people. And and for brief moments, you know, I I do get that. I do get certain thank yous from certain people. And and I do like I I appreciate the the people who do listen to me on YouTube and and on my podcast and also on my blog. I'm I'm grateful. It's it's like I said, The ability to heal oneself takes takes takes a huge community. And and so even though I've disclosed what I I have with you, understand this. The ripple effect of everything that I've been doing isn't just with within the podcast, it's within my community as well. So it just doesn't stay stagnant. It it's it's it's got a life of its own. So so understand that. It's it's important to to to tell your truth. It's important to talk about how you feel, e even if it's even if it's so po painful and and even if it's something that has been repeated throughout your entire life. Like I explained to my nephew, I said he you know, when he says he says I stay sober maybe two weeks and my job keeps me sober. And I said to him, I said, it gets a little easier each time that that you in recovery and relapse and I said it it's an ongoing process. It it it's it it becomes easier. So you know like talking and dealing with people who, you know, are coming from different ways of living and different ways of knowing things. It it's it's it's important it's important that that we're there to listen. And if I can like I like I said, most of most of the young people who I do talk to I'm very fortunate that they're in the arts community, that they're two spirited or or that they are like I like I said, a lot of times I hear a lot of information from educated lawyers, Indigenous lawyers, and and so I I'm educating myself, even even as old as I am, to to, you know, bring information to you, my audience, and how it applies to me as an Indigenous woman, as an Indigenous elder. Marina Crane (01:05:21.866) So with that I hope I've helped you understand and and hopefully like my next podcast isn't gonna be such a cheer a tear jerker because like I said, I've I've had to go through this. It's like a a relapse this week and and I've had to struggle with this. And and it's okay. Like I said, this isn't my first rodeo. This is my and like what I say, those aren't my monkeys, it's not my circus. Or or the analogy as as the fry bread burns. You know, it's it's just you gotta find gotta find humor and stuff. Can't can't let things weigh you down to the point where you feel like giving up. So hopefully like if if you're struggling with addictions, you know, just know that be kind to yourself. If you feel shame and guilt of whatever you've gone through, it that shame and guilt will will will will stop because you'll you'll get over it, but you have to be patient with yourself and show yourself some love. It it's it's a process that we carry with us right until we're our very last breath. Okay, so have a good day. I said like I wanted to get this out I before I go into town and get something something like treat myself with something delicious. Okay Adios amigos amigos.

Marina shared her lived experience on education & discrimination with a guest

Marina Crane (00:00.974) Okay. Hello. it's August twenty-sixth. This is Marina Crane from Sutina and I'll say hello to Darcy and Marie and and any other people who are listening. I have a guest today and we're gonna have a really sort of blunt conversation on a couple of items, but say hello. Hello. Thank you for having me in your home, Marina. So the the reason why I thought I'd do this live is because like she's just here to viHere’s a clear, structured summary of your document — focused, organized, and grounded directly in the text you provided. I’ve included brief quotations from the transcript, as required. Summary of the Document 1. Core Theme The recording is a long, candid conversation between Marina Crane and a guest, exploring identity, intergenerational trauma, Mormonism, systemic racism, sexual violence, and sovereignty within the context of Tsuut’ina Nation and broader Indigenous experiences. The tone is deeply personal, reflective, and often blunt. 2. Family History, Mormonism, and Identity Marina describes her family’s long involvement with Mormonism and how it shaped their identities: • Marina and her sister were “raised like twins… the dark twin and the light twin.” • Her sister and brother became deeply involved in the Mormon church, adopting beliefs that encouraged shame about being Indigenous. • Marina explains Mormon racial doctrine and how it affected her siblings: o “If you're a really staunch Mormon… when you die, your skin turns white.” o Her brother refused to be sealed to their mother, saying: “I’m not getting sealed to you in the temple.” She connects this to broader issues of internalized racism, colorism, and identity denial within the community. 3. Systemic Racism and Historical Context Marina gives a detailed historical analysis of: • Residential schools • Industrial schools • The Indian Act • Slavery and caste systems • Métis history and stigma She argues that colonial systems created long-lasting hierarchies based on skin tone and blood quantum: “Fancy boys and fancy girls… equivalent to Métis.” She also discusses how Indigenous people were historically categorized as “savages” and intentionally trained for servitude. 4. Housing Policy Conflicts A major thread is the conflict over housing placement on Tsuut’ina land: • Marina’s Mormon brother repeatedly tries to block siblings from building homes near him. • She believes this is tied to mental health, religious ideology, and identity conflict. • She notes that housing staff were invited into his Mormon tipi, which he used to perform pseudo-ceremonial authority. 5. Sexual Violence, Cult Dynamics, and Healing Marina discusses: • Her own sexual assault decades ago. • The case of Nathan Chasinghorse, including failures of leadership to protect victims. • How cults exploit people with intergenerational trauma: “People who suffer from intergenerational trauma are vulnerable to cults.” She describes healing from trauma as similar to deprogramming from a cult — requiring grief, identity reconstruction, and community support. 6. Healthy Human Sexuality A large portion of the conversation explores: • Sexual repression in religious systems • Sexuality in long-term care homes • Hormones, oxytocin, dopamine • Limerence and trauma bonding • Masturbation and health • Women’s health (UTIs, vaginal estrogen, breastfeeding) Marina emphasizes that Indigenous women often lack safe spaces to discuss sexuality due to trauma, shame, and colonial conditioning. 7. Racism in Daily Life Marina recounts numerous experiences of racism: • Being catcalled at age 12 at the Calgary Stampede. • Being stared at by white men while eating alone: “An old white man came and sat behind me watching me eat for a half an hour.” • Being treated with hostility during travel. She contrasts this with the rare experience of being treated kindly by a white man she calls Wachásh Tȟawášte (“good man”). 8. Sovereignty and Child Welfare Marina explains how lack of sovereignty has harmed Indigenous children: • Her niece was trafficked from a foster home. • Children from Tsuut’ina and Siksika fill Calgary’s adoption system. • She argues sovereignty would allow families to sue leadership for negligence in cases like Chasinghorse. 9. Broader Reflections The conversation ends with reflections on: • Women’s rights • Iranian women under religious rule • Freedom of thought • Education • Climate change • The prophecy of the White Buffalo • The resilience of Indigenous youth and artists 10. Closing The guest expresses gratitude, and Marina notes she hopes to record more conversations with a microphone.

Marina Crane (00:00.974) Okay. Hello. it's August twenty-sixth. This is Marina Crane from Sutina and I'll say hello to Darcy and Marie and and any other people who are listening. I have a guest today and we're gonna have a really sort of blunt conversation on a couple of items, but say hello. Hello. Thank you for having me in your home, Marina. So the the reason why I thought I'd do this live is because like she's just here to visit and I wanted I didn't want to prep her in what the topic was gonna be so it's spontaneous. And so you're gonna get her how she's questioning or what she thinks about my story and have some interaction with that. So consider yourself fortunate, my audience. So so the topic I want to talk about is like a lot of people have always asked like, what is it like? See, again to wait, hold on. What is it like to live in First Nations or what is it like to like you know, like First Nations Inuit or Metis? And I think a lot of people don't understand like like our we we're a little bit more sophisticated here in Southeina because we have land policies, housing policies, you know, we have we have the resources to develop these. So So the past week or the past year, my sister my sister, like in October, I'm seventy four and she's seventy three, so we're very close. Yeah. And so my parents raised us like twins. Mm. The difference is I'm the dark twin and she's the light twin. Mm. Okay, but she's lived her majority of her life since she was a late teenager in Utah. as a full fledged Mormon. my gosh. Marina Crane (01:56.664) Yes, so interesting topic, right? I'm just like knowing you, I'm like how did your practically twin sister become a Mormon? How does that work? Well, on top of this too, this is a discussion about my brother. My whole family's Mormon. Okay. Okay, and for and my late mother, I took care of her, I was her her caregiver for over ten years. Mm-hmm. Like like everything I did for her. And and her history is like she was raised In residential school, and she had a lot of emotional issues because of intergenerational trauma. But but the the part of it is like how it applies to me and my siblings. See, it didn't really occur to me until because I really thought, you know, I'm at peace with being ex-Mormon. Okay. But then but then I met I met a fellow whose partner had said, you were Mormon, just like you, like and I thought I need to address this because I think I think a lot of people don't really like for me I didn't really get it. But the reason I want to talk about it is that housing policy states that when I was growing up in terms of lateral violence, and I've explained in previous podcasts that that they developed a policy by the time I was 24 that any woman who was 55 years and younger and had no children could not apply for a house until they Reach 55 here in Sutina. Now that's changed because I said like desperate, desperate times. Well yeah, maybe it changed because there's somebody whose name rhymes with Karina Moraine who got in their face about it. Well, like well I explained in my podcast like the numerous programs that I voluntarily got money coming into the community so I could be the janitor, and they refused. And the only way they they can combat it was to create this policy. Yeah. So anyway, I the majority of my life I like I lived quite a few years in Utah and even though I had a brother and sister who were Mormon, they went on missions, my they got sealed in the temple, their children were born in the covenant. And I and basically I explained what it that all is. Because a lot of indigenous people don't know born in the covenant. And but but a lot of the the intergenerational Marina Crane (04:26.224) Trauma and I think to just the whole notion of white privilege coming in and being like the godsend for the savage. When my when my parents, when I was a child, and my parents went to South American India, they had been recruited and groomed by a religious group called Moral Rearmament. And and and this was taking place in Mackinac Island, Michigan. And and the reality is like a lot of the politicians were were groomed in mind control there too. I just found out recently. And there's been a lot of sexual abuse with certain politicians since like in the middle of World War II and afterwards. Yeah. So so the Oxford group was created during the middle of World War Two, and so they developed this program. And a lot of it I truly believe is is trying to mirror indigenous ways of knowing, holistic and collective ways of knowing. Like what's the Maslow's hierarchy that's all based on needs yeah. Yeah, that's all based on indigenous ways of knowing and s there's so many other psychology frameworks and and AA is part of that. So that's why when I say my my family was susceptible to cults and I really think people who suffer from intergenerational trauma are vulnerable to cults. Mm-hmm and I explained that in my podcast. I said first my parents were in Indian residential school, my grandmother was in Indian residential school and I went I didn't go to school in the residential school, I was bust in, but it was still grooming. It's still the experience and the The end outcome I think they want is the same. Well and this is the whether you live there or not. And see, the reality of it is too, is like it's a sh like I'm shaking the tree, the olive tree, this tree where where the snake of Satan is supposed to house and Eve was supposed to grab it. Well I'm shaking that fucking tree. Because because when you look at history and most of my podcast I talk about the fifteenth century with the conquistadors taking fifteen year old indigenous girls from the Americas. Marina Crane (06:33.208) talk about black women like how they stopped slavery but yet they were they had plantations that just breeded slaves and how and how when they do the DNA when there's one genetic where you follow the it comes from the male's genealogy, the male's DNA. Yeah. So when they do testing for black American men, sixty to seventy percent aren't black Amer come from Africa, they come from Europe. 'cause of that breeding. Conquistadorus. No, no, just the black slave trade. Okay. Because they had for a hundred years they breeded they br they had breeding farms, plantations in the United States. Yeah. So the majority of even though their skin is black, they they have that one gene that shows that their paternal lineage is European. Mm. Whereas if you get an actual person from Africa, their lineage will show their male the male is African. Yeah. Okay, whereas so anyway, the like it it just goes to show like just how how much the DNA has mixed with people due to slavery. And so when they had the plantations they they would set segregate like like they'd have lighter skin black and bla darker skin black. And so the darker your skin, again like the caste system in India, the darker your skin the more you'd be like a house slave, field slave. If you were I think you were if you were lighter skin you were a house slave. Yeah. Darker skin you'd be the field slave. So they call the the lighter skin fancy boys and fancy girls, so when they sold them they were sold at a higher price than the dark skins. Now when Lincoln freed the slaves Marina Crane (08:25.186) they there was also this big uprising with the Sioux and they there was the largest mass execution in Mankato, Minnesota. Yeah. And and so that's where my my great grandmother comes from. She was like five and under when her parents were in their thirties ran away. Mm-hmm. But w what I'm getting at is that that same time John A McDonald and the Canadians decided to create the Indian Act. Yeah. Okay, because again, sorry but stupid white people. Very stupid white people. They thought that that because indigenous people weren't good slaves. They didn't think, you know, like hi hi like hello, scientific wise, again you gotta think about the time. They did not think indigenous people made good slaves. that because we were savages. But black people were better slaves. They didn't realize it was because of DNA. Like like the Oshati Shacoi, the Seven Council fires, we have O type blood. That's because we were we were hunters, not we weren't grazers. We didn't graze animals. So when the Europeans came over because of diseases, the first one hundred years they killed five generations of children from diseases. Not only that, but the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English and French, the five conquering races, those were the ones that tortured and murdered. Okay, so so all that was the first one hundred years. Now of course we're not gonna be good slaves because we because we're not immune to the diseases of white people. Okay, but white people didn't see that. They just thought we were we were animals that we couldn't be like we couldn't be we c they couldn't take us as slaves. We had they had to basically try and train us because we're so fucking stupid. So so they created industrial schools. And again, they recruited fancy boys, the lighter skinned indigenous boys. Mm-hmm. Okay, and then in Parliament they said, Well, if we f we train them, they're gonna go back to the reserves and they're gonna man marry Indian Marina Crane (10:31.768) Indian girls. Okay. And those Indian girls are going to convert them back to savages. So we've got to we've got to train the Indian girls too. So they're training the Indian girls to be like house sl house servants, kitchen, you know, like all like the the indigenous people it under the Indian Act and going to residential schools and industrial schools were weren't there to be smart. They were there to be slaves. I am It's interesting that like yeah, like they still use the term industrial school into a way like I know the one on Ghina that was an industrial school and somebody who went there told me that it's like they maybe gave us up to like grade seven math. Technically I have a high school diploma, but like they don't teach you nothing an industrial school. No industrial schools they were just there for farmhands, ranch hands. Like the lowest of the low. Yeah. Okay, so like in the Calgary Stampede you have white people who who just work with shit, you know, like in the stockyards. Well that's what they wanted for indigenous men. To be like you Yeah, and even you sweep it. Yeah, even even like when I was thirty I was I worked with a a Mormon woman who who they had a beat form in southern Alberta and she said the crease came in again, field hands. You know, like that were such savages that were not intelligent enough. So so that mentality of of what what is a s what is a what is a fancy boy and a fancy girl is equivalent to Metis. Mm. Marina Crane (12:11.17) That's a spicy take. Have you told anyone Metis that? yes. Yes, because the b majority of Soutinna was was created because of Métis. Mhm. The Metis Alberta, if it weren't for Soutina, Alberta wouldn't have even been a province. Because the the settlers in northern Alberta were starving. They were growing potatoes. So the Metis up there who had married intermarried with the French and Scottish, they came down and aga again using sign language and then marrying Soutinna women. Mm-hmm. They they went into the Treaty Seven area and traded like dry meat and foods dried foods and berries and took it up north to the starving settlers. Yeah. And they did that for years. Yeah. So the majority of the people here in Soutina, because we lived right by Fort Calgary. Yeah, and 'cause that was the Metis people they put a lot of their like their cabins and stuff along the elbow, right? And along the train along the train tracks. Along the train tracks and that like And understand. Right here. And understand this too, Boness and f and Forest Lawn. Those were hangouts for indigenous people. And where where they're doing all the upgrading for the Calgary Stampede, that East Village. Yeah. That was all where they had like Skid Row, the bootleggers, Metis. Okay, and so the brothels were like in Boness and and Forest Lawn. And that's the only place where indigenous people could go. Because again the class system Yeah, ca like fancy boys and fancy girls because you you get paid top dollar. Mhm. Okay, so and then s and then even if we had white people come into Soutina, they didn't marry the women. They just had children with them. See, so why what I'm getting at is my sister can pass for a white woman. okay. So when you said that you're the the dark twin, you literally mean The dark twin. That you yeah, 'cause you're very visibly indigenous. Exactly. Yeah. And y and so growing up here they all thought that that my sister's father was white. Now get this, our former chief Marina Crane (14:17.878) All his family, like again there's their their the grandfather was Metis. He was a fancy boy. He was one of the b the boys who were recruited into the industrial school as well as some other families here who are fair skinned because they were fancy boys. Yeah. And that's who the Indian agent recruited into in the those industrial schools because dammit, if they had the fair skin, then they must be fucking smart because they got European DNA in them. That's how stupid the ideology of systemic racism is. Okay, and now how it carries into my family. Like I said, former chief, his sister is going and saying that she's not indigenous and yet she's you know her she's got a house and she's got everything here. She's you know, she's she's got she's been voted and everything. She's as old as I am. Yeah. And the former chief is around my age. Okay, so so when he was growing up in high school, they used to ask him if he was indigenous, and he says, No, I'm Mexican. my god. His father th we used to have a nickname for him. We used to they the girls used to call him cover boy and I said why? 'Cause he used to have makeup in his drawer to put white makeup on to look more white. my god. So there's a lot of a lot of people I as I grew up here who had who were fancy boys and fancy girls who who were ashamed to be indigenous. Okay, so so when I'm talking about identity I'm not like I'm not talking like when when people are pretending to be Metis, I'm going it's a deeper deeper subject than that. I said, Because you've got indigenous people here at like when I was working up north I brought a s a whole bunch of s kids from Fort Mackay, took around Sutina. This was like forty year like decades ago. They said, Where are the Indians? I said, here they are. Those are white people. I'm going, No, we're Sutina. Yeah. Okay, because we've mixed we've been by the city my whole life and even when people hear me talk if if they didn't see me they wouldn't even think I was indigenous. Yeah. Okay, because and and even that at age eight I've had I had Kree girls trying to beat me up because they thought I was pretending to be white because I speak English. I don't speak an indigenous language. So so even that's another topic of discussion. Yeah. Okay. However Marina Crane (16:39.532) When I talk about the former chief's sister denying that she has indigenous blood, even though she's on the ban list and is voting. 'Cause they're pa they're gonna pass a law S two and to change the Indian Act for the children who who lost their status. Yeah. Okay, so why I'm saying this is that y they'll be on the general list, but in order to actually have voting rights, you gotta be voted onto the membership. So this lady here is saying that she's non indigenous, but she's been voting her whole Life. But again has to do with identity and being ashamed of being indigenous. That must drive you bonkers about that lady. No, get this. My sister, my twin, we'll call her my twin, is ashamed to be indigenous. The same with my brother, who's darker than me, is ashamed to be indigenous because they're Mormon. It's interesting that the yeah, on one hand it seems like People are using this racist idea of like, you know, like the the blood quanta and stuff, to argue that like, yes, I can be indigenous, yes I can be Metis, but it's like, no, it's a cultural thing. It's about belonging in the community. And people who actually can belong in the community are like, I'm not sure about that. because they're Mormon. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Well, again too, in the Mormon doctrine they didn't allow black people to have the priesthood. Exactly. So with your brother being a very as you say, a dark Mormon, how does that work? Because if you're a really staunch Mormon and you're a good little Christian Mormon, y when you die, your skin turns white. If you're a woman, any any colored woman, mm-hmm Marina Crane (18:33.202) a and and and you want to get to heaven, the only way you're gonna get to heaven in the Mormon belief is to marry a Mormon man in the Mormon temple. And if you divorce like if my brother if my sister in law divorces my brother, right off the bat she's not going into heaven, even if she's had five children with him. Because because she's sealed to him. She's gonna stay that way no matter what, I guess. Exactly. Now get this. Until yes last week and this is the topic I wanted to talk about, my my Mormon brother and Mormon sister started got into a conflict. 'Cause my sister they're sh they're gonna have her bill a house by by my brother's feet by my brother's driveway. Okay. And he doesn't want it there. Okay, because she says, Well I'm gonna rent it out. Well, in the policy you can't. Okay, because she she doesn't want like her she her husband's dying. Yeah. Okay, so we're hoping sh because she's s gonna be seventy three. Yeah. Yeah, we don't want her in a nursing home in Utah with a bunch of racists. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So so there's a conflict between the two Mormon brother and sister. Now now get this. I'm talking to my siblings. And I'm saying, you know, our brother has a mental health problem. So every time like my sister over here, she's got a house but my mother was alive. so these are all your siblings close by? Yeah, so my my my si my brother, the one who's who's Mormon is over here. Yeah. He didn't want her here because i and he made he made an issue of it and I said, No, her house is gonna be there. Then his daughter too didn't want hi her auntie to have a house here and I'm going, What are you talking about? My mother says our mother says it's gonna be here. This is when my mother was alive. This brother is making issue because he's Mormon. Now my other brother his house is here when he was gonna have a house the same brother didn't want his house there. Someone with horses? Yeah. Yeah. Now the fact that my sister like okay it was okay she was going to move there but then she's changing her mind. Marina Crane (20:41.684) She can't change her mind 'cause it's against our housing policy. Yeah. But that being said I might have a younger sister who lives in Edmonton, when she's retiring 'cause she's she's sixty. Yeah. Okay, when she retires from work, she's gonna have her house over here. Mm-hmm. And I said to my nephew who's working with housing, I said, Every every sibling that is wanting to put house in this area, my father and mother's area, mm-hmm, he's he's denied them. This brother. I said, That's a mental health issue. Yeah, and well does he Does he hold some unique authority that like he can actually deny or is he just a fucking priesthood? then like what what does that matter on Sutina, right? Like this is what's so profound and so stupid is is my nephew says, Auntie, he called housing and the the impl the staff went to his house and he ha invited them into his TP to, you know, like make it like something ritual and ceremonial about about this whole Mormon TP. And I told my other brother, he says, I helped him set up that TP. I said, Well, for whatever reason, he th Now thinks he's some sort of medicine man because he's doing all this stuff regarding the land un in a teepee. I said, How how like in terms of mental health, how crazy is that? Yeah. Okay, now get this. I'm talking to my brother and my older brother he passed away. I have two brothers that passed away. Yeah. And my my younger brother, his daughter lives down by the road. She has a say too about who's gonna stay in this area. 'Cause this is what you call matriarchal or respecting Marina Crane (22:26.038) Elders. Yeah. It's whoever's the oldest has a say. I am the oldest grandchild of my grandfather and grandmother. I'm the oldest now of my parents that's alive. Okay, so and I tr and I said to my young my younger brother, I said I'm staying out of this. I said, because of the way these two Mormons have treated me my whole life. I said I lived in Utah for over a decade. They never invited me for Christmas or Thanksgiving, nothing. They treated me like was the lowest of the low in the caste system. I said, because that's a cult. Yeah. Okay, so and again my sister, because again, I I'm not I haven't dated a Mormon man. and I I like when I was in Utah. You kept yourself safe. Well, of course, and the thing is I was roommates with her. And one time she went out with this white Mormon gun, she came back all frazzled and I thought, You are fighting off these horny white boys and within a month she met this Navajo guy and married him in the temple. So this is the guy that's gonna like he's dying from cancer and that's why she's moving home. Yeah. Okay, now when I lived in Utah she gossiped that I was gay. Because in the Mormon temp in the Mormon th thinking th you you can't be homosexual. So she was trying to hurt you? Hopefully that was like water off a duck's back. Well keeping you safe from Mormonism in a while. And the thing about it is like I've seen so many Mormon missionaries who were gay. Yeah. You know, who married and had to hide from their ind their i Native American wife that they were gay because she just thought, I'm married to a white man, I'm gonna go to heaven. Yeah. See, and the thing is like with my sister, she passes herself as a white man with her Navajo husband. And she lost her status Marina Crane (24:31.792) got her status back because under the Indian Act, if you marry a Native American in the United States as a Canadian indigenous per woman, you lose your status. Okay, but when I was in Utah her her husband's relatives considered her a white woman. Okay, now get this. So because When you go to heaven there are three kingdoms. Yeah. I'm I I I wouldn't even get to the bottom kingdom because I'm not even married in the Mormon temple. I'm I may like so I'm not like I I I stopped being Mormon a long time when I started looking after my mother. Yeah. And we had discussion and she'd say, Why why do you have these people come visit me? I said and she she she'd read her Bible in the Mormon book too, but she I said, Mom, you need company. Yeah. Okay And she says, Well, when I die, I just want one Indian to sp have one scripture from the Book of Mormon and that's it. Yeah. She didn't want a Mormon a Mormon funeral. okay. Okay, so understand this, okay. The this this whole thing of grieving too, if if you're not married in the temple or born in the covenant, And you're a convert, you can do baptism for the dead and your dead relatives, even if they hated the Mormon church, you can you can baptize them in the dead in tur like in terms of their ghost so that you're sealed. Now get this. My brother, who's married to a Chicano woman who became Sutina. Yeah. Okay, when I'm talking about this dispute here and how he disputes everything, mm hmm. My other brother said the two older brothers like the the older like the older brother and the other they had a discussion. I'm okay, the reason I'm talking about this like I'm I'm this is part of my family. All of a sudden this week I find out they've been talking that our brother here isn't my dad's son. Marina Crane (26:32.557) Scandal. Exactly. And I'm going, What? I've been here my I'm the oldest and I'm here. And my brother says, Yes. She said she said, I was talking with the other brother and we said, This our brother here, something's the matter with him. That's why I said, There's gotta be like I know he's autistic, okay? Yeah. Okay, so like I I know that. Yeah. Okay. I like looking that aside and the way he is and everything, I just thought, No, he's Mormon, I'm leaving him alone. But but the reality of it is when I think about it, like I had to really think about it 'cause it has to do with identity. He is the only sibling who would terrorize my mother while I was looking after her. Mm. I'd come home and she'd be crying because he'd tell her to fuck off. Mm. He'd come and he'd demand money. Like he was Cruel to her. Yeah. And I as much as I was here, as soon as he saw me come, he just took off. Yeah. Everything, everything to discredit me. Yeah. Everything because I was looking after our mother and he hated her so much. He even said to her, I I'm not getting sealed to you in the temple. I'm only getting sealed to my my s my wife and my kids. broke my mum's heart. Yeah. And I wondered why why he does he have so much hatred towards my mother? Yeah. And I thought, is it because when we were growing up people were talking about my sister Edna as having a white dad and that he thinks my mother had a d you know, isn't like yes, it's his mother, but he has a different father. But he had to put so much h pro project so much hate towards our mother. Mm-hmm. It makes sense. Yeah. You know, why why would you have so much hate to and the fact is I took care of my mom. Yeah. At the at the cost of my own health. I used to walk before mhm when my mother was alive. Marina Crane (28:22.008) But then yeah, it probably became too much. Yeah, so at all you were trying to do things right in like a Mormon way for her, just to have her have company that was familiar. Exactly. That could really wound your soul. It did. And and I've recovered from it. But but the recovery of it took this whole closure with Nathan Chasinghorse. Yeah. And the fact that there was this white guy, who f who f who helped who accompanied me to the sentencing. Mm-hmm. Paid treated me so good. And I try and tell people when I when I was in Utah and I had to come home, one of the one of the white guys from the branch here in Calgary had his nephew drive me home 'cause it was his car. Mm-hmm. That guy lived in Provo, Utah, all the way, sixteen hours driving from Salt Lake from S Probo, Utah to Calgary, didn't talk to me. He was so enraged that he had to bring the savage home. We we were driving through Idaho and he we ran into a deer. He didn't even stop to see how damaged the car was, he just kept going. my god. The and and so sometimes like even in April when I was coming back from Las Vegas, I was sitting with two white guys on either side of me and I said, I can switch. But they were so you know, like I could, you know, just a tension that I'm an indigenous elder woman, how dare I sit in between. them. Like I can't like that energy I I sense. It's like a physical thing. Yes. Like it's when you go into a city. Exactly. And so so for me this this white guy who I call him Wachash was was Wachashtawash day, which means good man. Wachashtha washt. I and I tell people I've never been treated like that. I told the lady who was the victim I did a prayer ceremony with her and her daughter. I s I was on the phone with her last week and I said, I've never had that. I've never had a male Marina Crane (30:22.84) do this, even though I had brothers. Mm-hmm. You know, if I've trouble with my brothers it's it's with with their wives. I've I've never like like had that male you know I'm I don't wanna sound like I'm pitiful. I I haven't been sexually active. You're not pitiful but then as probably as somebody who like society is just they're always trying to push you to the side, put you to the side. It just naturally has like never happened that there's been like a non creepy white man. So it's like The sad thing is is that you take notice because that's never happened. That it by default all white men are creepy losers to you. Yes. So when one of them isn't, then it's like that really lands deep within you. Yes, because even even too during the pandemic, like again I'm so naive. That's why my podcast I talk about healthy human sexuality. Because I didn't know you could access porn. But there were stories coming out of nursing homes where you know like a children adult children put their parents in a nursing home and their mother becomes promiscuous. Even Yeah, I've I've had a lot of seniors in my life and there's a dementia care facility near where I live in Forest Lawn and there's one in Dover and that's actually seeing a lot of seniors in long term care. They regularly get tested for STIs and stuff. And it's it's like the reverse thing of when your parents Marina Crane (32:06.848) Well, I guess this is probably a really white thing when your parents have like a talk with you about sex, which is a very white patriarchal thing that your parents are supposed to like sit you down and have this talk. But then now it's like the kid being sat down for a talk with like the nurse in the long-term care facility, and the nurse is like, Your mom is a total hoe. She's out of control. And then the kid is like trying to plug their ears, and it's like, no, this is. And then probably because too, these people in homes were so repressed, they don't have like healthy sexuality. So then like they they become they go like the total opposite route and they're doing things that like that aren't correct, that don't mean anything, that aren't safe for them. Because they're like, I guess I can now and there's no tether, I'm in this dementia space. Yeah, and one of them was a a man, he got up in the middle of the dining room and he yelled, I want sex So they brought in his sons and they bought him a iPad with porn and he settled down. my gosh. Okay, so so when I say I haven't been sexually active in fifty years and when I talk on my podcast about healthy human sexuality and when I try to say to people, I don't know what it's like to be oppressed or suppressed. You know, I've never had s like when I was sexually assaulted That was like over fifty five years ago. And and the fact is like I've had to be very social. I've had to be very open, like even with my roommates. So so even when I'm talking to my sister, because with women, and our hormones, the oxytocin, we get w when we talk to other women, that stimulates us too. my cousin said, Are you bisexual? I said, Look, the definition of young people today as elders, we need to know these words. They, them, he and she says, Well, I'm a he she. I said, No, I'm trying to be serious. I said the proper word is they. I said, and there's also pa polyamory. I said there's so many discussions because young people are talking about this. I said and a lot of indigenous women because of trauma, because either their husbands have cheated, they've been under Marina Crane (34:25.008) coercive control their whole life or else they're just ashamed to of their sexuality. They're under the Indian Act. Yes, and I and it also goes into the whole genre of being ashamed about being indigenous. That's why I'm talking about my brother and sister who are Mormon. And and the fact that this this other lady here whose brother like they can pass for white and and she's saying that that she's not indigenous but she is. Okay so so again at what point at what point there we're all elders too. I'm talking about the everybody that I'm talking about is elderly. Yeah. And I'm going, at what point at what point in in our lives have we broken from that cult mentality? Because when you're debriefing or reconstructing your identity after leaving a cult, yeah, it should be heartbreaking. It should be tear jerking. And if and if yes, if it doesn't happen, if that process doesn't happen, there there's nothing you can do to change that. So so that's why like when when I say the the whole notion of of the hereafter when in Mormonism when when people die automatically they're going to be shifted into these three kingdoms. But if but if you're not even in there or converted then then there's you're not even going to heaven. Because the church is so fucking true. And the whole fact is that the the more spiritual you are the more whiter you are. So even when I pray, I when I say protective reflective healing energy, I don't go protective, reflective, healing light. Yeah. I don't say the word light or white. because of what I experienced in in Utah as a w amongst Mormons. Yeah. They yeah. Don't spread that imagery. Exactly. That whole that whole and even even too like when when I talk about like fancy girls and fancy boys and I'm going when I grew up when they talk about Metis it was like a like a swear word. Because because Metis like until two years ago the Metis Inuit and the nine Sioux tribes were were not even considered indigenous. Did you know that? Marina Crane (36:46.828) I think you had told me that before. That was very surprising. Especially about the Sioux tribes. Yes. There's I think eight or nine Sioux tribes and one Lakota. The rest are Dakota. Mhm. So even then they they're they d they don't have the same status. But with the Metis, the Metis, because because they weren't didn't have an Indian agent Okay, you gotta understand Inuit and Metis didn't have Indian agents like First Nations. Yeah. Okay, so the grooming and the so when when even though their the the people who were here like intermarrying were Metis, mm hmm, they weren't full white. there was there was still shame and guilt attached to it because because Metis were considered drunks, you know, like prostitutes, whatever. Like it it's because again Who who who you know, fancy boy, fancy girl, the lighter your skin, the more attractive you are as a prostitute. Mhm. You you look you look at you look at the when they come out of foster care, fourteen year old indigenous Inuit First Nations Metis kids are being trafficked at the age of fourteen. And I said, Why? Because you can dress up as any any any person that you can dress them up as Mexican, Iranian, Chinese. But not only that, we have hardly any body here. Mm-hmm. Okay, that's our genes. Marina Crane (38:15.488) My blood type is I'm an old donor. I have hardly any hair. I don't. And so my sister says she says, I you know, you can get a massage with your blue cross. So I told my my work friend, you know, use your blue cross. She says, I don't wanna go and shave my legs to go get a massage and I'm going, What? She says, Yeah, she says she says I she says I told my worker she says, I don't my companion, she says, I told her I don't have hair on my legs. And the white woman says, Show me. She did not believe my sister My sister lifted up her pants like she says, you have no stubble. She says, No, we're indigenous, we don't have hair. Yeah. I said, So you when you t and body odor. Yeah, I'm I'm an O negative and I'm probably the hairiest person ever. It's all over. There's no escaping it. So my my my Okay, so now what was I is there? I'm just gonna check and see. Is my car okay? I don't e they're I think they're doing the subject. Could you close that window? 'Cause I'm recording too. Okay, yeah. Okay. So anyway, as I'm recording and we got a little dis disrupted here, I just wanted to like also like it's a it's the definition of how sometimes we have neglected to realize that when we talk about systemic racism, this was created before I was born, and this whole system of this color of one skin as being better than the other is so entrenched in society that nowadays people are saying and claiming to be Metis when they don't even have any indigenous blood in them whatsoever. And weren't raised in the culture. And they weren't raised in the culture. And even if you're raised in a culture, what I've been talking about too, especially within my own family, my own community, is we still have issues of identity. And so when I'm growing up, the majority of people didn't like Métis because they were allowed to those Métis were allowed to go and get drunk and and Marina Crane (40:26.33) And they were horrible. They were they I mean the the the the warnings of watch out for A T men, they're gonna sexually assault you because again they're even even at the Calgary Stampede at twelve years old I'm pushing my brother and sister in a carriage and I have these white men catcalling me again all because of this whole notion of of human trafficking. And and here I am, I didn't even know that was created and this whole Indian Act is set up just for that. Mm. So even now this bill, I think it's Bill S six two, is hopefully will change because this is the law. When I say a nation within a nation, what it means is indigenous people who are under the Indian Act are under a different law than people who live in the province or in in the in Canada itself. We're a nation within a nation that is governed by a law that states we do not have sovereignty over our own children. So this bill is going to be changed and it's 2026, which will give Indigenous people sovereignty over their child and family systems away from the province and the federal government. Now, what does that mean? The example is 20 years ago, one of our when Nathan Chasing Horse came in here and he sexually assaulted at least five of these girls who were teenagers. Out of the five, he he took three of them, I think three or two of them, with him and they joined his cult. This former chief here, he in he enabled Nathan Chasinghorse to be here by paying the rent of those children and their parents when they moved to the United States. Why am I so upset about it? Because I lived my majority of my life in the United States and not once did I have my rent paid for or my education paid for. I mean I got I think one year of education paid for, but the rest of it I paid for myself. And the fact is out of those girls. One of them was 14 when she met Nathan, immediately tried to charge him. It took until 2015 for him to be banished. Now, did they help that young woman? Did they give her any victim services money? Nothing. Because again, we didn't have sovereignty over our child our children. Our children. My own niece. Marina Crane (42:48.556) was apprehended, put in a foster care foster care halfway house in Calgary, and was trafficked out of there. She was a victim of Nathan Chasinghorse's sexual assault and the same with my brother. That's why he served time. Now again I'm saying this former chief and leadership enabled Nathan Chasinghorse to thrive here. They they would demand that they that that their these girls rents were paid for. And even when he was arrested they paid for all those people who were in his cult to move back to Sutina. And who did they miss out? That fifteen year old girl who right from the beginning he took her from the school, took her out three times, one in a bush and a couple of times in the motel, took videotapes of her? They should if if we were under a child and family, she would have sued the chief and counsel. But because we did not have sovereignty, it it i th they can't do that. But once they get sovereignty, and this is what I want per indigenous people and people to understand, you think we have authority. You think we have authority, we don't. When this law is passed and if a crime like that should ever happen again to this young woman Nikki If it ever happens again, she would be able to sue leadership because then leadership would have they would have the sovereign right to be sued for not protecting children women and children. Of their own nation. Yes. And it I think I've told you this before, Marina, but my partner and I We have the same chromosomes, so we can't have children. And when we looked into adoption, this is in Calgary and Forest Lawn, it's all of those kids are indigenous. And it just it freaked us out that Marina Crane (44:44.65) all of the kids available, like not one of those fancy kids you can pay to have like a brand new baby from like China or Ukraine and name it and stuff. And if you're just like, no, there are kids that need a home, all the kids that need a home have been taken from their people, they've been taken from their nation, they've been taken from their culture. And it just felt so disgusting as a white person to be like all of these all of these kids are fourteen year old gals from like Sixica From Tsutana. What right do we have? Exactly. Because because again, you the right you have is because the the your sovereignty oversees us. Your nation oversees my nation. And because of that, your society paints a stereotype that women like me are so fucking savage, like they did with the industrial school, like they did with slavery. Yeah. That we couldn't be trained to be be even a slave. That that we can't. even have responsibility over our own children. It was so sickening and just like a big I've felt really gross to be a white person in my life, but I think that was definitely one of like the top three times that I was like, This is disgusting to be a white person. Yeah, and and for for people to be in deny. Like I when I w in the sixties when I saw the like the black students walking, you know, Martin Luther, King, all that, I thought, it's over there. But it was actually here. When I'm going to school at Fairview School, Leero like Fairview School Lord Beaverbrook. Yeah. When I'm around white people they I always fought. They all I they were always ki swearing at me. You know, w we had to physically fight. I had to physically Marina Crane (46:34.0) fight boys and girls because of how racist they were to me. Then when I b went into high school, they s didn't talk to me, didn't even touch me. Yeah. Now now understand this because sealed you off. Because now understand this, I on my podcast I talk about the Tuscany Air Force milit the pilots, black pilots. When President Roosevelt, when he s he said to this black man, how can I get the black vote? he says, make make the military open for black men. Now his son had enrolled in West Point. His son passed for a white man. But when they found out he had black had a black father, they said, Don't touch him, don't talk to him. We'll do everything so that he can he can fall out of this university, so he can fail. He became the third highest graduate. Wow. For four years not being touched. So when hi so when Roosevelt asked his dad what can you do, he says open up the military. So he so his son, because his son had graduated third highest training took the test, got his pilot's license, opened up the recruitment, thirty thousand black men, military black men applied. Sixteen of them became air pilots, the Tuscany Airmen. I'm using that as an example of what it was like to go to school in in in Calgary. Yeah. When I was I went to school for the first time when I was five, two years out here on the reserve. It was the first time I saw my first white woman, a teacher. Mm-hmm. And then when I went to school, I'd go into school, f have that face that every day, come home and be indigenous. Mm-hmm. Go back in and ha face racism. And and white people when I talk in the city say, how how did you do that? And I thought, What are they talking about? See, just as me being ignorant about sovereignty. Mm-hmm. All this I had to learn. All this. And I tell people I learn more about treaty from young indigenous lawyers that are heterosexual and bisexual or w you know, what whatever gender they choose than I do from older people because the older people who are talking about treaty are talking to uneducated indigenous politicians. Mm. You have to be educated. Yeah, and that Marina Crane (48:56.204) The possibility to be educated would have been limited because under the Indian Act it's like, we're only gonna educate you in things we think that you should know. Exactly. Which isn't the truth. And then and even then too, if you got a degree, like my older brother used to say, You're not Indian because you got a degree. That's that's the Indian Act. If you had a degree, you would lose your status. If I married a white man, I would lose my status. So here in Sutina, a lot of women didn't marry. Mm-hmm. So their children could be Sutina. And they if they had a white ch a white father, that w that child would be Sutina because the woman didn't marry. But yet again a man could marry a white woman and automatically this blonde, blue eyed woman would be considered full status Indian. That's why when I went into the States trying to get my green card, they said, We're not giving it to you because you Canadians give give Indian status to white women. Because those white women used it. Yeah. That's why And there are probably a a few still kicking around here today. Yeah, well that's why I say I don't trust white women. Yeah. I mean like Well, thank you for having me in your home. As I say this as a white woman. See and and I had I had a a white friend from the pandemic and and she moved she was in Montreal for a while and then she came back for the like she's here. But she introduced me to her friend and then she called me and she was saying my cholesterol's so high. I said, Well, why don't you stop drinking for six months? She ghosted me. She can't handle the truth. And see the Wachash to Sh day when I went when I was talking he came to my home. I was talking to him, we were starting to talk about alcohol, he says, I I can I can look after myself. It was like, Okay, boundary, put a boundary down. That's all that was needed. Mhm. But some white women just can't do it. Marina Crane (51:02.584) Now now and I think it's because of like like I met this white woman and she says, I live in a nursing home I said, that's okay. Like I thought, why is she saying she's in a nursing home? Yeah. And we started talking about men and she says she says, these men, they're horny white men. She just wrinkled up her face. She was so disgusting and I thought, How fortunate am I? I have my home, I have my house. I don't have to I I don't have to worry about some horny man coming around looking into my room. Mhm. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you've got the horses. You've got a lovely crop of burdock root up the path. nobody's no creepy white man would dare come here just casually. No, like see and th the the the thing about it too is like it it's it's really difficult like for like for me to talk to Like a the reason I spoke to this white woman was because when I started talking about healthy human sexuality with indigenous women, mm, it was really difficult because they're they still have that that violence that like either they've been battered or or sexually assaulted and and they've never really healed from it. So that's why I said in a cult when you when you heal from it, your whole identity is shattered. And and so when I took the these men who sexually assaulted me That was like 30, over 30 years ago. I like that was my my I didn't understand it. I had a a a friend who was a forensic nurse, she's passed away, and she said to me, Marina, once you do this, you'll say, Why didn't I do this earlier? Because doing that as a woman is like breaking from a cult. Yeah. Because because you you've enabled somebody to have fear, have control, coercive control over you by scaring you or being a you being a Marina Crane (53:08.098) Yeah. And then once you face that then then you're able to have that courage to to face anything. Mm-hmm. That's why I wanted to talk about I wanted to talk about my my brother and sister because my brother hasn't talked to me since my mother died. And yet he has the house just kind of across the way. Yeah. my gosh. And his children don't talk to me either. I'm shunned. And the same with the sister who's moving from Utah. Yeah. Like she still thinks I'm gay. Even when I moved down there, she had a former roommate Who I believe was actually gay, mm-hmm, but it was none of her business. I said when when I confronted her, I said, You're I hear you're talking about me being gay. I said, You you've had this issue ever since I've been here in nineteen seventy six. That's if you don't like an indigenous woman, Native American, or you don't like them as a roommate, the first thing you do to attack them is say they're gay. That's your that's your that's how you operate. I confronted her that like that. Yeah. Be like A there's nothing wrong with that and B like But it's like anything you don't understand. But it's like a privilege. It's like it's an it's a pretendian privilege. It's they're indigenous, but because they're Mormon, they believe they they belong to the true church and they have some privilege 'cause they're sealed in the Mormon temple and that privilege means that they're gonna go to heaven even though they're indigenous. Like white privilege. Yeah, totally. To be like, I I did the work, I bought into the system, I get into heaven. Marina Crane (54:52.688) And then yeah, I could see that for somebody deprogramming for that, for an indigenous person. That they would have to like grieve the loss of this idea of white heaven. Even though the idea of white heaven is like controlling and shitty. They would still have to like that would really hurt their heart to be like, I'm no longer going to white heaven. I don't know what's happening, or like Yeah. And that probably takes more energy than they have, and it's so scary that they just don't do it. Well that's why my sisters are Yeah, because she's gonna be yeah, being in Sutina. It's like I wonder too if you're so your brother's ignoring you, his kids are ignoring you, but then it's like I wonder if he feels like an island too, because I can't see like the whole nation here, like everyone on the res being like, we're just gonna treat you just like a normal native guy. so it's like I wonder if he feels Yeah, you feel isolated, but then I wonder if he feels isolated but like superior in why he's isolated. Yes, exactly. Yeah. See and even even too when we talk about restorative and transformative justice, when I hear young Native American men in the United States talk about it and they say, you know, we used to banish people and and Marina Crane (56:32.842) they said but but we don't know how our ancestors did this. He says so in order for us as young people to understand restorative justice, we have to have a conversation. We have to talk about it. We have to say, Well what what what what does make somebody accountable for the crime they did? And part of it is is that coercive control. The community has a say in how they treat people. Even though they're not like they've served their time and they're, you know, done done like my brother. Mhm. You know, he he knows that he can never reoffend because he knows how people are treating him. Mm-hmm. So the majority of people who are in prisons too, high majority of indigenous women and and and men. Yeah. Which which is also p the thing about when I talk about healthy human sexuality, a lot of this talk about like Like even when I was talking to this this white woman, she says, My friends, they're married and they the wife doesn't use birth control. The only birth control they use is abortion. And it's shocked me that that women did that. Mm-hmm. Okay, 'cause like I said, I haven't been sexually active in fifty years, so a lot of the stuff that I'm talking about with women who are ha ma like it with partners and just what they agree and disagree to. Yeah. It it it surprises me. It my sister works provides abortion services and it's interesting like maybe I'm saying too much marina but basically I I understand that a lot of people getting abortion services there's like a whole protocol in place of what to do if a partner calls and is like, is this going on? because many of the people getting an abortion, they like explicitly request that it's like nobody knows I'm here. They can't and that's the only place I know, I guess besides like a cop shop, that's the only place I know in Canada that has like it's covered in bulletproof glass is where you go get an abortion. Marina Crane (59:00.652) Because People need to be so secretive about it sometimes for their own safety, but their own safety is maybe being in a cult. Or or like like like part of the talk about healthy human sexuality is talking about hyper sexuality and how it's a taboo. Talking about limerence and how it's a taboo. So all these mental health conditions that are associated with these tag words has has to do with actual conversations. Mm-hmm. So so for example, limerence. Like like they said, you have to balance your central nervous system. And and I I've used the analogy of of how that looks. But but but the reality of it is like you have to physically do it. Like it's one thing like say for example my cousin says, Marina, you're gonna get your pension, you're gonna go to the casino. Going, no I'm not Marina Crane (01:00:00.814) I'm I'm I'm working on my central nervous system. So my whole life I've never gambled until like I got older. And and even then like like I'm not addicted to porn and I'm and I'm not addicted to fast foods. However, when you look at male and female and if they're say gambling or some addiction and then porn and then fast foods. That means like say for gambling you gotta give it cold turkey. You can't ease off on it. But with porn you can ease off. And the same with fast foods you can ease off. Yeah. But but you have to be abstinent for like three months. See and when I look at myself and I'm going, gee, I haven't been sexually active in fifty years so, you know, when it comes to that like I've been really I I I think Like I know some people when they when they start talking I'm going, no, they're biologically women and men are so different because men like they have to masturbate so that they are healthy because of prostate prostate. Whereas women need to masturbate because the like so men it's like dopamine, mm-hmm with women it's oxytocin. Two different hormones, same sexual experience. But with women, because women have babies and understand this too. When women have babies and they're breastfeeding, they need to get vaginal estrogen because their body is being depleted when they're nursing. Mm. So as women have more children they ha s have incontinence. And I didn't know this until I was old. Older because I've never had children. Yeah. So so the thing is because they continually have UTIs because of incontinence, it's and they and the they said, don't go on vaginal estrogen, blah blah blah blah. And now they're going, no. Vaginal estrogen will help with the incontinence. Vaginal estrogen will help with UTI infections. Because when you take antibiotics, something happens to the brain chemistry after six. Marina Crane (01:02:14.48) six months. Even too if you have an operation and anesthetic, that anesthetic still stays in your brain six months after. So a lot of brain health and in terms of estrogen is important for women. Mm-hmm. Especially sexuality. Yeah. Stimulus. See and I didn't know that. Yeah. Until the pandemic. And you keep on saying that it's like you haven't been sexually active for fifty years, but I think you've been like active on behalf of sexuality and learning and like Exactly. And that's why I try to tell indigenous women And empowering yourself with the knowledge. So it doesn't matter if you're not running around being with a thousand men. It's like you've you've got something better, which is knowledge. And that's why when I say to white women too, even though you think you're you're this matriarch. The whole fact that you've chosen to have a child with a man and you're suppressing, you're obeying, and you're vulnerable. Especially if you you've been traumatized and you have a trauma bond other than a regular bond. If you've been have that trauma trauma bond, then you're gonna be addicted to limerence. And if you have a mental health issue, bipolar or schizophrenic, then you know like it's really hard. So there are so many things That you have to shop around for your own mental health. Yeah. And so when when when I'm talking to people who want to be therapists, who are white, who come into First Nations, I'm going, No. Get the hell out of here. You know, it's amazing because they they come educated thinking they're fucking fooling us, putting a blindfold over us, working. And then what happens? They suffer from a mental health issue and they have to be fired. And I'm going, don't you think that we like as indigenous people that that we know Marina Crane (01:04:11.98) When when we've been around it our whole lives. You can just see it coming. Yes. And even like even like I s I I went to South Center. I came up I went with two people from here and and I said, I'm gonna eat and so I cloistered myself behind these bushes. A old white man came and sat behind me watching me eat for a half an hour, thinking I was alone. As soon as the two people came and sat beside me, he left. That's so And that's what I'm saying. How white men look at indigenous women. Just for me as an indigenous woman wearing my skin. Mm-hmm. The fact that I haven't been sexually active and I see the way they look at me and I'm going, I'm not that indigenous woman. I'm not that person in your memory. But I can see that you see something in me that has triggered you. Do like do they fucking know that? Yeah. They don't you're on to them. Exactly. And that's why that's why no matter like I this lady, the one who ghosted me, sixty five sixty five is she sixty. five years old. She's going in for her masters to become a a therapist. Because why she's got a bunch of indigenous friends. Yeah. Well there there's that misconception too that indigenity equals like spirituality or knowing just like by default and it's like even if it does that's not for you. Marina Crane (01:05:52.726) And it's like for that it seems to me, for your spiritual knowing and stuff, you've had to work, you've had to unlearn so much crap. Yes. To get where you are now. And then the unlearning of it is so empowering. That's why I wanted to have the talk with you because i when I went with Wachashuashte to to Las Vegas and I thought I don't want to be in limerence with him. I didn't want this hyper sexuality or any kind of diagnosis. Like I think there's one called like where you reality check where you you think you have this fantasy that's unrealistic. So there's all kinds of what called d dys diphor dysphoria with it. And I'm going, No, no. I I I spoke to this white woman and I said this is How I feel about this man. And I said, this is just normal. So when I talk about my podcast, I talk about fantasy. Fantasy is different than than other other genres of limerence or other attachments or coercive control. I said there there's we we are our worst enemy when we self-diagnose. So so I said it's like basic psychology 101. When I was in a psychology classroom and the instructor was talking about predators and and and how the human mind if if an adult thinks about having sex with a child, is it is it is it sinful? Is it is is it a sin or do you are you gonna go to hell because you're thinking of having sex with a child? And they s and and she's asking this in the classroom. Mm-hmm. And she says you can have the thought, because again, this is the human brain. You know, it's we're we're we tend to have ideas pop in and out of our heads. She says it's the it's the movement of actually following through on that thought that makes it unforgivable. Yeah. And it's the same way with fantasy. Marina Crane (01:07:58.038) You can have a sexual fantasy but once it moves into the the the genre of action, then that's the problem. So it's important to talk about the sexual fantasy rather than than than doing it. Mm-hmm. So that's why when when children have been traumatized or they think that there's something the matter with them because they were healthy healthily exploring their sexuality as a child. Mm-hmm. If they don't have guided imagery by parents who have openly talked about human healthy human sexuality, then how are they gonna be guided? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, especially residential schools. religions. all of this crap that just like pretends this stuff doesn't exist that human sexuality is like for Jesus or I like the way you said the Jesus. 'Cause when I t when I try talking to my cousin and and and just like other women who have a difficult time talking about healthy sh human sexuality I said, think of it as the baseline of being b bisexual. That all human beings are bisexual. Just think about it. I said if if there was no heterosexuality, no homosexuality and everybody's baseline is h bisexual. I said, then you can start thinking about how people think. You can say, Okay, I'm here at this space too mm and you can have some you can relate to them. Marina Crane (01:09:37.93) But if you can't even do that, if you can't even ha imagine that, then what does it say about about you as an individual, you being healthy in terms of mental health? Yeah. The limits of your brain. Yeah, because you have like I I really appreciate, you know, you know, your your insight because like I said, it's like the the I don't know who listens to my podcast, but I know some some people are indigenous that are listening and and like my cousin she says, Aren't you aren't you afraid that when you tell people you haven't been sexually active in fifty years they're not gonna believe you? I'm going, why would it bother me? Or who cares? Like Other people are gonna sleep at night, no matter what you do, Marina. Exactly. Or even or even like if somebody's doing something I'm going Do you d do you like I I'll say think about it. You're worrying about this. Do you think that other person's worrying the same way you're worrying? They're not. They're not. So you think about it. Yeah, so it's you know, it's th those that whole thing like for for me for me, being alone in my home and and isolation and sadness or whatever, that's human nature. It's not like be to be cast into purgatory or hell. And I tell people, you know, five hundred years ago North Amer and I and TikTok and everywhere, you know, indigenous people didn't know there was a devil. Yeah. Marina Crane (01:11:23.746) That's only five years. Because there wasn't Exactly. You know, and and and then I talk about Western Canada, how we haven't we've like Canada's only been a hundred and fifty years old. Yet in Eastern Canada the Eastern indigenous people have been through systemic racism a hundred years more than us. Yeah, 'cause that was closest to Europe. Yeah. So so for us in terms of matriarchy, we're we're more we're more in tune with matriarchy. So when I say I'm a matriarch because of the way I was raised by my mum and my grandmothers. Mm-hmm. I can't undo that. I am a matriarch. And even the fact that whatever my brother tries to do being a Mormon priesthood holder, you know, it still doesn't take a fa a take the take away the fact that I'm living in a community where people have known me my whole life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And He was probably in Utah for a lot of that. Yeah. So ev even to my my my so called white friend and that's why I say I I don't trust white women. Not not in the sense of like like we're having a conversation, you and I, but in this in the sense of privilege. Mm-hmm. Because because even though she's saying I I'm trying to be open about this, there is still that privilege. that that she does she she it there is no way she can comprehend that. I think I think sometimes maybe if she ever ends up in a nursing home, like that one white woman mhm and the th this woman says to me, When I was younger I never knew anything about sex, she says. Mm-hmm. I didn't know what a I cause I said, Do you know where a G po G spot is? Do you know like I was asking her questions. And and and then even when I was talking to I forget who I was talking to, I was saying I was saying, yeah, one of the young ladies, she's she's indigenous. I said to her, Do you know I said my white friend, the one who who passed away, who said, you know, once you do this, you'll th you'll say, Why didn't I do this earlier? She used to she was a forensic nurse and she used to come out here and she said I I've counseled a lot of white women. She is white herself and she says she says and the majority of women would talk about their their Marina Crane (01:13:45.904) their honeymoon, their first night that they had sex with their husband. A lot of women sometimes they were raped on their their wedding night and they just thought that was normal. Mm-hmm. Because nobody ever talked to them that what what sexual assault was. Yeah. So sometimes when when they married they remained virgins because of religiosity and on their wedding night they'd catch a videreal disease. Mm. So a lot of a lot of this stuff when it comes to what do you call it holistic and collective support systems. when you do AA and El Anon and you have support groups called limerance where there's groups of people who talk about trauma bonds. Yeah. And and so so I I do think having community is important but it's only it's only good to the extent of how much much you get from it. It's like if the baseline is bisexuality and and the two couples come together and they enjoy themselves say five, ten years and they outgrow each other, mm-hmm then it's okay to leave. There's no eternity. Mm-hmm. Like that's that's that's the myth. That's the that's the cult mentality that they have to break and it's so sad that by the time you become a senior citizen and your husband has died or you're just alone, that that you're you're left you're left having not had that experience your whole life. Yeah. And that's and you just think this is it. Yes. Just gonna wait around to die. Exactly. And and that's why the you know, it surprised me when this woman says, I live in a nursing home and she says, I just and I and I thought, how Marina Crane (01:15:31.53) must she live in fear that that you know any man could come around and just you know just take advantage of her. Mm-hmm. That's terrifying. And and who's who's there? Like I know the staff would be limited. It's almost like as if they're in Indian residential school. You know, because you know the the abuse that's happening. Yeah. And the the cover up and the Just that strict insistence that like it's fine, this is a good place for you to be, this is the best place you can be, is in long term care. And that this is what's so sad. Like I took care of my mother right until she was eighty six. Mm-hmm. I think she was seventy three when I started living here with her. And my friend in California, she took care of her her she's Japanese American. She took care of her mother until she was her mother died at ninety seven. Mm. And and then but it like I I said to her, I'm so glad like I everything I learned from my mother I really appreciate as she's aging 'cause now I'm aging and I'm seeing myself too. Mm-hmm. But but my friend Diane, her mother, she was a she was a dental che technician in Japan when they dropped the bomb in Hiroshima. Wow. And her and her companion were to get on the train to go to Hiroshima. But she didn't get on the train 'cause she had a no cancellation. Mm. So her friend went in, but her friend survived when the bomb hit because she was wearing a white uniform, her dental hygienic uniform. And the only places she got burnt was where the the buttons were. Wow. So her whole life, Diane's mother her whole life wore white. She had to have a white car, her house had to be white because of the radiation. And then I had a Japanese roommate that I lived with in Utah. She used to always wear this big white shirt, this big man's white shirt with a butt of she'd wear a belt. I said, Why are you dressed like that? It's a day of grieving I said, You're wearing white? She says, Yeah. In Japan it's grieving because of the bomb in Hiroshima. Wow. Marina Crane (01:17:43.488) And so so Diane's looking after her mom in Japanese culture, when her mother's having incontinence, she'll she'll strip her down naked and she'll strip herself down naked too and go into the shower and wash her mom. Mm-hmm. Okay, so things I had to do for my mom, I had to do catheters for her for the last six months of her life. Mm-hmm. So a lot of I said to Diane, I'm so grateful that that I could I I saw like we'd have video conference and Diane would say, She'd always give My I get into arguments with my mother too and she get into arguments with her mom saying she says I would tell her you gotta walk. Your physio the the doctor says you're you have to have a physiotherapist, you gotta walk. She said my mother won't walk. And and I'm on the video conference. She says, Marina, do you see my mother in the background? And she was walking back and forth. You see her walking in the hallway back and forth? You know why she's walking? She won't walk for me. The only reason she's walking back and forth is her physiotherapist came. He's a handsome white man. You know, and I said to Diane, I'm so grateful that your mother was able to like that this physiotherapist knew that she was sexually attracted to him. Yeah. And that he showed her respect. Yeah. And that that's what women need. And that's what men need to understand about women. Mm-hmm. And that's what women white women in nursing homes aren't getting. My in my opinion. Yeah. Well and then I think you hear on res that you have every right to be suspicious of white women in general. And yeah, keep your guard up, Verena. And thank you for having me in your home. This is a great honor. Well thank you. So did you have anything before I wrap up this the podcast? No, thank just thanks. Extreme gratitude for shooting the shit with you, Marina. Marina Crane (01:19:48.76) No, I appreciate it 'cause I I'm going to I'm trying to get a mic too, so that I can have my phone and tape record when I meet people because yeah, like on the road. Yeah, 'cause even even the people I've grown up with, childhood friends, and and just how how like how they were when they were younger mm as opposed to what's happening now with their grandchildren, just a whole different lifestyle, a whole different way of looking at things. Yeah. That that I that I think if if we're not talking about it and and not engaging young people because a lot of people just think, women's rights and I'm going, No, women couldn't own a credit card and they couldn't own a house in the seventies. And and they what? They didn't vote until I forget what year in the sixties. And then even I think the right to charge their husband like a for a woman to say no to being sexually assaulted by their husband too. All those laws And and yet and yet because look look at Iran and those women, they were lawyers and everything and now they're they're they're forced to wear burkas because of because of fascism, like and religion. Yeah, there's if you look up Iranian music in the sixties and just photos of Iranian people in the sixties. It's amazing and they're so free and they're so happy. I knew an Iranian scientist and the second she moved to Canada she was like I'm not gonna wear my hijab anymore because I don't have to. And then we were driving by a mosque once and then I was like noticing the the tower where like they do the very quiet in North America the like the call to prayer and I was like do ever like miss that and she was like no I have nightmares of the call to prayer where I like I wake up sweating. so if I ever hear the call to prayer in Canada freaks me out. Marina Crane (01:22:09.262) but yeah, like she was a full like postdoctoral fellow, went all the way. so it's interesting. It's still in Iran their science programs are amazing. Like they still have an amazing education system. But yeah, still if she would have stayed she would have been a brilliant scientist in a hijab and here she could be a brilliant scientist without a hijab but then unfortunately she went to the US and then obviously it's not a great thing to be Iranian in the US so I should actually look up where she is now. I'm worried about her. Well it's important to it's important to know people. Like I I took a philosophy course and I I took a John Stuart Mills who's the father of liberal liberalism. I didn't know like he became the youngest politician voted in Parliament in England. But he married a woman twenty five years as senior and never consummated the marriage. Wow. The same with j William Shakespeare. Married an older woman and never consummated the marriage. Yeah. So so when I look at relationships and just how people live their lives to to to to to th be free be a free thinker. Mm-hmm. Like like just just for that. Like when when people talk about freedom, that's what it is. Yeah. Just freedom of the mind. Yeah, and the ability to just enjoy enjoy like what we'll call it their mission in life. Mm-hmm. Their mission, their purpose, their calling. Indulging their curiosity, which that it sounds so decadent to indulge one's curiosity. So it's like there's gotta be a better word of just like to maybe follow curiosity. That's the ultimate freedom. I to to me I'm just grateful Marina Crane (01:24:19.062) Like I I studied the sciences first. I w I got a scholarship in mathematics, but I I I didn't even cash that in because I was already back in Canada and then I went back again mm and and then I just studied psychology and then and then I came back and I went back to I I transferred some of my credit so I can get a degree in fine arts. Mhm. And I didn't want to go in and get a masters 'cause they've got I said sixty thousand people with masters in Not what would what would the purpose be? But but I I met I met a I met a lot of instructors women with PhDs and one of them at the University of Calgary was in philosophy and she said she said well first of all I took a cour a gender studies course in at Brigham Young and this woman had never married and we we had a a circle of young women, it was just a gender course, and the majority of those women were trying to get married. And so the whole the whole course was to talk about freedom as a woman, what she decide. Because and that was like a breakthrough class because that it also seems like an oxymoron of like a gender studies course at Brigham Young. I'm sure it was legit, but yeah. Interesting culture to put the subject matter in. there are very few women at the university level at a PhD level who do teach philosophy. And she said the amount of reading you have to do she says she says if a woman tries to do this and she has children, I think she she she gave a percentage of how much content that the woman would would would not gather based on the male counterpart who had all the time to to learn. Yeah. And she says that's the reality. So so with women when you when she she was making a statement, she could not have done this if she had ha chose to have a child. 'Cause the work is so hard. Yeah. And even as a professor to do this type of work. And so so that's why I think for for me, I looked after my niece for seven years and she's like I have a bit of autism as well. and she Marina Crane (01:26:48.928) She w I had her go on do graphics and animation and I said I said if you put ten thousand hours into something you become a master at it. Mhm. And and so I think one summer she went up to northern Quebec to teach animation to some Inuit students. Wow. So i I think anything we do anything we do, even if even if we don't have the money or the education to go to university, it's it's important to have that tenacity. And I and I think like I said that that one fellow that went into West Point, just imagine the w sheer willpower to go every day for four years to be around people who hated you. Mm-hmm. you you did it for more than four years. Well, I think about Trump mhm and I think poo poo on him. Because he doesn't have the insight or the wherewithal to know the to know how dynamic human beings are. Yeah. He doesn't know what it's like to be in a room of people who hate him because he has the luxury to surround himself with people who they're syncophants, they'll tell yes to whatever he says. But then it's like there's this whole like core of the earth deep hatred and he's just built this little bubble. Well this this little bubble has has has has defined him into the the the the power of the mind. Because there are so many people out there who when he is gone or whatever the politicians, whatever happens in the United States, the h the world is still thriving. Mm. Then that's that's that's the lesson. Is like if if you can take a look at like say for example, all those black people, ten percent of if if the ten percent of the American population is black, that's equivalent to the entire country of Canada being black. Yeah. And and you look you look at what they've done in terms of like just sure willpower. Marina Crane (01:29:12.384) And advancing the culture. Exactly. Incomparable. And that's why when I talk about indigenous youth and artists, I said there there's a s renaissance happening with in indigenous young people. And the more and even if there's systemic racism and white supremacy, yes, they're real and they're dangerous, but the reality of it is just like Trump, they don't see the sure willpower of of what's there. That's why when I look at the Oshati Jackoi, the Sioux people, Twenty to ten thousand years ago a w a white buffalo appeared to the people saying at some point in life there's gonna be white animals that are gonna appear on earth. When those white animals appear, you have to be worried because because life is gonna be in danger. Yeah. Okay. We didn't have a god, like we didn't have a a devil or heaven. So who was this white animal that came? Colonizers. Exactly. Exactly. You're the first person that has has hit it on the nose. Because I'm saying right now you have so many people pretending because you see white buffaloes, white moose, white birds. I said, No. It's n I said five hundred years ago, this prophecy came to be five hundred years ago. And now because of climate change. Do you know this morning in Nepal there's a huge the there was a earthquake and because of the snow runoff, the glacial runoff, a huge mud of water came down the mountain. Marina Crane (01:30:58.336) It was like at least tw maybe a quarter of a mile high. and it just it just decimated. Just decimated. You look at the people and they just look like ants. Yeah. I I've never seen anything so horrific. Like Yeah, and that and that's that's climate change. And even here the smoke. Yeah. My whole life I've never seen that. And I t I say Al Gore when he was president, in nineteen fifty two the Euro was born, he was mur working on his thesis on climate change. Mhm. You know then talk about the oil sands and that were the third largest oil producer. All that water in the northern boreal forests that have been drained from groundwater to make sure we produce oil has caused all those forest fires. When my brother went up there to do to go and sweat, they had to go an hour out into out of the bush to bring in a big like a big container of water just to have ceremony. Marina Crane (01:32:00.718) I I really don't wanna leave. Okay. I my friend Vanessa Badger who puts on the No names. sorry. My friend who puts on a powwow is expecting me at lunch. We gotta get things ready for her powwow. Okay, well hold on. Okay, so my podcast, I'm gonna end let you go 'cause my guest has gotta go. But thanks for listening and if you have any qu anyway, hope you enjoy this podcast like I did. I really appreciate you coming. Thank you.