Being healthy is a part of my traditional Native American Ojibway culture. This year I am going to be skinnier and healthier! I am going to lift more, box more, run more, hike more, kayak more, swim more and walk more. I am going to eat more traditional foods like venison, whitefish, berries from our treaty territories and wild rice. I know obesity didn't affect our communities until colonization nor did we know gluttony. I love being healthy and skinny as it is a form of resistance and healing!

As the only Native American student at Naropa at the time I had my struggles. I was glad to have Suzanne Benally there as I made it through non-gmo hippie land. Suzanne Benally is Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa and is now the Executive Director of Cultural Survival -- https://www.culturalsurvival.org.

I am Ojibway/Metis, from a union (auto/telephone) family from Michigan and the Midwest of all places. I struggled to find a place at Naropa and was often ostracized by my fellow peers. I have a Masters degree from Naropa and I consider it an achievement despite the hippie and cultural appropriation bullshit. According to the American Indian College Fund only 13% of Native Americans have a college degree. I know other Native alumni who struggled while going through that place. Upon graduation and moving away from Boulder, I left feeling very frustrated and was happy to return to Detroit, Michigan. Now I live in a rural, remote, reservation (non) community in Northwest Michigan. Its conservative, redneck, and hillbilly. The nearest 4 year university is 80 miles away. I don't care I've grown in this place with the racism, patriarchy, and Catholicism. Its not mine nor is it who I am but it has transformed me.

Diversity class in theory is just that a theory, word, definition. Most people who I came across at Naropa were out of touch with the ways in which Native American people experience racism, discrimination, stereotypes in everyday life. Here's a good article -- How to Uphold White Supremacy by Focusing on Diversity and Inclusion -- https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/how-to-uphold.... People want to appropriate my culture all the time. I found out that there was cultural appropriation after I came and decided I would stay and finish my degree. I wouldn't have come to Naropa if I knew this prior. I don't appreciate White liberals appropriating my culture when they have no idea what our issues and lives are like. Do you know that we have the highest rates of youth suicide compared to any group? Do you know sex trafficking has existed on freighters in the Great Lakes? What do you know about missing and murdered Indigenous women and Two-Spirits? Do you know what it is like when you live on a reservation and there are no good jobs for hundreds of miles? Just this out of touch but I love your culture is so incredibly insulting.

Now I have to say I was able to start my healing journey at Naropa. The personal is political. This was a transformative process that I was unable to undertake alone. I've taken many skills that I have learned from Naropa and applied them to my resistance and survivance! I did really well academically too. But if I could return my degree and go somewhere else I would.

Thanks for sharing! Will share with others!

Thanks! It really is a hard task, even my own communities whether activist or Native doesn't or hasn't supported my choices. My identities are not well accepted in this world. But I keep going forward!

Lovely post Lisa!

I have no desire to birth a child. There is no biological clock that has ever ticked. Hence my gender identity and sexual orientation as gender non-conforming and Two-Spirit in my Ojibway culture. We all have different things to offer. I am housed in a female body as a gender non-conforming and Two-Spirit person. This is who I am to the core of my being! :)

Cool! :-)

Great pictures! I love the Nish Dish business. Found their website -- http://www.nishdish.com.

I would love to go to this some time in the future! :)

Food for thought... the divide between rich and poor is very sharp in the US. The greatest divide exists between the rich and poor since the first Great Depression. $6,800 dollars would be someone's income for the year, particularly on the rez. Since I've been living on the rez I know a lot more about the realities here and have experienced these realities myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lowest-incom.... -- Some of the poorest counties are on reservation's in South Dakota.

While I sincerely and truly applaud Michelle Obama for what she does and the way she continues to shine my working class mindset has me critical of the costs of her clothes. This applies to any politician or elected official in any community. I have always had a hard time with hierarchy and divisions. Goodwill is all someone like me knows and occasionally I get something new.

Horrific and disgusting <--- this doesn't come close to describing what happened. :(

People need to stay away from craigslist personals. I've heard of other scary stories happening. Meet people in the good old fashioned way or is this out?

The fight continues, everyday. I guess this is why I remain single.