Collection: Peyakwahkotawin Flower
Peyakwahkotawin - it means “one family”.
I’ve been working on this for a long time. It is a flower with individual petals; they each need one another in order for the flower to be complete. The center of the flower is a pendant made up of colours found in every petal.
The idea came to me while I was staring at the blanket from my Blanket ceremony when my husband and I were married. We had a round dance, which is a friendship dance. I kept thinking about the good feelings that were present, and thinking about how, today, sometimes those good feelings we have for each other can be complicated, particularly if we have different approaches to problems.
I don’t know how to create a more unified society; I don’t even know how to always maintain my own sense of calm in the face of how divided it all feels sometimes. But I created this flower knowing that whoever wears one pair of earrings or pendant, another person will wear the other and they will probably be totally different people, with different backgrounds. But they will always need each other for this flower to be complete. Maybe that’s the only thing they have in common.
I believe we all need each other. My dad said that when roses blossom, they don’t always blossom the same. Maybe the only thing we have in common is we are blossoming differently. But the Nehiyaw way is that we are all related.
Whoever wears these pieces, I hope these are a reminder that we are Peyakwahkotawin - one family.
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