I worked with a lovely organization Sagitawa Friendship Society and helped plan and facilitate a program called Filling Our Tipis. During this time, I had received training and information about traditional parenting following the tipi pole teachings. I believe that we need to learn these teachings a minimum of twice in our life in this chaotic world.
Pole 1- Obedience Guidance: as infants and adults, we rely on others. As babies, we learn to be obedient and look for guidance from parents and caregivers; we try to connect with those who care for us. As we grow, our search for guidance may change as we search for healthy guidance and learn to accept help from others. The first pole is one that most of us struggle with.
Pole 2 – Respect: once we have begun to learn the concept of obedience, we begin searching for respect, respect from others, ourselves and towards the world around us. We teach our young not to hit, be friendly to animals, and not call people names. When we grow, we sometimes forget this teaching. We need to practice respect for ourselves and our boundaries, others, and new ideas.
Pole 3 – Humility: along with respect, we must learn Humility, knowing we all have our strengths, but we also all have our faults, no one person is perfect, but as we come together as a community, we can become a strong group. We can help support each other with our strengths and accept support from others. Humility helps us control our jealousies and ground ourselves to who we are. When older, we can practice Humility to correct the negative judgments we pass among ourselves and others.
Pole 4 – Happiness: As young children, we tend to find joy in simple ways, along with finding our joy, we learn to share our Happiness with others, we help each other feel better and included, we continue to practice our previous teachings and remind others of all ages the joy that comes from being alive. When we get older, we lose the joy and wonder that we once had. This is when we should connect with ourselves and find/ create the joy that once surrounded us.
Pole 5 – Love: Love is a term that has many meanings. I tend to connect love with Happiness often. We love the life we have, the people around us, our families, friends and the wonders surrounding us. We look at the world without discrimination or hatred. We see everyone as family. When we grow, we need to rekindle our love for life, each other, the world around us, and the spirits that aid us.
Pole 6 – Faith: we learn to accept others and trust them. Faith isn’t always connected to spirituality but is associated with living. We have faith that those around us want the best for the community and us. In the world we live in now, faith is difficult to carry. It is difficult to believe others are telling us the truth and have good intentions; this is where we begin to learn to connect with healthy mentors and show others that they can have faith in us.
Pole 7- Kinship: we are aware of our nuclear family, but through kinship, we learn the meaning behind all my relations, we understand that we are all connected, not only human to human but we are connected to each blade of grass, every animal, insect, plant and mineral. We should treat all we encounter as family and realize the lessons and wisdom they hold.
Pole 8- Cleanliness: This pole teaches us to be mindful of our surroundings and clean up after ourselves to not harm others and our relations. However, cleanliness also teaches us that good actions and health come from a clean mind, body, emotions, and spirit. By practicing cleanliness, we learn to maintain our mental wellness as we practice the teachings, our physical wellness by cleaning our body to ward off illnesses, our emotional wellness as we learn positive coping skills and learn to clear our body of emotions, and spiritual wellness as we connect with the world around us and wonder about the gifts.
Pole 9- Thankfulness: we learn to be grateful for the gifts that surround us, for the lives given to help sustain us, for the teachings brought and the gift that is our life. We learn to be thankful for the ceremony and the world around us, for those before us who helped us become who we are. We also learn to show appreciation to all; the negative, the positive and the neutral.
Pole 10- Sharing: Sharing our resources, whatever they may be, helps build the community, share our talents, thoughts, concerns, tools, knowledge, resources. When we learn to share, our community flourishes.
Pole 11 – Strength: by connecting Humility and Sharing, we learn the meaning of strength, to use our skills to aid others, to admit when we need help. Inner strength is often overlooked. But when we learn this pole, we help build ourselves, our community and the world around us.
Pole 12 – Good child-rearing: Through the practice of helping others look after children, we learn to help to raise our next generation healthily and humbly. We understand that children are gifts to learn from and connect with ourselves. They do not belong to anyone. In this pole, we learn the importance of community in raising children, and we continue to respect their experiences and understand the importance of their experiences.
Pole 13 – Hope: look towards the future, strive for growth and healing, put effort into the future. Hope teaches us that our futures can change. It helps us to learn how to move towards desired futures.
Control Flaps/ Pole 14 and 15: through these poles, we learn how to balance our body, mind, emotions and spirit of ourselves and our communities; through the flaps, we learn to work with what is happening within ourselves and around us. By practicing these teachings, we learn to take the perspective of others.
Eagle nest- we learn that while we build the tipi, all poles play a vital role in the integrity of our tipi and all the teachings are all tied together.
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