Lost art of listening focus of Galt talk

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on March 24, 2023.

Herald photo by Delon Shurtz Blackfoot interpreter and educator Blanche Bruisedhead shares stories Thursday at the Galt Museum to help teach the importance of listening.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

Blanche Bruisedhead yearns for the olden days when people, particularly her Blackfoot people, took the time to listen.

But those days are gone, and society is the worst for it, she said Thursday during a presentation at the Galt Museum on the importance of listening.

“We are in such a society of zip-zoom, put the pedal-to-the-metal kind of way of life,” she said.

Modern electronic devices are the primary cause of the lost art of listening, Bruisehead believes, and too many people are missing important things in life because they are too busy texting on their phones or staring at their various devices.

“We’ve lost a lot because of electronics,” she said.

Bruisedhead, Galt Museum & Archives interpreter, remembered learning about her ancestors, when they lived in tipis and at night would gather around the fire for the evening meal and listen to stories told by older members of the family.

“The young adults, the youth and the children would sit very quietly and listen. That’s how the Blackfoot history, the culture, the songs have all been passed along through all those generations.”

Bruisedhead said if all youth and children could learn to listen, their lives would be changed drastically.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if all children, all youth, all young adults, could do this. Maybe by the time they reached junior high they’d be able to read, they’d be able to do math, they won’t have so many academic problems.”

Bruisedhead believes strongly in what she calls the five L’s of life; look, listen, learn, live and love.

There’s even a lot to learn just from listening to the sounds of nature. Her own ancestors, for example, discovered wild potatoes by watching animals pull the plants from the ground and eat them.

One of her favourite activities is to spend time in the Blood Timber Reserve near Waterton, where she listens to, and learns from, nature.

“I’d sit there, sometimes on the roof of the truck, or on the hood, and just absorb nature; the smells, the sounds, the sensations. In the days of old that’s how they figured it out. That’s how they learned; they looked, they listened.”

Bruisedhead said everything nature did, her ancestors mimicked, and she wishes everyone would take the time to do the same thing.

“Oh, if i had that magic wand that’s what I would wish; for all human beings in the whole world, for us to be able to find a special spot, sit there with your loved ones and look, listen and learn.”

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