我想和你们分享我的语言，并代表我的家人、我的社区和我的人民——锡尔克斯人——向你们致以问候。我感谢能够与你们分享一些语言。

我来自一个口头传承的文化背景，所以在这篇文章中，我分享了一些关于“给予”——礼物的概念——的想法，以及我的族群对“给予”的理解，包括对土地、社群、家庭乃至个人的给予。因为我相信当今世界存在着严重的问题。我唯一能提供的就是我的思考。至于这些思考如何付诸实践，如何融入社会，或者如何将其与亟需发生的变革联系起来，这一切都取决于读者和听众的思考。

Covid-19 has shown that we are all connected and we are all sailing in the same boat. "What Indigenous means to me is that everything that exists on the Earth is interdependent, an interdependence that must be understood. As an Indigenous person, I must have knowledge about it and I must be able to cooperate with all the other living things on the planet, on this land, so as not to make any one of them extinct or remove any one of them for my own need. In other words, to cooperate and to collaborate with every living thing so that they can live and I can live at the same level of health" - Jeannette Armstrong

My culture is historically oral as well, being descended from ancient Irish and then later Lakota people. To talk story face to face and especially intimately one to one is healing to one another and the world too. }:- a.m.

this brought forth tears. what a lovely and powerful way with words she has! my heart longs. so much to imbibe about how words shape thought - maleness and femaleness, swallower of giving, what 'elder' means ... so much gratitude.