MISHMOUNTAIN SERIES - BE BE POINT

Title: BE BE POINT
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas - ( No Diamond )
Size: 20" x 16"
Price: $ 12,600.00 - SOLD

MISHMOUNTAIN SERIES - Spirit Cove

Title: SPIRIT COVE
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas ( No Diamond )
Size: 20" x 16"
Price: $12,600.00 - SOLD

SPIDER MEDICINE SERIES

Titled: OCEAN
Medium: Acrylic on Canvass
Size: 36" x 24"
Price: $ 6,000.00
OCEAN: The lands of Turtle Island spread out towards the oceans to offer life, the question is, does man still want Turtle Island?

SPIDER MEDICINE SERIES

Title: LUMINESCENT ENTERENCE
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 24" x 36"
Price: $6000.00

LUMINESCENT ENTERENCE : It's very important for mankind to look upon his fellow human beings as one race. We arrive into this world craving for light and just to leave it one day and become light ourselves.

Odawa Pictograph - The Guardian

Title: The Guardian
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 17" x 6"
Price: $ 450.00 Float Matted -

The GUARDIAN: Once you understand the pictogragh, you'll understand the meaning of life and many generations to come. Look into the midnight sky is see the WOLF PATH, we have a long way to go.

Odawa Pictograph - Were Still Here

Title: Were Still Here
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 14" x 9"
Price: $450.00 Float Matted - SOLD

ODAWA Pictograph on Birch Bark

Title: SHAMAN STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 7" x 13" - Float matted
Price: $700.00 - SOLD

Shaman's conscious state offers abilities to enter the spirit worlds or spirit times through the spirit holes of Mother Earth. This conscious state completely removes the human form as it completely breaks apart with no great importance. Your inner light will discover beings and spirit creature's who reside from another place and another time. This spirit world has the good and the angry also.

ODAWA Pictograph On Birch Bark

Title: BECAREFUL WHAT YOU BRING ACROSS
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size : 13" x 8" Float Matted
Price: $700.00 - SOLD

The human mind holds the gift of " wanting to know the unknown ". People of today like venture out into the spirit world just for this reason but unknowingly bring back a unwanted spirits with them and times goes on, they find themselves getting pretty sick from time to time and all the doings of these unwanted spirits.

ODAWA Pictograph on Birch Bark

Title: The Guardian
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 10" x 18" - Float Matted
Price: $ 540.00 - SOLD

Your inner guardian is personal and a very unique spirit that stays with you through thick and thin through-out your life, sometimes we forget our inner guides offer us guidance towards a right path if we just listen to our inner spirit, this part of you lives on to the next dimensions when the human circle completes.

ODAWA Pictograph on Birch Bark

Title: Tobacco Offering
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 8" x 11" - Float Matted
Price: $275.00 SOLD

Your tobacco offerings too the Great Manitou and all on Mother Earth insures the spirit of "thanksgiving ". Our inner spirit unique form will accomapany your tobacco offering to the home of the Great Manitou and the Manitou will offer the balance of thought we need each day.

ODAWA Pictograph on Birch Bark

Title: Replanting your inner light
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 11" x 8" - Float Matted
Price: $275.00 - SOLD

Every now and then, we find ourselves walking through darkness and confusion, this event signifies your inner spirit is walking in darkness and blind to see where it's leading you. The process of replanting light is a personal process for each.

ODAWA PICTOGRAPH ON BIRCH BARK

Titled: Hoofed Animals - Buffalo
Medium : Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 10" x 12" - Float Matted
Price: $360.00 - SOLD

Hoofed animals such as the buffalo, moose and deer are the symbols of strenght for the clan system inside the "Three Fire Confederacy". All clans have duties starting back from creation which allows it to walk in balance and harmony to all living things on Mother Earth after all, man's no important then a blade of grass underneath it's feet because, man's part of creation.

ODAWA PICTOGRAPH ON BIRCH BARK

Title: BEAR GUARDIAN
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 17" x 9"
Price: $460.00 - SOLD

The duty of the BEAR CLAN are the people who live around the village protecting culture, medicines and people. This clan will rarely enter the inner circle with reason.

ODAWA PICTOGRAPH ON BIRCH BARK

Title: All Hoofed Animals
Medium: Acrylic on Birch Bark
Size: 14" x 12"
Price: $ 525.00 - SOLD

Hoofed Animals: Text written above

ODAWA PICTOGRAPH ON BIRCHBARK

Titled: The Eagle Clan
Medium: Acrylic on Birchbark
Size: 10" x 12"
Price: $375.00 - SOLD

THE EAGLE CLAN: The eagle clan reminds all to fly high and see the sacred path there walking on. Journey's take a life time to build and mere seconds to destroy it.

ODAWA PICTOGRAPH ON BIRCHBARK

Title: THE BEAR CLAN
Medium: Birch Bark and Acrylic
Size: 13" x 7"
Price: $ 300.00 - SOLD
BEAR CLAN: Text written above

NEVER WAS UNITED

Title: Never was United
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 24" x 36" - 200cm x 300cm
Price: $6,000.00

NEVER WAS UNITED:
You never exclude a family member from the TABLE of PEACE and DIALOGUE. The rounded table at the UNITED NATIONS isn't a circle when family members are missing to hold hands and keeping the light together. A family member is always ask at the table and asked, What is wrong and how can we fix it? This action is called the meeting of the minds, heart and spirit.
Only then, PEACE WILL BE ACHIEVED and the earth will think as one. Our future generations are counting on us to make the right decisions.

Spider Medicine Series Art Collection

Title: The Four Nations on Earth.
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 24" x 36" - 200 cm x 300 cm
Price: $6,000.00
The four nations of Mother Earth need a dialogue of peace and ask that very important question, What can I do for you to help each other? All people just want the balance of life, and a life to live healthy. The Spider Medicine is seeing the unknown and what man's about to do. We need to stop teaching our future generations the grey path of distruction and teach them how to live in balance with means. Just look around you, and see what we've done too ALL.

When the Eagle Lands on the MOON, Native people will teach the world how to live on Mother Earth. . . Copyright: 12-12-2008 - RAMEY- MISHIBINIJIMA

There is a native prophesy born in the Trail of Tears: When the eagle lands on the Moon, things will begin to improve for native people. When the eagle landed on the moon in 1969, ancient ceremonies in traditional cultures were remembered and renewed throughout the globe.

In North America, the spiritual elders of tribal nations travelled to the east to teach the ceremonies and share their knowledge. It is in the East that tribal nations first met the arriving Europeans and were the last to recover from the impact. For forty years, the revitalization of native culture has taken on an astounding momentum that has been barely perceptible to the modern society.

Civilization is defind as the language, art and consciousness of a people. Consciousness is defined as the way in which humans know, language informs this consciousness. Art is the universal language of abstract symbolism that holds the meaning of this consciousness.

In 1962, the , the Anishnaabe - Cree artist Norval Morriseau, delibrately broke the ancient taboo of his culture and revealed the following generation to provide the meaning of their symbols in their paintings.

These symbols are the mnemonic device for a written form of language incised and crossed - hatched on Birch Bark Scrolls and hidden in hollowed logs far west as Denver, Colorado and far as Newfoundland. They are also painted on the precambrain rock face of the Canadian shield for thousands of miles.

Over five hundred years ago, a foretelling of devastation arrived in the east, began a migration of thousands of families from the Atlantic seacoast inland to the Great Lakes territories. The western location given was simply: Where the food grows on water. This is the wild rice region of Wisconsin.

Today, eastern tribal nations known as the Wabanaki - The people of the dawn - who sent their sacred bundles and teachings inland to be protected until called for their safe return. The Anishnaabe travel east to the territories that incuded Norhern Maine. South Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

These symbols within the teachings piece together the history, migration, and consciousness of the Algonquin Family of Nations. The meaning in these symbols communicates a knowledge that includes the practical and metaphysical natural science of human consciousness, distilled to a simplicity and refinement.

Science man be the easiest analogy to make in introducing the meaning contained within the symbol to those outside of it's culture. As LAO TSU warned in the texted known as the Toa Te Ching, " THE WAY THAT CAN BE TOLD IS NOT THE ETERNAL WAY." but the symbols inform the consciousness of a natural law more encompassing that rational science alone can prove.

The cause and effect principles of Cartesian Physics have advance human achievement in science and industry. By isolating and fragmenting smaller and smaller particals, the manipulation of these particles has been determined. But when subatomic particals were able to be seen. They appeared to vibrate randomly and chaotically beyond human control. Humans could not manipilate the movement of particales, but the most important discovery may be that humans have been proven to influence their movement. When the scientist behind the microscope was changed to another scientist, the movement of the particals also change.

The realm is familair territory to Native Spiritual elders. The Natural law of the universe is understood as a vastness in which human behaviour influences the vibrantional alignment of the universe and all the life on Earth, including the animate and inanimate. Our relationship to the universe is interconnection and interdependant as an extended family.This consciousness is not a sentiment but a trained and disaplined awareness that is felt within the human being. The alignment of human beings to the universe is the science of Native Spiritual Tradition.

When quantum physicists reported that subatomic particals move randomly and chaotically in space, Einstein declared " God does not play dice with the universe" Native elders would agree with him on this point. Native traditions and ceremonies are the science and disapline of expanding human consciousness to natural law within the universe. When facing the unknown and unfathomable, a natural science orients human beingness to the earth in four directions: The electromagnetic wave of life forms. The invisable life force wiithin them, the gravitational pull on the earth and the eliptical orbit of planets around the sun. All of these forces are taken into account in the rocket science that landed the eagle on the moon, and all of these forces are taken into account in ceremonies.

In anishnaabe painting which is the sole domain of spiritual elders in Anishnaabe tradition culture, the symbol of the circle denotes perfection, completeness and continuity. A simple dot represents: Manitou (spirit). When science discovered that the balance of carbon and oxygen nuclei is so fragile in supporting life that they wonder if human life was designed into the creation of the universe. The dot communicates that the Anishnaabe have asked this question and answered yes. They refer to natural law as the original instructions created in the creation of the universe to balance human conduct with this law. The symbol of a circle with two perpendicular lines inside of it is refered to as the medicine wheel.

When philosophy seeks the first principle of creation and askes if something can come form nothing, ancient native knowledge answers" Something comes from nothing and nothing is the Creator of all Creation."

The meaning of Anishinaabe symbolism expressed by modern Anishinaabe painters is the ancient science and knowledge that informs human consciousness and conduct when faced with the unknown. This becomes an urgent message in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The rational objectivity of modern societies and educational systems collapse in the face of natural science which can be influenced but not manipulated. The protected domain of isolation and fragmented nations face the earth's response.

We live in a global village of connected relationship to each other. The earth and the universe a life an extended family. The electromagnetic wave force within life forms, whether animate or inanimate, upon the earth, is held by the gravitational pull upon a rotating planet that moves elipically around the sun. When human beings align themselves within the natural law of the natural universe, the sensation resonated as joy and love.

As human beings enter a new century after the previous century that brings the earth to ecological crisis. ancient meaning and knowledge shifts into a position to address the imbalance of human behaviour to natural law.

The anicent traditions and ceremonies which inform and discipline human concsiousness to the vast expanse of the universe while orienting human beings to the earth has become required knowledge. The influence which aligns the vibrational universe proves scientifically rational.

It is the time of cleansing when the earth will cleanse itself through fires, floods and earth quakes. This native prophesy ocurs simultaneously with the new beginning when human consciousness expands to understand the meaning of ancient knowledge, tradditons and ceremonies.

When the Eagle Landed on the Moon in 1969, the Message and Vision was, "Spirit and Love was delievered to the Grandmother the Moon who controls the tides, fertility and seasons upon Mother Earth". Forty years later, the earth responds even more urgently as human conduct remains unsustainable. The symbols of a natural science communicates the earth's response and their meaning communicates how to realign the balance of a natural law.

This is the conciousness and language of the Anishnaabe civilization and it is communciated in the universal language of Anishnaabe symbolism.

Painting has been communicating tool of Anishnaabe spiritual elders and remains so, to this day. We look to the paintings of these artist to orient and give meaning to human beings upon the earth as the twenty-first century dawns.

Anishnaabe Art, Meaning and Knowledge - Copyright - 11-10-2008 - Ramey - Mishibinijima

The form in Anishnaabe Art is an outline that is penetrated to the view of the spirit that is invisable. This reveals the essential core of meaning, conveyed in a symbolism that is ancient.
In 1962, the Anishnaabe -Cree artist Norval Morriseau broke the ancient taboo of his culture and revealed these symbols outside of this tradition. In doing this, he communicated to the modern world and inspired the next generation of Anishnaabe artist to reveal meaning in these symbols.
The strong spirituality of this meaning too root in the scared island of Manitoulin, the largest freshwater island in Lake Huron. The Great Lakes Water Basin washes through the limestone rocks of Manitoulin which provides a natural water filter to the lakes. Voyageurs regularly interacted with the tribal nations surrounding the Lakes and the Anishinaabe were aware of European Culture long before European settlement had reached them. When disease was introduced, Manitoulin was burned and left fallow for serveal decades to cleanse it from diseases.
Manitoulin became the strong-hold and home for the Anishnaabe when forced removal and relocation of tribal nations became Federal Policy in the United States in the 1800's. In the war of 1812, when the United States planned to invade Canada and sparse british forces were spread out across the Canadian border, it was the Ojibwe who gathered and stopped the Americans. The Ojibwe decided that United States policies had reached far enough.
The island of Manitoulin which lies within present dat Canada, remanins sacred. It sites, culture and traditions continur and are communicated by Anishnaabe artist within a traditonal disapline of knowledge. When a painting of Morriseau's was delivered to the outside painter of abstract modern symbolism, Pablo Picasso's works were " well, you never know." the sophistocation and dept of Morriseau's work was an unexplained revealation.
Modern Anishnaabe artist, especially in Manitoulin communicate a perception and knowledge that transcends science and culture as we commonly understand it. The European roots of modern abstraction finds itself at a loss for comprehension when the vast. dynamic realm of meaning is revealed in Anishnnabe painting.
Subline simplicity is relegated to primitivism, but Anishinaabe symbolism is no more primitive that the simplicity of E=mc2. The frontiers of modern science has just begun to glimpse the universe in ways in which the Anishnaabe perceive and are familar with it.
An intelligence found to exist outside the human skull that communicates in a reciprocal relationship with human beings in the natural territory of Anishinaabe painters. The Quatum realm that is influenced but not controlled by human intervention is the natural science of Anishnaabe tradition.
Morriseau's first exhibition in Toronto in 1962 sold out, even though it's organizers and buyers did not know the meaning of his symbols. Morriseau touched the modern consciousness in a language of symbolism that predates christianity by thousands of years. Modern Anishnaabe painters sell their work internationally in major art collections and continue to communicate a consciousness that is elusive and penetrating.
Morriseau's work was held as a fine example of primitive art even in Morriseau's obituary in 2007, and even as the symbolism resonates within us without us knowing why. The generation of modern Anishnaabe artist who have matured in the traditions of ancient meaning stand ready to share this meaning.
They reveal the earth's response to the industrial era. They communicate the spiritual response to the modern human dilimma. They are able to orient us to an invisable life force, within the gravitational pull and electro-magnetic wave movement of a rotating planet earth that orbits the sun eliptically.
Their ancient perception and their symbols of meaning are ready to guide the shift in human consciousness that is occuring as we enter the twenty-first century. The knowledge distilled over millennia's has cleansed itself of excess baggage. It is the ZEN of living on the earth. It is an awareness we can barely conceive of. It's meaning is revealed to the modern world as modern systems begin to collapse in the face of ecological unsustainability.
In the twenty-first century we are faced with the opportunity to expand human consciousness through the knowledge revealed in the powerful communicating tool of the ancient spiritual knowledge of the Anishnaabe which is painting, there is a native prophesy.

" The Return Of The Sacred Teachings Within The Algonquin Family ". Copyright 11 - 10 - 2008 - RAMEY- MISHIBINIJIMA

The Anishinaabe comprise the nations of the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa ( Ottawa), and Potawatomie ( Bodawatomie), whose territory is now the Woodland Great Lakes.
Ojibwe legends tells that their nation began in the east, in the Atlantic maritime woodlands where the Wabanaki now live.
It is said that a warning of devastation to arrive in the east, just over 500 years ago, led to a massive migration inland to where " the food grows on the water," which is the wild rice of Wisconsin.
Families travelled in large canoes by the thousands and those who remained in the East to tend the Sacred Fires, sent their teachings and Sacred Bundles inland for protection until called for again. The migration followed the waterways from the Atlantic into the Great Lakes.
In the forced relocation acts of the 1800's, the Ojibwe hid and formed alliances with the Odawa and Potowatamie. As relocation continued, the traditional enemies, the Sioux, were forced west into the Prairies by the Ojibwe. The Iroquois were forced north from upstate New York and divided the Anishnaabe from the Wabinaki.
The east, as prophesized, was the first to meet the Europeans and the last to recover from the impact. It is 500 years later that the Wabanaki began to ask for the return of their Sacred Bundles.
It is as distant cousins who have never met that the Anishnaabe and Wabanaki reunite. The teachings protected by the Ojibwe were originally incised and cross-hatched onto Birchbark Scrolls and buried in hollowed logs that have been found from Newfoundland to Denver Colorado.
The symbols on the scrolls form a mnemonic device for a written form of language. Some of these symbols are included in the pictographs and petroglyphs that are found on the precambrian rock face of the Canadian Shield.
Painting is the sole domain of those spiritual elders trained and disciplined in the sacred teachings. The pictographs and petroglyphs are their signals.
As the Anishinaabe and Wabanaki reunite to complete the history and continunity of the Algonquin family of nations, the signals on the scrolls and rocks help to guide them.
The Anishinaabe have preserved the sacred teachings and continue the sacred rites of these teachings continuously without interruption since 1812.
The Wabanaki whose sacred artifacts were taken even from graves of their dead, survived through sheer resilence and were informed only by way of their dreams, visions and spirit.
The spirit of the Wabanaki is mystical, loving and enlightened. They contribute this spirit to those who now return to them with the teachings and Sacred Bundles they have protected, as promised over 500 years ago.

Photo's found inside my sketch book 1969 - 1989

Limited Edition EUROPEAN STAINGLASS - Titled: Hummingbirds - $ 6000.00@100 made

Limited edition EUROPEAN STAINGLASS - Title: Partnership - $6000.00@- 100 made

Title: The Home - SOLD

Title: Squaw Island - SOLD

Title: Strawberry Island - SOLD

Title: Serpent Holes in the Great Lakes - SOLD

Title: Mother and Child - SOLD

Title: Loons Island - SOLD

Title: - Child into a Woman - SOLD Title - Parenthood - SOLD

Title: THE NEST - SOLD

Title: Angels of the Wheat Fields - SOLD

Pope John Paul II Vision Statement :

Mishibinijima Publishings #10 - DREAMERS ROCK AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN - Very limited on stock

Title: Dreamers Rock and the Little Children
Medium: Acid free paper, printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, languages written on the back
Size: 9.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist ( few left, Mishibinijima publishing complete )

Mishibinijima Publishings - MOTHER AND CHILD AT CLAPPERTON POINT. # 9 - Very limited in stock.

Title: Mother and Child at Clapperton Point
Medium: Acid free paper, printed by Fiji Corporation in Germany, languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist.

Mishibinijima Publishings - #8 - NOVA - Very limited in stock.

Title: Nova
Medium: Acid free paper, printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist.

Mishibinijima Publishings - #7 - CORN PEOPLE - Very limited in stock.

Title: CORN PEOPLE
Medium: Acid free paper, printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 autographed by artist

Mishibinijima Publishings - # 6 - Nations - Very limited in stock

Title: Nations
Medium: Acid free paper, printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, Languages writting on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 autographed by artist

Mishibinijima's Publishings #5 - SECRETS - Very limited in stock.

Title: Secrets
Medium: Acid Free Paper, printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, Languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist

Mishibinijima Publishings - #4 - DREAMS OF GRANDMOTHER - Very limited in stock

Title: Dreams of the Grandmother
Medium: Acid free paper. Printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, Languages written on the back
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist

Mishibinijima Publishings - #3 - The Great Manitou - Very limited in stock

Title: The Great Manitou
Medium: Acid free paper, Printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, Languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 Inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist

Mishibinijima Publishings - #2- Woman Purifies Woman - Very limited in stock

Title: Moon purifies Woman
Medium: Acid Free Paper, Printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, Languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.4 Inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist

Mishibinijima Publishings # 1 - WATER SPIRITS - Very limited in stock

Title: Water Spirits
Medium: Acid Free Paper printed by Fuji Corporation in Germany, languages written on the back.
Size: 8.5 x 6.5 inches
Price: $40.00 Autographed by artist

THE ULTIMATE ART COLLECTION: Four Sketch books of Mishibinijima - 1969 - 2008 - Countries running for these sketch books are:

1. Business trade of the Great Lakes. 2.Sacred Grounds. 3.Thunder Stones. 4.Hungry Moon
Note: The countries who recognized my professional art career will recieved my ultimate gift towards your major musem. Your life long support can't go un-answered.... 1. Belgium 2. Germany 3. United States ..( top running )...Through out the years, I recieved positive vistations from international museum curators and remarked," these books are pricesless and worth into the millions ".

The ultimate Art Collection: Sketch books of Mishibinijima - 1969 - 2008

1. Thunderbirds 2. Serpent of the Great Lakes 3.Punishment 4. Spider Medicine.

The ultimate Art Collection: Sketch book of Mishibinijima - 1969 - 2008

1. Harvest 2. Thunder Beings - Healer 3. Sacred Smudge 4. Harvest of Medicine Plants.

The ultimate Art Collection: Sketch books of Mishibinijima - 1979-2008

1. Shaking Tent Ceremony 2. Sacred Lights 3. Tree Maker 4. Guardians of the Shaking tent.

Speaking Pictographs Project - Water Messengers - $1500.00

Water Messengers : I've spoken many times " how important " the Great Lake watershed is to the North American Continent.
The North American people need to take notice that the people from this continent are living on a very distructive path and the path their leaving behind for future generations is just illness for animal, land and the human body.
We've recieved sacred signals from the Water Messengers many times in the last fifty years and still the human world keeps on ignoring the signals thinking, let my neighbour fix the problem not thinking, he's the neighbour.
I've heard this teaching during my childhood over looking Georgian Bay from my elders, the people of this world will fight over this freshwater with anger, but the water will be useless and poisoned.
First effected will be the signals of plant life around this continent then the animals who drink it daily and finally, the people who harvest these animals for survival will be effect through Mind Body and Spirit, it will be up to man to do something about it... Size: 9" x 11" painted on Acid Free Paper
Reference - 001 - 10 - 2008

The Manitou Series - The Great Lakes - SOLD

North American man should take great care towards it's freshwater lakes, this is how the North American community began, distroy the water, we distroy ourselves. . . Acrylic on Birch Bark . . . 14" x 6" . . . $ 600.00 - Reference : m-1-2008

The Manitou Series - Turtle Medicine - SOLD

Turtle Medicine offers great understanding towards all life on Mother Earth, start deep within your mind, body and spirit, understanding the " LIFE STRUCTURE'S on Mother Earth because you are the ultimate key. . . . Acrylic on Birchbark . . . 8" x 4" . . . $ 250.00 .. SOLD. . Reference -m-2-2008

The Manitou Series - Spirit Walker - SOLD

The spirit walker lives within you, if you can rememeber what you did yesterday, you have the ability to walk anywhere. Acrylic on Birhbark . . . 11" x 8" . . . $ 650.00 - Reference -m -3-2008

The Manitou Series - Creation - SOLD

Many people create strong medicines in ceremony on Mother Earth , it only takes certain medicine's such as the smudge or the stronger one _ _ _ _ _ to keep your surroundings pure. . . . Acrylic on Birchbark . . . 9" x 7" . . . $500.00 . . Reference -m-4-2008

The Manitou Series - Creator of Spirit Light - SOLD

The Great Manitou always lives inside your body and the only being that enters the next dimension once it completes it's life journey. . . . Acrylic on Birchback . . . 11" x 11" . . .
$ 820.00 . . Reference - m-5-2008

Ask Not ! ...Late President John F. Kennedy

In the summer of 2007, I had a vision of the Late John F. Kennedy and heard him saying, " Ask not . . . What your country can do for you . . . Ask . . . What you . . . can do for your country.

I want these words given to my children as a reminder, he replied . . . I stood alone looking at him in a perfect place where bluish, purple light contain unity of peace. I looked around and felt memories of Mother Earth, the sounds had movements of landscape and this peaceful light very much alive.

I awaken and seen disappearing images of an Eagle Staff with ribbons dancing with the midnight wind..

A staff through out time represents " Dialogue" in the Native American culture, I placed a dream catcher holding four sacred eagle feathers honoring the four directions on Mother Earth which are, White, Yellow Red and Black.

These four colors of Mother Earth need to stand together in brotherhood for humanity, share the cutlures for great understanding because. . . ( "Language is very unique . . . As the Culture itself.". . . Mishibinijima Quote 2007 )

Note: Sorry about the string across this canvass, people print-out MISHIBINIJIMA images internationally, will publish this image in the near future. . . Acrylic on Canvas . . . 36" x 18 " Reference: m-6-2006

Diamond Series - "The Child" of the Land

Title: The Child of the Land
Medium: Acrylic, Canvas and Diamond
Size: 36" x 24"
Price: $ 43,200.00

Forty years ago, The was my first art exhibition in Toronto, Canada where the debue of my Mountain Series began. Many walks of people attended the gallery from art collectors, politicans and business people alike, there I spoke about the importance of North America's freshwater Great Lakes and how important the water is for to survive, my speech came to an end and some people said to me, Your a TROUBLE MAKER, and I don't need to hear this jibberish, we have so much water and know nothing will happen to it. That water needs to be pure like water in the womb if we need to survive but someday, they'll know what I mean. . . Reference - m - 7 - 2008

DIAMOND SERIES : The Inlet

Title: "The Inlet"
Medium: Acrylic, Canvas and Diamond
Size: 36" x 24"
Price: $ 43,200.00
I was told through the years from Mothers, Fathers and Grandmothers and Grandfathers, becareful who you invite into your door, be it your house or your your heart, each decision we make changes our personal journeys each day, keep a watch eye on both of these enterance's with sacred smudge to keep away negitive energies. . . Reference - m - 8 - 2008

Victoria Osawamick Quill Boxes

Commission's of unique quill boxes can be make by visiting or speaking to Ms. Osawamick personally - 705-859-1593 she just might share the Sacred Smudging Medicine's we harvest yearly, just one word explains my mother, wisdom.

2008 - Pictograph Commission

SPOTTED EAGLE WOMAN -

With protectors standing in the background.

Reference - m - 9 - 2009

2008 - Commission - Seven Grandfathers on Birch Bark

Commission: Reference 10 - m - 2008

Grandfather Stone Series - The Watchers - $1500.00

The Watchers: Many teachings are written on stone by Native American people across North America for thousands of years, this unique language is written with a purpose where human or spiritual event happened and documented for the people of the future. Reference - m - 15 - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Honor of Tobacco - $1500.00

Tobacco- This medicine is the greatest gift for spiritual offering, don't wait until everything goes wrong to make this offering. Dialogue is the key towards every day peace. . . Reference - m - 14 - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Manitou Suk - $1500.00

Manitiu Suk are the beings that you feel everyday and someday into our lives, will enter this spirit world because this is your true destiny. . . Reference - 13 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Weem Tug Zee - $1500.00

Every now and then today, we come across important land marks that were made in the 1880's by seeing these tree markers pointing towards a special area. . . Reference - 12 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Shaking Tent and the Medicine Man - $1500.00

Shaking Tent ceremony see's through the path you walk on. . . Referemce - m - 11 - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Transformation of the Medicineman - $1500.00

The medicineman changes form symbol. Reference - 10- m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Great Spirit - $1500.00

Symbol of the Great Spirit is found in the birchbark scrolls of the Native American people. . . Reference - 9 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Thunderbird - $1500.00

The symbol of the Great Spirit is the Thunder Bird for the Native Americans, this being travelled loud from the universe to share everything for it's people.

Reference - 8 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - The Sacred Path - $1500.00

The Sacred Path is in the hands of the Great Spirit which the Tree of Life offers great understandings towards each persons journey. . . Reference - 7 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Sacred Lodge - $1500.00

The sacred lodge is very important medicine that needs great protection, one is the sacred lodge itself and the other sacred lodge is your Body. . . Reference - 6 - m- 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Transformation - $1500.00

Transformation's.... is done through thought. . .

Reference - 5 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Man on Canoe - $1500.00

Man in the travel ways of the Great Lakes symbol. . . Reference - 4 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series - The Healer -$1500.00

Healing starts from within, mind body and spirit needs to be well balanced to see what kind of sickness do you have, then heal it because your the only person who knows. . . Reference - 3 - m - 2007

Grandfather Stone Series -Pictographs - $1500.00

james.mishibinijima@gmail.com

Man and woman symbol . . . Reference - 2 - m -2007

Grandfather Stone Series - Pictographs - $1500.00

james.mishibinijima@gmail.com

Only you can see the difference in and around you, become one with your surroundings and then you'll know what needs healing. . . Reference - 1 - m - 2007

Phillip Edward Island Inlet: 20" x 16" - $5000.00 - SOLD

Manitoulin and Islands of the Great Lakes are fill with sacred destinations and sacred places for a reason, many people of today have traveled to these places today and some other times in their spiritual existence, you have to think outside of the box to see the message of this painting. . . Reference - 1 - m - 2007

Dreamers Cove: 20" x 16" $5000.00 - SOLD

Reference - 2 - m 2007 - Sold

Loon's Island: 12" x 14" - $2500.00 - SOLD

These islands capture the spiritual essence of past and future for survival, understanding of man accomplishments needs to know, the importance of land, water and air out-weigh's everything else and man is the caretaker for all these elements to work in balance. . . Reference - 3 - m - 2007

Turlte Island was created for all mankind in brotherhood:10" x 14" - $2500.00 - SOLD

Turtle Island is a play ground for all mankind, were all in the same boat if mankind survival. These pictograph drawings are documented well over thousands of years and still we don't understand these messages. Mother Earth does't need Man, but Man needs Mother Earth to survive . . . Reference - 1 - m - 2007

Birch Bark - Swamp Spirits - Sold

Man need to know how spirits travel from place to place on Mother Earth while keeping themselve's well hidden, The mist in our swamps, wetlands or any other damp places is part of the white light in the spirit world. . Reference - 1 - m - 2006

Birch Bark - Watcher - Sold

Your inner guide is the most important medicine in your life, the guidence you share is a balance where your body leads, and only you, know "what's right or wrong."

Reference - 2 - m - 2006

Birch Bark - Lights - Sold

The Spirtual Light will enter into our surroundings in any form, one thing to keep in mind that, a human body is only a host to our spirit and when life of the human body completes it's circle, the inner light returns to it's original form. . . Reference - 3 - m - 2006

Birch Bark - Lurking - Sold

Our inner spirit will converse other spirits who enters near, that's why our human body feels that someones watching. . . Reference - 02 - m - 2007

Birch Bark : Guide - Sold

We use many raw items that are found on Mother Earth we tend to be used as Spiritual Guides in our daily personal paths on Mother Earth, most important guide we need to understand is our personal decisions that create the balance with the guiding stones for example, we are the ultimate decisions makers. . . Referance - 2 - m - 2007

Birch Bark: The Four Spirits : Sold

The four directions show us the endless universe, looking towards your inner body is endless with atoms going the other way since creation of human form. . . Reference - 1 - m - 2007

Diamond Series - Flower Pot Island - Available

Original is located in the USA.

. . . Reference - 10 - m - 2004

Picto:The Resting Place - Sold

Three Medicine men of the Ojibwe Odawa and Potawatomi. Reference - 2 - m - 2005

Picto: Written Language - Sold

Many generations have passed but the Native American pictograph's still talk from yesterday. Reference - 1 - m - 2005

Native American Holocaust: Orignal Available

Native American Holocaust and the vision that followed . . . Reference - 1 - m - 1999

Sacred Water Keepers of the Great Lakes $ 7500.00 ( SOLD )

The Sacred Water Keepers for the Great Lakes of North America are: Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi and the Menomonee people . . . Reference - 1 - m - 2003

Diamond Series: Phillip Edward Island . .

Phillip Edward Island is located by the North Channel in Lake Huron, this island has many inlets that served ceremonial distination for many generations, it is said, once you step foot on this island your spirit has taken understandings and meanings to life itself, just feel the answers that the island gave you.. Reference . 10 . m . 2005

Diamond Series-Bear Clan-$37,500.00 - SOLD

Native American Clan system was always the cure towards self understanding, the clan system allows you a place to speak and guide your surrounds at birth. . . Reference - 12 - m - 2004

The Promise - Sold

Original in the Vatican - Few prints available-$200.00 @

Pope John Paul II Vision Statement

My first vision of Pope John Paul II happened during the summer of 2003. In my dream, I was walking in a cedar forest with the fresh scent of evergreen all around me. I came upon a light shimmering around the bend. I entered through a small opening in the cedars. And there sat His Holiness, Pope John Paul, who spoke to me saying, " where is my Rock James?" I knew what Pope Paul meant and from the heart I told him that he'd be my next project and that I'd try to finish it as soon as possible. I don't have too many footsteps left on Mother Earth", he replied " and I want you to work with light ". I told him that I knew exactly what he meant and I would do it.

Two weeks went by and kept thinking about concepts and how to use light for my painting. I pictured the shore of Manitoulin and looked upon the land and in the picture I could see a full moon over the shore and knew that this was perfect.

My Home: Sold

Three Fires Confederacy guarding the strong hold, your home. . . Reference - 20 - m - 2003

Shaking Tent: SOLD

Shaking Tent ceremony allows you to find what your path seeks with clarity.

Reference - 19 - m - 2003

Survival and Companionship: Sold

Survival and Companionship of these great animals is offering thanks when you need to survive over the cold winter. . Reference - 19 - m - 2003

Sacred Smudge # 12 - All twelve paintings - "RESERVED"

Sacred Smudge # 11

Sacred Smudge # 10

Sacred Smudge # 9

Sacred Smudge # 8

Sacred Smudge # 7

Sacred Smudge # 6

Sacred Smudge # 5

Sacred Smudge # 4

Sacred Smudge # 3

Sacred Smudge # 2

Sacred Smudge - One

Seven Grandfather # 7 Sold

Seven Grandfather #6 - Sold

Seven Grandfather # 5 - Sold

Seven Grandfather # 4 - Sold

Seven Grandfather #3 - Sold

Seven Grandfather #2 - Sold

Seven Grandfathers # 1- Sold

Picto: Woman Symbol - Sold

Diamond Series-The Guardian-$37,500.00- Sold

Diamond Series - The Passage - $37,500.00 - SOLD

The Channel: $37,500.00 - Sold

Tamarack Point -$37,500.00 - Sold

Diamond Series -Little Squaw Island - $37,500.00 - SOLD

On Sacred Ground - Available

Story Time in Mackinaw - Mural Available

Dreamers Cove - Mural Available

Silent Warrior - Mural Available

Twin Towers - Available

Dreamers Rock and the Little Children - Sold

Picto - The Lost Wampum -Available

Great Northern Diver - Available

Tamarack Point - SOLD

Picto - Man and Woman - Painting Available

Hiding Place on Manitoulin - Painting Available

Picto - Future - SOLD

Picto - Tree of Life - SOLD

Picto - Become One - Sold

Earth Child - $175,500.00 - Diamond and Mural

The Great Lakes - $6,000.00

Strawberry Island - $178,150.00 - Mural with Diamond

Your garden of prayers - $6000.00

The Shamans Light - Sold

The Sacred Bundles - Sold

The Sacred Light - Sold

Inner transformation - Sold

The Guardian of the Smudge - Sold

DE'-BWE-WEN-DANG

De'Bwe-Wen-Dang - ( Believe in yourself ) Thirty eight years ago, I made a sketch after speaking to my mentor Medicine man and told me that some day he wanted me to paint this teaching about believing and believing in yourself. We always had guides that surround us all the time and we come to a point were humans stop believing in there paths.
32" x 32" on canvas.

Native American Art by E.C.LEWIS - Copyright .4.22.08

Western civilizations lies rooted in the medieval disciplines of Europe tied back to Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire, and developed to their fullness in the of the Renaissance Era. This period in the sixteenth century coincides with the European discovery of the America's, when the European feudal cities oraganized as powerful nation-states and the Christian Catholic Church has organized its influence of declared Christian values.

This peak of European influence met the civilizations of the America's and the pristine natural resources of two continents just five-hundred years ago. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the post-colonial Eurpean influence faces practical challenges of survival and a stubborn superiority of ideas and beliefs that continues to dismiss the wisdom and traditions of those indigenous civilizations which evolved not in five or ten centuries but over millennia and remain rooted not to medieval Europe but to orientation upon the Earth, located within the web of the cosmological universe, with a sense of time oriented to the eternal.

Obstacles to comprehending this orientation lie in the deeply ingrained European concepts which include, for example: TIME, PROGRESS, PRIMITIVISM, PANTHEISM... which has become assumptions referred to and assumed to be collectively understood. To strip these concepts and theories to their medieval roots and examine them in comparison to the understanding of Native consciousness requires more knowledge than the Renaissance could provide. Modern anthropology defines civilization as the language, culture, and consciousness shared by a group of people. Native consciousness in this reference is the indigenous consciousness of North America although as Native North Americans tell us correctly, five hundred civilizations resided on the North American continent in the sixteenth century.

Within five hundred years, three important developments in European consciousness have soften hard core European beliefs: one is Galileo's truth that the earth is not the center of the universe; two is Darwin's theory that man is not unrelated to the Earth but dependant and developed upon it; and three is the Eastern sensibility of the direct and immediate experience of reality as in Zen Buddhism.

This knowledge equips western thought with the tools to probe its own assumptions and misconceptions and begin to correctly define English translations of Native concepts as the meaning is intended in a consciousness of metaphysical reality not as Aristotle defined it, but as in Oriental indigenous philosophy, which is much closer in meaning.

The terms PRIMITIVE, PRE-CIVILIZED, and PREHISTORY are European assumptions of societies existing before the records of written language in Europe and the Middle East. Oral societies are not illiterate-the Anishinabek of the Great Lakes have a written form of lanuage incised on sacred birch bark scrolls recopied continually into the records of the Great Medicine Society whose origins are so far back in time that the founder is simply referred to as "a young man." These symbols are also painted upon the Precambrian rock face of the Canadian Sheild in a method in which the pigment and rock are bonded inseparably. Indigenous societies are not primitive; they are primal.

To understand this compare the time line concept of human history and progress, which was invented by Augustine and accepted within European consciosness after the fourth century AD, and the consciousness that experiences time as infinity in a circular orientation of awareness with nothingness as its center. This orientation was not widely introduced to European academic thought until after WWII, with the American occupation of Japan and the 1959 invasion of Tibet, by China. But this experience of reality is close to Native consciousness and perception.

The fourth tool with which European thought may begin to comprehend Native awareness is the dawn of what has been referred to as the imformation age. The term Third World, which referred to civilizations which did not develop with the speed of the European concept of progress has developed into the term Fourth World, which refers to those indigenous civilizations which retained the knowledge avd perception distilled and cultivated within an ancestry that evolved over millennia of eras rather than centuries.

The voice of this indigenous knowledge surfaces at the height of the European concept of progress in an era in which this concept reaches the summit of its unprecedented capacity for destruction. The concept of progress derived from artificially imposed theories of linear human history is a major obstacle to understanding indigenous consciousness because it lies outside of a consciousness oriented to a circular experience of life and infinity.

The physical sciences, evolved from theories attributed most famously to Aristotle, quantified rather than qualified the Earth's elements. This scientific-rational experience of observation of the Earth misconstrues the qualifying consciousness of observation. Terms such as animism, pan-theism, totenism, and shamanism remain outside of th experience of European rationalistic terms of definition or meaning.

Animism is the quality within a natural element that transcends the sum of its physical parts. Therefore, when a human being of extreme sensitivity in Native culture is asked by a scientist educated in European rationalism if all the rocks on the beach are powerful, he is told that some are.

Pan-theism refers to the concepts of Greek cosmological thought before the development of philosophy and logic in western civilization but does not relate to the perceptive consciousness of Native North Americans in any conceivable way. Native consciousness experiences the non-duality of an intelligent universe devoid of an anthropomorphic personality. The finite phenomena which inhabit th Earth speaks to the reality of the infinite within the apparent thus penetrating the apperance to perceive the reality-which is unchanging.

Totenism is not the superstitious protection of an animal for a human being. By astute and prolonged observation it has been recognized that the clan of a human being is evident in human movement and manner. Those of a Bear Clan maneuverin a manner that differentiates itself from a member of a Fish Clan. Anyone can observe this when they are taught to see it. By prohibiting intermarriage within a clan, a civilization retains its optimum health.

Shamanisn, which utilizes animism and a mysticism oriented to the infinite and unchanging within the cosmological orientation of human beings upon the Earth, is the metaphysical realm of consciousness and perception akin to the Tantric in Buddhism. It is not a superstitious fear of the unknown but a fearless intervention of balance between human being and natural law. The path of spiritual development for a shaman in Native North American culture corresponds in discipline, sacrifice, and endurance to the term "warrior" within buddhist spiritual disciplines. The type of intervention referred to is within the realm of intervention practiced by those oriented to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, where the dying may be guided on their journey before the final breath is taken.

Native North American shamanism is communicated and developed by direct oral transmission as in Buddhist tradition, but differs in cultural expression, of course. The art and ritual of Native North American civilization share some similarities of consciousness and many cultural differences as well. What is important in the understanding for European styled societies when relating to Native North American societies is aptly expressed by Erich Fromm in his book The Sane Society:

"No sane society can be built upon the mixture of purely intellectual knowledge and almost complete absence of shared artistic experience....On the whole, our modern ritual is impoverished and does not fulfill man's need for collective art and ritual, even in the remotest sense, either as to quality or its quantitive significance in life....

"What are we to do? Can we invent rituals? Can one artificially create collective art? Of course not! But once one recognizes the need for them, once one begins to cultivate them, seeds will grow, and gifted people will come forth who will add new forms to old ones, and new talents will appear which would have gone unnoticed without such new orientation." (p.349-350).

Erich Fromm's evaluation for a sane society is already addressed in Native culture in North American. By correctly defining the terms we use to describe Native art and ritual, we are already supplying the means within the open door of art to perceive collectively and fulfilling the North American collective experience. Modern Native artists continue to communicate ancient Native consciousness. This consciousness is the expression of perception that penetrates the appearance of natural form to reveal the unchanging infinite. In the words of Native North Americans it is to see the Creator in Creation.

The Creator is not perceived as an anthropomorphic god but the permeating intelligence of the universe, deviod of human personality. This intelligence is seen to reveal itself not in prophets, written laws, or sacred writing but in the natural forms and natural balance of all creations, including man. Therefore, every leaf, rock, tree, river, bird, fish, animal, human, star, sun, moon, and planet are sacared. The Earth, and all that inhabits the Earth, is scared.

This metaphysical conscioueness is able to adapt to various history-based religions but the creeds of history-based religions may not easily expand to the consciousness that encompasses the orientation to infinity that traditional Native societies are culturally oriented to. The infinity in which the eternal is experienced in the moment that is now, is the sudden realization referred to in Zen Buddhism as enlightenment, and is the awakening produced within Native North American rituals. These rituals though known, cannot be explained in words; they must be experienced, just as meditation must be experienced , to be understood.

In this light it can be seen that the oral cultures of North America are not pre-civilized or primitive. Native societies are spiritual civilizations in the highest sense of the term civilization necessarily entails by European defination. Spiritual societies live in necessary simplicity. The collective sharing and specializations of Native North America pre-contact societies average a twenty-hour work week for it's memebers; this allowed the spiritual and cultural development of those traditions which Erich Fromm discribes as necessary for the sane societies and which modern purely rational society now require. It is our own assumptions which have blocked our understanding.

ART

The art of civilization is a respectful door to open to cultural awareness and expression. If we continue to assume that native culture has been lost or Native people have vanished, we make it impossibe to receive the gifts of those civilizations. To look back upon these civilizations and project a European rationalism is to mass a current message that Native artist are perfectly capable of giving meaning too.

Native North American consciousness has witnessed the arrival of European consciousness. Native consciousness has observed European rationalism and its value of intellect and merchandise for over five-hundrend years. The orientation to the infinite has endured the physical onslaught of immigration of millions upon millions of human beings into the geographical territories once inhabited only by Native people. Native North America culture has survived by remaining invisable: it has endured European concepts of ownership, history-base religion, policies such as Manifest Destiny, ingrained ideas of progress, and modern civilization resulting from industrailism. It has adapted in stages to resisit disease, warfare, assimilation, removal of cultural artifacts, removal of children from their families, and the removal of their ancestors for the graves.

The European rationalism continues its course we may observe it from the perspective of Native North Americans. The concept of progess which has led to water too poisoned to drink, land unfit for human habitation, and air that is too unhealthy to breathe, is the definition of insanity in Native culture. The element of fire has been intelligently manipulated to produce engines of transportation, manufacture, and destruction, which are impressive but reason would suggest caution and discipline in its use. While European rationalism wages current wars of ideologies, Indigenous populations pray for the healing of the Earth, especially the water which is the natural element with which to sustain life.

Human caution and discipline in the use of fire is developed in a consciousness that transends intelligence and awakens reason. Therfore a concept of ownership of divide portions of the Earth, which allows for the indiscriminate and manipulation of the Earth's resources to the detriment of the Earth's inhabitants, is not considered reasonable or intelligent in Native consciousness. It is not considered civilized for a fraction of the Earth's human population to consume or waste a majority of the Earth's resources. The natural balance observed in natural phenomena simply does not tolerate the imbalance of European rationalism.

The term scientific-civilization, applied to the twentieth century, stands outside of the understanding of balance. The duality of good and evil is transcended because good and evil is conceptual-dependant upon a point of view-while balance and imbalance are immediate referances with practical, non-conceptial influence and remain observable in every civilization of every era. Therefore laws of balance and imbalances sustain natural laws of the universe which remain infinate and absolute. The harmonize human conduct with the infinate laws of the universe is to develop a consciousness of extream sensitivity and adaptability that does not linger in realms of consciousness that entertain projections into the future to detriment of the immediate, exact reality of the now. This discipline of awareness may be referred to as Zen when applied to a Japanese form of Buddhism. It may be referred to as Shamanism, for lack of a better word in English, for developed Native North American consciousness.

The highly developed consciouness born of a specific culture does not automatically translate to every member of that culture, just as not all Catholic Christians are Catholic priests. Every Native North American is a Shaman or would communicate a transcendent level of developed consciousness. It is important to know that those who communicate on this level communciate within the symbols of their own culture. If the confines of European thought dismiss what it is not oriented to understand it perilizes the understanding of meaning for successive generations. European colonial concepts may have dismissed these tools for meaning but future generations of North American are likely to require them for basic survival.

Societies which are ancient are those which have endured. Their traditions are the purest of sciences in relation to themselves and the natural Earth. When the Buddha attained enlightenment under the Boddhi tree and was asked how he knew he was enlightened, he simply pointed to the Earth. It was the very Earth that bore witness to his enlightenment. As well, it is the very Earth to which ancient, traditional indigenous societies refer when communicating the transcendent consciousness that develops relightenment reason for human contuct. Simutltaneously, humn conduct in relation to the Earth. as ot rptates arpimd the sun, within a galaxy that is only one of many galaxies, has been understood before a telescope or spacecraft was invented.

The scientific inventions which the nineteenth century has invented so prolifically also relates to the European nineteenth century assumption that all consciousness relates to a tangible physical element. This conceptualization and finite limitation led Freud to attach human consiousness to a "libido." Twelieth century European thought allowed that consciousness can exisit without attachment to a physical element and now explores intelligence that permeates the universe unconfined to the human skull or differentiated molecules. This may be the cutting edge of western science but is the traditional reality of Native consciousness for millennia.

When modern Western civilization can allow for the possibility that the Native societies encountered in sixteeth century European exploration were mystic. enlightened, spiritual societies capable of absorbing, adapting , and resisting the European mercantile and consciously primitive poplations arriving in mass hoards upon their shores with beliefs and values alien to the natural laws of the natural universe, we may begin to open to the discipline of human conduct that must develop from within the balanced sanity of individuals before it can emanate into outward action. This is the discipline that traditional indigenous have cultivated for millennia with their civilizations.

In other words, traditional societies acknowledge that change is developed from within and coerced by outside force in forms of punishment or fear. This how traditional societies have resisted force assimilation. The mastery of psychology and humor is employed as a correcting influence on imbalanced behavior. The concept of reward and punishment either immediate or delay in terms of heaven and hell are not practiced. This method of reward may serve as a deterrent but it would not awaken the essential consciousness of an individual.

Traditional societies share - whether it is food. knowledge. resources, culture or territory. If they didn't share they would not have survived. This shared culture specializes area of work according to natural talent and skill. Specialization in western civilization means something quite different: specialization in traditional society reduces the average work week to twenty hours and leaves time to develop art, story telling, and ritual, which forms the basis for the type of human development largely devoid in the modern civilization of our time and which humanist such as Erich Fromm observe to be missing-and missed-by human beings. To open to the wisdom of traditional. indigenous cultures we simply observe the assumptions upon which modern society has developed and allow for the introduction of their meaning to be objectively defined.

This introduction is mot readily available through the universal language of art.Native art is no tprimitive, but primal. To separate Native artifacts for the cultures which have poduced them is defined as a form of genocide in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. For non-Native propulations it has removed meaning from the collective artifacts Moden Native art, produce within the enviroment of Native ulture, retains the meaning rooted within the ancient cultures.

By not expecting the symbolism and abstraction of Native art to conform to the developments of European Renaissance art, we can respect a parallel path of human development and lean to see, understand, and appreciate Native consciouness. The development of understanding the meaning opens our own human consciousness to a relationship to the Earth. The quantifying developments of scientific rationalism have disregarded the qualifying reasoning of indigenous culture. By opening to an understandig of the meaning inherent in the reason of indigenous culture, we open a door of humanism that the west has flirted with but not married into its consciousness.

-

THE VOICE

The silent witness of the earth finds the voice of it's spirit in the painting of aboriginal, shamanic artist James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA , in a series of paintings titled the "Mountain Series" and "9-11." The earth as silent, sacred witness in the last voice to be heard in the aftermath of 9-11 and the ecological crisis. Art is a universal language but what is the universe theme? It is the voice that Aboriginal people have expressed for over five-hundred years as warning. It is the voice that was first introduced by Anishinabe painter Norval Morriseau, in 1962 in Toronto, and internationally in 1967, at the Montreal Expo. It is a voice expressed in symbol-a secret language of the Great Medicine Society of the Midewewin of the Anishinabek-and Morriseau broke all taboos of his culture when he broke these taboos and revealed it's images to the modern world.

Although we have learned to recognize the symbolic paintings of the Anishinabek, we have yet to understand the meaning. James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA of Manitoulin Island, leads us to this meaning and reveals the shamanic vision of Anishinabek symbolism as we face the ecological and post 9-11 uncertainly of Global proportion. It is time for the ancient meaning to be communicated to the modern world. Morriseau broke the taboos and James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA leads the way into the living meaning and vital awareness communicated in the symbols of shamanic perception.

MISHIBINIJIMA has painted these symbols in his studio for the past forty years. As a young student of the Woodland Art Studio influenced by Morriseau's break through, MISHIBINIJIMA has exhibited his prolific series of themes around the world from the Vatican, Rockefeller Center, Smithsonian, McMichael Gallery, Royal Ontairo Museum, the Colliseum and the Worlds Fair in Italy, the Moons House Art Galley in Germany, the Spirit of Sharing in Switzerland and Austria...... Now in his fifties, MISHIBINIJIMA returns full circle to Toronto, where the symbols of his culture were first revealed.

It is very important in the next millennium that man understands what he is doing to himself. For many generations the Native Elders have taught survival on Mother Earth with Harmony. Look at the Earth now, and it will remind man how far he's gone towards the path of destruction. These old teachings are written on stone and birchbark scrolls of the Anishinabek people. "If these old teachings are not available to you, just look around and see the animals, trees, water and sky. The answers occur all around us. This is how the Native people see the lands."- MISHIBINIJIMA

To observe in this way is to see the sacred and the shamanic. The "Mountain Series" penetrates the appearance of natural form to reveal the living spirit of a series of islands sacred to the Anishinabek people. The Anishinabek are the three nations of the Ojibwe ( Chippewa), Odawa ( Ottawa ), and Bodawatomie ( Pottawatomie ) with territories encompassing the Woodland areas surrounding the Great Lakes of North America.

This area was painted the Canadian artists known as the Group of Seven of Canada, in the early twentieth Century and based also in Toronto, Ontario. The group of Seven painted of the landscape by it's appearance in a post-impressionist style based upon European landscape art techniques. Mishibinijima paints the landscape in the ancient, symbolic language of the Medicine Society of his people whose beginning lies so far back in time that it founder is known as "a young man".

Comparison alone, within this perspective, is enough to create a revolution in the world of art. The exposure of ancient, sacred, secret meaning is an explosion. The "Mountain Series" reveals the shamanic perception of the shaman himself and indicates the source of this preception by placing a diamond into each canvass. Ancient tribal societies, which exist throughout the world have no financial value placed upon a diamond. What MISHIBINIJIMA expresses is the universal quality of a diamond. The flash of insight, the movement of penetration into the living spirit of the land consciously revealed, is the meaning of his diamond. What is seen in that moment is the living form revealing itself to the artist. Painting is the domain of shamans in Anishinabek society. It is the shamans who reveal in pictographs the living, breathing, communicating cosmology of the infinite universe in relation to the earth which gives birth to the recurring finite.
James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA reveals this universal shamanic awareness to reveal the caution our modern world has continually overlooked, judged as sentimental, or primitive: Mother Earth does not need man: Man needs Mother Earth. " Tribal societies are oriented to the cosmological; as modern societies erupt in violence or ecological unsustainability, ancient societies remain as witnesses to ancient teachings. These teachings realize that change must come from within. To look for rescue from without, in forms of religion, technology, or science, is to disregard the awareness cultivated within each living human being. This awareness-its, form, meaning purpose, and beauty, is the awareness communicated consciously and conscisely by James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA.

THE DIAMOND SERIES

Why would an artist place a diamond into paintings and landscapes? If the landscapes reveal the living, sacred earth, what hidden aspect would a diamond convey?
When the Buddha realized Enlightenment, how did he know it? Legend tells us that this question was asked of him and he answered by pointing to the earth upon which he sat-the Earth was witness to the momement of realization. The flash of realization, like the reflection of a diamond, is not reached in stages or steps. Realization is sudden, the infinite is perceptable.

James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA transcends all duality-and decends into the vital center of consciousness-to the very experience of ultimate reality. What is the experience of infinity? What is ultimate reality perceived when a human being experiences union with the infinite? What does the point of contact to ultimate reality look like? What tradition within an ancient culture provides the language to communication such knowledge? Whats does the artist see when he sees the union of the infinite source to the infinite earth, and to himself?

The light of sudden, ultimate realization is beyond thought and feeling. Alan W. Watts introducted Western consciousness to this experience when he wrote of Oriental Metaphysics in his 1957 publication The Supreme Identity. (Noonday Press, NY, Sixth printing, 1966). Watts defines metaphysic as the " immediate realization of ultimate reality which is the ground and cause of the universe, and thus the principle and meaning of human life... " (p.18)

The introduction of eastern philosophy is much closer to the spiritual consciousness of the Anishinabe culture, which may be the reason that westerners have been unable to recognize that the native people had a religion or culture at all.

Watts writes "in this realm religious and theological distinctions are transcended, not annihilated... difficult and dark from excess of light as this realm may be....it is here that man actually realizes his ultimate meaning and destiny. If only relativety few ever reach this point at any one time, they anchor the rest of us to eternal sanity." (p.14).

Within this realm Mishibinijima places the experience of reality into the perception of reality-by placing a Diamond into a landscape. The perception is the experience-the shamanic experience and shamanic perception are revealed simultaneously, in the realm of timelessness in which they occur. How could he reveal this experience more completely, or more beautifully?

Knowledge of the infinite is rare but universal. The infinite, like art, speaks a universal language. The Anishinabe culture-very much alive-is oriented to the cosmological. It's unity, harmony, and balance is deliberate: "related to the ultimate meaning and nature of the universe. Man... is seen as a microcosm inseparably bound up with the macrocosm...." as Watts describes traditional cultures. ( p. 28)

Watts goes on to say " Societies of this kind have already existed... there are the best reasons for saying that such societies are far more stable and significant than our own. By " significant" we mean that they are related to universals. In the highest sense, that is significant which is related to the universal and eternal, which find it's true in the fullness of Infinate Being. "

James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA reveals this consciousness in his paintings and extends the experience of this consciousness in "The Diamond Series". The diamond is placed in the position that a dot inside an ancient Anishinabe pictograph is placed, to signify Gitchi Manitou-the Great Spirit.

The dot may be described as Watts describes it: " Many of the terms for the infinite employed in the various metaphysical traditions signify nothing so much as pure consciousness-the Self, the Light , Universal Mind...and even the Void...,which in Mahayana Buddhism denotes not so much mere emptiness as an absolute clarity and transparency. (p.57)

The Diamond , placed in this way, reveals the consciousness to see the Earth as sacred and alive. This orientation to the infinite in Anishinabe spiritual culture is the orientation and consciousness of James Simon MISHIBINIJIMA.

Mishibinijima and E.C.Lewis Copyright 2008

Pictographs And Their Meaning

Anishinabek Pictographs are the graphic symbols which communication vast meaning. A picture is worth a thousand words and pictograghs use symbols derived from rock paintings and sacred birch bark scrolls, for these are the words which form the language of the Anishinabek people. The meaning communicated in pictographs is the deep consciousness of a perception that penetrates the mere appearance of form to expose the vital forces active within a form.

To perceive the earth as living and breathing: to perceive animal forces in conflict within a human being: to perceive an island anthropomorphicized as a human form is to perceive with a shamanistic consciousness.

The pictographs, painted for hundreds of miles across the Canadian Shield and incised on sacred birchbark scrolls of the Great Medicine Society of the Anishinabek, are the repository of the religion, ethics and history of the Anishinabek People.

Within the Anishinabek culture, painting is the domain of shamans. Their talent is not to paint the appearance of form or the illusion of a third dimension as in western art.

Anishinabek art is a tradition of revealing the inner forces active within the living cosmos. This perception is not primitive: it rivals the findings of the most modern science by millennia. For example: Darwin created a revolution in intellectual thought with the theory that the human species is ..."not separated from, but a part of nature". (Roger Lewin, In The Age Of Mankind, Smithsonian Books 1988). His scientific basis for this idea is the close observation of the biological world. This observation defies the previous ideas of man as a unique creation in the universe or man as a rational being and therefore entirely seperate from animals.

The Anishinabek observation of the natural world reveals some animal forces within human beings and also some human forces within each animal. The observation has been distilled over centuries and communicated graphically within the pictographs. The psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions within a natural form whether animate or inanamate are exposed in a language of symbolism.

This symbolism appears archetypal or primative to western culture. But we must remember that western culture is a product of European ideas. Anishinabe pictographs reveal a profound insight into the natural world and human nature. Darwin's theory of man as a part of nature, which is closer to Anishinabe consciousness than the religious and philosophical beliefs in conflict with this theory, are a tremendous reversal in the belief system of western culture. Within Anishinabe culture, Darwin's theory does not go far enough or observe closely enough.

Freud has touched upon this animal force within human beings but Anishnabe perception indentifies the type of animal and visually reveals these forces in their most dynamic expression-which is in conflict, or creation, or both. Jung, a student of Freud, developed dream interpretation to reveal these forces but Anishinabe observation developed a visual, graphic communication of these forces as well as a symbol of language to interpret and express them.

The language, legends and art of Anishinabe culture are communicated in pictographs that reveal profound meaning. Science recognizes language as crucial to the development of consciousness and culture. Consciousness is introspection and allows us to now what we know. Culture is the evolution crucial to human civilization-each generation benefits, distills and builds upon previous generations: Language communicates knowledge.

Anishinabe legends contain the religion, history and ethics of the Anishinbe people. They are the imagination of a cultural evolution that constantly develops and expands. As in all cultures man has been curious about the world in which he lives. Anishinabe legends are not mythology: they are the science of a culture conveyed in the langauage of symbols. The anthropologist Mary E. Southscott writes: "A very rich and flexable Anishinabe language makes possible the wealth of human values expressed by the legends. The legends, in their turn provide an inexhaustible mine for new graphic form which carries a message of it's own. Language, legend and art of create a circle of communication." (p.158, The Sound of the Drum: Boston Mills Press, Erin, Ontario, 1984).

The language of Anishinabe pictographs is in the details. The details convey the elements of meaning in which vast areas of the knowledge within the legend are illustrated. To understand the meaning within the pictograph, symbolic details are placed within a graphic form. This form is contained withing a strong outline. Within this " form-line" of outward appearance, the dynamic hidden forces are illustrated in a style referred to as " X-Ray." Every detail of the X-ray communicates the story of a legend.

The legends contain the knowledge of a consciousness and culture that is beyond the familair culture of the Industrial west, but communicates resonantly within each human being. Pictographs may appear to be simple, but the meaning conveyed is profound and complex.

Because we are conditioned by culture to understand meaning in terms of our own culture, pictographs can be disregarded or dismissed. To do this is to ignore the knowledge that is vital to our understanding. Consider the insights of ancient wisdom again in terms of science.

Cosmology and physics has discovered that the balance of oxygen and carbon nuclei within the universe must be so finely and precisely balanced to support life that they wonder if life itself wasn't designed into the creation of the universe. It is hard to imagine that life evolved as a coincidence or accident.

Anishinabe creation legends, like all other civilizations, consider these questions of vastness and meaning. For example: Bristish physicist Paul Davies, asks this questions scientifically: " Could it be that living observers were written into the laws of physics, or is our presence in the world merely a higly improbable accident occasioned by a felicitous conjunction of numeral values adopted by the constants of nature? The answer, depends on one's philosophical, or even theological, turn of mind. (p.238, In The Age Of Mankind).

Anishinabe legends consider this question and tend to observe " living observers" and give them a name in the Anishinabe Language: "Manitou." The meaning in Manitou is no less complex or profound than the question posed by Davies. It is more simply stated by placing a small dot into the graphic form. The dot signifies: Manitou.

The meaning in Manitou takes many paragraphs to convey. First , the "dot" communicates that the creation of life , the earth, and the universe is not considered to be an accident. The " living observer " of Manitou is often translated as spirit, but this has confused Western culture into a mistaken assumpion of pan-theism or superstition.

To understand the meaning of one dot in a pictograph, we look again to modern science for it's findings. Quantum physics and the frontiers of artificial intelligence have discovered that it is the arrangement of molecules-not the properties of the molecules themselves - that creates life, intelligence, and consciousness. This knowledge prompts Princeton physicist: Freeman Dyson, to state: " It makes sense to imagine life detatched from flesh and blood and embodied in networks of superconducting circuitry." ( p. 243, In The Age Of Mankind ).

"Superconducting circuitary" is a much closer translation of Manitou and helps us to understand why Manitou is present in animate or inanimate form. Physicist Heinz Pagels, of Rockefeller University broadens our understanding of Manitou when he states: " The Universe it seems, has been finely tuned for our comfort, it's properties appears to be precisely conductive to intelligent life " (p.236, In the Age Of Mankind)."

Science defines Manitou as " Intelligent life" as closly as any one definition is able to come to so vast a meaning. The Anishinabe word "Gitchi" is translate into english as "Great". Gitchi Manitou is more closely understood in science than in western religion or philosophy. Scientist Author Roger Lewin writes: "The more scientists discern the physical laws that govern the state of the universe, the more these laws apppear to have been established with human life 'in mind.' " (p. 237, In The Age of Mankind ).

" In mind" is the intelligent mind behind the intelligent universe: Gitchi Manitou. The meaning expands to more than human life and includes the creation of all life forms, including a living earth and breathing universe. This meaning helps us to understand why the earth is considered sacred. It is why Anishinabe legends caution human behavior in relation to how we treat Mother Earth.

This profound meaning is represented inside the form of a pictograph by a single dot. Imagine the meaning in a circle which Southcott tells us: " denotes, perfection, completeness and continuity. ( p.40, The Sound Of The Drum). The pictographs which form the basis of Anishinabe art, communicate the vast meaning and knowledge of Anishinabe culture and consciousness through the language and symbols which are ancient. The language is fluently spoken and graphically illustrated to this day.

If the creation of the universe is no accident: if intelligence is inbedded in animate and inanimate natural forms: if the cosmos is sacred - What are the universal ethics of the human being? Anthropologist Margaret Conkey of the University of Califorina at Berkeley, addresses this survey of meaning of ancient pictographs: "You have to ask, what was the social context of the art that made it meaningful to the people who painted and used these images. What was in the lives of the artist that made these images meaningful? (p.150 In The Age Of Mankind). The question still applies to Anishinabe pictographs.

The Anishinabe pictographs are painted soley by shamans, which means contemporarily in Southcott's words: "They have a mandate from the Great Spirit to paint,... This spiritual motivation is unique. It is the strongest of all motivations" ( p.126. The Sound of the Drum). Because the ancient Anishinabe languge is still fluently spoken, the pictographs answer the question of meaning and the questions asked by anthropologists, "... if we could speak ( the language), we would then know the world that our ancestors knew 50 millennia ago. "( p. 186, In The Age Of Mankind).

Language is considered by anthropologisits to be essential to consciousness and culture. Plato's phrase "loom of Language" denotes language as necessary to the formation of culture. " So central is language to our humanity that a world without words is simply unimaginable. " (p.154, In The Age Of Mankind ).

Because the Anishinabe are one of the few Native North American tribes to have a written form of language that is fluently spoken, it is possible to reach what anthropolgy has given up on ever finding in Anishinabe pictographs: " An understanding of a psychological domain that is seperate from our own and yet clearly identifiable with it." ( p. 154, In The Age Of Mankind ).

Anthropology is able to define the importance of language but has given up on being able to find it..."because, before the advent of witing a mere six-thousand years ago, human discourse simply vanished. "( p.180, In The Age Of Mankind). Anishinabe pictographs cannot be carbon dated because the pigment has become chemically bonded with the rock, but the symbols which form the mnemonic devices of Anishinabe language have never vanished and the meaning of these symbols is still retained. Believing that it is impossible to know the meaning of ancient art, anthropoloy has turned to measuring hominid brains or studying the tools and guessing at the meaning of ancient art objects. They hope to find clues to brain structures and the earliest evolution of the vocal tract for determining the origin of language. Anthropology may be unprepared for James Simon Mishibinijima's statement: "The symbols came first."

Lewin writes: "Turning from hominid remains of the tools and art objects these living beings left behind, we invoke the old proverb, 'by their works we shall know them.' The question is, how intimately small we know them? ( p. 184-85, In The Age Of Mankind). Anishinabe pictographs allow us to receive ancient wisdom true to ancient meaning. Science provides a universal understanding of the profoundness of this meaning even when it's tools are too limited to be able to decipher it. The Mathematician Jacob Bronowski has stated: " In reality science is neither a villian debasing human dignity nor the sole source of human wisdom." (p. 236, In The Age Of Mankind).

Even science faces a culture blindness. The "scientific civilization" as Bronowski charactizes the highly Renaissance influenced culture of the west, has for historically conditioned reasons overlooked the ancient wisdom of nature consciousness. All consciousness, science agrees, is embedded and developed through language. Language, consciousness, and culture provides the stimulus for ideas. The scientist William McLaughlin, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Califorina, states: "The real motive force behind the advance of the world has always been provided by ideas." ( p. 243, In The Age Of Mankind). The assimilation of Native children has always prohibited the use of their language.

Anishinabe civilization can contribute knowledge to the scientific civilization which developed intellectually at the same time that it explored new navigation routes and accidently discovered civilizations it was unprepared to understand. Scientific technology is even younger, with the rapid development that is largely a product of the industrial era. Within five hundred years, science and technology have developed an unintentional crisis of global proportion by overlooking the natural world.

The fragmentation of scientific proofs and products has guided the scientific civilization without benefit of knowledge provided by ancient wisdom concerning the biologicial earth. Lewin states: " But there is one great curiousity- a potentially fatal flaw in the drive for knowledge... Our scientific sights... have overlooked something obvious and important to us: namely, the rest of the biological world.... if the search for knowledge is our destiny, then we clearly have fallen badly short of fullfilling it with our biological heritage ( p. 246, In The Age Of Man). The heritage of Anishinabe conciousness is oriented to the biological, as well as a cosmological heritage.

In this way, the meaning of Anishinabe pictographs contributes knowledge to scientific frontiers. Lewin, states the importance: "Surely, as Francis Bacon urged, humankind must be an adventurous explorer, striving for new horizons as yet beyond our sight. But at the same time we must be aware of what we are in danger of losing through ignorance in the world we already know." (p.217, In The Age Of Mankind).

From anthropology, in which Conkey questions the meaning encoded in ancient pictographs and the lives of the artists who painted them, to the state-of-the-art questions of artificial intelligence, to the words of philosopher Daniel Dennett, of Tufts University: "Here we begin to ponder one of the most exacting of frontiers: What is mind? What is meaning? What is reasoning and rationality? (p.240, In The Age Of Mankind). Anishinabe civilization contributes meaning.

Ancient wisdom has avoided certain pit-falls in the duality that fragments modern scientific research. The quantifying formulas of Aristole, formalized by Ptolemy and grounded in academic disciplines rooted in the European Middle Ages, has provided the basis of "progress" to the scientific civilization. As this civilization advances to from the Industrial Revolution to the " Information Revolution" as Mclaughlin names the period of change, the world is faced with an enviromental crisis and the psychological ignorance of ancient wisdom.

The contribution of ancient wisdom remains encoded within the symbols, language and meaning of Anishinabe pictographs. In the words of science itself to explain this, the words of Princeton physicist Freedman Dyson, are borrowed: "This unimagineably great and diverse universe, in which we occupy one fragile bubble of air, is not destined to remain forever silent.... the expansion of life, moving out from earth into it's inheritance, is an even greater theme than expansion of England across the Atlantic. Such is the power of mind."(p.245, In The Age Of Mankind). Dyson is speaking of the physical laws of the universe which is also the heart of the meaning contained within Anishinabe pictography. All we have to do to find their meaning- is to ask the artists who continue to paint them.

Mishibinijima and E.C. Lewis - Copyright 2008

ARTIST STATEMENT

The symbols within Mishibinijima's artwork are ancient; born in 1954, he began to paint in 1969, in his homeland of Manitoulin Island, the worlds largest freshwater island located in northern Lake Huron.

Manitoulin Island had become a catalyst for the revitalization of the Anishinabe culture in the 1960's revitalization movement. He returned to the pictographs and sacred scrolls because, the artists: "... have a mandate from the Great Spirit to paint, and by their paintings restore the Anishinabec to their ancient ways." (Mary E. Southcott, The Sound of the Drum: The sacred Art of the Anishinabec . Boston Mills Press, Ontario 1984).

Though his paintings are often imitated, Mishibinijima remains unconcerned; fluent in the Anishinabec language and legend, he is the living communication of these legends in graphic form.

His prolific art work develops a rich series of themes born of a pure shamanistic perspective and knowledge. Mishibinijima has illustrated a portfolio of symbols derived from the ancient pictographs found on the natural landscape that convey sacred teachings distilled over thousands of years.

These symbols communicate the legends of creation, man's place in creation, the ethics of human behavoir, the history of nomandic migrations, and the sacred poetry of Anishinabec language in graphic forms.

Remaining true to the meanings within these forms and knowledge of rich Spiritual iconography of the societies known as the Three Fires Confederacy of Manitoulin, Mishibinijima brings ancient teachings to the modern world and continues the role of the Anishinabec painters.

"To us, all life is sacred, the gift from the Great Spirit. And the Manitoulin painters particular share this view " ( p.35, The Sound of the Drum, Mary E. Southcott, 1984).

This can be seen within elements of James A. Simon MISHIBINIJIMA paintings in certain periods of his work, often containing a form line: a heavy black outline which defines and contains a secondary line or patern of anatomical delineation. The spiritual inner dimension beneath the mere appearance of life forms is visually communicated.

The two dimensional reality of a canvas is not tampered with, creating an illusion of depth and shadow during the renaissance period of European art is an example of the original meaning of the word of art - fake, as in artificial.

In stark contrast, the Anishinabe word mijiwi-izahijiganan, means " made with hands". A facet of truth is conveyed in graphic form from a perspective of the universe that is lived by a Shaman painter and derived from nature. Every detail is vitally important: illusion is not only unecessary, it is considered a desecration of the intent and sacred responsibility of the artist.

The universal perspective of nature is within the cardinal directions of the East, South, West, and North: there are Spirits of each direction that are recognized within ceremonies. Attempts to define these elements is rigorously rejected. It is the insight that is visually communicated, the truth of belief which is lived, and the guidance of the elder to knowledge and meaning that is conveyed.

To understand seeing in the way of Anishinabec art where Animism, Shamanism Mediwiwin and even Christianity is revealed in visual form and beyond definition, we may compare the Sacred Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism and it's Shamanic practice of Tantra or the visual graphics of the Shamanic cultures within Siberia, Norway, Sweden and west Arnhemland, Austrailia within the sacred, as explained by Lao Tsu twenty Five Hundred years ago in China. " The which can be told is not the eternal way ". Inner reality is the asperation of Anishinabe artists and this is undertaken with a sacred and cermonial respect and responsibility.

The dominant lines in Anishinabe art are the straight line, the curve line and the circle. The circle is perfection, completeness and continuity. Western Art is built upon the circle, triangle, and rectangle, with great attention paid to the composition within the parameters of the frame of the canvas. Anishinabe painters pay as little heed to the limitations of the edges of the frame in which the visual graphic is communicated as their ancestors would have paid to the edges of the cliffs upon which the pictographs were painted. The rocks themselves were living spirits and Mihibinijima has painted these spirits in his Mountain Series.

The abstraction in European styles such as cubism convey the elements of appearance but abstaction in Anishinabe art conveys a vision. European roots in shamanism may excite the imagination but the inner conflicts revealed in dreams and visions quests have never been lost to Indigenous north American societies.

James A. Simon MIHIBINIJIMA communicates this connection in every detail of his paintings, and to quote Maey E. Southcott once again: "It is evident that Anishinabe painting reflects and reinforces the beliefs about the meaning of life itself. No greater art has ever exisited without a great philosophy or belief to inspire it. The culture of the Anishinabe provides the ideal source for the Anishinabe Artist. (p.82, The Sound of the Drum)

MISHIBINIJIMA ART EXHIBITIONS

MAHDEZEWIN MILWAUKEE
Curator: Mr. Gabriel PELTIER
(Viewing by appointment only)
4460 Woodburn
Shorewood, Wisconsin
USA
53211
Telephone: 847-275-3769
gabreil.peltier@gmail.com

MAHDEZEWIN ART GALLERY
Mishibinijima Representative:
Mr. Richard D. Lewis
Mishibinijima Publicist Group
807 Ashmun Street
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
49783 USA
mahdezewin@30below.com

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
426 Lake Shore Drive,
Wikwemikong, Ontario
Manitoulin Island.
P0P 2J0 705-859-3871
james.mishibinijima@gmail.com

Cartwright Appraisals
Ms. Jennifer Cartwright
151 Rachael Avenue,
Ottawa, Ontario
K1H 6C5
Telephone Inquires- 613 260-7177 mailto:jennifer.cartwright@sympatico.ca


Mishibinijima Art Exhibitions
2009
Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery - Murals - Diamond Series
By appointment only - 705-859-3871
426 Lake Shore Road,
Wikwemikong, Ontario
Manitoulin Island, Canada
P0P 2J0
2008
Ojibwe Cultural Foundation - Group Showing
West Bay,
Manitoulin, Ontario
P0P 1So

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
( Viewing by appointment and no artist interviews.) - Diamond Series always in Storage
"The Project" Diamonds and Murals
426 Lake Shore Drive,
Wikwemikong, Ontario
Manitoulin Island, Canada
P0P 2J0 - 705-859-3871

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
(viewing by appointment only)
Pictographs on Grandfather Stones ( SOLD OUT )
426 Lake Shore Drive,
Wikwemikong, Ontario
Manitoulin Island
Canada P0P 2J0

2007
Mishibinijima for Peace, in the Middle East: "New project"
Mishibinijima's Private Art Gallery ( viewing with appointment only )
Wikwemikong, Ontario
Canada
705-859-3871 - (Paintings- SOLD OUT )

Mahdezwin Art Gallery.
Sault Ste. Marie. Michigan

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
(By with appointment Only)
Wikwemikong, Ontario Canada
705-859-3871

2006

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
(By Appointment Only)
Wikwemikong, Ontario
705-859-3871

Mahdezewin Art Gallery.
Sault Ste. Marie. Michigan

Portrait of the Pope
Personal Invitation by Pope John Paul II
Vatican City, Rome Italy

Maple Avenue Art Gallery,
Evanston, Illinois

University of Sudbury
( Book Launch )
Sudbury, Ontario

Two Trees Convention Center
Niagara Falls, Ontario

2005

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
(By appointment Only )
Wikwemikong, Ontario
705-859-3871

Mahdezewin Art Gallery
Sault Ste. Marie. Michigan

2003

Artist at the Lafonda
Santa Fe' New Mexico

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong Art Gallery, Canada

2003

Eiteljorg Museum of the Native American Art
Art jury by invitation only - ( Two awards 1st and Best of Show )
Indianapolis, IN. USA

2002

Ziibiwing Cultural Society
Art Jury - Two Awards 1st and Best of Show
Mount Pleasant, MI. USA

2001

Baymills Community College,USA

University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI.USA

Mahdezewin Art Gallery
Sault Ste. Marie,MI.USA

1999

Spirit Landscapes by Mishibinijima ( Private invitation only).
Pickering, Ontario

1998

Mishibinijima Art Gallery,
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Vreden, Germany

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Skydome, Toronto. Canada

1997

Moon House Art Gallery
Book Launch
Vreden Germany

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Private and Corporate only
Cologne, Germany

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Hamburg, Germany.

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Private and Corporate only
Cologne, Germany


Mishibinijima Art Exhibitions
Vreden, Germany

Mishibinijima Art Exhibitions
Munich, Germnay

1996

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Vreden, Germany

1995

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Mishibinijima Art Exhibition
Munich, Germany

Emerson Art Gallery
Clinton, New York, USA

1994

Sudbury Friendship Center
Sudbury, Ontario

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Tom Thomson Art Gallery
Owen Sound, Ontario

1993

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario Canada

1992

Vatican Presentation
( Togetherness )
Vatican City, Rome Italy

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
( Grand openning )
Wikwemikong, Art Gallery

Ottawa Winterlude
Ottawa, Ontario

Lepriete Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

Wikwemikong Art's Festival
Wikwemikong, Ontario

1991

Mishibinijima Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

Wikwemikong Arts Festival
Wikwemikong, Ontario

1990

Tundra Art Gallery
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

1989

Torontp Arts Festival
Toronto, Canada

Wikwemikong Arts Festival
Wikwemikong, Ontario

The Hugh McMillian Hospital
Arts Exhibition
Toronto, Canada

Sudbury Friendship Center
Sudbury, Ontario.

1988

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

Native Art in View
Paris, France

Indian Arts and Craft Exhibition
Toronto, Canada

Ottawa Winterlude
Ottawa, Ontario

1987

Etobicoke City Hall
Etobicoke, Ontario

Mishibinijima Private Art Gallery
Wikwemikong, Ontario

1986

Wigwan Art Gallery
Manitoulin Island, Canada

1985

Lampton County Art Exhibition
Sarina, Ontario

Tundra Art Gallery
Sault Ste. Marie. Ontario

University of Toronto
Medical Science's Building
Toronto, Ontario

Thunder Bay Art Gallery
Thunder Bay, Ontario

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

Art Gala
Toronto, Ontario

1984

Tundra Art Gallery
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sharing the Art
Vienna. Austria

Sharing the Art
Munich, Germany

Spirit of the Art
Buffalo, New York

Spirit of the Art
Oakville, Ontario

Art from Manitoulin
Toronto, Ontario

Birchbark Sings
Oakville, Ontario

Thunder Bay Art Gallery
Thunder Bay, Ontario

1983

Whetungs Art Gallery
Peterborough, Ontario

Miniture Art by Mishibinijima
Marburg, Germany

1882

Walter Engel Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

1981

Yost Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

1981

Yost Art Gallery
Toronto, Onatrio

1980

Wikwemikong Band Council Complex
(Grand opening)
Wikwemikong, Ontario

McMichael Art Gallery
Klienburg, Ontario

Ontario Science Center
Toronto, Ontario

Turtle Art Gallery
Buffalo, New York

The Sound of the Drum
( Book Launch )
Toronto, Ontario

1979

Royal Ontario Museum
Toronto, Ontario

Rainbow Art Camp
McGregor Bay, Ontario

Ottawa Museum of Man
Ottawa, Ontario

Art at the Coliseum
Rome, Italy

International Worlds Fair
(Best of Show)
Bari, Italy

1978

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
west Bay, Ontario

Rainbow Art Camp
McGregor Bay, Ontario

Native Cultural Art Exhibition
Toronto, Ontario

1977

Royal Ontario Museum
Toronto, Onatrio

Artistan Art Gallery
Toronto, Onatrio

Walter Engel Art Gallery
Toronto, Onatrio

1975

Yost Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

1974

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

Walter Engel Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

1973

Yost Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

Rainbow Art Camp
McGregor Bay, Ontario

1971

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

Yost Art Gallery
Toronto, Ontario

1970

Manitoulin Secondary School
West Bay, Ontario

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
West Bay, Ontario

1969

Manitoulin Secondary School
West Bay, Ontario

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation
west Bay, Ontario

Ojibwe Arts Festival
West Bay, Ontario