Pjila'si, welcome, come in, sit down. Welcome to our sacred fire in this humble wigwam.

Committing these ideas to writing began with talks around the kitchen table at Whycobah First Nation during the summer of 2007. At the time, I was visiting the summer gatherings and accepted invitations to several native reservations across the region. The reason for my trip from Australia was to reconnect with heritage and culture, to learn from the elders, and to answer some long-standing questions that remained within me since my father passed over during 1997. The summer of 2007 was a pivotal time for me because many of the pieces came together. It is now 2017, we seem to go in decades by seven...

The year 2007 was important not the least of why was to confirm that elders today remain steadfast in supporting Two Spirit identity within native communities. Discussions with several elders led to understanding that Two Spirit is respected in many ways. The rest of this book explores these meanings and suffice it to say that visits and discussions invited a process of recording notes from learning and keeping teachings with care. Two Spirit Medicine traditions awakened over time. But writing a book was an entirely scary prospect.

Many have asked me what my intentions are. After examining my views, I am often told to continue on this path because 'your focus is pure in heart.' This message conveys the strength and honour of Mi'kmaq culture and family values. The statement also tells me to ponder the social politics involved in Two Spirit relations.

True for all native teachings primarily people want to know that you will respect native ethics, honour cultural wisdom, and respect safety for family and children. Ethics are central in Mi'kmaw culture, family, and for children, women, men, and elders. The best way to describe this is with boundaries. Putting things plainly, I believe strongly in personal and social boundaries that help keep children and vulnerable people safe from exploitation, abuse, and harm.

Boundaries of conduct and behaviour are essential to healthy lifestyles and to preventing issues of violation and trauma. Naturally, consenting adults can and will do whatever they please. However, when making these pivotal decisions about our intimate and sexual conduct we ought to consider that our behaviour will impact on many other people around us. In today's world where freedom is associated with absolute personal licence to do whatever you want, there can be dire consequences. Boundaries relate to not only close relations but to the nation and global human family. We might say that good boundaries promote and nurture our ecology, in unity with our planet.

Mother Earth is part of our intimate family relations. This is a basic traditional teaching - an insight from ancient times that speaks of our interdependence on life itself. We are not individuals bent on personal gain. We are members of a family and nation and required to act accordingly with respect and honour.

Entering into knowledge in whatever forms adds deeper responsibility to the mix. If anything, people can be more likely to side with caution and become more conservative in their values and processes of decision making. Wisdom is like this.

The more knowledge we have the longer it takes to make a decision - just ask a traditional elder to answer a question. If you hear back from them within six months you are quite surprised. Often, they may reflect on your question for a year or two. And this is partly because they will go away and think through everything they already know, and then they will do their research, ask questions of others, and form a basis for a deeper discernment. Going a full cycle of moons may give different perspectives on any question.

Boundaries are also about ethical and moral responsibilities. This is serious stuff. Readers might want to skip this part. But the truth is that these points are the key to this topic and this book. Two Spirit reality is not a joke, nor a big party. Though we love a nice party. At the core, Two Spirit is a sacred path of profoundly moral and spiritual teachings that govern right conduct and right action.

This is an important and valuable point. There are those who take the party path, and there are many gatherings where sex, drugs, and rock and roll play a larger part while sacred ceremonies may also happen. Nothing new really as Catholics or other cultures do the same thing. People are people. And life is also meant to be enjoyed. To have fun is good. Also, good to celebrate and uphold the sacred. Elders and Pipe Carriers may tend to avoid places and spaces unsafe for the sacred, unless they have a rather specific purpose in mind like education.

Naturally, Two Spirit realities for some people has little or nothing to do with the medicine path. This path may not exist in any given community, and knowledge comes and goes over time. There may be an unusual or rare quality to these teachings, though they are gaining strength as more people open up and take on these ways of being. Awakening is a path that is personal and social, familial and national, in dimensions.

Sitting with the medicines takes time in and of itself, just learning to live and commune with one herb can take several years of learning. Foraging and keeping a garden have taught me so much about culture and spirituality. These are only two practical examples.

Therefore, the teachings offered here about Puoinaq Two Spirit, and spirituality in general, may not directly be found in any given community. You may find these teachings implied. Something may feel familiar. That is because these teachings are like a mirror of clear water. When you look at the water you see the lake or pond. You see reflected your embodiment, and if you look more deeply, your spirit. You also see the sky or trees. Above the trees you may see the Eagle fly over. Above the Eagle you might notice the clouds and shape of the moon. Hidden in the reflection you may notice the feminine qualities of water, the strong masculine forms of cloud formations, the stately man-like trees, and the feminine softness of the moon. All this from looking at the surface of water. You find the pathway to seeing the Puoinaq through the reflections of the water.

These teachings may exist in special places. They are accessible when you look closely enough, and as you hold on to solid values. You can fall off the path by losing any one of these things, because these teachings only surface in nurturing consistent effort and sacrifice. Especially true today when we are swayed by so many different ideas and values. It is not that we need to become sheltered. Nor over protective. It is simply that nurturing solid native teachings around Two Spirit spirituality takes a great deal of effort, consistency, and sacrifice. But for those on the path, sacrifice is joyful and simply part of living in beauty. Boundaries are a good example.

Boundaries are about clarity in beliefs. For example, many thinks that Two Spirit is simply another native catch phrase for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex. This is simply not true and not very helpful.

Two Spirit is a quite distinct identity and pathwork. This work on the path of family life stands apart from European labels. The historical names or labels of gay, lesbian, etc., speak mostly to sexual conduct. Gay means you have sex with men. Lesbian means you have sex with women. Bisexual that you have sex with either or/both. Transgender does not specify the object of affection. A trans person may be gay, lesbian, or heterosexual. Intersex means having the physical genitalia or aspects thereof from both genders in one body. Meanings may also develop around gay culture, lesbian culture, etc., so that the meanings are much broader than sexual disposition. But in common usage the sexual conduct of the person is the focus.

These terms may be helpful but there is also a sense that they are foreign to native cultures. Their emphasis is on the noun. They tend not to focus on ethics and relationships. They tend to be disconnected from heart.

Reconnecting is actually helped by re-associating the person to the family, the self to culture. This is a native way of setting boundaries back into natural order. Boundaries are one of the most essential parts of sexual and intimate relationships between people. Nature governs her boundaries with great care and creativity.

Boundaries form a place of safety within which two people can explore their minds, hearts and bodies. Understanding 'my space' verses 'your space' is a basic human life-skill learned during the early years of infancy as the child comes to distinguish between parent and self, other and self. This innate relational boundary becomes important as children grow and explore 'my friend' and 'your friend' and within this the variations and complexities of human relationships.

Native and nature-based culture often sees and celebrates we-relations, our-family, our-nation. Not so much me, my, and I the focus of native culture is we, us, and ours. These perceptions come through during childhood development where self-identity is formed in secure attachment to relationships.

Healthy early relationships between youth and young adults that enter into sexual experimentation also tend to express a strong sense of privacy, personal space, sharing with someone special, and containment of the experience within normal social boundaries. As people grow older these boundaries around intimacy tend to remain strong and come to define the choices young adults and adults make through commitments to having children with a partner, marriage and/or long-term commitments to stay together, and similar arrangements. Two Spirit people undergo a similar human developmental path.

One difference between the developmental paths of Two Spirit people and others is that the Two Spirit person might have the capacity to form intimate relationships with people of either gender. Some are drawn to one or the other, or both. In nature culture and during childhood this can at times be unusual and welcomed or a bit disconcerting to one of the parents or other adult cares in the child's world. Likewise, if there are issues, the innate capacity may lead to fracturing of relationships with adults who may not understand the nature of Two Spirit children and youth.

There is a sense that the Two Spirit person may represent a third gender, although we are happy to simply say that the Two Spirit person represents a different way or path in life. And by suggesting three genders we remain unhappy. We do not actually want to promote the mainstream binary - gender is not all there is in nature.

Nature is diverse and exists in circles. Even tall grass and reeds and tree stems and bark come in straight lines that are relatively easy to form into circles. The tops of trees like the hair on a native man's head arches back down to the earth forming a complete circle. Even straight men are circles.

Women embody the circle in so many ways, they are more familiar with this power. Their intuitive sense knows the Two Spirit way is sacred, because their embodiment exists closer to this form and being.

Women are the first Medicine. Men are the second Medicine. Women nurturing and becoming masculine in spirit are the third Medicine. Men nurturing and becoming feminine in spirit are the fourth Medicine. Women loving women may be a fifth, men loving men a sixth, and Two Spirit beings a seventh Medicine. The highest or more complete medicine way is combining and transcending the basic energies of existence within one being, a learning that seems to happen over many skin-times. In the utmost simplicity, loving kindness and the basic human capacity to love another being is truly at the heart of all sacred Medicine. The Seven Medicine Two Spirit Teaching is quite important to ponder. This teaching comes from the Mi'kmaq Marriage Pipe. There is much wisdom here. All other variations exist in this teaching. Diversity in creation is affirmed.

From strong boundaries based in beliefs and values our approach to sexual ethics generally holds monogamous relationships in high esteem. Whether gay or straight, bi-sexual or transgender, intersex or Two Spirit, in my observations of people over many years and in study of human sexual behaviour we are relatively convinced that the norm and the preference is for long-term one-on-one relationships.

In some cases, we have seen people maintain healthy and long term sexual familial relationships between more than two people, but these tend to be rarer and more exceptional. Simply put, to reach maturity and depth most people need to grow in intimacy over several years with one special person. This is where we get the notion of a soul mate. Add another person to the couple and things get fairly complicated.

As well, longevity and maturity cannot be easily attained through temporary encounters. Many people will argue this point and may have fooled themselves into believing they have attained nirvana. All I can say is each to her own. But we are not convinced, and these views are likely shared by the majority of human beings on the planet. For whatever reasons people form couple bonds, and this is one of the primary circles in nature.

Many say that marriage between a man and woman is normative. In terms of numbers this may be true. In relation to human diversity, people are people.

Marriage is another topic indeed. Mi'kmaw marriage tended to be more flexible and relied on adult consent, consent of family, and then also consent to end a relationship if/when needed. Binding legal codes did not exist to such a degree. Raising children and sharing of resources was more communal.

Couple relations breaking down would create awkward times but may not pull apart relationships in many cases. Today things are a bit different under Christian rules and legal frameworks. These impact on native culture just enough so that people today may ask questions about how they can form and maintain a couple relationship. Once gender is not so opposite, male verses female, and once you mix things up a bit, gender becomes an important and just part of life. People are people, and most of us are mixed up. Our people have always had this innate sensibility. This gives rise to medicine traditions. Where there is humanity there are bodies. Where there are bodies, there is sacred medicine. With both comes boundaries, rules, and guides.

In every culture around the world there are strong ethics, morals, and behavioural codes associated with gender and sexuality that protect children and under aged individuals. Most models suggest the necessity of the incest taboo as a social value. The incest taboo usually means not having sex with someone in your immediate family, that is, parents, children, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles... All are included in this taboo. Sometimes innocent exploration between cousins leads to the 'kissing cousin' experience. But overall, the taboo is meant to protect children, youth, and young adults from becoming sexualised. And meant to protect families from the inevitable conflicts and problems that grow from violating these boundaries of respect.

Although we have seen situations where the incest taboo is explored and broken within native and non-native cultures, in my experience these situations tend to be extremely complex and invariably associated with histories of sexual abuse, violation, and trauma. When the incest taboo is violated we tend to see learned patterns of emotional life and behaviour that are maladaptive and dangerous to self and others. Cases may include addiction, drugs, alcohol, and socio-economic hardship. Over time experiences can become behavioural patterns. Then neurologically embedded to form counterproductive beliefs. This is precisely why sexual conduct is such an important area for families to keep sacred and to carefully monitor. We believe every human being has a sacred right to be protected from inappropriate sexual conduct during under aged years.

Childhood and early adulthood may be characterised by age groupings: 0-6 is considered early childhood; 7-13 middle childhood; 14-17 late childhood. In prior models across many cultures 14-17 was considered early adulthood. Legal and cultural frameworks have extended early adulthood to between 18-21, perhaps older.

Childhood involves learning and identity formation along with a growing awareness of body, relations of trust, and learning through sensory experience. Early childhood is not associated with sexual development in healthy children. Sexualisation happens in the presence of confounding factors like childhood sexual abuse that includes premature exposure to sexual realities.

Sexual abuse as a phrase many people misunderstand because abuse is often thought to be physically violent. Sexual abuse includes non-physical exposure to sexualised information as well as witnessing sexualised acts. Sexual abuse includes any form of drawing children into actions or emotions associated with sexual behaviours.

In healthy children and youth, innocent and normal experimentation around body and sensory experiences among peers is quite another thing. This does not need to be, nor is it normally sexualised. A healthy degree of curiosity and limited physical encounters among peers is not uncommon. No degree of adult supervision can totally prevent these experiences. But they can be informed by healthy parenting. This involves giving children protective behaviours.

Protective behaviours include concepts like private verses public. Learning around private places verses public places also helps to understand social and communal boundaries. For example, children can be taught what private body parts not to show to anyone but parents or a doctor. Public body parts anyone can see. For males and females these body parts are rated differently in some ways. By informing children of these norms, kids can talk with parents or a trusted adult who is given the role of mentor. If children have experiences that begin to cross the line, their having someone to talk to and ways to think about the experience give them protective skills that can prevent potential harm.

When sexualised information is outside the family control, children may get the wrong idea, and parents may need to step in and provide correction and guidance. Parents need to be realistic about the fact that this may happen and be prepared to support boundaries and materials, educational videos, and learning aids that can assist parents with child dealing with issues of sexuality.

In an era of internet pornography there is a ready access to sexual materials, writings, and imagery that can completely change the playing field for children and youth. Families and communities are struggling with how to maintain strong boundaries of respect with new technologies. Most native communities are now fully engaged with Facebook and other social media. In many ways the free access to social media has provided an environment for discussion, sharing, and learning that never existed for isolated Indigenous communities. Adult monitoring of children and youth on social media is an important responsibility for families.

Over the past few decades people have said that the age for getting involved in sexual activity has gotten younger and younger, to the point where children of four, five, or six years of age are exposed to sexual information and may engage in play activities associated with mimic of adult behaviours. While this may be true, the long-term effects of violation through early childhood sexualisation is poorly understood. Though as therapists we see the results in the lives of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and no one should have to live with these issues throughout their life.

More generally, as therapists we also see how babies and children's often naked or exposed images and the details of under aged people's lives are fully exposed on social media by parents, family, and friends. We question the long-term effects of this exposure on identity development. Rising rates of mental health issues may be associated with these types of exposure among youth. No type of social media is actually private. Because of social media we are seeing the radical loss and redefinition of privacy. And really, at the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves, why post this image? What stress or anxiety are we giving our children in the future when they see this level of exposure? Do we really have the right to present our children's lives in such an exposing and public manner to anyone outside of our immediate family circle? Would we print off the image and walk around the next city, and our community, giving the image to all the people here, in the next country, and around the world?

We can imagine one day children from this era may take parents or schools to court for damage to their safety and identity. There may be a subset of youth and adults who deal with chronic anxiety and stress associated with Internet Violation of Privacy (IVP).

Research on adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse suggests there is no doubt that the impact of sexual abuse is grave and leads in many cases to long term adjustment and post-traumatic stress disorders. Ambivalence is a common characteristic of sexual abuse because the experience is confusing for children, and confusing as one gets older and the experience is translated by time and memory. Combining aspects or layers of guilt, shame, pain, and pleasure make sexual encounters doubly confusing for minors and for adults looking back on their early experiences.

Our work with these cases involves adults who enter therapy for long term personal and relational patterns. Many have never shared their early sexual experiences with anyone, having kept these secrets most of their life. Others are more open about the abuse they endured but come into therapy due to relational patterns, inability to maintain intimacy, or broken relationships.

Boundaries around childhood and becoming an adult have much to do with the passage into intimacy and sexual activity. There is a positive developmental purpose to Indigenous initiation ceremonies that provide protective factors, instil respect and other key values, and give youth clear guidelines on social boundaries. This places emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy into their proper contexts of safety, caring, and consideration.

The passage from youth to young adult is a vitally important time of learning. When one stage of identity moves into another. This provides times for parents and other adults in a young person's world to prepare that young person for the responsibilities of caring for personal safety and for taking care of other people.

As puberty tends to be around age twelve, initiations into early adulthood traditionally happen during this time or soon thereafter. Historically there is a dual purpose to initiation. One is to help prepare the young person for adult responsibilities. Two is to signal to other people that the youth is becoming an adult, and to provide the young person with support and guidance in the coming years to full adulthood. Several Mi'kmaq Elders have suggested to me that the traditional age for initiation was thirteen. This number is associated with many other ecological, cultural and spiritual teachings. Even the poles of the Wigwam are 13 in number. And they each hold a story and a teaching.

Legal age in modern cultures has moved up to 18 in most cases because this allows five or six more years to adjust to the complexity of adult rules and laws that exist in modern societies. Looking at 13 to 18 as an adjustment stage is helpful. Having protection from sexualisation and abuse is important during these years. Being protected from the many pressures and anxieties that premature intimacy and sexual experience can bring is also important. Providing young adults with greater freedom from adult pressures and responsibilities as well as time to get things right before making these commitments is worthwhile.

In many ways, native cultures see kids growing up very fast. Many are parents before they are out of their childhood mindsets, and a lot of these youth-parents need the help of their parents and grandparents to raise children simply for the fact that they do not have the maturity or skills to raise children themselves. In other ways, grandparents who survived residential schools did not receive positive parenting imprints and did not develop the skills necessary to raise strong families. In spite of all these factors, native families are resilient, and people can grow as much through trial and error as we do through ideal circumstances. Overall, people need stability and longevity in their relationships, while perhaps exploring and experimenting where they find space to do so.

Within these stable relations that promote longevity and commitment are many less discussed intimate relations that may occur from time to time. Sexual ethics among native cultures tend overall to be less black and white than in the European-descent cultures. Marriage can easily be dissolved between consenting adults. Notions of consent hold a great deal of respect. Deceit and hidden agendas are not well tolerated, although they may occur where people have not gained enough integrity or confidence to share their ideas and choices with their close relations.

All the more reasons why early adult initiation into cultural norms is so important and needs to be addressed by Indigenous families. In this day and age, a greater degree of confusion is common because of exposure to broadly liberal social ideas via internet and social media. Making local cultural values clear can be a greater challenge than in past. The same is true around keeping our language alive and well. Sharing cultural traditions over social media are part and parcel of creating spaces for youth to engage and care about their culture.

In many colonial and Fourth World situations such as in Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand, certain Aboriginal people may think that their tradition supports abuse and violence, but this is not true. In virtually all of these cases such beliefs arise from the trauma of colonial violence and oppression. These past experiences of extreme abuse, including outright attempts at genocide result in an internalised trans-generational cycle of trauma. This needs to be addressed through cultural restoration, reconnection, and wholistic Aboriginal methods in spiritual healing. These approaches are proven again and again to restore people's innate sense of dignity and respect for self and others.

Across all Indigenous cultures it is clear that sex with minors constitutes grave sexual misconduct. As a psychotherapist these issues also raise concerns for the adult individual's psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being. And in the case of the minor or child involved, there are on-going concerns for support, therapy and education that are oriented toward establishing and nurturing healthy and clear interpersonal boundaries.

Pathways to establishing safety, clear definitions of personal space, and going support throughout childhood. Intimacy may rarely exist in a youth who has a fight-or-flight familiar chance of normal adult intimacy. Nurturing systems in a youth who has families is challenging, though they have not existed for two or more generations.

Child protection policies often appear to counter efforts towards building apart, breaking nearly completely, communities, and families that nearly exist. Further rendering children and families trans-generational trauma leading to an intergenerational then native-culture-based kinship groups, and rendering the prevalence to families then powerless only adds to the protective factors of child sexual abuse. Broad native-culture-based powers now and in the future, good heavens, an increase or decrease of incidents of child sexual abuse.

There is no doubt that where families degrade into sexual misconduct, the wider community has to engage in abusive and violent behaviours, the ethical, moral and legal obligation to intervene. The circle of intervention, but may only reach to local families, or a reserve community for instance, or mainstream society in very extreme cases. The wider Aboriginal society may become involved.

At one stage a myth was being promoted among Aboriginal people, we will not identify the country, where it was being said that men who were violent toward women were carrying out traditional cultural ways. The wider Indigenous community made it more than clear that this was not true and was not to be accepted. They clarified that while traditional culture included aspects of corporal punishment for certain wrong doings, physical and sexual abuse of anyone was not tolerated by the elders.

It is important to realise that these situations of extreme confusion are not uncommon among Forth World contexts where Indigenous people endure extreme circumstances. Every minority tends to engage in self-harming behaviours at one time or other, and this appears to be a part of learned helplessness and of post-trauma. But our focus in life and psychotherapy is on healing ways. We came into this life with an innate feeling for beauty and wisdom. We chose over the years to keep this Medicine strong.

Therefore, our career as a therapist focuses on the generative healing cycle that we observe among Aboriginal, Native, Black American, gay and lesbian, and other minority contexts around the world. In fact, healing is not only possible but desirable. Healing happens. Trans-generational trauma is only resolved through present-sense presence, even when presence means grief and loss. Yes of course life and cycles end social, health issues always happen, and too often when it comes to humans we are incredibly gifted. Healing from past hurts can be learned and nurtured. The first step is learning our healing path-working needs to happen for us older folks, kind of at the same time, as hard as it might be for us to do two things at once!

Here we go! Learning cultural empowerment ways is the first step. Mi'kmaq and native ways teach self-regulation, self-empowerment. This happens within family and community. We are one though we are many. Our collective identity is who we are. Empowerment is being part of a people, a family, a nation.

Likewise, learned helplessness is a core concept in colonial studies associated with trauma and healing cycle involve internalising violence and aggression while lashing out at the only people available to you - your own family and community. Again, native ways teach the medicine path, ceremony as life, life as ceremony. These methods give mindfulness and heart-focused living. Attention to beauty and right-relations based on respect. This is our way. It is powerful and good.

Naturally there is a lot of anger. Anger over what is happening to our people, our family. Anger over our violation of rights. Anger turned inward becomes either depression or self-harming behaviours. Anger turned inward can become abusive to family members or people in our communities, or also to visitors whose intentions may be pure. Anger among our men can be very damaging because the power of spiritual warriors is misguided into acts of violence or aggression that have no meaning, no real purpose except letting off steam. This can be hurtful, and people end up in hospital or turned away forever.

Better forms of anger-work need to be promoted. Taught. Learned by the and used men. There is always a choice, even in that second when anger strikes and men are raised there is a choice. A choice means power. A weak man strikes another, never in war games, in pure heart, they give up your power. Native warrior is giving away your power and purpose in their war battle. This is to give up your power and fear.

To take your anger and pour frustration into the wider mainstream world and out in an uncontrolled way is giving into the fear that anger brings. To be weak and giving, usually together.

To take your anger and safe for anyone even though most of the would not be tolerated or safe for your family with the now. It originates from the historical relationships of land in past western context, anxiety mainstream cultures who invade and dominate the land is unsafe to express protest and frustration in the wider western context tend to engage with minority groups including Aboriginal And First Nations are spinning in their own wheels without a clear sense of how to organise their energy to make change and address injustice.

The maze is so thick that people do not know how they got to where they are. Trans-generational trauma results in patterns of behaviour that include sexual violence, physical abuse, substance reliance and financial hardship. Self-defeating attitudes self-perpetuate just like positive attitudes tend to generate more good energy. The ironic part of the picture is that inwardly people possess the same inherent power that has its origins in the Original Teachings from the Dreaming and Medicine Traditions. We are powerful beings who can self-define our reality based on our beliefs, attitudes and actions.

In the same way, the Two Spirit Medicine tradition among the Mi'kmaq people is actually a system of powerful medicine including warrior medicine, beliefs, and values that are highly ethical and deeply spiritual. Self-regulation and control are part of this discipline and practice.

There is no mention of loose sexual conduct among true Two Spirit nor in these pages, nor should there be. The tradition is about the central values of the Mi'kmaq tradition of 'M'sit No'kama' or All My Relations, which is guided by the principle of right relations with all beings. The Two Spirit message is one of Sacred Trust that cannot be defiled by the actions of certain members of our creation. There is a core truth within creation. No one holds the copyright or governs this truth. No church or organization can claim this truth for their own line, or we mess things up. Both might be beautiful, although humans might be all killed.

When an elder asked me to write a book on Two Spirit ways, she put the questions to me directly – do I stand for protecting children and family relations from sexual misconduct? My answer was resounding yes! Safety and respect are the beginning and end of everything we do. My work as a counselling psychotherapist, educator and specialist in human sexuality has always included a strong sense of ethics. This is why the ethics of boundaries and human sexual relations forms the first part of this important discussion and is really the heart and soul of Two Spirit ethics.

The reason for this is clear. The Medicine Two Spirit is entrusted to enter into people's personal lives. This is a huge responsibility and cannot be taken lightly. In all reality the medicine tradition requires of a person a great deal of learning, sacrifice, and growth over many years. Medicine Keepers are not easily trusted, they must earn trust over time. So strong ethics are essential. Strong ethics and values guide the Two Spirit path from beginning to end.

Kisiku Sa'qawel Paq'tism leans forward in the wigwam and stokes the coals of the fire and says, 'M'sit No'kama, Ta'ho.'