Kahontakwas Diane Longboat, MEd
Kahontakwas is a member of the Turtle Clan and Mohawk Nation at Six Nations Grand River Territory, Canada. She is a ceremonial leader, traditional teacher, and healer. She has served as Elder for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health since January of 2013 and is also the Senior Project Manager, Guiding Directions Implementation.
Diane is founder of Soul of the Mother, a Healing Lodge on the shores of the Grand River at Six Nations Grand River Territory, with extensive relationships with First Nations in Canada and the United States. Diane is also founder of First Nations House (Office of Aboriginal Student Services and Programs) at the University of Toronto.
Diane is a professional educator with a Master’s degree in education and has taught at universities as well as national and international conferences on the topic of traditional Indigenous knowledge systems and spirituality as the fuel for innovation. She has published extensively on Indigenous education law and policy for the Chiefs of Ontario and the Assembly of First Nations.
In 2017 and 2018, Diane was the Indigenous Education Advisor to the Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Minister of Education (Minister Naidoo Harris and Minister Mitzie Hunter).
Recently, Diane was Co-Chair for the development of the Indigenous Peoples Program at the Parliament of the World’s Religions global gathering in Toronto for 8,500 delegates in November 2018. Over 100 Indigenous spiritual leaders spoke in the Lodge of Nations built inside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The legacy of the Indigenous Peoples Program is a series of ceremonial gatherings between Indigenous Nations designed to renew pre-colonial alliances and, beginning in 2020, relationships with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Anishinaabek Nation.
Diane
is recognized as an Evolutionary Leader by the Source of Synergy Foundation in
New York City and is a faculty member for the Leadership Quest of the Earthwise
Centre.
Vivi Ojalvo Silverstein
Vivi was born in Colombia, South America. Her ancestors are Jewish from the Sephardic Peoples of Turkey. After being educated in the United States and in Mexico, she made her way to Canada in 1980. Vivi has volunteered for Hadassah-WIZO, a Jewish women’s organization, and is an active instructor of Tai-Ji and Qi-Gong. She had the first of five open heart surgeries when she was twenty-five years old. Vivi’s recurring surgeries led her to begin a quest for truth, meaning, and purpose.
In 1996, Vivi was introduced to the Sacred Fire and ceremonies of Indigenous Peoples. It guided her to a place of miracles and an environment of healing. She was moved and humbled by the Sacred Fire, the unconditional love that she felt, and the strong connection she was able to make with the Creator, the Ancestors, and Mother Earth. These ceremonies awoke an ancient memory within her that inspired her to connect with her own ancestral lineage and gave her the strength that she needed to embark on a new journey of healing. She learned to surrender and to trust what she was feeling in her heart and to embrace unconditional love and forgiveness in her life. She felt the miraculous love of the Creator in her powerful recovery from her surgeries.
Vivi believes that Indigenous Peoples’ love that comes from the Creator, the land, and connection to the Spirit world brings the answers humanity is searching for. She supports an ancient wisdom that enables people to reconnect with their ancestral lineages in authentic ways and to discover a much bigger meaning and purpose for their lives.
Since 1996, Vivi has witnessed people at the Sacred Fire open their hearts. Children, Elders, women, and men find the courage to follow their visions and use their gifts to help heal the world to be a better place for humanity, Mother Earth, and the coming generations. This humble act nourishes Vivi’s heart.
To understand and feel unconditional love, we must first fall in love with all of Creation.
Francesco (Frank) Mannella
Frank came to Canada at the age of 15 with his parents and seven siblings.
After struggling for most of his adult life trying to keep his head above water, he decided to make a dramatic change. In Franco’s own words, I had reached a critical point in my life where, in desperation, I turned to God saying these words: “I do not know if you really exist, but I need to voice what’s truly in my heart. I do not know where I was before I came into this world and certainly don’t know where I am going once I leave it. If this is all there is to life, then you wasted your time on me. Show me something that comes directly from you and I will follow it”.
This plea took place during the mid-eighties, just around the time when his father was passing to the Spirit World, and his answer came immediately after that with such clarity and real purpose.
Franco immediately went on a ten-year stint, wanting to find out why his father was such a devoted but private follower of Jesus. He went on to study Christianity, Egyptology, and Judaism, where he found that although the scriptures aroused interest on a mental level, the written words did not speak to his heart.
In 1997, Franco was introduced to Kahontakwas Diane Longboat through a friend of his, Vivi Silverstein. Through Kahontakwas he was introduced to the Sacred Fire, the centerpiece of all Indigenous Ceremonies. As he spent time by the Sacred Fire, he realized that his quest had finally led to a place of peace and truth. He continues to be an active council member at the Sacred Fire to this day. While Franco is grounded in his Catholic faith tradition, he believes that the root of spirituality tied to deep connections to the land, each other, and all beings is at the heart of what binds us together as a human family. He is grateful to his teacher, Kahontakwas Diane Longboat for embodying and regenerating this deep truth.
Frank is a gifted teacher and visionary. He leads men’s healing circles and was instrumental in receiving a vision for lighting a Sacred Fire that continued to burn for seven years. Through the Sacred Fire, thousands of people from different parts of the world joined to make prayers for humanity and for all creation.
In Franco’s own words:
When I came to the Sacred Fire community, I had two motives – both being deeply rooted in my conviction to seek original truths.
1. I had read that Abraham’s tent consisted of four entrances, each facing one of the four cardinal directions. He was a peace-loving man who avoided strife. It was known that wayfarers coming from any direction were always welcome in his tent. I wanted to know the deeper meaning of this and what those four entrances represented.
2. Jesus’ parable speaks of “loving your neighbour as yourself”. I wanted to understand this simple statement in a deeper way.
During my many years tending one of the Sacred Fires of the Indigenous peoples, I experienced the beauty of diversity when it is exercised in an environment of Spirit. As we travelled to many First Nations communities across the country, I was always made to feel welcome and never felt uncomfortable because of the colour of my skin.
My vision for Earth Song Alliance is to align with like-minded people who feel called to share their gifts and resources to support the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island and to learn from their wisdom, love, and care for the land, and to support their ties to the land that the Creator entrusted them with.
As a diverse Human Family, we need to celebrate the beautiful faith traditions that each of us comes from and allow the next generation to see us as strong individuals of faith. I believe that the next generation is watching us, hoping to find individuals who can inspire them by their actions of love, compassion, acceptance, courage, and trust, and by surrendering and seeking directions from the Creator.
Cynthia (Cindy) White, Kawennanoron
Finance Officer to the Governing Council, Cindy was born into the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. Her lineage is Onondaga Snipe Clan. The Mohawk name given to her at birth is Kawennanoron. The translation is ‘Precious Words.’ She currently lives at the Six Nations Grand River Territory in Southern Ontario, Canada, where she is a Spiritual and Ceremonial Leader and has been involved in spiritual training since 1994. Cindy attended the State University of New York at Plattsburgh where she studied nursing and received a Bachelor of Science degree.
According to Kawennanoron, Spiritual Training requires that one is engaged in one’s own healing. It is this journey of healing that has led her to understand that prayer is a humble cry from the heart. Cindy believes that a soul can be purified from pain and torment, thus producing change in a human being.
Through her own process of change, Kawennanoron shares what she has learned at the Sacred Fire of Peace as a means of giving back what she has received from the Creator. In 2017, she began working with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health assisting individuals in developing their own connections to Spirit for transformation.
Jacqueline (Jackie) Ryan
Secretary to the Governing Council, Jackie Ryan is a graduate of McMaster University where she received her bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology. In her journey, she experienced the trials and sickness of heart that many young people face and endeavoured to find meaning in her life. Through the strength of the prayers of the women in her lineage, her pathway led her to the Sacred Fires of the Indigenous Peoples. In her final year of University, she met her teacher Diane Longboat and chose to spend the next decade focusing her time and energy on her own healing and spiritual training. Through the ceremonies of the Indigenous People, Jackie rediscovered the Creator, Mother Earth, her Spirit Helpers, and her Ancestors. By reconnecting with her Ancestral lineage, Jackie discovered a sense of belonging and purpose which guides her work today.
Jackie’s passion and calling revolves around children and nature. She received her Early Childhood Education diploma from Mohawk College and currently works at Niwasa Kendaaswin Teg as the Child Care Manager overseeing Infant, Toddler, Preschool, and Head Start programs. She is also the founder and executive director of a land-based not-for-profit organization that works with Indigenous organizations to share ancient wisdom and life principles with children and families. Its vision is to encompass a new model of education that helps children realize their full potential. Jackie recognizes the importance of nurturing Spirit in order to assist the gifted children of this millennium to walk as leaders.
Jackie is the national coordinator of Children’s Lands Canada (CLC). This global organization encourages adults to donate land to children and to support them as the children work collectively to create a microcosm of the kind of world they would like to live in. All of their decisions and actions bring benefit to themselves, to others, and to the natural world. In 2012, UNESCO recognized the Children’s Lands initiative as a best practice in education for sustainable development. Jackie runs CLC training programs for families, organizations, and schools to facilitate the implementation of this program in Canada.