One Bead at a Time

Beverly Little Thunder, Lakota Elder and women's activist, is a member of the Standing Rock Lakota Band from North Dakota. When she was forced to leave her Spiritual community because she was a lesbian, Beverly founded the Women's Sundance over 20 years ago to continue teaching the traditions and ceremonies of her heritage. She currently works with women and children from her Vermont home by teaching leadership skills through the Lakota Sundance ceremony, the sweat lodge ceremony, awareness of and respect for the animal and natural worlds, community talking circles, communication workshops, personal retreats, vision quests and spiritual counselling.

Though from the Ottawa river valley, Sharron Proulx-Turner lives in Calgary and is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. She's a two-spirit nokomis, mom, writer and community worker. Her previously published memoir, Where the Rivers Join: A Personal Account of Healing from Ritual Abuse (1995), written under the pseudonym Beckylane, was a finalist for the Edna Staebler award, and her second book, what the auntys say (2002), was a finalist for the League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Prize. Her 2008 poetry book, she is reading her blanket with her hands (2008), was shortlisted for the Governor General Award.