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Sister Month Part I: Our Davis Days
🪷🪺
Ft. The Rare Bloom of the Giant Water Lily (isn't she ethereal 🤍)

Bonus ft. Easter egg hunt sponsored by Muriel & brotha Chim 🌾🐣
•••
This past month I've really treasured spending time with my best friends - my sisters - that I have been blessed with on this journey of life 💗 I took a 2-week trip recently, and I still got to work on my jobs and school stuff while enjoying the beginning of spring in Davis/Sacramento with people that I love. ❤️ This trip helped me relish the beauties of life, sisterhood and friendship while also reflecting on how far I have come since the last time I graduated (from UC Davis), as well as reflections on my life since passing on the Miss Indian World crown to Kassie a year ago. I've been busy with school and 2 wonderful with part time jobs, alongside personal life. So I'm deeply grateful for @murielxammon and @cecilthefrog for getting me down to Davis again and taking such good care of me while I am still navigating my jobs and finishing up my Masters program🩷 And congratulations to Lozen on being published in a new anthology that just came out -- her poetry may have brought some tears to my eyes 🥹 I truly treasure every moment spent with y'all, and my heart is full from our time together🩷

Kind of missing the vibe...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~~~~~~

It's almost that time of year again?!! 😭😭 Can't wait to see MIW Kassie John and all the new and returning contestants soon. 💌

My grandma Ene when she was a baby with her mom and dad in Panamniik (Orleans), CA.
She was so cute 😭💕 and I miss her so much. I'm so grateful for her love that she showed me all my life and how she continues to watch over all of us.

Grandma Ene is my mom's mom. When I was little I used to call her every day, as soon as I was old enough to grab the landline and type her phone number in. When I started kindergarten, I continued doing this. I would come home from school, climb up on a chair and type in her phone number to talk again. I would ask her to tell me about her past, mostly. I was fascinated by her childhood and the experiences she had growing up in the 50's with her cousins and sisters. My grandma was my idol. She lived 5 minutes away from us, so I saw her every day especially when my mom's illness first started and grandma helped look after us early on. I don't know when I stopped calling her every day as eventually became l busy with school and extracurriculars, and started going through my internal and external struggles of teenagerhood and early adulthood. I didn't talk to her as much as I used to. Maybe week to week or month to month instead of daily, especially when I moved for college. I regret this, but can only learn from it and encourage others to spend as much time with their loved ones, no matter how hard life gets. Talk about the hard things with them; don't hide it. I wish I got advice from her, instead of hiding that I was struggling. I'm sure she knew, but she never pressured me to tell her anything. She was intuitive -- like when I had my first period, she sensed it and called our house unprompted asking if I had started my period. That's how in tune she was, and how much she loved me.

I love my grandma and still always think of her and try to be like her: honest and loving -- she was also known to be extremely talented and creative. Most would call her weird, unique, eccentric, and decades ahead of her time.

Photo: Earlene Faye Stevens as a baby with her father Earl Waymond Stevens (Yurok & Karuk) and mother Betty Jean Ferris (Karuk)

It was a good summer. Mother's Day, Autumn's Flower Dance, KWTREX, Breath of Life Archival Institute at Berkeley, getting hired on at Cal Poly as Fire Coordinator Graduate Student Assistant, and lots more. Most importantly spending lots of time with loved ones, and figuring out how to manage my own life post-MIW year. The most important lesson I am learning is creating space for love, and re-dedicating myself to becoming the better version of me. Not the more successful version, not the prettier version, not the more likeable version -- but the better version. The more loving version, the more dedicated version, and most of all the version that values and protects the integrity of my own unique journey in life. It hasn't been easy coming out of such a huge life-changing experience, but it makes the work & the lessons that much more potent 😊❤️ Thank you everyone that shared time, space, & company with me this summer. Thank you for being patient with me and letting me be me 🤗

Excited for sticks @ Dee-ni' Day tomorrow 😄

After the Deerskin Dance it's quiet and peaceful. Everything is good and everyone is happy. ☀️
Happy Ndn New Year 🌕 to all my river peoples 🐟 🌳 🦌 Let's catch enough fish for our families this fall but let us also leave more than enough to swim upriver, for the river now flows the freest it has ever been in over one hundred years. 🔥

My own special photo with my sister. It was an honor to get a photo with Kassie in the moment right after her crowning. Thank you Kassie! I felt very lucky & blessed!! She looks so beautiful 🥹

Photo creds to my mom Tammy McConnell!!

#MissIndianWorld
#2023MissIndianWorld
#GatheringofNations
#IndigenousCulturalAmbassador
#Karuk
#MIWTori
#NativeAmerican
#Indigenous
#Powwow
#MissIndianWorld2024
#MissIndianWorldKassie
#NavajoNation #Navajo #diné

Dear Kassie, our new 2024-25 MISS INDIAN WORLD ~

On the first day of the pageant, there was a bright, kind, pure and hopeful energy that radiated from you. On the second day, we shared tears as we reflected together on our individual journeys of healing through our respective kinds of traditional weaving, we cried for our mothers and how much we love them and how strong they are. You shared your art with me, and told me how important it would be for art to be a part of your platform if you won MIW. On the second to last day you openly shared your emotions with our Aboriginal Australian delegates and generously gave them your turquoise ring as a gift. By the end of the week, on the morning of the crowning, I wondered how I would arrange the crown around your Navajo bun if you won, and that night when I was crowning you this beautiful crown fit perfectly around your bun. From day 1 all the way til the crowning, everything happened exactly for a reason.
As you go into this year, that's how it will be. Everything will work out perfectly how it is meant to be for you in your reign. You are a special person brimming with joy and light. You are someone I admire and look up to for your openness and strength, for your kind soul and gentleness. My heart is warmed when I think of the moments we got to share. You are exactly what we need in a young lady leader, and you will touch many hearts during this year -- you've already touched mine. I am so grateful to have met you and to have had the privilege and honor of passing on this title to you. Your genuine soul will take you far and serve our people well. Love & blessings to you my sister 🩷🦋🌿
And most of all....
CONGRATULATIONS!!! 🎉💖🎀

Love,
Tori

• THANK YOU Laryn Oakes for braiding me up 🥹❤️ • photos from Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren •

#MissIndianWorld
#2023MissIndianWorld
#GatheringofNations
#IndigenousCulturalAmbassador
#Karuk
#MIWTori
#NativeAmerican
#Indigenous
#Powwow
#2024MissIndianWorld
#MIWKassie
#navajonation #Navajo #diné

In my last few hours of my reign I want to thank my parents, my family, my ancestors, my community, my homelands, my elders and leaders, my friends, my tribes, my educators and staff, the MIW program and GON, and everyone who has been a part of my life this year. Wokhlew'. Thank you for having faith in me and supporting me. I will always continue to uplift my culture, my people, and ndn country the best I can in the ways I know how. Let's take care of our lands and our future together.

Love,
Tori

Photos by @marinestherphotography 🤍

#MissIndianWorld
#2023MissIndianWorld
#GatheringofNations
#IndigenousCulturalAmbassador
#Yurok
#Karuk
#MIWTori
#NativeAmerican
#Indigenous
#Powwow

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View of Tori McConnell walking in the MMIP Day of Awareness march at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, CA. Photo by Sequoia...

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