I think every girl growing up makes some sort of friendship bracelet at one point. You do them at camp, you do them in Girl Guides, you do them at some point.
Recently, friendship brackets have become INCREDIBLY popular at pop concerts, particularly Taylor Swift.
In 2022, Taylor Swift released her 10th studio album Midnights (which is one of my favourite albums), which has included the song “You’re on Your Own, Kid.” This song has the lyrics “So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it,” which had inspired people to create friendship bracelets and trade them at the currently Taylor Swift tour, the Eras Tour.
It is also interesting that “You’re on Your Own, Kid” has been played about 10 times on the tour so far as a surprise song, which is more then any other song that is not on the set list.
For my Aboriginal and Indigenous education course, we had to do a family project that was creative. I’m personally not fantastic at creative things that require arts and crafts type things, so I decided to do friendship bracelets.
Part of why I had picked this on just a surface level, is that I am bad at arts and crafts and I literally would not be able to handle failing at something right now, but I also LOVE Taylor Swift. She’s been my top artist on Spotify the last 3(?) years, I’ve seen her in concert twice (1989 Tour – Vancouver and the Eras Tour – Seattle Night 2) and am seeing her again (the Eras Tour – Vancouver Night 1). I’m just absolutely obsessed.
For the bracelets, I had chosen both words that connected to the Indigenous worldviews that we have looked at over the course of the program, and words that I focus on in my classroom. By that I mean the things that I want my classroom focused on. I want to focus on building connections and a community, I want us looking at history and story. I want to be able to build connections within the classroom between each other and different things and have people interact and involved.
For the actual bracelets, I had chosen to include small pieces of rose quartz on the bracelets. Rose quartz (in the spiritual sense) is used for unconditional love and supports emotional and relationship healing. This is a stone that I carry almost everyday and has a special place in my heart.
