Healing Ceremonies Open to All

 

We moved together like a long orange snake undulating down the hill towards the lake.  Elders, adults, children and babies dressed in orange shirts and masks, socially distanced into groups but hearts beating together as the leader drummed his hand drum.  The hill had one switchback that created a moving curve in the orange speckled serpentine body.  I was near the back of the procession so I could view most of it from above.  

The snake of people became a curved line as we reached the shore of Little Lake.  The drummer led us into formation, standing side by side along the edge of the beach, facing the lake.  The sky was pigeon grey and the low misty clouds softly released tiny drops of rain.  After weeks of drought, it felt like the sky was crying.  The tears landing on us were somehow comforting as if the sky was wrapping itself around us.  The drummer and his child moved to the edge of the grey water.  Facing us, he sang and drummed.  The song was haunting, painful, and strong.  He sang for all of us, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.  He sang for the lost children who are being found in graveyards of Indian Residential Schools across Canada.  He sang for our hearts, broken, hurting yet strong as we stood side by side.

“We are Anishinaabe and we go through things together,” said one of the speakers before we started our silent walk to the water.  How gracious they were to allow we non-Indigenous people to join them and stand with them, we descendants of the perpetrators of genocide, to be part of the moving body of people.  How generous to share their hard gained knowledge of how to survive terrible times with we, the creators of terrible times.

We each held in our left hands a small Semaa tie, sacred tobacco tied in a square of orange cloth, the carrier of prayers to the Creator.  When the drummer finished, a woman stepped forward holding the hand of a young child.  She untied her Semaa tie and poured the tobacco onto the water.  Then we all stepped forward as one and did likewise.  Hundreds of prayers were offered and accepted by the lake and the Creator.  So powerful was this action that I expected to see a Thunderbird emerge from the low clouds.  I imagined what we must look like from the sky over the water -- a wave of orange stepping forward together.

And then, the snake broke into tiny groups that made their way back up the hill to the parking area and back to homes and families and the rest of life.  The ceremony was planned when 215 graves of children from the Residential School in Kamloops were found.  104 more were located in Brandon, Manitoba and then on the day of the ceremony 751 more at Cowessess First Nation, east of Regina, Saskatchewan.  We know that there are thousands more to come.

In Barrie, Jeff Monague, Elder and Knowledge Keeper from Beausoleil First Nation is holding a Sacred Fire every time an announcement of more unmarked graves is made.  The Sacred Fire is open to everyone to come and take part in this ceremony that last for hours and sometimes days.  People are coming.  Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, people with children, somehow explaining to their children what this means and how we can begin to heal, together.  You can see it in the faces of the parents of young children.  Little imagination is needed for them to understand what losing a child, children, all the children in the community might mean.  

As more and more Canadians awaken to the truth that has always been known in Indigenous communities, we have a chance to face this truth together and make reparations, apologies, change our thinking, gain respect, earn trust and change how Indigenous people are treated here in Canada.  Ceremony offers a way to heal hearts that are hurting.  There is a place for all of us in this healing.  We all belong to this land and we all belong to this healing.  Each of us has something to contribute.  We are telling a new story, creating it as we go along.  We are the authors of this story.  It is up to us.