Tag: #soulhealing

Family history

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I’ve been told about my family’s history and told I should remember it, so I do. This is how we start.

In the beginning… we were here, we were here from time immemorial, from before colonization, before Canada and before the treaties. We come from people who were autonomous and independent. We had our own creation story, our own history, our own math and science. We hand our own medicines and medical practices. We educated ourselves. We took care of ourselves. We knew our history, our laws, and practiced our culture freely.  As time continued we experienced changes and made contact with new cultures and new ideas. We considered ourselves equal to these people. They did not consider us their equal and sought to exploit us.

We found the changes that were occurring were faster than we expected, and we were asked to enter into agreements to share the land.  So we entered into ceremony, prayed, and asked for guidance towards this end. In 1876, we were guided and therefore agreed to enter into a sacred treaty. This was done to benefit the people. We thought that because we we had entered into an agreement through Sacred Ceremony, that they would honour the sacredness and truth of the treaty. We thought they would follow through on their word to help us.

We did not agree to give up our independence, nor did we agree to give up who we were, our laws, our traditions, and our ways of being. We did not think they would continue to steal from us, not only taking all the land we agreed to share but also eventually our children. We did not think we would lose our autonomy, nor did we think we would be forced to give up our culture, language, and traditions to fit into another nations society. Their society.

So our family history is always told with the prefaced context of what happens next. This is the story of our family and its journey to now. It’s about how history has impacted us as best as I can tell. It’s about our relatives and who we come from. It’s the story of us.

Cancer….Why?

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Cancer….why

So I asked

There was no answer, only silence

Again I asked

CANCER…why

Still no reply

In anger and frustration I yelled

CANCER….WHY

Still silence, no answers

I can only cry.

cancer….why

My tears fall. My heart is silently broken.

There are no answers, the fight begins and still I wonder why in the silence

Where I come from

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I come from the land where trees surround me, and the sky is clear.

I come from the place where the lakes and rivers surround me.

I come from the land where my ancestors have walked before me.

I come from the place where my culture grew strong from time immemorial.

I come from the people of four directions, of medicines, of ceremony, of beauty, of loss, and of healing.

I come from the people who walked before me and for the people who will walk after me.

I come from the strength of spirit, and I continue to walk.

I come from here.

Kewaytinok

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The going home snow, kewaytinok

Tell me about the going home snow, kewaytinok

The last snow before spring. One last moment to remind you to take a breath in the stillness of winter.

Tell me how the geese have returned and the birds sing. Kewaytinok

Tell me about life renewed.

Tell me about the going home snow and what it means.

Kewaytinok

Blessed

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In the morning the sun shines and reminds me I’ve been blessed to have another day. I greet you with a morning kiss and remember, I am blessed to spend another day with you. I breath in joy, happiness and hope and go about my day.

In the evening I express gratitude. I sit and reflect on how much I love you. I’m grateful to still be here. I’m grateful that I gain a new life everyday overcoming fear and remembering that you are with me too. I am grateful for every day experiences and blessings.

Hope

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Hope is powerful when you have it. So many experiences can diminish the hope that you have and it can be difficult to find it again. Being diagnosed with cancer can devastate your hope. It can be like having a candle and trying to keep it lit in a storm. You never know whats happening and you are never actually prepared for whats going to happen.

Recently I have had many people close to me diagnosed with cancer. It sometimes feels like it’s all around me and as if it’s so common. It feels like we all need hope in action. We can only do what we can to build hope in ourselves and in others.

There are so many thing to learn when you get diagnosed with cancer. It’s hard to figure it all out. There’s lots of information out there. It’s also difficult to know how accurate all that information is. Every time I hear about someone I know being diagnosed with cancer I feel my shock over again. Then I think about all the experiences they will be going through and I pray that they have a good outcome.

I walked in Ovarian Cancer Canada’s walk of hope. They say “Hope for change, hope for awareness and hope a cure.” This year will be my third year walking in it. I prefer to do a virtual, local walk instead of the large walk in Edmonton. I can walk with my friends and family. It makes me feel hopeful. The first year I walked I was still receiving chemotherapy. I could not walk very far. I set a goal for my second year, to walk at least 5 kms. I was able to do that. This year, I hope to walk at least the 5 kms again and perhaps further.

Walk of Hope 2021

I’m walking because I was diagnosed with stage 3B ovarian cancer on April 1, 2020. I was told I’m in remission on September 28th, 2020. It’s been an experience and a difficult journey. I thought that somehow being in remission would mean that I was better. That all the fears I struggled with would soon be gone. That’s not the reality. I have lingering affects from the chemo. I struggled to remove myself from the idea of having cancer.

I guess I’m kind of still living with cancer. I’m still receiving treatment because I have a BRAC1 gene mutation. This means that I’m at higher risk for recurrence or getting breast cancer. I’m currently taking a parp inhibitor, which to my understanding is a form of targeted therapy to prevent recurrence. Research shows its very effective.

Recently I started seeing information about living with and living beyond cancer. I guess living with cancer would be the diagnosis and the treatments. Living beyond cancer would be be after all your treatments are finished and seeing yourself as thriver not just a survivor. I plan to live beyond cancer.

Medicine Gifts

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Touchwood creek

Medicine has been gifted to people. Every culture has its own understandings of medicine and what that means. Medicine is learned, it is taught, it is lived. In Nehiyawak culture medicine can be plants, it can be ceremony, it can be spending time in nature or with others. The word medicine has many different meanings. In this way there are many different ways to seek healing. Medicine is what makes you better.

One summer several years ago we went camping at mile seven. My Aunt Alsena, my father’s first cousin, met us there. Our purpose in going there’s was to pick medicines, there are several different kinds in that area.

We had spent the afternoon picking medicines and auntie Alsena told us that her friend Diane was going to meet up with us. She had camped there with us before. When Dianne showed up she had brought sage and sweet grass with her.

We learned about creating sage bundles and sweetgrass braids. Once we finished making the braids and bundles we took them and hung them up to dry in the breeze off the lake. 

Then we began to clean the roots and preparing the medicines. As we were cleaning the medicines, Dianne and auntie Alsena were telling stories of the medicines and how we got them.  We learned how the medicinal plants were used and why we are so connected to the land. This connection itself is a form of medicine. Just being out on the land brings healing in various ways.

One of the medicines we learned about was spruce gum. This spruce gum is used as an antiseptic. It fights infection. It helps to hold skin together when someone is injured. It is used to treat colds and is added to other medicines. It can be used for food too.

We were told the story of the gift of spruce gum and how badger gave it to us. Badgers are fierce and dangerous animals. A long time ago they were very big, much larger than they are now. They were bigger than people, and they used to kill and hurt people. The people prayed to the Creator for help, because we are weak and we need help to survive. The Creator told badger to stop harming people. That did not happen. Eventually the Creator had to do something about badger. The people had chased two baby badgers up a tree. Creator told them that because badger had not respected the request to live peacefully they would be changed. They would no longer be bigger than the people, they would remain the size of their babies. They would provide help to the people through the warmth of their fur, etc. The baby badgers were grateful that the Creator allowed them to live and they promised to help the people. When they slid down the spruce tree their claws cut open the bark and the tree sap came out. The badgers told the people that this was their medicine that they were sharing it with the people as a way to make amends. They taught the people what its used for and how to use it. There are stories for all medicines. Storytelling helps you to remember the medicines and how and why they are used.

Auntie Alsena also told us about a man was lost in the bush for two weeks in the winter. His snowmobile ran out of gas and he tried to hike out of the bush. He got lost and ran out of food and water. To survive he ate spruce gum and drank melted snow to help sustain his body. He survived and was rescued. She told us all that spruce gum is full of vitamin c and will help us if we need it.

All of these activities were each a form of medicine. Each thing gave us something different to heal us. It balanced our spirits through the camping and story telling. It taught us ways to help ourselves in a crisis. We learned the medicinal properties and usage of plants. We laughed and found purpose in what we did. We built connections and created memories that will last a lifetime. All this is good medicine.

Etikwe, I suppose

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Etikwe, I suppose. I’m not sure why this word popped into my mind, I suppose there are lots of reasons for it.

I think about how many different times I’ve heard this word in my life. Etikwe, I suppose it’s a lot.

Etikwe, it means I suppose or maybe just suppose. Awina etikwe, I don’t know who or maybe I wonder who depending on the context. I suppose I should talk pîskiskwêw to my dad about it.

I suppose I’m supposed to use it more. I guess I need to use the words in Cree as they pop into my mind.

Etikwe it is to remind me that there are words that I know and that I need to learn more.

So that I can pê-pîkiskwêw
Ekosi, that’s all my thoughts for now, etikwe

Grandmothers

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My mother and myself and my nosim.

My parents often speak about their grandmothers. They’ve told me many stories about them. My dad has told me how much his dad’s mother loved him. He has told me that she used to always feed him whenever he went there, which was very often. He said that when his mother died his dads mom, his grandmother helped him a lot. He said when she died he was very sad. He wasn’t very close to his other grandmother. My mother also only had one grandmother. Her father’s mother had died when her father was young. Her mother’s mum had a profound impact on her life. Her grandmother was a midwife and a layer out of bodies. She was a washer woman and she was Welsh. My mother said that her grandmother had an air of mystery about her and that her grandmother loved her family fiercely. Both of my parents loved their grandmothers strongly and remember them in a way that keeps them alive to anyone who listens to them talk about them.

“All my grandmothers flowers” painting by Madeline Belanger using photos of my great grandmothers.

When my daughter had her son I became a grandmother, a kokom. It changed how I thought of the world of grandmothers. I thought I want to be remembered the way my parents talk about their grandmothers. I want my grandchildren to still talk about me when they are grandparents. I want to bring happy thoughts and thoughts of love and comfort to all my grandchildren no matter how old they are.

It made me think about my own grandmothers and I wondered what it would have been like growing up with them.  My parents speak of their mothers with love. All I have is my parents memories of their mothers. Both of my grandmothers passed away before I was born. I know how much I love my nosim, grandchild, I can only hope that would’ve been that would have been the same for me. Both of my grandmothers died from health issues that I’ve experienced, one from gallbladder issues and the other from cancer. In some sense I’m connected to them through those things and the stories my parents tell me about them.

While I didn’t grow up with a grandmother in the sense that most people had grandmothers. I did have women in the grandmother role. In dominant society you can only have a certain amount of grandparents. In my culture you have many grandparents. I’m blessed to have many grandmothers. There have been several grandmothers that showed me that grandmother love.

On my dad’s side I was blessed to have my dad’s aunties as Kokoms.  I will always appreciate them. Those beautiful women made me feel connected to our family. They were excited for me with every milestone I experienced in my life. They encouraged me and taught me. They were chapans (great grandmothers) to my children. We all loved them.

Kokom Bella and I

On my mum’s side I was blessed to have her stepmother. She was the only grandmother I had from that side and although we called her Auntie she was one of my truest grandmothers.  She fussed over me when I was sick. She taught me how to draw perspective when I was 11. She was proud of me and I know she loved me. When my children were born she knit them all kinds of little sweaters and I wish she could have met them but she lived in England and we lived in Canada.

Auntie Phyllis and I

All these grandmothers that walked in my life; whether that’s in spirit and through my parents memories or physically with me, they have shown me how I to be a grandmother. They have taught me that a grandmother’s role is to love a child and to create memories that will always comfort you no matter how old you grow. I look forward to all the happy memories I will create for my grandchildren.

Grandmothers are important and you can always impact a child’s life in a positive way, whether you are related or not. Be the grandmother you needed as a child and create memories of love and happiness that last a lifetime.

Truth and Reconciliation

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Generational Healing

I paint as an expression of what I feel that I cannot always explain with words. Sometimes these paintings come to me very clearly as this one did. I had been thinking about how much my family has been impacted by residential schools, how colonization has affected us and how these things are passed on generationally.

This painting represents how imposing blue quills has been on my family. There is a lot of intergenerational trauma because of it. We had multiple generations of family members attend this s hool.

Flowers represent medicines to me. The flowers are growing over the photos and bringing healing and change. Medicine comes in many forms.

The photo of blue quills is large because it had a huge impact. It’s not covered because it will never go away.

The smudge and eagle feather are clearing away the pain through reconnection to culture. Culture is medicine.

Each one of the flowers represents someone in my family. The purple ones are my dad and his siblings. The yellow ones represent myself and my siblings that’s why there are 5 of them. The orange ones are my parents grandchildren. The pink dots represent all of my cousins. The berries represent change and new growth. The sage also represents growth through healing. There are two photos of my family members as youth when they would’ve been in Blue Quills Indian Residential school

The background colours are there because of how this painting came me. Red is understood to be connected to healing, it is also understood to be the only colour that spirits can see.

Overall the painting is like a prayer for healing, separating my family from the school and the impact it’s trauma created.