becoming your medicine

I grew up in a small town, surrounded by a number of reservations.

My parents tethered us to our culture through visiting our mosoms and kohkoms and horses on our reserve. We heard the language as we played around their feet and we entered ceremony when they passed into the spirit world.

My father brought us to hundreds of funerals—one of the few ceremonies that survived the mass cultural genocide of our people—and we followed the rhythms of these services with a comforting familiarity. I can still hear the echos of the prayers and songs that filled the hall. And, I can still smell the smoke of burning sweetgrass.

Although my sister and I made contact with the language, culture, and ceremonial ways of our ancestors in this way, the fractures still remained.

The language hadn’t bloomed in our voices. The prayers became gentle mysteries that soothed the soul. The death ceremonies became the only ceremony we attended.

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When I bled for the first time, I did not have a circle of women to guide me into womanhood. The initiations were intense and often unbearable, as I walked blindly into my role for our community. I did not know it then, but I was to be a medium for spirit—a seer and liminal walker.

I went through a period of immense darkness after my first bleed. At 13, I became suicidal and began grasping for ways to numb myself—to stop myself from feeling the world.

My roots in the spiritual practices that would later hold me in this role were not yet strong enough and I fell into a long season of addictions. This 7 year cycle completed itself after one particular dark night when I made the decision to walk home, to return to my centre.

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In that moment, I dug my toes into the soil of my soul and prayed for my roots to grow deep—and they have.

I soon after made it into university to learn the foundations of my language and received my first eagle feather after I shared a presentation on Earth Magic and Medicine. That is another good story for another time.

Why I share this, is because I have put decades of work into growing my shamanic medicine practice—and it began when I entered the dark at 13.

And, for some mysterious reason, it was held by the countless death ceremonies my family and I attended. Held by the memories of the old ones who lifted the pipe, blessed our food, and sang to our spirits. By the hearts who came together to grieve and give strength to the broken hearted.

I am a Plains Cree Woman, I come from a long line of medicine men and medicine women who lived in both shadow and light. Everything I am has come from the blood flowing within my veins and the relatives who were brave enough to sing from this place. These are the roots from which I have grown and where my offerings have blossomed from.

And I am here because I believe we can root ourselves deep into this world without losing ourselves in the wild terrain of feeling it all.

I am here because a prayer was long ago seeded in my heart and it is my deepest desire to give it life and form in my time here. This prayer is one for all our relations to know and live in harmony together again. And from what I have discovered, this begins within.

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