The Cree Goose Moon marks a turning point in the seasonal cycle, a time when the honking of returning geese signals renewal, movement and the promise of life stirring again. It reminds us that happiness is not something static or easily held, it migrates, shifts and returns when we align ourselves with our own growth.

Just as the geese travel vast distances guided by instinct and trust, we too are invited to listen to the quiet pull that urges us beyond the familiar. In this way, happiness becomes about connections.

Let’s take some direction from the geese and let our silliness come out to play. The heavier emotions that reside in the darker months change like seasons. We are opening our doors to the world as the snow retreats and we are feeling the sun on our faces. Youths are eager to master the lessons they learned during the winter and challenge adults to live with enthusiasm.

Much like the geese, leadership is rotating, collective and relational. Everything revolves around our interconnections and our circular relationships with the earth. Goose courage brought them home to their space and place by trusting the strength of our traditional pathways and keeping hope.

Let’s practice happiness mapping by utilizing the medicine wheel because, although we cannot live in never‐ending bliss, like the goose, we don’t travel with heavy bags. Let’s take a page from their songbook and practise the melody, “Every day we’re whiffling.”

The first 30 people registered will be offered the opportunity to make a pair of earrings to share their happiness with others.

This workshop is part of a monthly Wahkowtowin and Ways of Being series led by Knowledge Keeper Marilyn Dykstra. Each month, we will explore a variety of moon, pole and tea teachings in the Inninewak (Cree) tradition.

Wahkowtowin – which translates to kinship – highlights how relationships, communities and the natural world are all interconnected.

Participants will discover and reflect on their connections with each other, with balance and with human rights through teachings and a traditional tea.

Traditional Helper Peyton will support the teachings while she continues her learning journey within Wahkowtowin.

Marilyn Dykstra is a status Bill C31 First Nations woman from northern Manitoba. She has been immersed in a working matriarchal system that practised Indigenous ways of thinking and being since she was born. Alongside her family, she has participated in many peaceful social justice movements.

Marilyn uses her matriarchal knowledge as a foundation for her work in the Indigenous community, which has been ongoing for over thirty years. She still follows her matriarchal teachings, but she has also spent her life learning traditional knowledge and passing the teachings on.

She is a pow wow dancer, knowledge keeper, and she carries the responsibility of a bundle. She happily participates in naming ceremonies, sweats, pipe ceremonies, moon teachings and more.