This event is sold out.

Grandmother Moon is alive and she guides us to spiritual rejuvenation, but we must work with her and open our spiritual doors to find healing. We talked about balance and counterbalance last month so let’s focus on how we keep our personal medicine wheel stable.

The ways of traditional healing come from within rather than an external fix like ownership or location. Our creature teachers exhibit resilience and purpose which reminds us to renew our paths within the new moon. When we migrate towards healing, we must do our introspective work which allows us to move around the medicine wheel.

Pure enlightenment only happens when we can separate ourselves from codependence and unhealthy patterns. The only patterns we should follow are much like the goose migration patterns that can include storms, sunny skies, calmness, leadership, and working with others. Migration can be scary, but it can give humans independence and freedom.

Humans must ask themselves, what they have been doing to support their growth and happiness because a new piece of clothing or a vacation is temporary, but healing is spiritual enlightenment.

We will be having a fan down ceremony and potluck to honour the geese who are beginning their journey.

Method of teaching

The method of teaching will utilize Indigenous pedagogy as well as incorporate traditional tea and burning traditional medicines. Participants will discover their relatedness and interconnection with human rights and balance.

A special note

A special note: There will be ceremonial smudging smoke present.

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

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