Feature Story                                                                                                                              Sunday September 11, 2011

Spiritual Beckoning

Stó:lō host special ceremony on World Suicide Prevention Day

Craig Hill/Voice photos

With hands linked, those at the Stó:lō Resource Centre ceremony on Saturday form a circle around Eddie Gardiner's Medicine Wheel.

ddie Gardiner stood in front of his medicine wheel and held up a deep purple translucent rock. It sparkled under the bright halogen light in the Stó:lō Resource Centre meeting room.

        "Does anyone know what this is?" he asked.

        "Amethyst," someone uttered.

        "That's right!" responded Gardiner with his familiar smile.

On Saturday, Aboriginal Child and Youth Mental Health (ACYMH) and Stó:lō Health, hosted a gathering and ceremony at the Centre on Vedder as part of World Suicide Prevention Day.

Gardiner explained the basics of his medicine wheel to about two dozen in attendance, meticulously going through every item on the blanket that was spread out on the table.

He spoke in detail about how each rock and item on his wheel ties into the mind, body, spirit and heart in relation to the way we live our lives.

Gardiner acknowledged suicide is a worldwide epidemic and each culture has their own way of dealing with it.

"We're affected, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and it pervades into us and into our family, and everybody gets touched by it and everybody feels it," he said.

In his handout, Gardiner describes how "before Europeans came to what we now call Turtle Island, there were some 20,000 different Medicine Wheels across North America, each using the Medicine Wheel concept as a basis for establishing harmony and balance through teachings of the natural world and through a belief in a higher power who created everything."

"The Medicine Wheel is a beautiful way of treating a whole person — not just a symptom. The Medicine Wheel deals with all of who we are," he said.

"It is our belief that the spirit is the fire, air and trees and we see our reflection in the natural world. We look at patterns of Mother Nature and the Universe, how it operates, and as in the natural world, when chaos takes place, harmony and balance follow."

Gardiner described exactly what the stones and items on the wheel symbolize. Each gemstone and mineral has meaning and is used to determine the clan, the type of personality you have in that clan and how it ties together with the other natural elements on the wheel.

For instance, Gardiner talked about the Butterfly Clan and how gregarious they are, but cautioned they need to keep their feet on terra firma.

"Butterfly clan people, that's the air. They're lighthearted people. They like to crack jokes and make everybody laugh. They're the kind of people who are also visionaries. They can see what it's like to come out of the darkness and into the light. They're into idealism and they're great communicators," explained Gardiner. "They move around and flit around. They're what you call "social butterflies". So they're busy cracking jokes and running around and networking up a storm and flitting around here, and they can become pretty unfocused and so they need to be grounded."

In that way the Medicine Wheel is a strong antidote for stress and helps people cope better and deal with the sudden loss of loved ones.

Megan Bisskey from ACYMH gave video presentation called, "When Darkness Calls" by Sean Muir, that helps people learn about suicide and what signs to look for, what can a friend can do or what to do if they encounter someone who's suicidal.

"They turned his (Muir's) comic book into a 20-minute video they're speaking in Gitxsan," said Francine Douglas who was one of the organizers of the event.

Douglas says ACYMH wanted a diverse crowd at the Centre to share in First Nations culture.

"Just bringing people together, that's their role," she said and adding that, "it's bringing service professionals, families, aboriginal and non-aboriginal people together. There's so much to our ceremonies, and so much our healthy families use to grieve, to overcome loss, and we need to increase access to those services."

Suicide is a cancer on the community, and like cancer, many people have been touched by suicide. For those in attendance, it was a solemn occasion however, it wasn't without some brevity from Gardiner.

Douglas first encountered suicide as a child when someone she knew took their own life.

"The first time I heard about suicide, I think I was 7, when there was a young lady who completed suicide. I don't think there's any First Nations person that I know who hasn't been touched by suicide."

"Today, thankfully, Eddie Gardiner is here," said Douglas. "He's well respected and spends a lot of time with the Stó:lō people and does a lot of work with our families so he'll be bringing his teachings around the medicine wheel."

Traditionally, Stó:lō mark a birth or a death with a special ritual.

"A lot of ceremonies in Stó:lō culture are about marking the beginning and it's about marking the end. So for anything, there's a process," she said.

One of the activities at the gathering was making cedar hearts and for Stó:lō people, cedar is one of our strongest medicines.

"It gathers negative energy," said Douglas.

ACYMH services aboriginal families with small teams both on and off-reserve up and down the Fraser Valley region to Boston Bar.

If you know someone who is struggling, don't wait because it may be too late. Suicide is a cry for help and you can find that assistance and information by emailing Community Outreach Worker Megan Bissky here.

See more photos below.

© Copyright (c) 2011 The Valley Voice

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