Planting Seeds of Self – Gitigaan Diziiaan program hosts Life Mapping workshop
By Rick Garrick
Fort William’s Niigaanaabda Project teacher Julie Harmer recently shared a Life Mapping workshop at the Blue Sky Community Healing Centre’s Planting Seeds of Self – Gitigaan Diziiaan program.
“It gives participants a chance to consider where they have come from and where they are now and where they’d like to go,” Harmer says. “It’s important to remember that we take with us everything that we had before — our past experiences shape who we’ve become and we can use who we are now to shape who we become in the future.”
The Life Mapping participants used a variety of media, including markers and images from magazines, to create their life map on a sheet of paper during the Sept. 8 workshop at the Blue Sky Community Healing Centre in Thunder Bay.
“I love them — they are always so individual and unique,” Harmer says. “People come up with their own images and their own words and their own medium in how they want to express themselves. It’s always neat to see how people get so into the things that they are doing and start sharing with each other about their experiences.”
Shivonne Charlie, employment counsellor/life skills facilitator with the Niigaanaabda Project and a Fort William citizen, says the workshop was a “self-reflecting” experience.
“I haven’t done a vision board in a really long time and it was something that I was really looking forward to doing,” Charlie says. “It was nice to take a look back and just recognize where I came from and where I am today and where I would like to see myself in the future.”
Lori Sawdo, a Lac des Mille Lacs citizen, says her life map includes both the dark and beautiful sides of life.
“From the time I was a child I went through a lot of trauma, but there was also a lot of beauty,” Sawdo says. “There is more beauty I find than there is in the dark side. Even with the dark side of life, you learn that you are beautiful and you are very strong.”
Sawdo says Life Mapping makes her feel “very happy.”
“That I am here now and I am not alone,” Sawdo says. “I understand it now; I didn’t understand it before.”
Cindy Crowe, lodge keeper of the Blue Sky Community Healing Centre and a Red Rock Indian Band citizen, says it is important for people to have an idea of where they want to go in life.
“If you don’t have that vision, if you don’t have that sight in your mind, it’s difficult to get there,” Crowe says. “If you can see it, you will arrive there.”
Crowe says the Planting Seeds of Self – Gitigaan Diziiaan sessions are designed to be multi-cultural and multi-generational. The sessions are held on Fridays from 12-3 p.m. with a hot lunch at noon.
“It’s helping people to figure out what resources do they have, what gifts do they have, what are they passionate about,” Crowe says. “And how can they move forward with that.”
Blue Sky Community Healing Centre set up its Teaching Lodge on the Thunder Bay waterfront for National Aboriginal Day and Canada Day for the Preparing the Ground spring session of Planting Seeds of Self – Gitigaan Diziiaan program. The Watering the Seeds fall session is scheduled for later this fall and the Ensuring Optimum Sunshine winter session is scheduled for this upcoming winter.