Online healing circle reconnects participants in isolation during COVID-19
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Red Rock Indian Band’s Ron Kanutski is now hosting his long-running Sister Margaret Smith Centre Healing Circle through the online Zoom platform during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
“People were contacting me privately and we were looking at options how we could keep this gathering happening every Monday,” says Kanutski, owner of With Care Consulting. “So I started to look at options on the Internet and found a number of platforms where you could do meetings. It was three weeks ago that we did our first one, and people enjoyed it so I just said as long as people are coming on here I will make myself available.”
Kanutski says interested people can contact him for the meeting code and password to participate in the healing circle. He has posted information about the online healing circle on his Facebook page.
“We’re trying to keep that confidentiality piece in as much as possible,” Kanutski says. “The circle, when it is run in the city, is open, it’s anonymous. There are some privacy measures in place, being respectful to other individuals that are attending, and we are trying to maintain that online and so far it is workable.”
Kanutski says he received “good feedback” from the participants about the healing circle, which is held on Monday evenings from 7-9 p.m.
“The biggest pro to what this circle has done is it’s allowed our past members, or what some people call ‘alumni’— they were people who came and participated in the circle and then left and moved somewhere else, to join us again,” Kanutski says. “So we’ve had members from Winnipeg, Man., a lot from Toronto area, people from Red Rock and even out in the district — so we’ve had people stopping in to participate in our circle who may have moved home. So that’s the big positive of this is that people who didn’t have access to services now do, so it’s been a bonus for them.”
Kanutski says he was reluctant at first to do the healing circle on the online platform but so far, it has been beneficial to participants.
“It really breaks the isolation piece and people are able to reconnect with people they know,” Kanutski says.
Kanutski adds that participants are now putting their bundles out in front of them during the online healing circle.
“So we’re actually getting people to even connect with their sacred items,” Kanutski says. “They feel comfortable having them in their home in front of them while they are online, as opposed to [bringing] them across town to a meeting.”
Kanutski says some people also feel more comfortable during the online healing circle.
“They don’t have the anxiety that they would coming into say a traditional circle where they are in front of 10 to 15 to 20 people,” Kanutski says. “We’ve had groups as big as 80 people, so some people get very anxious in large groups. Doing it online, they can be with 30 people but you don’t have the pressure of being in a small space with a lot of people.”
Kanutski says an Elder performed some prayers and shared some teachings during the second online healing circle.
“The Elder just came and shared some teachings about what she was carrying,” Kanutski says. “Then she did some prayers for healing, so it was more of a spiritual session. A lot of energy went into the spirit and then of course it transferred to body and mind and emotion.”
Kanutski began leading the in-person healing circle more than ten years ago.