Nov
25
Written by:
Gigi
11/25/2011 4:15 PM
It has been a journey and an arduous one at times. March 2008, I attended the Non-Aboriginal Returning to Spirit Workshop in St. Albert, Alberta. The workshop had an incredible impact on me and I thought about my own church community and the Ktunaxa First Nation people who I minister; I realized all people could benefit from the Returning to Spirit workshop. 2008 became burdensome with grief as a number of Ktunaxa Nation Members passed away that year and the idea of Returning to Spirit for Cranbrook area was put on hold.
As 2009 came into being, I saw a new light or was it Mark (the Key Facilitator’s) constant reminder nagging at back of my mind about “Making the impossible, possible.” In 2009 I invited some St. Mary’s Band members to register for the RTS, Part One Aboriginal Workshop being held in Calgary. June & Pearci made it to Calgary for the Workshop in April of 2009. In October 2009 the three of us set off for Saskatoon for the Part Three Healing & Reconciliation Workshop.
In the workshops, we saw true reconciliation where history was not concealed, but openly and responsibly discussed. We experienced the healing aspects of RTS and witnessed how people can change through the process. We all agreed the strong need of reconciling both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Communities, the need for healing and reconciliation for all of us here in our area.
We continued the discussion about how we could bring the workshops to the Cranbrook area. It can be difficult for people to understand the experiential Returning to Spirit Workshop without having attended, but that didn’t stop us from talking about it and letting people know about it.
I had made a report to our Diocesan Pastoral Council about RTS and was given the support to go ahead and pursue it for our area. In the spring of 2010 we put together a Planning Committee of 10 people, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members to look at bringing RTS to the Cranbrook area. Our first meetings were looking at funding and locations and also getting our key people who needed to help us jumpstart the process. We managed to have key people on both sides to assist through letter writing and meetings to acquire donations/funding from religious organizations and Ktunaxa Nation organizations.
Another big issue was location for the workshops. We had various people on our committee researching locations around the area. We are a small city with a Retreat Centre too small to host RTS and a number of tourist destination hotels that are not exactly cheap. We settled on an older Hotel and Conference Centre to book our first two Workshops.
Our goal is to book the final Part 3 Healing & Reconciliation Workshop at the St. Eugene Mission Resort at St. Mary’s Reserve (?aqam), Cranbrook. The St. Eugene Mission Resort is the old Kootenay Indian Residential School which operated from 1910 to 1970. The old Sandstone building, now a 4 star resort would be ideal for the final healing process of The Returning to Spirit, –Part 3 Program. ?aqam Elder Mary Paul (1984), stated: “It is said that, it was within the St. Eugene Mission School that the culture of the Kootenay Indian was taken away, it should be within that building that it is returned.” In our view, what better way to bring the Spirit of the people back to who they are, than in the building where some believe, it was taken away.
The Cranbrook RTS Committee hosted our first Returning to Spirit Aboriginal Workshop in Cranbrook from October 31 to November 4 with 23 First Nation participants from the area attending. The celebration that took place at week’s end was very rewarding and a visible difference of the participants was witnessed from the first day of apprehension to the final day of joy and laughter. Sincere thanks and gratitude go out to the facilitators Lisa Raven, Lorraine Vandall and John Peter Flett, for being away from their families and communities, and for giving their time and effort to bring about a unique way of healing for our First Nation people. We are truly blessed with the experience given through the Returning to Spirit Program.
We look forward to the Non-Aboriginal Part 2 Workshop being held in Cranbrook January 16 – 20, 2012. We all need to discover the Spirit of who we really are and what better way than through the Returning to Spirit process.
Mary Richardson, June Forsythe, Host Coordinators, Cranbrook RTS Planning Committee