Why Do it?

The Why

Angie is in the foreground, having a sip from a mug. Cynthia is immediately behind her. They're both looking at the camera. The class of students at their easels are in the background. Photo from March 2017 at Blue Sky Community Healing Centre.
Cynthia working a hide with one of the traditional brain tanning methods. Here she stands before a wooden pole and she is working and stretching the hide on the pole.
diagonally taken photo showing Cynthia standing on the grass, next to a large tree trunk and a sign that says "Artist in Residence", with an arrow, pointing at Cynthia. She's wearing big black sunglasses and a purple sweatshirt that has the four letters that spell love in a square pattern (L.O. on top and V.E. on the bottom). There are more trees further in the background and the sky is blue.
Beaded Medicine Wheel in Cynthia's left hand. The top or northern quadrant is white, the right side or eastern quadrant is yellow, the bottom or south quadrant is red, and the left side or western quadrant is black.

The Why

Art

Cynthia has lived experience with intergenerational trauma and mental health challenges, and she appreciates art as a valuable tool for expressing oneself. Cynthia followed her intuition and was divinely guided to sign up for her first experience of Painting as a Spiritual Practice with her beloved teacher Angela Gollat.

Cynthia recalls receiving three emails in one week, from three different people, all directing her to attend a Painting as a Spiritual Practice course with Angela Gollat and Paula Ribotto which featured yoga and painting. This was a life changing experience for Cynthia and so her journey began.

As humans, we have a tendency to (unintentionally) take things out on the people around us, typically the people we spend the most time with; family, friends, & colleagues.

Making art is such a fundamentally human quality.  An arts practice can create a safe space for us to process complex emotions and experiences that we all have. It is helpful to have space to do this processing in a way that won’t harm anyone.

Of course, not all art will be something that individuals will want to share with others. That’s ok. Making art is absolutely a vulnerable process; sharing it, even more so. You can do whatever you would like to do with your art. If you find it cathartic to do so, you can even burn it (safely).

Anishnaabe Culture

Unfortunately, she was not raised with the culture and so Cynthia began the lifelong work of (re)connecting and (re)learning at the age of 12, when her Uncle Carl taught her how to make dreamcatchers. While that was a small first step, she has now been making them for almost 30 years and can even understand some words the Elders are saying in ceremony.

In the mid-90s, she moved to Anemki-Wiikwedong (Thunder Bay, ON) with her family, much closer to their traditional territory of Opwaaganisiniing (about a 1-hour drive away), where she has found comfort in community, the land and the water, especially Ktichigaming (Lake Superior).

The Anishnaabe culture and worldview continues to open her eyes to its richness, beauty, and the practicality of it all, everyday. The Anishnaabe culture and worldview hold so much love and respect for all of our relatives. Of course, this includes all of humanity, but it also includes all the other beings; the plant and animal Nations, the two-legged, the four-legged, the winged ones, the crawling ones. Everything has a spirit. We’re all interconnected and we take only what we need.

The Medicine Wheel

The Medicine Wheel is a circular symbol of four equal quadrants, usually yellow, red, black, & white. It’s a way of describing that worldview and a way of teaching about the natural cycles of life, how everything is connected, and how to live in balance, Mino Bimaadiziwin (the good life).

The colours represent humanity, among other things, which Indigenous Peoples were aware of, long before contact on Turtle Island. Because it’s a circle with no beginning and no end, it shows that we are equal and we all belong. The circle and the number four (4) are very Sacred to the Anishnaabeg.

The quadrants also represent:

  • human needs: physical, emotional/social, mental/intellectual, spiritual/cultural
  • stages of life: baby, child, adult, Elder
  • sacred medicines: tobacco, cedar, sage, sweetgrass
  • elements: fire, water, earth, wind (air)
  • and more

The Anishnaabeg are not the only Tribe or Nation who use the Medicine Wheel. Other Nations will have their own teachings. Different teachings are not wrong and there is no one “perfect” Medicine Wheel. Other Nations may use different colours, such as blue and/or green. Teachings may also vary from community to community and family to family.

One of the teachings of the Medicine Wheel is that each Nation of humanity has important teachings. Cynthia firmly believes that in this time of uncertainty, we can work together to cultivate the understanding we need to create a new world, where everyone gets the respect, dignity and right to self-determination that they deserve; where all of our relatives get the same respect; where we recognize that we are not separate from our environment. We are part of the everything.

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