{"id":34492,"date":"2024-04-18T16:41:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T20:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34492"},"modified":"2024-04-18T16:41:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T20:41:28","slug":"ojibwe-healer-invites-community-on-healing-journey-with-living-by-the-medicine-wheel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ojibwe-healer-invites-community-on-healing-journey-with-living-by-the-medicine-wheel\/","title":{"rendered":"Ojibwe healer invites community on healing journey with \u201cLiving by the Medicine Wheel\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ojibwe healer and author Asha Frost didn\u2019t always have a handle on what she describes as \u201cthe healing potential that lies within us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the descendent of grandparents who survived the Residential School system, much of her ancestral knowledge was just out of reach. But, after being diagnosed with lupus as a teen, the Newmarket resident, now 47, began a journey to tap into the traditional wisdom of her people \u2013 and now she is sharing this with the wider world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, April 30, at 7 p.m. Frost will host \u201cLiving by the Medicine Wheel,\u201d a conversation at the Aurora Public Library (APL) which is part of APL\u2019s year-long Indigenous Teachings program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy grandparents [being] in Residential School really broke and fractured my connection to my ancestors, my ancestral ways,\u201d says Frost. \u201cMy life has been about reclamation, remembering and doing it maybe in a more non-conventional way as we imagine Indigenous people sitting with their elders doing these teachings; that\u2019s not really the way that\u2019s happened for many of us who are in my generation whose parents were fractured from those teachings. Their parents had their language taken away, their teachings taken away, their culture suppressed and oppressed. I feel like my purpose here is to reclaim and remember so that I can pass those onto my children and the seven generations that come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing so has been a very personal journey for Frost and it hasn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her diagnosis, she said, put her on the path of \u201creclamation and remembering\u201d because she was driven to \u201cfind ways that the Earth could help me heal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Newmarket, Frost says she did so in an environment where there was \u201cnot a lot\u201d of Indigenous representation and, for a time, she didn\u2019t want to be seen as Indigenous. This watershed period in her life made her realize how \u201cseparated\u201d she was from her \u201cancestral ways and teachings\u201d which spurred grief and sadness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a lot of questions at the time, so I really had to listen to my dream time, my ancestors\u2019 voice that spoke to me,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI have had to learn and learn ways that are more \u2018indigenized\u2019 and decolonized because we\u2019re really colonized into thinking the only ways to learn are through books, through lectures, through seminars, and I have had to unwind some of that and really listen to the ways our people used to listen and remember our knowledge. When my children were born, that was a huge push; somebody said to me, \u2018If you don\u2019t live out your purpose then your children won\u2019t be able to live out theirs,\u2019 and I realized that was a huge initiation to me to keep going, keep speaking, and then share those global skills in a big way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the results of that effort is Frost\u2019s bestselling book: \u201cYou Are the Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Animal Spirit Guidance,\u201d published in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After publishing the book, Frost says she was \u201cnervous\u201d about how it would be received within Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[It\u2019s because] I understand why we keep these so hidden, so sacred, or sort of tight to our hearts,\u201d says Frost. \u201cI know my instructions from my ancestors is to share these so we can heal together. I feel it is an invitation to reconciliation to share as I do\u2026. The most beautiful feedback I\u2019ve gotten [is from] Indigenous youth who say, \u2018We don\u2019t have any connection to our culture. We\u2019re looking at ways to learn and your book has provided that for us.\u2019 I think I was just really terrified and that was really rooted in that generational trauma, too, so I had to work through that in big ways. Even elders who come and we sit through Zoom meetings or circles say, \u2018It touched me so deeply,\u2019 and that has been really rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month\u2019s presentation, of course, is open to all members of the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frost says she hopes registrants come to the APL\u2019s Living Room space with an open heart, letting go of \u201cany expectations because I think we sometimes come into these spaces imagining it is going to be a certain way, and I would love people to come in with just, \u2018I\u2019m going to have an experience and this is going to make the experience rooted a little deeper because it is going to be powerful.\u2019 That is something I know to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople can assume an Indigenous person is going to teach about certain things and be a certain way; I am not saying I am not those things and I don\u2019t teach in that way, but maybe it is an opportunity to look at your biases because we all have them, we have marinated in this society that has been rooted in white supremacy\u2026 perhaps even an invitation to look at, \u2018What are my biases about Indigenous people? What are the things I have heard over the years? What are the things that have seeped in from the collective that may be still in there somewhere and bringing that out? Hopefully we can heal it together that night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Asha Frost and \u201cLiving by the Medicine Wheel,\u201d including registration, visit www.indigenousteachings.ca<\/a> and select Events from the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 30 presentation is part of APL\u2019s Indigenous Teachings program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/2024-04-18-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8Yk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 12:56:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}