Rainbow Weavers: An Anthology of Hope
Written by Sheila Hutchinson M.Ed.
This work contains powerful healing stories where the dreams and spirituality of First Nations women guide them on their path towards recovery and wholeness.
First edition published through a grant from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in 2001.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data.
© Sheila Hutchinson 2001
Reviews:
Michael Stogre S.J., M.D., Ph.D.
-Anishinabe Spiritual Center, Espanola, Ontario.
`Stimulating work … Demonstrates the importance of dream work for healing … Not just for individuals, but for the people as a whole … points out a healing way which bridges the wisdom of the East and West, North and South.’
Eva Solomon, CSJ, Ph.D., Carrier of the Sacred Pipe.
-Gold Medal for assisting Aboriginal people to inculturate their faith.
`Rainbow Weavers is the story of how courageous broken Aboriginal people touch their pain and suffering and weave their unravelled lives into works of beauty as the Creator has always intended for them.’
Edward A. Connors, Ph.D., C.Psych.
-Onkwatenro'shón:'a Chippewas of Rama Health Centre
‘Groundbreaking … healing stories where the dream is an essential part of healthy living. I recommend it to all who wish to enrich their understanding of the healing process and to view the hope that lies ahead for us all’.
Dedication
This work is dedicated to the women who have allowed me to share in their journeys and speak of them in this book. You are “great warriors of life” and a model for all of us. Thank you.
PREFACE
I would like these stories to reveal something essential about the human condition: to allow the archetypal truths to grab hold of us and teach us wisdom. Like the artist preparing her canvas, I gather what is necessary, clearing a space for the process to unfold. I hesitate for fear I will contaminate the beauty of the process.
As a child growing up in Montréal, I could never understand racism nor any forms of intolerance or prejudice. My mother had once told me about the prejudice against our Jewish people. She described to me signs outside certain establishments saying “ No dogs or Jews allowed”. Her own mother refused to attend her wedding because her daughter was marrying a ‘ black man’ : my father had dark Italian skin.
Early in the morning on September 11, 2001, I received news from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in Ottawa that the foundation had agreed to fund the publication of this book. Then, in dismay and disbelief, I watched on CNN the bombing of the World Trade Center. Such horrific acts of violence taking place next door to us; evil living amongst us. How is it possible for such horror to explode in our civilised world ? What about all of our knowledge and research ? How is it that all of our wealth and power did not prevent such a catastrophe ?
We reap what we sow, whether individually or collectively. One’s life, one’s thoughts and behaviours which define that life, have an impact on society and the world at large. Global issues reflect societies and the individuals living within those societies. Like it or not, we are all connected on some level. It may be convenient to cast stones at others through behaviour, words and thoughts, and remove ourself from social and global issues. However, that in itself is part of the problem of violence in its many forms. Thus, it is also potentially part of the solution. One single act has a rippling effect, spreading to faraway places.
Something within me cries out against the evil of racism and all forms of prejudice. The fact that one implies that he or she is better than another because of a difference of color or creed, or a way of thinking, is erroneous and divisive in nature. The tapestry of Mother Earth must be recognized for what it is: a beautiful work of art where life is a composite of different textures and colors. This tapestry is the continuum of energy where all the elements of earth, air, fire and water weave together yet flow side by side to form unique patterns. All life is precious and the elements contained therein do not lose their distinctive nature as part of the tapestry. Each has its own place in the design, adding dimension to this creation without sacrificing its identity.
The title for this book came from a dream:
In a place like a school basement, a group of Native people are dancing in a circle in the semi darkness. Someone invites me to join the group. We dance slowly around and above our heads we each lead, like a kite on a string, a streamer of color; like a cloud or a fat skein of wool. In rainbow colors we weave and intertwine our streamers as we dance around.
The colors maintain their integrity much like a wampum tapestry: separate but moving side by side. Not so in a fused system, where everything must blend together into some homogenised form. This tends to be sterile and lacking in depth. Many North American systems have degenerated into collective norms which breed sterility of mind and spirit. The educational, political, social, church and family systems which we encounter in our culture are rarely based on an ideology where individuality is respected and every voice is honoured.
Wampum allows differences to exist freely side by side. Benjamin Franklin’s vision of the future United States, with liberty and justice for all individuals, was in part inspired by the example of the Iroquois Confederacy, where decisions were made by consensus. For the most part, we now pay only lip service to freedom. It is often frowned upon to make any public claim which cannot be verified by statistical methods. We live in a world where so often the absurd has taken over. A recent study established that “ children are picky eaters”. Our own observations in this area are merely anecdotal and do not count. Children are, for the most part, discouraged from independent thought. In general, they are taught to obey some rigid authoritarian construct and if they dare challenge the ruling authority, they are punished through exclusion and rejection. The need to be included is so great in children that their identity and freedom are surrendered in exchange for external approval and inclusion. Conformity is applauded. Sameness is safe.
INTRODUCTION
The desire to write this book came from the silence during a retreat in 1992. So many stories of violence from my Native clients pulled at my spirit. Their deep alienation, loss of identity and their sense of not belonging weighed heavily upon my conscience. I had been researching the Native culture in Canada and was awakened to some of the more sordid realities: racism, propaganda, stereotyping, greed, abuse of power and lost children.
This collection of stories from my Native clients expresses deeply the inherent driving force within the psyche towards healing and a restoration of everything lost. For myself, it is an honour to witness this process and I feel a strong need to share the struggles of these individuals as they braved the dark forces of their inner lives. I have come to believe that psychotherapy is, in part, a ritual and a catalyst for the transformation of powerful unconscious forces; a sacred place where the unspoken is able to take on a new meaning. Psychotherapy is the act of psychic purification and spiritual refining. It is the matrix out of which flow the archetypal energies which alter states, just as the transforming power of fire changes the elements in nature. It is, as Carl Jung inferred, the place where I may meet my deepest self, my lover, my lost child and the truth of who I am.
The journey of discovery is a mythic one. It demands that one surrenders the clutter of material trappings and the false idols of the ego, the attachments of the persona and invites us to move gently, yet fiercely, into the other side of the psyche … the domain of the unconscious. It is a great honour to be welcomed into another’s heart during the psychotherapeutic process and to journey with the other towards the centre of some deep unspoken pain; to be offered the gift of another’s silence and to witness the resurrection of hope. It continually reaffirms for me the power of truth and the presence of hope in the midst of poverty and the amazing power of spirit.
Recovery and the expansion of consciousness is, for me, a spiritual journey, an interplay among the archetypes, a dance where I become a part of some divine rhythm. It is the melody which heals; it is the song of one’s own spirit which produces the experience of being connected to something greater, something not limited by physical boundaries, culture, race or creed. Recovery and healing is the journey of the Magi in search of the Child. It is the journey where one is led by the stars and the heavens into the night. The only paths are the ones we create along the way. We are guided by our dreams and our inner stirrings towards the encounter of the child, our true self.
The story of the Wise Men and their discovery of the child within the poverty of the stable, echoes the story of one’s search for wholeness, healing and truth through our individual and collective poverty. We do not find healing in the illusion of persona, nor in our external achievements per se. We discover it as we travel through our humble brokenness. We come from wholeness and our search on earth is to rediscover that wholeness.
It is a paradox that it is a child who brings us to the experience of wisdom and that it is the child-like attitudes of surrender and faith that lead one to the simplicity of truth. A truth which states that all life is a continuum and all parts are connected — the earth, the air, the fire and the water. All have their place in the tapestry of life.
Violence, co-dependency, abuse, addictive behaviours, psychosomatic illness, racism and war are symptoms of a break in the interconnectedness of life: a break in the continuum, a disconnection from order, harmony, truth and beauty.
Over the past years I have heard many stories from the Native families I meet in my practice. The stories weave together the struggle of this beautiful and gifted culture due to their loss of identity. The symptoms of this deep loss are reflected in alcohol and drug abuse, family violence, child sexual abuse, incest and suicide. My Native clients have taught me the pain and toil of living in a Canadian minority culture. I believe we are all responsible for this displacement and pain and we share in the responsibility for the restoration of our Native brothers and sisters.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Nobel Prize recipient, once remarked to someone who was interested in the generous task of travelling to Third World countries in order to help. She said that all one had to do was to look in their own backyard to encounter poverty of mind and spirit.
The backyard or basement aspect of the psyche contains the Shadow archetype. The Shadow is the place which contains the rejected and alienated elements of the psyche: those things ignored, aspects and tendencies opposite to one’s preferred state of being. However, the shadow aspect of the psyche as well contains untapped reservoirs of potential within the person. The Native reserves have become Canada’s backyards, Canada’s shadowlands. It is difficult to understand how in 2001 so many Native people, many old and infirm, had to live without indoor plumbing and electricity.
Part of the thrust of this book is that the Native peoples carry the rejected aspect of the collective Canadian psyche. The rejected or least developed aspect of Western culture is the introverted intuitive function of the psyche: this being the aspect which stands at odds with the extroverted sensate dimension embraced by Western thinking. Western culture, for the most part, refuses to accept the intuitive aspect as being real and valuable. If it can’t be seen, proved or systematized, then it is rejected as inferior.
That is the very stuff of the Shadow domain of the psyche. The Native cultures, preferring the intuitive spirit dimension, carry our Shadow. Shadow must be acknowledged and regarded as equally valid for a balanced system, whether individually or collectively. As the Shadow is acknowledged and accepted it then becomes part of the fabric of the system and adds to its depth and dimension.
Shadow contains potential: the seeds of new growth and new possibilities. The stories of my Native clients reflect this journey into the Shadow and the subsequent expansion of consciousness, awareness and healing.
The Dream as Personification of Love
How often do we listen for the sound of the sacred in our lives? Our Western culture as a system has, for the most part, become soul destroying. The mysterious and numinous are too often explained away via dogma and patriarchal norms. If we cannot define it, systematize it, compartmentalize it, then we far too often reject it outright. Concrete is the god.
The Talmud tells us that the dream is a night love letter from the spirit. Dreams and visions comprise over half of the Bible. Earth cultures have always honoured the dream as a link between physical and spiritual realities.
Carl Jung’s research into the fourfold function of the psyche acknowledges the intuitive domain, from which the dream comes, as being as valid and significant as the other functions of thinking, feeling and sensing. In the Myers-Briggs research into personality typology, we see that Western thinking has too often dismissed the value of the intuitive aspect of the personality. Aristotelian logic has sadly rejected this relevant function of the psyche, relegating it to the realm of naive superstition and sorcery. Jung’s work has helped raise Western culture’s level of awareness by emphasizing the value of this mysterious and essential function of the psyche. From this intuitive domain, visions, images and dreams arise in response to need.
Royal Route to the Heart
The function of the dream is to bridge all areas of the personality. The richness of the dream language adds depth and beauty as well as insight for the dreamer. It comes to teach us and brings messages needed for growth. From great works of art to scientific discoveries, part of the dream’s mission is to expand consciousness and bring order and harmony within. The dream will connect the dreamer with feelings locked away inside the body.
“People are chasing me.”
“The monster is running after me.”
“I am trying to hide from it.”
The dream informs us of the issues we have rejected or alienated, and thus need to face in order to establish harmony and balance. Truth, coming through the dream, is like Francis Thomson’s Hound of Heaven, chasing us until we turn around and face it. In doing so, we discover the lost and disowned parts of ourselves. The dream helps forge new paths through the wilderness. It gives us direction, guides us and informs us of danger. It seeks reconciliation between body, mind and spirit. We have lost the ability to think with our heart. Modern man has lost his vision. Our gods are carved in steel and concrete, bearing dollar signs. In excess, this leads to poverty of spirit and restlessness. Present-day suffering, with horrendous cases of child sexual abuse, incest, substance abuse, family violence and all forms of perversion reflect this underlying imbalance in the natural order of life. People are fragmented. We must return to the earth and learn from its ways in order to be healed and made whole.
Thriving earth cultures, which have become increasingly difficult to find since the European invasion of the New World, can teach us much about a balanced life. From anthropological research on cultures such as the Tainos, the Pueblos, the Hopi, the Senoi and the Iroquois, we see how these cultures lived more in harmony with nature. They respected Mother Earth, listened to their dreams and visions and considered themselves only one strand in the tapestry of the universe.
The dream moves one to a state of enlightenment; an awakening to the truth of self identity and one’s relationship with the universe. The dream is a message about love. In the liberation of the true self or identity, love itself shows its face to the beloved. That is the moment of awakening. Everything else pales before this.
Love has no limits. It is stronger than death, unites opposing forces and seeks harmony of body, mind and spirit.
…to be continued.