Friends & Neighbours

Providence Bay
Alexia Hannigan

Alexia here with your Earth, Wind, Fire and Water fly! 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate and share in Ceilidh’s interactive youth learning experience organized by M’Chigeeng Youth Centre.

We all had a smudge and went outside to take a pinch of sema and lay it under a tree to honour and thank the great spirit with quiet reflection, prayer and setting of good intentions. My earliest memories of the Island were always of Dan/Cheryl/Anna or whoever I was lucky to know or meet- making tobacco offerings to thank the great spirit and offering back to the earth. As we clean our gardens and prepare for new growth and harvests, we set new and good intentions again of healing, learning, growing and good intentions for the season ahead and to allow for restoration and balance. Yesterday meant a lot to me: sharing this experience for the first time with my daughter, offering sacred sema with her and our community’s amazing youth. We remain strong and resilient because of our incredible community spirit and because our community is consistently sharing and acknowledging the knowledge and know-how of our elders and ancestors and working consistently toward saving and protecting our land and resources. Huge shout out and kudos to all the incredible road crews and volunteers who spent and continue to devote countless hours repairing roads, sand bagging, helping their friends and neighbours in need or who were displaced-you are all Titan Champions. I just thought of a great tag for that:’ Toulin Strong Together!