Spirituality essential to healing

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Western civilization brought many ills to Native cultures, with perhaps the most damage being done to Native spirituality. Spiritual oppression, said Dila Houle, a facilitator at the Healing Awareness Conference, gave way to spiritual abandonment and, in turn, the social ills that plague Native communities today.

In her workshop Take Time to Laugh and Cry - Counselling From a Native Perspective, Houle said the rediscovery of the spiritual self is essential to the healing process. However, it's not an easy process.

"You have to be sincere, have patience and a love of humility."

She explained a spiritual re-awakening can only occur once a person has cultivated a thorough knowledge of their Native history, tradition and culture. The spiritual restoration can then be passed on to the community.

"Once we are able to understand as much as we can, then we have to accept it, then we can practise it and pass it on to others," she said.

A White Tail Deer Prairie Woman and a self-described former chronic alcoholic, Houle knows first hand and just how destructive a lack of spirituality can be. There have been six suicides within her own family, and she lost her first two husbands to alcohol. She believes social problems, left unchecked, are passed on from generation to generation.

"In the Native culture, spirituality is the fore-runner to food and shelter. Without spirituality, life becomes more and more meaningless and suicide becomes more prevalent."

While some healing is occurring, Houle said progress is slowed by a reluctance within the Native community to re-examine their roots, partly because it can be a painful experience. The process can be difficult for some, she said, but spirituality is an essential component of being, and balance cannot be struck without it.

"Our being is made up of the mind, emotional, physical and spiritual. To regain balance, we have to do for one what we do for the other, and it won't come from anywhere but from ourselves."