Great Spirit gave us many gifts to help us survive no matter what

When you look at the night sky, you can be encouraged by what you see, because the star realm is Creator’s original thoughts about every generation of people who would walk the earth, and the stars are a reflection of the gifts Creator gave us, including brilliant minds to be able to adapt during rapidly changing times.

That was a teaching shared by Carol Hopkins, CEO of Thunderbird Partnership Foundation, during a livestream hosted by the First Nations Health Managers Association on April 2.

Hopkins’ talk during the livestream was on the theme of mental wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic and First Nations’ culture as the foundation of mental wellness, drawing on the considerable strengths of Indigenous peoples.

“We all know that change is inevitable. We experience it everyday and it’s a natural part of life. But when we experience a lot of change all at once or constant change, such as we’ve been experiencing with COVID-19, it causes all kinds of reactions,” she said.

• Increased stress.
• Anxiety.
• The inability to focus on things.
• Less tolerance for things that cause frustration.

“When we think about the beauty of life that we know from our cultural understanding and Indigenous knowledge, we know that the Great Spirit gave us many gifts to help us survive no matter what we would face,” Hopkins explained.

Grandmother moon teaches about patterns of change as she changes each day, and that familiarity may bring some comfort during this phase of change brought by COVID-19 that we are all experiencing together.

“We know that the Creator gave us, at the very core of our being, the ability to adapt and change."

Some people may be thinking they don’t know what to do or how to use culture to help get through this time.

“Those are really very normal thoughts in a time of crisis. And it’s important to validate that,” said Hopkins.

Not being able to gather for ceremony and cultural events is particularly troubling.

But “everything we have in our culture says that we must think and act with intention towards the balance of life… We have to behave in a way that balances the science that says no gathering.”

The ways of transmitting COVID-19 is through close contact with others, so physical distancing is the best way to slow or stop that transmission.

“That means that we can’t gather…. Even for our cultural and ceremonial practices,” Hopkins stressed. But she says everyone can still pray. “We just can’t do it together right now, and we all have to be in different locations. That doesn’t lessen the significance and the importance of honouring our relationship with Creation.”

She said Spring is a time of ceremony in many Indigenous communities, with fasting camps and cultural camps held to connect to the Great Spirit, but now people have need to think about how to continue respect for Creation in a different way.

Instead of gathering physically, Hopkins suggests spending time with people within the household to talk about the meaning of those fasting camps, the meaning of those seasonal cultural camps. Those kinds of conversations can reinforce understanding, building it across the family within our households.

“Why do we do that? What do we want to continue from that knowledge for the next generation and what is it that we want to pass on?”

Thinking critically about how to practice culture and spirituality in a different way is a valuable skill, Hopkins said. People are finding ways to connect to Creation while practicing ways to stay safe and virus free; taking care of physically needs through social distancing and frequent hand washing, as well as taking care of spiritual needs.

“We can look at those stars and be encouraged that our ancestors all saw the same patterns and they used that reflection of the stars to reinforce and encourage themselves and their family that we have the ability to think about change,

“and now we are the generation of people who have the responsibility to think about change and how to ensure life will continue into the future, and what will continue into the future.”