BODY MAP: Lynda's Journey

My map is coloured bright with some darkness much like the way my life has been. My outline represents me as a young six-year old girl on a swing-seat, anchored to an oak tree. The outline of the support person representing me is a great oak tree and it is meant to be Minwaashin Lodge. The tree shape is in a Christ-like stance to reflect sacrifices made and suffered, and also my roots both true and learned. Minwaashin mothered and “grand-mothered” me so much that it seemed perfect to show these things together in something that has roots and hints of doe feet in life’s waters. The tree has a staircase and a ladder at the base and these are meant to be the steps I was helped take to get up and out of where I was coming from.

I painted myself swinging from the tree because I feel the healings and teachings I received at Minwaashin allowed me to return to the time in my life where my sexual abuse began and reclaim my childhood. My moods were the only thing swinging in my life before I received their help. Like many other childhood sexual abuse survivors I did not trust authority, and was even less trusting of love. Minwaashin became a home that I could model my own after. Since walking through its doors five years ago I have grown in such leaps and bounds that I was able to create a map to show others how I arrived here. I had no home, no love, and a belief only in pain before I was a Minwaashin woman. My map is a picture of a life written by me. My tree and journey both have roots, and branches that reach into the future. It has knots and gnarly parts but it also has a happy girl who found herself with her map.

I initially placed my origin images—a cross made of a feather and a knife—in the section that was to house my adulthood. It became clear to me that this was in fact where my childhood was because I still had not progressed. The cross represents my origins: my mother is a Catholic woman who met my father while he was “in” a residential school. The feather is my native background and the knife is the part that cut it deeply. I then placed the image of a snake that begins in the origins but also winds throughout. I chose a snake for its obvious phallic representation and the embodiment of evil from the Garden of Eden, but also because of its transformative powers of shedding skin.

I placed a web in this area to showcase the “web of lies” in my childhood. My web also represents the usefulness of the Creator’s design. In nature a web is spun by spiders as a means to live. It holds onto things that will feed it later and it is constantly re-spun to build and fortify itself. I am both spider and web, snake and scales. I was lied to and I was fed the truth. I ate and shed what was not needed.

In my map, I chose the images of drums and silver swirls to speak of my heart’s contentment and connection to the Creator through sage smudging, sacred fires, and tobacco. Being in tune with nature and the customs of my ancestors with drumming in my adult life is the crux of my happiness. I thought I had finished my painting and I stood back and looked at it. I clearly saw the shape of a smile under the moon (grandmother) and I realized that there was not just an eye looking out of my elder years (future) but that there was a face looking out from the whole thing, and that face was smiling. I went back and defined it so that hopefully when you look at my map you can see it too.

My path on this part of the journey has been a beautiful rest stop where I could reflect in the company of friends. I was deeply impacted by the dedication and love administered by the facilitators and also by the fact that there was a member of this project who was with child. In times of reflection it was so honouring to realize that beside me as I drew, an in-utero spirit was present. I felt so hopeful to know there is proof of nurturing and healing, and even hope for a future where there may actually be no great pain visited on a child by a parent, a stranger or a culture. Empowered by the presence of life’s waters I feel I created more healing energy than all of Ottawa Hydro could in the same amount of time. The fact that my map will continue to be witnessed by others broke for me the spell of my silenced abuse. The more people see the journey I took then the more people travel it with me; I am no longer alone. I thank you, deeply, for honouring me and my past and future with your sight.

BODY MAP: Raven's Journey

My outline represents coming to terms with my past and present. It doesn’t include the future because I prefer to live a day at a time, regardless of having to make plans. It’s coming to terms with rejections and the path fate put me on due to my karma baggage. Therefore, here’s an image of the creative art I’ve unintentionally or involuntarily created on the canvas.

My supporter is trying to get my attention by placing a healing medicine leaf on my heart chakra, and is holding me in case I fall. But as you can see, there is a connection; otherwise, I would not have acknowledged my supporter by placing my hand on her arm.

The relationship between the two body images is mainly on the cosmic subconscious level—the star in the circle between them. And yet, because my beliefs are related to the ancient ways relating to the Goddess Mother Nature and the cosmos, I am conscious of the ways and teachings of the Native Peoples ways of healing. If you look more closely at the support person, she has unconsciously become an ancient Native Woman rather than the planet Pluto I had always considered as being my guardian.

Due to the physical, sexual, nutritional and psychological abuse I experienced as a child, the flying raven—top right corner—has always watched over me. The eyes are the authority figures in my childhood foster home. They forever made sure that I wouldn’t receive the proper nutrition, unconditional love and stimulation that are most critical in a child’s first six years of life.

The bottom right corner represents an adolescent filled with anger—an anger that begins to build. The anger isn’t released because the adolescent didn’t know how to release it. Therefore, the anger, memories, and experiences are hidden and kept in a spider web-like container clogging the brain. The spider’s web also represents a trap for I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn to for help.

The bottom left represents a young adult having desires and dreams except that they are nothing but a tangled world of confusion and delusion. I turned at every corner only to find many obstacles preventing me from growing up into a normal, healthy person. Alcohol and drugs became my haven for a while, and so had making friends with the wrong people because I wanted to fit in somewhere—anywhere. Obstacles only led to misery, despair and deep depression.

 Between the bottom left and top left I educated myself on many subjects, and took meditation courses and so forth. I started doing many sorts of volunteer work at various institutions. I also decided to write about my younger years by doing research which ended up being a painful journey for I had no one to turn to. It took several years and many obstacles before my book was finally published. A couple years ago I was invited as a guest to an Aboriginal women’s support centre at the Minwaashin Lodge. I’ve been going there ever since because I eventually found a place where I felt I belonged.

BODY MAP: Roberta's Journey

From the creative depths of the primordial soup I arose… surrounded, engulfed, nurtured and protected by Spirit Guides and Ancestors… through a childhood of hell, physical, verbal, psychological, emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse, shame, blame… abject futility… awkward puberty… sexually-provocative drunken late teens abuse, maligned, raped and further shamed.

Trudging through on bleeding soles (soul?) through which life-essence oozed… silent, hopeless, gawky, moody, easily-triggered, constantly experiencing unidentified flashbacks, never realizing the magnitude of the damage—finally identified as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder… unbelievably ever resilient, constantly seeking refuge and healing modalities… suicide attempts… hopelessness assuaged… ever-present Spirit Guides and Ancestors…

Working stiff… functionally alcoholic… consumed by rage and terror… slim hope of finding a purpose… wandering… bereft of hope… faith LONG gone… searching high and low… never looking inside… knowing the empty shell covers the Truth of Who She REALLY is… a Child of the Universe.

Ever-present spirit guides and ancestors egging her on… hinting at a Higher Purpose… hinting at a Life Mission. Decades of nonjudgmental, caring, concerned, empathetic, understanding Elders with their calm encouragement…

Finding just an hint of a whisper of a voice… opening Pandora’s box, the lid of which would NEVER be shut again. Answered prayers in the form of unconditional loving-kindness—angels in the guise of offspring—unflinching devotion.

Maturing into her Soul Essence… sharing the seeds of wisdom sown by Elders, Keepers of the Traditions with the Next Generation… those Sacred Seeds fall upon fertile ground… magically overseen by Mother Earth and Grandmother Moon… constant reminders of the Resilience of Her Women.

 Living Proof of the glorious resurrection of the Phoenix: reciprocated creative community involvement—the pathway from egocentricity to philanthropy… mirrored Inner Beauty… blueprint of the Soul.