In June 2003 , I embarked on a journey to the High Arctic , as a bartender in Inuvik, the western arctic.
It was there I saw the Auroa Bourelis for the first time. I closed down the bar and had everyone go outside (I had some great evacuation training in my past )and I deemed this well worth it.
It was then I woke up from a slumber. it was like a great smudging. and energetic reawakening.
there I was . alone in these foreign land , standing with God.
in the most direct communication I had ever felt.
I quit my job soon after, and said one day I shall return.
In January 2013, 10 years later, I returned to the cold frozen arctic in the height of winter . I had extravagant plans that year before to travel to India, Iran, & Ireland. But None of it, happened, and instead I was "sent" to Nunavut, Canadas eastern Arctic.
My first months were spent waitressing in a corporate hotel. When we closed for a week for restaurant renovations, without pay, I wondered why "God" had sent me all the way to the North, to work at such an unfulling job , even tho it was well paying and covered my ticket up there and housing. As i sat that week alone in the darkness , I went deep inside to discover the gifts that I might be able to offer the community. Mandala work, a form of Art Therapy, really helped me get thru those lonely times. Create Create CReate (or otherwise join the others in the tavern in self destruction) I chose to Create.
The next week, I went back to work, and during a catering event, a plank fell on my head. That was it. My work there was done. With the help of a slight concosion, i woke up, and decided to get to my real work. I put together a port folio, and headed over to the womens shelter across the street from where i had just began housesitting in the small village of Apex. (a huge conisedence as i had just turned down a job at a bar, at the ski hill in BC called Apex) I was on the right path.....
The House Mother at the womens shelter loved me idea of offering the Art Therapy with the children, but she suggested in head over to the school across the street , as thats where the help would be most usefull. She explained to me the work with the women, was a hard go, but with the children, the seeds would blossom with fruiton.
So off I went to a once most feared insitution: the public school.
Here, I would discover was a actually safe haven of learning and support the children, a retreat for many , away from the stresses of home life , ancestral trauma.
returning to a place on the land where we could return to wholeness, and remember the ancient whisperings inbthe tundra.
......
stories in processs
photos and
much more to come....