Cultural Teachings & Traditional Healing
Fire (The Four Elements)
A sacred fire is sacred because it is used as an Indigenous traditional wellness approach. A sacred fire is an important part of Indigenous spirituality, communication with the spirit realm and our ancestors. It is also used for cooking, warmth, and light. It is a sacred practice meant to make individuals feel open, grounded, and connected with people on Earth and those who have moved on.
Feeding the Fire (Fire Offerings)
What is Sacred Fire? The fire is one of the ways to start a ceremony or any sacred event. It is a spiritual doorway that opens to a spiritual realm so that individuals can communicate and have relations through the fire. It also used to connect with our ancestors, the ones who have gone on before us. We put tobacco in the fire and acknowledge our ancestors and request prayers. We are only allowed to put sacred items (tobacco, sage, cedar, sweetgrass) and/or food into the fire. The sacred fire is never left alone, it is watched and attended to by a Fire Keeper.
Taking care of your home fire
This means investing time and energy into making your home a safe space for your family and friends to gather. It means creating a space for decompressing and relaxing.
Organizing your space and getting rid of clutter can provide many mental health benefits. In fact, it’s proven that clutter can affect your mental health. It can make you depressed, cause anxiety, raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Knowing where your things are when you need them decreases stress. Having less stuff to look after saves time and money. Creating a calm environment will be inviting for your children, grandchildren, friends, and family.
10 Decluttering Tips
If you’re struggling and need guidance on how to declutter, you’ll need to get creative with your plans. Here are several interesting decluttering tips to get you started on decluttering your home:
Start with 5 minutes at a time. If you’re new to decluttering, you can slowly build momentum with just five minutes a day.
Give one item away each day. This would remove 365 items every single year from your home. If you increased this to two per day, you would have given away 730 items you no longer needed. Increase this number once it gets too easy.
Fill an entire trash bag. Get a trash bag and fill it as fast as you can with things you can donate.
Donate clothes you never wear. To identify them, simply hang all your clothes with hangers in the reverse direction. After wearing an item, face the hanger in the correct direction. Discard the clothes you never touched after a few months.
Create a decluttering checklist. It’s a lot easier to declutter when you have a visual representation of where you need to get started.
Take the 12-12-12 challenge. Locate 12 items to throw away, 12 to donate, and 12 to be returned to their proper home.
View your home as a first-time visitor. It’s easy to “forget” what your home looks like to a new visitor. Enter your home as if you’re visiting the home of a friend. Write down your first impression on how clean and organized the home is and make changes if necessary.
Take before and after photos of a small area. Choose one part of your home, like your kitchen counter, and take a photo of a small area. Quickly clean off the items in the photo and take an after photo. Once you see how your home could look, it becomes easier to start decluttering more of your home.
Get help from a friend. Have a friend or family member go through your home and suggest a handful of big items to throw away or give to someone else. If you defend the item and want to keep it, your friend has to agree with your reason. If they don’t agree, it’s time to get rid of it.
Use the Four-Box Method. Get four boxes and label them: trash, give away, keep, and re-locate. Enter any room in your home and place every item into one of the labelled boxes. Don’t skip a single item, no matter how insignificant you may think it is. This may take days, weeks, or months, but it will help you see how many items you really own, and you’ll know exactly what to do with each item.
Creating Your Own Space
Consider each question as you think about shaping an ideal space that reflects your needs, uplifts your spirit, and feels truly comfortable.
Family Wellness
Create a family bundle for wellness. This could include board games, snacks, movies, smudge bowl and medicines, photo albums, art supplies, etc.
Type your thoughts and ideas for your family’s wellness bundle.
