By Sarah Winstanley
Like so many, this fall felt really hard for me. I was freshly back in Calgary after some time away, attempting to adjust to a new pandemic life, a new-old work situation, a breakup from someone I really loved, a new home. Along with the rest of the world, I was also struggling with emotional and systemic impacts of Covid-19, including separation from community, anxiety and exhaustion. Those of us here in Alberta were already experiencing the onslaught of cuts to our social and environmental protections, and Covid-19 has created additional challenges for those already made vulnerable by the neoliberal political goals of our current government. My personal experience of the pandemic, as well as my anger and disappointment in this government’s failure to act in an ethical, caring way had me craving a space where these personal and political feelings could be held and treated as parts of a bigger whole.
Being a part of Seeking the Depths with Refugia was so important in creating space for me to hold the difficult parts of this season and turn them over, without trying to fix them. The series was based on Joanna Macy’s eco-spiritual frame for personal and systems change for healing the world, and created many opportunities for strengthening connection to the natural world. To remember that we are a part of it, not above or separated from. Skilled facilitator Jodi Lammiman, in partnership with different group members, led us through six weeks of exploration of rites of passage & ritual, grief, gratitude, liminal spaces, co-arising and hope.
We learned about rites of passage & rituals that help us move through liminal spaces the second week we gathered. Drawing on the work of French Anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep, Jodi described rites of passage as a ritual that helps us move through 3 stages - separation, transition/liminality, and integration. I am struck by how closely this mirrors the way each Seeking the Depths session felt like for me. Putting aside every Monday night from 7-9pm separated me from the chaos and exhaustion of my life, creating a sacred space in which to listen to myself and learn from the wisdom of the community we created together. Often, we were asked to reflect on questions that made me feel like I was between worlds - taking the knowledge and experience I have now, in this world, to try and dream up a new one. The questions offered surfaced the limbo that often exists for me in the space between hurt and healing. Equally, the space that was created for reflection, for practicing, for embodying the concepts, for speaking to the natural world, for drawing, for singing, for wailing, also created space for integration - for moving beyond my head into my body and my heart. For me, these six weeks became a ritual, and taught me how to practice ritual in my own life, and how to invite others into that.
I have been deeply grateful for the healing spaces Refugia creates. Their ability to weave personal change and systems change together into workshops and retreats has had a powerful impact on my vision for change. I was brought up in a religious tradition that very much downplayed the importance of humans and their needs, and later invited into an activist tradition that glorified self-sacrifice in service of changing systems. Refugia came into my life at a time where I badly needed to heal around the ways capitalism and patriarchy have wounded me, and allowed me to integrate my personal healing with my work towards healing the world. I continue to be grateful - that is, in awe - of the role they play in the community and in my life.
Sarah is a feminist educator who has spent more than nine years working with girls and women. She led the creation of a range of activism programs for girls at the Women's Centre of Calgary, and has also been a Girl Guide leader, an anti-violence organizer, and most recently a social action network facilitator in London, UK. She holds her Masters in Social Work from the University of Calgary, which focused on social change programming for girls.