How a medicine wheel is bringing holistic healing back to Lennox Island

Members of the Lennox Island First Nation are learning more about their culture through teachings by a Mi'kmaw elder.

Noel Milliea, from Elsipogtog First Nation, N.B., is teaching a course one night a week over 12 weeks about how to use the medicine wheel method of health and healing.

"People have an opportunity to deal with some of the past, how they can use that past in their present to make a better future," Milliea said.

"If you want to call it anything, it could be almost like holistic healing that is addressing the whole self and the medicine wheel splits up the self into four very distinct quadrants — all have a very important part to play in our ability to be able to always be in search of balance."

'Better things to come'

He describes the four quadrants as the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self. Milliea says it's important to strive for balance among the four quadrants to stay healthy.

This is the first time in Milliea's 12 years of teaching this program that he has brought it to a First Nation reserve.

"We feel like it wasn't something that was currently being taught to the community so we wanted to bring him in," said Sarah Myers, project manager for the Lennox Island Cultural Centre.

Myers said the program was open to all members of the Lennox Island First Nation and they were planning to do another course in the future.

Milliea has taught the medicine wheel method more than 30 times throughout the traditional Mi'kmaq territory known as Mi'kma'ki.

"It gives the community a lot of hope that there are better things to come for everybody, not just for the small handful but this small handful can make a lot of influence in the community just by the changes they make in their own lives," Milliea said.

'Language is everything'

The medicine wheel is a spiritual tradition across different Indigenous cultures, Milliea said, and he has adopted his version for healing and self help.

He said his focus is less on spirituality and more on how the medicine wheel can help participants find balance.

Milliea was happy to be a part of the efforts that Lennox Island First Nation was making to strengthen the Mi'kmaq language and culture.

"Language is everything that defines culture and that defines who we are and if we lose that then we've lost who we are as a people," Milliea said.

"The descriptiveness of the language and the connection to the spirit of who we are as a people is defined by our language and the way that we speak about these things."

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