Cleansing with Sage as a Walk of Life with Thalia Aspeslet

By Laura Mushumanski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – Let’s begin with striking a match against a box of Redbird matches and watch as a flame ignites, and then as the flame is placed gently next to a rolled-up ball of dried horse sage, watch closely as the medicines start to interact with each other and become one. Now as the smoke is slowly making its way up to Creator, cleanse your hands in this carefully and thoughtfully harvested sage that brought you teachings of connectivity, and walking in a good way. Bring the sweet smelling smoke to the top of your head while saying out loud: ‘think good thoughts,’ next to your eyes: ‘see good things,’ your mouth: ‘speak good things,’ ears: ‘hear good things,’ your heart: ‘follow your heart,’ the front side of your body: ‘beware of what is in front of you,’ your bum-bum: ‘take care of yourself first,’ and lastly your feet: ‘walk gently on Mother Earth.’

These teachings of connectivity with the body, the heart, the mind, and spirit, all interconnect with each other in teaching us how to walk in a good way. As we smudge and engage with the union of earth, wind and fire, while speaking good things out loud, over time our nervous system starts to reorganize neural pathways, teaching the body to walk in a good way, be a good relative, do good things, be conscious of our actions, behaviours, thoughts, feelings and emotions. All to walk gently and take care of everyone and everything that resides upon Mother Earth.

This journey for Thalia Aspeslet, the current manager of Indigenous Relations with AIOC, started 20 years ago, when she first walked into the Indigenous student space on campus at the University of Calgary. Aspeslet, our Metis sister, had recently obtained her Metis status; she was initially greeted with compassion and understanding, ‘don’t ever feel like you are not native enough,’ followed by her first encounter with smudging sage as a walk of life.

“The use of the smudge [over time, taught me] to be accountable, to look at the root source [of everything] and make better choices,” Aspeslet shared in relation to her journey of how she started to reshape who she was. “For my whole life I felt I wasn’t respecting myself…smudging helped reshape who I am as a woman and taught me respect and how to release emotions.”

Aspeslet’s journey was not linear. Before obtaining a degree in geophysics, the path that chose her, she had to do the hard work, be accountable for the previous choices she had made in her life. Thalia started with upgrading her high school courses, that ultimately led her to the University of Calgary campus where she would eventually meet Knowledge Keepers and Elders that would impact her life in good ways.

“I was a real asshole at times,” shared Aspeslet. “At the same time, being kind to myself, I know that I was just growing to get to the point where I am today. Looking back now, recognizing my behaviour and knowing that it wasn’t okay, being remorseful for it but not continuing to carry and sit in that. [I can] acknowledge it and let it go.” These are the understandings of what it has meant for Thalia to be accountable while not carrying those emotions forward, instead putting them to rest in a safe place, and what Elders and Knowledge Keepers have taught her over the years.

But before smudging and being in ceremony became a walk a life for Aspeslet, (and in her life before her son was born), she knew that the choices she was making for herself were harmful to her and everyone around her while understanding the root source of being directionless. “I didn’t have a solid grounding and understanding of who I was,” she shared, “to be proud of who I was. [It was] never talked about.”

Fast forward 20 years of choosing the path less traveled every day while being grounded in ceremony, knowing it is not always butterflies and rainbows, Aspeslet continues to honour the understanding that “there is always a better way,” along with choices to be accountable and how these choices show up in spaces so we can respect one another.