Ep 15: Connecting to Those We've Lost Through Ceremony with Hector Copegog

"In our communities we need to do more ceremony. Those ones that are lost, they can come to the ceremony, the doorway is not closed to anyone. If they need that help from ceremony, they are welcome." 

Elder Hector Copegog, spiritual teacher, ceremonial chief and healer is our guest in this second conversation on managing grief through ceremony. In this powerful talk, Carol and Hector discuss how ceremony can honour lost family members through the use of fire, food, tobacco and language as a way of connecting with those lost spirits. This can be especially powerful now, coming out of COVID, where people died without funerals being held. Wes says having a ceremony on the year anniversary, or two year anniversary of a death is a strong way to connect to those we lost and in managing our grief as individuals, families and communities. 

Hector is a fourth degree Midewiwin, or spiritual advisor and traditional healer and a spiritual consultant with the Barrie Area Native Advisory Circle.

He has decades of experience practicing traditional ceremony and culture as part of the process of loss and healing. And he is a proud member of the Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario. 

For more on the work of Thunderbird Partnership Foundation, please visit our website at www.thunderbirdpf.org 

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Mino Bimaadiziwin is produced by the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation and David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.  

Our theme music is by Courtney Riley, Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.