In collaboration with the Centre Intégré de Santé et des services sociaux de la Montérégie-Ouest and Onkwata’karitáhtshera, I was invited to create two murals with the elders who reside in two facilities. The goal was to bridge Western and Indigenous ways of knowing together to honor the wisdom of ageing.
From January 19-21, I was humbled to visit the homespace of elders from the chateauguay facility. In the way that I am, I always make space for participants to be part of the whole journey from start to finish. So I joined the elders in their home space, gathered their ideas around connection, nature and aging then facilitated a design/painting process with them. It was pure medicine to watch them glow, overcome doubt and honor themselves.
This is the work, when their faces light up and they can say “I painted that tree”. All I did was hold space and add the magic touch.
Creation is always medicine.
Final Unveiling
From February 2nd to 4th, I packed up the supplies from the residence in Chateauguay and ventured out to Valleyfield to sit down with new elders and create a second mural together. It really was a precious moment to share stories, encourage self-discovery and support each person to find their own magic in the creative process.
No matter where our homelands, nations and ancestors are from, our elders are sacred.
In August 2025, Champlain College student ambassadors from the community gathered at the First Nations Regional Adult Education Center to embark on a creative journey together for 2.5 days. Together we sat and talked about what was important to them to share about who they are as Indigenous youth. We drew out narratives, symbols and hopes for the future to embed that medicine into a mural.
In line with the National Day of Truth and reconciliation on September 30th, on October 1st it was installed and unveiled outside in the front entrance of the school, as a promise to explore how we can create culturally safe spaces when our young people venture out to pursue their education. I have to say, we powerful youth in our community who embody all different types of leadership. I am proud of all of them for having the courage to be themselves unapologetically and to try something new.
In July on 2025, I had the pleasure to facilitate a paint workshop that combines paint exploration, connection to our Creation Story and teachings on mental health.
On the surface, participants were invited to try new paint techniques, be empowered to explore and dive into one of our oldest stories in our culture. Underneath, we unpacked the symbolism and teachings within the Creation Story as they apply to self, change, fear and growth. Intertwined were intentional to regulation strategies in paint application.
This project reminds us that there is always medicine in the Creative Process.
At the end of 2024, a good friend and colleague of mine passed away. Krissy Goodleaf was a major part of our Trauma Facilitator Team, High School Teacher and powerhouse of a woman. In the fog of processing my own grief and the grief of my community, her school and I collaborated to create an emergent mosaic mural that honoured not only her legacy but the legacy of all those the school has lost.
This project ran from February-May 2025, with the final mural completed in July 2025. The image contains teachings from our culture about the transition between life, death and beyond.
All students and staff were invited to create a square panel that shared a lesson learned from Krissy that they felt was important to share with their school community. This moment was hard to walk through but what a beautiful testament to what Krissy meant to this community. ❤️
Now this mosaic acts an ongoing installation where at any time, the school community can contribute to as they need. A trauma-informed approach gives people space to grieve, adapt and grow so that they can continue the good work they are doing.
In June 2025, I packed up my supplies to paint with two amazing gatherings of resident elders and their support staff on June 9th (Turtle Bay Elder’s Lodge) and June 10th (The Kateri Memorial Hospital Center). There was laughter, stories and pure delight as their paintings unfolded ❤️
Elders are gifts and deserve our love every day. Nia:wen to KSCS Kahnawake for supporting warm opportunitiess to connect!
Elder Abuse Awareness Day was June 15th.
SupportElders from the Hospital Elders from the Elders Lodge
On June 8th 2025, I made my artists debut under my 13 Moons Studio art practice. I showcased my beaded black light paintings, hand painted bookmarks, resin pendants and prints. What an amazing experience!
After 2.5 years of working together, our Trauma Training Team finally presented our first two-day conference in October 2024 for our community filled community led workshops that focused on challenges we face: colonial trauma, attachment wounds, shame, lateral violence and grief. This was closed by a visit by Dr. Gabor Mate on our territory! I feel grateful and proud of our team! I feel the momentum of healing a comin’!
My group presented on the connections between shame and lateral violence in communities as a by product of multigenerational and colonial trauma. All of our workshops are rooted in experiential learning and ceremony, where your affective and felt emotions act as teachers around a certain subject with our traditional ways of healing integrated to support integration.
I am proud to have been part of something amazing this weekend. Haley and I were invited to Key Note this year’s Canadian Art Therapy Conference in Thunder Bay for our work on creating an Anti-Oppressive Issue for the Canadian Art Therapy Journal. This year’s theme revolved around inclusion and what we shared was that in order to talk about inclusion, we have to talk about oppression and the impacts of colonialism on indigenous people and other BIPOC communities. We have to talk about why trust is hard. We have to talk about how critical creating brave spaces is so we can authentically connect; how important it is to name, give and hold space for the hard truths in the room so that we stop performing awareness (especially since tomorrow is the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation). We dove into what a trauma-informed approach is in systems, approaches and policy through an art-making experiential together and then explored how the art therapy community can help us to create more circles. The more choice, voice and empowerment spaces we create, the more light we shed on healing.
In collaboration with a local high school, a group of Indigenous students and myself worked together to create a mural for their new sacred space. Entitled “The everything memorial”, these students framed this experience as a way to acknowledge, honor and memorialize the Indigenous children who attended Indian Residential School and Indian Day schools. Although a piece of history, it is important to continue the conversation and awareness-building about the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous people because the long term effects in families are still present. Indigenous students and their families are continuing to reclaim their identity and culture. They are continuing to work through multigenerational trauma so that they can empower themselves to become who they are meant to be. The images, colors and narrative were put together by the students, with guidance of the art therapist. Through the process of making this mural, our conversations explored identity, trauma and growth as we all walk this path towards discovering ourselves as Indigenous people.
As an Indigenous Way of Knowing, we often share our teachings through story and the story of this mural is one of them. In our storyl, we meet three young people around a sacred fire. Fire connects us to Spirit, the energy that connects all life, and to Creator. Two youth, living in the present, sit with a spirit of a young person taken by the Residential School system. They grieve this young person, whose grave may be unmarked or lost, and grieve how this history impacts their families and themselves. But they also sit with wisdom, knowing that Spirit keeps us connected and our culture connects us to who we are. Around them lies the power of this connection, from the land, to the sky and to animals. The moon cycle reminds us that change is normal cycle in life and that we can continue to grow through our own changes. The roots remind us that we are resilient even if we are still trying to reconnect with who we are. The spirit animals remind us our individual gifts and teachers we have outside the school walls. They remind us that we are never alone and that healing will happen in connection. Our young artists have signed this image with a handprint to honor themselves and their resilience, gifts and wisdom. This story reminds of why Every Child Matters because there was a time when Indigenous children did not. It is also a reminder that we as a community, a school, a society have work to do to make culturally safe spaces. Spaces that are trauma-informed and understand the unique healing needs of Indigenous Children today.
As Métis leader Louis Riel once said: “My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.” The spirit of our young artists were indeed present!
Graduate art therapy research project entitled: Walking on Two-Row: Assessing Acculturative Identity through Material Interaction, An Indigenous Arts-Based Heuristic Inquiry
https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/983681/
Megan Kanerahtenha:wi Whyte 