National Day for Truth and Reconciliation honoured with Sunrise Ceremony

Patsy-Anne Day, an Indigenous educator and storyteller from the Oneida Nation and Turtle Clan, places sage into the fire during a Sunrise Ceremony held Sept. 30 for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Patsy-Anne Day, Indigenous educator, storyteller and member of the Oneida Nation and Turtle Clan, led a Sunrise Ceremony, giving thanks and offerings to the Creator and Mother Earth on Sept. 30 during the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at the Falstaff Family Centre.

She described the Haudenosaunee teachings of the four sacred medicines: tobacco, sweetgrass, sage and cedar.

“We're thanking, acknowledging and giving thanks to everything that our Mother Earth gives us,” Day said at the opening of the ceremony.

“We start every day with thanks,” she said. “Saying thank you is the most important thing that we can do. It connects our minds and our hearts together, to our honour.”

Around the fire, participants listened as Day spoke about the offerings, starting in the east, where the sun rises. This direction represents both the morning and spring. Tobacco was placed there as an offering, symbolizing the beginning of a new day.

“The east represents the time of the year; springtime,” Day said. “It also represents everything new: new beginnings, newborns, everything that begins again.”

At the south side of the fire, where blades of sweetgrass sat, Day explained this space represents the red earth and land, as well as youth, summer and the afternoon.

“You can look at the youth and understand a little bit more about what they’re thinking and feeling,” she said. “They're the ones that are going to need us someday. We want to give them good examples and help them understand how we want our world to be.”

On the west side of the fire, sage was placed to represent the waters and nation builders, and to symbolize fall and evening.

“The nation builders are people who are our age,” Day said. “Those nation builders are the ones that we should be very thankful for. We give gratitude to those who are building the buildings, systems and things that we live with and take for granted sometimes.”

Cedar sat at the north side of the fire, which Day described as representing winter, night, spirits and elders.

After her teachings, Day invited attendees to walk in a circle around the fire, taking small pinches of each plant, starting with tobacco, and placing them in the fire while giving thanks to Mother Earth. Day explained that placing the medicines into the fire is a way of giving thanks and sending prayers, with the smoke carrying those offerings upward.