CHI Current – An Update on the Community Healing Initiative in Saskatoon
by Patti Lindgren Gera and CHI Facilitators

We begin our update with gratitude to Melva Armstrong (WHOLifE editor) for partnering with us to make this space available and to all of the Ancestors, Elders, and others who have participated in the Community Healing Initiative (CHI) experiment thus far.

CHI is a grassroots response to modern trouble. It is a taking up of the inherent responsibility in humans to care for all beings and the Earth that sustains us. It is a community aimed toward an economy for life, with our contributions recognized in all forms, from need, to talent, to knowledge, wisdom, perspective, and material.

CHI is about our rehumanization, and rebirthing culture in a way that recognizes all beings as sentient and equal in value, all beings free, and all beings as living members of our beautiful, life-giving, living world.

Since we soft launched in March, 2016, we have held a variety of events and gatherings for connecting, grieving, conversing, celebrating, and co-creating. We have met weekly in the CHI Hub where our learning is digested and integrated, dreams come, and coordination of activity unfolds.

In November (2016) we passed a marker on the road, it seems, as the tension of an emerging new world birthing and the reality of our suffering and our need for healing felt near to explosion. We planned a community conversation for December 4th. Esther Stenberg expressed her felt sense of the intention for our time together that day as: A community conversation for waking up to what is going on in the world and responding as if the fate of all beings and the rest of creation was held in the care of the village.

Our turnout was small, true, and beautiful. We connected heart to heart and soul to soul. We raised some very important issues and questions. Out of that conversation, Patricia Smith joined Esther and Patti Gera in the CHI Hub. Later in December, the three of us met for two days and brought through a next step in the unfolding: an exciting community project to ground and centre the CHI experiment in consciously healing and co-creative community with a physical community healing centre.

We met again out at Ancient Spirals Retreat January 27–29, 2017, for a conversation to begin envisioning the centre, opening the invitation for others to join us. More felt the call and we had a larger, true, and beautiful group. It was an affirming time—wise, compassionate, well-reasoned, and powerful in its feelings of clarity, resolve, and commitment.

The CHI Hub grew again, and we have now welcomed Lois Mitchell and Kijia Ramgotra-Wachowicz to our strong and inspired team of naturally occurring community healing facilitators in action.

On February 7, we viewed two properties as potential locations for centres of community healing. We are all excited to explore these possibilities with Saskatoon.

One property is a house on Queen Street across from City Hospital. We are imagining this space to hold the CHI Hub, a place for healing work for community healing facilitators of all kinds, and for coordination of the CHI happenings.

The second property is the former St. George’s Parish Hall, sitting on a full block from alley to street on 20th Street next to Station 20 West, not far from St. Paul’s Hospital. This large building with two floors contains a gymnasium with stage, an event hall, a large kitchen, showers, classrooms, a projection room, and a stage.

We have a sense of how these ideas can flourish in the hearts, minds, and hands of a diverse, inclusive and co-creative community. We know that people are looking for these kinds of supports and opportunities. We know that this dream has been alive in many of us for some time, and that we have all the skill, willingness, and talent that is needed right here and now to co-create for the good of all.

We open the doors wide now for others to join us, from the foundation of CHI’s vision and values for leading with natural and village intelligence; to make our creativity visible, to help midwife a new culture where all beings are recognized as sentient and equal in value, and all beings are well.

We look forward to welcoming you in through one of the portals below.

Co-founding Community Healing Facilitators Patti Lindgren Gera and Esther Stenberg, Patricia Smith, Kijia Ramgotra-Wachowicz, and Lois Mitchell.

Schedule of Happenings Check website and Facebook (below) for current schedules, locations, terms, and details.

CHI Hub for Women’s Healing & Co-creating Mondays, Patti’s house, 9:30 am–3:30 pm, come and go or come and stay. If you will be here over lunch, please bring a healthy item for our potluck co-creation. Bring your healing tools and your needs. Please let us know you’re coming and request the address with an email.

CHI Hub for Operations – Community Healing Facilitators & Guests Fridays, Patti’s house, 9:30 am–12:30 pm. Please plan to arrive on time and stay for the duration.

Community Healing Centre Visioning & Building Activities. Open to everyone. For those who wish to be active in the work of informing, imagining, and co-creating our physical community healing centres in Saskatoon.

Community Conversation Cafes: Reviving the Commons, Reviving Care. Open to everyone. This is an ongoing community conversation for waking up to what is going on in the world and responding as if the fate of all beings and the rest of creation were held in the care of the village.

Direct greetings and welcomes for people, families, independent co-creators and organizations. By appointment. This is for people and groups who wish to have a direct conversation to explore an intentional relationship in CHI. A Community Healing Facilitator will welcome you and listen for needs, interests, resources, and ideas to illuminate situations and potential.

CHI Council Development & Gatekeeping Emerging Please send an email to connect@chisaskatoon.ca if you are interested in a leadership role.

Truth Circle of Friends Conversation For people who are exploring the shadows of human society and the unlimited territory of healthy solutions, this is a safe space to talk about everything, while helping to forge a path for good methods for healthy relationships in co-creating and community. Tuesdays, Patti’s house, 7:00 pm–10:30 pm. Potluck at 6:00 pm on the first Tuesday each month. Let us know you’re coming and get the address with an email.

Community Project Development & Production Special and seasonal events to support our healing, initiations, and seasonal shifts. If you want to co-create something to celebrate nature’s cycles, or have ideas for community projects, please send us an email.

CONNECT Learn more and add yourself to our village mailing list via www.chisaskatoon.ca, email: connect@chisaskatoon.ca, phone: 306-229-1978, Patti Lindgren Gera, Co-founding Community Healing Facilitator. Facebook: Village of Saskatoon, for village connections and sharing of events, resources, and needs.