Wakinyan Awasis: Thunderbird Place for Honouring the Spirit of the Child
Awasis is conceived as a sacred site honouring the spirit of children. Awasis is dedicated, through cultural activity to address the special place we have for the child and create a better world where children thrive and fulfill their destiny.

In many Aboriginal Nations the word for child is the same as "gift" and children are considered the centre of the circle. Children are sacred beings. We are all children of the Great Spirit. In the sacred circle of Wakinyan Awasis: Thunderbird Place for Honouring the Spirit of Child, "the Child" is children and the inner child - past, present and future.

Healing at the Centre of the Circle
Awasis is also intended to assist with healing wounds to the spirit of the child. Children are at the centre of the community and family. Adversity on many fronts can have a dramatic impact on children and their development. Tragedies to Aboriginal Peoples have for multiple generations inflicted a deep wound on the inner child. Part of purification and healing is developing compassion for that child. Elder Vern Harper comments, "The whole point of ceremony and sweat lodge is you come out blessed like the innocence and sacredness of a child."

Respecting Heritage and Cultural Appropriation
In developing and creating the Awasis Sacred Site we have to be particularly sensitive to issues of cultural appropriation - the desecration of meaning and stealing of culture and its symbols and images. In this regard artists of specific heritage would create culturally defined elements on the site.

THE SPIRIT OF TURTLE ISLAND'S CHILD

An Aboriginal Sacred Site
Wakinyan Awasis: Thunderbird Place for Honouring the Spirit of the Child would exist for all people whose heritage draws from the North American continent, known as Turtle Island.

The artworks for the site would be created by a large team of artists drawn from throughout the continent for a central sacred site. In a variety of locations across North America honouring, healing and purification ceremonies associated with creating and blessing the site would be performed. Awasis as a sacred site would have a unique role in honouring and celebrating the spirit of the child and the role of the child at the centre of the circle.

An additional element of the site would incorporate, in part, dedication of the sculptures to address the wounds to the child that resulted from the social and cultural devastation that took place over the 500 years after the arrival of Europeans.

Building the Self Esteem of Children
The site and its works are intended to support and build the self-esteem and sense of value of Aboriginal children today and in the future. The artistic quality of the work at Awasis should easily be recognized as world class. Aboriginal children can be proud of the craftsmanship and artistic skill of their ancestors. The site should reflect the finest of that heritage.

A Healing Place of The Aboriginal Nations
At the central Awasis site a grouping of one hundred and nineteen bronze sculptures in Aboriginal Nations' styles and motifs would be within a two hundred and seventy foot diameter circle encompassed by a granite medicine wheel walkway. Additionally thirty-two bronze Spirit Twins of the central Animal Spirit pieces would be placed across North America in Aboriginal communities.

CONNECTING WITH SPIRIT

Art in the Search for Understanding and Meaning
Both the creating and viewing of art deepens our humanity. Art is associated with the spirit and the sacred; it can reach deep into the soul and psyche.

For indigenous peoples the artist is a visionary who is connected with the spirit of the creator because they have the gift of creation. The artist is the interpreter of life. The artist is the receiver of wisdom and the transmitter of knowledge. Though the artist is connected with the creator, the artist creates their own interpretation of what they see.

Art is a means of honouring others and celebrating their uniqueness in the family of people. Children have a particularly unique relationship in the family and the community. Art and cultural activity helps the child, caregivers and the community to reach a sense of deeper meaning and even healing. When we have become lost or disillusioned we can reconnect to our humanity through art. The wounds of the inner child are particularly sensitive to the healing power of art and cultural expression.

Art reaches the cognitive and profane; it reaches to where we contemplate and consciously reflect on, and maybe even discuss and debate, the symbolism and meaning in form and imagery. A significant portion of engaging art occurs in the non-verbal realms of human encounter. The non-verbal confrontations with art take place, and are processed, in a multiple of dimensions. We can be confronted and transformed by art and not even consciously know how, or to what degree it occurred.

Ceremony as Transformation
Purification ceremonies and sacred rituals are synonymous with traditional honouring, celebration, transformative practices throughout the world. Ceremony, prayer and ritual are powerful forces to promote well-being and facilitate personal and social change. Aboriginal Peoples have a rich and prolific heritage of the sacred art of healing circles and ceremonial healing and purification.

They are intended to enhance life on Mother Earth and one's relationship to self and others. In the traditional approach the Elder continually intersperses oral teachings that pass on history, culture and guidance for seeking a meaningful way of life.

A Synthesis of Art and Ceremony
The responsibility of combining art and ceremony at Awasis to promote well-being is entrusted to the collaboration and leadership of Michael C. Irving, Ph.D., Sculptor/Psychotherapist; and Elder Vern Harper, Native Urban Elder/Medicine Man. The artwork would be designed with its use in ceremony in mind and the ceremonies take into account their ability to make best use of the art.

Cross culturally and historically the marriages of art and ceremony have been central elements of traditional sacred and healing practices. Hopi sand painting; Japanese meditation gardens; Bagawa funeral masks; Druid sacred sites; and Buddhist mandalas are just a few examples of the traditional honouring, sacred and healing synthesis of art and culture. Guides and Healers throughout the world have shown that the combined qualities of art and ceremony provide a potential that is far more than the sum of the two.

Awasis ceremonies performed in association with conceiving, creating and placing the artworks would increase the ability of the art to honour the spirit of the child and address other needs of the spirit of the child. The artworks and ceremonies would be directed toward the child inside participants. Additionally, the sacred site reaches out to the child of the past and today, and Awasis looks forward as a pillar of support for children to come.

Memorial as Image and Process
The Memorial would be the works of art and the layout of the sacred site. As well, in the traditional role of sacred art, the Memorial would be in the fabric of the process of creating the sacred work; and the memorial is the actual long-term utilization of the sacred art and site.
Awasis artists would experience transformation for themselves in the vision quests in preparation for producing their sacred work. The transformation and, at times, healing process would continue during the journey of creating the work.

Those who view and participate in sacred art and sacred sites are impacted on many levels -- consciously and unconsciously, emotionally and spiritually, in the sacred and in the profane. A significant work of art is destined to become a part of the fabric of the culture and the society in which it is present. Healing that occurs from connecting with social art or a sacred site, likewise flows out beyond the direct participant or visitor. In one manner or another the personal enhancement reaches into family, community and nation. This social permeation is one of the powerful forces of art.

The Circle Moving Beyond the Sacred Site
The Animal Spirit Twins in communities across North America would place the physical parameters of the sacred site in many lands. Each of the many people and communities that participated in creating the artworks and gifts of objects and drawings would have feelings of ownership and belonging associated with Awasis.

People who visit the actual site to memorialize and heal would carry the properties of the site in the heart and in physical symbols. Through the power of keepsakes, mementos and sacred and symbolic objects the essential meaning and force of the site would be held dear and called upon by those who carry representations of the site. Films, videos, books, media images, word of mouth and images on objects and clothing would disperse the presence, meaning and power of the sacred site outward.