I have worked in health, healing & wellness all my adult life and raised two son’s.  I’ve naturally been drawn and curious about boys becoming men but it wasn’t until my oldest son came to one of the health healing gatherings with me where he represented his nation so they could receive healing funds. My son at the time, maybe 16 years young had to get up in front of a group of adults and present his case of what he thought the healing funds should go to. I stood at the back of the room, my heart both racing and breaking as we had just lost his father and were both still very raw. He stood (as I tried not to crumble) and shared how we have all these ceremonies for women and girls but where were the ceremonies for boys and men? His vision for the funding was to see a safe space for boys and men. A ceremony for boys - men  to heal and or to return to, to reclaim these rituals or to re-create ceremony for men, again as we have all these ceremonies for girls and women. 

I crumbled in the very back of the room, my knees to my chest, both holding and hiding myself as I kept my eyes on my son. I obviously not only saw his pain, but I felt it and as much as I created our own ceremonies throughout his years, there was no ceremony I as his mother I could create to fix him or this. That needed to come from men. HE needed something I did not have. 

It was in that very moment that I realized there was a hole in healing, would I have ever even realized such had my son not spoke it out? From that day forward I began to advocate for men. Where are the safe spaces for them? Where are the spaces they go to unlearn what they inherited? Where do they go with other men to share their secrets and shame?  Where do boys go to become men outside the sick societal norms of using sex and women as objects to be used and bragged about in their secret boys clubs?  And even more so in today's typical maamaalee culture where one is never enough so now there’s the normalization of poly, AI, open, p-0-r-n, swingers, casuals sex, secret lovers, side swipes, secret messages and who knows whatever else is both normal and still hidden. 

Sacred Son’s are a group of men that invite other men to FEEL and HEAL in a group setting that is definitely different. For years I’d witnessed from the outside looking in, their work and the transformation of boys to men.  It looked like men honouring the wounded boy in them & me being a ‘therapist wanna be’, I was drawn to them and this raw reveal of un-masking of these boys who hid behind their many masks and what an honour it was to witness and watch this work at this special Sacred Son’s Remembrance Gathering of men, women and children. 

I arrived in fear to the Sacred Son’s Camp in S’klallam Territory and I felt like a new kid in a new school without any friend’s. As I arrived and sat from a distance in my parked truck secretly watching  this group in circle (the team staff), they definitely looked like they were ‘out there’ and they for sure felt weird even from a distance and it definitely felt very different.  I felt the disEASE & discomfort in every cell of my being, which meant I was growing and what I really was looking at, was definitely a bunch of weirdo’s just like me. 

I sat parked for about 10 minutes  thinking of a few excuses I could use to just not show up, until I acknowledged it was fear and regardless of it being scary, I LEGIT manifested this. I called it IN and thankfully Hannah made Adam answer the call that I energetically sent out to the universe soooooo Melody Justine Charlie who you think you wanna run from? Run from the universe that answered what you ordered? Get your ass out of this truck and go pick up what YOU ordered.  It’d  been years following Sacred Son’s  and just knew in my heart that we were aligned & destined to meet through our shared passion of healing.

It was a day of staff only and the day before the participants of Sacred Son’s would arrive. After brief intro’s we broke out in men’s & women’s groups & for us women the first ceremony was a tea ceremony with my new Hawaiian sisters who steeped right into the deep end immediately. We broke into groups of two and were invited to share what was heaviest in our hearts. HOLY @#$@#$@# I am used to being the one inviting others to the deep end and there I was in hot water fully steeping. Even though I instantly wanted to remain dry and out of the deep & boiled, if I were a tea bag in that moment, my tea bag instantly dissolved into grind up nettle leaves spread all over the edges, in other words, I opened, FULLY. . . to a stranger I just met & vice versa. 

Whether it  was day one or day four, there was no small talk anywhere on camp with anyone. Everyone had a story of abuse, sexual, suicide, physical & mental abuse.  So many men shared their stories of survival. Sadly for too many years, especially when I was younger, I really thought sexual abuse only happened to women, or only to us ‘Indians’ inherited from those concentration camps they called schools, but  I was wrong, this did and does not just happened to us. The stories I heard from men reminded me that we’re not the only ones.  No one was alone and everyone seemed to share the same story and or a very eerily similar chapters. 

The arrival on the second day of participants in welcoming ceremony where boundaries and invitations are sent out of self respect, stating and sharing this is not a ‘hook up’ camp, that we’re all here for our own personal work and to respect ourselves and one another and to honour the intimate work and this as sacred space. Whew, I most definitely was in the right space with the right peeps.  The welcoming ceremony was hands down one of THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ceremonies I’d ever witnessed and as an Indigneous women who grew up on a island with only Ahousat village members, I have witnessed and captured a lot of ceremonies, thankfully my whole life has been surrounded by ceremony after ceremony. 

So to witness this welcome ceremony that blew my heart and mind wide open, felt in many ways like a time travel. A time travel back to ancestral ways, a travel back to pre cyber, a travel back to where people gave the gift of FULL presence, it felt on so many levels ancestral, ancient, sacred and deeply respectful. People were there.  FULLY.  No cell phones, no one giving half attention or multi tasking - humans were there…FULLY. PRESENT.  The ceremony started with my new friend and fellow Indigneous, Cheokten who opened up so beautifully with Indigenous language and flute that grounded us all, followed by Hawaiian brother and sister who also welcomed us with song and beautiful Hawaiian language. It felt like a calling in of ancestors on many levels. 

There was this circle, one HUGE circle with all of us, then the children stood in the middle, the women outside the children and the men on the outside of the women circle. This part of ceremony went straight into IT, the men were asked to turn their backs to the women and children as a reminder of the pain that they’ve inflected onto women and children and I swear in that moment, tears fell and from everyone. 

I tear up just writing this. It was raw as everyone reflected on their own pain from men that were to protect but instead harmed (even to men to men & father’s to son’s) , no matter how old or how fresh, it surfaced instantly in this circle here and now.  This space is definitely where men enter to face themselves with each other and is a space where even if you never shared your whole truth, you both felt and heard your story in other’s brave enough to share theirs. 

I remember thinking I was going to die, not only from the ceremony and my heart bursting out my chest from feeling so much humility and love  but because my phone died in this exact moment and I had nothing to record these feelings that I so selfishly wanted to keep forever for my own healing (like really melody, your new videographer friend was the pro there recording on all his Hollywood gear , just focus on photos instead of your amateur iphone videos ). But, I lived. Mostly because I borrowed my Hawaiian sister’s phone and video’d there, so whew, again I lived. FOMO Fear Of Missing Out is very real for videographers - photographer’s, we start shaking if we miss it lol. 

Anyway this was the welcome ceremony, it was strong, it was deep and it was raw. I circled the circles capturing the tears as my own fell. I looked deep into these strangers watering eyes and felt seen, I felt seen by people who never knew me, I wanted to hold my heart as I felt it exploding and expanding but I had three camera’s and only two hands. The elders were called in, they all lined up, wisdom  from all over the planet. They were handed a staff, it reminded me of Gandalf’s staff, like it had magical powers. They each held it with a hand as they were reminded of the wisdom they bring and their invitation to share that knowledge and pass it on. 

Ok at this point, I am so impressed as the guy leading this part of the ceremony is maamaalee, wow was he adopted and raised in village I wondered?!  How’d he learn this as a maamaalee? Melody, just take photos and stop asking so many questions in your head. This beautiful moment of passing of knowledge, the magical powers of this staff were physically handed from one generation to the next generation and it felt ritual, it felt like deep responsibly that went beyond the gathering, it felt like A Responsibility For Life. It felt like when we do serious business in our potlatch ceremonies where we pay witnesses, that’s their sacred responsibility to remember what they saw & what they heard & to remember it FOREVER. Sighs, that was the feeling. 

Words can’t do it any justice, it was powerful, it was sacred, it was tradition and all I kept thinking was, “Wow, these are truly my people”, like really Melody, claiming ownership of complete strangers, giggles, in all fairness a few of them are definitely keepers! 

Ok after all that opening & ceremony, groups broke out into their own smaller circles where they remained for the next four days of  camp. They broke out in their separate spaces and immediately began the work with sharing WHAT THEIR MAIN FEAR WAS.  Talk about leaning into DIS-ease and DIScomfort with vulnerability and humility.  The instant deep dives and connections without any false facades & rebuilding of foundations from the bottom up, ahhh yeah, this is my kind of construction crew. 

The first nights in S’klallam territory, I slept right by the water. I had read up on this particular bay we were in where the S’klallam used to shove their dead out of this bay as part of ritual and ceremony pre contact. I definitely felt death and that wasn’t just from S’klallam ancestors, 

 I felt death on other levels, not only within wounded parts of myself that were dying, but also all the parts that others also came here to also send off the wounded parts of them and the parts that died or were dying and or now dead, placing death in their own canoe sliding it out to the open ocean too.

You ever hear of somatic? Where people leave the mind and enter the body? Where people feel and move old outdated energy in their body? Where emotion and ALL emotions are encouraged? Even anger? Ok maybe it’s not the perfect descriptions of somatic but where energy is encouraged to MOVE as that is what e-motion is, it is energy -in -motion, it is energy MEANT to MOVE. But we all hold some of that energy  hostage while we pack around the past pulling our own heavy canoes filled with what’s already gone.  So anyway, back to death and dying, I would hear these screams in the middle of the night, what felt like from the middle of the ocean, I would hear these screeches and think, “Wow these people really take this diving into the dark depths literally, they out here screaming into the open ocean all hours of the night.”  Then I reminded myself to stop being so judgemental in my own head. Melody this is why people are here, to feel, to heal, to stop fighting, or to start fighting and to move energy so just shhh through the screams Melody & get back to sleep. BUT the little girl in me wondered, ‘What if those screams are not human?!” AND it was full moon and eclipse and I'm right in middle where Twilight was filmed! 

The next day I am made my rounds between the various different groups and this one group was working up on this cliff and again I hear these horrible screeching sounds. I turn to the ocean to look for this painful eerie sound that in fact were NOT human, they were seals! And the most freaky sounding seals EVER! AND I live with seals as my neighbours that thankfully sound like regular barking seals lol. Plus,  I have heard very creepy non human recordings of Sasquatch from our territories and it legit is the creepiest thing I have ever heard! These seals sounded like scary possessed humans running from part human Sasquatch and I’m  not even exaggerating. Though I was mostly relieved that humans were NOT screaming in the middle of the night in the middle of the ocean lol. Whew I slept better knowing that. 

Sleep was minimal though, these guys were up at 6 am doing movement work and going hard right until 11 pm. Between the panels of men / women, between the talks on masculine and feminine, which all talks, panels, circles, discussions were both heart opening and mind blowing! Wow convos that really went into everything I'm fascinated with on a psychological level, from a traumatic level, from a guarded false masculine level and from a wounded feminine level. Damn, they all spoke a therapeutic language that I spam everyone with daily. What an amazing feeling to sit around a fire with peeps who speak your language! 

Then add the late evening cocao ceremony, every night sleep felt like an option, and this camp, I swear if they could have gone without sleep and just kept ceremony - workshop’ing all night, they would have. I would have. On one of the nights though I was crashing after going non stop between ceremonies, events, and harvesting back home, I was crashing and had not planned on going to the cocoa ceremony that I was persuaded into. I sat in this ceremony of red lights, dark cocao and a room full of other weird beings who not only believed in plants and food as medicine but who also spoke and sang to such. 

The room was red, my new friend had just returned from months spent with Indigenous elders in Peru, led the ceremony and spoke so beautifully and poetically in Spanish.  Though I did not understand a single word of his, it all spoke to me. So there we were singing into expansion, unified and in that very moment, all I could think was, “If my people saw me right now, they definitely would ALL be shaking their heads” LOL but this is so me, underneath my own masks of social justice and fighting for equality for my peeps while pretending I don’t’ need anyone, this is me, yes I’m weird, I’m soft, I’’m very spiritual, I’m open, I’m safe and I need humans, but not just any humans, weird humans just like these ones. Ok I don’t know if my people actually know that I”m this weird, but if not, they do now reading this :P 

I witnessed and captured so much healing, it was healing to witness healing, which is probably why I’ve worked in it all my life. This maamaalee man in his 70’s shared in circle with tears, “I never even knew this (healing) was possible”. Imagine, going your whole life not knowing this kind of connection, this kind of personal work and transformation was possible. It reminded me when I worked in a family treatment centre in the early 2000’s, we would start our 6 week sessions with families who shared their goals in group and this one man, about the same age, shared something very similar. That he had harmed people his whole life and no longer wanted to hurt himself or others. 70+ years old and put himself into treatment, to WANT to change. To NEED to repair. Wow. There is never a wrong time to make something right and when people repair and mend themselves, mending with others just becomes part of THE healing. Yet, imagine never EVEN imagining something different, something better, something deeper and all of it being healing. Imagine going one’s whole life and not knowing this healing and growth existed or was even an option? Wow and I say wow not from shame (ever), but wow from a place of admiration and respect. Plus it’s so unfair to think everyone had the village life I’ve had, it’s unfair to think everyone had the very sacred ceremonies I”ve had or that everyone has witnessed men stand up and host ceremony to correct his wrongs and make it right or to honour his grief in front on many villages. Not everyone had that Melody.  

That 70+ year old man made me wish my own late father’s had such opportunities in both this sacred circle and own our village ceremonies , which maybe they are in their own realms as I dreamt of both my late father and my son’s late father while there. The one dream with my late husband involved healing and the other dream with my late father was pure laughter . Considering Sept 7th was  the day my son’s father’s spirit was called home and he showed up in dream that very night Sept 7th while here, to me, that was no coincidence. Healing happens through all the realms, as I myself do not believe in death, energy doesn’t die, it can only transform. 

Again having worked in healing all my adult life, I have never witnessed such a program that included so many levels of healing. There was trauma healing, there was somatic, there was physical, there was breathe work, there was dance, there was boxing, there was a safe space to scream, there was safe space for silence, there was a safe space for all the movements of energy. It was intense, it was full, it was expansive, it was transformational and it was exhausting but it the kind of exhausting that gave you peace from giving your all.

So even though it was not my intention to go work with Sacred Son’s over there, my intention was to get them here to work with our Indigneous men on the island, regardless I am beyond thankful and inspired. Which by the way did you know that the word inspired steams from in - spirit so when one is inspired, they’re actually IN SPIRIT? Just in case you thought you weren’t spiritual hehehe.

At the closing ceremony, I had a moment where I was recording, we were all dancing, it felt like a surreal movie in real time  and I realized in that very moment as tears streamed down my face in gratitude and with love,  that I manifested this. I not only saw myself connected with this work and these very healthy inspiring healing men from Sacred Son’s but I also knew in my heart that I needed diversity and here I was dancing with diversity with beautiful beings from all over the world! I'm a huge believer in manifesting, we receive what we believe but only what we believe we're worthy of. 

I imagine this is why people do drugs, to feel this kind of love.

I'm what's called Indian, Native, Indigenous, but Ahousat (my village) is really older than all those 'terms' & these countries

and all their boxes they try fit us into.

Ahousat are lovers, we a very rare nation on a tiny little island with only our village people .

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We are deep lovers as most Indigneous people are. We're givers. We're believers. We're helpers. We're menders. We're big feelers and fighters. We may look messy from the outside but once you met us on the inside, We're LOVE and very hard to NOT love. So to FEEL this kind of love is RARE for most and for some of us, it's just norm. We don't need to do drugs as LOVE is THE drug and ceremony is the HIGH. 

Still, I witnessed people take their low's and turn it into tunes. It reminded of our own songs in ceremony that were also sung & born through transformations. I witnessed people crack WIDE OPEN and I honestly hadn’t realized how much I missed this work (that I only thought I was so done with), but their cracks helped me mend my own wounds. So thank you son’s for your sacredness, thank you for choosing me to capture your wounded little boys that became more men. Thank you for reminding me the most beautiful things grow from the bottom. Thank you for showing me what REAL MEN feel like from their top. Thank you for your morals & values that will inevitably continue to  guide your dreams to reality of both returning men to boys for healing and boys to men as reclamation. 

In somatic therapy there’s a saying,

“Time does NOT heal,

EXPERIENCE DOES”

Thank you for this experience with beautiful beams that fearfully danced with their wounded shadows. Thank you for choosing me to capture the lights in between all the dark & thank you for reminding me of whom I am.  Xo. 

To any men needing a space of healing, I cannot recommend Sacred Son’s enough and I’ve worked in healing all my adult life. It’s led by men for men and will strip you of everything that was never you & bring you back to the braid that ties you with brothers from other mother’s who hold you accountable to your better and best self. No need to numb the pain you've yet to speak of but yet project onto others. No need to self sabotage into suicidal thoughts when you get caught in a corner. Underneath all anger is unprocessed grief. Underneath all secrets is shame and shame cannot survive once spoken and met with compassion. So though this might seem too 'soft' for men, what's the hard alternative? Suicide? Numbness? Addiction? Violence? Work? Isolation? Have any of those avoidances worked? What you resist WILL persist. 

Have you ever seen your father cry? I saw my father cry once and that's a whole other blog, but long story short,

he drank himself to death and I could say he took his secrets and shame with him,

but then again his secrets and shame took him.

His untold story took. him.

The leading cause of death in men is heart disease.

You can die from a broken heart. 

& we've all been broken & a bloody mess before.

But if you betray yourself then how is that different than other's who've betrayed you? 

Tend to your heart. Follow your heart and your hurt.

It's how healing happens through feeling.

 Suppressing to impress, to impress who? Other men?

Suppression is what creates sickness. 

E-motion is energy in motion. It's meant to move. 

Not be held hostage. 

So again think this is too soft? 

As one my grandmother's used to say,  

"There is no easy way. 

There is a hard way 

And a harder way"

To me, it's easy to do what everyone else is doing 

It's easy to do what is familiar (fam- lie) & known. 

Harder is doing what you do NOT want to do.

Harder is doing what you're NOT good at.  

Hardest is leaning into what's unfamiliar. 

Because when you do what you've always done, you get what you've always had. 

For all the men in my life and in life who choose harder just to 

ƛ̓uuʔiiʔaała yaqʔiitqak. -  remember who you are.

Without the shame, secrets or suppression. 

xo 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChPJ4fW9ohs