Soul Renewal Project at Spring Lake Ranch

Posted on November 05, 2010

Spring Lake Ranch, in partnership with the Rutland Transitional Program, is pleased to host author and Native American storyteller Christopher Laro for a ten-week program: Soul Renewal.  Central to this course will be the building of a traditional sweat lodge (or "Tunkan Tipi," meaning house of rebirth in Lakota). 

The process of building the lodge develops a sense of personal empowerment and teamwork with Nature.  The ten-week path of crafts-making (story stick, medicine bag, and rattle) will also reinforce the positive benefits of storytelling utilized today in other forms of talk therapy for residents.  The gradual creation of the lodge, along with demonstrations by course leaders on how to transfer one's painful personal story/truth into a more positive mythology, will allow residents to experience a new version of themselves in basic ways.  Rewriting and redefining self through story is at the core of this program.  The sweat lodge has always been a space for cleansing and healing, as are the Lakota prayers and songs residents will hear - and perhaps be able to learn over ten weeks to add to their medicine (medicine defined here as "one's power source,").  Residents will also use handmade artifacts and collect natural elements in the woods to be carried in the medicine bag worn around the neck.  Through these elements, residents will learn how to walk with their medicine out in the world.

This creative experience is an unfolding of something new that supersedes the old and allows for cooperative effort, spontaneous expression, and connection to a higher power defined through the natural world.

The Soul Renewal course is going on now at Spring Lake Ranch.