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Exciting things are happening with the Wellbriety
Movement! The Sacred Hoop will travel to Native
American Communities in Urban settings west of
the Mississippi during Spring of 2002 and in the
eastern half of the country during Spring of 2003.
This will bring new opportunities for you to participate
in the Wellbriety Movement as a Firestarter Facilitator.
White Bison, Inc., has received a new grant from
the Centers for Substance Abuse Treatment to continue
the Circles of Recovery Firestarter program in
Native American communities. The focus of this
three-year grant is Native American communities
in urban settings. The grant will fund Wellbriety
related projects from October 2001 until the end
of September 2004.
We currently have over 600 Firestarters in Indian
communities throughout the country. There are
200 Circles of Recovery operating right now and
more are being started each month. You can be
a part of this exciting Wellbriety Movement too!
There are several ways:
If you have been in recovery for at least a
year and have completed one round of the 12
Step program, then you can apply to be a Firestarter
facilitator. (You will also have a a four-year
commitment to run Circles of Recovery in your
community.)
If you don't want to be a facilitator, you
can still be a Firestarter by contributing your
time, creativity and energy to Recovery activities
and efforts in your own community. (i.e. organizing
recovery activities, encouraging others to participate
in Wellbriety Month activities, helping us with
projects or other volunteer events)
You can participate by completing the application
either online
or call us at 1-877-871-1495 and we will have
one mailed, emailed or faxed to you. Join us in
this exciting opportunity to "Put
a New Face on Recovery."
More on the Firestarters: as the Hoop made the
journey across the US, many people have shown
their interest in the Firestarter program. This
includes the Hoop Journey to the Tribal Colleges
and the Journey of the Sacred Hoop Walk. We know
that we have thousands of Native people sober.
We know we have many people who are non-native
who are working in Native American communities
who are sober. We know we have people interested
in working with Native people in prison. We know
we have people interested in working with Native
women. We have people interested in working with
Native men, and we have people interested in working
with Indian families. We have various healing
organizations, NANACOA, AISES and others who have
been doing healing work for many years. There
is AA, Al-Anon, AlaTeen, NA, Gamblers Anonymous,
Emotions Anonymous, etc.
There is a prophecy which says, we have entered
a coming together time. It says, a long time ago,
the Creator called the people together and said,
I am going to divide you into four directions,
red, yellow, black and white. To each of you I
will assign certain accountability. To the red
direction, I will give you the original teaching
to be keepers of the land, earth. To the yellow
direction, I will give you the responsibility
to be keepers of the wind, breath. To the black
direction, you will be the keepers of the Sacred
Water. To the north, the white direction, you
will be the keepers of fire. You will go through
the cycles of time, spirit time, rock time, plant
time, animal time and the time of the human, learning
about the original teachings, which are written
in your heart. The time will come, when you must
come together, sit in the same circle (RED, YELLOW,
BLACK and WHITE), and share the knowledge with
one another so the human can go into healing.
The Creator said he would show us signs of when
this coming together is here. The White Buffalo
Calf was born in Janesville, Wisconsin. The Elders
from the four directions gathered and put four
gifts into the Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers, forgiveness,
unity, hope and healing. How does a Firestarter
fit into all of this?
The Firestarter and the Circles of Recovery are
not a substitute or replacement for any current
organization involved in helping people to recover.
In fulfilling the prophecy of the coming together,
we want to start a Circle of Recovery which will
bring the alcoholic, the Al-Anon, the family,
the gamblers, the narcotics, the emotions, to
codependents all together into one circle.
Does this mean
this is a substitute for AA? No.
Does this mean
this is a replacement for Al-Anon? No.
Does this mean
people in recovery should stop going to their
current recovery groups? No.
What this means is that the Circle of Recovery
would welcome anyone interested in working the
twelve steps as a means of a recovery tool. So
the circle may very well include, alcoholics,
Al-Anon, addicts and anyone else who is hurting.
This could be a circle of just women in recovery
who would include alcoholics, women children of
alcoholics, someone married to an alcoholic or
a friend or relative of someone who is drinking.
Some circles may be in prisons, which would include
alcoholics, adult children of alcoholics, etc.
In the Circle of Recovery meetings, each member
of the circle would introduce themselves like
this: "My name is Jim and I work the twelve steps."
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