Wichahpi Woyute (Star Feeding)
By Tina Gilson
For many years I have stated that we don’t get over pain, we get through it. You have to dive into the shadows and sit with your pain in order to work through it and heal. You cannot find true peace by ignoring it or refusing to acknowledge it.
I recently read that Lakota healers have said: “The wound that’s held grows. The wound that’s released heals.” They have a ritual for working with the pain that one cannot say out loud. This ritual is called “Wichahpi Woyute”, or “Star Feeding”, and they used it for those who lost loved ones or survived violence.
The person didn’t talk about the trauma, they fed it. The individual would gather stones representing the pain, then carry them to a river and release them one by one while speaking the memory out loud to the water. The final stone was kept as a reminder that grief was witnessed, not erased.
Personally, I am a fan of this for many reasons. The heaviness of the stones is symbolic of the heaviness of one's grief. Setting them down is symbolic of letting go of the weight you have been carrying. Of course, anyone who has been following my column for a while knows I am a big proponent of getting out in nature and the healing power it brings. Lastly, I do not believe we ever stop grieving the ones we have lost, the grief just evolves with time.
In 2019, Johns Hopkins trauma researchers recreated this ritual with PTSD patients. The practice had previously been banned by missionaries in the 1800s as “primitive superstition.”
Researchers found the physical act of releasing objects while verbalizing trauma engages both hemispheres of the brain, something talk therapy alone doesn’t achieve.
After 6 sessions, there was a 73% reduction in PTSD symptoms, intrusive thoughts decreased by 81%, and emotional regulation improved six times faster than traditional therapy.
This ritual is easily replicated and can even be modified, (instead of using stones and a river, you could use paper to write the trauma down and burn it, for example). It is the act of physical release signals to the brain that the memory has been processed.
Modern therapy organizations spoke out against this process with one psychologist association even calling it “unscientific and potentially harmful”, but the data showed otherwise.
While I fully support the modern therapy model when it is called for, and believe it can be extremely beneficial in many cases, it also profits from long term treatment. A ritual that works in six sessions disrupts a multi-billion dollar industry.
Your brain doesn’t need endless analysis, it needs a signal that the pain has been acknowledged and can be released. Most of us are unnecessarily carrying “stones” we have collected throughout our lifetime. A ritual such as this, doing shadow work, seeking support from modern therapy or doing a combination of these things, can help you find healing and peace.
Sacred Spirit Wellness is located at The Hive Wellness Collaborative, 21 Barton Street in Bradford, VT. They can be reached via email at sacredspiritwellness1@gmail.com, on their Facebook page or www.sacredspiritwellness.com