At the inaugural IndigeSTEAM Retreat, March 2019, Day 2 was a Healing Circle with Elder/Rev. Vivan as our guide. All those who were there, Indigenous and non-Indigenous valued her soft words of support, teachings, and wisdom.
Vivan lost her battle with COVID19 June 2, 2021. She has left us to join our aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers in the Spirit World. She left surrounded by family, love, prayers and medicine.
Elder and Reverend, Vivan Seegers was the Priest and Founder of Urban Aboriginal Ministry (UAM) and Assistant to the Vicar at St. Mary Magdalene Parish. She responded to calls from Nations family, friends, and loved ones in the DowntownEastside of Vancouver providing cultural ceremonies, spiritual comfort, and support in their time of need.
"I would like to help First Nations people heal from the spiritual abuse received in residential school where they were taught that their spiritual traditional teachings are to be rejected and to help Christians to see our traditional first nations spiritual practices as valuable and life-giving as the teachings of Jesus." From her LinkedIn page.
She is survived by her children, Deanna Burgart (Jonathan), Clio Straram (Shawn), Steven Seegerts and grandchildren, Donovan (Allison), Connor, Sean, and Emma and great granddaughter Elaina. She was also beloved Aunty and Mom to Jessica Seegerts (Ron) and Natalie King and welcomed countless nieces, nephews, and grand children.
She will be missed by so many whose lives she touched and changed for the better including those in her ministries, her Sundance family and the hundreds of youths and engineering students she has shared her traditional teachings and wisdom.
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GoFundMe site has been established in her memory. All funds raised will go towards family travel and accommodation expenses for hospital visits and her funeral, and to help Vivian’s children and community take the time and steps necessary to process this great loss.
