At an Indigenous market in summer 2021, Josie Saddleback was drawn to a beautiful jingle dress full of reds, turquoises, oranges, and yellows, with pockets that could hold her medicine and crystals. When dress fit like a glove, she knew jingle dancing found her in that moment. She practiced consistently, purchased her second dress the following December, and now jingle dances in Medicine Hat and across Alberta.
“I feel very grounded and proud of who I am when I dance. It doesn’t matter if one or 100 people are watching me; it’s the same feeling every time," she says.
The jingle dress is a prayer of medicine dance to help afflicted people, and Saddleback feels she's completed her purpose as a Nehiyah Cree woman when she dances in hers. A part of her heals, and she passes on the healing energy onto those watching through the grounds she dances on.