00:19:03.440Most of my work is with indigenous or with sexual and gender minority people,
00:19:09.260And I mostly look at how culture keeps people well. And so some of my interests in terms of connections and kinship and wellness come out of that, looking at how connecting with culture and how to live with culture wherever we find ourselves.
00:19:28.020So for myself, looking, how do we embed Mi'kmaq values into our daily lives?
00:19:33.860What does that mean if you're also a secular person versus if you're a spiritual person?
00:19:40.220And so kind of digging into all of that is one of the things that I find really exciting about my work, giving me that opportunity to learn more about myself and other people.
00:19:51.180um i coordinate indigenous studies so i'm also interested in sort of the discipline of indigenous
00:19:56.700studies and where the borders of that are um and i approach this as a secular person who uh did
00:20:06.160a phd and a master's in a catholic theological school so i have a lot of uh interest in religion
00:20:14.060and spirituality um but uh not as a participant or as a an observer uh so uh it's it's exciting
00:20:24.340to be here and to uh meet all of you uh in person so uh i'll say well island thank you all
00:20:32.380uh and i guess i'll pass it on to uh granddaughter crow gdc you're up thank you thank you thank you
00:20:42.800So awesome, you guys. This is such a wonderful, sacred space for wonderful, sacred conversations, and I am very honored to be here.
00:20:54.220So Ya'at'e, they call me Granddaughter Crow. I am born to the Bilagana clan for the Ta'achini clan, which means that I am Navajo Nation down here in the four corners, United States.
00:21:07.900Four Corners is Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Phoenix or Arizona. And so my father is full
00:21:19.440blood Navajo. He was taken from his hokan and put into boarding school, stripped of his
00:21:29.360languish his hair and his culture so i'm very close to that experience however my mother is
00:21:39.620full-blood dutch and so i understand what was said before um this whole trying to reconcile with
00:21:50.260myself you know being of both and i think it took me a long time to get there because what it has
00:21:59.360helped me to do was become a bridge between cultures. And now we're here having conversations
00:22:08.460about cross-cultural communications, getting to know each other with respect, with curiosity.
00:22:16.280And this is the beauty of this time that we are living in, is that we get to have these
00:22:22.460unspoken conversations, these things that used to be just ignore it, don't just sweep it under
00:22:28.940the rug and now we get to come to the table and listen to each other and so although I am
00:22:35.300of the Navajo Nation I only speak with my experience I'm not speaking on behalf of the
00:22:42.440Navajo Nation I am a Gen X and raised in Denver Colorado and so what do I do under the name of
00:22:53.020granddaughter crow i am an author a public speaker i offer sessions one-on-one sessions
00:23:00.640psychic intuitive whatever you want to call it empathic whatever you want to call it i'm also
00:23:06.820well you can check out my website www.granddaughtercrow.com that's it in a nutshell
00:23:14.800where i would like to say what i do and how that helps with the kinship
00:23:19.800my second book which is out there you can get it off of Amazon or I think Kindle or Barnes and
00:23:26.960Noble or wherever you get your books it's called Wisdom of the Natural World and it's practical
00:23:33.580and spiritual teachings from plants animals and mother earth and last year Missing Witches had
00:23:40.240me on and we spoke about that book I think that that one was like your hundredth episode or
00:23:47.820I think it was 100th episode. And so if anybody wants to listen to that, and or you can buy the
00:23:53.840book. And what I really do is want to encourage, inspire people to be their authenticity. And I
00:24:05.460like to say that I was First Nation before First Nation was cool. And now it's cool. So my lived
00:24:12.440experience is like, oh, okay, now you want me to come to the table. And some of the questions that
00:24:18.340I'm getting asked right now were internal questions that I had with myself. So I'm still
00:24:23.400trying to develop my words around how do I feel about this? How do I speak about this? And that's
00:24:30.680what this platform really means to me. And I'm so excited about being here with all of you. And
00:24:36.760um thank you so much thank you so much to each of you for those really personal and thoughtful
00:24:47.280introductions it's really generous to come into this space with that kind of openness for all of
00:24:54.940us so we really appreciate that um we have questions Amy and I were laughing earlier we're
00:25:01.060people with countless questions we're so excited and curious about your work but I do want to say
00:25:05.680as a caveat like just ignore our questions if you have more interesting things to say
00:25:11.780or if you want to ask each other things we're more interested in that than we are in our own
00:25:19.060questions so we'll start with sort of directing things but if at any point you're like I want to
00:25:23.460know what Crystal thinks about this that's my caveat about that I did want to ask and this
00:25:33.320goes back to a question margaret shared with us um if you know we have a diverse listener
00:25:40.760community we talk about the coven we make in the dark between our ears and how that's like a
00:25:46.540meeting point in a podcast space for people who come from all around the world a real diversity
00:25:53.400of backgrounds um settler descendants colonizer descendants people who grew up you know off
00:26:02.180reservation with totally detached from their community who are trying to find a way back
00:26:07.180descendants of enslaved people people who are in really um incredibly strict religious communities
00:26:13.800right now who for whom this part of their spirituality is very secret um we really hear
00:26:21.040from an incredible diversity of people um so for those people if they feel a longing towards
00:26:29.940a practice that they can identify as probably indigenous in origin and they want to have a
00:26:35.880relationship with the natural world for example without um you know perpetuating this kind of
00:26:42.580violence what do you recommend is there is there a way in that feels appropriate um or not
00:26:50.820unless anybody wants to jump on that I could perhaps pass it to Margaret since it was sort
00:26:59.000of a version of the question you shared with us uh sure uh so this is something i've had to do
00:27:07.340some thinking about um in the context of what's a way for people who've been separated from
00:27:13.820our indigenous traditions and cultures and ceremonies which for most people of my generation
00:27:20.340is everybody um because until 1951 uh it was illegal in canada to participate in a lot of
00:27:27.760First Nations ceremonies. And so we have sometimes parents, grandparents, elders who did not learn
00:27:35.240those ceremonies themselves or don't know those traditions and couldn't pass them on. And so for
00:27:41.940a lot of folks, there's a search going on. And people have different access to power in doing
00:27:50.760that search. And so it's important to figure out where you fit in that as a searcher and to
00:27:57.480think about what, I mean, it's easy to be aware of what my needs are going into a space, but it's
00:28:04.400harder to imagine what some of the dangers I might be posing to people in that space are if I come in
00:28:10.180with a lot of questions and I'm not thinking in terms of reciprocity or what kind of burden I
00:28:18.700might be putting on people who already have pretty strapped access to resources. And so I've done a
00:28:25.880lot of thinking about it. I'm also a vegan. So I tend to think in parallels. And one of the
00:28:31.160parallels that comes to mind here is when I get a craving for something and I think, oh, you know,
00:28:35.920I'm really missing. And so I'm thinking of when I used to eat meat and thinking, oh, gosh, I could
00:28:41.040really go for that. And then I do a little analysis where I'm asking myself, what is it I'm really
00:28:45.700craving? What is it that's missing? Is it salt? Is it fat? What is the thing that I'm seeking there?
00:28:51.440And so I think for people who aren't Indigenous, who find themselves connecting to some Indigenous piece of ceremony or culture tradition, to stop and ask yourself, what is it about that that is calling to me?
00:29:05.160Because it might be easy to think that that's the thing that is calling to you, when really what's calling to you is that absence inside of yourself and your own history that is maybe waiting for you to discover it.
00:29:17.300the the what did your ancestors do when that piece of them was missing what was the thing
00:29:22.780that made them feel whole and that's really where I think people need to find their answers
00:29:26.580and so like that journey itself is worth doing it's not just about finding the thing that fits
00:29:32.260in that spot um it's about going there and looking for it and and the person you become by doing that
00:29:37.640and so I I think that's that's what I would recommend and maybe other folks have a different
00:29:42.880approach to that I'd like to just do a bit of a hot pursuit because I I just can't help but think
00:29:51.860like I I've I come across this often um in community and in death work and particularly
00:29:59.480in death work and um you know I had a on my dad's side I have a cousin and her mom is um you know
00:30:08.880very Irish Scottish background. And, you know, her, her dad is my dad's brother, the European
00:30:15.860side of the mix. And, you know, she was really excited to, you know, invite me along to these
00:30:23.500different drum circles she had started participating in and different, you know,
00:30:27.960they were indigenous spaces meant for indigenous people. And she was really excited. And, you know,
00:30:35.900you could and she really talked about how her spirit connected in those spaces and you know
00:30:42.360I love my cousin very much and you know I went along and I checked it out and and it was a great
00:30:48.600space but you know it was also I could see things that she couldn't like nobody else except for the
00:30:55.340facilitators were indigenous and everybody in the circle had drums and different you know like
00:31:02.220moccasins and things like that and it was in the middle of the day during the week and i just
00:31:08.080you know i thought this was kind of strange because the people you know where are all the
00:31:13.180native people in this drum circle and um so i talked with her about that after that experience
00:31:19.200um you know just how like lack of access and you know a lot of people don't have these spiritual
00:31:26.120items unless they're part of a you know going to a something that's paid for by like a non-profit
00:31:33.220to bring in a drum maker and all these other things so there was you know like the access
00:31:38.160to resources like you mentioned but what I really asked her was you know look at your own history
00:31:44.440your own genealogy there's and I had so much success explaining Anishinaabeg people to you
00:31:52.500know a boardroom of bros and suits um you know like what does that mean what's anishinaabe and
00:31:59.320said well think of it as like you know being like irish or celtic or something like that like there
00:32:05.380were tribes there was there were hand drums there were you know we have this really base historical
00:32:11.420level as people where we felt safe around campfires and we we knew that we would survive
00:32:16.980and have sustenance so with that connection and that kinship so that's what I tell people go back
00:32:24.420to your own family tree you know and find where these connections are parallel for you and you
00:32:32.820know it's such a great word parallel because it's there and it's okay to come into a space saying
00:32:37.800this is who I am and this is what I carry and to find those those bits of what that resonate with
00:32:45.280you in other ways you know I've heard several elders say like they don't turn anybody away
00:32:51.900really if you're coming to the circle to join and it's with good intention and good heart you're
00:32:56.780going to be welcome but it's also to you know know your manners and you know make sure that
00:33:06.620you're not taking up space that maybe you shouldn't be and to also just take time to ask
00:33:12.240of questions. That's, that's a big piece. So yeah, just came to mind.
00:33:21.280Awesome. So this is GDC. I love, this is the type of questions that we get to
00:33:27.240talk about in this circle and in society at this point. What I would like to say is that
00:33:35.460when when you look at first nation people more so like within you know uh native american and
00:33:45.000canada and indigenous you need to go back and understand that a lot of these cultures
00:33:54.220were they the government or whomever was trying to erase them which is a little bit different than
00:34:03.140looking at other other situations you know what they literally were trying to I mean the long walk
00:34:12.160and the you know the trail of tears long walk of the Navajo the trail of tears it goes on and on0.98
00:34:18.940and on and on and on and on and so when you approach that culture understand that that is a
00:34:25.540very DNA memory that may run in the bloodline of that individual. And then you appreciate that
00:34:34.920and you honor and you respect and come with curiosity to learn. Appreciation, cultural
00:34:44.500appreciation is something very different than cultural appropriation. The appropriation is when
00:34:51.980an individual or a group of individuals goes into a culture and claims and annexes and takes away
00:35:00.320and represents that as though it was never that cultures in the first place. And that's the harm.
00:35:07.940You know, it's like going into somebody's kitchen and cooking and making food. And they're just kind
00:35:14.440of like sitting on the couch going, what the hell, you know, what are you doing? And so the best way
00:35:19.640that I like to explain this and this is an early on conversation for me and I'm still developing
00:35:26.100you know because I do have that pain and I understand the the anger that some people feel
00:35:31.620but at the other hand what I'm like if we just approach each other with respect understanding
00:35:40.200wanting to learn and then curiosity and let people know this is that tradition and they invited me to
00:35:50.100be a part of it that is totally cool you know that is totally cool and I love that parallel
00:35:57.480because I think that with just being First Nation Native American I look at it and I'm and I like
00:36:08.060the idea of what is it that you are seeking because if you go far back enough in anybody's
00:36:15.260culture on the face of this earth we all sat in circle we all shared as a tribe we all had the
00:36:22.780fire we all did and so maybe you're looking for tribe which let's create tribe then let's create
00:36:30.300these types of things and it's a little bit more difficult to being like half and half so to speak
00:36:38.040like because I have that's why I'm a bridge I'm like well you know let's go ahead part of me has
00:36:46.140to approach part of me to say am I appropriating I have to have those conversations inside of myself
00:36:53.300yes I have been called a half-breed yes I get it you know but at the end of the day we're starting
00:37:00.360to move into more societal things where there are a lot of mixed cultures coming together and I would
00:37:07.000also say that this is only this is beyond just like race this is also talking about how do you
00:37:15.880approach um the lgbtq plus community how do you approach somebody who is different than you well
00:37:24.080you do it out of respect and you understand where they're coming from and then they get
00:37:28.060approach you and we get to have these wonderful conversations
00:37:31.840this is such a great question i just want to thank dr robinson for um you know sending it in
00:37:41.440to help us start off the conversation and this is a question that my my dear friend and collaborator
00:37:47.280dr amr kandisa and i work on amr is a white settler sound artist and geographer in australia
00:37:54.480and um we've been working for the last few years thinking about you know how do you respectfully
00:38:00.560engage in a place that um you might not be from and obviously they're coming at it from a white
00:38:06.720settler perspective i'm coming at it as a metis person who's been living in lots of different
00:38:10.720indigenous people's homelands outside of my homeland and how you know how to work in ottawa
00:38:15.600in crystal's homelands unceded and unsurrendered homelands in ottawa um algonquin homelands and
00:38:21.920i've worked in uh the northwest territories with the new vialuit knowledge keepers on
00:38:26.240how they apply their laws to protect fish and water and like as an indigenous person you know
00:38:33.780when when an elder says you know I can share this with you but this other part I can't tell you it's
00:38:39.380not for you that's really natural to me right like I'm like yeah of course I totally understand that
00:38:45.500like there's things you can't tell me and I'm not going to press you on it because I respect your
00:38:49.320boundaries um and I think so what Amr is trying to do in their work is to sort of normalize that
00:38:56.920kind of approach for white people and sort of say like there are things that just aren't for you and
00:39:02.840it's okay that they're not for you for white people and um kind of so everything that everyone
00:39:08.220already already said I think really resonates with the work that we've been trying to do as well which
00:39:12.880is uh Amr approaches it through listening and what they call attunement and so listening really
00:39:18.880listening to where you are and and sort of like the one lesson they want to impart to settlers
00:39:23.340like white people who are descendants of those who actively colonized homelands through genocide
00:39:29.000um you know sort of that lesson of like knowing in your body when you have permission to do
00:39:36.160something and when you don't and even learning to listen to a place like if the place is telling
00:39:40.160you like I don't want you here maybe go to another part of the forest or and those kind of like just
00:39:45.860really encouraging because I think with at least how colonization unfolded in Canada which is the
00:39:53.080one place I can speak to with you know sort of knowledge I spent time living in the UK and what0.78
00:39:59.420really struck me about white British culture is that there's like this unfeelingness that runs0.88
00:40:04.820through a lot of like British or at least English society and they've done a great deal of harm both0.89
00:40:10.400within their sort of islands and then expanded that outward and and so you know they sent the
00:40:18.100wealthy British people historically sent their children away to boarding schools and then they
00:40:22.860recreated that uh everywhere that they went and with like far more sinister intent um when they
00:40:29.040were using it as a genocidal tool but that unfeelingness like I felt it in my body when I
00:40:33.760was studying in the UK and I just it was really upsetting to sort of realize like that how much
00:40:39.320they had shut down to kind of get through and maybe just avoid that reckoning with what's been
00:40:45.660done in their name. And so I hope this is making sense, but that's a separate conversation than
00:40:52.740the conversation that we try to have about listening and attunement with people from
00:40:57.000communities that have been violently displaced and dispossessed in other parts of the world
00:41:00.780by white colonizers. And so in that case, we're trying to open up space to sort of talk about
00:41:08.360like how do we make these Rebecca Louise Carter is this really brilliant anthropologist and she
00:41:14.980she works with women who've lost family in New Orleans and she has this concept of like Black
00:41:21.760women who've lost family in New Orleans and she has those concepts that she calls restorative
00:41:26.300kinship and I really love that concept I don't want to appropriate it from the context that
00:41:31.920she's writing in with like the community members she's co-thought that with but I like the kind
00:41:37.040of idea of like aspects of sort of honoring that concept of restorative kinship like how do we
00:41:42.880build relations with place and with with humans and more than humans that really takes into account
00:41:48.760our obligations to one another and is thoughtful and also reckons with like the histories of white
00:41:54.880supremacy acknowledges that there are many many communities that have been harmed and like what
00:42:00.840kind of futures do we want to build together and so like as everyone said like curiosity care
00:42:06.380listening you know um listening to your body what like what do you like as margaret said like what
00:42:12.240what are you missing and like what is this experience giving you and is there a way you
00:42:16.660can do that um with integrity that and i guess it's breaking down that idea of ownership that
00:42:22.720whiteness has um there's this really brilliant africana philosopher named lewis gordon i really
00:42:28.140like his work because he's very thoughtful and he talks about like whiteness as a form of narcissism
00:42:33.960and he has a new book coming out and there's just I just read quickly like a little bit of it and he
00:42:38.760describes whiteness as and paraphrasing him so I don't want to um misrepresent as far as he sort
00:42:44.440of talks about whiteness as like white whiteness is like the whiteness is like who comes to the
00:42:49.700party and sort of says like aren't you glad I'm here and and like being able to kind of you know
00:42:55.880just just unpack that and sort of say like well no we're not actually glad you're here you're not
00:43:00.880honoring us by taking this aspect of our culture in fact you're doing it in a way that doesn't
00:43:05.180respect boundaries and I guess it's really coming back to those like core emotions of like uh like
00:43:11.140are you feeling fear are you feeling you know and like being able to kind of like actually unpack
00:43:15.300that um I think that so many people put so much work into creating the space for us to be able
00:43:20.900to have those intimate and vulnerable conversations about who we are and who we're obligated to
00:43:25.440and so I just feel really excited because I think that we're in a time where I think it's more
00:43:32.800possible like like like people who've done that work to lay the groundwork have made it more
00:43:37.460possible for us to sort of say like no I don't really believe what you're saying like you you
00:43:43.080think you're doing this in an honorable way but it's not and it's you're not a bad person but you
00:43:48.640need to come into better relations and like being able to do that is really really important but it
00:43:54.460takes a lot of time and work and um yeah so exactly what all the people on the panel have
00:44:00.600already said like it's just it's a process uh and doing that with care just like how crystal
00:44:05.380described bringing your cousin in and unpacking that experience like that's just that's the total
00:44:10.560that yeah that's that's that's how to do it like just have these conversations um and and yeah
00:44:17.100anyways I'm gonna stop there but just everyone's just so brilliant I want to bring one other
00:44:24.920brilliant voice to the conversation who's not here right now but I recently spoke to an Ojibwe
00:44:29.880medicine person author Asha Frost and the vocabulary that she uses for the earth
00:44:37.620is the same that she uses for culture she uses the term extraction so I think
00:44:46.800we can work with the earth where it's a mutual aid or we can go in and we can you know pillage0.83
00:44:54.240the land and I think that that's exactly the same thing that happens with other cultures you know0.68
00:45:00.620in globally indigenous cultures so in the spirit of reciprocity let's have a reminder that this
00:45:07.240episode is a fundraiser let's make some reparations let's do some reciprocity and
00:45:13.220be mindful of our extraction techniques and thank you to the people who have already during the
00:45:24.080first 45 minutes of this live episode sent in your donation receipts i see them coming in
00:45:29.120our group email and it's really emotional and rad for real yeah thank you thank you now let's hear
00:45:38.580bit about that fundraiser so take your screenshot of your receipt email it to missingwitches at
00:45:44.500gmail.com with the subject line donation plus the amount of your donation lucky donors will win
00:45:49.840amazing prizes and everyone who donates will get a digital coupon book with discount codes from our
00:45:55.520favorite witchy businesses we'll run the fundraiser from today through the month of may winners will
00:46:00.800be drawn at random and announced on june 1st i want i want to pick up this idea zoe introduced
00:46:12.360um and we've spoken with um edgar fabian frius who's a indigenous thinker gender expansive
00:46:23.200spirit that we've been lucky to have on the podcast before and we'll share a conversation
00:46:29.420with him again next week, I believe. But they talk about Indigenous futures. So what is the
00:46:39.300future you want to see? What does it look like? Can you help us picture it? And can we help call
00:46:44.820it forth together? Are there pieces of it that connect to this idea of kinship with the more
00:46:51.040than human world? Are there pieces of it that we can find through this attunement, through listening
00:46:57.220in our bodies to where we're comfortable, where we feel joy, where we feel like we could be in
00:47:02.680better reciprocity? Would you think out loud about that with us?
00:47:10.440I suppose I can kick that one off. Great question. And it can go in so many different ways. But I
00:47:18.740think that especially coming off of the dialogue that we just had about, you know, appropriation
00:47:26.600and extraction and recognition and curiosity. I think that I would like to say that give everybody
00:47:36.140an exercise so that you can work with the natural world, wherever you are on the globe.
00:47:44.020And that would be very simple. I have quite a few different exercises, but I'll just choose a simple
00:47:50.760one. So breathe, go out into the natural world. It could be your backyard, a park, go to the beach,
00:48:00.040you know, the mountains, wherever you want, feel the weather, touch a tree and know that that tree
00:48:11.140knows that you are touching it. There is an intellect among all of the natural world. It's
00:48:19.080called animism everything has a soul everything has a consciousness go out there and realize that
00:48:25.620the bird that you just saw probably saw you first kind of sit there instead of feeling separate
00:48:34.900like you're watching a movie be the participant in that experience know that that squirrel saw you
00:48:43.440and yes he thinks you have a peanut and yes he's going to come up and check you out and then he's
00:48:48.960going to run away, you know, know that you are being viewed as much as you are viewing. You are
00:48:57.240being observed as much as you are observing. And I think that that is a beautiful way to help each
00:49:03.780of our bodies, human existence bodies, whether you are red body, white body, black body, whatever
00:49:11.940yellow body whatever you are you can go out there and know that the natural world you're a part of
00:49:19.380it you are a part of it so that's what I would say I would say let's start experiencing it we
00:49:27.260talk so intelligently about our confusion but let's do something go outside oh and one more
00:49:34.220go to that same place in the morning and observe maybe even write down what you're observing how
00:49:42.500it's observing you do the same thing at noon it's going to be a little different right do the same
00:49:49.920thing at night or in the evening it's going to be a little different and start connecting yourself
00:49:55.000with the realities of what's going on because reading a book is wonderful but taking action
00:50:03.340and feeling it, like Zoe was saying, feeling it within your body, that's where the phenomenon
00:50:08.920starts taking place, the phenomenon and the experience, and not thinking so much about
00:50:15.380is this experience right or wrong, just touch the tree, you know, and feel it, and know
00:50:22.980that it knows that you are touching it, and it is touching you back.
00:50:28.420I want to keep passing this question along but I also just want to pause to highlight
00:50:37.540we talk so intelligently about our confusion. I felt that one.
00:50:43.540Does anyone else want to pick up this idea of a possible future and how we get there
00:50:52.840together. I'll say some stuff. So I guess when I think about the future, I think about
00:51:01.200dismantling. So a lot of the work that I do, people ask about, oh, you know, how do we,
00:51:07.520how do we indigenize the academy? And I keep telling them, we don't do that yet. We,
00:51:13.360we have to decolonize before we indigenize. It's like shampoo, then conditioner.
00:51:19.200You have to wash out all the bad stuff and see what you've got left and then start building up again. And so I think about that sort of on the social level as well. You know, I think we need to dismantle toxic masculinity, acknowledge that toxic masculinity also damages the men that it resides within.
00:51:43.340And similarly, I think Zoe's point about trauma, we can look at what would a trauma-informed approach to dismantling social inequity look like by acknowledging that the people who are doing the colonizing are also heavily traumatized people.
00:52:00.700I'm not a historian, but I do notice when I look at where some of the people who were active in colonizing in what's currently Canada came from, their history had recently included traumatic colonial experiences of their own that they then replicate in new spaces.
00:52:19.100And so I think it's interesting when you start looking at some of those histories to ask what was the way that trauma maybe influenced their actions and their behaviors, to see what would have been different if they hadn't had that experience of children, of being separated from their parents at an early age and raised in an institution, for instance.
00:52:43.300or if they hadn't had the experience of being forced to speak a standardized form of their
00:52:48.500language instead of the language that was distinct to their region and so on. There are
00:52:54.180lots of experiences that were traumatic for groups that later became colonizers. And so
00:53:02.440I think to realize that this isn't, colonization isn't just the work of evil people doing evil
00:53:09.580things it's the work of damaged people replicating the damage that they experienced in new ways in
00:53:15.300ways that maybe reassured them that they were never going to be powerless again and so we have
00:53:20.680to think about how do we involve people whose ancestors did those things maybe very recently
00:53:26.780you know we sometimes talk about colonization as if it happened long ago but people of my generation
00:53:33.620went to residential school and many of them you know residential schools continued late until the
00:53:38.82090s, even in Canada. So those experiences of genocide are still very current for a lot of
00:53:46.380folks. And so how do you engage with people who don't know that history, but who are being shaped
00:53:54.220by it? And I think our cultures have been historically welcoming and encouraging of
00:54:00.900people to get to know us. But there's also a burden with that. You know, people have a lot
00:54:07.100of questions when they discover that big chunks of their history are missing. And just because
00:54:12.820someone has questions and they want to learn doesn't obligate the people they're asking to
00:54:17.620teach them. I know sometimes the burden of teaching and educating sometimes falls on people who are
00:54:24.220already heavily burdened and whose resources are already strapped. And so, you know, it's not up to
00:54:30.660people of color to educate us about racism. It's not up to indigenous people to educate everyone0.99
00:54:35.520about colonialism although we often do and it means that that energy can't go to other things
00:54:40.560and so i think there can be lessons to be learned from the spiritual traditions that we have
00:54:47.560inherited so i've for instance had difficulty knowing when to stop working and a indigenous
00:54:54.680friend was talking about protocols around medicine picking and how you don't pick all the medicine
00:55:00.000And so I started thinking about this in relation to my own energy levels, like stop picking all your medicine. You need to leave some to regenerate and to grow. And so I think there are a lot of parallels that we can draw on from the wisdom traditions that we have about how to do stuff in a good way.
00:55:19.240It doesn't mean we're never going to make mistakes, but I think it gives us a good hint as to how we can start undoing some of the mistakes that people have already made in the past.
00:55:30.000yeah go for it you guys can just unmute okay i'm gonna jump in if that's okay of course
00:55:38.460yeah no i just i love i love that embodied practice that you just shared um granddaughter
00:55:44.420crow and just like that uh invite invitation uh to people to really pay attention to where they are
00:55:50.780and um yeah and i think that yeah and then everything margaret just said like
00:55:57.200just really resonating with me around recognizing because I so I don't know that I would say I'm a
00:56:06.560witch I wouldn't say that I have like a practice that I follow that is necessarily in the traditions
00:56:11.820that that probably some of your listeners follow but I have been thinking of colonialism as a curse
00:56:17.560and that came out of living in Ottawa and Scotland and really thinking about forms of curses that
00:56:23.520have been enacted and I was trying to understand what I meant by curse and so I put it in words
00:56:29.020I said I feel like it's the intentional bending of light time and space to obscure things and that
00:56:35.100some of our work is to just dismantle like what I was saying dismantle that like like whatever
00:56:40.960power source or whatever is being used to obscure and bend light and time and space and and distort
00:56:46.380them and and restore them to more um integral and ethical and rooted sort of you know ways of
00:56:54.960existing and I don't know if that makes sense maybe it resonates with some folks maybe it doesn't
00:56:59.460but I was trying to think of like in Ottawa the land is so powerful and so beautiful and you get
00:57:04.240these like just you get this feeling of how amazing and I'm not Algonquin so I don't want
00:57:08.800to appropriate Algonquin practice but like just that feeling of like this is very powerful land
00:57:12.760And I think that's why, you know, I can see how, you know, settlers kind of wound up here
00:57:18.380and felt this draw to this place to kind of possess it and make it a seat of power.
00:57:24.420And I really felt like part of my job of being there wasn't so much being an academic, like
00:57:41.180and like where can I best you know put my energy and I really love that idea Margaret of like
00:57:47.500like we don't pick all the medicines why would like I am a workaholic like I really struggle
00:57:52.580with that boundary with work because I feel like I need to like there's so much to do we have to
00:57:56.820dismantle so much and I just need to do it all in this lifetime and so that's really a good
00:58:01.740reminder this morning too I'm it's morning over here sorry anyways I think that the future I
00:58:08.280vision is is one where we've been able to dismantle a lot of these curses like you said
00:58:13.420margaret like this dismantling them and diffusing them and restoring those distorted narratives and
00:58:20.540i really think of like the enlightenment and all like all the knowledge that came out of
00:58:24.360colonization and white supremacy like starting in 1441 with like the the the start of the
00:58:31.840enslavement of African peoples by the Portuguese and then the Spanish and other European colonizers
00:58:39.620or Tiffany King calls them conquistadors you know just sort of like the violence of it you know
00:58:45.160she says settler isn't powerful enough to describe that violence so she calls it conquistador
00:58:50.140humanism like it's just riddled with so many curses and they and they like they actively
00:58:56.800took knowledge from people all over the globe and then just kind of distorted it to say like
00:59:01.460no no we discovered basement like you didn't discover it like you had you had you know what
00:59:07.020they would have called native informants you know which is not a term that is respectful but is you
00:59:12.040know how they would have understood it uh who were showing them like where medicine plants were
00:59:16.620where to find water where to you know and I guess so the future I envision I hope is that we've been
00:59:22.860able to like break a lot of those curses and just sort of say here's how it really happened here's
00:59:28.540how here's how we can be in you know um we can be in relation to one another with integrity and
00:59:36.560um so again like Lewis Gordon talks about like ego and narcissism being a really big part of
00:59:41.920white supremacy and colonialism and I think that idea of damage that you brought up Margaret is
00:59:46.880really relevant to that as well that like uh I guess it's that idea of like there's healing to
00:59:54.740be done in many different contexts but the people who also reenacted their harm and and committed
01:00:02.720genocide they have to do that healing but it can't come at the expense of the people they hurt
01:00:06.920I guess and so like finding that way through it um is something I'm trying to understand like how
01:00:11.600do we so I sort of say like I think there's an impulse of white academics who kind of come into
01:00:16.880indigenous spaces and they'll be like oh I love that we're having a circle I can share everything
01:00:20.180want to share all the guilt I feel and what I want to say is I know that you're a tenured academic
01:00:24.680and you have very very good therapy coverage go take that to your therapist like that you know
01:00:31.420you know marginalized folks like those kind of sharing circles can be um like healing for folks0.93
01:00:38.680who don't have access to therapy but you have access to therapy and it's so inappropriate for
01:00:43.660you to come here with your white guilt you know and I have a white mom and an indigenous dad I try
01:00:47.960really hard to not be that person that's sort of like taking up space in indigenous context as an
01:00:53.420indigenous person it's like I am a tenured professor I have access to therapy I take that
01:00:57.280stuff to therapy I try to um and for me what I've been really trying to work on is um and I you know
01:01:04.100just to to really be able to um support that kind of uh work in in various spaces to sort of say
01:01:13.480like we're here to undo the curses together some of us have more resources to do that than others
01:01:20.040how do we redirect those resources so that more people have access to them so that's kind of the
01:01:25.380future i envision yeah i can see amy and i both do a full body nod and go to write down we're here
01:01:32.480to undo the curses together i totally love that uh let's apply curse language to colonialism i like
01:01:42.280it it's very very fitting um yeah i'm i just my you know there's been so much awesome this said0.99
01:01:51.200you know uh but i i really i really when i think about that uh futurism that those indigenous
01:01:58.320futurisms it is you know moving the the harmed the traumatized you know forward in a good way0.77
01:02:07.960and it is um you know dismantling and it's you know it's all of that and um
01:02:16.540and there I kind of wanted to go last just because I have
01:02:20.580kind of a jump off question for Margaret after um you've been warned
01:02:25.400but uh it's I really just see you know all the resources and all these generations that have1.00
01:02:35.780gone into dismantling Indigenous wellness, dismantling our families, dismantling our0.76
01:02:42.320communities. I want the same, I want to see the same investment for rebuilding and restoring and0.99
01:02:49.700reclaiming. I feel in a lot of ways that the time is right to, you know, in Canada, we have
01:02:59.520testing for our kids and are they on the right level and they get like in certain grades they're
01:03:07.200tested to make sure they're on par with you know the world and you know there's a lot of teaching
01:03:14.100for tests and a lot of you know ideas that we give our kids and really we just hope that they
01:03:21.920they're happy and they're well and they're safe and cared for but I think it's a really good time
01:03:26.180to move away from all of that with this you know pandemic and it's a really important time where we
01:03:32.180can really um appreciate that our survival skills our well-being our mental you know our holistic
01:03:40.820wellness it's the time to center that and you know we have uh you know as humanity we have
01:03:49.520what we need to do that work and I really think about that future of you know just it's got to
01:03:57.820be restorative um so for myself so much of this you know I kind of live to I aim for that futurism
01:04:07.260uh you know I took my kids out of school I homeschooled them all kinds of good stuff and
01:04:12.000one's an adult now and one's on her way but uh you know they're they're well and they're stable
01:04:18.740and they're safe and they have their needs met and that's really the point right but when I think
01:04:26.540about that future piece so much of it is centering that the connections the connections to plant life
01:04:37.620the connections you know just like GDC said you know about like that embodiment work of taking
01:04:43.620time to really understand your place on this planet because it's you know we're not the apex
01:04:48.780predator we're you know dependent on every every other you know form of living being so let's let's
01:04:56.680go back to that place that's what i would like to see is is um understanding the spirituality that
01:05:02.580that animism that exists in everything and um and for myself for so many years i looked
01:05:09.580to try and study my um you know indigenous spirituality and all i could find were okay
01:05:16.840but you have to study you know catholicism or or you know uh judaism and you know you can but you
01:05:24.380got to take some of the big three or something you know you got to take some of this pie if you
01:05:29.160want to have time for that so um so i'm just curious a bit uh margaret how how it's been for
01:05:35.520to to have that curiosity as the non-participant that you know thirst for learning and you know
01:05:42.180I feel like there's there's definitely going to be a space where you have this you know that
01:05:46.220indigenous spirituality that inherent way of knowing about certain things and certain connections
01:05:52.300that we have and the spirit and I'm just yeah I'm so curious of how it's been going studying
01:05:58.440religion because there's always this place where you get to when when I've been looking where0.96
01:06:04.020indigenous spirituality they say no that's religion and they want to stuff you into a box
01:06:08.800and say okay now you're you're talking about religious practice and you know it's just it's
01:06:16.480culture it's a way of living it's a way of looking so it doesn't really fit in a box so yeah I'm just
01:06:22.680curious how you know how that fits with you when you're when you've done so much kind of that
01:06:27.940academic work and then you talk to people they're like do you really want to learn it in school do
01:06:32.700want to learn in community and I'm like can I have both like so yeah kind of a wishy-washy question
01:06:41.540but if anything comes to mind yeah um like I had I went to uh my undergrad university
01:06:51.400wanting to be a writer so I took English uh but I had a bunch of other credits to fill so I started
01:06:57.500taking some other courses. And I just had a really great run of indigenous studies,
01:07:03.880religious studies teachers. And it got me interested primarily in why were some particularly
01:07:09.800Christian people so homophobic? And so I was kind of interested in it, maybe I would say now from
01:07:16.420like a sociological angle. And so, you know, I was reading the authoritarian personality and
01:07:21.340delving into Horkheimer and Adorno and trying to find out like what makes some people want to do
01:07:27.220what other people tell them, and trying to sort of figure out how does it function. And I think
01:07:32.920maybe in the back of my mind, I had this idea of like, well, if I can understand how it works,
01:07:36.700I could fix it and make homophobia never happen. You know, a nice, small, achievable goal like that.
01:07:44.900But I had an advisor, Maggie Abdul-Masih at St. Mary's. She just retired this year. And she said,
01:07:52.380well, when you're looking to go to grad school, if you take religious studies, you'll understand
01:07:56.140how other people, secular people, view religious people. But if you take theology, you'll understand
01:08:01.360how religious people view themselves. And so I did that. I took theology. And it was a great
01:08:06.960experience because it was exactly what she said. It was understanding how people see themselves,
01:08:12.700how they talk to each other, how they understand their own identity developing. And they've done
01:08:17.120a lot of work in it. They've been doing this a long time in that field, understanding how to
01:08:23.420make new christians um and my focus was on catholicism specifically um so looking at how
01:08:31.120does that um how does it function uh how do people adopt homophobic attitudes within it
01:08:36.820and what i noticed was it seemed to be about othering um that part of having the uh walls
01:08:43.120of your identity be firm was about defining who was outside those walls and uh so for instance
01:08:50.160I happened to notice that as Catholicism got less anti-Judaic, it got more homophobic.
01:08:56.760It was almost as if the other doesn't matter, like the who the other is, it could be anyone
01:09:02.820they slot in there. And so I started noticing similar patterns in other groups that the
01:09:07.980insider-outsider line was really key for a lot of cultures and their identity was really rooted in
01:09:14.320that. And I think as I came to understand my own Mi'kmaq culture more, I saw something different.
01:09:20.840I saw that it wasn't about the line between insider and outsider. It was more about your0.88
01:09:26.320place in a network, in a system, in the connections. And so I see it more as a difference of emphasis
01:09:33.320that I know you can categorize the world. I've seen places that do it and people who work on that.
01:09:40.280um but not everything and maybe nothing fully fits into the categories that it's in um there's
01:09:47.900always pieces of the story that have to get left out to make those categories work i see it with
01:09:53.100identity i see it with sexuality and so seeing the way that we're networked and the way that
01:09:59.020we're connected uh that's been really helpful for me because it helped me see the world through a
01:10:05.460different perspective um so yeah that's coming to it like approaching it from a position of wanting
01:10:13.280to support wellness to support health um i think it's like uh granddaughter crow is saying that
01:10:18.680when people are separated from their connection to nature um when they've only seen the box that
01:10:25.660they're in and they don't know what's beyond that um there's a big piece there that's missing
01:10:31.080that relationship it's not just a piece of identity that's gone it's a it's all those
01:10:36.580connections to the other beings in the world um and then i went to a vegan conference and
01:10:41.500saw a presentation about our own internal uh biosystem of small animals and bacteria
01:10:49.780and realized oh we're also an ecosystem so like there's really no end to it like you know even
01:10:55.240the boundaries of our own body are not fully ourselves uh so it's even as a secular person
01:11:01.940seeing this and saying i can see why people use religious language for it because there's
01:11:06.080something about it that is overwhelming and awesome
01:11:08.500so much yes to all of what margaret just said we definitely have people in our coven our community
01:11:18.660who explained to us that they began to identify with they them pronouns with exactly that same
01:11:24.600moment of realization that they are multiple that that boundary wasn't really real you know
01:11:30.140and that impacted not just their identity but their whole everything about who they are and
01:11:35.660how they interact um I did say I would open it up to questions uh which is hard because I have
01:11:41.8007,000 more of my own but also I will threaten and say um we will reach out to each of the members
01:11:49.200on this panel and uh humbly request more of your time we love to do like a one-on-one episode with
01:11:56.140each person if if you have more time for us at any point in the next year um we love to get to
01:12:02.420dig deeper into your work we would be really honored to have you and then I'll get to ask
01:12:06.300more of my 7 000 questions but for now um Kelly thank you so much for raising your hand and for
01:12:13.580being here go ahead thank you so much for this i'm i'm just my jaws on the floor this has been
01:12:21.920amazing and i too probably have about a million questions but um uh i'll say too i'm on unceded
01:12:29.060territory as a settler stock and um see my tiny contribution towards reconciliation or
01:12:40.340decolonization as being um addressing my my kin if if I can put it that way and what are some of
01:12:48.920the things that we're doing and maybe could be doing better um so I feel like this is kind of an
01:12:53.840an unachieved question you know there's maybe bigger things to talk about but I'd be curious
01:12:58.480to hear what you think I'll add to that a lot of my work is in is in death care and I see this was
01:13:06.200touched upon um part of that work is trying to help and i see it especially with in within white
01:13:13.660western culture is with this idea that not everything is for us there are limits to
01:13:18.620everything and that applies to climate change it applies to our own our own deaths and certainly
01:13:23.560it applies to appropriation so i'll give a specific example but um obviously it's about
01:13:30.800bigger things than this but i i'd love to hear what you think about smudging because especially
01:13:35.980within the witch community um i encounter this regularly and uh there'll be no indigenous people
01:13:45.420present you know from turtle island and there's a sense that uh there's just a sense of entitlement
01:13:51.980around this um for many of us seining is in our cultural backgrounds but what's happening here
01:13:58.780looks like nothing like a traditional seining practice would be and I'm just wondering what
01:14:06.640your thoughts are around this I tend to use it as a an opportunity to talk about the fact that again
01:14:12.160not everything is for us and maybe maybe some of what's asked of us is to leave this alone
01:14:20.380just as an act of solidarity but maybe that's a mistake maybe this is an opportunity for
01:14:26.660relationship building or for developing you know a kinship with the plants and um so yeah i would
01:14:32.480just i would love to hear what uh what some of the panelists think about this thank you
01:14:38.080well i i do know that for myself um it kind of comes back to that experience i had with my cousin
01:14:48.160you know look to your own culture um because we're you know we're not the only culture that
01:14:55.100uses smudging it's it's a widely you know held practice with different plant medicines
01:15:01.240I think it's really important to consider the access of the medicines like where did you get
01:15:08.500it from we know that white sage is being abused in their traditional territories and you know
01:15:18.840I feel like others can speak to this better um but uh it can be tricky I think for myself I prefer
01:15:27.980like I tell people like you know just go find yourself a Native person
01:15:31.880but you know if if that's not feasible then you know why do you want to do that and and is there
01:15:39.480a medicine that's that's accessible to you that you can do that with and in Algonquin territory
01:15:45.160we have uh clary sage or algonquin sage that grows everywhere um lots of out east actually
01:15:51.980i found out on a recent road trip too so um but yeah that's my two cents i'll i'll share them like
01:15:58.500awesome so granddaughter crow here i love the question because it is practical in nature
01:16:08.500and um i would say i definitely agree with what crystal had said about there are other things
01:16:17.100that you can burn and so then i also want to reflect on what margaret had said earlier
01:16:23.300about what is it that you are looking for when you are doing that act so if you are looking for
01:16:30.140cleansing there are so many other ways to do cleansing so kind of figure out what you want
01:16:37.460the act of burning is a very beautiful act because it's a transformational thing
01:16:44.920and I can see especially with people who work closely with death burning is a very
01:16:52.160wonderful thing but we can also burn incense we can burn candles we can burn I love cedar
01:17:01.460because I look at the plant itself. And for me, the juniper bush is not something that I want to
01:17:08.960go up and hug. So I see that it's very protective in nature. And so then I go, oh, I want to put
01:17:17.520protection around, you know, go outside, you know, sometimes I leave a coin or leave something when I
01:17:23.960take something and and then I and then I'll burn the cedar and so you know I don't want to get too
01:17:32.040hung up on personally because I get asked this question too personally you know listen to your
01:17:38.100spirit listen to your body look at the work that you're doing be aware that there are other things
01:17:43.020that you can burn and that burning things isn't necessarily it's the act of doing it and think
01:17:50.400about what is it and secondly the nose and the sense of smell is one of our biggest memory
01:17:59.900recallers so maybe you're really hooked on the sage because it draws up these memories of cleansing
01:18:08.420so then what I would say if you're like oh maybe I shouldn't burn as much sage I'm not telling you
01:18:15.100to burn sage or not that's up to you and your spirit and your awareness but I'm saying if you
01:18:19.980want to maybe burn less because of the shortages then go into meditation which is really easy put
01:18:27.840your little fingertips together inhale through the nose for a few counts hold it within the body
01:18:33.580and exhale through the mouth you do this for like three minutes you are from you know you're into
01:18:40.600an alpha state you're into this and then pull that energy but while you're doing this burn
01:18:46.260something else. Maybe it is a certain other scent so that you can start attaching what you are
01:18:55.400smelling and feeling with that scent. And then when you don't have time because you're running
01:19:01.040around and you need to get into that space really quickly for somebody, you just burn your little
01:19:06.140incense or burn, burn that candle or smell that lavender and the dram or whatever it is. So that's,
01:19:12.800that's what i would say i love everything everyone's already said and my my only thought is um
01:19:19.680i have some friends and colleagues laura ogden and nicholas rio and they've done stuff they've
01:19:24.560done work sorry on invasive plants in the great ways and one of and nick is uh anishinaabe and
01:19:31.280laura is a great scholar but they um they work with community members and uh the lesson that
01:19:37.280kind of came around invasive plants was that if they're here they have something to teach us0.94
01:19:42.240and so you know something that also I think is appropriate for white settlers to do is sort of0.56
01:19:46.840maybe look around and see like what invasive plants did colonizers bring here that are now
01:19:52.780sitting right there for you to do plant medicine where it was and so like I've fallen in love with
01:19:57.440the purple dead nettle in my yard I'm just totally taken by it it's just so beautiful and I it's
01:20:03.320obviously trying to tell me something and so in the spirit of that lesson that Laura and Nick have
01:20:08.340you know sort of shared through their work with community members I'm also trying to listen to
01:20:11.940like what do some of these so-called invasive species have to say and like obviously they're
01:20:17.420not invasive they didn't have a choice they were brought here you know they've made lives here and
01:20:22.740they do I really like that idea that they have something to tell us so um yeah so I've been now
01:20:29.320I'm paying attention to all of the sort of so-called weeds that I find and they all have1.00
01:20:34.000really powerful roles and so I think that's something very ethical for white settlers to0.95
01:20:38.940work with are the plants that that you co-transported maybe not on purpose but got here0.60
01:20:44.380anyway and there's abundance of them and maybe that can also help shift the balance between
01:20:53.480those plants and and the species that were here to help sort of affect you know address the fact
01:20:58.880that you know things like white sage and others have been so heavily impacted by colonial
01:21:04.360extraction and things like that anyway that's that's my thought but all of everything everyone said just
01:21:08.940makes so much sense this is the greatest podcast this is just like just to get to talk about like
01:21:13.880real practical embodied things it's such a nice like that's so nice so thank you
01:21:20.440the greatest podcast you guys you just made the greatest podcast
01:21:25.800um I feel like it's so empowering what you're suggesting in response to this question too right
01:21:33.980Like, if we are children of settler descendants, and we carry this wall of like, not being allowed to feel not being supposed to feel that kind of and then the sort of violence that happened in our families, our version of playing out that that colonialism, sometimes it can feel like you're not supposed to have a relationship with a plant or the earth at all.
01:21:59.420you know you're just supposed to buy and consume relationships your relationship with the world is
01:22:05.640you can you you use your labor and your body to buy things to keep capital spinning until you die
01:22:13.040and that's how you're allowed to interact with the world you know I think that's sort of as part of
01:22:18.300the colonial colonial settler body right so to be told like no you are allowed to have a relationship0.84
01:22:25.340with plants just don't fucking steal everybody else's relationship you're allowed to listen to
01:22:32.300your body you're allowed to to to smell a plant to to listen to it to hear it that's okay that's
01:22:39.100not stealing a culture you know just don't anyway it's really it's it's a really empowering shift
01:22:44.360that you're that you're offering in the response to that question and and in everything you've said
01:22:49.560here thank you so much um we have four minutes left i we try to be real strict about time with
01:22:58.700our guests so that we don't take more than we've asked for amy do you want to call it out call out
01:23:06.200the the gifts again one more time i do but first um once again i think like we have questions for
01:23:14.860first nations people but now we live in a time where first nations people are writing books
01:23:20.300like granddaughter crow and they are producing work that we can purchase so you know perhaps
01:23:29.100we can purchase some work before we go and ask people for their for their labor and their
01:23:36.120and their time and once again in that spirit um i want to remind everyone that this is a
01:23:42.840fundraiser but before i do my spiel i want to ask margaret and crystal and gdc and zoe can we just
01:23:50.080go around very quickly so you can tell our listeners where they can find you um if how
01:23:54.400they can support your current project and then we'll circle back to my speech margaret
01:24:00.340uh well i i don't have uh i don't have any sort of uh economic uh connection to folks but um
01:24:11.920Yeah, if you're looking to talk to me about culture and wellness, I work at Dalhousie University. You can find me there at mrobinson at dal.ca, D-A-L. And if you just Google Margaret Robinson, you'll probably find me.
01:24:26.120there are some other Margaret Robinsons who are also in academia. One of them is a well-known
01:24:31.680mathematician. But if you Google, like, if you add in Indigenous or Bisexual or Queer or Two-Spirit,
01:24:40.260that you'll find the one that's me. Before we wrap up, I just want to say on the smudging thing0.86
01:24:47.280to recognize that these traditions are still in process and still developing. So Wanda Whitebird,
01:24:53.680a Mi'kmaq elder who does work with people living with HIV in order to do smudging in hospitals0.99
01:25:00.060where you couldn't burn stuff, developed a way to do a wet smudge. And so there are new types of0.92
01:25:06.400this kind of activity developing all the time. And so it's not just a thing frozen in time,
01:25:12.860it's a live culture. And I love the way that challenges like that bring out new creative
01:25:20.320uh inspiration in people thank you granddaughter crow what's the title of your latest book
01:25:26.880okay so um i spoke about wisdom of the natural world um which is we did a podcast on that which
01:25:36.680is um episode 100 you can get that amazon wherever you get your books it's produced by call out to
01:25:43.820Llewellyn Worldwide my publisher and my next book is coming out actually June 8th and it is called
01:25:52.920Belief Being and Beyond so when Margaret was talking about the comparative religions and
01:25:57.480Crystal posed that question and Zoe's talking about these things I'm like oh this book is about
01:26:04.860bringing all of our similarities together and we are probably going to Missing Witches I'll be on
01:26:11.820their podcast I think in June or something like that to be able to talk about this so look for
01:26:17.860that and otherwise google granddaughter crow and all that stuff is mine because that's just a weird
01:26:26.580ass name right most people go oh I'm an elder call me grandmother and I'm like oh if it wasn't for my
01:26:32.480grandfather and spirit I wouldn't be here so I'm granddaughter and it keeps my ego right-sized
01:26:38.400um www.granddaughtercrow.com thank you listeners for doing this and thank you
01:26:45.120missing witches for doing this and i hope we raise a lot of money for more awareness
01:26:49.720crystal oh um instagram at crystal underscore dawn with an e uh also at blackbird medicines
01:27:05.920um got the website too blackbirdmedicines.ca and we're on facebook here there everywhere
01:27:14.080um we're working on an indigenous death doula training program uh if you're not indigenous
01:27:19.880please don't ask me to take this course um that's how you can support me so thank you so much
01:27:26.140it's such an honor to be here and i'm gonna this is gonna just rock my rest of my spring so thank
01:27:33.000you and of course all of these links will be in the show notes for the this episode so everybody
01:27:39.600you can head to our website dr zoe todd um just deep gratitude to everyone uh and and thank you
01:27:50.360to missing witches for hosting us and this was just i just feel so good after this like just
01:27:55.800everyone on the panel was so brilliant um you can find me online uh you can go to instagram i'm
01:28:02.600Dr. Fish Philosopher Todd I think or Dr. Fish Philosopher over there and there there's like a
01:28:08.920link tree and it'll take you to my various different platforms and I work with the Institute
01:28:13.780for Freshwater Fish Futures which is just kind of our cheeky little collaborative way of building
01:28:19.680beyond the university and so we have a website freshwaterfishfutures.ca and that's where you can
01:28:26.360find some of my collaborations with all the amazing people I work with yeah and I make art so there's
01:28:31.960links to my art on the instagram um as well so just yeah uh thank you this was just so great
01:28:38.340and i have some books to go buy now too
01:28:41.280thank you all so much again you know support all of our panelists work and if they don't have
01:28:50.760anything for purchase then you can support their work by enacting their vision of our utopian
01:28:56.880society. And if you have anything left in your pocket to spare, once again, we always end these
01:29:05.140by closing the ritual that we've opened. And I hope that all of you who are listening will close
01:29:11.500the ritual with a ritual sacrifice. And that's what we're asking you to do today, to make a ritual
01:29:17.140sacrifice today. Please help our collective future by making a small reparation to First Nations
01:29:25.120women who have been systematically marginalized and disenfranchised both socially and economically
01:29:33.300let's offer our money with humility and then bask in pride as we witness what we can do when we work
01:29:42.220together and I do want to add we're here to undo the curses together this event this episode this
01:29:51.440panel is a fundraiser. For the third year running, Risa and I will be contributing our Patreon
01:29:57.660profits for the month of May to the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal. Last year, we invited our
01:30:03.100listeners to join us, and together our coven returned almost $3,000 to our local Indigenous
01:30:09.400communities. So again, we're asking you, our listeners, those of you here today, our Missing
01:30:16.260witch's covenmates all over the world to make a reparation. We know that most of you are listening
01:30:22.840from outside Canada, so wherever you are, we encourage you to find a local Native women's
01:30:27.800shelter or Indigenous NGO to support. Some places don't have First Nations specific orgs, so we'll
01:30:35.860also accept donations to shelters for vulnerable women and children, sex workers, or victims of
01:30:42.580violence, or Planned Parenthood, but we would really appreciate a focus on support of Indigenous
01:30:50.060women or Indigenous people. We've got a couple grand worth of prizes donated by our Covenant
01:30:56.120Large. Jewelry, art, altarpieces, books, shout out to our publishing house, North Atlantic Books,
01:31:02.840a handmade custom sweater and readings of all kinds, Ancestry, Astrology, Tarot, Akashic Records,
01:31:09.960just waiting to be yours. So here's what you're going to do. Make your donation of $10 or more
01:31:16.560to the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal or your local Indigenous People's Support Organization.
01:31:22.660Take a screenshot of your receipt and email it to missingwitches at gmail.com with the subject line
01:31:29.980donation plus the amount of your donation. The amount is important because for every $10 you'll
01:31:36.460get one entry into the raffle for these prizes that I'm about to list. So if you donate $20,
01:31:42.040you'll be entered twice. For $50, you'll get five entries and so on. If everyone listening right now
01:31:46.800donates locally, together we can make an impact globally. Anyone who donates $100 or more will
01:31:54.900be additionally entered in a separate draw to win a personal gratitude Zoom chat for Therese and
01:32:00.560myself. Plus, every single person who makes a donation of $10 or more, that's every single
01:32:07.620person who makes a donation of $10 or more, will automatically receive a digital coupon book that
01:32:14.220we put together with discount codes to some of our most beloved witchy businesses, including House
01:32:19.720Witch, Snake Hair Press, The Death Witch, Unearthed Minerals, all this info and more details, plus
01:32:28.440a list of ideas for places to donate in canada will be on our website and our socials and for
01:32:35.120those of you who are here live that link is live now so you can go to our website and check that
01:32:39.640out but maybe wait until after this conversation is over so make your donation and if you like
01:32:48.820tell us about who you're supporting and why last year we highlight a bunch of these organizations
01:32:54.840in our stories and it was wonderful to be able to share who everyone else is also supporting
01:33:00.040with our following so take your screenshot of your receipt email it to missingwitches at gmail.com
01:33:06.960with the subject line donation plus the amount of your donation lucky donors will win amazing prizes
01:33:12.680and everyone who donates will get a digital coupon book with discount codes from our favorite witchy
01:33:17.840businesses we'll run the fundraiser from today through the month of may winners will be drawn
01:33:22.920at random and announced on June 1st. Just to give our Raffle Prize donors a bit of heat, we have
01:33:28.660Amy Owen, who's going to do an astrology reading and a painting of the chart. GDC, who's here today,
01:33:34.220is going to give us a reading plus a copy of your upcoming new book, which we're so excited to talk
01:33:40.080about. North Atlantic Books is giving us three copies of Banana Leaves. We wanted Jessica to be
01:33:45.100here today but she's booked so instead we're gonna spread her book around um unearthed minerals is
01:33:53.560giving us a broom necklace angela aka heart wise woman is doing a bone throw reading melissa is
01:34:00.560doing an akashic records reading jessica from dear woman is doing a tarot reading sammy has given us
01:34:06.300a necklace set kate baloo a custom personalized poem james from a quiet practice has hand woven
01:34:12.320an altar cloth for this fundraiser uh venus and retro tarot reading sherry that hoodoo lady
01:34:19.500an ancestor production connection plus a copy of her book and moth and magic is doing a handmade
01:34:26.240custom granny square cardigan that i want so badly that i wish i could enter and win all of0.95
01:34:34.560these prizes and bless a fucking bee and bless a fucking bee thanks everybody thanks everybody0.94