Finding My Sea Legs

 

I have been finding my sea legs this year, not just for the storms and high waves but also for the impermanence of the waters of life.  My ancestors were island people, surrounded by water and accustomed to tides. Being surrounded by water made them vulnerable to invasions and for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years their story was one of being pawns in the grand chess game that the nobility of Europe played.  Eventually, my ancestors took to the seas and created a huge navy to protect themselves and then to invade countries all over the world and re-create their own experience in the bodies of other people.  They came to Turtle Island and devastated the land with the greed of extraction that decimated and imprisoned those peoples who were Indigenous to these territories. 

My parents came to Canada from England in the 1950’s by sea and I was born here a little later.  They brought some stories on the journey but didn’t pack most of them in the large trunks that they brought to their new home.  Stories of family members who brought shame on the family were kept secret until they could no longer remain submerged and then they were passed to me. 

Over the past two years I have been learning more about my ancestors and the lives they lived.  I have learned about the home town of my parents, grandparents and 5 great-grandparents, Oldham, Lancashire.  I have learned that my great great-grandparents were drawn to this town to find work in the cotton mills that sprung up like dandelions during the Industrial Revolution.  The land around Oldham is hilly and not suited to agriculture while full of coal that was extracted to drive the steam engines of the mills.  The weather is damp which is good for keeping the fluff of cotton mills less airborne.  The cotton came from America.  We now know that for part of the time, it was grown and picked by slaves to keep it cheap.  My ancestors who worked 12 hour days in the mills 6 days a week were paid by how much they produced and lived in quickly thus poorly constructed housing erected for the influx of workers.  Not slaves and yet not free either.  A few men got exceedingly rich. Most lived hard, short lives.

Thomas Hubl who has pioneered work in healing ancestral and collective trauma describes the past as something that is frozen.  The traumas that my ancestors couldn’t cope with were pushed down into the unconscious where we couldn’t see them.  However, they still effected how we saw and see life like a filter that we see life through.  Discovering Hubl’s work this year has been very transformative for me.  He describes healing as the liquefication of these frozen traumas.  Once they are liquefied, we can begin to digest the now conscious information and eventually integrate it.  This seems like good work for me to do at this point in my life.  This seems like essential work to be doing for our world.  Frozen, unconscious traumas effect everything we do and make it impossible to create healthy change.  One can see traumas being repeated and perpetrated everyday on the news and in our personal lives.

As the traumas become liquefied, the ground, like melting permafrost heaves and sinks.  We are not who we thought we were.  I am not who I thought I was.  Personality traits suddenly transform into ancestral responses to trauma with long histories behind them.  The undigested traumas of our ancestors live within us.  But, of equally importance, the resiliency of our ancestors lives within us.  With this resiliency, perhaps it is possible to liquefy, digest and integrate these traumas.  This is not easy to do on one’s own.  Hubl feels it is in fact the work of groups that consciously witness and support each other in healing.  He feels that the energy field created by so many people (the “we-space”) is the fuel to allow for the healing of these ancestral and collective traumas.

This work excites me and I am learning more about it.  I am experimenting with doing it myself and with groups on-line that Hubl’s Pocket Project  hosts.  I am reflecting on how this work could impact the work of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.  I can see how non-Indigenous people here have a lot of work to do to heal these ancestral traumas that drove people from around the world to these shores and airports.  This is part of the truth work and I believe it is necessary so that we can impress upon our governments that it is not okay to maintain systems and laws that oppress Indigenous people.  But, if we still believe unconsciously that we are about to be invaded, that there is not enough to go around, that we are fragile victims, then we will easily accept governments keeping Indigenous people living with no potable water, with substandard housing, education and health care.  It will look as though there is no solution because we are looking through the unconscious filter of being invaded and imprisoned ourselves. 

Liquefying these traumas can feel like rough seas where the horizon is hidden.  We don’t know what will happen if we melt the solid ground of trauma.  What sea monster may arise?  Who will we be if we do this?  Perhaps we will become good ancestors if we do this.  Perhaps, we will be the ones who bring healing to our ancestors and to the futures of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  We have to summon up our courage and all the love we can muster to do this work.  We have to find our sea legs.

Gifts for the Earth

 

This is the time of gift giving.  I imagine that gifts were given once upon a time to build and strengthen relationships between people and groups of people, between people and animals, water and the land.  However, capitalism and its inevitable child, the consumer society has managed to make gift giving a stressful and sometimes wasteful exercise.  Many businesses rely on Christmas giving to stay afloat.  Black Friday, in which these businesses get out of the red of debt into the black of profit is a notable example of this.  Giving Tuesday which follows on its heels is another day to give gifts to people and causes who need donations.  And then there are the Boxing Day sales.  It can all feel a bit much.

One email that was asking for donations came from the group O.N.E. (Organization of Nature Evolutionaries).  The author of the email wrote about the importance of reciprocity in any relationship.  We all know what it’s like to give time, attention, help and perhaps gifts to someone who never seems grateful.  For a relationship to flourish, reciprocity is essential.  Indigenous worldviews stress that point in relationship to the land.  O.N.E. agrees that reciprocity with the land who gives us everything we need to live is crucial.  They provided a list of ways to reciprocate this generosity to the land, to Earth.  Here is their list.  See if any of these ideas spark your imagination.

“the ways of giving back are as plentiful and unique as each of us — like 

·      singing,

·      Earth art,

·      rights of Nature,

·      land stewardship,

·      Nature gratitude ceremonies and offerings,

·      forest walks,

·      fostering relationship between children and Nature,

·      composting,

·      eating local,

·      caring for our water,

·      herbalism,

·      ecological design,

·      knowing our rivers,

·      creating sanctuaries,

·      being part of regenerative heart-based economy,

·      reusing,

·      honoring our food,

·       listening and speaking to Earth and her creatures,

·      being in co-creative relationship with our landscapes,

·      stopping to smell the flowers,

·      loving mycelium,

·      renewable energy,

·      healing the web of relationships within our human family, \

·      and all the many other creative ways, often inspired by the Earth herself, that we know to give back and honor her.”

Perhaps as an antidote to the consumerism of Christmas, you can pick some of these ideas of reciprocity and give gifts to Earth, our mother. Perhaps, you can do it with friends and family. I guarantee that Earth will appreciate it.

 

 

Rerooting Ourselves in Connection

 

I am currently reading ReRoot: the nature of change through the system of trees by Māori author Louise Marra.  In the introduction, Marra writes, “Disconnected people and systems will always create more disconnect… Often fueled by superiority, survival energy, fear, and trauma, we have found ourselves in a world that is orientated around humans being separate entities and not an intrinsic part of the natural systems we need to live in. (p xiv)

I was pondering this idea at a recent rally to protect green spaces in our province.  I am part of an Indigenous drum circle that includes non-Indigenous people like myself.  We were asked by the local Field Naturalist club to come to the rally to drum.  Members of our group already drum every Friday (April to October) at the end of a road to a gravel pit.  The gravel pit is using the purest water in the world to wash gravel for roads, draining this pristine aquifer at an alarming rate.  We drummers, drum for the water and to bring awareness of this to passing motorists.  So, we are used to being outside drumming to protect the water and land.

Louise Marra

Marra goes on to write, “Separation itself is one of the primary traumas we all face.  We cannot be well as individuals within an unwell world.  Trauma isolates, and when isolated as humanity from the web of life and from each other, it means trauma leads the way, leads the solutions, unconsciously.  We then stay on trauma highways and our solutions are from this unhealthy place.  We need our connected selves to lead the solutions, but many lack the confidence, skills, and even the belief that it is possible.” (p. xiv)

As we spent time at the rally, I thought about how the government’s idea to build lots of houses on protected green spaces was an idea that came from disconnection.  There are lots of spaces in the city for housing.  However, speculators have bought up some of the protected land and want to turn a quick profit and they seem to have the premier’s ear.  The trauma of seeing land as money is one that comes from disconnection from the land and from future generations.

We drummers stood in an arc facing the people with the megaphone and signs.  We drummed between speakers and when asked to lead the procession down the main road, we did so, singing and drumming all the way.  Once we returned to the square, one of the protesters took a long green ribbon and began to wrap it around us in a way that gently formed us into a circle.  She said that she wanted us to wrap ourselves around the Greenbelt the way she was wrapping us in ribbon.  I noticed that the energy in that space changed once we were in a circle in which everyone could see each other, in which there was no hierarchy.  Speakers spoke from within the circle as the ribbon connected us.  I could sense that solutions that came from within that connected space would be different than those that came from the premier’s hierarchical power structure.

People who were already connected to the land connected to each other, listened to each other and were uplifted by each other.  This felt very hopeful to me.  It was more than symbolic.  Our bodies are our first access point to nature.  We are nature, not in nature.  As we positioned our bodies in relation to each other, in a connected circle, we changed our embodied presence there.  It was like we got off the trauma highway for a moment as we connected to each other and to the web of life.  This gave me hope that we can gain the skills and the belief that this is possible.

I choose to see the disconnected solutions of the government as offering us the opportunity to connect with each other and with the land to co-create new solutions.  People are figuring out how to stand up for what they believe in.  They are figuring out how to connect with each other to protect what they love. These are skills we need to hone to deal with the challenges ahead of us.

There is so much more to reflect on in this fascinating book.  I will return with more stories of Rerooting.

Louise Marra (2022) Reroot: the nature of change through the system of trees. Empower Press: Colarado Springs, CO.

The Only Gesture that Makes Sense

 

On the days when no one

Seems to want what we have to offer,

When no one seems to value

The multiplicity of our gifts gathered

Over many, many years

We go to the forest where live

Chickadees so bold and so brave

That they will land on our open hands

And select sunflower seeds to their liking.

 

There is a bench that we sit on,

Yes, it has come to this, I think,

We who are a certain age are

sitting on a bench feeding birds.

We pour sunflower seeds into our

Wide open hands, and wait.

One by one the chickadees alight

And take a seed to eat or to cache.

Some are impossibly light,

Others squeeze their tiny claws

Into the soft base of my thumb.

There are those that are particular

About which seed to take and still

Others that take two, three maybe four at once.

I begin to recognize them by their weight

And stature and gentleness and forcefulness.

I am enchanted and enthralled by their

Presence, my presencing their presence

 

And I wonder to myself,

Who is feeding who?

 

As an older, as an elder with wisdom to share

Gifts to give, spaces to open and hold

And encouragement to offer

All with the background sound of a clock ticking

This simple act of offering seeds becomes

A ceremony, a symbol, more than a metaphor

Of hands held open offering what we have

To share with a world that speeds by

Knowing that time is running out.

 

And yet, I hold my hands open

And offer nevertheless.

It is the only gesture that makes sense anymore.

The Strength of Fragility

 

On Tuesday, I held my sleeping grandson in my arms for two hours.  He fell asleep in my arms and at ten months of age, he wakes easily if he is put down.  I was in a comfy chair with nothing to do but hold him as he slept.  What an amazing thing, I thought, to be holding another grandson, to be holding another baby.  I didn’t know that that would happen.  He is a precious gift.

Every now and then he startled, opened his eyes, closed them again and fell back to sleep.  I dozed off for a few moments myself, there in the quiet house that he shares with his mom and dad who were both at work.  I could see how those startles would wake him up if he was in a crib but every time he startled, I held him tight and he drifted off again.

As a baby, I was left alone in a crib to cry myself to sleep, according to the advice of Dr. Spock whom my mother as a first time mom, listened to.  My father would play the piano to drown out my cries.  Although I don’t have memories from this time in my life, I do know that my body remembers what it feels like to be alone and upset and have no one come.  Self-soothing means learning how to take care of yourself in the absence of caregivers. 

As a mom myself, I could never leave my kids to cry themselves to sleep.  It was too distressing for me and it didn’t make sense.  Dr. Gabor Mate now  writes eloquently on this very topic saying that disturbing the mother-child bond is stressful for both.  He is not an advocate for leaving babies to cry themselves to sleep either.

And so, as a second time grandmother, I luxuriate in holding my grandson while he sleeps.  I know he will learn to sleep well on his own in time just as my children did.  I want to be present for this time in his life and provide comfort as he gets used to his mom going back to school and not being there all the time.  I want to be a loving substitute while he adjusts.

Every now and then, I stopped breathing myself to watch his tiny chest go up and down just as I did with my own children.  Yes, he is still breathing.  I used to do that with my own babies.  What is it about babies that brings us face to face with the fragility of life I pondered.

The day before, on Monday, I had visited my 95 year-old father in the nursing home where he lives.  I play classical music for him from my iPod into the microphone of the amplification headset that I carefully place over his ears.  He is very still and only speaks occasionally.  Every now and then, I watch his large chest going up and down as he breaths.  Yes, he is still breathing.  I am aware that every breath could be the last one.  I am aware of the fragility of life.

I recently caught COVID after two and a half years of avoiding that.  I didn’t get very sick.  In fact, it was more like a mild cold.  But, I didn’t know what to expect.  I am in the over 65 demographic and although I am generally healthy, I didn’t know how this variant would play out.  My partner caught it first, so I had days of waiting to get sick.  I shopped, baked muffins, got out my medicinal plants and made tea for my partner.  And I slept, a lot.  I felt tired and listened to my body.  I allowed myself to sleep like a baby.  When I was just resting, I listened to talking books from the same iPod that I use for my dad.  My partner slept a lot because he had a fever and was much sicker than anything that I eventually experienced.  I was kind of alone, but the voices of the narrators kept me company.  I can’t say that it was a near death experience.  Instead, it felt like a “fear death” experience.  I came in touch with the fragility of my own life. 

And then, I was well again.  After a few weeks, I could visit my dad again and take care of my grandson.  On this side of the COVID portal life feels more precious.  Colours seem brighter and now that my sense of smell is returning, smells are more exciting.  Understanding the fragility of life could lead to more fear and anxiety and it can also lead to more joy, appreciation and gratitude.

And so, I spent two hours holding my precious grandson as he slept, just as I did with my children and just as I wished I had been held.  Perhaps in so doing, I am in fact holding myself, healing myself.  Perhaps, I am changing the story of self-soothing, of taking care of oneself alone to one of connection and holding one another. 

The Healing Power of the Co-creative Circle

 

During the first lock downs of COVID, our tiny village on the shores of Georgian Bay filled with city dwellers seeking respite.  Their respite became our “invasion” and so we sought the solace of a nearby County forest out in the country. This forest was planted one hundred years ago to replace the trees that were all cut down by the early settlers to the region in the late 1800’s, trees that were planted to stop the soil from blowing away.  The forest became our welcoming refuge, our delight, our community and we forged relationships there.

In the winter of the second year of COVID, the loggers came and cut down dying Ash, mature Poplars and Maples.  They hauled out the logs they could sell and left behind huge piles of broken branches and tree stumps.  Our hearts broke looking at the mess that was left behind.  But, we had a strong relationship with the forest and couldn’t abandon it.  It was painful.  Then the downed branches began to whisper to me and form patterns in my imagination that led to the weaving of a big basket, there on the land, using the Ash sticks.  Next came a carving of a face in a left-behind Poplar log.  My partner and I co-created with the forest and our spirits came alive.

During the next month, the unmarked graves of 215 children were located on the grounds of a now closed Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC.  This touched hearts that until now had remained closed, opened eyes that hadn’t yet seen and triggered ancestral traumas for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. More pain.  We made a tribute to the children in the forest and people added prayer ties, special objects and Indigenous and non-Indigenous people held ceremony there together.  It became a spot for discussion, for honouring, for storytelling, for healing.

During the next month, the LDD moth caterpillars ate the remaining canopy and it felt apocalyptic.  The remaining trees were now bare.  My partner made brightly painted mythical, magical birds from pieces of wood found in the forest and mounted them on the tree stumps adding funny names.  People shared the pictures on social media and families came to see the art work that was “popping” up in the forest.  They felt comforted by the forest and the artwork.

The "Lesser Tidbit", one of the magical, mythical birds created from found wood and paint

During the third summer of COVID, we spent our time creating a circular community garden with an Indigenous advisor to bring the community in our village together.  During one of our events there, a neighbour who is a former township councillor asked us to take part in a National Healing Forest initiative to provide spaces for Truth and Reconciliation work to be done all across Canada.  And so, we began the journey with a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to create a space at the County level for this work.  We decided to suggest the forest we had already been working in even though we never had permission to create the art there. It felt scary to share this with the people that we had judged as “destructive.”  It turned out that the director of the forest was fine with it once we took him on a walk there with the other people in the working group. He said that it was clearly already a healing forest. Our fears of the County destroying the art were needless it seemed.  And now we continue to work with the group to create a learning circle, better access to the river for Elders and improved parking.  A whole new vision is being co-created for the possibilities of activities and ceremonies that could take place in this healing space.  More relationships are being forged. 

National Healing Forest logo (https://www.nationalhealingforests.com/)

In fact, my partner went to the forest on the day that the crew were creating a new parking space.  Members of the crew asked him to show them the art work and explain it.  And so, he did.  He said that they stood in a circle, listened carefully to what he had to say and asked a few questions.  This seemed like a kind of a miracle to me.  The circle had opened wide enough to include the people that we had seen as “the bad guys.”  And here they were, using their “tools of destruction” to create the parking space requested by the Native Women’s Association as we work together.

The new parking area for the Healing Forest

I never could have imagined all the beauty that could be co-created at the beginning of all of this time of disruption.  I have learned though, that when things fall apart, to pick up the pieces that I want to keep and make something new, something beautiful, something form the heart.  I have learned about the magic of co-creativity and the power of the circle, the power of community.  I could have recounted all the losses as only negative.  But, that wouldn’t be telling the truth.  The truth I have come to learn is that within a co-creative community circle, healing is possible.

Retrieving Pearls from the Mud

 

The bright October sun and relatively warm weather called us out onto the water for the last time of the year.  We had been waiting for a good day to take our twenty-foot freighter canoe from the dock on Duck Bay where she floated all spring and summer to a boat launch on the North River.  After some repairs, the canoe will rest under tarps on the boat trailer in the back of the yard for the rest of the fall and winter. 

Our trip from the dock, under the Highway 400 bridge and through Matchedash Bay let us experience the wind that was coming from the Northeast.  I wrapped my sweater and scarf around myself and put on a pair of thin gloves.  The sun warmed one side of my body while the wind cooled the other.  Once we entered the mouth of the North River, we were more protected from the wind by the thick wall of cattails that lined both banks.  The air was very clear and fresh as we made our way upstream.

Eventually, we came to the Lawson Line bridge which runs alongside the boat launch.  There was already a small motorboat beside the launch.  It’s bow line was held by an eleven-year-old boy.  We slowly beached the canoe beside the motorboat and I hopped out onto the shore with our bowline in my hand.  My partner took off the fuel line and let the motor run dry for the winter.

As the last splutters of the motor died out, I noticed a pick-up truck with a boat trailer backing up beside me.  An elderly man got out of the truck and greeted us.  We were beached between his truck and his boat.  He took the bowline from his grandson and pushed his boat out, trying to get it around our canoe which we dragged onto shore a little bit more.  But the wind that we had noticed on our trip was still fairly strong and it blew the man’s boat away from the truck.  He became frustrated and told us that we could get our boat out before him. 

My partner pushed our boat back into the river while I held the bowline and the boat immediately floated downstream and came to rest parallel to the riverbank.  My partner backed our car and boat trailer into the water but the boat was now perpendicular to the trailer.  I handed the bowline to my partner and went to the riverbank to push our boat out. 

With the first step I took onto what I thought was a solid riverbank, I sank into silty mud up to my mid calf.  The second step resulted in the same scenario.  When I tried to pick up my right leg, I discovered that my plastic Croc sandal was stuck in the mud.  I stepped out of the shoe into more mud and then reached down into the sucking mud to pull my sandal out.  The mud smelled swampy and it got onto the sleeve of my sweater.  I repeated this manoeuvre with my left foot and then plodded, barefoot to the hard shore.  Walking gingerly over to the gravelled boat launch, I washed the thick mud from my sandals, hands, arms and feet.

While this was happening, the two men had worked together to pull our canoe onto the boat trailer.  Newly washed and shod, I walked into the water on the gravelled (I can see why that had been put there) launch and pushed the boat into its final resting place.  My partner drove the car and trailer into the parking lot and then returned to help the man put his boat on the trailer as well.  It turned out that both men had just turned 70 and they bonded over their common age and the help they both needed with the boats. Once I got home, I used soap and water to wash the lingering swampy smell from my hands, feet, sandals and sweater.  No harm done.

During this past week, I’ve have been watching a Healing Collective Trauma Summit on-line that has been moderated by Thomas Hubl.  I have been listening to the various speakers talk about personal, collective and ancestral trauma and have been trying to apply this learning to the work that I am doing.  Hubl speaks about how trauma is frozen in the permafrost of our cultures and that as such it cannot be informed or healed.  It just gets played out over and over again.  It is not until we can liquefy this permafrost that the trauma can be informed, that it can rise into our consciousness, be learned from, digested and integrated.  Hubl refers to pearls of learning that can be found in that permafrost.

As I listened to Hubl speak, it occurred to me that my experience of sinking into the silted mud and getting stuck may hold such pearls.  This is not the first time that I have sunk in the mud at this boat launch.  Twice before, I stepped off of the launch into a water filled ditch and sank into deep mud.  I had been wearing flip flops those time and I actually snapped off the strap as I tried to extricate my feet, breaking the shoe.  This time, I had “sensibly” worn Crocs and had stepped in a different area.  I slipped my foot out of my shoe this time and retrieved it with my hand.  I had learned something from my past experience.  What learning was available to me this time?

The North River winds through farmland on its way to the Great Lakes.  Run off from the fields takes soil into the water and this builds up on the sides and bottom of the river, hence the soft sucking mud.  As my feet sunk down into this mud, I was travelling backwards in time, visiting soil from past floods, spring run-offs and heavy rains.  I was travelling through the last two hundred years or so of farming in this area and the erosion of ploughed fields.  This land was cared for by the Anishinaabeg for thousands of years until the European settlers forcibly removed them.  Settler culture of owning, tilling, farming land is not “set in stone” on this land.  It is a sucking kind of mud that pulls you in and it is not easy to extricate oneself from this culture or even imagine something different.  I had to step out of my shoes and let my feet touch the earth.  I could pull my bare feet out of the mud fairly easily but not my shoe.  For that, I had to reach down with my hand, wiggle it and pry it from it’s mucky trap.  The domesticated part of me, my shoe, had to be intentionally pried out.  Once I put the mud filled shoe into the river water, it all washed clean and I could use it to walk easily on the gravel of the boat launch. 

Thomas Hubl talks about liquefying the permafrost so that change can happen.  Pulling my shoe out with my hand and then washing off the swampy mud, allowed a new use of the shoe.  Trying to pull the shoe out with my foot in it, would not have worked.  I had to try something different.

My belief, that the two men needed my help to put the boats on the trailers was false.  My belief that the river bank was solid was also false.  I had to feel the sucking sensation as I tried to pull my foot out with the shoe to learn that the shoe was well and truly stuck.  I had learned earlier that stubbornly pulling on the shoe wouldn’t work.  I tried something different and got out of the mud, out of the false beliefs. 

In fact, it was probably very good for the grandson to see his grandfather and another man problem solve together and help each other despite the strong wind.  That was probably a good lesson for the boy.  I had my own lesson.

When I sink into the mud, the permafrost of our culture that says nothing ever changes, when I feel stuck, I will remember the feeling of being stuck in the riverbank mud on that sunny October day.  I will pause and imagine how I can liquefy the situation, how I can pull it apart, take my feet out of my shoes so to speak, disconnect from a cultural pattern.  I may have to put my hands into the mud, to feel it, smell it, as I search for the pearl.  I may have to get my hands dirty.  And I will pull up the pearls of learning from that melting mud and integrate them into my knowing.  As I work at my own personal healing which is linked to that of my ancestors and the collective healing that I am a part of, I will remember the beautiful smell of the soap as I washed the stinky swampmud from my feet.  I will remember this as the smell of healing.

  

The Healing Power of Wild Grapes

 

The Wild Grapes have been whispering to us.  “It is time.  It is time.”  We’ve been watching their transformation since the grape vines flowered in the spring.  This year, there seemed to be a lot of grape flowers on the side of the walking trail that we frequent.  Soon, we noticed large clusters of small green orbs appearing as if by magic.  We watched them grow larger and larger throughout the summer.  When they began to blush pink, then pinkish purplish blue, we paid close attention.  Soon, they were dark blue but still hard to the touch.  Last week we noticed that they were soft and flavourful when tasted. “It is time to pick us,” they whispered.

I spent last Saturday in an Indigenous Culture Competency workshop with a local Indigenous teacher, Kelly Brownbill.  She provided an excellent foundation for us to later “build a house of knowledge on,” as she put it.  Some of the information was new for me and some of it strengthened what I had already learned from other authors and teachers. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about ancestral traumas and how my ancestors brought the worldview of scarcity to Turtle Island.  Instead of seeing the abundance as a cure for this scarcity, they moved into greed which resulted in the death of 80% of the people Indigenous to these territories, the extirpation of some species of birds and animals and the deforestation of thousands of acres of land.  Kelly explained the worldview of the Europeans coming to Turtle Island in which the monarch was the supreme ruler and the aristocracy took way more than their fair share of resources.  Despite the warnings about greed in the Christian teachings, greed was the sign of success.  This is still true today in Western non-Indigenous culture.  And so, scarcity hoping for abundance turned into greed and destruction in the face of actual abundance.  This seems to me, to be an ancestral trauma in need of healing.

This morning, in the gentle fall rain, my partner and I renewed our relationship with the Wild Grapes that grow beside the dock where we tie up our canoes.  We asked their permission to pick and they were happy to say yes.  We gave them an offering in reciprocity and then we begin to break the clusters off of the vines.  There were a lot of them and they hung in beautiful clusters.  I felt the ancestral desire to get as many as I could rise up in me.  I didn’t name it greed but that is exactly what it was.  I was picking quickly, as if there was someone approaching who would take them if I wasn’t fast enough.  But, we were alone.  There was no actual threat. Wild Grapes are a treat for us, not my main food source.  We give most of the jelly we make to our friends and neighbours.  There is absolutely no need for greed.  I became conscious of this ancestral trauma rising up in need of healing.  

 I don’t exactly know how to do this healing. It seems to be a relatively new idea for non-Indigenous people who see themselves as the perpetrators of trauma, not realizing where it comes from to think about healing the trauma they carry. And so, I am finding my way, making this up as I go along, co-creating healing experiences with nature.  I took some deep breaths and stopped picking.  An idea came to me.  What if I thank each cluster for their gift as I break them off of the vine.  So, that’s what I did.  My body changed.  I slowed down.  Efficiency became null and void.  Presence, gratitude and appreciation were what was important.  We picked only what we could reach from our feet and left lots of grapes up high for the birds who do need these grapes for their food.  There were enough for all of us.

Dr. Gabor Mate talks about holding compassionate space for healing and he does that beautifully for his patients.  And so, I held a compassionate space for myself as I became conscious of the impulse for taking as much as I could arose in me.  I didn’t beat myself up.  I simply noticed it and felt the fear of scarcity that was underneath it.  What we love softens and as I held a compassionate space for myself, the fear diminished as did the greed that arose out of it.  Instead of being driven by unconscious trauma, I became conscious of it and could then choose to slow down, calm down and feel gratitude.  My body slowed down, calmed down and softened.  I could be present in the actual moment instead of being driven by an ancestral past.

Perhaps healing ancestral trauma is a series of healing events.  Perhaps some of these are done on a personal level and some are done at a collective level.  I do believe that as we get better at this, it is possible for a shift in “society” to take place.  As an older woman, I have the freedom of time and space to experiment with this, to reflect on my experience and to listen to the whispers of the Wild Grapes.  It’s what I feel called to do.  It’s where I want to share my gifts just as the Grapes share theirs. 

 

The Transformation of the Humble Potato

 

It all started in the late winter of 2022, on a visioning zoom call for the brand new community garden.  We were brainstorming what vegetable we would like to grow.   “Let’s plant potatoes,” suggested Ronald Muwonge.  Originally from Uganda, Ronald works in food services and has a You Tube channel called “Cooking with Ronald”.  He is also an avid gardener and I imagined him putting potato cooking recipes onto his You Tube channel.

The cedar potato box with the word potato in Luganda (Bumonde), Anishinaabemowin (Opin), French (Patat) and Michif (Patak) reflecting some of the languages spoken in our region.

Another member of the community got into the spirit of potatoes and built a cedar potato box to grow them in.  We researched how to grow potatoes in a box and what nutrients might be needed for such an endeavour.  We learned that potatoes like lots of potassium for good root growth.  An easy source of this is dried banana peels that are ground up.  We saved all our banana peels for a few weeks, dried them in the greenhouse and buzzed them in the coffee bean grinder.  We also learned that potatoes like slightly acidic soil and that pine needles are a good source to lower the pH.  We collected this “pine straw” from the local forest and added it to the soil at the bottom of the box which had holes cut in it for drainage.

On planting day, we added the banana peel dust to the top of the soil and Ronald planted the seed red potatoes into holes in the soil, leaving the “eyes” looking up to the sky.  Some of the children in the community helped him to water them.   You can see the planting on this beautiful You Tube video that Ronald made about the celebration at the 29:45 mark  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmwgSlZuDk

As the potatoes sprouted and the stems and leaves grew higher, we added soil to encourage lateral root growth and thus more potatoes.  We added more pine straw as well and watered.  Eventually the plants made it to the top of the box and we stopped adding soil.  The stems and leaves kept on going up another two feet.  Eventually they flowered with beautiful purple and yellow flowers that had a very sweet fragrance.  Most us the people that visited the garden had never seen potato flowers up close before and they stopped to well, smell the potatoes.  These flowers turned into seed pods which look just like green cherry tomatoes except, potato seed pods are toxic.  So, we quietly picked them all off so that no child would make an unfortunate error.

The beautiful potato flower that has a very sweet smell

Towards the end of August, some of the plants began to wilt.  We knew that we could get small “new potatoes” from the box at this point but we decided to wait a while longer.  In the middle of September, we had a Harvest Celebration including the big potato reveal.  At first, we had some trouble enticing the kids to come and dig for potatoes.  But once, they started to reveal the pinkish red spuds, the excitement mounted.  Some of the children had been watering the potatoes all summer while others were new to the garden.  They used yogurt containers as scoops and carefully removed the soil to discover potato treasures.

The children reach into the potato box

Each one was carefully pulled out and handed to another community member to be put on a wire screen.  The excitement grew and loud shouts of “Whoaaaa” were heard with each new find. It was wonderful to see children with their hands in the earth, finding food.  Hopefully that will be a memory that stays with them. Eventually we reached the bottom of the box and looked at the beautiful harvest.

The final potato harvest

Three potatoes were put in each brown paper lunch bag to be taken home by the Harvest celebration participants – including the soil that still clung to them.  There were enough potatoes for everyone to take some home.  As we were packing up at the end of the celebration, I was told that there was one more potato left in the box and that I should come and see it.  There, inside the box was one of the five year old boys who had helped to plant the potatoes in May.  He was curled up and was vibrating slightly as he pretended to be the last potato to be found.

Sadly, Ronald and his family had to move away from Waubauahene at the end of June.  However, we sent him email updates about the garden and he is planning to make a third video this fall.  And so, it only seemed fitting to mail him three potatoes for himself, his wife Vanessa and their son Liam.  We are all still connected.

What started as an idea on zoom blossomed and transformed as we worked together.  In a small way, we got to take part in an activity that our ancestors knew only too well. The potato which originated in Peru, has travelled the world.  And the world has travelled to Canada. This richness of ancestry was represented in the potato harvesters at our celebration as we came together to renew our relationship with the soil, the rain and the sun that resulted in food that will sustain us and with each other.  I will never look at a potato in the same way that I used to after this.  For me, potatoes have now become a sacred symbol of community and the healing that is possible when we renew and nurture relationships.

A tiny tree frog who itself transformed from egg to tadpole to frog, surveys the empty potato box.