Reconciling Humanity on Skyward TV and Hopeful Radio

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Hello, I’m Eleanor Hayward here today on Skyward TV.

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Really thrilled to be sharing information about spirituality and mental health on the

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path of truth and reconciliation at the path of decolonization.

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So if you’re interested in personal and planetary wellness, you’re in the right space today.

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A brief land acknowledgement.

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As a settler descendant, I am acknowledging the past and current stewards of this land,

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the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat-Huron and Haudenosaunee peoples.

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As we gather today on these treaty lands, I am in the Burlington area today.

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We have the responsibility to honor and respect all of the wonderful elements of creation

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that exist.

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We’re subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to care and peaceably

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share this region around the Great Lakes.

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It’s an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy, the Anishinaabe Ojibwe

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and allied nations and the relationships here around the Great Lakes.

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And may our organization live up to this agreement with reverence towards truth and reconciliation.

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And we acknowledge and thank the Mississauga’s of the Credit First Nation for sharing your

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territory with us.

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And today personally, I am very grateful for the bountiful harvest.

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Having some fresh nectarines and tomatoes and corn from southern Ontario has been a

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blessing.

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It was a beautiful day yesterday and sharing space with the pollinators and the birds.

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Very grateful for the connections that this land waters provide us.

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And so grateful today to welcome Jody Harbour.

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She is a co-founder of Grandmother’s Voice, identifying as an urban Indigenous woman from

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Oakville for over 30 years.

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The grandmothers say that great change is coming.

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And for those who have been sleeping, it’s time to awaken the medicines within.

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We need to become more conscious as a collective of our surroundings, each other and how we

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move forward in harmony.

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These are some of the qualities of Grandmother’s Voice’s vision and all are welcome to get

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involved.

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Welcome, Jody.

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You’re on mute.

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We would love to welcome you and share with us some of your personal and professional

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background as to why spirituality and mental health are important to you.

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Ooh, hey.

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Nice to see you, Eleanor.

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Sister friend, not just an acquaintance.

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We’ve been building relationships for several years and you continue to show up and, you

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know, with a full open heart and I love this.

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I had some medicine going here.

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So, you know, you were just acknowledging all the things you’re grateful for and the

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land acknowledgement and you know, for sharing your words and, you know, your essence that

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shows up through how you, you know, started to acknowledge truly from your heart.

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We see it.

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I see it and I acknowledge it and I acknowledge this space and place and platform that you’re

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providing for people to come together in this time of healing.

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And so I had my medicine going, some sage and tobacco, sweet grass and some cedar sitting

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with me.

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And then as I started to acknowledge you, it started, you know, smoking more.

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And so, you know, I really felt like I needed to, you know, share this much and just really

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for myself to be able to sit with you and speak my truth in these words.

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I don’t, you know, I always try to plan, like, you know, give me a heads up.

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What are we talking about?

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But you know, when we’re talking about this kind of information, speaking from your heart

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and connection, there’s really no way to prepare because, you know, I know I’m here to share

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with you my story and just, you know, why and how.

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You know, just as a woman really wanting to know more and more connection, I just, you

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know, didn’t realize how much my Indigenous bloodline, intergenerational trauma, intergenerational,

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just everything that I carried from that I didn’t even have, you know, the consciousness

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of.

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I didn’t know that I was even living with this connection.

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I always knew I was Indigenous growing up.

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My great grandmother was of the Cayuga Nation, from my dad’s side.

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And he’s, you know, my dad was gone actually, it’s been 30 years this year.

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And him and his mom and my great grandma, his grandma all died of, I used to just say

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suicide, but I think it’s more colonial and societal suicide.

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You know, not being welcome, not having a place in society, you know, from the, I guess

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the plague of alcoholism, the plague of genocide, the plague of raping and pillaging land.

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Like this is the truth.

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And I had no idea.

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I just, you know, in my mind, I remembered the time I spent with my father growing up

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when, you know, we were shunned from restaurants and I didn’t even really think of it.

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As an urban Indigenous woman, I went through life and he passed away and my mother was,

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you know, is such an amazing woman, has always, you know, said to us that, you know, she never

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understood his illness or never understood his pain.

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But what she did was she always told us how proud he was to be an Indigenous and Indian,

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but, and always instilled in us to be proud that we were Indigenous.

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So, or proud Indian, don’t ever let anyone take that from you.

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And so one day I feel like I woke up when I was in pain, you know, like just chugging

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through life like probably everyone else surviving, because I think that was the time that we’ve

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been in for the last, you know, centuries.

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We’re just surviving.

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Come people, you know, visitors were coming and people were trying to find a new life

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and a better world.

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And then we woke up, you know, in the last 10 years, however many it’s been from, you

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know, truth and reconciliation.

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It was long before then, you know, our ancestors knew that we were being colonized and our

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ancestors knew before that that we were going to be colonized.

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And so when I look at, you know, spaces like this where we get to speak about, you know,

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my who I am, what I know for sure, like I’m an expert in my own, my own life.

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And I will never, you know, I will never say that I’m, you know, an elder or have knowledge.

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I have my own, you know, that can teach other people.

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I believe that my being from my life experiences will teach other people by me just being who

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I am and sharing, you know, times like this.

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So thank you so much for my heart to yours.

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And, you know, everyone behind you that is making this opportunity happen to be able

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to share that, you know, we’re in a time that we can acknowledge our connection to our ancestors

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and and that’s that’s pretty much what happened to me in a time of pain and struggle and wanting

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balance in my life.

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And, you know, I found myself on the land, you know, praying to the earth, sitting under

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a tree and crying and asking for, you know, clarity, asking for strength, saying, you

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know, I surrender.

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Tell me, show me how to be a good woman, how to be a good mom, how to just show up in

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society so that I can add to the society in a good way.

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And that’s what I did.

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You know, I asked the sun, I had no idea in that moment that I was doing what my ancestors

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wanted me to do.

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And when I asked and promised myself in that moment, connected to the ground and the air

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and, you know, the elements and the animals around me that I said, I will watch, I promise

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I will watch, I promise I’ll pay attention, I promise I’ll listen.

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Just tell me how to do this in a good way.

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And you know, it started to happen.

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Things just started to happen.

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You know, phone numbers came out, fell out, people, you know, the people that I would

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bump into or interact with in life, they showed up with a purpose or meaning.

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They showed up with, you know, something to teach me.

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They weren’t just, you know, somebody walking past me.

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Yeah.

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So I’m here to just talk about that.

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And I’m honored.

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Those connections, connections to the air, the trees, the lands, your ancestors, like

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we’re all connected there.

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And I think that’s why I’m passionate.

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I first heard about the residential schools, I think it was 2013 when there was a presentation

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at the Halton Regional Building and it was just a fry pan to the face to me that I’d

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never heard of this before.

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And I believe there was a hunger strike by an elder woman in Ottawa as well at the time

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and just trying to get the attention of people.

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It’s been more in the news, I think more in people’s consciousness since the 215, I believe

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was the number and it’s grown exponentially since the, when the children were found in

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the burial sites near the residential school sites, which were really institutional colonial

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structures, a partnership between church and state.

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And I understand that colonization is very much an institutional structural policy driven

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issue of extraction and exploitation of resources and people.

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And that there’s, you know, you use the word genocide and I think it’s really important

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to acknowledge these big words because we’re here to talk about spirituality and mental

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health and I think that’s really important, but that’s the goal of truth and reconciliation

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is you have to tell the truth first before we can reconcile.

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And how do we shift the mindset?

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How do we shift the values of what’s normal in this culture and what we take for granted?

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Because I think that this really presses upon people and how they think and how they feel

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and how they behave.

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And like when I hear that you said that you weren’t welcome in restaurants, that that

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just breaks my heart.

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And I want to learn more about what colonization and decolonization mean to you with this overarching

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theme of Skyward TV and the spirituality and mental health.

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Can you, can you speak to that please, Jody?

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It’s a big loaded question.

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I’m like, what?

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It’s a lot, but it is, it’s the reality.

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And I think, you know, first I want to say it like, again, go back to, you know, who

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I am and, and, you know, what right do I have to sit on this platform with you?

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Right.

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So anyone else could be sitting here.

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I just want to say that, that there are so many other people that have a story like mine.

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You know, I don’t, I don’t look Indigenous enough.

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I’m not Indigenous enough.

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I wasn’t raised on a res.

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I wasn’t, but what I know is my truth is that I’m connected.

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I’m connected to spirit.

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I’m connected to self.

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I’m connected to people that land.

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And you know, when I look at, you know, what our society is today, I, I don’t, I’m not

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afraid, you know, I, I feel like I’m, I feel like there is hope, you know, there is, there’s

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change coming.

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I see my children are very different than how I, like how I was growing up.

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And I think that is a part of the colonization.

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Obviously, you know, we, we are, even though they ha they have a lot of other, you know,

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straight up issues, I think that they, they’re, they’re seeing it right.

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And you talk about a fry pan.

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I think every day these kids get fry pans, you know, from social media and what’s happening

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out there and not right.

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Our political system is going to, you know, like everything is in chaos right now in a

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sense that they’re like, you know, and so we talk about mental health, which is to me,

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you know, more mind, right?

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Because we use that word mental and automatically it’s gone.

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It takes you to a negative, you know, way of thinking.

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So you know, just, just knowing that where, where we are today and where I’m at, I had

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to, yeah, I’m one of those people that my mind goes everywhere, right?

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You probably tell even with my conversation, right?

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It’s just, I have so much to say, but I really had at some point had to really choose what

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is my purpose?

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What is, what is my purpose with Grandmother’s Voice?

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What is, you know, what is my purpose right now and role in society and where I show up

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is, is to just be like, I don’t, I don’t even know where to start with colonization.

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All I know is it, it messed up the people.

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It messed up the minds of the people.

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It disconnected them from their spirit.

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And you know, everything that I say here is, is shared knowledge.

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I acknowledge all of the elders that I support right now and work with that I’ve, you know,

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when I was in, in out somewhere and an event or I saw online, someone shared something

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in words that that resonated with my, my spirit, my soul, my mind.

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And so when I repeat it, I acknowledge everyone that I’ve been with in my past because I,

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like I, as I’m speaking, I’m, I’m hearing and seeing, you know, those elders and people

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that have shared these words with me as well.

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So, but I know that we are in a time of, of great healing.

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And you know, when they say education, you know, is what got us into this mess.

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And you know, Murray Sinclair mentioned that, right?

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Like, and, and we just all about automatically took that on and we’re like, education needs

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to get us out of this.

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And, and what does that mean?

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And so we’re just like a society that’s all caught up and, and you know, what is said

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in language.

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And I really believe that we’re in a time that the language is going to come from our

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spirit and it’s going to come in whatever form that resonates with you.

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And we know as people, some of us, you know, have more gifts than others in creative ways.

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And so for me, colonization is what you choose, you know, and to that resonates with you to

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look at, because we can’t do it all.

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We can’t look at it all from all of these different angles of, of what it means.

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And there’s so much out there, you know, but, but what I do know is, is the colonization

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of this country was to, to control.

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And how do you do that?

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It’s what has changed the minds of the people and through systems, the systems of oppression

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that are, have been created through colonization, government, education, all of these, these

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systems that they control from the money, right?

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Is, is what is, has changed the minds of the people.

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And we don’t even know it.

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A lot of people, when we say we’re just waking up, I think that’s what people are realizing

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that the, the cut this, you know, country, we call it was in Turtle Island, North America,

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the world, right?

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Has was created off of capitalism control and, and we just were surviving, but now we’re

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awake.

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And so we have to choose what part of colonization we want to make a difference in.

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Because I think we can get crazy with what, where do we go first?

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What do we do?

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And, you know, self care, from what I know from with my, you know, from just understanding

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indigenous ways of knowing now and indigenous life ways is when you take care of self and

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you understand who you are, what you need to do to make yourself well is when you know

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you’ll have impact in society in a good way.

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And then you can choose, you know, where you’re, you’re, you know, want to go to change column

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to decolonize.

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But until you decolonize yourself, which is right through mental health, like mental health,

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mind, body, you know, spirit, wellness, you’ll never know your true self.

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You can say you do, but you never will until you really focus on self.

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That’s, and that’s just me.

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That’s where I was.

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And I, I let, I was, when I woke up and stood on the land and asked for that clarity, I

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didn’t, I knew I was Indigenous, but I didn’t go the Indigenous route.

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I was, I went, I did yoga.

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I did, you know, I went to, you know, church in my earlier world.

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You know, I did, I did other things.

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I read a lot of different authors from different areas of the world.

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And then all of a sudden it was this like, you asked, here you go.

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Here’s your Indigenous knowledge.

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Here’s your Indigenous roots.

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And so now you’ve asked, it’s going to be very clear.

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Your path will be very clear.

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And so, you know, I committed, I committed to the good, the bad, the ugly.

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And that’s what balance, that’s what to me, life is about is finding that balance.

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How do you manage the good, knowing that the bad could be around the corner and knowing

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that, you know, the good will show up again.

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And I like to think that, you know, realizing and understanding the, the world, the Western

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world and what it did to my family before me, my responsibility is to undo that.

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And decolonize that through my wellness.

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So beautiful.

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So powerful.

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Jody, I hear you.

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Ah, what a layered textured conversation.

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I think like two words are coming forward to continue that there’s connection and then

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there’s trauma.

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And I think trauma leads to disconnection.

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So how do we reconnect?

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And we talked about overthinking like this mental health aspect.

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Personally speaking, spirit showed me because I was on that same path.

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And I had one point I was like gasping for air and had a crying fit that was stimulated

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by a color.

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It was something so simple.

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A lime green color.

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It was a chakra.

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But I realized that I was an over thinker.

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Like I’d had some insight into how even like drama, like there’s a lot of addictions that

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when we’re disconnected and we have trauma, we cope.

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And overthinking is a common coping mechanism when we’re feeling disconnected.

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And I realized I was holding my breath when I’m overthinking.

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So breathing.

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I invite our audience to breathe.

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Because I think this can be a lot of heavy information and that’s number one self care.

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And I’ve learned that breath really does connect us mentally, emotionally, spiritually and

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physically.

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And to help us come out of our head and back into our body, an embodiment process.

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And part of embodying is recognizing that we’re connected to everything.

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And I think colonization really has disconnected us.

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Like you said, it disconnected us from the land.

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It disconnected us from each other.

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I was grateful to do a blanket ceremony at McMaster University several years ago with

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Grandmother Renee, who I since realized is one of your co-founding partners of Grandmother’s

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Voice, which is based in Milton.

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And if our audience, if you haven’t done a blanket exercise, highly recommended that

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you seek out.

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It’s not, I wouldn’t say it’s standardized by any mean, but I think it’s a pretty common

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exercise to see the effects of colonization and how everybody was separated.

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And this plays out that we feel separate from each other.

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Like how often loneliness, loneliness is like part of the mental health crisis as well that

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leads to addiction, that leads to suicide, as you mentioned.

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And so sorry to hear about your father.

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And how oppression has influenced your family.

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And I’m so grateful for you for having the courage.

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I imagine that some of the answers that you received from ancestors, received from spirits

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and from the elements was your clear path was that Grandmother’s Voice?

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Was that part of the answer that you received?

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Actually, I realized that, well, my grandmother, it was my grandmother’s voice is Grandmother’s

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Voice.

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And the messages that I began to hear and the spirit that began to show up for me to

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support me was my grandmother, my great grandmother.

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And Grandmother Renee Thomas Hill, our great grandmothers are sisters actually.

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So yeah, surprise.

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And I met her and Gail Whitlow when part of my journey was to do my genealogy.

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And I received all of my genealogy from my uncle.

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He’s my only living uncle, like family from my dad’s side.

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And he had created and put together this genealogy book that showed the census forms.

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And so yeah, that’s how I met Renee at Gail’s place Ancestral Voices on Six Nations.

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And so it was, I had been doing this work, this healing work for my 20, it was probably

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about 12 years before I met them and had my children.

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And then it was this hard shift one day, stop what you’re doing.

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It’s time to do this work.

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And that’s when I met them and realized that they were doing this work.

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Grandmothers, Indigenous grandmothers have been preserving, and there’s been many more

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elders but these grandmas were traveling internationally to pray for world peace.

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And it was, it’s not a secret.

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Everyone knew that these women were doing this.

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It was just a really loud, it’s time.

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And so we did, we started to travel together and they started to share knowledge with me.

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And it was, this is, there’s grandmother circles all over the world and communities.

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And now, and through this work we did together, that clearer message was it’s time, it’s going

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to be time very soon.

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And so I felt like grandmother’s voice through the pandemic, we elevated, we just went live

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on Facebook.

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I never, I had no idea this is what I would do.

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You know, oh, the grandma said we need to reach people.

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How do we do that?

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And this was like three weeks, two weeks into the pandemic.

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And I was like, I think we can go lives on Facebook and they want to hear from you and

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they need to hear from you.

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So yeah, that’s kind of, you know, that’s where we went.

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And I think now where we are is we’ve realized that colonization also stopped community building.

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Even though the organizations and communities have all of these different organizations

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to build community, we as the people are having a hard time building community.

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We’re building like little silos of competitive sports and things that are taking us really

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away from the culture and the culture of being together, of community.

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And so I really believe that this is a time for the Indigenous life ways to raise the

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people, bring us together again, you know, and just, and that’s if that’s what I can

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do as one person is do what I do.

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I have no fear in bringing to people together.

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You know, there’s always residue when it comes to, you know, being ostracized or talked about

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or, you know, people challenge what you’re doing in your community.

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And that residue is painful and it brings back trauma.

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And it’s a lot of times not even my own trauma.

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You know, being an empath and someone who can, you know, recognize other people’s energy,

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there’s just times when our spirit is, you know, sometimes I’m not as strong as I want

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to be at certain times in this work.

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And so that’s what community is for, is to hold each other up and to stand with each

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other when we see someone else is doing really good work and maybe isn’t feeling supported.

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In the time it’s when people, you know, can see this and that’s why you build community

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so that you can support each other.

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And that’s why it’s important for self-care.

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Because if you are not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of others.

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And this is our purpose in the world, supposed to be.

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That’s why we come here, to learn how to live in this physical world and know that, you

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know, self-care is important.

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Self-care is important.

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Community care is important.

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So would you say that competition is a colonial mindset?

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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Yeah, of course.

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You know, of course.

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I mean, I’m not, I can’t speak to the teachings, you know, of like lacrosse or those, you know,

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creators games that, you know, there’s, of course there’s competition, but it’s good

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in a good way.

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Right.

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And anyway, I have so much I could say right now just about, you know, my son’s, you know,

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triple A in competitive sports, you know, through his lifetime.

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But this is a reality in the world.

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This is, and not just sports, life.

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Yes.

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Business.

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Why have somebody in a store that has, you know, has more than you or abundance or shows

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that they have, you know, we, this is what this society created.

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Jealousy, negative, you know, all this negative way of thinking when really, you know, we

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should be, you know, happy for the people that have found their way.

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You know, anyways, yeah, there’s so much, there’s so much, keep me on, keep me on track.

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Would you just need to like do a season, just you and I.

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Oh my, I could, you know, I could, I think, you know, I think these conversations are

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needed because there’s people listening that, that maybe have never, they don’t have anyone

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to engage in this conversation. And that’s what I’ve learned with Grandmother’s Voice

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from getting feedback from people.

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We want, we want to hear more.

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I want to hear more because I, you know, it’s easy for people to just show up and listen,

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you know, gives, gives them courage to get to the next one, to get to the next one.

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And so these conversations, I know are extremely important for those who, who don’t have the

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opportunity.

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I think what you had said, that people, so many people are just surviving.

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And I think that’s part of the economic system.

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It’s putting a lot of pressure on people that families are in silos, you know, the so-called

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nuclear family and people are dealing with young children and aging families.

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And I believe that’s part of the effect of colonization, that there’s this, that it’s

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very divisive, that there’s like this hierarchy.

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There’s a lot of comparison, but a lot of people are just got blinders on, they just

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got to do what they got to do.

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There’s not a lot of time and space for self-reflection.

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And yet really that’s where healing happens.

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Your point to self-care and how do we shift our culture so that we’re more of a circle?

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How do we come back to the village values and, and really connect and support each other

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more unconditionally?

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Like I’ve heard it said that, you know, cause so often I think the colonial, like I think

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there’s something to healthy competition.

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Like how do we, again, we tend to compete to tear each other down rather than compete

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to build each other up.

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And that is part of the mindset that was my goal of having these conversations and how

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do we start to look at things differently because that’s, that’s spirituality, that’s

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mental health.

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Yeah, I think, I think too, and, and, you know, just kind of closing, cause I know we’re

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pretty close to our time today together, but you know, Indigenous life ways were, they

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were supposed to be here for people, you know, if colonization didn’t happen and we looked

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at, you know, and we look at the Two Row Wampum, you know, the ship and the, and the canoe

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and, you know, you have your values, we have ours and you know, we’ll do this, we’ll do

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this journey together and the elements of the, you know, the earth, land and air and

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earth land and earth water and air, or however you want to say that, but like we’re, we’re

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to live in this together and how do we do it?

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Indigenous people have amazing life ways.

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They’re wholistic, W H O L, you know, and not, and so if we can just acknowledge that that’s

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what was removed, the ethics, the values, we relied on churches that have now disappointed

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millions of people and now they’re like, what do we do?

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Let’s just all spend time on the land and know that if we take care of her, that’s then

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returning us back to taking care of each other.

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And that’s that whole, you know, cycle of life.

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And that’s what we need to, you know, I make it sound so simple and or easy that that’s

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how I see it.

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And just kind of acknowledging what you’re saying about children and parents and life.

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And what I remember is, or what I know is the teachings are, are that those are, they’re

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our responsibility and elders are important and our children are our future.

433

00:32:50,440 –> 00:32:57,720

And we have to make change our way of thinking that we’re meant to be here today to live

434

00:32:57,720 –> 00:33:03,480

a good life and know that these are all values added to our life and society.

435

00:33:03,480 –> 00:33:08,440

And the minute we let one go and think that they’re not important, we’ve done something

436

00:33:08,440 –> 00:33:09,440

wrong.

437

00:33:09,440 –> 00:33:14,320

So we have to wake up every day and say, this is, I’m going to take care of my children.

438

00:33:14,320 –> 00:33:17,640

I’m going to make the elders feel needed and wanted.

439

00:33:17,640 –> 00:33:22,880

I’m going to make sure that everybody has a voice and is included.

440

00:33:22,880 –> 00:33:26,880

That’s all we have to do as individuals.

441

00:33:26,880 –> 00:33:29,800

And the world will become a better place.

442

00:33:29,800 –> 00:33:36,960

And now all the other noise will just, you know, become noise.

443

00:33:36,960 –> 00:33:39,360

That’s a beautiful place for a conclusion.

444

00:33:39,360 –> 00:33:43,000

Thank you so much for your time and attention today, Jody Harbour.

445

00:33:43,000 –> 00:33:46,000

Where can people find you?

446

00:33:46,000 –> 00:33:50,680

And Grandmother’s Voice, follow us, come and join us.

447

00:33:50,680 –> 00:33:56,440

You know, we’ve just been evolving and we’re evolving because it’s, you know, anyone can

448

00:33:56,440 –> 00:34:02,280

come and we’re, we are, we want to do this from that Indigenous voice that was left out

449

00:34:02,280 –> 00:34:03,280

for so long.

450

00:34:03,280 –> 00:34:04,280

Yes.

451

00:34:04,280 –> 00:34:09,080

And I love that you want to bring community together, Indigenous and settlers and descendants

452

00:34:09,080 –> 00:34:15,240

and immigrants that there’s space for everybody there to learn these values. The moon circles

453

00:34:15,240 –> 00:34:18,320

especially I particularly enjoy.

454

00:34:18,320 –> 00:34:21,400

And so grateful for everybody’s attention today.

455

00:34:21,400 –> 00:34:24,440

Thank you for coming out.

456

00:34:24,440 –> 00:34:31,120

We spoke about, I think, trauma, connections, breath, self-care, community are some of the

457

00:34:31,120 –> 00:34:35,080

themes that emerged today for us to reflect on.

458

00:34:35,080 –> 00:34:37,360

Thank you so much for your time today, Jody.

459

00:34:37,360 –> 00:34:39,800

Nia:wen sisters, take care.

460

00:34:39,800 –> 00:34:40,800

Blessed be.

461

00:34:40,800 –> 00:34:49,100

Ona.