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Territory Acknowledgement & Commitment to Whole Systems Healing
Our healing practices together are undertaken by centring a recognition that many of us (as Settler people) are uninvited visitors on the unceded and sacred territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples - the Esquimalt and Songhees, and the WSÁNEC peoples - represented by the Tsawout, Tsartlip, Pauquachin and Tseycum First Nations. I endeavour to come to these lands in a respectful and humble way, and to honour the origins of these practices by offering them with gratitude. I am committed to an ongoing journey of deepening understanding of the innumerable colonial injustices, past and ongoing, and committed to working within right livelihood as a contribution to dismantling systems of oppression and forging healing ways forward, together, within community. I come to this work with my whole heart, holding a foundational understanding that our individual healing is never separate from that of the land, peoples, animals, and all beings - not separate from an understanding of the spirit woven through and within all. Neither our suffering nor our healing paths are separate from one another, and yet they still remain distinct and unique, to be respected and deeply valued as sources of learning and wisdom and resilience. I am committed to the work of acknowledging and deepening my understanding through listening, and am also committed to providing pathways for others to deepen their understanding of this vital healing work we must do together. We must begin by acknowledging that many herbal medicine and yoga practices have been (and continue to be) appropriated from cultures and peoples who have practiced them since time immemorial, for the benefit of others (myself included). As an uninvited visitor of Eastern European, Irish, French, Danish and otherwise unknown mixed European ancestry, I am aware that some of my ancestors were refugees and others were also (perhaps) unknowingly complicit in colonial violences by settling on the lands of Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples, the lands where I was also raised. I ask for the opportunity to bow together with deep reverence to our ancestors (may we all find healing) and with deepest respect for the ongoing, intersectional and disproportionate impacts of colonialism on all of our lives. I am committed to dismantling these systems, within society and within myself. May we find ways to heal, to together celebrate our diversity, and to dismantle the legacies of colonialism and colonial thought. My work is in service of this healing path, in finding a way forward first by acknowledging and doing my own work in understanding how Western herbalism and Westernized yoga has been appropriated. I am committed to working to support the work of, and lift the voices of Indigenous peoples and other racialized and marginalized groups. I am committed to continuing to challenge a status quo that profits from inequality and invisiblizes injustices. May we build resilient systems that celebrate diversity. May we build an inclusive (non-binary!) future that holds reconciliation as foundational, together. I hold the understanding that some medicinal plants and agricultural practices were also uninvited settlers on these lands and continue to have major impacts, that the Indigenous knowledges of herbal medicine and healing ways still remain unacknowledged, that there are many ongoing injustices related to access to healing practices and the valuation of different ways of knowing. In good faith, I hold these understandings (and all those I’ve yet to understand) in all of my interactions and engagements with this land, its people, plants, and animals. May our work together be in service of whole system healing, in service of true holistic healing. I am blessed to be an uninvited visitor on these lands, and blessed by the responsibility to contribute to our collective healing.
