Maria
Hey everyone and welcome to resetting the table, expanding imagination around race, place and faith for our collective liberation.
Maria
I'm Maria Mulder,
Celine
I'm Celine Chuang.
Lori
I'm Lori Snyder.
Maria
And today Lori is here to talk with us about relating to the land. Thank you so much Laurie for being here. So we always start each episode with a land acknowledgement. But today we would love for you, Lori, to do it for us.
Lori
Okay, great, Maria. So I'm here in East Vancouver, what we call East Vancouver on the Tsleil Wathuth, Squamish and Musqueam territories. And in land acknowledgement. What has come for me is to actually bring the voice of the ancestors to the energy of us gathering. And I'd like to share a little quote by Chief Dan George from the Tsleil Wathuth nations. And he's now passed, but he's left some beautiful words for us some stories and movies, and of course, is just his legacy of his family being here, defenders of the of the water. And so chief Dan George once wrote about, there will soon come a time when my grandchild will long to hear the cry of the loon, the whisper of the spruce needle, the screech of the eagle, and a streak of the salmon, but he will not make friends with any of these creatures. And when his heart is longing, he will curse me. Have I done everything to ensure the water is clean? Have I made sure that the air is fresh? Have I made sure that that Eagle soars in freedom? Have I done everything to ensure my grandchild remembers me with fondness? So my friends, we've got a choice, we can either be cursed, or we can be remembered for our fondness for those incredible teachings of the first people of this land that we call Vancouver.
Maria
Thank you, Lori. That was beautiful.
Maria
So, the folks listening they already know about Celine and I but we would love for you to introduce yourself a little bit more and just kind of Who do you come as today? How do you arrive? And where do you come from?
Lori
Beautiful. Well, thank you Maria and Celine and Trixie and Emma for inviting me to come and share what's deep deep in my heart and my being. So my name is Lori Snyder, I was born and raised up in the territories of Squamish at the base of the chief. So as born way back in the 1960s. Growing up, I had a forest in my backyard. So that made quite an imprint on me being with the native plants. My next door neighbor was from Ireland, she didn't know the plants so she took it upon herself to introduce us kids as we'd walk up the back trails to Alice Lake so here's the Douglas fir here's the fire weed that Salmon Berry, the licorice Fern the miner's lettuce. So all these beautiful spirit beings are older brothers and sisters, as Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us so eloquently, that they were my imprint. They were my family, they were my elders. And you know, part of my history. And I think that's, you know, so beautiful. We do this land acknowledgement now, because of course, that's not what we were doing way back in the 60s and 70s. So these are good practices, and they're good starts. So what, who are the Where are the lands? And who are the people? And what are the stories of what we're now calling our home? But what are our own personal stories? So I didn't grow up knowing about my culture, my mom is was Metis. And she grew up with a lot of discrimination. So it really was later in my life almost in my 30s before I started that, unpacking discovery and knowing and discovering that my grandmother's were the ones who were marrying the fur traders that were coming over from Normandy, France, and from Scotland, from the Donald and Grant clan. And that, you know, when the English arrived in 1606, in what we call Virginia, the Powatan nation. So that's part of my history. And as the Powatan were moved off their lands based on their language We moved in with the Dakota and from Eastern Canada, the Anishinaabe and the nipissing people. And you know, again, continue moving into the prairies, the Cree, the Nakota, and from the north, the Tsuut'ina and the Dene. So what a What a beautiful gift to know, something of our own history. And on my father's side, it's Welsh, and English. So having this Celtic blend also, where again, when we start to look at our history, we start to see our relationship to land. And how do I come today, I come as a messenger, really, I come as a messenger for us to remember our stories, and that we, as the two legged ones, are the caretakers of the earth. Right? We have intrinsically a deep bond with the earth. So how do we repair that? Yeah, that's what i would i would share I've been learning about, you know, herbalism, aroma therapy, permaculture, horticulture, really thinking about ways of how we learn through our oral traditions through our senses. Maria, you know, I brought my little basket when we went for our walk, where I'd have you taste and smell plant material and gifts from the earth. So that way it can anchor. And so today, what I what I mostly do is I go into schools or you know, caretake a Medicine Wheel garden, so I can keep passing on this knowledge that we've just forgotten, right, we just we fell asleep. Or actually, what I'd almost say is we got led down the wrong garden path, we thought through consuming that it was gonna fill us up. And that's really not the truth.
Maria
Amazing, so many words of wisdom.
Celine
Okay, so maybe I'll ask this question, Lori, because it kind of relates to what you were just saying. So I think like, like you were speaking to, there's been a lot lost and kind of not just a cultural shift to, you know, capitalism and consumption. But, you know, colonialism going hand in hand with that. And now a lot of people are kind of coming to a waking up moment, I think are trying to wake up to what are the ways that we can decolonize our relationship to the land or relationship to our own bodies, and how indigenous folks can lead the way in that regard. And something that we talked about in our episode kind of planning session, we were thinking about questions to ask you is how the idea of healing and medicine as something holistic something that is you are part of a whole is something that our ancestors have in common. And in traditional Chinese medicine, that's a similar guiding kind of principle, right? And it was, it was interesting, I had this conversation with a work an old co worker of mine, a native woman who worked at a woman's center with me, and she was saying how she couldn't find a traditional healer or herbalist in her own tradition. And so she was going to traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, because for her that was kind of the closest in alignment to what she was looking for. And I found that really, yeah, really interesting and beautiful that there is that commonality. It's something that I want to explore myself in ways that I can learn alongside the folks in this territory and indigenous people from across Turtle Island. So we wondered if you wanted to talk more about how health or wellness or healing, how we can shift towards thinking more about that in terms of relationship and connection, instead of kind of the Western or white health care system, which is very reactionary and disconnected.
Lori
Yeah, Celine, you know, love TCM! Absolutely. You know, I'm going to an acupuncturist myself, right now, I've have a challenge with my skin. Ever since I ventured into my menopause, what I've come to realize I'm really actually grateful for this, this journey. There was a time where I actually remember thinking, how could I really be sharing what I'm learning, if I've never even experienced that type of suffering before like that, you know, when my body is out of balance, so really grateful for all of the traditions, you know, era Vedic traditions here on this land from other lands, you know, and that's where you all of a sudden go, yeah, we are deeply connected, right? We had this relationship with our living world, we were eating seasonally. So that's one of the things that I really bring to people's attention is that we are a living organism. And so we are impacted by the sun like everything else that is living. So really thinking about that seasonal change. So here we are going into the fall in the winter, where we want to be eating the root vegetables and having maybe more carbohydrates because carbohydrates produce insulin, which is a fat storing hormone. I mean, I already I think I probably gained at least five pounds in the last month or so, because I just feel like I just want to eat more. It's like, my body just naturally wants to bulk up to insulate. And and, and to ensure that I survive through the winter. Because our body has a wisdom that's just kind of like encoded in, that hasn't changed just because our environment has changed the fact that we're all in heated homes and such, right. So a few things actually, it's interesting because I'm really, I always say to people, I want to live 'til I'm 102 I tell the kids come for my 100th birthday. I'm curious to see where we're going. And I also want to be here part of the solution. I don't want young people to think, Oh, I made this big mess, right? Our generation made this huge mess in the last 50 years. And you guys just have to clean it up. It's like, No, no, no, we can all do this together. And what did I learn the other day to actually live well past 116. And this makes complete sense. We need to feel our hunger, we need to feel cold, and we need to do hard work, we need to be physical. And when we actually do these three things, they will stimulate a protein that activates our DNA to help rebuild our organ systems. Because when that DNA or that protein starts to, you know, it doesn't produce as much as we age. It's through these the three things feeling hunger. So think about it, our ancestors on it, probably on a daily basis, were feeling hunger, they were outside, so they for sure were cold, and they were moving their bodies. So you know, thinking about wellness, and wholeness, we need to think about dealing ourselves back into the being eco centric versus ego centric. And when we change our mind and recognize we're actually part of the web that shifts us as well. And as for decolonizing, how do we reconcile with the land? You know, when the Truth and Reconciliation came out? I started to ask that question. What does that mean, for me? Personally, yes, there's all these, you know, lists of 92 calls to action. But what does it mean, for me, I identify as a refugee on this land. Looking at my history, we were pushed off our lands and moved in with other lands and of course, married in with those families and such. So as a refugee when I realized that for myself after sitting with an elder in Musqueum, it was like, putting my hands in the earth, what does a refugee do? They grow food, they grow medicines, when I'm looking at the lands here in Vancouver, and I suspect this is typical all over North America, we have very little native plants in our landscape. I've joined on for two years now as a butterfly Ranger with the David Suzuki Foundation, and I'm on a on a committee where we're really bringing awareness around the native plants. Because when you have native plants, you have native insects, you have native bees, you have native butterflies, you have birds and bats. So all of a sudden, you start to see that your ecosystem around you is getting stronger and healthier, because they have adapted with the native plants. They've also adapted with some introduced species, but that's what they need to ensure their future generations. How do we decolonize we reconcile with the land start putting in our native plants again. And in our diet, we need to really think about eating the foods of this land. Yes, of course, our cultural foods we should be eating, but tapping into the energy of this land through eating berries, nodding onions, salal, salmon berries, strawberries, blueberries, I mean, cranberries. These are all native. I'm not talking about your hybrids, I'm talking about actually finding your native plants. And then I would say one last thing. Sorry. I feel like it's a bit of a long answer to that. But these are all really I feel important things for us to consider is to get off our sugar. It's a colonized food. It has a horrible, horrible history. And it's an it's a an addiction, that really numbs us down, or maybe dumbs us down. Because diet we know has a huge impact on our brains. So with this challenge with my skin, I've had to let go of white sugar. And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful because I don't have any authority here. To share any of this, if I'm not walking the same thing that I'm sharing with you, yeah, there's some challenges for us there. But we can do this. Because that's what we why we're here at this time, because we were like, I'm up for the challenge, I can do that. We can change this, we can, we can really make this a way better place for us, the whole planet, we can do this.
Celine
Mhmm. And for our children and grandchildren, like you were mentioning at the beginning of the land acknowledgement, thinking of the future, not just our future.
Maria
Yeah, I was noticing, there's even this shift of language or this different language that you use in terms of thinking about your body and the land and how everything has a relationship and everything is connected. I noticed just now that you didn't say it, but it sounded like your body in having an issue, quote, unquote, that the biomedical system would look at as a problem has actually given you an incredible gift. And I'm wondering if, from your perspective, is there are there other ways that the colonial settler mindset has been damaging to our ability to relate to the land is, is it just language that's the issue? Or are there other things that are barriers that get in the way of us really like having a healthy relationship with our living world?
Lori
Mm hmm. Maria, it's such a great question. You know, it's through our institutions. It's through the fact that we spend all of our time inside, it's the fact that we're being entertained, distracted. personally. I mean, when you look at indigenous cultures on the planet, that are still existing, that are in that deep relationship, what are they doing, they're defending the water and the air and the land, they're not being distracted by that colonial view, or, or that pathway that we have been programmed into. The more we, you know, we have to have the conversation, it has to start with a conversation. And then we need to start asking ourselves, how do we build our personal relationship with the land outside? It's some days, it's kind of funny, it's like something kind of crosses over in front of me and I go, do I say something or not, I just always ask for guidance. So you know, the other day, I wanted to actually tell the leaf blower guy, you know, with his motorized, and that loud sound, to stop and to get a rake, and to move his body so his body will stay strong. And that we can, all of us as the neighbors can stop listening to the noise pollution he's creating, and the gas that's going up in the atmosphere. Today, I'm going to teach a class around permaculture 101, at the garden, and here we are raking all those leaves away, that are taking all the insects away. So again, it has to start with a conversation, we have to bring the knowledge for us to know how to start walking in a better way. It's just getting outside and starting to pay attention. So someone gave me that acronym the other day, O.W.L observation, she said, watch, but I like the word witness. And listen. And when we do that, as I've been doing my whole life because of that imprint, that programming I had, when I was a child, I can see that species are disappearing, I can see that the you know the trees are being cut down. But we were down along the Fraser River down by Wreck Beach the other day, and it was so incredibly calm. It was just unbelievably beautiful. And I started taking pictures outward looking towards Vancouver Island. And then I noticed the log booms are piled high with more logs sitting in the water. Like they're piled four and five logs on top of each other. And I was like: what? and I'm noticing logging truck trucks come down the highway up in Squamish and I went up to Lilooet up in September, and there were logging trucks like I hadn't seen since I was a kid. So if we're not observing, then we can't we can't find our voices to help recorrect. Right. And I'm like, why are we cutting down the trees? Are we cutting it down for toilet paper and paper towels? Which by the way, I have not bought paper towels in over 20 years. I'm like we can grow hemp. So that's what I'm talking about. We have to see what the problems are. And then what are the solutions and us as the consumer or the citizen because really let's change our language. We can go oh, I don't, I don't have to buy that product anymore. I can be more creative in how I take care of my own personal needs. And disconnect from buying into that system that we've just been programmed into. Does that make sense?
Celine
Yeah.
Celine
It's kind of like a gradual untangling you know, a divestment of these these systems, like the industrial food system, to kind of capitalist or consumerist systems that we're part of. And I hear too in what you're saying, like, for me, as a settler, like one of my, one of my, I think, key responsibilities in, like, we were talking about thinking of the future of children and grandchildren, not just us, is a sense of solidarity with the land protectors and water defenders, and those who are on the frontline, in those ways, protecting what is sacred, and, and those are kind of those can be very big, and also very small, you can stand with those people and attend you know, the actions around that to support them and kind of do the advocacy work against the institutions that need to be woken up. And then it's also about, you know, looking around you where you are, like in your own apartment and the leaf blower guy, or you know, like the gardens or the wild plants that are outside your door. And so, so much of it is I just hear an invitation in what you're sharing, to look to the bigger kind of systems and, and divest from those and untangle ourselves from those and push against those and also be present in our own bodies and our own neighborhoods and our own place, and learn kind of the land and the watershed, and you know, the people who are keeping the land, and both the big and the small, you know, it's all kind of related. Mm hmm.
Maria
Totally is. And you know, Celine, the one last thing that sort of just came in is that when we're actually eating local, and we're eating from the land here, we're eating those micro organisms in the soil, that actually help us have this incredible diversity in our gut. And every bio region has different micro organisms. So for us to actually say, I'm local, or I'm connected here, we need to be eating those, those micro organisms that really ensure our health for when a pandemic comes through, right. And of course, there's practices to where it's like, I was listening the other day, they were talking about the pandemic of smallpox back in the 1860s. And that they recognize they needed to isolate from each other to ensure that they weren't spreading. And this is actually giving us an opportunity to reflect what do you value? What can you start to think about letting go of like, you know, my challenge to myself is letting go of the plastics, my addictions to plastics, not buying a shampoo bottle anymore, but buying a shampoo bar, buying my toilet paper, wrapped in paper and paper, not in plastic. And those little steps each one of us doing that has an impact. Because every choice we make has a ripple out into our planet. We can do this.
Celine
Yeah, I love the idea of transformation as being something inside you like in your actual gut and the matter that makes up your body which is living, and also that you enact transformation, as you are transformed, right? It's like, again, part of that the relationship that we have to changing ourselves and the world around us. I saw a poster by an artist I like called Molly Castello, and it's, I think it's a person fermenting something like I don't remember what the illustration is, if it's kombucha or some other fermentation process. It's doing transformation work and kind of connecting that small act to larger societal transformation as well. Then a shift in perspective, a shift in our priorities as a society.
Lori
Deliberation. The truth is, it's a liberation. It's a sovereignty. Wow, I'm for that.
Celine
Yeah. Can you talk more about sovereignty, like food sovereignty, body sovereignty? What does that mean to you in the context of what we've been talking about?
Lori
Well, you know, wow, that's a that's an amazing unpacking. Right. really starting to ask those questions. And for sure, that came up for me when the lockdown, you know, was official, I was like, Oh, I gotta go to the garden. I got to start growing food. So I care take this medicine wheel garden here in East Vancouver or South Vancouver, excuse me, and putting my hands in the earth and asking questions or being in nature helps to guide me. It's about me listening. Right and, and, and so is it the plants? Is it spirit is it creator, is it my ancestors, I don't know somebody's guiding me. So the garden putting my hands in the garden really, really helps me and what it did was it started conversation with the neighbors as they started to come out and walk. Neighbours were now you know, digging up their gardens or their lawns and now putting in food. And then I started thinking, wow, this is political, you know, this pandemic can actually be quite political. And then I was like, wow, if they cut our shut our borders, then now what are we going to do? How are we going to feed ourselves? Think about, you know, Dr. Suzuki says that our environmental food footprint is anywhere from five to 7000 miles. So what is that? 12,000 kilometers? 16,000 kilometers? I mean, that's a huge footprint. So one, it was that recognizing: wow we're very vulnerable, and we're also expecting someone from another country to feed us, it's kind of like being children, not even feeding ourselves. We're asking, you know, our mother continually to feed us from somewhere else. When you start looking at the food systems, which is about commodity, food shouldn't be a commodity. This is a right. This is a right for us to have clean water, fresh air and good food. It's not a commodity. But of course, you know, everybody just wants to make more money. It's like, what is Deepak Chopra? He says those billionaires are actually insecure little boys, because they never have enough. And we have to think about that even for ourselves. When is it enough? Do we understand we are enough. So going back to the food systems, when we look at our agriculture, that is we're growing alfalfa and soy, to feed animals that only feed 7% of the world population, there's something wrong with that design system, when we're only putting or we're only growing five major mono crops through the prairies, and down through the Midwest, which was where the bison were hanging out and grazing, which means less damage on the grasslands, they use NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. And that gets poured on its chemical, it's all chemical, pour it on those five mono crops, which are genetically modified, a lot of that nitrogen goes into the water system that goes into the ocean, that creates these 700 dead zones. So it turns out, my body won't allow me to eat these grains at all anymore. It's like, in, in my as I'm building my relationship deeper and deeper with the land. It's like the land is telling me more and more, nope, you can't have sugar. You can't eat those mono crops, because they don't fit in my value of who I am. Because I care about life. You know, my question can be to myself every purchase, is this life giving? Or is it taking away from life? Is this what being, what's being manufactured, creating a whole bunch of pollution? Or could I just go find one at the, you know, at the thrift store? Or on the free store on the internet, instead of buying a new one? Yeah, that, to me is how we're going to shift is these kinds of questions. And then thinking how, how can I, one person, make a difference? Because as we all start to do that, wow, I can imagine what it could look like, even from a year from now, how different it could truly look. And it saves more money, I spend less, I got more money, I'm working less, but I have more money in this moment. Because I'm not in that consuming mode.
Celine
Mm hmm. Yeah, I've been learning to make a lot of things on my own, recently, like during COVID happening, but also just work changing for me, I realized as I was kind of making that shift that plants and learning about plants has really helped me and Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, of course, too has really helped me make the shift from one of scarcity to abundance and to see around me, you know, it would be I'd be in the garden, I co-garden at a place my neighborhood as well as we have a garden at our place. And I'd be there you know, weeding taking care of the things I'm suppose to take care of. And I'd see like, medicinal plant like just growing as a weed like purslane and or something that, you know, is really good for you. And it was in the garden, but it hadn't been planted, it was just growing there. And it just, it's such a gift, you know, to stumble upon a plant that is it's almost there waiting for you, you know, to, to meet to meet it, and to relate to it and kind of have this invitation to that there's so much around us that we might not be aware of that is good for us that wants to bring us to a place of health and healing and wholeness. And like you said we have to learn to pay attention to those and kind of learn them as, as our neighbors really like neighbors in our ecosystem in our in the day to day life, you know, day to day going through the world. Yeah, so I really Yeah, I love what You had say about that.
Lori
And you know, and Celine those those weeds, dandelions, purslane, chickweed. plantain, thistle, this is what our ancestors were eating, if you have a European background or even from Asia, you know, the plantain came all the way from, you know, China what I understand in the research, it's like that's what your ancestors have been eating. So, you know, we just recently celebrated, you know, the Day of the Dead, which is a, you know, beautiful festival that the in Central and South America and in Mexico, this is a time to honor our ancestors. And then someone said, this is also the time where you eat your ancestral foods, their favorite foods. And then I came to visit a friend and another friend had been hunting and he had caribou. I was like, Oh, this is what my ancestors the Dene, you know, eat and the Tsuut'ina. It was caribou. So I had a little bit of caribou. And I felt really so grateful to be able to taste this incredible spirit animal. And, like I said, just recognizing those weeds are full of nutritional value. Nobody's planting them, nobody's cultivating them, you know, their root system goes deep into the earth. So they're pulling out lots of minerals, most of our food in the last 50 years has lost its mineral, and vitamin content. So we're actually getting less, which might mean why we're eating more, because we're trying to fill up what the bodies not getting from the foods that we're cultivating. Always be curious, who is growing around me might actually be your ally, might be the one that is wanting to help you to be strong and healthy. There's this deep relationship that happens, that doesn't necessarily have this type of language to it. It's more of an intuitive, more being guided, that that, you know, science can't necessarily quantify.
Celine
It's an embodied like,
Lori
It is embodied.
Celine
Right? You have to be there with their hands in the dirt. Yeah,
Lori
Yeah. And, you know, it's it's that beautiful metaphor that Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about, in that her second book Braiding Sweetgrass, where we're looking at those three systems of scientific knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing, and plant wisdom. And we're going to braid those three, together to have a strong cordage, a strong rope that's going to take us into the future. So we can't say, you know, it's all about science, or even throw science away. What we really want to do is braid the three of them together and recognize that is our path into the future.
Maria
And and ultimately, understanding that those three things are equal in their strength, there's not one that is more important than the other.
Lori
So true. Maria,
Maria
You've mentioned a lot, this idea of being guided. And I wonder, are there particular practices that feed you spiritually? Or do you find it's more an orientation or a holistic mindset?
Maria
Does that make sense?
Lori
Yeah, well, you know what I would say, there's, there's many ways that really, really feed me. One is just being here with all of you, feeds me, right. I love to share what I've been discovering. And I feel that knowledge needs to actually be shared. Now knowledge can only become wise when we actually apply it into our lives. And that's what I recognized was is like, I could come out and you know, get on my little soapbox and tell others, but if I'm not practicing that for myself, then I don't really have an authority here. One of my I think, my most important spiritual practices just being out on the land, getting naked and swim in the ocean, out walking my bare feet. I walked in my bare feet all summer. Everywhere I went, I was in my bare feet, hiking, where you know, down at the beach didn't matter. And people were like, what with that woman? She's in bare feet like, No, we didn't do that. You know, you only do that when you're a kid. And I'm like, No, no, no, you do this for the rest of your life. Because it's called Earthling right or grounding, right? There's an electromagnetic frequency that helps our body witnessing the changings of moments like the low tide going all the way out. And then seeing that low tide. Two minutes later, turn and start its journey back to high tide. Watching the moon come up. You know doing new moon contemplations or Full Moon ceremonies, watching the clouds just lay on the earth and watch the clouds. Walking in the rain. I'm looking forward to that. Next, you know our first snowfall, because it's so quiet. No sound can get through when it's when the when the snow is falling. So being in nature actually is such a deep spiritual practice for me, and making that part of my weekly or even daily routine. Get outside, even if it's just for 10 minutes.
Celine
Yeah. Beautiful.
Maria
Would you like to take us through some of your favorite Pacific Northwest plants and kind of how you relate to them what you do with them how they can be integrated into life.
Lori
Beautiful. Well, the first one that came to mind is fire weed. I was just chatting, oh, there's a new little farm that has just started down in in the downtown Eastside with the neighborhood house there. And oh, my goodness, are they growing a lot of food. And I went by yesterday. And one of the programmers Erin was sort of we were talking about seeds. And she's like, Oh, I want to do seed bombs. And I said, well, you're gonna probably have to wait until this spring. And then we were sort of thinking she was trying to think, what seeds did she want to share. And you know, just being mindful that if we're doing something like that, what kind of impact that it has. So I said, Well, you know, I have some extra seed of fire weed, maybe we want to put the fire weed in, because it's a pioneer plant. So it's the first plant that shows up after the forest fire, or the logging, or a volcanic eruption, or even an earthquake, what she part of her gift is protecting the soil from being burnt by the sun, all those little living micro organisms, when we turn the soil all the time we actually kill them. So it was with her coming up first, she's now protecting the soil. And her her new spring growth is one of the foods that we find here on all around the coast. But we also find fireweed on the circumpolar region of the planet. So we find her in Russia and Mongolia and China and the Baltic and the you know, Scandinavian countries. So here's a plant that actually unites us, across the top of the world. So we get a food first thing in the spring, then the leaf can be harvested. This is a beautiful tea, you know, this is the tea that we drank before we were introduced to tea, you know from the tea plant. And then the flower makes beautiful jellies. They're like bright pink, and the fiber or that big long stock because they can grow up to seven feet. So that's a pretty tall plant. It's a pollinator plant, the bees are all over that beautiful, majestic purple pink flower, that the her stock can be broken and used for weaving. So for cordage and ropes, fibers for clothing material. And then the route has a beautiful medicine for the prostate gland. So what a beautiful gift of beauty that she offers, and understanding all those levels. And I'm just telling you a few things about her. I mean, there's always more to be learning when we're discovering. They're kind of like us, right? As you all all of you and us are getting to know each other. Every time we spend time we learn something more with each other. It's the same with plants, the more we spend time with them, the more we discover more. And the other you know that I always remind everyone is berries, please grow your berries, your blueberries, strawberries, Oregon grapes, salal berries, huckleberries. You know, you know, and always know how that plant grows in its natural environment, so that you will create that for your sister that she's going to grow really well. And I don't know somebody mentioned this to me the other day, I'm not sure. But there's always a big concern around foraging practices that we're up in our forests. And we're actually taking the food source from our indigenous brothers and sisters of this land, but also of our indigenous bears and cougars and Wolverines and other beautiful birds and species that are also feeding from our wild plants. So let's, let's reconcile here and Our urban landscape and put at least 50% native plants here, you know, down our back alleys, at the front of our houses on the boulevards, at the edges of parks, at community centers at schools and institutions, at corporations like changing, adding into, it's not about pulling out that landscape, it's about adding into that landscape, so that we can have sovereignty. But how you control populations, or people, indigenous people? Is you take away the food source, but now we know that we can shift that we could be guerilla gardening all over the city, why not? This is our home here. And that will actually be an act of reconciliation to the land.
Celine
Mm hmm. I love fireweed, too, I think it's such a beautiful plant to kind of keep as a visionary plant, like something to think about, especially now like coming, like we're in kind of a moment of crisis with the pandemic, that could be the equivalent of like a fire or something that really reset society in a way and really forces us to, like you said, reflect on our priorities? And then how, how will the things that we grow the first things that grow? Like how, how will that set the ground and protect what's what's coming up? That's different? And how can we move into a future that is just that is based around food sovereignty and solidarity with indigenous folks, and around healing and reconciliation of the land? from that place, you know, of reset. And I think you are planting many seeds for us today to do that. So we're really grateful for that.
Maria
It makes me think of, you know, the stuff that will come out of this pandemic, or moments of crisis, how many, how many of us are not even going to recognize them as a gift? Right? Because even fireweed, most people don't even think twice when they see it. But there are so many things that it has to offer. Yeah, it's, it's kind of a good shift, to think about what is coming out of the pandemic? How can we be in relation to those things in a different way? Or how can we look at them differently so that we can actually appreciate what they have to offer?
Celine
And I think it gives us to, like, so much to that nourishes us not just coming out of being in and coming out of this crisis of the pandemic, but thinking about climate crisis and climate catastrophe. Something we were talking about in our pre episode conversation was how there's been pushback against using the word Anthropocene as reflecting the age of climate crisis, because it positions all humans, as those who have manufactured this catastrophe, but it's really white supremacy and racial capitalism and these institutions we talked about that have brought us to where we are. And it's, you know, indigenous black people of color who suffer the most, the effects of climate change most severely. So Randy Woodley, who's a an amazing food sovereignty worker, theologian, thinker, writer, he brings up the term eurocene as an alternative, which is interesting, but something that's more specific, and so I think, I think thinking about climate crisis, not just the pandemic, this is really a good invitation to think about indigenous ways of knowledge and the braid, that Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about, how can we? How can that guide us, you know, not just out of COVID-19, and that season of reset and recovery and repair, but also into the continuing crisis of climate change? And thinking about who can guide us? And who are the Yeah, who are the people who are gardening the way into the future? And I think you're one of them, Lori, and we're really so thankful that you could be with us today and share your wisdom and speak your truth with us.
Lori
Oh, thank you, like, thank you. And really, you know, it's like I said, I'm a messenger I too like all of us, you know, we're looking for who inspires us, you know, who's helping to guide us. During the pandemic, as I said, I spent a lot of time in the garden, and not on any kind of social media. And that's what I'm saying, you know, we have to be mindful that we have this balance in our distractions. It's not to say I don't want to sit in and watch something and be entertained as well. What I wanted to maybe just quickly share is that our artists here on the coast, or really artists all over the world are what we could even describe as our shamans or medicine people, because they're, how would I describe that, you know, that they're really tapping into spirit. And somebody had sent me the link for the documentary on Robert Davidson, one of our Haida artists here, and they were you know, showcasing his 50 years since he raised his the pole in his village and You know, showcasing his son's work, which was such a beautiful gift, because unfortunately, he passed this this summer. But what Robert talked about right at the very end, it was sort of like, now I know why I'm listening, because I needed to hear this one piece, like really hear this one piece. And I'm paraphrasing, he said something along the lines is that our modern day supernatural beings are corporations, do you have the strength to resist them? And I was like, Oh, thank you. I'm in. I'm up for the challenge. And, you know, one of the things that I would share is that I've probably, you know, just a rough calculation probably taught about to 20,000 children in the last seven years. And so one of one of the things that I was just, you know, starting to bring into the teaching, when I was thinking about how we have 700 dead zones in the ocean, I don't get it, why are we not cleaning this up? And then I thought, wow, if I had a billion dollars, I'd take every cent of it and clean up the ocean. Some of these guys have, you know, $100 billion, and not one of them are cleaning up the ocean. And I'm like, I'm not gonna give them any more of my money, if I can help it. Why would I? What are they doing? Because I'm contributing to the crazy craziness that's happening here. So there are many guides out there, there are many voices that are asking us to walk in a good way. And why not? Let's have more fun. Let's slow down. Let's do let's be out in nature, all those things that I talked about, or making things with our hands, you know, I bought some beautiful green crackers. Because again, I can't eat wheat, right. So they're actually pureed kale, and with sesame's, and then they're hydrated, and they weren't cheap. Oh, my goodness, they were super expensive. So I thought, that's what I'm going to do this winter is I'm going to learn how to make green crackers. What can we be making? What can we be trading? How do we start those trade routes between us in the south? Because we had traditionally we had trade routes from the north in the south, right? So we can support each other? How do we find our local economy, go to the farmers market, that we can really have a more even distribution of wealth. But really, it's, it's it's not about us having money. I can't take it with me. You know, when my dad passed, almost six years ago, he couldn't take a cent with him. So how can we be contributors with our wealth? How do we help others with our wealth, so that we can celebrate? Because we all feel better, that we're in our joy again. So what we came to do, is be in our bliss,
Celine
Joy is so important, and doing in all of this work. It's an integral part of Yeah, what nourishes us in the journey, I think. Lori, do you want to share anything like if you want people to support you or follow what you're up to? Are there ways people can do that?
Lori
Thank you. And so I'm Lori Snyder, on Facebook, I have also a page called Earth Awareness Realized Through Health. So Earth and Company, I thought it was quite again, it tapped in I was like Earth awareness realized through health. Wow, that's powerful. Right? Because it's, it's it's true, right? We have to be aware of what's what's happening. And that's on Facebook. I'm on Instagram at Earth and company. Oh, and then I'm on on the worldwide web. It's lorisnyder.co . So there's a few places and really, you know, reach out, ask questions, send me questions. Oh, and oh, one other thing is, I also just created a page called Wild Native and Medicinal Plants, Vancouver, BC Chapter. And I invite people to, you know, post pictures or find articles. So we can, you know, keep reminding each other and helping each other and supporting each other. It's a beautiful word that I heard from Michelle Nahanni who does a decolonizing practice with your partner and chief Janice George. And Michelle's shared a word in the Squamish language called Chen Chen Shui, and I might not quite say it right. But Chen Chen Shui is about hold each other, support each other. And really, that's what we need to do. It's about a partnership. It's about relationship. It's practices of reciprocity, as we're caretaking, the Earth The earth is going to care take us, and for us to respect our mother and get back on our knees and have deep reverence that we are alive right now in this moment to be that, that for our future generations that are going to say, Wow, Trixie, Celine, Maria, Emma, and Lori did everything they could to make it a better place for them.
Maria
Thank you so much, Lori. That's a wonderful call to action to, to end on. Just do everything that you can. Yeah.
Lori
Beautiful.
Trixie
Resetting the table is produced by Emma Renaerts and the intro music is by Sunnia and Paul Gibbs. If you like what this podcast is about, consider supporting us on patreon patreon.com/resettingthetable. Patreon contributions will help us honor the labor of our guests in showing up and sharing their stories. Funds we raise will go towards speaker honourariums as well as making our podcasts more sustainable long term. We value amplifying voices of color and we hope you do too.
Maria
For now, Do Xia
Trixie
Xie Xie
Celine
Thanks and see you soon.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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