Planetary Health through Berries, Land, & Water

So the ancestral science podcast is going to relaunch one of its favorite episodes so we can take some time to catch up on. Finding some upcoming amazing pod episodes as well as the dazzle some recorded ones. I was recently in Yellowknife with Dr. Nicole Redvers learning from her, some hilarious and inspiring matriarchs in the land. I was so inspired and uplifted I thought we should relaunch this episode. I hope you are as inspired as I always am when I speak with this guest. And if you want to support the amazing work that she is doing you can check out ArcticIndigenousWaleness.org. So grab a cup of tea, a comfy chair, and maybe a furry friend and enjoy planetary health through berries, land and water with Dr. Nicole Redvers. Tense, Oki, Hello, and welcome to ancestral science. We are a group of indigenous scientists, educators and artists who want to further explore and share the depth of science within indigenous colleges and bring together global indigenous sciences for sustainability and relation of the. Our ancestors had complex and diverse relationships with science for generations so that they could thrive within the circle of life and alongside the land. We continue to learn from these ancestors who are not only humans but trees, animals, plants and the cosmos who will continuously give us knowledge so that we can all work together towards a more relational and sustainable world for the next seven generations. My name is Corey. My mother's ancestors are Cree, Métis from Big Prairie, which is up under the Nupurda. My father's ancestors are Polish-Icranian. So my mixed heritage is really reflected in this ongoing exploration of relational science through multiple experiences, senses and worldviews. Each episode has unique indigenous science merch, so see the show notes for that link or go to relationalsciencecircle.com/shop. And all of those profits go towards following protocols of tobacco and on a vary of for elders and knowledge keepers that we could speak to you on this podcast as well as towards editing so they're huge to the talented email starlit for helping with that. And all of this just keeps this podcast going. And if you learn something from any of these episodes, which I'm sure you're going to and you're probably going to want to share and talk about it with your friends because that's what we do. We just ask you to please respect protocols. And what this means here is quote, "site your resources." So any of the things that you learn here today connect that with the elder or the knowledge keeper that it came from, as well as the community and the lands that they're from. And this just allows for that knowledge to continue to stay with that elder and to stay in the community. So with that, hi, hi, and I hope you enjoy. It was a warm and to be very hot August morning here on the traditional home of the Black Food Confederacy, such an innovation and IITCA Dakota First Nation and more recently the Métis Nation of Alberta Region 3. I have to be honest here, a little flustered and nervous that I got to speak with Dr. Nicole Redvers, a DNA natural pathocosition about conditionist medicinal science. So we began by talking about the definitions of science and healing, which led to a conversation about how every day can be a healing experience, varies, changing genetics, indigenous medicinal science as a reawakening, land as healing in the effects of amplifying these connections through consciousness, differences between spirit and soul. What is a gut feeling and decolonizing and re-colonizing our gut microbiome? And so much more I promise. So without further ado, Dr. Nicole Redvers. Okay, hello. We'll welcome to ancestral science. We are so excited to have this guest here today, Dr. Nicole Redvers. I just wanted to first of all offer a tobacco here for Nicole's time and wisdom and just being here in the space here today. Mashicho. Thank you. And I will offer this to the Rose Bush, the back of my house. So let's start first with introducing yourself. However you would like to do that. Yeah, absolutely. My name is Nicole Redvers, I'm a co-azi and I'm a member of the Denonu Kueh First Nation in Treaty territory in Denonu or land of the people. Otherwise known today is the Northwest Territories where I was born and raised. And currently right now I'm situated on the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee the Lenape Chonotone and Anishinaabek people here in otherwise known as Southern Ontario. It's a beautiful sunny day, which is a good thing here, but still feeling a lot of difficult energy right now with my home region right now fully evacuated due to the wildfires. So a lot of family and friends displaced from homes and just a lot of thoughts going back that way to my homelands and to the people there as well here today. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Yeah, it's a difficult time for a lot of people right now. So thanks for mentioning that. So we started with a question, it's kind of a steam question. I'm going to add on to this one because it could be interesting. I want to ask you what is science to you and maybe what is healing to you? Well, I think it's always interesting because if you think about our indigenous words, most of them are verb-based. They're not noun-based. So they're not a thing. They're not an it. They're not a something. They're a process. They're a description. And a couple of years ago we got together with a number of global indigenous scholars, community members, land offenders. We talked a little bit about what this idea of science means to us both from a Western perspective but also from an indigenous perspective. And there was a lot of discussions around this. And I particularly remember the words of Eureus Heldewen, who's the Mayan indigenous sister, amazing up-and-coming scholars. She's worked for the United Nations for a number of years. And she had this beautiful, beautiful description that we sort of built out on what we felt indigenous science was as a conglomerate, as a group representing our very views together. And how we ended up describing it was is that indigenous science could be described as contextual, holistic, symbolic, non-linear, relational. It is not limited by time and uses the collective observation of its people to explain natural phenomena through both real but also through metaphoric narratives. So I thought that was such a great way that encompassed all of our views that we had conversing on this topic because it really allows for not only an opportunity to see indigenous science realized through sort of a descriptive flow but not be limited by certain kinds of narratives within that. But then also very much show not necessarily the binary between indigenous science and Western science but be able to see perhaps some of the connectivities, some of the places where there may be bridges, some places where there's not. And really start to get to the core of how does indigenous science actually facilitate us as community members to be able to describe life. Because it really is about a process of description of narrative, not only for the real that we see before our eyes, but using these beautiful metaphors that are so common within our communities, the beauty of the lands that surround us. So it really bridges in well then to that description then of what healing is because we often have sometimes the very specific view of what healing is. We get a boo-boo and it heals. We feel bad or we feel low one day or maybe we've experienced some trauma or very much anything in this healing process is to sort of get back to some sort of state of what we see. That's at least for my interpretation what it seems like. It's a common realization of healing is, but I think going beyond that and bridging that indigenous scientific component of even healing, being contextual, healing, being holistic, healing, being symbolic, healing, being non-linear and relational. So healing is an essence in indigenous science, is indigenous science is healing because these components are so interconnected because they are a foundation on the lands of the natural laws that we come from, that healing is embodied within those parameters. but are not bounded by any restrictions. So the opportunities then become very broad in thinking about healing and so much more of an expansive term to encompass not only ourselves, but the animals, the plants, the around us, the earth, the universe, all of these components combined in this aspect of healing, being waking up every day, healing, being, putting food in the mouth, healing, being, being with a friend or having a conversation each day. Every day can be a healing experience if we look at it that way and broadening the viewpoint to ensure that all of the experience of life becomes healing in essence. Despite the negative things that happen, despite some of the events that come upon us, at least my elders have always taught me, you know, open your eyes and the day is a gift. Speaking of the words, the gift. Yeah, every day can be a healing experience. I love that. Mm-hmm, yeah. Really struggling with indigenous science as not limited by time. That's something I think about too. So restrictive to think about that. And with healing too. Oh, here's some medication done. (laughs) You're healed of herpes. Absolutely. That's healed, right? Absolutely. There's a philosopher by the name of V.F. Cordova. She's Native American philosopher and she has probably one of the best descriptions of time and really questioning this element of time and what that means in the context of our lived experience, whether or not it is through scientific narratives or even healing narratives that time is a measure. But, you know, if you need to measure something, then you put parameters on it essentially. But if time is boundless, then, you know, it should be looked at the other way around. So, you know, it's hard sometimes to think about these large concepts, but it's very easy, I think, when people are in ceremonial life, where that concept of measure just goes away. It's just, you know, a transition from one thing to the next. - Amy think of a quote that Lever Little Bear from Guy N.N.S. said, "Where science through a global or Western lens has to be, something has to be measured to be science and how it has those parameters. But within indigenous communities or black communities, it's about relationality. It's about, there's no, there's this limits are there." Something that you mentioned that maybe you want to talk about was indigenous medicine science. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - Do you like to expand on that? - Yeah, I think, you know, it kind of bridges into the scientific description or process that I described, you know, that our collective came up with. And, you know, medicines are sort of a very delicate area as many of our community members know. There's very strict protocols that are in place, not only for the protection of the medicines, but also for the protection of ourselves, the protection of the universe, and to ensure that everything remains in a good way. So when it comes to thinking about the science of indigenous medicine, I often think about it in a way, and I'll give an example because, you know, I think it's easier to think about it this way. When I was working in the United States University of North Dakota, we developed the first PhD program in indigenous health. One of the funding streams that we ended up being successful at was to create an indigenous trauma and resiliency center. And I can't think about how all of these conversations around epigenetics and specifics. So epigenetics is basically the science of how our genes express themselves. So not our blue genes, but our genes in our body, obviously don't change, but the expression of them can. So, you know, the kinds of messages that they give our body can change. That's essentially the field of epigenetics. And I kept hearing about how trauma and how stress and how all of these things can impact our epigenetics and therefore the expression of how our bodies are in the world and get passed on through generations. But then I kept thinking, well, okay, well, if trauma can get passed on literally that deep at our fundamental aspect of our expression of our genes, then what about love? What about happiness? What are our ceremonies do as part of that process? How can that actually impact it? So we decided to work with community and develop this protocol, this scientific experiment, if we could say in Western terms, to be able to determine how our indigenous foods, and we called them foods, even though foods are our medicine, because that's how you have to be careful with research boards, never call things medicines, small amounts of foods, berries in this case, to see what happens when our community members eat them first, it's the same period of time, ignoring that this berry is a powerful berry, has a lot of medicinal components in it. How the expression of our genes change? Do they change favorably? And we've just recently in the last few months started to analyze our data, and we were expecting, because genetics can be a very sensitive subject in our communities through to a lot of previous harm and extractive processes and research. But we thought it was going to be months to recruit participants. And within three to four weeks, we were turning people away. We had so much interest in it, because it was finally a question that brought strength to the community. It was something of interest. And we determined that by consuming this berry for a period of six weeks, that we actually saw change in the genetic expression of the inflammatory genes in the body. And the reason why I thought originally of this study was when an elder, a DNA elder, best of London, she came out of the ceremony at one point we were talking. And she was saying that when you talk to people, when you do ceremony, think switch, and she made this turning movement with her hand, the things switch inside, switch. And I thought about that for many years afterwards. What is the-- OK, if there's a spiritual switch there, the next component after that is the physiological expression of our genes, because that is our blueprint. So if our medicines in our ceremonies can switch things at that deep, fundamental level, that it means it's going beyond that. Something has to happen beyond that. So that's actually what spurred the idea for this study was thinking about how deep can we go on these switches when we're exposed to our medicines, our foods, our ceremonies, and showing that this kind of action, just literally consuming our own traditional food can have such a deep and fundamental impact on the body. That is indigenous medicine science. I've got chills. I mean, I'd sign up because you lots of berries. I know it was one of those things where it was funny when we talked about trying to figure out design, because normally in Western medicine, you have to have double blind placebo controlled studies where somebody's given control where it's essentially nothing and not. But people know their berries. They're not going to know when it's not something else. So we really had to negotiate to try to figure out ways to ensure that we could get funded, but at the same time brings strength to our ways. And ultimately, the hope was this to be able to better fund food sovereignty programs so that big government is able to fund things like berry bushes to show that, yes, these have deep impact on our bodies. And we don't need to prove these things. But in essence, sometimes when communities have been disconnected, there's a level of-- there's a level of understanding. And in some cases, we're leave to know, like, yes, these things do make an impact. They're making an impact at the deepest level of our being. I love that funding berry bushes. And that's not just-- make sure there's berries in the grocery store, but to also have that activity, that community connection of harvesting berries and being with your aunties, and your community, doing that, and healing through that experience as well as, I'm sure, the healing properties of the berries. Absolutely. So many questions connected to that, but I kind of want to back up and ask you about yourself, specifically, and how did you get into your work? And was there-- you've always wanted to do this. Joyce, see yourself as being a doctor. Was there a moment when you realized, wow, there's a lot of connections, all of a sudden saw a connection between learnings of the land group, or plant medicines, or elders that I can use this to support my community through doing what you're doing now? Well, I think one of the unfortunate things about growing up in community is that a lot of times you're not exposed to many opportunities, just due to the residential school legacy. And I grew up in very small community in Northern Canada, rural and remote area. And I specifically remember guidance counselors telling me and encouraging me to go the non-academic route for math, because I wasn't going to need that later on. So there wasn't a lot of push. I didn't see many of us as well indigenous doctors or people in communities. We don't have university up in the North-West Territories. There's no exposures along those areas. So I ended up. not having any inclination within this area because I didn't even know it was an option that existed. Yes, we were always out on the land, you know, picking berries, my family were hunters and trappers and that was just part of life. But there was never sort of an impetus to start, you know, connecting dots or thinking about things. And it wasn't until I was well into my university journey and half hazardly walked into a wrong talk at the University of Lefbridge actually where I did my undergrad where, you know, they were talking about this thing called natural medicine, which I found, you know, kind of so funny because it was life, right? You know, you put a label on it, but it's just something that we've always had. And I ended up that day walking out of that room and switching my degree. And of course, because I didn't do any of my academic stuff, I had the upgrade. I ended up doing, you know, college courses at the same time as full-time university courses, because of the disadvantage that is often put on us that we're not able to reach our potential. So, you know, it's a learning lesson for me to always think back to young people and how sometimes the structures surround us limit our ability to think that we can become things like doctors. And I hope that others realize that, you know, for folks like me to get to places where I am, just because you didn't do well in high school or do others doesn't mean that you can't go on and become great things. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of extra work to be able to do that. So, you know, all of those combinations sort of come in and align the things I did a lot of global health work, which was really eye-opening for me because it really made me understand that, you know, it's not just a bubble up north of indigenous peoples, that there's indigenous peoples everywhere that are experienced, seeing similar hardships. And in essence, it was it was very healing and of itself to realize that, I think, as the young person growing up, you always think that your world is, you know, the world. But having those inner connectivities and global populations really was eye-opening for me to start to connect those dots and learning about other traditions and how those connected to my own narrative back home and realizing after a while and it took many, many years to realize, you know, how brilliant our people really are. And I feel bad saying that now, but it was true because, you know, growing up, my mom was a residential school survivor and many of my family members were. And there's this disconnect, I think, that happens naturally, you know, with that kind of family history, this journey back and having sort of a reawakening, I guess, of the beauty that was always there, you knew it. And many of us know it, but it just hasn't been awakened. It hasn't been awakened in some way. So I'm really grateful to a lot of the elders that I've been privileged to learn from and work with and be with for helping, you know, helping that reawakening process, not by, you know, doing anything specifically, other than just being supportive. And we make it complicated sometimes, but ultimately we don't. A little bit of support goes a long way and I'm proof of that. Oh, it's, it's unfortunately such a common story. And the same with me, I've talked to many people that has, you know, had that, I guess, a reawakening much later. And I as well never grew up with my culture. And it was, yeah, again, one of those moments of like stumbling upon something and having that moment of, oh, I see myself, I can connect with math or science where I never had that really shouldality in like early education or even in university when I first started. So yeah, interesting. I like that reawakening. Peacher ideas are happening. So definitely put a link in the show notes for your book, the science of the sacred. And a lot of it, when you talk about land is medicine land is healing and and actually one of my, one of my friends asked about, how is the, you know, you feel really good after you take a walk outside after it rains? Why is that? But I think we're so disconnected from what is medicine? What is healing? Where, you know, it's in the medicine cabinet, it's not, you know, taking a walk outside or connecting with those, those original healers or put medicines or what, or what not. So there, do you want to add anything or speak about this? I think it's the biggest myth and biggest, you know, fallacy of our society that's been brought by a colonization is this idea that you're dependent on somebody to heal. And, you know, we, we require somebody else. And in some cases, that very well is the case. You get an acrooxidant, very appreciative of Western science and the advances that have been able to come from that. But the majority of our illness and disease is in chronic conditions and those where other kinds of supports are necessary. And one of the brilliant things about our indigenous medicine systems and how our traditional healers often operate from what I've seen is their guides. They're not there to solve problems for anybody. And it really is up to ourselves to solve our problems. But sometimes we just need a little bit of guidance in how to be able to do that. But fundamentally, the most significant, you know, way of being able to access from what I've seen and learned is through that land-based experience. It's not a matter of just going for a walk. Because if we look at that, even just at the simplest level, okay, you walk through a forest, we know right away that as soon as you step into that forest and you breathe in the forest air, the white blood cells, the immune cells in your body start to increase the natural killer cells that, you know, bite up things like all the bad things. So even cancer cells start to increase and rise. The moment that we go, our cortisol, our stress hormone automatically starts to decrease. This is at the superficial, you know, physiological level that happens as soon as we go into a forest. So why is it are we so connected that as soon as we walk into that forest, a chemical cascade starts to happen in our body without asking anything. We don't ask and say, "Hey, tree, can you reduce my cortisol level?" Or, you know, there's no sort of exchange on a mental level. But there's clearly a connectivity that happens on a physiological level that's beneath our conscious awareness that just naturally occurs around being with other things that are a part of nature. And, you know, that was one of the most beautiful things I heard from an elder who was counseling a gentleman that, you know, was having a lot of troubles out on the streets, decades of alcoholism. And, you know, the gentleman not wanting to share and, or was ready to open up and the elder just simply said, you know, "Go out in the land and let Mother Earth hold your tears." Nobody's going to be around, but, you know, Mother Earth will be there. And I kept thinking about, you know, okay, these physiological impacts. As soon as that person steps into that forest, the connection automatically that happens with that physiology. But then even more so, now bring it to the conscious level where you actually see Mother Earth as a healing element, where you lay on the rock and you know that there's a healing element there, whether it's, you know, little people or otherwise. You're bringing it now to the conscious level. So now it's an amplified healing experience because you not only have the unconscious inner connectivity, healing aspects that occur regardless of whether or not you're aware of it, but now you're actually bringing it to conscious experience of being out there and just feeling like you're a part of the place that you're in. And there's no separation. You're never alone as a human being when you have that worldview. You are never alone in this world when you have that worldview. You are always the part of something. Every time you step your feet on the ground, you're connected to something that's your source and who you are, who is automatically feeding you physiological signals that help you to heal. I mean, how amazing is that if we could all remember that inner connectivity every day, every time we step on the ground that we are never alone in that moment? Yeah, I think about just what we could learn, you know, from like the mycelium, from all those the root connections and which is all around you. So Melissa Roberts, I'm going to mention her name. She has a question about which is connected to this, I think. Can we know things on a cellular level, a cellular level like blood memory? Well, it's always interesting because I've heard and I've had discussions with elders from different places in the world and there's often different ways that we express similar things. And sometimes there's differences even the way that we describe things. And I remember there's an elder from Australia talking about this idea or the difference between spirit and soul, spirit and soul and soul kind of being that blood memory, sort of that genetic, you know, blueprint of information that's passed down through generations this week, go that memory of not only that trauma but the love but the happiness thinking back to the berries, of course, and that automatic imprint that literally happens at a physiological level, being sort of that soul element of generational transfer. And then that spirit being that connectivity to the universe that's unique to that person. So soul will be that lineage of connectivity through generations and spirit being that unique kind of pinpoint that's still interconnected, but more towards the universe. And it just made such perfect sense to me in the conversations and learnings I've had in community, but that older just so brilliantly described this. And it made me think a lot about that how that sort of bloodlineage kind of component which roots us to earth, parts of our body are connected to so many things, but then that sort of energetic kind of spirit component of the universe and kind of the beautiful mergenes of those two. And all, not all communities see those things differently. So it's interesting to see how people conceptualize some of those different beams, I guess, that make us make up our body. So in essence, for myself, absolutely, there's that blood memory piece. And I've seen this in ceremonies embodied where oftentimes the elders will talk within healing ceremonies about deep-seated things being released from generations past, where somebody was carrying something from three, four or five generations back that that soul has just carried on and has not released. And a lot of people don't realize that indigenous traditions believe in reincarnation. Oftentimes, a lot of people think that's an Eastern tradition and people are often very surprised to know that many indigenous communities believe in this idea of reincarnation. And with many elders remembering past lives coming back and that we are here for a specific purpose to be able to ensure that that soul continues to heal until we're ready. And I've heard elders say, you know, this is my last lunch. I'm not coming back after this. I've done my time and I'm ready to go home now. So, you know, that to me speaks of that blood memory piece about that returning and that coming back and embodiment, but at the same time having that, you know, connectivity to our own soul place when we know that we've sort of reached a point where our services are no longer needed here on earth and it's time for the next generations to come through and fulfill those needs and responsibilities. Wow. I love that definition of the difference between a spirit and the soul. Oh, never thought about that. Very cool. In connection to connection and in your chapter of microbiology and you say, we don't have microbiology in our system. We are within it. We are actually within all the bacteria and everything around us. I'm curious about to hear more about that relationship between kind of the gut brain relationship that microbiome mental health relationship that you speak about. Yeah, so we're definitely in a world of bugs. We like to center ourselves at humans a lot and Western science is really good at that. And most often our experiments and our directionality, whether or not it's in microbiology or otherwise, really has, you know, we think it's to infer phenomenon around us, but really there's often this underlying implicit, sometimes explicit, but often this underlying implicit interest to find ways to influence control and, you know, modify phenomena for our benefit as opposed to thinking ourselves as just one very small part of a greater world. And the microbiome is just one of those great examples of how, you know, we literally have an ecosystem within side of us and stewarding that ecosystem. We talk about stewarding the environment and, you know, being responsible stewards to the outside, to the forest, to the trees, but that also becomes a responsibility inside, steward and create healthy environments for literally the living biome that is within our gut from most to bottom and everywhere else around us that help us survive. And what I love about the microbiome, because clearly I'm a little bit of a nerd, is that they are responsible for so much of our well-being and we're starting to understand this more and more at least from a Western science standpoint. But every little bacteria in there, you know, facilitates an exchange. And what's so amazing to me is that if you look back in you know, the evolution is a lot of those bacteria essentially ended up becoming a part of ourselves. There's a mitochondria that lives inside of us. So those little energy cells in the house were actually a part of bacteria, long gone bacteria. So we actually have become, you know, morphed into so interconnected. And it's one of the reasons why our bacteria speak so closely to us, particularly to our mitochondria or our powerhouses of the cell, if people remember to high school biology, mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell, it's our energy repository. And bacteria can exchange information with that energy repository. So if the bacteria in the ecosystem are doing well, if they're being stewarded, we're eating lots of good foods, healthy foods, not being exposed to a lot of bad things. Then that message exchange becomes very positive. It helps improve our mood. We know that, you know, depression now and anxiety are connected to a lot of the things that are happy within our guts. A lot of traditions know that, you know, that gut feeling. Literally we say it within our within our our mode and in what that means. But there's actually a physiological basis for that. We have more neurotransmitters in our gut than we do in our brain. So that alone just tells us how much feeling we have in our gut system. We have more neurotransmitters sites than our gut than we do in our brain. Whoa. You made me lose my question when you said that. Thank you. I was going to ask if, and this is the thing I've, if I were ever to do another PhD and I've said this in the podcast before. So I can't do a next set it. I'm curious about, and this connects back to the berries as well, if like that connection between the food and the medicines of the land that your body's connected with. And that relationship and looking at, you know, different blue zones around the world and people that live till they're 100 and something. And yes, there's that connection between, you know, either often there's gardens or they're very active. They have community, but I'm like, they're eating from those those foods that are growing from the land at their DNA that they they are connected to. Is there anything to that? Do you think there's any connection with the like specific foods, or specific berries that are from your land? Do they influence your microbiome or influence your body differently? Well, one of the chapters in the science of the sacred is talking about foods. And I bring up the concept of the grandmother diet, which is sort of this idea that a lot of our ancestral foods usually for the most part tend to work better for us. And there's, you know, there's a physical reason reason for that, but I also believe there's the spiritual reason for that as well too. And, you know, our, you know, our brothers and sisters and relatives are a great example of that, because of the high meat diet, of course, that's traditional within the North and the Arctic regions. Over time, there's a lot of changes in the microbiome, the ecosystem within the gut that occurs. So automatically what happens is that if many of our, and your brothers and sisters were to eat all of a sudden, you know, in one generation, a lot of foods, let's say milk products or otherwise that are, you know, they're not used to the gut digestive system is not set up to be able to handle that due to thousands of years of brilliant adaptation to specific diet. So we often see high rates, for example, of lactose intolerance and indigenous peoples where milk products was not really a natural food source. And yet we have a, you know, a food guide that often promotes theory products is the healthy option when traditionally this is never a part of any of, I mean, I've never seen any cows in the Northwest territories. I'm not sure if anyone else has, but maybe one in the South they brought it up at some point, but I think it had to leave because the mosquitoes were too bad. So, you know, if your body is situated in a way for thousands of years and automatically you change those food sources, and then a food guide, like the Canada food guide comes out and says, well, you have to eat this many, you know, things of grains and this many things. I mean, same thing grains. Where's the wheat fields up north? I don't see any wheat fields in my home area. So we automatically assume that the diet for, you know, Euro, Western folks is going to be the diet that's most healthy for otherwise. And if you question that, there's a lot of pushback that happens with that from dietitians, from nutritional components, but I really push back against that. You know, with this idea of the grandmother diet that we've survived for thousands of years for a reason. We're here for a reason because of that. If, you know, the fact that our innuit brothers and sisters had such a low calcium amount throughout, they have brilliant adaptation systems. So now if you load calcium, you know, 1,500 milligrams recommended for postmenopausal women, in my opinion, there's actually higher rate of calcification risks that occurs, but nobody talks about these things because it just is assumed that everybody has the standard nutritional requirement. So because of that, going back to your original question, there's some complexity involved because many people have mixed ancestry coming from all over the place. And this is increasingly so. So what does that mean in the context of a grandmother diet? Then if there are a lot of mixtures in there, but we do know that again, because of epigenetics, you know, certain people have different expressions. And sometimes this is just a matter of trial and error with ancestral foods to find out what works best for people and it makes them feel well and not necessarily, although again, I get kicked for this following the Canada Food Guide, but ensuring, you know, a well-rounded holistic diet that makes sense from the ancestral homes of where people come from. And that may be an amalgamation of different things in some cases. A lot of people don't have access to their traditional foods. So what are the closest equivalents? You know, these are privileged discussions that happen to people that have access to foods can have the privilege of choice because many of our relatives don't have that. And why I'm so passionate about food sovereignty movements and trying to ensure that governmental support programs like the Bury Project can actually support a lot of our traditional food access where sometimes that might be difficult for community members. Absolutely. Yeah, I actually was thinking about the calcium question about what part do you, calcium if you're not drinking milk or reading lots of dairy products or also a question of a fluoride. Same thing, I heard about like natural sources of fluoride are not available anymore. So that's why that's why they're being brought into our water systems. I know it's a controversial topic, but I mean, it makes sense if your body is adapted to a certain food source and to you know, get connected to those lines and your body is going to adapt to that, right? And our bugs do too. And of course the bugs do. I have a question about do bacteria communicate like my silly mom. I believe they do and I believe even in science, they recognize this connection. And in fact, the example that I gave before about the ability for bacteria to communicate with our mitochondria, our powerhouses of the cell is a great example of that cross communications that occurs between bacterial endpoints. And sometimes it's not only from them directly, but also the kinds of things that they produce. So just like we produced metabolic waste, we could say, so do bacteria. And sometimes those toxins or others can send messages to other parts of our body and act as relay communication methods of giving us signals if we're inflamed that maybe something's not right within our gut and how we're sewarding that ecosystem. So absolutely. Totally makes sense. And antibiotic resistance, that's exactly how it develops. bacterial communication, they exchange. There's a lot. We need to decolonize our microbiome. Yeah, we have or colonize it in a good word recolonize it. It's kind of a funny thing because I have this joke sometimes, you know, using these words because we kind of think of things differently with the microbiome. But essentially we have been we've been colonized by not so good bacteria. But in essence, we need to recolonize the good stuff. Interesting. We need a better job, probably. Maybe. So we recently on the podcast had Tura's Web from Tura Straight Hill on and was talking about how, especially like where he's from, it's very evident climate change, the effects of climate change there because they're right in the water and how often is the industrial world that creates most of the climate change. But it's the indigenous communities that feel more of the effects and being from north and doing a lot of work up north. It's curious on what do you see up there as the effects of climate change and curious also about bacteria and viruses that are being released from permafrost and whatnot. Is that true? Well, one of the stories, and again, speaking of the same elder, Bessa Blondon, she told me a number of years ago that when she was a little girl, her grandfather told her three stories of things that were going to happen when she was older. And one was that the ground was going to start sinking upon itself. The second was that sickness was going to start waking up from the ground. And the third one was that the access of the earth was going to tilt slightly to affect the spin of the earth. And of course, now we've had direct evidence in the last few years because of the permafrost melt that lakes have literally collapsed in themselves. In fact, we had one a couple years ago in the day-to-a region that just disappeared. There's no more lake anymore. It just collapsed and more humping and slumping of the grounds. We had evidence of anthrax that came back through soil melt of an old deer carcass in Siberia that was immobilized within the permafrost, literally a sickness that came up and infected a family from the ground. And we're now seeing evidence of other kinds of viruses and bacteria that have the potential to be mobilized. And then recently, evidence of the access change in the earth from two causes, one from the melt happening at the polar both poles, which affects the weight distribution of the earth, tilting the earth lightly, but also the amount of fresh water that we've extracted from earth has changed the weight balance. There's actually been a shift in the access of the earth, just as these stories had told. And our anyway, brothers and sisters have been saying that for years, noticing that the stars have shifted in the sky, that they're not the same place as they were when they were young. So these kinds of stories are always so amazing in essence because what it does, we think of prophecy sometimes, this imaginary kind of thing that somebody just thinks of. But in my mind, prophecy is an astute and fundamental understanding of natural law. Because when you disrupt certain things in the earth's atmosphere, it creates an automatic cascade and expected cascade of things to come. And if you break down value systems in society where earth is no longer looked at as a relative, but as a source of resources and extraction, there's going to be a certain cascade of things that start to happen and fundamentally end up in changes happening in the Arctic at four times the global rate and in the north at three times the global rate. So we've been seeing these changes for decades, our elders have been warning about it for decades. And we see the evidence, of course, now starting to be more widespread around the globe that it's going to start affecting the rest of the planet as well. So this is no surprise to elders in my own region. It's an eventuality because of the lack of response that has occurred at a global scale, but also a call to action in some senses. And I always like to take their lead on this where they've never just sat down and said, okay, well, that's it then. You know, we're done for. We're, you know, we're just going to go home and eat some dry fish and that's it. I mean, that's never been the case. I've never seen an elder just sit down and say, we're not going to do anything about it and have continued to speak out, continued to drive advocacy, continued to make change because why would you ever give up on your mother? I mean, it's not even an option in that. And I think it's why we see such strong leadership coming out of the north because there is an experience of this change for decades, but also strong voices standing up for action. And I don't see that stopping anytime soon from the north. Yeah, I think that's called action is so important to us. Yeah, we're not supposed to back. What can we do? How do we how do we help? How do we help our mother? Give me advice on what people can do to I think this also connects to the wildfires and these energies that are there's it's shifting energy and an or rising energy. I've heard a lot of elders saying that something else is happening. The earth was the intentions of COVID was for the earth to take a breath. There to take a break and to heal itself and for us to maybe learn and sounds like that hasn't happened. Don't know what's the up and coming, but see not as you mentioned with the wildfires and around yellow nice, same with around colona, there's a lot a lot of energy around and what can people do to help them? Well, I think one of the things that always strikes me the most when I've when I've talked elders about this is you know, and I've heard this repeated not only in the north, but also in other areas that the globe when I've talked to folks and they will say that the plants, the trees, the animals, nobody's singing to them anymore. And again, I think we make things too complicated sometimes and forget about some of those simple things. They've just aware of a synagoguishment of what's around us. And you know, many people these days go to bed in their homes, morning wake up, go into their car, perhaps maybe a bike, go to work, stay in a work building all day. come back in a car, drive home, go back to bed, repeat and repeat. And how often do we look up, how often do we look beside us? The tree in our yard, the plant, the grass, all of those things. And a lot of that teaching that I've heard is that we're just not paying attention anymore. We're not giving Earth, we're not seeing, we're not speaking to the land, we're not enabling those connectivities to happen. And that's part of our problem. So one of the biggest things that we've always put at the fundamental basis of need for change is just trying to embody within society the understanding of our interconnectedness within nature. And I'll use often an example, particularly with scientists, but also with physicians and others as well to say, and even for kids, our bodies are 60% water. And I'll ask them, where does your water come from? And it's always been interesting to ask that question to people. And I ask it to people all around the world, no matter where I am. And many people don't know where they're, which river, which lake their waters come from. And kids, even as well too, they oftentimes the water comes from the top. And thinking about where it actually comes from. So here, where I'm situated right now, we have two big pipes, one coming from Lake Erie and one coming from Lake Huron. And that feeds the water that comes into the top here when I'm back home. It comes out of the Great Slaves Lake. That's the water source with that. So it takes about three months for ourselves to replenish themselves, so to speak approximately. So I've been back home for about three months. 60% of my body becomes Great Slaves Lake or Tunevay. I am 60% Lake. Here, I'm 60% Lake Huron and Lake Erie. We are literally the rivers. We are literally the rivers and the waters. We are all walking around as rivers and waters every single day. So the health of that river, that water becomes the health of ourselves. And being able to just connect those dots for people I find. Using simple narratives can be enough just to get that as that elder, moved her hand. That little tweak of thinking to start to think about something a little bit differently. And I really believe the power of narratives, of narratives that just recituate ourselves as part of something greater can help overcome some of that disconnect that we often feel. And that constant reminder, those small little things about us being nature. We are in and of itself nature. Even the carbon, of course, within our bodies, it all came from long exploded stars. That is the source of our carbon. We are literally star people. We are from the universe. Each bone tooth, everything is part of that star. So these kinds of things, trying to reconnect those pieces, I think, is a fundamental thing. We always want to jump to, okay, well, let's sequester the carbon and do this and do that. But it's a mechanical, siloed process that still continues to disconnect us from there. And we need greater awareness and attention in my mind, even though it doesn't seem like you're doing a lot. Our elders have taught us that that prayer, that intent, that song to the tree has an amplifying effect. You're the complexity of the world and those ceremonies do have impact and don't minimize the potential impact that they can have when we're all doing that together, giving that attention back, the awareness and the prayers back to Mother Earth that she so deserves. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that goes back to what you're saying earlier about, you know, it's not just about, you can go for a walk in the forest and you feel great, but to have that awareness of, this is, can heal me and this can help me in this having that very, that presence, I guess, and paying attention, I think that's reciprocity to the Earth as well, right? Absolutely. And it's not even, you know, for some folks that may not be able to get out into the forest, but it's amazing, at least what we know from the Western literature that tells us what we already know, but even looking at a picture of nature, being by a house plant, thinking about nature. That invoked similar kinds of responses. In fact, it's been shown in hospital rooms. People have plants in their room if they have pictures of nature, of view to nature. It reduces the hospital days, post-surgery. So, you know, these impacts are not only about being in the, in the forest, and this is what I was saying about bringing in the conscious aspect of that connection that automatically, yes, you get the unconscious physiological benefits from the greenery from the nature, but then embody that no matter where you are, if you don't have access to forests, this can still be a possibility within a home, within a hospital room, even within a front yard. Everyone can do it. That's great. Yeah, I think with that reconnection, there's one more question that a few people asked me about. I think there's a lot of conversation now about why and how do we reconnect and different ways to do that, including different plant medicines, different psychedelic plant medicines as a way to reconnect with ourselves with the ancestors, with whatever that may be. Do you know any more about that or would like to expand on that? Yeah, it's a very timely topic, of course, and there's been a lot of discussion around that. In fact, we gathered with, actually, Yuria Saldin, the Mayan Indigenous sister I was talking, but before a number of elders from Central and South America to actually bring in this question about psychedelics, because there's been a lot of communities that have been financially but also abuse, literally, and have a lot of risks to their traditional medicines because of the Western boom that's happened within psychedelics and also the commercialization of our medicines and our sacred places. So it's a very delicate subject, but one of the biggest things I think to take away from that whole movement is not surprising because people are still looking for something. Whether it's pill and a cabinet or a plant, they're looking for something, some moment, some experience that's just going to switch things and that's it. And for some people, particularly those that have experienced significant trauma, military personnel, those types of things, there is evidence that some of these things are making some movement. My concern is that a lot of these psychedelic medicines are being taken out of their contacts. And if we go back to that definition, we talked about on Indigenous science, but also on healing at the beginning of the conversation, holistic, symbolic, non-linear, relational, contextual, and if you take things out of their contacts, they start to lose that connectivity to the purpose of what it was there in the first place. And when you take away that contacts, it becomes dangerous in my mind because ultimately it gives this false notion of this ability to do something once and then all of a sudden everything disappears, comparatively too, because we come from communities up north and you know, yes, we have some powerful medicines. And there's ones that can alter your, but they're not common. They're not used on a regular basis because we have other ceremonies that embody similar things, sun dance, fasting. All of these kinds of things actually funny enough bring you to similar states that could be experienced within, you know, a psychedelics, but you're connected to land in that moment while doing it. So I see the same possibilities in ceremonies. Ceremonies are just as powerful as some of these other things. But in fact, in my mind, they're more connected because they're literally a part of land throughout this process. So I think we need to be careful with some of these new movements coming out. And I'm not saying that they're bad in all cases by any means, but not to have them replace some of the important ceremonial things that we've done. I mean, very few of our young people now are going on fasting ceremonies. Fasting ceremonies is between me one of the most powerful ways to reconnect and to connect and heal with earth in a safe way with elders that know what they're doing obviously and are part of these ceremonies. And we have very few people doing that anymore. And it's hard. It's a hard process to do. But at the same time, I think those are the areas where we're really missing out. And I hope to see more and more communities starting to bring back some of these kinds of healing ceremonies, not only for people because when you go out to fast, you don't fast for yourself. For four days and four nights, you're giving a break to mother earth. You're not eating or drinking during that time. You're giving her a rest and being able to allow that connection to happen and just, you come out with such an amazing sense of gratitude for how insignificant you are in essence without food and water and how reliant and dependent you are on the earth, you know, for our sustenance and survival. It's just such a beautiful and powerful experience that I hope we see more and more coming back. It does really reinforce that. The connection to the land, but also the connection to everything else, like really I think who you are and what you're made of, you are the land. Like you said, we are water. We are the stars and that humility that comes with that as well. It's important to think about it. Absolutely. - Is there, as we slowly wrap up here, is there anything else you'd like to add or ask something that you'd like to mention or speak about that I didn't ask you about? - Well, I think maybe the only thing that I'll note is when it comes to those that may not have filters around them or community members or connectivity with that, I think, it's easy to talk about being able to access some of these teachings and ceremonies, so many of our old hosts are struggling and not having those connections, but I always remember one thing, the elder from the day-to-region, Dene Elder said is that, you know, the knowledge is never lost. The knowledge is never lost. Whenever you think the knowledge is lost, just go back to the land and the land will retake you to everything. And I keep that in my heart a lot because I think there's a lot of worry. There's a lot of stress and anxiety with the way the world's changing and how quickly things are advancing, but also the effects of colonization and residential schools and all those kinds of things. But I really take credence in that because I was also one of those warriors, we're gonna lose the language, just we're gonna lose this. But I always think about that teaching from that elder that the teachings are never lost, they're always out there on the land. And that gives me a lot of assurance and hope to know and understand that really it is about living life, that we're not trying to get anywhere as human beings, so to speak, you know, yes, we have gifts, but our purpose is to give them away. That is the whole, you know, that's the whole purpose of why we're here. Of course, we have a responsibility to that. So I say that because I think it's easy to get disillusioned when we don't have those connections. And again, I've been privileged and lucky to have those connections, but I always remind folks that don't, 'cause I work with students a lot that sometimes don't have those connectivities and that the knowledge is never lost. I think when you place your feet on land, wherever you feel like home is for you, there's always an opportunity there to move things forward in a good way. And sharing that and keeping that positive narrative putting that one step forward, I think is an amazing feat in and of itself for our people given how much we've been through. So I just feel so much love for everyone and everybody continuing this movement forward for our people 'cause it's not an easy journey sometimes, it can be exhausting, but we need to take care of ourselves. And this is why that healing aspects of the science component is so important so that we can continue to have the energy and well-being to continue to stand up for our families, but also for the earth as well. So I just wanna say, musty-cho. Musty-cho with the way I've been taught that everybody thinks it's like a big thank you 'cause Cho will add to any of our words like day Cho is the name of the McKenzie River's big river, two Cho is great slave lake, it's a big lake. But Breifavian, who's from the Catholic H.E. First Nation up in the Dene Territory taught me that Cho is actually something we add on as an honor. So it's actually an honor river, it's an honor lake. So when we say musty-cho is actually an honor, thank you. Oh, hi, hi, it's been an honor to have this conversation today. It's just Star Shack and Richem, get to talk. So it's great. I always learned so much. So thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and for sharing all these stories and knowledge here today. So always a reminder to the listeners about the protocols of, you know, we, the knowledge here today is, you know, knowledge that's been received from the land, from elders from community and always too. You know, it's great to, if you want to, to share that, but making sure that there's always a connection to site your site, your sources. So whether that be specific berries, you were talking about from up north and also or also any of the elders in communities, as well as yourself that have been mentioned to us here today. So we'll put all of those, a lot of those links in the show notes. So everyone can check that out. Obviously a link to your book and some other sites. And of course, there's lots of merch that on relational sites, circle.com forward slash shop on all that merch that proceeds go towards just keeping this podcast going through on a, on a area and to editing and all that good stuff. So it's absolute pleasure chatting today. And I think with that, thank you so much. And hi, hi. Thank you, musty. (soft music) So I just wanted to, to record a little add on here and first of all, apologize. I kind of got the recording time wrong today. But the cool, so I'm so sorry. So my brain was a little scrambling during this conversation and I really appreciate how she anchored it with her expertise or wisdom and her grace. So I'm grateful for that. And a heart. I also wanted to add on to please check the show notes for links and ways to help the people who have been affected by climate change with the wildfires and the floods that are happening around this country and around the globe. But down some tobacco, I'll say a prayer and have those, those prayers and those frequencies reverberate to land, to heal and to reconnect. And as Dr. Redvers suggested, be conscious of about your relationship with the land and something as simple as figuring out what water you were made from. I think can really begin that journey of reconnection. Being conscious of thinking about all the gifts that the earth gives you every day. So please stay safe, take a moment and think about how can I give back to the earth? How can I give back for all the ancestral science and the knowledge that have been gifted to me to survive and to thrive? So have a lovely day, everyone. High high.