The Sacred Feminine
Blog by Valerie In 2016 I danced a healing ceremony on Tiwa country in view of their Place of Emergence (now the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, U.S., image from here.) It was the height of summer when…
Category Indigenous Science
Two-Eyed Seeing: Gift & Privilege
Blog by Valerie The word gift has a very interesting etymology. I remember being surprised as a child to learn that Gift meant ‘poison’ in German. Turns out it means ‘poison’ in modern Dutch, Danish and Swedish too. The story…
Our Trickster Nature
Blog by Valerie Why does a crocodile hide underwater and then snap at prey (fight)? A sparrow swoop into a tree when there’s rustling on the ground nearby (flight)? A dog play dead (freeze)? Because trickiness is a part of…
Our Primal Nature
Blog by Valerie Right now it’s easy to feel survival fears, to observe deeply ingrained panic behaviours and to hear people talk about ‘these strange times.’ I understand the sentiment, but I think it’s strange that so many of us…
Reciprocity & the Resentment-Denial Dance
Blog by Valerie This week I am moving through some grief. I had known that a friendship would end had been observing it fade away for a while, and I was hoping it would just fade and drift gracefully into…
Outliers
Most of us are familiar with outliers from mathematics, as illustrated by this image: I have always felt like an outlier. Outliers can be inspiring leaders, and can also be absolutely crazy. Most outliers, in my experience, embody a bit…
On Climate Change
Blog by Lukas Dear Greta, I admire your fire and passion, and your courage to take on so much of the world’s attention. Whether this attention be loving, ambivalent, or hostile, the sheer weight of it is no doubt burdensome,…
Earthly nourishment
Blog by Valerie All Law-breaking comes from that first evil thought, “I am greater-than,” that original sin of placing yourself above the land or above other people. Tyson Yunkaporta The above quote is the definition of “unsustainable” to me. I…
Earth Ethos child development
Blog by Valerie Some studies of newborns suggest that humans’ most fundamental need is to be part of a culture, to engage with their social environment and try to make sense of their surroundings. It can be helpful to conceptualise…
Boundaries & integrity
Blog by Valerie There’s a lot of rhetoric about boundaries, and setting healthy boundaries, and crossing boundaries, but in essence, we’re talking about integrity, or wholeness. From google, the etymology of integrity is: When we are in integrity, we are…