OtherWise
Holistic Arts

I want to pay respect to the land and people who steward where I am living and practicing without making a lifeless “land acknowledgement.” I am a dual settler here, born in Treaty 6 territory on lands shared by Tsuu T’ina, Stoney, Cree, and Métis peoples. I come from, at the longest, a line of colonizers stretching back 13 generations on this continent starting in “New England” and “New France.” My people mostly left the British Isles, Ukraine and Norway to occupy these lands. I believe that being intimately familiar with the implications of my lineage is necessary for me to ground my work in the present, and the future. These things are true and will continue to be so.

The clinic is located on land stolen by way of one of the duplicitous Douglas Treaties from the sxʷeŋxʷəŋ family group of those we currently call the Songhees nation, one of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples. Naming the discrete acts of the ongoing attempted genocide of colonization is one way I understand to be in relation to these lands and those who have stewarded them and continue to do so since time immemorial. These things are true and will continue to be so.

Coming into practice with my responsibilities, given the above, is an ongoing, iterative, living process. I will be in it until my last breath and most likely long after. These things are true and will continue to be so.