Ep. 18: A Queer, Native Woman with a PhD--A Colonizer's Nightmare

In this powerful relaunch of the Relentless Indigenous Woman Podcast, Dr. Candace Linklater shares her transformative journey of completing her PhD, navigating grief, and finding profound love and resilience. 

Her award-nominated dissertation, inspired by the quiet strength of moss, explores creating safe spaces for Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQ+ youth, reflecting her commitment to education as an act of rebellion and compassion. 

With an announcement of the stellar lineup of Indigenous guests, including artists, activists, and leaders, the podcast challenges intolerance, expands empathy, and celebrates the sacred diversity of human experience. 

Dr. Candace's raw, emotional storytelling invites listeners to grow, question rigid beliefs, and embrace love in all its expansive forms. This podcast is a courageous invitation to learn, unlearn, and honour the full spectrum of human dignity.

www.relentlessindigenouswoman.ca

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Relentless Reflection:

• Where are you choosing performative allyship over genuine radical transformation and accountability?
• What comfortable lies are you protecting that actively harm marginalized communities?

Relentless Action:

• Read one book by an Indigenous Two-Spirit author this month, focusing on listening and learning without centring your own perspective.
• Publicly challenge one family member or institutional leader who perpetuates homophobic or transphobic rhetoric, with zero compromise.

Relentless Resources: 

• Pedagogy of Moss Model in School Leadership Approaches for Indigenous 2SLGBTQ+ K–12 Students by Dr. Candace Linklater https://www.proquest.com/docview/3156239758
• "Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature" edited by Qwo-Li Driskill - A groundbreaking anthology centring Indigenous queer and Two-Spirit voices, narratives, and experiences.

Join the RIW Patreon Community

RIW Website

Music Produced by Award-Winning Anishnaabe DJ Boogey the Beat

Transcript

Wacha, hello, everyone. It has been quite a while since you and I met here on these podcast speakers. I'm sitting here right now in my office. I'm sitting on the floor on a nice cozy blanket, the blanket that I use usually when I have my own personal ceremony. I also have here with me a cup of peppermint tea. It is slightly raining outside. It's spring, so green is finally coming through, and it feels like a totally new season for me. And this is what I love about seasons. It's an invitation to perhaps mimic what Earth is already doing, opening up a little, blossoming up a little, and that's literally what I feel right now, redoing this podcast and relaunching it. It's been quite the year, and I'm going to share some of the things that I have gone through, some of the accomplishments and some of the grief that I have experienced this past year. And what brings me to this microphone to you once again. So the intention of the relaunch of this podcast is a response to what we are facing right now in I guess this would be quite historical times that we're in right now. And people will ask what we have done during these times, and what I want to answer is that I was teaching people. I was trying to educate people. So for me, in a time right now where intellectualism and empathy are few and far between, or as seen as weaknesses or as something that is irrelevant. This is that rebellion against that. This is an invitation to critically think. This is an invitation to expand your empathy toward other humans. So this is education as rebellion, education in these times. So while I am going through all of these new podcasts and what I'll be teaching and what the guests will also be teaching, there are a few things that I would love for you to do. I would like you to remain teachable. And by that, what I mean is increase your compassion, increase your courage to perhaps be wrong, increase your courage to think of something different or consider another insight or another possibility that takes courage and, of course, come with curiosity. Always be curious about what is being shared and why it's being shared. There's a lot of amazing indigenous voices that will be shared on this podcast for the next few months. I have an incredible guest lineup that I will describe them to you at the end of this particular episode. I'm so, so excited about them. They're they're incredibly, incredibly amazing indigenous people. So there's a lot to learn from them, and there's a lot that they taught me as well. So what I want to invite for you folks to is intelligence is not about knowing everything or being right about things. Intelligence is having the capacity to be flexible, to make room for new perspectives, to make room for expanding your knowledge on something, to make room for being wrong, to make room for humility. There's a huge difference between wanting to be right. It doesn't make you intelligent just because you know a lot of things. What makes you intelligent is your ability to be flexible, your ability to hold space for new information. And this is something that I've had to do in my life, especially these past 10 years, as I have gone through my master's in education and as I completed my PhD this past January. So that's one thing that I did this year, and I'll talk about that in just a moment. So for each new episode, there will be resources available. So if you go on my website, relentless indigenous woman.ca, for every new episode, so I believe that's from Episode 18 and onward is there is going to be a link there that will take you to resources that include things you can read or things you can watch and reflection questions and actionable steps per each episode and this. Is what I wanted to do for you know this, what my response to what is currently happening right now with our humanity, with a lot of alt right people believing that it would be correct and sustainable to challenge humanity and to challenge the dignity of others. So this is this is that this is a challenge for you, and it's also a challenge for me being in these times. So I wanted to create all these resources for you, folks, because that's just what I do. I'm a teacher by trade, and I'm a teacher by heart, and I truly believe in it. I'm a teacher by design. I was, I started out in early childhood education. I was an early childhood educator for years, taught in the baby room and the toddler room, and then I moved on to be an elementary school teacher, and I loved that, and I had the honor of my first classroom. I had a trans student in there, and they taught me a lot, and I often wonder what they're doing. I thought of them today, and I believe they would be in their 20s right now, which makes me feel really old, because I taught them when they were in grade five. I really hope they're doing well. If you are listening to this, I'm so proud of you. They were so, so highly intelligent for their age. And a lot of what I do is not just for that student, but for all my students. The relentless indigenous woman page came out of the love for my first nation students on my reservation when I taught there, it was a June day, and it was beautiful outside, and they were so happy, and having just, you know, the time of their life being eight and nine years old and relentless Indigenous women was a response out of love for them, because I wanted to create A space where people can learn and unlearn about Indigenous histories and our current realities, because I know that the world that we live in right now does not yet have the capacity to hold space for indigenous perspectives and our sovereignty so relentless Indigenous women page, the Facebook page was created out of that response, and this podcast is an even bigger response to that. So everything that I do is for my students, absolutely everything. So if you are listening and you were with Miss L at one point, I love you. These are my love languages. Is teaching people, teaching people how to love better and how to show up better. So my year away, my last episode was last June, and that one was actually with my fiance, Alex, and it's been quite the year. My year away, I completed my dissertation, my PhD, I officially finished in January, and I also had some grief that I was going through, and I'll talk about that in a moment. So it's so interesting. When I finished my PhD in January, I'll be completely honest, I was. I felt terrified. I felt like I did not deserve to be Dr Candace. I did not I felt like it was meant for somebody else, even though I literally did all the work, I literally wrote 275 pages for my dissertation. I literally did all this work and research and and completed it, but yet I still felt like I didn't deserve it, like, what? What am I going to do now? It felt like a huge, huge pressure, and I was going through such a grief, like I was shaking days before I had to defend my dissertation and my study, because I didn't know what to do with it. What am I going to do now? I guess I think I was grieving being a student. I had been in school since I was well, since I finished high school, I've been in school since I was 19, and I'm turning 35 this year, so I've been in school forever, so I think it was grieving that, but also I felt this pressure, and I felt like I had to honor what that title meant to me. I took it so so seriously to have doctor in front of me, not just as like a flex, like it is a pretty cool flex, but honestly, its implications and the power that it holds, especially in this society, when you have so many letters behind your name, I'm like, What? What the hell am I going to do with this now?

Speaker 1  9:59  
And. I took some time to think on it, pray on it, sit by water on it and just listen. And honestly, what I got from that was creating this podcast. I still wanted knowledge to be accessible, but social media is such an interesting place to be to teach things that I want to teach, because it does come with a lot of especially now, with the way meta is going a lot they seem to allow for a lot of alt right bullshit to occur in the comments and for things to happen online that are just just vitriol, the vitriol that you see in the comments is is horrible. So I was just like, I'm tired of, you know, dealing with that, and also the policing of how I teach and how I say things, because I do say things very to the point, in like, two sentences. But how I came to write these two or three sentences that go viral, it comes with a lot of study. It comes from a lot of research. It comes from a lot of sacred time on the land. It doesn't just come out of nowhere. So I wanted this podcast to be that space to teach. I wanted it to be an opportunity even for you to share your insights and have questions which are actually also available on the website@relentlessindigenouswoman.ca under podcasts, there will be a section for you to ask questions and share any insights that you have had. So I wanted this to be a safe and open space, whether you're driving to work right now or driving from work, going on a walk, or you're at the gym, or you're cleaning the house. I know podcasts are definitely a space that I like to go to when I want to feel inspired. And this is what I wanted to offer for the world. This is the kind of doctor that I wanted to be. And, yeah, because that was my question, like, what kind of doctor don't want to be? And it's and it's interesting, and I hope my cousin doesn't mind me sharing this. She's actually finishing her med school at the end of this month, officially, so she will also be a doctor this year, and she, too was experiencing exactly what I experienced, this kind of panic, this type of depression, even I went through depression after finishing my dissertation, after finishing everything. And it's, I forget what the term is called, but it's actually quite common, when you finish such a huge thing, like a PhD or your your MD, or anything big like that, there's a type of grief that comes with it. So I wanted to take like, grieve that, and I'm like, Okay, I'll let myself feel what I need to feel. And I'm like, Okay, what am I going to do now? And this is what I want to do now. And along with this, I eventually want to put courses on my website and offer some courses, offer, potentially some mentorship programs for people, and that will be forthcoming, likely in this year. But for now, we're going to start with this podcast. And I'm very, very happy you're here. And before this podcast, and around the time where I was going through, like, a depression after the PhD, I also went through huge burnout from social media, you know, posting for like, literally, at least two to five times a day since 2019 so that's like six years of doing that every day, mostly every day. I had burnout, especially with what's going on right now and again. Like I said, the vitriol that I was experiencing online and the tone policing that I receive from well intended people, but they they also make it really, really fucking hard to just say what I need to say, and just being policed by people that are seemingly on the same side as me. It's just absolute nonsense sometimes that happens online. And I also wanted to step away too from being in social media space and just reground to what the hell do I actually believe in? Am I thinking or believing what I believe or thinking because it's online and because I perhaps created a type of echo chamber and creating a phenomenon called group think, where one side just thinks one way, and we don't really make space to further elevate from that or question how we're doing things. So. I just had to step away, and I noticed I was becoming chronically online, chronically online so like constantly scrolling, constantly checking updates, constantly trying to figure out what the hell to post next that could potentially resonate with people or help others. And I was at complete burnout, and I was away from social media for about two months, and that was the best thing that I've ever done. And it actually kind of reset the algorithm on my page, because it I decreased from about from a few 1000 followers, and then I gained them all back and more, which is hilarious. So I kind of like reset everything, and I just needed to also have limits on my phone. Now that I'm back, I make, I think, an hour and a half between all apps right now, just to, you know, be grounded in reality go outside. And even though my reality doesn't always include just being outside, sometimes I like to play video games. And the video games that I like to to vibe on are like Zelda, like Breath of the Wild tares of the kingdom. Love those games and the sins. And I kind of got into Roller Coaster Tycoon at one point from like, the early 2000s so, so like, it just, it's just like I needed to like for myself. I need to step away a lot of the time from social media. I'm not online all the time, as many may think. I take more breaks now, and I've never felt more myself in such a long, long time. So with all of that, getting my PhD, taking a brief break from social media, I I have been going through a lot of grief this past year as well, which included needing to let some family members go from my life because I I was being silent. I guess you would call it silent ostracization, I'm guessing from, you know, being in a queer relationship, I grew up evangelical fundamentalist growing up, and there were quite a few of them that still cling on very hard to a lot of some of the fundamentalist beliefs. And I this past year had, well, not that past year, but a few months before that, I had to leave a group chat just with the family, because I just felt like I was the elephant in the room. Like nobody ever talks about my relationship. I never share anything about my relationship. I felt like I didn't have the space to talk about how amazing Alex is, how romantic they are, how safe I feel with them, how wonderful of a person they are, because of you know what I've heard growing up. So I had to send one last message before I left, and this is what I said.

Speaker 1  18:26  
I said I took the past month to do some deep healing. Part of that was reevaluating the dynamics of me and the family. The lack of open support and love for my relationship has been a silence so deafening that it crushes my soul. Every day. Growing up, I've heard so much homophobia and transphobia, I can only imagine how those beliefs and thoughts are implicated toward me, especially being engaged to a Two Spirit trans person. And while I was away, the silence was even more deafening the life I have and the work I do, much of it has to do with advocacy experience toward the LGBTQ plus community, with the deep healing I've gone through, I've learned to grow beyond the dogma and bigotry I've known most of my life. From growing up around fundamentalism, I chose to grow into kindness, justice and compassion. Part of that is placing accountability on harmful beliefs that hurt others, including homophobia and transphobia, to things that cause 1000s to take their own lives. I realize I am the first one to be openly queer. There will be others, and it is my hope that they will feel openly loved and supported. Until then, those experiences are a part of my story. I will keep I will be keeping my distance. It's my hope that our family can openly love and support those that are different. It's not a matter of whether or not they align with your beliefs or not. Sometimes love is simply love. Love, and when it comes in many beautiful forms, like my love. So right now, out of love for myself, I need to have this boundary. I cannot be in a space where the elephant in the room is me. If you'd like to see me in person, I'll be home from this date to this date. I love you all very much, but this is too hurtful and heartbreaking, so I left the family group chat and, you know, remained connected on social media. But despite that, there was still that silent ostracization. So no matter how many accomplishments I had that year or the months after I left that group chat, including gaining Maple Leafs as a client, including getting a book agent, including beginning to write my PhD dissertation, and receiving a standing ovation at a conference once where there was about 500 educators present. So I shared all these, you know, these accomplishments that I think would be like something happy, and you know, worth celebrating the complete silence. And I noticed, and I felt like, no matter what I do, I will not make them proud, truly, because of the queer relationship I have and how I live and what I do and how I stand up for people that are marginalized. So in June of last year, because it was pride month, I posted something, and it was something that resonated me, with me so deeply, and it was with the words of Mary Catherine Catherine Backstrom, who is a friend of mine, and who is an author and a wonderful, wonderful writer. So I shared something on my social media, and it went like this, I don't hate anyone. I hate the sin, but I don't hate the sinner. Oh, well, who was intolerant? Now, this year, I am truly done laughing. I used to abide by this shit, but to be honest, I really can't do it anymore. I've read and I've lived through enough horrible history to understand this terrible truth. Polite hate is the most dangerous kind of hate. It loads the gun, then just backs away. Quietly. Christians, please open your eyes. It's 2000 freaking 24 I know that you know exactly how this works. You didn't you don't get a pass for good manners. I won't let you hide behind pat pat platitudes. When your beliefs give motives to terrorists. You don't get to say it's the sin I hate when that mantra makes bullets for terrorists. And yeah, I guess you could call me intolerant. Smack that sticker on my forehead. I don't care. For years, I have tolerated far too much from the bigoted back row. But the paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, in the end, intolerance will win the day, and that's exactly how people die dancing. So yeah, not only do I wish the homophobes reading this an incredibly uncomfortable month, I hope this discomfort convicts your soul and makes you question everything. I hope the itch in your spirit spreads to places you can't bend over to scratch. I hope enough people walk away from your screeching that you are left alone with your hate, and I hope that that hate makes you sick to your stomach when you realize the harm it has caused. Being gay is not a sin and pride is not some party. It's a courageous protest that that weak minded, fearful, biggest just can't comprehend. It's authenticity in the face of oppression, vulnerability in the face of violence. Pride is the spirit of millions of people who have chosen to dance in the crosshairs growing up in the church, I was frequently told that there are evil forces at work, that these forces were fighting against God's will and causing harm to his people. Now I can see that the threat was true, but it was coming from inside the house. There are evil, hateful forces at work right now against the LGBTQ plus community, some of those forces look like saints when they're hiding behind stained glass. It's going to take a force equal and opposite in power and passion to turn the church around. So if you're a Christian who has been fence sitting this issue, it's time to get off the dam. Fence this June, I beg you to look past the prejudice and the preaching you've had cram down your throat your whole life. Look past your anger and your pastor's fear. Look at these beautiful humans trying, with their whole heart to claim the dignity and love and safety that they as humans deserve this. This is what you are scared of. These are the forces of evil. If that's what you think, then, my friend, you have been brainwashed. I get it. I was brainwashed too, but all along, deep down in my heart, I knew there was something amiss. I couldn't quite rationalize what I knew of God's love with the hate I saw coming from the church. For 20 years, I was too afraid to challenge my faith and thought that it might fall apart. But that is exactly why I wish all the homophobes a super uncomfortable month, because I know from painful, hard earned experience what discomfort can do to change minds. So instead of doubling down on your hateful theology, I ask you, non affirming Christians, in the name of our faith, in the name of God's love, will you please put your weapons down? Will you consider the lesson that I learned on the street in front of pulse so many years ago? Will you feel the heartbeats of your fellow humans and for once, see yourself in them? I beg you to try. I beg you to grow it's already far too late for many so these were the words again of the incredible Mary Catherine Backstrom. And I posted this on my personal page, and half of my family deleted me off of Facebook after that, and I couldn't take that type that just I can't I can't imagine the cognitive dissonance they probably experienced from reading that. And honestly, I don't even know if they saw that post, but all I know is that I was loving one picture with one of the babies in one of their posts that day or the day before, and then I posted this, and then all of a sudden, it's like, add friend. Like, what the hell? And then I checked to see all my other family members to see what, what? If they're still there, and then half of them deleted me, and I can only assume and imagine that it probably had to do with this very post. So with, you know, everything that I experienced, like with the silence, silent ostracization, and me standing up for myself, but getting a response of silence or, you know, just downright leaving, I had to let them all go, and this past year has been really, really difficult. Right now. I feel like I'm at work when I'm speaking. So I'm like, kind of in a professional mode right now, kind of a defense, probably because I don't want to break down while recording this. But grief has taken me out a lot this year. And what I mean by that is that I just go through, like depressive modes where I literally don't want to do anything. I lose motivation to do any work. I lose Okay, here are the tears. Okay?

Speaker 1  28:42  
I think there are so many that feel and have felt what I feel, and I didn't want to be, you know, ostracized anymore. So I just had to step back even further. And that was so hard. I remember my hands shaking because, okay, in native culture, right? Like your cousins and like your aunts and uncles, they're, they're like your second parents, they're like your siblings. They're, they're, I grew up so So, so, so close, and I think about them every day. I have memories of them. Every day I'll like find myself laughing those silly memories that we have together. And I would have never thought in a million years that this would have been the reality. I love them and miss them every day, but I just, you know, I can't I refuse to simply just be tolerated. I really feel, especially with everything that I went through in my life, with relationships like horrible shit and everything that they saw me go through. I. That what I finally found somebody where I feel safe. I finally found somebody who treats me like a queen every single day. And I think that deserves celebrating, not just toleration. And queer love deserves celebration. It's love. I just don't understand how love can be seen as something evil. I just can't. It doesn't make any sense to me. It just doesn't it used to make sense to me before, when I was like a teenager, because, you know, like growing up and fundamentalist, that's all I knew. That's all I knew. So I never questioned it. But I grew up, I grew up and I wanted to grow, and I wanted to grow in God's love, and what that did was actually expand it more, expand what love is and how it's communicated and expressed. So, yeah, it's been quite the year, so it takes me out sometimes, not as often as it did, but this is the kind of grief, because it's grieving a lot of people that are still living. It's different type of grief. It's a fucking hard grief because I miss them and but it's a type of grief that even if they were around, it wouldn't be the same. So even if they were around it like there's just no capacity at this moment to hold space for the love that I have, not just for my fiance, but love that I have for the whole queer community. And that love doesn't just extend to toleration. It extends to celebration. It extends to making all queer people feel safe and loved and celebrated. It love for me isn't just a polite way and respectable. It is rebellious. It looks at systems that don't make space for humans, just being human and loving and expressing and identifying like it doesn't make any sense. So love for me is is actively rebellious against systems that are oppressing people. And I had to actively love myself and step away. And I know that this has been a reality for many people, and I know that that is one of the number one causes of suicide for the 2s LGBTQ plus community is family rejection. And I can 100% believe it. I think if I didn't have, you know, the love my parents are still like, so loving and so supportive and openly supportive and celebratory with Alex and I, if I didn't have key people in my life that truly loved me and showed up with no apology, I could see and totally understand why living would be intolerable, because they were made to feel intolerable. No one's existence, no one's love, no one's expression, should ever be made to feel intolerable. So that's been my year, and this is me finally talking about it without apology. I'm not sorry for sharing my experience. I'm hoping that it could be a helpful story for others, to increase your bravery and to increase the love that you allow in your life, and if you need the bravery to let go, letting go has been one of the key things in my Life, and it's offered me freedom, because it just made space for others to come in, that that have that alignment, that have that capacity to love. And while I was going through this, all of this this past year, it gave me a type of gumption, I guess you could say, to complete this PhD. Because my PhD was the study of how to basically create safe space for indigenous 2s LGBTQ, plus students in northern Canada in K to 12. Schools. So I completed this PhD out of spite and out of love, because no one should feel this. No one deserves to feel this. I would not wish this upon anybody, anybody, not even people that have done me wrong, I would not wish this on them. So I created this PhD to make even more safe space, and I also made sure that it was free online. So if you do go to the resources for this particular episode, you'll find my dissertation in there, and it is free to download. So my dissertation was actually also up for nomination for an award that my chair and my co chair nominated me for, which is such such an honor. And this dissertation was dedicated to queer folks, and I'd like to just quickly read to you the dedication. So it says, My study is a heartfelt offering to my Two Spirit and indigi Queer elders and ancestors who carried the weight of who they could not be. I dedicate this work to you. May these words, these pages and my work, reach your spirit with love and bring some form of healing. I also dedicate my study to the Two Spirit and indigiqueer youth of northern Canada. May your schools and communities grow in love and wisdom to honor and celebrate who you truly are. Your queerness is sacred and powerful gift to this world. And I wrote this poem as well, and it says, I cannot imagine getting upset with moss for not growing like the trees. I cannot imagine telling moss that it needs to look more like the flowers gender identity and expression, attraction and love are like moss, expansive, non binary, a forest. So why? Oh, why are you upset when someone doesn't grow the way you want them to? Try getting mad at Moss for not being the grass or yelling at the moss for not being like the vines. Let moss be moss. Let humans be humans. Let love be love. That poem is called an invitation to love, and it's something that I wrote for the dedication section in my PhD dissertation as well. And I'd also love to read the acknowledgements, because, yeah, I believe these folks deserve to be heard or to be openly acknowledged. So the acknowledgement section, I'll read that to you as well real quick, it says to my loving Alex, my sweetheart, you have been my soft landing, my courage and my steady heart. Your faith in me brought me here to this moment, and I am endlessly grateful. You are my everything and every step of my studies, journey was taken with you devotedly beside me.

Speaker 1  38:20  
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my parents, my sister and my best friend. Your relentless support and love have been my anchor, and your compassion flows through this work, filling it with care and depth to my community, Moose Cree, First Nation, the people, land and waters, thank you for keeping me grounded. And of course, I acknowledge with so much love all my previous students. You are in every word, every essence of my work. I want to express my profound appreciation to my chair and methodologist, Dr Walker, and to my second member, Dr Pierce, I will forever hold your sincere encouragement close to my heart, along with the gift of one word you continuously offered me when the journey got challenging. Onward to those who resisted the birth of this study, I acknowledge you too. I hope that one day, you open yourself to the kind of love that extends beyond walls of rigidity despite your resistance. Here my work stands alive, breathing and complete. Lastly, to the moss, the inspiration and quiet teacher of my studies, journey I will keep learning from you and letting your quiet resilience guide me this work like you, stretches forward, rooting, nurturing and reaching toward the light. So the name of my my paper, I don't have it with me right now, but it's essentially called the Peda. Goji of moss, leadership approaches for principles of 2s LGBTQ, plus students in northern Canada. So my study was basically, I just want to give you folks an overview, and then you can go check out the the actual dissertation in the resource section on my website, under the podcast tab, of course. So I wanted to know, what do principals need? Sorry, what are their roles and what is their need to better support indigenous to us, LGBTQ plus students. So there was a lot that I gathered. I spoke with 10 principals and vice principals across Canada, and the implications, or I guess what I gathered from the end of this study was this pedagogy of moss model that I created that was inspired, of course, by moss, and that was inspired when I was walking along the water. I gave tobacco to the water and just offered it just to help me complete this dissertation and the pedagogy of moss. So how pedagogy, meaning your philosophy of teaching, and how? So it inspired me when I was walking by the water to speak about Moss, because the results of my study were basically two things the themes that I that occurred, one was what the principal's roles were. So they saw their roles as honoring humanity. And then what they saw their needs were, was the need for relational growth in terms of policy and curriculum, so how we could relate to each other with accountability and how in like dei is needs like more, more grit to it. I guess you could say it, and become relationally responsible, not just doing it for the sake of doing a policy, but for actually holding space for accountability. And then when you put those two pieces together, so honoring humanity and connecting relational growth, you get what I theorize to be called collective actualization, where if you are denying the humanity of one group, you are denying your own humanity. Where if you are not connecting with others from a relational point of view, in terms of how your words and how your spirit and how your actions do affect other people, and they also need accountability. So I go into that a lot in my dissertation. I explain it in great detail. And yes, you can find it definitely in my in on my website, and I think it's in the about section as well. I think I put a link there when you go to the About section at relentless indigenous woman.ca, and I would love to read the last paragraph of the dissertation. It's short and sweet, but I think it really captures what the whole essence of the paper is, so it reads. At the core of my study is an invitation to honor humanity and embrace relational growth, understanding that transformation, much like moss, unfolds slowly, steadily, even within moments of disruption, just as moss turns what seems barren into something alive. The process of collective actualization allows us to transmute our shadows, our fears, our discomfort, into alchemy. Growth is holistic. It comes with stumbles, yet we can grow regardless. Each student, each educator and each connection are an essential part of a larger, interconnected whole, like the spectrum of colors that blend into one. If you only see five colors, you're you're blind to the full rainbow. If you hear only five sounds, you're deaf to the full symphony. Similarly, when we restrict human expression and love to rigid binaries, we limit our own humanity, disconnecting ourselves from the oneness of all experiences, we must open our eyes, ears and hearts to the full spectrum of human expression, embracing the complex fluid and. Expansive ways we all exist by doing so, we create spaces where all forms of expression are celebrated, just as moss nurtures life in its quiet, resilient growth. Through honoring each other's aliveness, we invite a new version of education and the world, one that nurtures, connects and transforms just like moss. So after I, you know, walked by the water and put tobacco down in that ceremonial practice of my people to be open, to receive and have an agreement with whatever being you're connecting with. The rest of the dissertation, just list flowed so so well I finished it within so there's five chapters. I finished the rest of the chapters within four months, and then I defended in January. So I, yeah, it's, it's, I think that's what happens when I just, you know, just remain still and just let Earth, let land, speak to you and with you. So this year has been quite, quite the year, a lot of growth and a lot of celebration, but I also understand that that's, you know, the balance of things, and my sweetheart Alex, held so much loving and gentle, kind space for me. Throughout this whole year, I'd have many moments where I would just be taken out by depression from grief, and where I just needed to shut down for a bit and let myself feel and they were just, you know, loving and kind, offering me back rubs, offering me tea, offering me they would get me roses often, and roses are a special part of our relationship that have been there since the beginning. They they have been there with such fierce love for me. And along with all of that, this past year, we've also been planning our wedding, and everything from the flowers, from the officiant, from the catering, everything is now set in motion and booked and done pretty much like at this point we just have to show up to our wedding, which is amazing. So it's that has also been an exciting way of balancing, I guess, the grief and just making the sweet moments even sweeter in the midst of all of that that our I know deep down that our love is worth celebrating just as many other types of queer love out there, very, very, very much worth celebrating.

Speaker 1  48:12  
So as as we kick off this relaunch of this podcast, I throughout the past few months, I was making a list of people that I'd love to have on here as guests that have inspired me, like so much throughout my life. And I'm like, You know what? I think, I think the world needs to hear from these people as well. I think that if I have them on this podcast and and we have these deep questions, I think there's a lot that folks can learn. So we have an absolutely stellar guest list of folks that are going to be on the podcast coming up. So I'm just going to name name them for you folks, and then throughout the coming weeks, I'll I'll give you guys a heads up as to who's going to be on what date and so on. So our we have get a guest on a lamb who is an Inuk actress from Iqaluit, Nunavut, known for her roles in the newly popular and deadly show north of North and she just announced that there's going to be a second season, which is going to be fucking awesome. I'm so excited. The first season was absolutely amazing and so damn relatable. When we had our conversation about her character, it was, it was such a such a good Convo, so I can't wait for folks to hear from, from her, when, when, when we air that episode. We also have Winnie kornmiller, who is a mohawk gold medal, gold medalist, Olympian activist, and one of the most powerful voices in Indigenous Health, sovereignty. And sport. We also have Owen UNWRA, the Two Spirit nihiau, creator, performer, advocate and speaker, whose journey through addiction, identity and healing has made him a powerful voice for indigi, queer, resilience and self love. We also have Asha frost. She is a best selling author of you are medicine, an indigenous healer, Oracle, debt creator, mentor and mother and we also have the deadly drezus, an award winning Anishinaabe nihiau, hip hop artist whose unapologetic lyrical, lyric, lyricism and cultural resilience have made him a trailblazer in both indigenous and mainstream music, film and activism. We also have Nikia pastolo, also known as recycled Stardust, who is a mohawk content creator, model and viral voice and beauty fashion and New York City lifestyle storytelling. We also have JAYLEE Wolf, an indigenous musician, sound Weaver and poet who channels revelations from spirit into soul stirring, soundscapes that awaken, elevate and heal. We also have Emma Morrison, the first indigenous woman to win Miss World Canada, using her platform to champion empowerment and advocacy, as she is currently representing Canada on the global stage right now at Miss World, as I'm recording this, we also have Scott waubonon and Mama wo on here together. So Scott waubonon is a Two Spirit Cree award winning fashion stylist and Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, joined by his mother, Virginia wabineau, also known as Mama wabineau, a powerful advocate for Indigenous children in government schools and beyond. We also have Dr Tasha spillett, a New York Times bestselling Afro indigenous author, educator and scholar whose work uplifts Indigenous women, children and communities through culturally rooted storytelling, advocacy and education. We also have Lindsay King, an Ojibwe and Mohawk fashion designer whose luxury brand blends indigenous culture, intentional design and decades of community care to inspire and empower through fashion. And we also have incredible Jeremy Dutcher, who is a Two Spirit tenure composer and two time Polaris prize winning artist whose groundbreaking work blends classical training with traditional mess elite song to reclaim language, culture and voice through powerful musical storytelling. We also have chance. Pop penakis, I'm sorry, chance I should have practiced, but we have the wonderful chance, who is a swampy Cree Two Spirit advocate blending tradition and education to lead work in language revitalization, youth empowerment and to us LGBTQ plus resurgence. And we have the iconic Christy Belcourt, a renowned Metis visual artist, environmentalist and community organizer, Norm known for her iconic floral beadwork, inspired paintings and land based advocacy rooted in cultural and environmental protection. And we have this sexy, incredible Alex manotopias, who is who's my fiance, who is Cree and an Anishinaabe trans mask, founder and designer of sacred thunder, a luxury accessory brand blending indigenous tradition with contemporary design, as seen in vogue twice now and runways in NYC, Paris, Milan and La we'll also have Andre bear, a nihihao educator, legal advocate and founder of indigenous nation rebuilding dedicated to revitalizing indigenous lawmaking and advocating inherent and treaty rights across Canada. We also have Vanessa presso multi discipline, a multi disciplinary Inuk, artist and fierce mm, w 2s plus advocate whose grief rooted creations blend traditional materials with digital storytelling to honor her sister, her sister and inspire change. We also have Dr Zoe Roy a nihita, Dennis, swillin METI, spoken word poet, educator and PhD holder whose powerful, community based arts work spans poetry, music and policy, inspiring indigenous youth and reshaping creative industries across Canada. Last but not least, we have the incredible CB who is a queer, trans, non binary, queer pop artist whose soaring vocals and award winning songs have earned millions of streams and national recognition all while pushing for greater representation in. Music industry. So those are all of our guests that we're gonna be having on here. Like, that's a deadly lineup all like, I'm so excited for you folks to learn from these people and be inspired from these group of people the way I have. And of course, every episode will still come with resources, reflection, questions and action items that you can do in your own life beyond the podcast. So episodes will be coming out once a week. I'm aiming for Saturdays, because this one is is out on a Saturday. So I figure, why not Saturdays? And you could just listen to it throughout the week, and then it will be there on Saturdays for you. So as we go forward on the relaunch of the relentless indigenous woman podcast, Stay Stay tuned for more announcements. Stay compassionate, courageous and curious, welcome back to a new relaunch. I'm very excited for you to tune in once every week. Miigwech, thank you, everyone.