Episode 020: Collective Healing – Indigenous Wisdom with William Hayward
In Shake It Off Episode 20 Lauren and Kendra speak with special guest and Lauren’s good friend William Hayward.
William Hayward is a Noongar man from the Gorang/Minang clan groups. He has been raised to live with the integrity and honor of his people’s culture, their customs, and the strengths embedded in his family and community systems. He works and lectures at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies and continues to support the ‘Navigating through life project’ for children in out of home care in the Social Work department at Curtin University.
Will has a wealth of knowledge. Throughout his career has has worked in Government agencies and Non-Profit Organizations. He has developed a unique set of skills in delivering services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Child protection & safety in the areas of counseling, policy, and law reform, cultural competency and practice, trauma-informed practice and frameworks, social work, youth work, program development, lobbying, advocacy, cultural ceremony and healing performing arts.
He is strongly committed to empowering Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander and Non-Aboriginal Australians to achieve equality and freedoms in a variety of practice or community environments.
Lauren and Kendra sit with Will while he shares stories about his work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and trauma-informed practices and Aboriginal wisdom traditions for collective healing, including ceremony, ritual, connection to land, and much much more.
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Kendra Till
Welcome to Shake It Off, a podcast that gives you the tools, strategies, and stories to optimize and prioritize your physical and mental health.
Lauren Hodge
Hey everyone, and welcome to Shake It Off. As most of our listeners know, I am based in downtown Charleston, and before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Kealoha, the Siwi, and the Wando People, the traditional custodians of the land on which I’m standing today, and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and I extend that respect to all indigenous peoples listening and joining us today.
Will Hayward
Also, I would like to acknowledge the land and the people where you’re meeting from. I too would like to acknowledge that I’m meeting from a place in Western Australia, in the southwest of Western Australia, Noongar country, which is located around Perth. I’d like to acknowledge the place of the Noongar nation, and its elders past, present, and into the future. I’d also like to acknowledge that it’s through a matrilineal or matriarchal law system that our cultural knowledge and our places of belonging are maintained and connected to the land through our mothers and grandmothers. That knowledge and our places of belonging are passed down. So, I recognize Aboriginal women and their important role as the backbone of our cultural wisdom.
Culturally, as men and as young women, first years and rites of passage would happen at around 13-14 with women, and there would be a transfer of knowledge and wisdom, even for young men during that time, in that matriarchal system. I’d also like to acknowledge our children and young people who will carry on our legacy and our future. It’s through cultural authority and wisdom that is generationally passed down. Everyone has a role and a place of belonging within that Noongar nation and within our clan groups. So I recognize that we’re in Whadjuk country and the Bibbulmun, commonly known as the Noongar nation.
Lauren Hodge
Thank you so much for that acknowledgment. So, for our listeners, Kendra and I are catching up with Will Hayward today, as you just heard speaking. He is a respected Noongar man from the Haring Minang clan groups in Western Australia. Will lectures and works at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University for the Social Work department there. His work focuses on policy reform, child protection and safety, trauma-informed practices, and supporting collective and community healing, among many other things. He wears many hats, but you’ll hear a little bit about that today. He is strongly committed to empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal Australians to achieve equality and freedom in a variety of different environments using a variety of different practices.
I met Will while I was working on my PhD project at the University of Queensland. This project aimed at evaluating and trialing new child protection strategies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection piece. So Will has kind of been a mentor to me, and he was really guiding me on how to properly engage with rural and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. His advice was key to allowing me to collaborate successfully with 14 different communities initially, and then that expanded and grew with a team that we were working with. We are very delighted to have Will here today.
This experience that I had, from working within communities and with practitioners working in communities, and getting the opportunity to meet traditional owners and elders, provided me with an understanding of the importance of a deep connection to the land that we stand on, to our homeland, to nature, and to the community. This understanding eventually facilitated my own healing journey back here in South Carolina, to my homeland. So I learned a lot from working on this project and working with Will. I’m so excited to introduce our audience to you, Will. Thank you for being here with us today.
Will Hayward
Thank you, Lauren and Kendra. So I just reflected on that time period in our journeys and careers. What comes to mind is that it’s really not to be underestimated, the really important work that we did. It does relate to my journey as a community person, a cultural person, and a professional. But at that time, we were actually embedding some of the strongest foundations and really important groundwork to transition a child protection sector that was predominantly invested in the acute and statutory aspects when children are at risk or have experienced harm. The work we did actually shifted that focus to prevention, early intervention, or healing work, where families were supported to stay together.That sector in Queensland, Australia, is now one of the most balanced child protection sectors in Aboriginal Australia, with a strong emphasis on early intervention, prevention, and innovative practices within Aboriginal community-controlled organizations. So that work grew to be far more than just the work we did around families and supporting children and young people. It went on to be their foundation and skill set, where those organizations and professionals continued to grow. It’s something to be really proud of, and it’s a legacy that was left. People still talk about it, and there are practitioners and families, more importantly, that benefit from that practice framework that was embedded. I’m not sure how long ago that was, but it was about 10 years ago.
Lauren Hodge
That was, yes, yeah, that would have been, well, the project finished in 2015, I think it was, what, about eight years ago? Yeah. And then it kind of evolved and kept moving. Like you said, the incredible thing about it, and what made me feel really good about getting behind the project, was that the core focus was to keep families together and to ensure that they had the practices and the things they needed so that they could stay together. Oftentimes, you know, the child protection sectors are removing children from homes, and when it comes to Indigenous communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities specifically, this is, in my mind, like a reinventing of colonization in a way, but in a different aspect. But I just think I felt good about what we were doing there because it was kind of doing this new thing, just like you said. Thank you so much for giving me that background.
Will Hayward
I’m just thinking because you’ve touched on a really important point about the legacy of colonization. And the fact is, in any healing work, and the work that we’ve done and continue to do across government and non-government agencies here in Australia, fundamentally, it’s really important to recognize colonization and the history of colonization and its historical lifeforce in terms of collective oppression and collective intergenerational trauma. And so some of that work is actually really important in terms of reflecting and being responsive to Aboriginal people.
Part of the work that we did is recognized in a number of frameworks. Some people call it cultural proficiency, but I would choose the ideal where self-determination is celebrated and encouraged. It’s a fundamental framework in terms of Aboriginal-led and co-design and how Aboriginal-designed approaches. And it’s entrenched at every level of an organization—governance, management, leadership, policies, program development, and therefore frontline practices.It doesn’t just include Aboriginal organizations or Aboriginal professionals. It also includes the whole sector, so that includes organizations that are working with First Nations people and Aboriginal people needing those frameworks, particularly where Aboriginal people or First Nations people are overrepresented and are no longer a minority in those systems.
Here in Western Australia at the moment, we’re the majority in child protection, so 57% of children in care are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and similar stats in the youth justice system. One framework that is a part of trauma-informed responses was developed by a former Curtin employee, Tolley Coffin. And it’s recognized as the cultural security framework. Really, what that is about is approaching building your cultural awareness, cultural safety, and cultural security. And doing that through cultural protocols and guidelines and also brokerage.
So the organizations we worked with years ago, who are now leading and are really proficient in child protection practice, are a part of that framework. And so the Aboriginal community-controlled sector is a real asset in terms of collaboration, Aboriginal professionals who might hold expertise, whether it’s in social work, psychology, human services, or other professions enable those organizations to function at a really expert and higher level.
Allies in that brokerage and in that service delivery and alongside of non-Aboriginal people, I suppose, because so many non-Aboriginal professionals will work in our organizations or work in government or nonprofit organizations that aren’t Aboriginal community-controlled. It’s really about collaboration, co-leading, walking together, and utilizing those professional frameworks as a practice framework. So reflecting and responding to Aboriginal people’s needs and supporting people to reach their full potential.
An amazing asset in any trauma-informed response is our community ourselves. And so even as Aboriginal community-controlled professionals or any organization, the real asset in terms of self-determination and healing is elders and cultural authority who often really hold that key role in it, not necessarily leading in a hierarchical approach, rather than holding that wisdom and authority and the egalitarian, leading with other elders, and shaping those responses, and informing those responses. Again, other Aboriginal groups who are significant leaders or hold wisdom in that space, alongside elders and professionals within our organizations, but also really important, the families, and the children and young people that we work with ourselves are all a part of that framework.So cultural security is one lens of looking at that. Cultural proficiency is a whole-of-organization approach.
Lauren Hodge
So, that’s interesting to think about. Like with the one, I think that there is an importance across the board in elder wisdom. And I think that’s something that oftentimes, in, like, that’s something I learned, really specifically when I was working with you, and with these different practitioners and communities and meeting the traditional owners, that wisdom that elders hold and that it’s seen as important and it’s like curious, you know, and I think that’s something that maybe, in non-Indigenous communities that we can miss, oftentimes, you know, like getting that, like having that connection with our elders and seeing that, how important that wisdom is to pass on and being a part of that extended family kind of system. So I definitely see what you’re saying about the cultural arm of it, the cultural safety and community, and how important that is.
Will Hayward
The other sort of thing I’m thinking now is one of the things I’ve moved on to do is actually create ceremonial practice and healing between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people at a small, consciousness-shifting level. And it’s really about going back to those key learnings when I was a young person. I actually had the privilege to be taught by elders and wisdom keepers with the Wodan people, which is a clan group of the Young Nation. It’s actually the best area if anyone wants to visit.
Lauren Hodge
That’s the place to…
Will Hayward
You might have heard of the Niagara River. Oh, yeah, it’s quite a famous town for a variety of reasons. It’s got a go-to place; it’s an absolutely stunning and amazing country. So, having the privilege of walking and learning with elders, we were tasked with building an Aboriginal Cultural Center in communities. And it’s really the foundation and almost an apprenticeship of my future work in terms of culture being a part of a healing tool. Particularly within intergenerational trauma and the impacts of oppression, it often is to heal and create the opportunities that have actually been oppressed and taken away.
What I learned there was really to follow a six-seasonal cycle, which is in harmony with the land, which is everything south and west of basically a town called Durian Bay through Esperance. So it’s the southwest of Western Australia. And the land runs by six seasonal cycles and everyone has a role and responsibility and belonging culturally, and it’s actually an inbuilt sustainability and environmentalism and a reciprocal allocation to one another. It’s relationship-based. So a very different worldview. There’s no mistake that I live in a Western framework within Australia, but our people still strongly hold this worldview of relationship-based reciprocal obligation to each other. And I think it’s very different from what I call a transactional framework, a competitive framework, and a consumerist framework. And you can even say that it’s capitalism or communism or socialism. It’s actually global now. So there’s been this erosion on all people, humanity, and the global community, in terms of our relationships, our connections, and our deepest spiritual sense of belonging, and plans, not only to one another but to land.
So it’s really a privilege to actually have that and have that cultural and spiritual knowledge maintained and to be able to utilize that. So yeah, just going back, like it’s a real privilege and a real honor to have that cultural and spiritual foundation, where everyone does have that place of belonging and that responsibility to each other, and it’s interconnected with land. And so everyone actually holds the title within that system. And so it could be the kangaroo, it could be the emu, it could be the gooloo, and or at least, it could also be a food source, that’s a plant or a medicine. It can be actually a place in the land as well, where stories are interwoven in creation, and then there’s an echo in the actual land itself, of that responsibility. So in that relationship and reciprocal obligation, everyone, therefore, had a relationship with each other, and our relationship with the land through that totem system, and there was a harmony with the cycle of the six seasons where nothing was actually overused. So you would have an individual role to maintain the sustainability of that food or animals or food medicine or animal or plant source, and therefore everyone also had a relationship with the earth. So we call the nether Bucha, which is Mother Earth, and it’s matriarchal ground, which is interesting because when a woman is pregnant, it’s called Pujari. Extension, demonstrating that connection with lag, and then where your umbilical cord falls off your axle, you have a dream for that place in the country. It’s quite significant in terms of your future and your character. And also, you know, women speak of their place of conception, and the spirit coming from dalla Bucha and becoming Pujari. Other cultures have similar concepts, Yeah, and understanding because this is a sort of spiritual concept where we’re interwoven into the six-season cycle and interwoven into the food sources that resource at those times of seasonal cycles.
That then, therefore, connected to the country. Really takes me and so that will give us a very different view from an individualistic versus a collective, and that cultural authority is spoken about. And the wisdom keepers pass down the generation. So there’ll be someone who’s 90 and definitely wouldn’t be running around hunting kangaroos but hold some title and pass knowledge to someone who’s 50 or 30, and then a new person who’s just taking on that totem after rites of passage. Responsibility. So it’s a lifecycle as well, from conception through to death, not represented in the sixth season cycle, and in the totem knowledge of passing that down. So everyone has that role and place of belonging. What I’ve really learned in terms of trauma-informed practice and decolonization is not only was it a privilege to do the work at the Aboriginal Cultural Center and with the Wodan people as I felt I knew that person and have instilled in me deeply, but also then to transfer that knowledge of cultural healing and cultural revival in terms of people’s identity. Because it’s actually through your family systems and kinship systems and your connection to title and land and environment. That is your identity, and your purpose, and your place of belonging. And those things have been eroded through history. And there was actual genocide here. And there’s also social genocide here.
The project that we worked on in terms of Aboriginal families and restoring families is our response to the Stolen Generations. There were policies here that were really around very similar to segregation policies that America would be familiar with. Library. And there are people I work with here at the Center for Aboriginal Studies who survived and were brought into that system, my grandmother was, and my father was. And so cultural healing and cultural knowledge, alongside trauma-informed practice, what people understand isn’t a right of therapy or Yanni, which is really that communal, almost clinical supervision or therapeutic Yarny. Those trends and limitations illustrate the challenges that people face, but most importantly, the strengths and the solutions to that. But it is actually intertwined with cultural authority and wisdom keepers. That deeper spiritual and cultural connection. And it is a beautiful practice that is actually healing. So it’s a trauma-informed practice that goes beyond that; it’s trauma resiliency and healing as a culture, rather than a practice.It’s actually something that all Aboriginal people have the opportunity to practice now and return to self-identity.
Lauren Hodge
What you’re saying about the kind of cyclical nature of how things work with the six different spheres, if I’m saying that correctly, but also with elders working together and the totem and coming back to land, and that is where the healing happens, and it’s just, it’s kind of naturally ingrained in what you do as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That’s what I’m hearing. And I’m curious about that, like with the yarning and that sort of thing. And I know from my experiences of all the work I think that we did, we would be in a circle. Like, we would always be in a community, yeah, like that was, and I feel like that holds a really important place for me now as well, as in ceremony and that sort of thing, like healing and being with people in that type of way, whether it be women’s circles or plant medicine circles.
But that has, I know for sure, had a huge impact on how I approach healing now. And you can really feel the energy when you’re in that circle, and it’s safe, and you can share that sort of thing. How does that, I wonder, like, you know, with community healing and collective healing, how does ceremony and ritual and that sort of thing fit in with the different circles and healing practices that you have there?
Will Hayward
Yeah. So, well, first of all, it’s always quite welcomed, and there’s this sort of subconscious acceptance and respect that the collective nature is how we do business. And it could be relationship building, getting to know people, it could be understanding your challenges, and forming approaches to them. It can be therapeutic and healing. It can also be social, which is always good fun. I’ve actually just conducted two yarning circles, and one I actually did in Vandy up women’s prison here in Western Australia, Perth.
As I said, Aboriginal people are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, not dissimilar to other groups across the world who have been colonized and oppressed. It’s a feature and a socio-economic challenge that we face. I was talking to an amazing elder, who I’d suggest you may want to approach for discussion. No, no, not up. And he’s one of my teachers in my life and mentors and continues to be. So one of the things was that 40 prisoners and their support workers and prison guards, so everyone is equal. And it’s not a division, rather we’re here to share this knowledge and everyone who has that relationship and is connected, Aboriginal non-Aboriginal roles within the prison were seated in a circle.
Because everyone’s equal, and it’s egalitarian, there’s no longer any hierarchy. And this is a model that in the Northern Territory here, it’s called the Darry, and I’ll send you information on that. But it’s very similar to mindfulness. And it’s where we can sit quite deeply on the country end together. And there’s that knowing of where you are at the present moment, your own thinking and what’s in your mind, your own emotions and feelings, and where you feel culturally and spiritually, and also, sitting within that within your being, your body, and beyond. Listen, not to respond, rather than to hear and connect deeply with the other person where they’re at. And then the spirit and the time might come where you do respond, and you do actually reciprocate. And your obligation to that other person in that healing actually really flows quite strongly.
So, Uncle Oh actually set the scene around the important role that women have in our culture, being a matriarchal society, being the keepers and the backbone of our cultural ways, and also our calendars around children and young people. And their place of belonging in our community and the fact that we love the women who are incarcerated and we made them in our community. Then you talk to you and move through the dreaming, which includes the, you know, conception and the life cycle and birthing and, you know, women are the only beings that can take someone from the spirit realm and put them into the physical. And so, you know, that these concepts were shared from a long time ago now, and the fact that our men are very much in need of women within our community, and their important role to all of us, including us as men.
And the fact was, then there were emotions and there was sort of deep thinking from everyone. And people were fully engaged, and it went on for a solid hour. And then there were amazing responses. And there was amazing recognition. And there was also recognition of the duality and the importance of fathers in their lives and men in their lives. So it can be quite organic, it can be really co-led by everyone that’s in a circle.
Lauren Hodge
I’m really happy to hear you mentioned this to Darry. I just pulled up the Darry Kwame and like statement the other day, because I was thinking about how, as you said, it’s like mindful listening, is very similar. It’s similar to this practice of mindful listening, but it’s, um, it’s like a spiritual type of listening. Like, it takes it to this other level of respect, basically, for the person that you’re listening to. And I feel like I really utilize that, but also, that’s just what comes naturally to me, is to sit and to listen. So I think I really, I don’t know, it speaks to me on so many levels, to not feel like you have to respond to everything, that you can listen and respond to body language and respond with your presence, basically, with what the person is saying and your relation.
Will Hayward
The other thing with that is silence is okay. People can respond, deteriorate, listen, and acknowledge through body language, and might not speak, you know, and I think that deeper connection is like showing that in some of our yarning circles and our healings.
What I really like about Darry is, that that’s the word that’s commonly known from the Guarani, I will send you information on that as well, which is that all Aboriginal people have to Darry and call it different things. The closest thing that I think people more broadly would be aware of was mindfulness to explain that, and then obviously, have that deeper connection then into land and environment and that totemic responsibilities and places in the country which you’re connected to.But Yeah, it very much is a deeper spiritual and self-reflective framework that can be used, and it’s a real positive to sit with that way you may have experienced trauma or be experiencing collective trauma.
One of the other works I’ve done is with Aboriginal interpreters. So across the state of Western Australia, once you get outside of the metropolitan Perth area, the majority of people are language and cultural locators. So English can be their third or second language. Often the English that is spoken is Creole. So it actually has different grammar and different meanings. It’s a form of English but it’s its own language.
One of the greatest works I have done in the trauma space was to implement cultural resilience as a practice in a culture and interpreting service. Many of the interpreters, this is from the Kimberley, Pilbara, and Western Desert, regions of Western Australia, very remote. I guess for viewers in America, it’s absolutely not like Crocodile Dundee, but the land would look very similar. It’s very remote, it’s a beautiful country, Australia with those amazing areas, so many of our people live in communities. Within those communities, we have our own cultural law language. And so the interpreters will be engaged to interpret pretty sensitive and challenging cases.
So it could be in a hospital where someone is on palliative care, and it’s the end-of-life discussion with that person and their family. It could be within the policing system where there’s been a crime against the victim of a crime or a perpetrator of a crime. It could also be in a court setting, where people are being heard, and understanding what’s being said is most important and a human right, actually.
What would happen to the interpreter is that the trauma from those jobs would actually transfer and impact their sense of being spiritually, culturally, emotionally, mentally, and physically, so vicarious trauma. And it would mirror post-traumatic stress. And when you would unpack that, it also related to our shared collective trauma as Aboriginal people.
So I spoke before about the Stolen Generations or the oppressive social genocide policy frameworks. They didn’t finish here until the 1970s. Thus the reality is, that many of the interpreters had a lived experience under those policies and laws. So, this meant the socioeconomic trends or challenges in the job alone, which is traumatic, often it was a lived experience by the interpreter and the survivors themselves. So naturally, post-traumatic stress and vicarious trauma symptoms would present.
We put in a clinical supervision framework around individual debriefing, using two debriefs and mindfulness as a mechanism to unpack those jobs. So it was culturally grounded. We did it by a river, by rolling class, and it was really powerful. And then we also did that as a group and worked together as that collective in that Yarning approach. We’ve mapped the common limitations, the strengths, and the challenges, and it was ranked by a solution-focused, co-designed Aboriginal-led, and First Nations Framework. So that was very fruitful, in terms of advice straight to the culture, the organization as well as supporting individual practitioners.
Alongside that, though, which I think is important to note, not only do we have a structured clinical supervision framework, which is delivered as a social worker, but we utilized what some people might call mindfulness or the theory in this thing and self-reflection within the debriefing element of that, we will also use cultural ceremony around bringing that person back to their identity and healing themselves so they could reach their full potential again, in their holistic vein. The Aboriginal Holistic Health concept and social-emotional well-being, which included connection to land, also included the family and kin, reciprocal relationships around that person.
What was really fruitful as well is we’ve got people here who hold spiritual and cultural knowledge, that’s not only third base but also held by that person in terms of healing. I guess you could call them a cultural doctor. The only thing I can explain in it to be similar is perhaps Reiki, like energy.
Lauren Hodge
Healing, kind of.
Will Hayward
Yeah, yeah. And so, we would also, as a part of that framework, be connected to healers who would also, alongside the clinical supervision, support individuals in their healing. With the energy and the trauma that occurred in that body, it was then much more secure.
Lauren Hodge
Is there any type of plant-based medicine using ceremonies for healing there? I never heard about this, and I was curious. I wanted to ask you, is there—I mean, I knew that there are plants used for healing. I just didn’t know if it was like using ceremony. Are they similar to others, similar to psychedelics, kind of like, you know how there’s a big plant-based medicine movement and a lot of evidence is coming out now in this scientific world, that we’ve known from indigenous cultures for a long time about the healing power of psychedelics?
Will Hayward
Yep. So the fact is that Aboriginal people absolutely have plant-based and also animal-based medicines that we use, and are known to treat a range of illnesses. We did and continue to hold ceremonies where plants are utilized. What’s amazing about that, and I think it’s important for modern medicine and any future approaches, is that it is structured. And that is within the collective, and the ceremonial process holds and guides you through that journey. It also finishes it, so the experience is very different in terms of the consciousness shift. The healing that occurs for a person in terms of their trauma or social-emotional well-being or mental health, if you like, is held by healers and the community. People are really guided through that.
What’s also really interesting is rites of passage. I have done a ceremonial process on young people in our country, which is very different from some of the more language capers areas and is quite sacred, minimally shared. But I did do a process where I spent a significant amount of time in my grandmother’s country, and there are ways that you can naturally release what people love within your own body that people may not recognize are released at key points in your life, which also create that journey and that experience.
Lauren Hodge
Is it like an energy release from being on that land? Like your particular totem or your particular family, or is it…
Will Hayward
Well, I think that what I’m saying is the ceremonial process will release natural chemicals within your body, and with the right intention, actually create a structured journey and experience where you have a consciousness shift, and you’re taken on a path into the dreaming. When I experienced this process, I foresaw that I would create a ceremonial context where I would smoke the Fremantle Roundhouse. It actually brought Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together in cleansing in a smoking ceremony, a place that was utilized during colonization to hold our freedom fighters.I can send you the link to it. And, you know, I said the visioning of that was done in a ceremony, and then it became true. And that came to fruition. Isn’t that incredible?
Lauren Hodge
Yeah, it’s really inspiring. I think that’s the thing about this ceremonial indigenous knowledge of ceremony and healing all in one. Like, there is so much wisdom there. And then there’s the next thing, which we’ll do a whole other episode on. But like, the next thing is, how do you allow that to stay as indigenous wisdom and knowledge and not capitalize on it, making it this big? You know, where other people are taking information.
Will Hayward
I do actually think that as humanity, broader than just in Australia, but also broader than other First Nations peoples, where we do hold that knowledge and that wisdom, and its support, it’s important that that isn’t misappropriated or used in a non-sacred and non-relationship based way, which are sort of intertwined but does remain Aboriginal or First Nations-led and honored.
But there is also another challenge. What we’re finding is that for all people, if you look deeper, we’re all actually impacted by colonization. And in a way, we’re all colonized. And in another way, even non-Aboriginal people here in Australia live with intergenerational trauma because they too have a part of the oppression that was committed in this country, for example.
And if you look even deeper again, everyone, at some point, had ceremonies and was First Nations from somewhere. And I guess an example that comes to mind to me is the Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire. That’s just one quick example. Where they were claiming groups, there were ceremonies. It was, you know, another one in Ireland. The Gaelic cultural revival of Ireland at the moment is very strong, and that has survived alongside oppression from the British Empire. And is now part of the UK. So that’s another example.
And so, I think there is a real need for people or people to return to the ceremony. And these approaches are actually structured and safely guide and hold people, and the steps to doing that more broadly. It is solid and needs to be defined, created, nurtured, and supported. And tested.
Here in my work, in terms of bringing Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together alongside elders, we’re moving in this direction. Smoking or the Roundhouse is an exact example of that. We’re moving beyond people witnessing and observing Aboriginal people delivering a ceremony and moving towards truth-telling and healing in this nation, where two peoples are coming together, to heal the past, and to set a new future and a new relationship, which is actually a beautiful moment in time in this country.Canada and New Zealand are also on those journeys. And I think that’s a promising and amazing opportunity for all.
Lauren Hodge
And you’re a big part of that work in Australia, so you have to be proud of yourself for all that you’re doing and have done in the community, and that you continue to do. So, I really appreciate it. I don’t want to take any more time, so I really appreciate you having this conversation with us. Is there anywhere where you would like for people to find you?
Will Hayward
Well, look, I would like to promote the Aboriginal Centre for Aboriginal Studies. I would also promote Tama Chan, which my uncle runs, we spoke about it at my house, and I’m affiliated with both of those organizations.
Lauren Hodge
Great, we’ll put a link in our show notes because I feel like everyone should be able to check that out. Thank you.
Kendra Till
You can find me at kendratillpilates.com, on Instagram @kendratillpilates, or if you’re in the Bluffton area, come and visit me at Montage. You can do a private or group class. You can find Lauren at drlaurenhodge.com. She has private coaching sessions online available and a few in-person sessions opening up this month for those of you in Charleston. She works with you using evidence-based informed strategies to help you get unstuck, prevent burnout, set habits to manage stress and enhance your mindset. Links to the resources that were mentioned will be included in our show notes. If you like what you heard today and find the stories and tips useful, please give us a five-star review on iTunes, podcast, or Spotify, and tell us what part you liked about the episode the most. Thanks so much.
