Climate Grief and Change with Carolynn Crawley

Guest Speaker: Carolynn Crawley
Carolynne Crawley, founder of Msit No’kmaq which translates to All My Relations in Mi’ kmaw, is dedicated to social and environmental justice and supporting Indigenous led community work connected to Indigenous foodways. Carolynne is passionate about reconnecting people with the land, waters, and all beings as there is no separation between us.  From Indigenous perspectives across the Earth, they are all our relations to be treated with as much love, respect, and reciprocity as we do with our human loved ones. Carolynne leads workshops that support the development and strengthening of healthy and reciprocal relationships based upon Indigenous knowledges that decolonize existing interactions with the land and with each other. Carolynne is also a certified Forest Therapy Guide, a Blanket Exercise Facilitator, a Holistic Nutritionist, Storyteller, a Co-Producer of the documentary Reckoning with the Wendigo, and a member of the Tkaronto Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle.  She also works with Canada’s largest food security organization as the Indigenous Network & Knowledge Sharing senior Specialist. Carolynne has also worked in the Mental Health Sector as a Child & Youth Worker for more than twenty years. Carolynne can be found speaking at events that center around social, food, and environmental justice.

This event is to be aligned with Bonnie’s course Water and Environmental Justice (Tuesdays from 3-5 pm, New College, University of Toronto).

Workshop Description: Indigenous peoples around the Earth deeply understand the interwoven relationships between all beings. Indigenous Elders speak of the individual and collective responsibility we all have to be in a healthy and reciprocal relationship with the Earth, ourselves, and with each other. This may be more important now than any time in history. As we witness and experience the impacts of a climate crisis, global pandemic, and injustices it may be easy to lose hope. Carolynne will focus upon breaking down colonial ways of thinking that intentionally try to separate people from the Earth, by creating an opportunity for reflection and individual change. She will share Indigenous perspectives from Elders in her life that guide people to move through grief and into hope while building responsible and reciprocal relations with the waters and all of their relations. She will offer an opportunity to connect deeper with the waters through guided sensory experiences.