This review is going to be slightly controversial, and depending on your experiences, this review could be triggering, but it is an honest review of my reading experience. That is why I tried to be as gentle and respectful as possible. I believe these things need to be talked about and they need to be talked about respectfully. This review is not hateful, but it’s one that can spark debate, and we all know where debates have the potential to go these days.
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This is a very difficult review for me and I’m still on the fence. I was convinced this was going to be a five star read. Though I’ve been a pagan for going on 7 years now, I’m still deconstructing from the indoctrination of the fundamentalist Christian church. These are the books I gravitate to in an effort to make myself feel more at home in myself, being in a body and soul that once felt owned by, what I see now was, a cult. A book about how I am my own medicine? Absolutely! I spent 20 years of my life thinking that a vengeful god was the cure for my anxiety, my depression, my autoimmune disorder, all my issues. A book that talks about how I am the solution to all this was exactly what I’ve been needing in my deconstruction process.
I suppose the long and short of this review is, if you are from European descent and are at all in a vulnerable place in your life, whether because of cultural identity or spiritual identity, specifically in the realm of any earth and nature based spirituality, I recommend you not to read this book until you have reconciled those parts of you and found yourself fully comfortable in those identities. Perhaps I’m not at the right place in my life to fully appreciate it, but as of right now the book has triggered parts of me that didn’t need to be triggered at this stage of my life.
This book is a beautiful, gently written book for anyone who is BIPOC and I believe they will find so much comfort and solace in this book. However, only about 50% of this book is discussing how one is their own medicine. The rest is essentially a cascading waterfall of gentle guilt tripping. Which, gentle or not, is still guilt tripping.
At this point, most Canadians are aware of the atrocities that occurred during colonization. Of course, we don’t know every single aspect of it, one because we weren’t there and two because we are not indigenous and suffering the trans-generational trauma as a result. But by now, I would hope, the vast majority of us know that those of European ancestry have a lot to apologize for. This book, however, bases its entire premise on trying to demean and make those of European decent feel like their race is inferior, in the most gentle and soft way possible; it is prejudice masked by loving care.
And what got me was how the author is constantly talking about how she grew up in a world where the Indigenous were treated as “other” and as “on the outside”. Which is true! I’m not ever going to deny that. Up until recently, the racism issue in Canada had yet to be acknowledged and it was a long time coming. However, it feels like, in this book, her mission was to make white people feel “other” and “on the outside”. She frequently puts all BIPOC people in this bubble of beautiful wholesomeness and then puts white people on the outside saying “but you need to acknowledge the actions of your ancestors 500 years ago, but also that will never be enough, but you have to keep trying.”
Again, I will never belittle what happened during colonization. Being on any form of social media these days, it is impossible not to feel debilitating guilt over the things imperial Britain did, because that is the front lining media these days: everything the white man has done to cause destruction.
I admit, I will never know what it’s like to be a child and have to learn that your skin colour means you’re in for a lifetime of hurt. I’m thankful that I never had to experience that as a child. But as an adult, I have to live with knowing that because of my skin colour, I am immediately put in a box with white supremacists, colonizers, Catholics, and every other group of people that has historically mistreated POC. It doesn’t matter that my ancestors didn’t even set foot on North American soil until nearly the 1800’s, or that my ancestors also weren’t at all affiliated with the Catholic Church, which is the institution that spearheaded the residential school system. It doesn’t matter that I have tried my best to be an ally my whole life. It doesn’t matter that the minute I learned about racism as a child I was immediately disgusted and did what I could to speak out against it. I will always be put into the “other” box. The box where you’re told you’re a colonizer, a parasite and racist purely because of your skin colour.
This book is important. Especially for Canadians who have not been properly educated on the genocide that happened on our own soil. However, I recommend you do not go into this book thinking you will come out at the end of it feeling refreshed that you are your own medicine. There are those aspects in the book, but it is largely overshadowed by the otherness that the author places on anyone of European decent. If you are up for the challenge to educate yourself, the book does a great job of that and is a great place to start. Education on this part of Canadian history is so important, and reconciliation needs to be made a priority.
Perhaps in a few years when I am fully comfortable in my spiritual and cultural identity, I will be able to pick this book up and be able to look past the extensive parts that feel, at this point of my life, like an attack. I will for sure be trying again then. But at this point, I think it’s important for this aspect of the book to be shared so that people can make an educated decision on whether or not this book is for them at this point in their journeys. Reading it at the wrong time can cause an internal crisis to become more pronounced. When it comes to matters of the spirit and soul, these things need to be respected: not all spiritual books will be for everyone and that’s okay. As long as we can remain respectful and understanding of each other.