1_1 Kim Haxton: Indigeneity, Power of Listening, and Holding the Paradox

Today's guest is Kim Haxton (Potowatomi) from the Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario. She takes her place among thought leaders in the area of decolonization, particularly as it applies to language, art, economics and gender. She encourages the “lateral liberation” of consciousness by drawing from the embodied knowledge of Indigenous peoples. In multi-day workshops, Kim moves people through a personal process of questioning what is the truth and what is simply constructed – effectively rupturing what we “know.” True expression of respect, harmony, inclusion, equity can come from this place.

You can find more about Kim and her work here: https://indigeneyez.com/kim 

Transcript

MTR Kim Haxton 
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Raad Seraj: [00:00:00] Hello friends. Welcome to minority trip report. MTR is a podcast for underrepresented views and live journeys with mental health, psychedelics and consciousness. I'm your host Raad Seraj. 

Today, my guest is Kim Haxton from the Wasauksing First nation in Ontario. Kim has worked across turtle island and abroad in various capacities, but always with a focus on local leadership.

Raad Seraj: Her primary tools are based in ceremony and plant medicine. Kim takes her place among thought leaders in the area of decolonization, particularly as it applies to language art, economics, and gender, she encourages the lateral liberation of consciousness by drawing from the embodied knowledge of indigenous peoples in multi-day workshops.

Raad Seraj: Kim moves people through a personal process of questioning what is the truth and what is simply constructed, effectively rupturing what we know true expression of respect, harmony inclusion and equity can come from this place. Kim, thank you so much for joining me. 

Kim Haxton: So happy to be here. You'll have to excuse you might hear my [00:01:00] crows.

Kim Haxton: I say my crows cause I feed them but they're I already fed them this morning, so they're not supposed, they, you might hear them in the background. It's really good to be 

Raad Seraj: I'm super excited about this conversation. As I mentioned, this is going to be the first episode that we release, so super exciting.

Raad Seraj: And so let's dive right in my first question to you. and I say it was nuanced because, you're indigenous and I'm south Asian, but that does not mean you carry the burden for your entire people. I'm a I'm south Asian Muslim, an immigrant, but I am . I am also just a human being. So I asked this with that sort of particular framing in mind.

Raad Seraj: What do you think most non-indigenous people misunderstand. About indigenous culture, ceremony and knowledge. Oh 

Kim Haxton: God, it's such a big question. There's a couple things. I mean, the first thing that happens is no pressure. The first thing that happened is, oh, you're so spiritual. The second thing that happens is, there's a lot of racism that happens or prejudice, I would say prejudice, and people's narrow minded opinions about what it [00:02:00] means to be indigenous.

Kim Haxton: There's also a lot of actually I wanna say the word disrespect because it's like the, there's very sophisticated cultures here and cultural practices and protocol and people keep on emitting it. And especially in the psychedelic world, like just hear people and I'm just like, wow, wow, there's so much arrogance.

Kim Haxton: There's no humility. There's no, there's no sort of, really idea of reciprocity and what that means, there's a lot of taking, which is, kind of performative. Well, not performative, but it's like, it's colonialism over where people just take and there's not a thing of relationship.

Kim Haxton: And I think in the past few days I've been at a facilitating a conference with indigenous people from across British Columbia, and we were talking about, how do we hold a diversity of all of our distinct cultures, our practices, and how how we exist with each other, and so it's, it's complicated and it's one of those places in which, conversations that we're having are things that most [00:03:00] Canadians and I say, Canadians, lots of different folk have no idea about what we're talking about, and what that means. And so, there's a lot of, pianism like all native people, right?

Kim Haxton: it's like saying all south Indian people are the same. It's just like, well, it's not quite like that. BC has got the most diverse set of languages and cultures across Canada, and I don't know how many, what the numbers are there, but it's pretty high, but most people don't even look at that or understand what that's about.

Kim Haxton: Right. So I don't know. There's lots of misconceptions that we have. We other, we have people who don't understand the history. The future depends on literacy of the past, and the the history that most people are taught in education and education are it's really important. To understand the misinformation.

Kim Haxton: Right. Understanding the, sort of the formation of like something like the RCMP was based in racist roots super racist roots, it was set up to protect [00:04:00] private property and I'm just like, you mean stolen property. Right. And we are looking at the treaties, we're looking at all these sort of legal things that exist.

Kim Haxton: Canada spends more in litigation against indigenous people than any other thing else in Canada, and so the people whose very land that were on there's there's a lot of yeah. Misconceptions and also like actually legally I don't know what the word, I can't think of the word right now, but the the place in which oh, what is the word I'm looking for? Not respect in the cultures that are here, on a level. Yeah. Mm-hmm and not respecting the sort of the treaties, the protocols and all those sort of the things like, and the protocols are here.

Kim Haxton: The, the legal land laws that are here are it's really important that people understand that there are laws that are based embedded in the land. Each of the cultures. I think it's really important to understand that we have our we have our laws and protocols based on how the land teaches us. [00:05:00] most people come from a different culture where, different religions, it's, man's domination over nature.

Kim Haxton: Where I think there's a lot of, and I say this in a pan-Indian way, there's like rules and things that we're taught from the land. Our language comes from the land. Our ceremonies come from the land, which makes it distinct where the different areas that you go and thereby like for example, where you are out east, there's the, the wo and belts, and those are legally binding agreements that were held between , different nations, like the the wo and belt of the bowl, and two spoons that anybody on this territory will have enough food to eat, and it's interesting. I think that's a misconception too, cuz the whole. and this sort of forgive me as I wander off on this, but I really think there's a thing on generosity in how we take care of ourselves within our community, which is missed. There's a whole place of understanding, sort of the protocols of different territories, and the reason why they're there and what that means.

Kim Haxton: And I [00:06:00] think it's interesting when we look at a sort of a patriarchal colonial structure of a pyramid structure, which is like top down or religions top down and that whole sort of cycle that, that is, is like that. I think it's really important to understand it's really important to understand the complexity.

Kim Haxton: The disassociation actually, that, that incurs, right. We live in a world like just a world here's here. It is. We live in a world where, we're going through climate change. We've got, we don't have clean drinking water. We are poisoning ourselves on the very planet that is life sustaining.

Kim Haxton: And so there's a oops. And there's a problem in, the sort of narrative that we have around misconception of indigenous people who are getting arrested and getting, prosecuted in the criminal, in criminal courts. Right. For protecting land, for protecting the future of their, culture.

Kim Haxton: And it's not just for their own culture, it's for the community and all the people around here. Right. So there's a piece there that [00:07:00] is totally missing. And there's a piece there that I'm just like. I see that Canadians have a misunderstanding because of the narratives that are written in media, the whole sort of thing of understanding white supremacy.

Kim Haxton: I don't mean individuals, but the systematic place in which, the RCMP, right. As I mentioned, the the, the people who are there to protect us, and we know that it doesn't exist for, indigenous people of color, black and specifically black and indigenous bodies. Recently somebody said to me, well, black people, aren't our problem here in Canada, and I was like, this is an educated, person with a doctor, like they're a doctor. And I was like, oh good, God, you don't understand. Let's talk about power. Let's talk about violence on bodies, and what you're talking about is statistics and your statistics is still centering white supremacy.

Kim Haxton: Who's deserving right. This whole concept rather than how do we take care of all of us within the community. And I think that's a really important one in the, I forget when it was maybe the 19 early nineties, maybe it was the late eighties. [00:08:00] I'm not sure, but the pan from Borneo did a world tour where they were when was the United rights?

Kim Haxton: When, when was UNDRIP written, I forget the name, forgive me if you're not having those references, but UNDRIP, United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, when that was put out the Penan went on a world tour, sort of being like help, help us. We've got mining and logging coming in from all these multinational companies, 80% of the multinational companies and mining and logging are based in Canada.

Kim Haxton: Right. But people don't know that, and and these people who've been living since time of Memorial in the, in the jungle and in their traditional territories, were on this tour and people said, what do you think of this?

Kim Haxton: They were in New York city. And they said, oh, people here have so much and they're not happy. And then they said, we don't understand why you have all these big houses. They were pointing, to all the office buildings and people don't have that place to sleep, and I'm just like, holy, and, and we see that in our cities, and I live in Vancouver and Squamish, MUW slay [00:09:00] tooth territories. And the downtown east side is like, it's tent city right now. You just drive down blocks and blocks. And it's people living in tents and I'm just like, What is wrong with our society, what is wrong with our society?

Kim Haxton: So I think about that and I think about the stereotypes that come out of that, cause people say, well, it's all indigenous people down there and I'm like, whoa, wait a second. It's interesting what people see? Right. It's interesting that the land protectors are the activists are, there's, they're professional, like what people say, all, all the ignorant things don't read the comment sections, that's really depressing when you kind of look at that on, on the comment sections in any sort of newspaper, right around anything indigenous, I think was it, I don't know which paper they actually stopped.

Kim Haxton: One of the national papers stopped print comment sections on anything about indigenous people, just because of the racist prejudice remarks that people were having. So there's so many misconceptions [00:10:00] and created in a. system, which is like, that is greatly benefited from these lands... 

Raad Seraj: and, from a perspective of a of an immigrant... so I came to Canada in 2004 as a student, and none of them was taught to me. I didn't learn about it in university, unless I'm sure there were specific programs or courses I took. None of it was there. It was invisible. Yeah. It came with a brand like, okay. Tall, shiny buildings and here's Canada and and don't get me wrong.

Raad Seraj: It is a great country. But the thing is if you truly still love something, you wanna make it better. And you want to embody its entire history of both the evils that has been responsible for as well as the good it can create in the world. Yeah. Nothing is black and white.

Raad Seraj: And I think colonized insurance works by polarizing and may and absolutely supplying everything into tiny little. Into tiny little corners into tiny little positions you can take. And, with all colonization, talk about like essentially Western Europeans colonizing the Americas.

Raad Seraj: But you know, colonization happens everywhere. [00:11:00] Colon is actually a mindset, so I come from Bangladesh and and bangles is part of the greater Indian subcontinent. What used to be the Indian sub subcontinent, the British occupied the area in 47, the drew lines, and then split up the entire into Pakistan and Bangladesh, sorry, Pakistan in India, along religious lines.

Raad Seraj: And then of course, as the British do they went, okay, this is Bangladesh and this is Pakistan. You guys don't speak the same language. You don't look the same. You have no cultural similarities. And you're not even connected by geography, but Hey, you're both Muslim. All right. You're in the same country.

Raad Seraj: All right. Yeah. But you're split up by India in the middle. Yeah. Okay. Out of course, set it up for another genocide in 71, west Pakistan versus east Pakistan, east Pakistan is now Bangladesh regard independence. And obviously that was that east Pakistan or, and Bangladesh now was being colonized.

Raad Seraj: People that look the same, same religion, but again, what different language? And we find different ways to sort of extract... and of course, now, if [00:12:00] you look at the indigenous peoples in Northern part of Bangladesh, what is the state doing? Oppressing them, taking their lands, burning down their houses, stuff like that. The point I'm trying to make is that as a, as an immigrant, who came to Canada, not knowing any of this, coming into this knowledge, through friends, through self education, and of course, hanging out with incredible leaders, such as yourself, I'm learning so much.

Raad Seraj: It's very complex, but colonization is most powerful when it tells you exactly what the truths are. And so you come into this place and you look at the shiny buildings. You're like, oh yeah. And of course we happen to be neighbors of the us and everything bad that bad happens is of course in the us.

Raad Seraj: And, but us Canada by comparison. Oh, we can do no wrong. Look at our prime minister. He takes great selfies. He runs surplus , he has a very diverse cabinet. Of course we can't do any wrong. So this is to your point coming from that though, and you and I talked about being, of course we have a lot of responsibility, but we also wanna be bridge builders and it's a very [00:13:00] complex conversation.

Raad Seraj: It requires one to hold multiple truths at the same time. The fact that I, as a human being and the culture that I represent can both be beautiful, but also absolutely violent and oppressive. Mm-hmm how do I carry both? How do you think people can try to understand indigenous history and indigenous ways of being and knowledge better?

Raad Seraj: Because I think one of the key components of what you just said is relational truths. That is a very different paradigm from extractive, forms of being right, taking, taking, taking. But to say that we have trust between us, that we have a relationship and that relationship is the foundation of the troops that we both experience.

Raad Seraj: It's very different. 

Kim Haxton: I think there's a couple things right away, I just think about what are the things that across our barrier, like, first of all, how do we hold paradox that. The theme for every single human being right now, how do we hold the [00:14:00] paradox of this and that?

Kim Haxton: Not this or that. I think that's the thing is we're moving past this or that, we're seeing lots of different examples in the world that we're like, oh, hang on a second. A heterosexuality isn't like this or that. There's a whole spectrum of, of existence, which I'm like finally, right. For, for, for people to be like, hang on, wait a second, hang on a second.

Kim Haxton: That's not right. Yeah. And then I giggle, cause I look at all the homo sports of like wrestling in that. I'm just like, hello. What do you think that is you? 

Raad Seraj: Yeah, exactly. 

Kim Haxton: Right. And of course, but I'm like, yeah. Yeah. It's okay. But I think when we're looking at the cultures, I think that's our teaching.

Kim Haxton: I think that is a universal teaching. for all of us is how do we hold, the violence and the beauty light and dark exist. You know what I mean? You kind of go go off into that sort of the universe. Doesn't give a rat's as the universe is a very big, infinite is a very big place, and here [00:15:00] we are in this beautiful little planet and look at how we're behaving.

Kim Haxton: It's, it's quite shameful, really, I'm just like kind of embarrassed sometimes to be a human where I'm like, wow, like our sense of dignity or responsibility, there's the whole idea of surrendering to the sacred instead submitting to the sacred, we don't do that in our world.

Kim Haxton: If we did, we would have clean drinking water if we did, we'd have, people would be fed and housed and, I would be access for. equal access for people. We don't live in a place like that. We've got people who are hoarders with money who have billions and billions of dollars.

Kim Haxton: I don't even know what a billion dollars is. You know what I mean? But, but I'm just like, I look at that. And yet we have also people starving. We have people, having diseases. I forget what the disease is, but Botox, there's no money to be made by saving the people who have the disease from whatever, fly with Botox.

Kim Haxton: Instead it's used for like people and their van insanity vanity over here to [00:16:00] erase out the wrinkles and give you nice plump, gross lips. You just like this. Doesn't what, like, it's funny. Really. It, it totally is where we're just in this. Yeah. We live in a culture, make believe. Derek Jensen wrote a book about that.

Kim Haxton: He talks about the history of north America as genocide and the black backs of slavery, but he, he winds through, but it's an American view. It's quite depressing, but the book is called. a culture of make believe. And I just think about it when we think about the absurdity of how we live, it is a culture of make believe.

Kim Haxton: We think of, when we think of psychedelics, when we think of the history of indigenous people using medicines, and a lot of religions, you have to go to the priest or to somebody to connect to God where, in indigenous cultures, it was like, eat this medicine, commune with God yourself and figure it out.

Kim Haxton: Right. And that was the sacred relationship because of the plants, and all of those sort of things. And, I think of the Jesuits who there was writings from them and their first contact in the Titan culture in the, in which is [00:17:00] now Puerto Rico in the west Indies and different places in those islands.

Kim Haxton: And they said, oh, the natives are what are the. they're snorting tobacco, or they're ingesting tobacco. And it's actually, it wasn't, it was YoPo, which is part of a plant of cap bark, which exists throughout a lot of the Americas, but was stamped out, when the first, I think, 40 years of contact the Catholic church, in all of their, sort of the capables and different things, they were stamping out people's religious practices, which was using plant medicines.

Kim Haxton: And so there was a lot that was lost. There's still a lot retained, we know that. But it really and when we think of the premise of something like a Christian Judeo, Christian religion, And I can't speak to other ones, but I just grow have in Canada, grown up in a society where everything is based on forgiveness.

Kim Haxton: Which means you've got judgment, and so there's a, the shame, blame, guilt fear is so rampant in holding us into, behaving [00:18:00] ourselves, being good little citizens that we actually are doing more harm in the way of holding that blindness to, actually doing what's right.

Kim Haxton: And I say that, and I'm pointing to my heart, they understand that the heart and the body has also neurons intelligence like the brain, it, it goes into a whole sort of thing of, where we Talk about, being walking, craniums being walking, like these big giant heads and yet the brain is brilliant, but it is also a limitation to when we actually look at the things and we're building nuclear stuff because why, like, doesn't that just kill people.

Kim Haxton: United States, how many people, people have guns cuz you know, it's just a it's just this continual loop around loop around and it's like, okay, we're on a loop. It's time. We need to create a different loop, with our obsession of power and violence and money like and money.

Kim Haxton: I mean the churches taught that, right? The churches took, they created sort of north, their whole, the paper bowls [00:19:00] and the 14 hundreds. Anybody, who's not Christian, we can take their land. Anybody who's not Christian, you are our slave. And that belief has held for so long in the systems that we hold.

Kim Haxton: So that's why we're seeing, the division from the, I don't know, I don't wanna say morally superior and I say that, and it's just so not because it's really uncivilized when you think of, what happened to in your country, being divided in that way, the history of colonization in south Asia, and different places, in Africa. Right. As an example, I think that's a really great example, Africa and the history there is like, it's so sad when you look at how wealthy that comes 

Kim Haxton: and it still continues. It. Absolutely. And it's too confusing. And the thing is again, going back to the point of colonization, it's a mindset, it's a form of thinking, that we've exported.

Kim Haxton: Yeah. I used to say Western culture, but I say industrialized culture now, because anywhere there's industrialization, we've [00:20:00] exported this one form of progress, quote unquote. And now take this away. And anybody, if, as far as I'm concerned, anybody who is, making a lot of money is an industrialist is like building and all this stuff, rich people everywhere act the same, frankly speaking, like whatever color it looks like you look like.

Kim Haxton: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Act the same. It's a form of thinking. 

Kim Haxton: it's a form of thinking. I think there's a thing around, when you look at privilege and power, on a really big level, it's , in with privilege, it's like a fish swimming in the water. It doesn't know that it's breathing water.

Kim Haxton: But we, on the outside of the shore can look at it and say, it's doing that. So when I see people who have a lot of privilege, I see that, I see people in a place where you, they just don't know. And one of the things in our society and in our society that we live in, cuz we do we're full of that.

Kim Haxton: We it's like snakes and ladders. I love that analogy of the snakes and ladders is like a problem, and where you're up, up, up, up, up, and then it's but there's a thing [00:21:00] around our ego, right? That's okay, gotta get to the top, gotta get to the top. And yet we are perpetuating the same sort of things over and over and over, in that way.

Raad Seraj: That is a critical point. Then let's put a pin on that for a second. Cause I think it's really important to come back to in the context of psychedelics, because as with everything else, psychedelic is just a tool and unless the underlying relationships and the mindsets are, and the set and setting is different, the tools will just amplify the same mindset.

Raad Seraj: The thing, the very thing you will, you're hoping to change it just further entrenches amplifies it, but we'll come back to this. Okay. I want to go back to, I wanna go back some time and talk about how you grew up now. This is again one of these. One of the things that I learned about only in the recent last couple of years is the sixties scoop right now.

Raad Seraj: You're a childhood sixties scoop I am. What was that reality? For you growing up for those of us who are still learning and want to learn. Yeah. [00:22:00] If you don't mind tell us what the scoop was. And then of course, what was it like growing up as a child of 60's scoop? 

Kim Haxton: So when you look at sort of the history of Canada, this is like a bigger conversation, the Canadian government wanted to assimilate indigenous people, into white culture.

Kim Haxton: And I think Trudeau, his dad Trudo that Trudeau wrote a thing called the white paper, which was awesome because it was a big rebuttal. It was especially the brown paper, of the chiefs that went across the country and said, no way, it's now called the red paper. But there's a sort of a history, going back beyond be before that, where they created the Indian act and the Indian act was a, how to, I forget the saying, but anyways, the Indian act.

Kim Haxton: This super racist and kind of violent sort of policy to it was a land grab, really, putting people onto reserves also to not only putting people on reserves, but taking land, and then reserves went from [00:23:00] fairly good areas, like really tiny, and then people weren't allowed to leave reserves and then, you know what next?

Kim Haxton: So then they did the residential schools and then that became as well, that didn't phase out until the 19. What, I don't know when the last one was closed, but not so long ago and day schools. And part of the thing that they did is in the fifties and the sixties, they did this thing about adopting or children out from communities because there was this super patronizing sort of ideology that indigenous people couldn't take care of their own children.

Kim Haxton: And it was also part of the paper that, is devastating for the thousands and thousands of people who got adopted out into non-indigenous culture. And so for me, relatively speaking, I have, it's a blessing and a curse, it was really odd to grow up in a place where I didn't belong.

Kim Haxton: I never felt belonging. I never had that belonging, and also growing up in a place where people had narrow-minded opinions, [00:24:00] about who I was and what that represented as a kid, always feeling disconnected. And I didn't know why, and so that's a really big one, I think, for.

Kim Haxton: that's a really, really big one that sort of growing up and not being surrounded by aunties and family, I always find why nobody else took me from the family, but then as learned a way the government did for anybody who was a young mother, it was like, they're not fit to be a mother.

Kim Haxton: The children were taken away. And there was a whole thing around women being sterilized. Like there's lots of stories that are being slowly coming from. So as part of the sixties scoop, I was adopted into a British family, here like a year, on the continent.

Kim Haxton: And that was really challenging because I'm just gonna move, hang on a second. Go for it. That was really ch that was really challenging for people. Are we still recording? Yep. Okay, cool. That was really challenging for people because when [00:25:00] you I have friends that, that grew up in England, kids got adopted out all over the world and placed in non-indigenous families.

Kim Haxton: And there's something about that when you grow up in a place where you don't look like the people who are raising you, that is really challenging, there's challenges that they don't understand also about what it is, and so for me, it's interesting. I think one of the gifts is learning about, I actually know how to deal with racism because I grew up in it, I very, and a personalized experience be like, oh yeah, I know you.

Kim Haxton: And I know those sort of opinions or those things, I think one of my brothers is a is a professor and he's a Kim, the native people need to get over. And I was like, holy shit, dude, you're an educator at a university. and you think that have you not read any of the books over the years that I've sent to you?

Kim Haxton: And I'm just like, wow, wow. Mm-hmm like, so people have this like mentality and again, it's based in capitalism because it's like, well, they're just interrupting our land use by saying this. And [00:26:00] this is, whether it's the oil and gas, whether it's the, fisheries, whether it's like on and on and on, it just, it's, it's insane, being con confronted with this.

Kim Haxton: So when I think about being adopted, I mean, relatively speaking, I had a lot of really, there were good things that happened, but there was also like really terrible things that happened too, and that a lot of people with abuse and different things that I know a lot of different indigenous people also went through.

Kim Haxton: And yeah. And so I find that was something that I felt like in my heart, I was like, man, this really sucks, and the gift is that I can walk into white worlds and be like, actually, let me have a conversation with you. I can't deny my indigeneity. My face is that, it's been challenging trying to go home, to well socking where my people are from , Because there's a lot of lost records and I've gone and been there and been like, hi, who does, who looks like me?

Kim Haxton: Who's my family. And people are like, Hmm. I'm like, I don't look like anybody here, man. Like, and just seeing [00:27:00] that, and so things were moved and lost and I'm like, wow, what is that? So it's interesting in regards to culture and family, I've spent the past 30 years, immersed in culture, in culture, in communities and indigenous communities, all around the world.

Kim Haxton: And here specifically I live out in, out, out west and I've, I work with communities on, cultural resurgence, what does that look like? Helping people set up framework. So the, the good thing is I can come in and do that work for communities to do their own, mm-hmm, what that means.

Kim Haxton: Yeah. We have more kids in foster care right now, Then went to residential school and that's a problem because it's still the cultural genocide, right? It's like losing culture, and that, that's a huge number. And... 

Raad Seraj: This is a generational thing. Once you destroy the fabric of a community, that impact goes on for generations.

Raad Seraj: Oh. Because guess what? People don't stop living out their traumas. People don't stop having children. Exactly. Exactly. The trauma people stop. Don't [00:28:00] stop living. They're yeah. It just perpetuates. It continues. 

Kim Haxton: I think that's the biggest piece. I think the injury for, people having your children taken away is like, it's disgusting.

Kim Haxton: Right? what does that impact? And, when we it's terrible. Like the trauma that happens and the things that we do to cope with trauma, there's in the neighborhood where I live, there's two two brothers they're beautiful. They're So sweet they're Carrs and these two, I think they're Inuit.

Kim Haxton: And I know they are and turns out they went to residential school and just their story. It's just so heavy. One of the brothers died and the other brother lived on the streets and I remember asking dancer, I'm like why? And he's cuz it's safe. We're together. We have each other's back.

Kim Haxton: And the one brother died, last year, which was like devastating. And just seeing the, that these guys shouldn't be living on the streets. They're not at the age where they should be. Nobody should be living on the streets, but I just see the impacts in different ways in community.

Kim Haxton: We see it around us, but we don't understand the stories. We don't understand the stories at. [00:29:00] 

Raad Seraj: Yeah. So it's simple to go and point somebody on the street and go like, oh, you're an alcoholic, of course, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. People say it's this kind of dumb shit. And again, the whole, the systems are designed in such a way that you put everything in everyone in a little box.

Raad Seraj: Yeah. You don't think about people in their relationship to their environments, the environments that they grew up that they were taken away from mm-hmm and, zooming out, looking at what's happening in the Ukraine, in Syria, in Palestine, and, and the dya people escaping persecution from the Genta and Myanmar, there's children and women involved there's people involved, and that continues, asylum seekers or refugees coming to Canada.

Raad Seraj: That's not. And it continues the depression the trauma, the turmoil, all of that just goes on and on and on. People, just people can graduate from one place to another, but that kind of pain never goes away. Exactly. So coming back though, the process that sort of, I imagine you went through right.

Raad Seraj: Having this sort of disorienting [00:30:00] upbringing, you have these loving parents who don't look like you. So in this sort of process the last few years, like I imagine I only say this because I know what the kind of work you're doing, and we both talked about being bridge builders in our own way.

Raad Seraj: This process of reconciliation with who you are as a person spiritually, right, on the inside. Would you say that it gives you some unique insights or approach or perspective given the work that you're trying to do? 

Kim Haxton: Yeah, I think for, I think there's a thing that there was never any conciliation to begin with in that relationship with sellers, right. And, and and when I listened to the elders and the different communities, and I would like, listen to Glenn, just like, okay, this is their message that you're caring forward, and so there's a responsibility, not about a right, but a to making a change. Part of me wants to be like, ah, I don't like settl layers.

Kim Haxton: I don't like white people. I don't like the system. See you later, I'm heading to the Bush, and that really [00:31:00] doesn't. Fit because how do we make the changes we need to make? But, part of there's times when I will walk away because I understand some people don't have ears, there's people who are humble, right.

Kim Haxton: And people just are belligerent. And, mean, these are things I learned with growing up with all brothers, right. and, and I say that, and I laugh, but it's not really funny. At the same time I'm seeing it out in the world, corporate world that I'm working in and I'm just like, holy smokes, Okey dokey, buddy.

Kim Haxton: We've got some work to do, and how do we, I think there's a, there's an adage. And I think this is a really important one that every single human being wants to be seen, heard and celebrated. Everybody doesn't matter who you are, what culture you're from. That's just that gift of love, yesterday, one of the elders, he was like, it's about love.

Kim Haxton: He, and he looked at me, he was talking to me. He said, Kim, it's about love. He said, what I know is that when I look at my granddaughter. And she's little, she's three and she's sitting on my lap and she's looking at me and he goes, and that love that. I see. He goes, I have hope, and he said, that's why we're doing this works.

Kim Haxton: [00:32:00] We're looking at seven generations. What are we doing for seven generations? What are the things that we're doing that are not perpetuating, colonial harm? How are you living your life? And I'm like, oh man, next time I wanna be a babe on the beach in Miami, walking around with martinis or whatever, whatever you do down there, margarita.

Kim Haxton: I don't know. But when I look at I'm just like, I feel the responsibility of knowing that these little people are coming in and what the hell are they inheriting? What are they inheriting? And I'm just like, wow. I remember a Maori person said to a bunch of us one year it was here.

Kim Haxton: And he said, if you've lost your language, you've lost your culture. and that hit home for me. I studied language in at university and it was like terrible. I was terrible at it, but I just realized the complexity of language. And, as a, as English, as your second language, that there's so many things that do not translate into English, and I think of a there's so [00:33:00] many things in the bay language and the Potawatomi sort of in the different dialects that they just don't translate, or it becomes very I'm gonna say stupid deified. I don't know what the word is to when you say it in English, because it doesn't actually give to the breadth of the beauty of language, which is a feel embodied place.

Kim Haxton: And it's such an underestimated perspective. You know what, because I don't think it's appreciated nearly as much as it should. That what learning a particular language becoming fluent at what that does to your mind. Oh, because if you go think about it, fundamentally enough language is just a form of sound that has mental abstract concepts associated.

Kim Haxton: Exactly. Each sound. Exactly. And word is a collection of sound. Language is a collection of words. And so when you start to learn particular languages and particular sounds and concepts, it leaves out its entire other world of experienced reality that we could use to enrich our lives. So to your [00:34:00] point, English is just a very, very, very, very, very narrow form of communicating what we perceive in the world and to communicate those ideas, some of those ideas go viral, right?

Kim Haxton: Whether religion, whether it's romance, whether it's nationalism, whatever. , but it is just a form of communicating experienced reality. And then other Lang then you think about, okay what am I missing out? Imagine just being able to see and not having any other sense. Mm. Is the same thing, right?

Kim Haxton: That guy Derek Jensen back to him again, but he, the title of another book he's got great titles. It's called a language older than words. And when I think of that, I think of my friend Tang, his father is a medicine person in Borno. And when the anthropologists and scientists came through and asked his dad, how do you know which plants go together?

Kim Haxton: Like you don't even know the chemical compounds of these plants and this and his dad laughed. And basically he didn't say, are you stupid? But this is my interpretation. Said, if the plants [00:35:00] harmonize, you're gonna make a medicine. If they don't harmonize, you're gonna make a poison. I'm like what?

Kim Haxton: I remember hearing that when I heard that I was in my twenties, I was like, what, what do you talk about? And then, like 11 years ago, I was in, I was working with a man named Jose Louise from the from the PIRE people in the owner con basin in Southern Venezuela. And he was showing me how to make some medicines.

Kim Haxton: And he, I said, how do you know these go together? Like cool. Right. And he laughed. And he, and he said, I heard can't you hear the music that they sing. Here. It was in two remote parts of the world, in of, and I was just like, holy, like I, I am consumed by my own itty bitty shitty committee.

Kim Haxton: I'm going around in my head. of course, I can't hear myself, let alone hear the plants or hear the world around me, and I just really made me realize that level of chaos that we live in is attributed to our lack of I go back to the submitting to the sacred or, or that place that is that language.

Kim Haxton: And yet we [00:36:00] have that language. We feel, we're compassionate human. We have that. It's just, what is it that stopped us from the live or wire we do. Do we live in so much apathy? Why don't we do what's right. And so this is part of the whole thing around the colonization. Well, don't do.

Kim Haxton: Cuz these are the rules behave like this because, but I'm like, yeah, but is that the right way we should be conducting ourselves? Is that the, yeah. 

Raad Seraj: You just said something that's which is I found super hilarious, but I love your framing, the itty bitty shitty committee.

Raad Seraj: Okay. Here's a fun question. It's a committee, who's on this committee. 

Kim Haxton: Oh, good. God. well, there's this little barky dog. 

Raad Seraj: You got different people in your head in LA the city committee. 

Kim Haxton: Okay. One is this little barky dog. Like I am, I have to say this. I'm sorry. I apologize to everybody who has little dogs. I don't like little dogs.

Kim Haxton: I want a dog. They actually do something. And I was really one day I, I noticed, and as I was doing meditation, I'm like, it was this little black dog. That's like, it's the protector, right? It's the one that's like, I don't like you, blah, blah, blah, [00:37:00] blah, blah. And I was like, oh my God, you've gotta be kidding.

Kim Haxton: I have a little dog in my itty shitty bitty committee. Like no way. I think of those things, I think of fear, the shy girl or whatever those moments of oh, I can't do this worthiness, and it shows up in different ways with it, as I've had to befriend my.

Kim Haxton: Committee. Right. Because they actually, weren't actually working for me when I think of board, some boards I'm like, yeah. It's like, how are we working for a bigger thing? How are we working for something that is like actually aligned rather than the stories? I think we're made up of stories.

Kim Haxton: I think I remember one time I had a ceremony and I remember laying there laughing, laughing, just being like, oh God, I'm exhausted with all the stories that, of my own identity and who I think I am and all of these things. And I remember just laughing and laughing and just being like, oh, like, let's just take a breath.

Kim Haxton: Let's slow this down because , who are we really? The fact that we exist is a miracle. Right? Really? I know we [00:38:00] kind of believe we're, I don't know what we believe, but it's a miracle that we exist in the universe and the scheme of the universe, that.

Kim Haxton: That we have these ability to have this technology, which I'm like, I don't know if it's good or bad, like, yes. I love being able to talk to you and, inform myself through education, but I'm just like it doesn't. Yeah. And then the, the paradox thing of like, okay, well, we've got people who aren't eating, there's bombs being dropped on people's HEADSS there children who are malnourished and starved and, and, and all for consumer society.

Kim Haxton: Right. and I'm like, and we have to live into consumer society and I'm like, oh man, yes and no. And why the big, why? Right. I often go back to that. Why do we, why are we here? it's like current stop doing that, and start being in presence. Right. Start being in the place of connecting with people and across however people are and meeting them where they're at, because.

Kim Haxton: Belonging, [00:39:00] seen, heard and celebrated, not everybody had healthy families, not everybody comes from cultures where you had privilege or you weren't having oppression because of like traumatized people. And I think when we look at the trauma that exists in our bodies from our ancestors, I often describe it like this.

Kim Haxton: The there's a show called the Muppets. And I know for some people it's, it's like a different generation, but they're in, there're these two old guys that sit up in the GA in a gallery, in a theater, and they're always like, boo, boo, boo, boo. They're these two at the whole show. Boo. And I often think that our ancestors are like sitting there behind us going, no, don't do the Ooh, as we're doing stuff and carrying out these things, because there's a teaching that I hear over and over and over again with, and this is like a paned thing, but I constantly hear the elders.

Kim Haxton: I heard different elders in the past three days ago. Kim, our ancestors are, whether us, your grandmother is with [00:40:00] you when you're speaking, I've heard that for years, my grandma's speaking to your grandma right now. It's not you. And I it's like, I'm coming with my I'm coming with my posse, and, and we forget that, right? We forget that again. Colonization is like, oh, well, they're dead. They're not here, but it's like, they live in their hearts. They live in our cellular their memory, it gets a bit woo woo for people. But I'm just like, yeah, well, okay. I need you to wake up cuz we don't have a lot of time.

Kim Haxton: We need to get connected. Where does wisdom come from? And so I think of... 

Raad Seraj: Well, that's the thing, right? Colonization is, is also synonymous with accelerated culture. Right? Exactly. Anyway, a lot of us who've been locked in, locked down for the last two years.

Raad Seraj: Mm-hmm so many of my friends, including myself, part of the reason we sort of spiral that went through crisis is like, what do I do now? I have to sit still for, I, I have nowhere to talk to what do I do? How do I, so like some of my friends who did better were like meditating and my partner, she's generally way more grounded.

Raad Seraj: She's really, she's good at sitting down, doing a puzzle, watching some [00:41:00] TV, and I'm here like completely what the fuck do I do now? My God, I should be like doing this. I should be doing that exactly. And acceleration, just mental acceleration. And, but then you go into the process of okay, you hit rock bottom and you come up and you're like, okay, now I can learn how to put these pieces together.

Raad Seraj: And I understand there's real value. So to your point about this sort of memory and like being present, allowing things to take their natural time only happens when you can sit still. 

Kim Haxton: Exactly. 

Raad Seraj: I wanna ask you a very straightforward question and we talked about this, but, and I'm really torn and I, I would love to explore this with you, with our audience present.

Raad Seraj: What do you think about diversity panels?

Kim Haxton: Is it still centering whiteness? And let me frame that. Let me frame that better. Let me frame that better, because I wanna say where I'm coming from and I'm not just trying to be provocative, I'm saying on one hand [00:42:00] and I was having a convers with a friend of mine the other day on the one hand, I do think it's really important to have safe spaces for marginalized folk, right.

Kim Haxton: Where it can be just about that. Absolutely. Absolutely. On the other hand, as with everything else, we go away from safe space from then tokenizing something, right. It's like, oh, we did the thing. We checked the box, that's it. What else do you want from us? 

Kim Haxton: There's a lot of check the box moments, right?

Kim Haxton: And how do we actually learn to be in relationship with one another, like an authentic relationship? In the past, I just came from New York where I did a black and indigenous women's gathering. It was so awesome to sit and eat. That's what we did. We did, we ate a lot, we laughed a lot and there was just something that was so relaxing and beautiful to be around, people who have experiences that we all share without having to talk about it in a way that was like, wow, that's cool.

Kim Haxton: So [00:43:00] there's a moment in that of it was really beautiful and there's things that happen that we know. Around appropriation. We know the history until I think we can reconcile the history of of the inequities that exist.

Kim Haxton: I'm not sure what the, exactly what the answer is. I think diversity panels are really good, but then it just lumps everybody together. And I also like a lot of times when I run courses, I'm like, okay, for all the white people, we're going on a hunting trip, everybody here, we're going on a hunting trip.

Kim Haxton: And I'm gonna ask you, but you're gonna hunt yourself and you're gonna track yourself. We're gonna go tracking first. That's what I was taught is how to track it. Old carrier guy named Danny Matthews was like, no, you track the animal before you take its life and follow it for a few days. And so this week you're gonna follow yourself.

Kim Haxton: You're gonna follow yourself every time you want to interject. I'm centering indigenous voices in this room right this week. And I want you to listen. And it's really [00:44:00] hard, cuz you're gonna wanna think and like you're taught to think and inject yourself. But this is about listening. There's a rule for the listener in our cultures, or Watchers or the witness , and people come out and they're like, whoa, I, and if I you're crying, you're gonna have to take care of yourself too.

Kim Haxton: Cause I'm not, we're not gonna take your white guilt into this space and I want you to hold yourself and then we can be in proper relationship with each other. So I don't know, there was a thing around that I've seen work where people are like, whoa. And then I asked the question, what does white supremacy mean to you?

Kim Haxton: And this is like black, Latino Latinx bodies, indigenous bodies, white bodies. And people are like, whoa. And then truly able to sit together and hold it without it being. Personalize, so we don't slow down enough. I think that's the thing. We don't slow down enough. And we get caught in cycles of blame, shame, guilt, perpetuating the same thing until we can really heal the trauma in our bodies.

Kim Haxton: And that takes a bit of time, and how can we move past the victim? How can we move past [00:45:00] righteousness? How can we move into a place where we're actually creating bonds of love? I recently, in that gathering of us in the states, I was working with mini Jean who was part of the, I said the Arkansas nine, the Alabama nine back in the civil rights era with the nine kids who went to the segregated, the not, yeah, the segregated school and she's 80 and she's so cool, man, shout out to mini Jean.

Kim Haxton: And she said, Kim, she said, I see some of these kids saying, ah, white, this white, that. And she said, but it's a system. It's not about individuals, And she said, we need to love people and not hate on people. She goes, that's not the way. And I really heard her because I, I went through my angry years for sure.

Kim Haxton: And, but I just really realized it's like, how do you, as a person show up to meet me and that's speaks volumes, people say stupid stuff. That's okay. Cuz I guess people don't know they're ignorant, and I'm like, okay do you have ears? And if people have ears, then let's [00:46:00] talk.

Kim Haxton: If people don't have ears, I don't know if I answered your question, but it's a complicated place. 

Kim Haxton: That's really the key here. Having ears, being able to listen really. Because every one of us can have our moments of, ignorance and like prejudice whether we're aware of or not.

Kim Haxton: But are we willing to listen, get past it and body that we can be both at any time. Exactly. Arrogance. Right? 

Raad Seraj: Exactly. Exactly. So my last question to you, and I think I wanna bring it all together under the under the context of psychedelics. What was your first experience with the medicine plant medicines and feel free to feel free, to describe whatever psychedelic means.

Raad Seraj: I think it can mean so much to different kinds of people. Yeah. And then coming back to the work you're doing now in the Canadian psychedelic summit coming up, which you are facilitating, leading and creating. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your experience with plant medicines, your work with plant medicines.

Kim Haxton: Yeah, before I got into plant [00:47:00] medicines, of course I was doing like L S D and when I was younger and having fun with that and magic mushrooms and not having always fun with magic mushrooms, I was always kind of scared of them. They always scared me. Like, I, they scared me and it wasn't until my late twenties when I understood that mushrooms were actually ceremonial, and cuz they would, they were always showed up in, in ways that were a little bit spooky.

Kim Haxton: So, and teachers, they were always teaching. So I didn't always like the teaching cause I didn't have any framework around understanding that when I was younger MDMA, all of those sort of things. I experimented all with the experiments of, opioids and different things when I was young and luckily found my way through all of that.

Kim Haxton: And 22 years ago, I guess I met two teachers and one of them was A man named Edmund Faber, who is a person who shares medicines and songs. And he took me under his wing and then a, a meta Western psychologist, a, a [00:48:00] transpersonal psychologist, Dr. Beth Heva, who they both took me under their wings at the same year.

Kim Haxton: And so I was understanding trauma from a Western psychological perspective, but also with a spiritual perspective and, and the grounding in protocols around medicine and ceremony that I actually didn't realize I was learning it. I didn't realize how much I was learning. And, but in 22 years I'm like, Ooh, this.

Kim Haxton: Wow. I, I have seen what that means, the responsibility, of, of what that means to use medicine. Medicines, plants do not have an ego. Right. That's what I learned. I. And humans do. And I, it forced me to sort of reckon with my own ego. And anytime I get in my ego gets in the way, I'm just like, okay, eat some medicine, get clear because , my righteousness gets in the way my itty bitty shitty committee takes over.

Kim Haxton: And then I'm like, okay, this is what . And then I'm like, oh, that is lacking humility. And then the [00:49:00] plants set me straight into being like, okay, slow it down. So it's interesting. 22 years of that, it's taken me all over the world. What does it mean to decolonize? Right? What does it mean to be connected to the land and the plant world?

Kim Haxton: It doesn't mean about everybody doing psychedelics. I don't think so. Or plant medicine, ceremonial, ethnos, or plant medicine. But what I do see is, the capitalism has jumped in and the high whole, like iowaska, the industry of like yeha, let's go down and do AKA. I went to Peru, I went to wherever, and I just hear so many people that I'm just like, holy smokes, so what is your relationship with, the SIL cyber industry of people, I hear people at conference last conference, thanks to the indigenous people for thousands of years of like knowledge. I'm like, yeah, but what are you giving back to those same indigenous people? You like, there's just a lack of consciousness about reciprocity and responsibility and all of those sort of things.

Kim Haxton: I think about that. And I think what I've learned about the responsibility from my teacher is I'm responsible to his family because [00:50:00] of the teachings and the families where the medicines come from because of the teachings that I've received from that. and it just doesn't stop when I want it to, or, and so people, I see people going and having a few experiences, then I'm like, oh my God.

Kim Haxton: And jumping into the psychedelic world. And I'm like, wow, man, it's in its infancy. I hear people say, oh, we did this 50 years ago. And I'm like you still excluded indigenous people whose knowledge it is that thousands of years , you might wanna do you know what I mean? I don't care if you've done 500 trips or a thousand trips that's in its infancy, and, and so I'm seeing that in this movement. 

Raad Seraj: Well, even the thing that like, okay, I did yeah. And, And even to say like, oh, I did 50 trips. I'm like, why does that even matter? Why is that? Why does the number itself matter? I mean, you still didn't learn anything, which is why you keep going back.

Raad Seraj: And I, I don't wanna be harsh and I understand like there's a lot of people who genuinely sincere. Want to be better, they're either desperate or actively seeking help, but without the right frame and the framing and the experience itself. Yeah. What do you do with it, right. Yeah.

Raad Seraj: If somebody [00:51:00] does Ayahuasca once or whatever, and now you gotta sort of like God complex and go around, tell people how to live their lives. Exactly. 

Kim Haxton: It's just it just snakes and ladders know it's right. 

Raad Seraj: Yeah. It's just a tool. It is just a tool and just like a tool. It can be weaponized or it can be completely captured and hedonized. Right. So we have to understand, again, going back to the moral of the whole story in this conversation, paradox... it is both. it is this, and it is that. And this is the part. And tell us a little bit about the Canadian Psychedelic Summit as a closing, what are you doing with that? Why is it important? And where can people learn more about your work? 

Kim Haxton: So we're doing it on the territories of the Klahoos Nation up in otherwise known as Cortes island. Off the, on the west coast and we are doing it at a place called Holly Hawk this year. And we've got, we're trying to make the, this is the Canadian psychedelic summit, right?

Kim Haxton: Yeah. The we're trying to make the conference different in regards to, it's not just about all talking heads. We have equal numbers of [00:52:00] of researchers underground. People with lived experience. We well not equal necessarily, but we have people representing all different factors in the industry. We have people who, are making their money out of it, both underground and in big companies, we have A, a nice number of indigenous people there people of color there.

Kim Haxton: And so we're trying to make it different. And what's different about this one. There's an embodied place around this conference in which there'll be a lot of sort of experiential opportunities on the land about what does that mean and how do we connect, with something bigger than ourselves into the non-human world.

Kim Haxton: And I don't mean it through medicine. I didn't say that, but just being on the land. And so it'll be interesting. The conversations, it's a small conference in relative size. I think we've, I think there's 70 people this year which will be interesting to see what percolates out of that, because it really is about building relationships, and I think if people are willing to be open to relationship building. there's a unique [00:53:00] opportunity for this conference to sort of grow in, ways that it could it's the first year of the conference. My work is in outside of that, I do a lot of facilitation work, so whatever's necessary and no more.

Kim Haxton: That's what I always joke about because it's like there's a lot work to work. There's a lot of work to do. And so it's like never ending I'm co-founder of an organization called indigenize, which is a youth's arts supporter program. I do work in lateral liberation as the, sort of the title that I work under, which is about decolonizing and reconciliation.

Kim Haxton: And what does that mean to challenge the ideology that we've all been indoctrinated with to what we actually listening to ourselves, the embodied awareness, I think that came from, listening to those two old guys. Talk about listening to the plant. And I'm just like, holy, like I don't hear anything.

Kim Haxton: So it, as that sort of, on my journey around the world in different places, I just realized that place of really being able to tune in and to listen to, understand that the way that we've been taught to listen, it goes [00:54:00] beyond our ears. It goes beyond our five senses and, I think that's a place... the embodied awareness.

Kim Haxton: But in understanding, we don't hear because of the trauma blocks, our ability to hear - the itty bitty shitty committee - we get so caught up and othering others and all of those things instead of hi, how are you? And I think about that, like how can we build more empathic societies that we actually do? What's right. You know. 

Raad Seraj: Beautiful, beautiful way to bring it all together. Kim, this has been an immense pleasure for me. I'm also so grateful to have you in my life as a good friend. I've learned so much from you and I look really forward to continuing to learn and building this space out together.

Raad Seraj: Thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Kim Haxton: Thank you for having me and good luck. I'd like to see this as this grows, where it's going. 

Raad Seraj: Beautiful. Thank you, Kim.

Raad Seraj: This podcast was brought to life with the help of Carolyn Tripp on art and design Misha Ras on sound [00:55:00] design, and Wilson Lin on editing. Thanks so much for listening to minority trip report. I'm your host rod Sage.