Trees, dreams, and lake water: a postsecondary educator's journey towards living in Indigenous sovereignty

Using the methodology of heuristic inquiry, this thesis examines my long, non-linear journey of self-discovery, coming to know about and build relationships with Indigenous people and culture in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, and gradually developing a different understanding and practice of living on Indigenous land. As a postsecondary educator and administrator, I spent my professional life in a Euro-socially constructed reality that increasingly felt at odds with this awakening awareness. My lived and spiritual experiences become sites of excavation that illustrate how I struggled and navigated tensions of complicity and my role as a settler in the dispossession of Indigenous people, and how being in sacred relationship with others, both human and more-than-human, engendered a profound inner transformation and personal evolution of consciousness that was birthed through deep inner work, relationships with land, and art. In a spirit of humility and gratitude, I invite a polyphonic mosaic of voices, whispers, and cries, from more-than-human, lived and spiritual beings, to help me tell the story of my growth towards living mindfully on Indigenous lands and in Indigenous sovereignty. This exploration challenges dominant Western standards of knowing, doing, and being and, while paying homage to Indigenous understandings of relationality with all forms of beings, shows how settlers can likewise walk this road to embodying true change and living more consciously.