Nature Symbols and Solidarity

In this first episode of this new season of the Jungian Coaching Room, I speak with speech pathologist and racial, cultural, and disability advocate Christina Schmidt. Together, we explore profound nature connections and meaning-making with nature symbols. From childhood wonder in cross-generational settings to nature guidance to embrace our unique knowledge, values, and skills.

Please find the discussed resources in the accompanying blog post at www.jungiancoaches.com. 

If you have any questions or thoughts you would like witnessed, please email dana.kabaila@iajcc.org.

For more information about the IAJCC, please visit our website (www.jungiancoaches.com/) or connect with us on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/jungiancoaches/)

We would greatly appreciate you sharing this podcast with others who may be interested, and rating/leaving your review.

This podcast was recorded on unceded Wurundjeri Country. Always was always will be Aboriginal Land.

For more information about the IAJCC, please visit our website (www.jungiancoaches.com/) or connect with us on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/jungiancoaches/)

We would greatly appreciate you sharing this podcast with others who may be interested, and rating/leaving your review.

You are welcome to email our host with any questions or reflections at dana.kabaila@iajcc.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Jungian Coaching Room, the podcast of the International Association for Jungian Coaches and Consultants. I'm your host, Dana Kavaila, and I invite you to join me in exploring symbols, archetypes, and inner work. Whether you're just beginning to uncover Jungian principles or you've been studying for decades, this space is for you. We'll explore fascinating topics and meet inspiring guests who are reshaping the Jungian landscape. Before introducing our guest, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands I am recording from, the Warrangeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders. Past, present, and emerging. Christina Schmidt. She, her, hers, is a black African-American-Australian, multicultural and multi-dialectical Aud woman who proudly embraces her identity in all facets of her work and advocacy. As the owner of Free to Be Me Speech Therapy, she supports pediatric and adult clients with neuroaffirming care that honours individual communication needs and strengths. Beyond her clinical work, Christina is a passionate racial, cultural, and disability advocate, weaving her lived living experiences and professional expertise to create meaningful impact. She lives, works, plays, and creates on the unceded lands of the Wangeri and Wuiworong people of the Kulin Nation in Nam, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and is deeply committed to amplifying diverse voices and stories. Christina, welcome. I know I get so excited. Even when I was practicing before this, I was like, yay, it's so good we get to talk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

It's nice to hear too. Like it's nice to just nod along and feel, you know, within every part of me, you know, like that that is me. And taking that that moment, that time and that space to recognize myself and all the things that I do. They're such lovely reminders. And yeah, I'm like, that that is me.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Hello. Yes, the idea that your bio also just you can probably hear my cat in the background. Um is our purpose statement as well. That our bio talks about what we're doing, why we're doing it, what it means to us. And I love that. And I think that's something we've both been on a journey on in the time we've known each other. We used to work together and we've both been exploring all these different facets of meaning in our lives. So I love that that was the way it was to hear your bio back as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah, yeah. I'm such a firm believer in returning to my why and knowing what my values are and continually developing them. And yeah, I suppose that that bio is very representative of that. Um, of course, it's not all-encompassing because I recogni myself I recognize myself as a very multifaceted person. So, you know, I I suppose that's those are those are some of my parts. I have so many. Um and uh yeah, I I completely agree though. It's it's lovely. It's lovely to hear and just yeah, honor myself.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, I love that that idea, because you're right, it is both a lovely place to celebrate, but also we know that in a bio we put the shiny parts of ourselves or the parts that have language or words or titles or even ideas and philosophies to them, and that also acknowledging that we have other parts that don't go into a bio that are as valid, whether or not they have language or words or a particular philosophy to them, that those parts as well are just, yeah, this is just one one look at a whole prism of different things.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Yeah, yeah, prism, how the light, and just you know, I'm like imagining that light going through a prism and then separating into all the colors. So I love that analogy.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, I've been loving the word prism as this idea of yeah, like sort of endless, different possibilities of something that fractures and then becomes beautiful colors from that sort of one color. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

And then I'm thinking of like fractures and repairs and yeah, like not not limit limit limiting ourselves, uh, you know, uh leaving space for nuances and even sometimes sitting in that discomfort. And um, what is it? Is like is it limerence? Is that correct? Yes, yes, and liminal spaces. Liminal, thank you, liminal space, yeah. Um, I'm just like a person that I will spread like my web out, like my casta net, and you know, whatever I collect, I'm just like, ooh, and then you know, that web or that that net, you know, like it, it's there's so many different ways that it it's weaving and connecting other things. So um that is me. Like I'm such a person that loves to find the connections between things and me too.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I found that term orthogonal thinking, which again is just one way of describing one part of this, but sort of associative ways of thinking. Like this is a novel connection to me that makes that connects to this, that's not in a very linear or kind of necessarily expected way, but how those webs can be, and even when we're talking to each other, how we kind of find these different paths and connections and yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love it. I'm so into it. Um, which is why I was thinking, you know, I sort of picked the topic around nature stuff generally, but we could talk about anything. We've had shared processes in creative works and and clinical practice, but I sort of picked the nature ones, I guess, but we can also completely go off topic.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Um I'm yeah, I'm feeling like a calling towards that.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I mean, I usually do, but yeah, I was gonna it's a pretty safe bet that nature will bring us back to some important things. I guess my first question would be any memories you have of the magic of nature, the wonder of nature in your childhood?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Hmm. Yeah, I was thinking about this just earlier. Um my mom used to take my one of my older, I'm the youngest of my family, so one of my older brothers and I to a I think it was like a rock uh gatherers, rock collectors uh meeting. And I think our brother and I were the only kids who were there. A lot of the other people were much older than us, but everyone was like, you know, an avid rock collector or rock collector to be. I mean, that was me right there. I probably would have been three or four years old attending these meetings. And my mom, I think she took my brother, perhaps it was something to do with like Boy Scouts. I remember he was a part of Boy Scouts for a while. And I think through me being there and just being exposed to uh these rocks and gems, I definitely gravitated towards them. I remember there was something about them that I thought, ooh, maybe it was, yeah, the the displaying of them and you know, seeing, you know, for me, like how pretty they were. Um, yeah, other people just taking joy in them. So I, yeah, probably around that same age would um I remember with my my best friend and I, we would go across the street from our house in the the alley, the lane way, and we'd just kind of like it was filled with rocks. So we kind of like dig around and and search for like the shiny ones or like the different colored ones and set them aside, and then we could probably do that for quite some time. And yeah, slowly like I built up my collection of rocks and gems, and you know, there's such a fascination around them, and I'm sure, you know, some sort of like magic that was that was held within them. Yeah, that that's something that comes to mind, you know, like nature and um that connection that that I had and how it how it sort of grew. And um, yeah, like that that was one of the things my best friend and I like I remember we would we would do when we were outside. We'd kind of dig and collect rocks and you know, show each other what we'd found found. And um yeah, that I mean that's something that really comes to mind that's how it sticks out for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

How old do you think you were when you first went to that rock meetup? Yeah, I was probably like three years old. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I love that. I love that. Yeah, it made me think so many things, um, so many connections. But my first one was this idea of that immediately you were drawn to something in nature, and we often think of nature as the the living beings, the way we'd classify living beings, but actually, rocks are magical objects and things that humans have connected to in so many meaningful ways. Always um, you know, both the you know, the scientific exploration, the sensory visual, the feel. Like I love a smooth river rock, like that is a good time. Yeah, but also that it was done in community with this sort of passionate group of people. There was an element of novelty and discovery.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Um even like the generational, you know, gap, because I feel like a lot of those people there would have been 40 plus for sure. Yes. Um, and I think that was nice too, like being able to connect with older people. I didn't necessarily need to do that around my peers. They were imparting their knowledge and experience and joy, um, you know, to a younger, a very much, you know, like there's such a gap in in age, but it didn't matter because we were all there for the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Um I love that again as what we would have seen previously would be this intergenerational knowledge sharing where you have someone seeing a three-year-old and just being enchanted by them finding these rocks for the first time. And whereas a three-year-old, you have a bunch of really engaged 40-plus-year-olds who are uh sort of making sure you don't stumble over and doing these bits and bobs. Like it's such a natural mutual exchange, I think, that we don't get as many opportunities for when we're really separated out into sort of nuclear family sort of cut-off um groups.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Hmm. Yeah. I mean, it's something that uh I don't necessarily think about that often, but it was nice to have that come, you know, that memory come back to go, oh wow, yeah, that was one of my earliest memories of you know, finding joy in nature. And that's so true. Like it wasn't necessarily something that was alive, yet, you know, rocks and all of that hold so much power and like the way that they are created and you know, coming out of like volcanoes, yes. Um, yeah, the sheer power of of how they're formed and the depending on the pressure and the temperature and the surroundings, um what you get. Um so yeah, and then you know, that fast forward to last year when I did uh a hike with my husband into the volcano, uh the crater uh and Maui, the island, the Hawaiian island of Maui. And um I have a photo of myself speaking of prisms where I was in the crater.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yes, I've seen it.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah, my husband Ambrose noticed that when he went to go take a photo of me, the way that the rays of the sunlight, you know, they they came right down onto me. And I tried to replicate it and take a photo of him, same angle standing from the same distance, and it wasn't doing that for him. So it just felt like I was very much like welcomed there and like I was receiving the power, you know, it's um that volcano, which the name will come to me, but it translates roughly to House of the Sun. So, you know, this was something too where as much as I've been there before, I'd never stepped foot into the crater. I'd only observed from the outskirts of the crater and just really admired it. And Ambrose was a bit more adventurous in terms of wanting to walk across the entire um crater. And I thought we are not prepared for this. This is not before you're that you're coming up with this idea. We really have to respect the the nature of uh the climate and everything that you know it can change all of a sudden, and then we're stuck down there and it gets terribly cold. And so I'm thinking of all these, you know, things that very well could have gone wrong. Um, you know, like safety reasons when you're hiking in an environment like that. But you know, we we we didn't do the entire crater walk, but we did walk almost like halfway. And the it was like almost like stepping onto another planet. You know, I read reviews of people saying what it was like, but to be there, to see plants that only are you can only find there, um to see like some of the native geese that only live there. Yeah, they're called Nene. Uh, and also just knowing that like I did it, I walked down into the crater and I walked back out as well. Um, and surprisingly, they say to leave double the amount of time to get back up because it's sand that you're walking on. So every step you take, you're almost having to take the two per step because you're kind of sinking back. Um, I think the trail is called sliding sands. It is, you know, very, yeah, it's appropriately named that. But I think we we we walked back out the same amount of time that it took us to walk in. So it's like, I don't know how I managed to do that, but just knowing like the strength that I had to do that, and you know, I was like, I don't know. Like I I I believe in myself, but I know it's gonna be excuse me, quite the walk. Usually people walk all the way across and do the switch back because it's easier. Um, but just yeah, being speaking of volcanoes and prisms, like the light was coming down onto me, and it almost looks like that. You know, the way that the the light was um like that spectrum of light that you can see in the photo, it all came together, you know, and and being in the crater was so special and unique. And you know, I think I said to Ambrose afterwards, like, I'm really glad that you suggested we we walk into the crater. We didn't walk all the way across, but we can leave that for next time, right? Like we can we can always come back and and do it. We'll be more prepared, but also knowing that we almost did it.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

And I love that you both had the logistics of safety in mind, but you also had a respect for a a new place that you were meeting as its own identity, that you I think so much of nature awe is that we are also we have a vulnerability, you know, like we could get cold, we could get stuck, I could get bitten by something. That's the voice, yeah, yeah, which is which is I think really honoring because it would be a little bit kind of um I can't think of the right word. I'm thinking hyperbolic, but the other word is like a bit of hubris to be like nature's so beautiful, and I go out and la la la la la, you know, I have such a nice time, and it's like, yes, but also like you know, the ocean. Like I have so much, I love being in the ocean, but I also have so much respect for a strong tide. And yes, it is very similar.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

There's need for respect, you know. This is not a land that we're familiar with. Um, and I think it's all about, yeah, disrespecting about where we were. Umyokala is the name of the hollyocola. Uh yeah, that was super special.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

That was and I I love, I'll have to share like your photo from Instagram onto our Instagram just in a story or something because you also wear such beautiful, sort of, I would say like archetypal clothing, like sim, you know, pattern symbol, and also the way that you move your body and then the landscape and this kind of synchronicity of this light as well. It really does look like a tarot card kind of image. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

And I was sticking my arms up as well to like receive the light that was already coming down on me, but you know, just to really give thanks, like I was so grateful to, you know, I just really felt welcomed, you know. It was like you may have had a bit of um a bit of hesitancy, uh, rightfully, you know, coming down into this crater. Um, but you know, you're you're meant to be here right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So that's it. We we come in with that, yeah, that honoring to also then receive these gifts and to not take them for granted. I think that especially in a new environment makes so much sense. And it also makes me think how sort of like this interest in mythology and and nature, and also I think the my sense of the neurodivergent one of the neurodivergent ways of being is this sort of being able to animate a rock, a landscape, or maybe it's just being able to hear the myth and story and being that's there. Yeah. Um, even yeah, like it's sort of for us, like I I can so imagine having a companion rock, or I can so imagine greeting a place on arrival, and of course, um, that's a part of all First Nations practices that are so embedded. But I wonder how that shows up in your life, this kind of because in our society there's very much this delineation, this binary of sort of human at the top, and then maybe particular animals and particular you know, there's this real hierarchy. Um how you find ways to kind of be in really animate nature and also kind of resist some of those pressures to be separate.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

You know what? Um, yeah, you know, it's part of a part of being in systems is you know, and and being someone with many intersectionalities, uh uh, you know, marginalization, you know, I really like recognize how that has an impact on me. And, you know, hierarchy is I I get why it's a thing, like logically. Um, but it's not something that I probably I I honor, um, because I just don't see a point in it, really. Uh so I'll give you an example of what that means for me and not placing myself at the top of it when it comes to the world that we are sharing with other beings. Um, you know, and this is this is this is changed and transformed for me. I know growing up, seeing a spider in the house meant automatic kill. Um, whereas meeting Ambrose, I mean, this is like 12 years back, I think he really like illuminated that's that that philosophy in me that I think I always knew, but I was I probably go back to that default of what I knew. Like you see an insect in the house, you kill it. And for Ambrose, it was never that's never been the case, you know, like and I took on the philosophy of just because I am bigger than something and I have more power than something doesn't mean that I have the right to take away its life. Um so yeah, I mean, I'm not a fan of spiders, but you know, I just ask Ambrose, can you take our friend out? You take can you take our friend outside? They'll be much happier out there anyway. Find better food and everything, but can you just escort our friend out? And he'll happily do it. Yeah. Um, but even like flies, if they're in the house, I can't stand it from a sensory perspective. I I cannot stand that noise. Um, and they're just zigzagging all throughout the you know, my space, and I will just tell them, all right, outfly, get out, get out, I'll kind of wave them out. And a lot of the times that works. Yeah. And they'll go out of the door that I've opened.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

And yeah, so yeah, I love those. I love. Can you please pop our friend or you know, shoo shoot, out we go, you know, yeah, not in here, please. Um, again, you know, that we're not just saying, you know, that we're walking around with spiders in our hair, but we are saying, like, we're offering, we're wanting to offer dignity to all beings. Yeah. It made me think of um in Florey's room twice since we've been here. It's filled with bees. Oh, that's interesting. It's so interesting. During us, they sort of were swarming, and I went into the room and was like, oh my gosh, it's full of bees. Closed the door. Yeah. Opened the window all the way and took the flyware out and was kind of like, okay, in your own time. Yeah. Um, I think a whole bunch, I think it was the end of some sort of process because a bunch of them just kind of came in and died on the windowsill. Um, so there wasn't, they didn't have a lot of fight in them or anything. Um, but anyway, you got the paper, took them out, you know. Flurry, my son, was fascinated. Um but telling people in my family, because bees are really sacred in Lithuania, like they're incredibly honey and you know, they're kind of they're really revered in Lithuanian culture. A power source, a life power source. Yeah, and like connected to the divine and kind of a messenger and a oh, yeah, you know, like a very honored being. And so everyone I told, you know, in my cousins and stuff, it was just like, wow, you got a visit, like, oh, you've been chosen. Yeah. Um, you know, versus telling other people and they might be like, okay, well, what are you gonna do to plug up that hole? Or you know, glad you're not anaphylactic, or and which is all also true. Um, but yeah, these insect encounters I think can be really magical, even though you know, I was not wanting to get stung, I was not wanting my son to get stung or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Um, but then it's also like we can still respect them, and you know, rather than putting some sort of um insect bomb in the room and killing them. Um it was just like, here's your exit.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. So that's like thank you for visiting. Because I wanna if if they're if uh you know, if creatures are a visitor, then it's like we're the host. And so we might be like, sorry, I can't host you right now. Yeah. Um, rather than like mine, mine, mine, not yours.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah, this is my space, and you know, you're just gonna, we're gonna have to kill you. Yeah, like can't be here squashed by. Um, do you know? Actually, I just thought of uh there is a house spider, like a black house spider uh in the kitchen. Um and it's it's on the window seal, and there are like some, we've got some different colored bottles on our window seal. And so it's behind that, so I can't see it just next to the sink. Um, sometimes I do see, I think Ambrose's named him Herbert. I think all spiders, honestly, he names him Herbert. And I think Herbert's been there for like maybe a year. Yeah. Um, and occasionally Herbert does catch smaller insects and does Herbert's thing. Um, I don't know, it could be Herbena. I don't know. Um or you know, anyway, they do their thing. So um and I've I have found myself um at times, like uh, you know, if I'm at the top at the sink, you know, I'll wet my my fingers a little bit and I'll put it over where Herbert lives and let it drip onto the web so that Herbert can have something to drink, you know. Like, all right, well, I guess this is uh where we're at, right? Like I've allowed the the spider to continue living there, it's staying there. Um, and yeah, that was something where it's it was that um yeah at Ambrose, if if you really w like that spider there, fine. Like it's staying there, it's really it's not moving. Um, it probably is quite elderly by now if it's being all viewed. It's probably living out its retirement. I'm like you you seem happy, you've not moved. You I can see you've caught things, so here's some water, you know, just enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

I love that. I feel like that's firstly how we would exist in an ecosystem if humans hadn't fully separated themselves. Like we would have creatures that tried to eat us and creatures we tried to eat, and and also creatures that we just said hello, you know, walked past in the morning or, you know, shared water or did what we did. It's like there's something so present and mindful about just offering a little like and quite magical to me about offering a little water for your your own spider, your own housemate. Um, I similarly have and again, I think it's good to have Ambrose as the sort of uh Aussie background to be like to know when the poisonous ones, when it might, when the danger might have surpassed, but he'll be able to see.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

The whitetails, they go out.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

They they go out, out they go. They have to go out, yeah. But yeah, in the side mirrors of my car, there's a spider that lives in the back of the mirror, and then it has its webs and it comes out and eats. And it basically I say it's my ride share because it comes out and eats insects during the night, and I drive the car mostly during the day. Um so it's yeah, it's kind of it's a bit of a shared arrangement.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I've got my ravens as well, my Raven family. Um, I think the they're the young ravens probably moved on now. Um, but I'm pretty certain the the other like the parents, they still uh are around and in the morning I'll usually hear them and I'll go out. They like to sit in this one gum tree that's next door. And I yeah, whenever I see them or hear them, I'll you know, walk outside like hi Raven, hey Raven. Yes. Um, because that's just something I've I've I've noticed is quite consistent, you know, they're there. And when I started to pay attention to them, it's like, oh, yeah, like it's nice. It's nice to hear you, it's nice to see you, and that's really reflective of me as well, you know. Like we all have the right to be seen and and heard and you know, believed. And um yeah, those Raven, that Raven family has been really representative of like so many, so many things, so many messages that I've received from them. Um, even sometimes if I'm taking my dogs for a walk, I've noticed them and I'm like, I wonder if that's the same family. And then they'll kind of help guide us, you know, back home. They'll fly ahead a little bit and you know, stay there. And then um, you know, I'm like, are you really? Yeah, it seems like you're you're going right back towards the house. So yeah, they're quite special.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

And again, it makes me think that that has its representation in myth and dream and other things as well, of like the bird, birds as guides, you know, birds as um, you know, visiting someone on their journey, and sometimes, you know, a bit ambiguously, like sometimes to hinder, sometimes to help, sometimes um, or you know, animals showing up in dreams as these kind of instinctual parts of ourselves or something we're encountering. Yeah. Um so I wonder if we pick a symbol to have a little explore together. Is there a particular animal, plant, place thing that we could just sort of spontaneously generate some ideas around?

SPEAKER_02 30:01

I mean, what comes to mind my animals? I have collections of either a giraffe or an owl. Can't really choose one at the moment. I mean, I just looked over. I'm like, oh, there's some of my giraffes. Maybe we'll go with giraffes.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Let's go with the giraffe. Okay, so when did you do you remember roughly when you first heard that a giraffe was even a thing?

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Oh, probably would have been when I was a toddler and seeing them at the zoo, maybe three.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah, again, we've got this magical age where you're just starting to get some more like episodic memory and three's my favorite number.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Like, I also turned to three.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's of course very hard to remember, but if you kind of put yourself back into a bit of a child mind, what do you think when you look at a giraffe at the zoo? Like, what does your mind see?

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Hmm, probably would have been, ooh, wow, they're so tall and um lanky and um you know, look at their tongues and the way that they're they're eating. And um, I'm sure if there was a baby giraffe, it would have been like, oh, look, there's the the baby giraffe. Um yeah, I mean yeah, I I mean I imagine it would have been something like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

And were you always a tall kid? Because you're quite tall now.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

I'm 6'2 now, and I've always been tall. Um, so yeah, at that time I would have been tall.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah. And what did being tall mean for you as a kid generally? And what was it to find an animal companion who was quite quite amongst the animals?

SPEAKER_02 31:50

I feel like my I wonder when I recognized my height as, you know, being tall. I maybe oh, you know, I know for sure in fourth grade when I was nine, um, because I was walking up the stairs and I was skipping steps, and a teacher saw that and told me that I had to go to the bottom of the stairs and walk back up them step by step. And I think I said to the teacher, like, I have got long legs. Um so, but yeah, the teacher was really adamant that I don't skip steps. Um, you know, speaking of like hierarchical sort of nonsense, you know, I'm a teacher, you do as I say. Like, there are no other, you know, students around me right now. I'm just going up to my locker to get something, like, there's no harm in what I'm doing. You're just, you know, this power dynamic. And um, yeah, but I I remember saying, like, I've got long legs. Good on you, good on you, being like, this is fine. This is yeah, and then the PDA as well was like, Yes, uh, I don't want to, but I would have completely just like, you know, done the thing because that's what I was expected to do. Until the teacher stopped looking and then like, I'm gonna skip steps the rest of the way.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Um because again, if we deconstruct the power there, there's the obvious teacher student power. There's also potentially a sort of um misogyny to this is you know, women should take smaller steps. Um would have been yeah, a racial prejudice of taking up less space or not being allowed to kind of extend yourself.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Oh, yeah, especially being one of the few black students that was at the school. This is a teacher I didn't even have much connection with, you know, like I probably would have hardly, you know, passed her during the day. So it was really like I'm going to take my time out right now to, you know, direct you and tell you what to do. It was so even for me, you know, at that age, I was like, this is so bizarre and honestly pointless.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

And having you go back down this like it's one thing to be like, okay, I don't want you to trip, you know, maybe just smaller steps or something, but to have you come back and repeat it, there's something that has a bit of a sense of humiliation that was a lot more common when we were growing up than now, I hope, of sort of um having to perform something and I'm do it the right way, yeah. Yeah. Um but I wonder thinking about that memory, how it feels then to imagine the strides of a giraffe and a young giraffe and they have long legs, and they do move so incredibly.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Even watching how they have to move to drink water is yeah, they've got to spread their legs out quite far and you know reach the reach down because they have you know super long neck, um, just to yeah, be able to drink water. But I mean, they they certainly have to stretch their legs when they're running, you know. It they cover so much, yeah, like they're stride, they cover so much land when they're running, um, when they're you know defending and protecting themselves, they're using their legs. So um, yeah. I mean, that's what I was channeling when I was walking up those stairs, um, the way I I needed to, and I was completely, you know, felt safe in what I was doing. I don't think I was running, I was just walking up them. Um, so yeah. Um I mean, I know for me, I really got into giraffes because of their height. And, you know, as I grew older, constantly hearing people um make comments about my height, which I still don't understand to this day. Like, why do you tell me something that I already know about myself? It's so obvious, you know. I get that that is something that you're thinking when you see me, but you really don't have to tell me something that I already know.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Completely, I completely agree. Yeah, I got tall in I'm sort of 5'10-ish. I got tall in grade five. And the truth being that I was taller than all of the boys apart from a couple because yeah, you know, young women having gross spurts a bit earlier, people assigned female at birth having growth spurts a bit earlier, but yeah, I didn't want anyone to ever comment on my appearance for any reason at all. I wanted to live in my body and live my life, but I certainly didn't want anyone else giving me a rundown of what I looked like in any way and what my body was like, which unfortunately, as a someone socialized as a young woman, you do not have the luxury of giving comments during adolescence.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

There was that, you know, I just don't perceive me. Um and I think probably trying to like shrink myself in many different ways. Um, because yeah, I don't I didn't necessarily want to stand out more than I already do. Um and I think that yeah, probably shifted by the time I probably like in my my twenties and just embracing, you know, my height and you know who I who I was, you know, like what my body structure's like. Yeah. Um and you know, probably what age did I start collecting giraffes?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah, baby.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Hmm. Maybe it would have been when I was in college, so 19, 20 years old, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

That claiming, that reclaiming. Yeah, it really was.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

It was like they're tall, I'm the same height as a baby giraffe. Um, yeah, I think it was. I think it was when I was in college, so probably 19, 18, 19, 20 years old.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

And symbolically, I love that you mentioned because there's lots of things you can focus on with any animal, but you specifically mentioned the long tongue, um, which is interesting anatomically and how they they eat, but also symbolically the idea of having this like taste sense or this like reaching for nourishment or reaching for like exploring, yeah, taking in the world or being able to extend sort of um like extend up, like kind of into a more spiritual kind of symbolic realm, this kind of being that long and also having this tongue that reaches even further. I wonder thinking about it symbolically, what does that kind of bring to you?

SPEAKER_02 38:34

I think back to the whole like not limiting myself, um, but really, you know, being open to possibilities and ideas that I have and you know, like to to follow and you know, being being creative, just really, just really um yeah, just uh I I know when I was when I was younger, I I didn't talk as much. Um my best friend's family uh would say that they did not hear me speak. Like I didn't talk to them until I was 10 years old. And I they met me when I was four. So my best friend lived right next door to me. And I was I was at their house constantly, like almost on the daily. Yeah. Um, so yes, I didn't really like with my family, yeah. I was I talked a whole lot. Um, but with other people I I didn't so much, especially with like adults, I just didn't feel comfortable to. So I think, you know, stepping into myself and and really understanding myself more and just honoring who I am, finding my voice. And now I just find it, you know, such a liberating thing to, you know, speak and share my knowledge and experiences. Yeah, it's it's really is such a a thrill for me. And yeah, I it I mean, it's such a contrast from when I was younger to now, and I think even more symbolically, is my my ancestors who would not have had a voice. They would not have been, you know, they just wouldn't have been able to. They would have been punk punished for, you know, speaking and you know, having holding knowledge, um, yes, at least the knowledge that was identifiable by like you know, by Western standards and such. Um so for me, it really is like I yeah, I I I I take that in great stride to, you know, use my voice in, you know, many different ways, even you know, written, however that's gonna come out, to um yeah, I think it's just kind of listening to feeling my my ancestors and and knowing that, you know, they're they're probably more at peace, you know, knowing that I've found ways to um be able to yeah, just get things that I'm passionate about out into the world and for people to um be yeah, like for them to be able to grow their knowledge and understanding of of differences um and you know seeing differences in a new light that they don't have to be fixed, that they're okay, and just letting letting letting difference uh be different, letting different be different, but that not there it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah. Wow, so the the extending of the tongue is is literally the the tongue of speech, you know, as well, the as a symbol, you know, obviously so many ways of communicating.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

And just reaching, just reaching, just continually reaching. Yeah, and I think beautiful, like you said, in so many ways for the child that maybe speaking was not the easiest around new folks and adults, and then to be able to reclaim that now, but also for your ancestors, and like you said, who would have had their own sort of um fugitive pedagogy, you know, how to survive in conditions of slavery and oppression, and that how then being creative about it as well, like pedagogy, like its own university of survival of this, but you're right, not being able to have your voice heard in many spaces and you like not immediately, but you know, through song, through storytelling, absolutely um, images, um, you know, and in in other ways, it very much was um, you know, passed on. And it was it was heard, but yeah, I think to like a westernized ear, you know, it it wasn't it wouldn't have been, you know, removed from them as as easily. So it was a really creative way of being able to yeah, share the information that needed to be shared and passed along and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Your living legacy and testimony, like you say, that can incorporate all of those things that can use your voice and song and image and ancestral knowing.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Um I think that's a beautiful spot to end just because I find that so moving and so deep and so glad we got to speak about it. Um, thank you. My pleasure. And if listeners want to read more from you, see more of you, um where could they find you online? Are there particular resources that you love that you'd love them to check out?

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah, I mean you can jump. Onto my website, which is freeto me speech.com.au, and I do have a little shop there, which um you know is really supportive of me. There are some free resources there as well. I have a cultural competency check. Um, it's not really like a checklist or anything, or you know, like steps to follow, it's more so just to build the awareness around cultural competency and leading towards like cultural responsiveness, um, and also have a um free-to-be me bridge model, which really highlights um multiply marginalized neurodivergent experiences and how to support them, you know, how to meet and grow together in the middle of the bridge, because sometimes it's not always possible to, you know, cross that bridge on your own. Other times you might need to go into like your safety bubble, you know, on your side of the bridge and have support come to you or just kind of rest um and reflect there. So yeah, I mean those are two resources that are available through my website. Um also can sign up to my newsletter and get that by email, which I do, you know, put them out um according to my capacity that I have. Yeah. Um Instagram, which is free to be me, I think.speech. And I do have a Facebook as well, free to be me speech therapy. And yeah, I think those are I have I have a link tree as well that I can we can you can share in the the show notes, which amazing um lists like other podcasts that I've been on and uh conferences that I have coming up and so on. So many ways to connect, stay connected with me. Yeah, oh thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Thank you. If you enjoyed today's episode, we would really appreciate it. If you could leave us a rating or a review. If you'd like to learn more, you can visit the IAJCC website at www.yungiancoaches.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn. If you have thoughts you would like to share or associations you would like witnessed, you can email me at Dana Dana dot Kabila K A B A I L A at Iaj C C dot org. Thank you for listening.