After the miraculous healing by the medicine man and my battle to find sobriety over, I was left with the daily routine of remembering where I dare not go and what would happen if I picked the habit that left me broken for many years.
Does one ever get over it?
The angst of bad decisions that no one ever forgets, even after years of successful momentum and achievements?

I was now practicing the Red Path, a way of life of nature, the peace pipe and the healing powers of medicines in nature and the spirit of the ancestors known in that tradition as the grandmothers and grandfathers.
The healing led to a first nation reserve that led to another medicine man, that led to being gifted a pipe, that led to being invited to ceremony, that led to traveling to meet others who followed the traditional ways of the Ojibway, Oji-Cree, and Metis. I learned over the course of twenty years, understandings and teachings of a more natural way of living, with respect for mother earth, women and elders.

It was so different from what I had known and the words of my parents and grandparents, the negative words about indigenous people and their way of life fell flat on the ground and I knew that I had been told lies. The indigenous people of turtle island healed me, took me in, gave me alternative understandings of life. They introduced me to the spirits that I had always known existed, but had lived in a society that deemed such things as hocus pocus. The term used today is woo woo. There is nothing woo woo about native spirituality.

I am ashamed for not speaking out sooner about the world I was raised in, a world of fiction about who we really were as a Caucasian family, and how those family values fed into the mistreatment of women and the Indigenous people of Canada and the world. The same Indigenous people that would heal me from a serious addiction to alcohol that I had tried to beat twice before, and that one councillor had assessed arose from my societal resentments.
“Who wouldn’t have societal resentments as a woman living in a world run by men?” I had replied to her assessment. She responded, “Well Lori, most people don’t try to kill themselves with alcohol over it.” I answered, “I beg to differ”.

Women live in great distress in a world still run predominately by men. Read the words of Merlin Stone, Audré Lorde, Germaine Greer, Mary Condren, Roxane Gay, I could go on and on. There are many great distresses that cause grief and trauma in women that are not easily healed. Female distress in all its forms supports a 3-billion-dollar self-help book industry today and does not seem to be calming down.
“Disrupt-Her: A Manifesto for the Modern Woman," is one of the most recent feminist books written by a young entrepreneur to help women navigate the male dominated business arena. I was hopeful for some good advice but after reading the book I felt the same way as this Amazon reviewer who said, “Ten years ago I would have found it inspiring; today I may be too tired with the world to get behind the almost overly sweet/uplifting aspects of it” or another reviewer, “Call me a Debby Downer, but the rosy cheeked optimism didn’t resonate with me at this juncture in my life".

The book did not dive deep enough for these women because women are tired and are not just looking for a way to maneuver or survive in the patriarchy, they want the patriarchy gone, and they want to know how to help get it gone.
That's what my journey has been about and I have tried to identify what went wrong, who is participating in keeping it wrong and how do we truly disrupt the equation that keeps women and the indigenous in jeopardy and distress.
It was a wild ride to say the least and I believe that when women are well, the world will be well. Let’s find our wellness and natural gifts together. Let’s discover, acknowledge, share and practice all of who we really are as women, not just the parts the church and an established culture and community tell us we can. Let us break free once and for all to be the dreamers, healers and leaders we were born to be.
Then perhaps, I can go to my grave in peace.
Suggested Reading:
*Purchasing any of these books using the links below helps support SHE Life
through the Amazon Associates program #CommissionsEarned
Miki Agrawal
📖 Disrupt-Her: A Manifesto for the Modern Woman (2018)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/3WWm0hj
Mary Condren
📖 The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland (1989)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/3qAAwix
Roxane Gay
📖 Bad Feminist: Essays (2014)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/3NhHVfC
📖 Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2016)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/42skTXO
Germaine Greer
📖 The Female Eunuch (1970)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/3OUh0Ia
Audre Lorde
📖 The Selected Works of Audre Lord (2020)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link: https://amzn.to/3CnByRD
Merlin Stone
📖 When God Was a Woman (1976)
Amazon.com Sponsored Link https://amzn.to/42sbyiO
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