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37. Bambi Dawn II - Ancestral Healing

Today we continue our epic chat with Bambi and share ancestral healing and intergenerational trauma survival stories.

Skip to 8 mins-ish to avoid childhood SA mention.

Bambi shares her experiences and learnings in a relatable, grounded wisdom kind of way. It was refreshing to have such a frank and open conversation about all kinds of things that are often taboo to discuss openly. Thanks Bambi.

Click below for more episodes with Bambi:

▶︎ Bambi I - Talking with Spirit

▶︎ Bambi II - Ancestral Healing

▶︎ Bambi III - The Body Connection

Transcript

Lezley (00:00):

There was so much smoke. I thought I was going to set off the fire alarm that quickly tamped it out. I'm like, all right, not yet. Not yet. Calm down. Yes.

Lezley (00:19):

Hi folks. This is my interview with Bambi. Number two. We talk about ancestral healing and surviving trauma, and she shows me how she smudges. This is a content warning. If you have any essay or childhood essay experiences, just maybe skip this one or go. I'm not sure actually where it is in the whole recording. It's kind of peppered throughout. The whole thing was like a trauma survival episode, but it's good. It's good. But if you're not up for that right now, I get it. And maybe skip this one. Okay. Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for listening. If you do like this, please give me a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever, because I have no audience and no one cares. So if you like this, share it. Maybe other people will also like it. Thanks. Bye.

Bambi (01:19):

They say it's like a seven generation thing. You heal. When I heal, I'm healing three generations ahead of me and three generations behind me.

Lezley (01:29):

Interesting.

Bambi (01:30):

And I've even had my dad pop in after I've done some shadow work, and he's popped in and said, okay, thanks. Just a reminder that we get healed when you get healed. And it's like,

Lezley (01:47):

That was amazing to me. Yeah. Yeah, because the ancestral healing through connecting with the Celtic roots went really deep and really far back. There was so much shame. Bambi like, oh,

Lezley (02:04):

Hi folks. This is later editing. Lezley. I just want to pop in here and share a little bit about, just a little bit about the history, the colonization history of the Scottish, Welsh and Irish people. This is not a exhaustive history. This is just stuff that I've learned through my own reconnecting journey. And the reason that I looked into it is because reconnecting to my ancestors and doing ancestral healing brought up so much shame, and I needed to know where the shame was coming from. And the shame was part of our colonization. It was part of our oppression and assimilation into the greater British society. So the colonization by England and by the way, was colonized as well. They were colonized by the Romans originally, and then various Norman and Saxon tribes over the years. Yeah. It'd be interesting to know who the very first colonizer was.

Lezley (03:17):

Who was the first group that decided we're better than you and we're going to take all your shit and make you like us because the way you are sucks ass. And that's the core of the shame, is there was a determined and specific and directed effort to make Irish Welsh and Scottish peoples feel inferior about their own cultural identity and spiritual practices. The Aish were paid by the government to not educate their children in their traditional languages and cultural ways. Christianity, of course, was a huge part of colonization and assimilation, and that's a Roman export. The Irish had hedge schools where they would teach their children secretly and private in hedges and keep a lookout for the authorities to break up and scatter if they were going to be found out in Scotland. The chief's children, specifically, their sons, were sent to England to be raised and educated, so they were assimilated, forced to send them there.

Lezley (04:35):

So they were assimilated into English practice and English culture early on, and then sent back to Scotland to do the assimilation for them. The Scottish were not allowed to wear their tartans. They weren't allowed to play their bagpipes. They weren't allowed to practice their traditional cultural and spiritual practices and the church as well. There was a powerful colonizing and assimilating tool. There's a deep, deep sense in my own ancestry, lineage of an inferiority and a shame around who we are. And there was a relief found in assuming the identity of British, which is what my ancestors did. They became British, and we are very much not British. We are Celtic, Scottish, Irish, Welsh. And that carried on when they came to Canada, they could be British and then white to cover up the shame, the shame that was given to them and taught to them by the oppressing authority, by the dominant culture. That through media, through word of mouth, through interaction, repeated the same message over and over again, that who the Scottish and Irish and Welsh people was not good enough.

Lezley (06:15):

So much shame about the things that I love best about my CELTA culture, that wild land connected magical living in a world of mythical meaning stuff they were ashamed of. They were taught to be ashamed of it, and it's all just coming out and blooming and rooting on Turtle Island.

Bambi (06:47):

I think that's why. And same with Ukrainian people as well, but with Irish people, like indigenous people really connected well with Irish people and Ukranian people, but I think it's that shared common colonial history, right?

Lezley (07:05):

100%. Yeah.

Bambi (07:09):

So yeah, my dad has set me free on those fronts, and sometimes when I'm doing things as a female that I should have learned from my dad, but had to learn myself from Google or whatever, building things using power tools, that's still step up and tell me he's proud of me. That's nice randomly because I chose to make that connection.

Lezley (07:44):

I find that generation, I assume your father is the same generation as mine, but they're generationally, emotionally. They're all horribly wounded, emotionally repressed, emotionally just, and all of them lived these half lives of never being able to fully be who they were in the world. It's awful. They were all allowed to express anger. Anger was like the only emotion and love, but only in private and only to your very intimate close connections. And I'm talking generally of course, but it's just massive wounding, massive, massive.

Bambi (08:26):

It's like if you tell someone how much you love them, now they have power. We can't have that. I know.

Lezley (08:33):

I know. Oh my God. Yeah. You can be hurt when you love, but you know what? You can be hurt when you hate too. So what do you choose? What do you want?

Bambi (08:43):

Yeah. And the interesting thing about my dad's family, my granny has stepped up and talked about my dad's family actually to help me understand things because I've done a lot of research on residential school survivors and things like that, wanting to learn more about the trickle down in her generational trauma that's in our family. And she's stepped up and said, yeah, but your dad also has that. He didn't go to residential school, but in his family, for one, they were Jehovah's Witnesses, originally Mennonite, but then Jehovah's Witnesses. But aside from even Jehovah's Witnesses, my dad's parents were involved in some really terrible cult stuff, like I'm talking pointy hoods and stuff. Awesome. There was this one time my mom always had bad vibes about my dad's family, and she never let be alone with them, except this one time.

Lezley (09:57):

What happened that one time

Bambi (09:59):

I was about four and a half, and I went with my grandparents to go camping in camp. I remember going, but I don't remember coming back. And I didn't really concern myself with the fact that I didn't remember coming back because I was four and a half. Right. And then when I was on my healing journey in my thirties, it started in my thirties. I suddenly, and this was after my aunt, my dad's sister, had come forward and said that my grandpa was pedophile. I didn't make the connection when she,

Lezley (10:39):

Fuck, fuck.

Bambi (10:40):

I always believed her, but I didn't make the connection.

Lezley (10:42):

No, no, because

Bambi (10:45):

Everything was repressed,

Lezley (10:46):

Right? Oh, yeah, a hundred percent.

Bambi (10:48):

Yeah. But when I was on my healing journey and the fact that I didn't remember coming back and my aunt made these claims, I was like, oh, shit.

Lezley (11:03):

Did you? I don't know. Okay. Did you find that when you made that connection, weird shit that happened through your life suddenly came together into a puzzle that you understood why? Oh, I understand why I felt that way in that circumstance. Oh, I understand now why that happened. Now, I was also one of three, one out of every three, also four. So I don't know what the fuck's up with that age. But yeah, finally coming to accept that that was what happened, suddenly turned all of these experiences and thoughts and feelings that I had growing up into a context of understanding, oh, I get it. I understand why all of that felt the way it did, and I reacted the way I did. All of it made sense.

Bambi (11:59):

Yeah. Yeah. I had this fear of authority figures, and I had these inner protector parts, so I had an I don't know girl. So if I was confronted with something that I didn't know how to answer or shouldn't answer, or anyways, it would tap into something and there would just be like, I dunno. And my mind would go blank. It still.

Lezley (12:23):

Wow. And you know what? Amazing. Thank you for the protection. Do you know what I mean? Literally, thank you for the protective ability to continue on in your life. Wow.

Bambi (12:42):

When I thought about dissociating and how dissociation helped me survive the aftermath of all that, because in my memories, I saw a lot of things, and it's so easy to think That's crazy. People with pointy, my memories show me that there were also two people that were unli in those situations. And I'm like, come on, I'm making it up at this point. But then I called my aunt. My aunt had company that night, and she was like, she just took the phone into a back room. And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. Do you have company? I can let you go? And she's like, no, you called me for a reason. She knew

Lezley (13:38):

Jesus.

Bambi (13:38):

She knew. So I want to share some stuff with you. I think I having memories of stuff that happened with grandpa, and she's like, yep, that tracks.

Lezley (13:53):

Her

Bambi (13:53):

Kids were all violated as well. But I just said, I'm scared to say things that might trigger you, because I know how that can be. If your mind's not ready to hear something, I don't want to hurt you that way. And she's like, no, you can tell me anything. I'm open to hearing everything. And I'm like, okay, so I'm not sure how much I'm ready to share. So I shared a few things, and I'm like, I have memories with pointy hood. And she's like, yeah. I'm like, I'm seeing white gar. And she's like, oh, I see mostly black and red in my memories. And I was like, oh, interesting. So yeah, I was able to talk with my cousin as well, and she didn't really go into any details, but she said she had a lot of nightmares of my down.

Lezley (14:51):

Oh, God.

Bambi (14:52):

I'm like, okay, that tracks right. There was a lot of that sort of stuff. So then when my granny would step in and go, your dad went through something very similar, it's intergenerational trauma. Your whole family on that side is wounded in these areas, and it looks very similar. No wonder your dad was an alcoholic his whole life. No wonder your dad was a womanizer. It's no wonder my dad, to his credit, I mean, my big wound is just the absence of good things with him mainly. So there's a lot of rejection of issues that I have, but he didn't do that other stuff. So I feel like that was his way of protecting us on some level was to not really be there for us. So we were still hurt by just not

Lezley (15:47):

Differently. So he didn't

Bambi (15:50):

Perpetrate those kinds of things, which I am grateful. And so it was just neat that my granny made those connections. And when I go to the other side and visit, my dad is not in his white centric house or anything like that. He's sitting around a fire with my indigenous ancestors

Lezley (16:16):

Because it's better there.

Bambi (16:18):

It totally is. It totally is. And in fact, one of my other cousins, which I didn't, she called me, and then two or three months later, she died. And this was right before the pandemic, or right during the pandemic, I'm not sure. But after she passed away, I kind of heard through the grapevine that she had actually lived with a really significant drug problem, and then subsequent organ damage and subsequent failure caused her death. She's like five years younger than me, but I was dealing with this one memory that came up. I was doing my shadow work, being faithful to that. We're not going to remain in our sludge when you can actually do something about that. You talk to the ancestors about get some truth, some cleansing. She showed up in the healing part of my meditation with the ancestors on this one particular issue. We were in a sweat, and I looked across the fire, across the grandfather rocks over to, and there she was. She was sitting there. I'm like, whatcha doing here? And she just looked at me and it was related to the grandpa stuff. It was like, oh, she's here because she knows. And now let show you. I have a whole table dedicated to my ancestors, but this I got at

Lezley (17:56):

A thrift store. Oh, I love that.

Bambi (18:00):

So I have my granny, my grandfather, which is her son, my grandmother who was married to him, and this is my dad, and this is my cousin who showed up at the sweat. And I'm like, clearly, you deserve a spot on the tree now and then this is my dog chance.

Lezley (18:22):

I love that. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's me. I love that.

Bambi (18:27):

I have more spaces on the other side.

Lezley (18:29):

Oh, wow. What's, what's your granny's name, if you don't mind me asking?

Bambi (18:35):

Well, it's Mary. Everybody was named Mary.

Lezley (18:42):

True. Everyone was named Mary and John and William. Yeah.

Bambi (18:50):

Yeah. And so I grow sweetgrass also, so I have sweet grass wrapped around here.

Lezley (18:55):

Oh, nice.

Bambi (18:57):

But yeah, I love that. A perfect thing for an ancestor.

Lezley (19:03):

I love that. You got it at a thrift store too. It was a fine. That was just like, here, discover me. I love that

Bambi (19:11):

Love. Nice. But yeah, my ancestor meditations or my dumb stuff, meditations, they look different every year. Sometimes it's just one night, sometimes one time I did it five nights in a row,

Lezley (19:27):

And then each

Bambi (19:28):

Night was different, whereas sometimes it was lots of writing. And another time it's like, we need to put that staff together because I had collected all the items to put my sacred staff together. So then it was almost like granny was there like, oh, and put this here, and then, oh, don't forget it to add this. And then I put it all together because that also came from the tough thing, if that makes sense. When they didn't want to let have tough, I became 14 and 13 again,

Lezley (20:11):

Which

Bambi (20:11):

Was when my life got blown apart, and I was that age again. And so then I just could feel myself shaking my fist in the air. Not again, not this time. I'm nearly 50. How can this be still happening to me?

Bambi (20:41):

And I remember seeing that vision of myself just shaking my fist to the sky thing. And later when I had an ancestor meditation about that, they opened my vision up to see the wider picture. And initially the reference was to a scripture where God's army was this small amount of Jewish people, and then they were facing, I dunno, the Philistines or something like that. And they had this huge army, and they're like, we're never going to be able to do it. And the Lord said to them, oh, don't worry. Those that are with us are more than those who are against us. And then God opened up their vision to see is this host of angels behind them. And they were like, wow, if that's our backup, we're totally going to win. And then the story goes on, they win. So that scripture came to mind, but what I saw behind me was a bunch of indigenous ancestors with their crowd, 13-year-old me shaking my fist. And I'll never forget that. That's just like those that are with me are more than those who are against me. I have a whole host of ancestors that I haven't even really met. We're like, we're here. So I made a staff to represent that.

Lezley (22:26):

That's beautiful. That's powerful. I wonder how horrible my sniffs are going to be on this audio. So like, oh, no, I cried again.

Bambi (22:40):

They don't sound bad on my end, so I think they're going to be okay.

Lezley (22:44):

I know. I can see the little equalizer thing go whoop, whatever. I'm like, maybe I should mute myself. No,

Bambi (22:52):

It's not overly anything.

Lezley (22:55):

Okay, cool. Just natural sniffing,

Bambi (22:57):

Natural sniffing.

Lezley (22:58):

Natural, natural sniffing. Okay, great.

Bambi (23:01):

Yeah. And so I've also been trying to, even trying to, but just living from a place where I'm in my flow state where when you're in your flow state, time goes by and you don't even notice it because it's like you're in your true purpose in that moment. And I don't always know what that is, but I've been trying to do more creative things. I feel like I'm being instructed that what people call ceremony isn't necessarily like, let's set up these candles or whatever, and let's do this certain prayer or this in implantation or whatever. It's more ceremony is getting into that flow state where you just, you're not stuck where you're creative and connected, and it's very, very difficult to be depressed when you're in that state.

Lezley (24:13):

It's true.

Bambi (24:14):

It gets sort of like, whatever makes you depressed is over there now for a minute while you're doing this, and it feels really good.

Lezley (24:24):

Are you familiar with Turtle Lodge in Manitoba, the Turtle Lodge?

Bambi (24:31):

I've heard of Turtle Lodge, but I've never been.

Lezley (24:34):

Okay. Dr. Dave c Jr. He's elder Dr. Dave. He talks about ceremony all the time and about how ceremony is making things sacred. He said to me that ritual is a no, because ritual is ceremony without the connection and feeling. It's just the rote, habitual doing of things, but not connecting with spirit or heart. Ceremony has to be connected with spirit and heart, and it's making sacred whatever it is that you are doing is making sacred. And this is the second time I've done it. I smudged before I started with you, but this is the second time I should ask to be in ceremony with my guests together and we can smudge together and give thanks and create sacred space together. It's important.

Bambi (25:38):

Yeah. I'll grab some smudge.

Lezley (25:41):

Okay.

Bambi (25:42):

Yeah, I'll be right back.

Lezley (25:44):

Okay. So a lot,

Bambi (25:45):

I have my jar prairie, Sage, locally, locally sourced.

Lezley (25:54):

I grow my own and then wrap it. So have you been learning any an, how do you say, and by the way, I'm going to cut out anything that I feel like I'm being stupid or disrespectful or ignorant about something. I don't want to offend anyone at all, but do you learn any of your language, either the Irish Gaelic and or indigenous language?

Bambi (26:32):

I haven't. Abe Moen is,

Lezley (26:37):

Thank you. An

Bambi (26:40):

Yeah, it's Anishinabe language, and I'm not Anishinabe, I'm,

Lezley (26:46):

I'm sorry. Yeah. Right.

Bambi (26:49):

The original word for that is ni

Lezley (26:51):

Ni. Could you say it again for me, please? Ni. Okay, thank you. Ni ni and what's, that's the name for the nation or the language, or both?

Bambi (27:08):

Both.

Lezley (27:09):

Both.

Bambi (27:10):

I believe so. Yeah. I like following David Blacksmith on TikTok because he's Cree and he does so much ceremony stuff, and he does a lot of art. He's got his own art studio in the garage where he's making rattles and drums and stuff all the time. Oh, that's amazing. He loves to teach young people. And I just consider myself a young person in that because I'm so new to the party.

Lezley (27:37):

Hundred percent me as well. Absolutely. I'm just a little baby on the path

Bambi (27:43):

Of learning. And so I just intentionally follow creators like that, that are literal elders. And I think it helps a lot for me to just understand. And it's even just helpful to understand the humor when different things come up, and then it just becomes a big joke in the community. Do you remember when those two guys were on the, because they had murdered some people in BC and they ended up in northern Manitoba.

Lezley (28:20):

Yes, I vaguely remember that.

Bambi (28:22):

Yes. And there was so many news news up in Gillum. I used to actually live in Gillum when I was a teenager, so it was just pretty funny. But I didn't know the Cree word for the male anatomy back then at all. So I didn't know. So I didn't get the joke when all of my native friends were sharing this to the masses. I'm like, but the news crews were trying to get an interview with this one particular man about this whole thing that was happening. And he was like, I don't want to do interviews with you people. I want nothing to be with you. So finally, he's like, fine, I'll do an interview. They're name, I forget what that it was on the six o'clock news, Doug, I gives an interview and it's like,

Lezley (29:26):

Oh my God, that's amazing.

Bambi (29:28):

Here's your sign that you don't have enough indigenous representation at your news facility.

Lezley (29:32):

100%. Perfect. Put your face in it. That's amazing. I love it. I love it.

Bambi (29:40):

Oh my gosh. But I didn't know what T meant. So then my friend from up there, he's like, penis. I'm like, oh my gosh. But of course, I'm the person that's laughing after everybody's done. That's okay. But just when they were doing, there was another thing that came up in the States where they were like, oh, I think it was percentage of coronavirus in different demographics maybe. And it's like, oh, this percentage for Caucasian, this percentage for black, this percentage for Asian. And then it said, this percentage for something else. What that went viral, because then they were making T-shirts like something else. That's me. Something else. Right? And that's, yeah, just

Lezley (30:36):

The lack of awareness of how dismissive that is just completely dehumanizing. It's awful. So

Bambi (30:43):

Dismissive, but also hilarious. When you go to your local indigenous shop and they have a big T-shirt in the window says something.

Lezley (30:57):

Oh gosh, that's amazing.

Bambi (30:59):

I remember seeing that on the news. And the next day I went to Tikas Aboriginal boutique in Winnipeg, and they had the T-shirt up the next day. And I look at the T-shirt, I look at the woman at the counter. I'm like, that didn't take long. And she just laughed. She was like, Nope, we're on it.

Lezley (31:20):

It's amazing.

Bambi (31:21):

We're going to shave you in a really funny, humorous way.

Lezley (31:24):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's one thing that I found with indigenous TikTok is the humor is on point. It is just extra awesome. And I'm like, I started TikTok through by following indigenous creators. Native reacts on YouTube was the first creator that I followed on TikTok. They're the reason that I got on TikTok.

Bambi (31:47):

Oh yeah. Yeah. I think I followed them too. That's where I started as well. But my kids were like, mom, you need to get on TikTok. And then when I got on TikTok, I was like, I can't shut up. They were like, mom too much. They both

Lezley (32:02):

Followed me. They both followed you. That's amazing. So would you like to lead me in ceremony, or what would you like to do here? What are you comfortable with? I lit my sage and there was so much smoke. I thought I was going to set off the fire alarm that quickly tamped it out. I'm like, alright, not yet. Not yet. Calm down.

Bambi (32:26):

Yes, I can totally do that. And I'll talk my way through it for anybody who ends up watching this so they know what's going on.

Bambi (32:40):

I've rolled this up from my jar of very sage, so now I have it in my shell. And so what I do to start with is I smudge myself, so I'm going to smudge my head for the thoughts, smudge my eyes to see what I'm supposed to see. I'm going to smudge my ears so that I can listen, smudge my mouth so that I say good things. I'm going to smudge anything that's come that's behind me in my life. I don't want the past to burn me. I'm going to smudge my heart. And I like to smudge my womb because I feel like it's really important to be a woman matriarch.

Lezley (33:43):

I thought you said room, but it is a little bit. It

Bambi (33:48):

Was a couple times. Then I like to put the smudge around behind me just because I want it to completely surround me. And then I put it on the floor and I wave my feet over it so that I can walk in a good way. And since we're in a room together, I'm going to send some of my smudge your way. Anyone

Lezley (34:19):

Else? What feather is that?

Bambi (34:22):

I believe it's an eagle feather.

Lezley (34:27):

I have a seagull.

Bambi (34:29):

That's perfect. I was

Lezley (34:31):

Using what I'm given,

Bambi (34:33):

I was using Turkey feathers initially, which is a common practice. But I was at a river and I found two of these feathers and I showed them to my friend who's indigenous, and I'm like, I feel like these might be eagle feathers, but I'm not sure. Can you tell me? And she's like, they definitely look like eagle feathers. And I'm like, what should I do with them? And she says, well, they're a gift. And so treat them a sacred, and perhaps at some point you'll be asked to give them away. You'll just know that you give it away. Otherwise just give them a place of honor. So that's what I have one attached to my staff, and then this one sits on my Ancestor table.

Lezley (35:25):

I like to always say thank you whenever I burn. Just thank

Bambi (35:29):

You. Thank you.

Lezley (35:30):

I've gotten into the habit just very recently of saying, thank you, an indigenous language, Gaelic or Irish and English together. Oh, thank you. Miigwetch, Tapadh Leat, Go rah mile mait agat.

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