41. Bogs + Good Native Plants
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41. The Future is Indigenous Traditional Knowledge
Today we talk with Bogs, a Mi'kmaq student of Environmental Sociology at McGill University in Montreal. Bogs has started a non-profit in service of Mother Nature called Good Native Plants.
We talk about the difference between Western science and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and biodiversity as immunity, linguistics + language, and I almost cry because I love the Land so much. We had a lot to share and I interrupted too much.
Also, count how many times I said "interesting" in this podcast, it's ridiculous.
Transcript
Lezley (00:00:11):
Hi folks. Welcome to the Beloved Presence Podcast. Today I'm talking with Bogs, and they are someone I met on TikTok who provided very valuable Indigenous scientific environmental knowledge. To me. This is part one of two that we've done together, and I really, really enjoy talking to them. They spark inspiration in me and bring varied ideas together into a cohesive whole. I feel very lucky that I've met them. They've agreed to speak with me and share knowledge with me. It's been really valuable and beneficial to me. Boggs started a nonprofit organization called Good Native Plants. You can find them@goodnativeplants.ca. And we talked about, what did we talk about? Well, obviously environmental knowledge and ecology and monoculture and western society and knowledge systems, and there's a lot. There's a lot. It was really interesting, and I would like to on the set, apologize that I'm an interrupter.
Lezley (00:01:29):
They got me super excited and inspired to speak up, and Bogs is very respectful when I talk and they just stop talking. And so I have to practice and learn how to be quiet and listen because I feel like I missed a lot of information and knowledge from them because of my own exuberant excitement. But live and learn, it's a process which made me glad that we did a part two because I still interrupted and I still like, oh, interjected with my thoughts and ideas, and they are respectful and stop talking. So anyway, I want to apologize for that. Anyways, it was really great. I enjoyed talking with them. I hope you enjoy too. Thanks for watching or listening, depending on where you're getting this. Okay. So I really connected to what you've been sharing on TikTok in regards to Indigenous scientific knowledge that all of that that you were sharing was just blowing my mind, and I think you were the first person to introduce me to the phrase ways of knowing you've been saying that.
Lezley (00:02:59):
Yeah, I was like, oh. Because it perfectly encapsulated what I had been struggling with in terms of Western science, just being very narrow in what it considers to be appropriate ways of knowing and struggling with the fact that there was all of this other stuff coming into my life that had nothing to do with that at all, and having no framework at all to understand what I was learning. So you were really, really helpful in putting context and giving me words to actually understand what was happening. So I don't know, what are the most important things you would like to share about your understanding of the different ways of knowing in terms of traditional knowledge and how western structures in that way kind of fail?
Bogs (00:04:09):
Yeah. Well, the Western structure is extremely limited, which is why I went out there on TikTok and started talking about these sort of things. I was so frustrated at how limited the Western worldview is. I don't know how good you are at imagining graphs, but I imagine a circle and the western worldview is a little slice of pie on that circle, and everything else is the traditional Indigenous worldview.
Lezley (00:04:42):
And the worst thing is they think that little piece of they we, because I'm part of it, that little piece of pie is everything. It's the whole pie. Oh, it's awful. But yeah,
Bogs (00:04:53):
It's not that the piece of pie doesn't exist, it's just a small perspective and it's limited to the worldview of a king, basically. So it's very convenient if you are one man and your goal is to control things. It's very convenient to see the world as just a slice of pie with you at the top.
Lezley (00:05:15):
Yes, absolutely.
Bogs (00:05:18):
Interesting. A more holistic worldview or traditional worldview. One aspect of its nature is it's very inconvenient. It's inconvenient to see the world for what it is.
Lezley (00:05:33):
Be specific. What do you mean? I get it. I think I get what you're saying, but I want you to spell it out. Spell it out for me.
Bogs (00:05:41):
Well, it's just chaos and a lack of control. And men in power have difficulty accepting that sort of world because it means that they can't be in power.
Lezley (00:05:55):
Interesting. Unless limit access to knowledge, access to understanding, access to connection. Yes. Or
Bogs (00:06:07):
What they do in order to feel like they're in power is they delegate. Right. So there's the person at the top, and then there's maybe four people under them and then eight people under them, and it keeps going in the shape of a pyramid.
Lezley (00:06:19):
It's pyramid
Bogs (00:06:19):
Scheme, it's a pyramid scheme. There's nothing else that accurately describes the western world besides pyramid scheme.
Lezley (00:06:25):
It's true. It's true. And it's almost like capitalism is set up to a monopoly where that one person is trying to get the whole pie for themself at the top. That's the end game for capitalism. Everyone loses except for one, whatever king corporation, whatever the giant, everything owned by one person. It's just not, not sustainable.
Bogs (00:06:54):
Absolutely not. No. There's alternatives that are available, but we're in a weird phase of history where it's only very recent that Indigenous people gained legal personhood. So this happened in the fifties when my grandparents were young adults. They witnessed themselves being labeled human beings.
Lezley (00:07:16):
I mean, it's awful. It's so awful. It's just awful of living. Canada weren't persons until 1920, I guess. But I mean, okay, well, we got 30 years of practice being a person in the world, but it's just when did Indigenous nations become able to vote that same time when they were determined to be persons?
Bogs (00:07:44):
So it was after World War ii. A big factor was a lot of Indigenous people actually fought in the world wars, and they made a lot of very close friendships with white people. And then when all these people came back to Canada, they're looking around and was like, why can't my friend Jim Crow hang out with me at the bar? Oh, because it's illegal for Indigenous people to enter any enterprise that sells alcohol.
Lezley (00:08:11):
Geez.
Bogs (00:08:12):
So it was when white people noticed these inconsistencies in the law that they started actually fighting to repeal them. So in that way, the world wars were a huge benefit to Indigenous rights.
Lezley (00:08:25):
True. Yeah. I can see that. Also terrible that they had to have a shared enemy in order to come together. Indigenous nations responsible for code breaking majorly in the world wars. Yeah.
Bogs (00:08:40):
Yeah. I think the Navajo code breakers are the most famous, where not only is their language super difficult for most people from a western worldview to understand, but they spoke in code in their language. It was
Lezley (00:08:55):
Basically,
Bogs (00:08:57):
Even if they captured a Navajo speaker, it was basically impossible to crack the code.
Lezley (00:09:02):
That's amazing. That's amazing. I love that. Tell me more. I swear to God, honestly, you can just talk to me about whatever you want to talk about, and I will ask questions about what I don't understand or what I'd like clarification on. I find your mind to be super interesting, and the way you put things together is very illuminating to me. It love it. Oh,
Bogs (00:09:32):
So I have permission to info dump because I tend to info dump. Yes, you do.
Lezley (00:09:38):
Oh, I know your tiktoks. Were like, okay, pause, open, read, read, read, read, read. Oh, no, I missed it. Oh God. Oh god. Yeah, they were, there was a lot going on.
Bogs (00:09:51):
Yeah. So you brought up when women were given legal personhood as well, it sort of works in the same way. An unfortunate consequence of being a subhuman class is you internalize that and it becomes part of your confidence level. Right? So there's actually a generation gaps between being granted personhood and actually going out and changing laws and changing the world around you in accordance to your new status as a person. So in Canada, for example, you could actually see this 20 to 30 year gaps in advancement in women's rights. So there's women being given the right to vote, and then 20 to 30 years later, there's women entering the government, and then 20 to 30 years later, there's women advancing in universities and so on. So there's these gaps between advancements in rights and actual meaningful action towards those rights.
Lezley (00:11:00):
That makes sense.
Bogs (00:11:01):
And it's exactly the same with Indigenous people. So Indigenous people are at a stage right now where it's been two to three generations since being granted personhood, and that's why we're at the crunch point where we're really hardcore advancing, especially with climate change. And in the scientific world, Indigenous knowledge is now being regarded as for the gold that it is. And I
Lezley (00:11:36):
Don't want to say oh hundred percent,
Bogs (00:11:38):
I don't want to say that it's going to our heads, but we're definitely running with it,
Lezley (00:11:43):
Run with it,
Bogs (00:11:45):
Running with the
Lezley (00:11:48):
Run with it. I would love a, for Indigenous sovereignty, be for Indigenous nations to be in stewardship over all land, not just treaty land, all crown land to be under the stewardship of Indigenous nations, just because I have far more faith in that leadership and that connection and care for the land. And anything, any government I've seen so far has been able to provide,
Bogs (00:12:20):
And even the science is showing that Indigenous management practices are, well, the science don't say that it's superior, even though I believe that it is, but the science shows that it's on par with national parks. So areas that are being actively managed for Indigenous traditional practices are just as, if not more biodiverse than areas that are being managed as national parks, which is,
Lezley (00:12:47):
Sorry. No, go ahead.
Bogs (00:12:50):
I was just going to finish the thought, which is amazing.
Lezley (00:12:54):
It's okay. Yes, it is amazing. You've spoken at length about single crop farming being a failure, and I never ever considered that to be something of importance until you started to talk about it. And then I'm like, of course. Of course. That's ridiculous and doesn't work. How could that possibly be? It's farming through industrial methods, and that's not how the earth works.
Bogs (00:13:29):
No. It goes against everything that are written in the laws of nature. So another key difference between western and Indigenous culture is Indigenous culture doesn't have any laws that aren't expressed through actual nature. That's why we call our legal system natural law, because it's just natural the way that we govern ourselves. And one thing is the way that Indigenous people farm is eco mimicked, so it's designed to mimic an actual ecosystem as opposed to a monoculture, which is designed to make it convenient for a person who's controlling the system.
Lezley (00:14:14):
Right, right. Monoculture. That's right. That's what you call it monoculture. And I like how it's mimicking nature, but also with human beings helping out. That's my understanding is that then you help out. You don't just leave it alone. You go in, check it out, help it out. But through thousands of years of watching what's needed and knowing through connection to the plants and the environment, what's necessary when,
Bogs (00:14:47):
And an unfortunate thing that happened to a lot of tribes is if you have this type of farming practice for thousands of years, you start to forget that you actually have a farm. So you just, oh shit.
Lezley (00:15:00):
Oh
Bogs (00:15:00):
Shit. Yeah. Your farming practices become encoded into religious practices, and it becomes a spiritual practice to go cut these trees at this time of year and to harvest salmon at another time of the year.
Lezley (00:15:16):
Do you think it becomes a spiritual practice, or it always started as a spiritual practice?
Bogs (00:15:22):
I think it starts as a practical thing. So I believe that all spiritual practices start as something more practical. Interesting. I believe the farming technology came first and then thousands of years later, when you no longer need to create a new plot because your ancestors did it for you, that's when you're at risk of your farming twisting into your religion
Lezley (00:15:53):
Now twisting into religion. So you're disconnected from the original practical roots of it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Bogs (00:16:03):
Interesting. So especially for societies that don't have a written record and everything is oral tradition, that's when you're most at risk of the two becoming intertwined. And it's not a bad thing because if your farming practices become intertwined with your spirituality, you're not going to lose them. It's a very robust way to keep it for the next generation. But because you've lost the technical aspect, if a colonizer comes in and asks you how you did it, you don't have an answer that's appropriate to them,
Lezley (00:16:38):
But you still have an answer. It's just not appropriate to a colonizer. Okay. Shit, that reminds me of witchcraft. Actually. It reminds me of just a small thing I learned about, so-called spells and potions and whatever, and when there would be a song that you would sing as you steeped your herbs, it wasn't because the song had magical properties. You may connect to spirit, you may connect to heart through the feeling of that song, but it was a timekeeper so that you could steep your herbs for the appropriate amount of time to either for full efficacy or possibly to burn off whatever poison is in those herbs that would be there if you didn't steep it or boil it or whatever for the appropriate amount of time. Sorry, that
Bogs (00:17:34):
No, it's very relevant of the opinion that what we call witchcraft is actually the remnants of European Indigenous societies.
Lezley (00:17:45):
Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. That's what I've learned through reconnecting with my Celtic culture is that, and the similarities, it's brought me right to reaching out to people like yourself with Indigenous knowledge that you're willing to share is I can't be whole on this place, on this land without this knowledge because of my own cultural background. It's so similar. The Celtic connection to land is very similar or it feels similar to me living here. But yeah, anyone who's like a pagan needs this knowledge to be whole on Turtle Island. It's the only way forward. The only way forward.
Bogs (00:18:32):
And I think it's very accessible as well, because not a lot of Indigenous people want to take time to educate settler people. And it's unfortunate, but that's just sort of where we are at the moment in our progression towards rights. So there's, well,
Lezley (00:18:51):
Sorry, you're very respectful of my, you stop immediately. As soon as I say anything, you stop immediately. I don't want
Bogs (00:18:58):
To, I'm a listener.
Lezley (00:18:59):
Are you okay? I'm a listener too. Oh, hello.
Lezley (00:19:04):
Hello, insect. Now I lost my train of thought. I just found out yesterday that there's an Indigenous prophecies that says that at a time, white children will search out Indigenous knowledge keepers to learn from. And I think that time is now. It is for me anyway, right now, it's the only thing of importance in my life is to reach out to Indigenous knowledge keepers who are willing to share. I had assumed in the past that the knowledge was secret and wouldn't be shared, and you couldn't ask. And I was afraid to ask. To be frank, I was afraid to ask, and I don't know what's shifted, but now I am just stumbling over knowledge everywhere and like it's wonderful a whole, I feel like I'm embarking on new education right now. I'm starting school. Yeah.
Bogs (00:20:09):
Well, this is sort of the niche that I've chosen for myself on social media. I'm sort of on a hiatus right now, but I do plan on getting back into it. But as a mixed Indigenous person, I have a very in-between perspective where I know the Indigenous knowledge, but I don't share it in the same way that an Indigenous elder might share it. So I try to share it from a more scientific perspective because I know that that's going to be more better received by white people basically. And there aren't a lot of people who water down Indigenous knowledge the way that I do or who really try to simplify it for the settler mindset. So that's sort of what I try to do.
Lezley (00:20:57):
Well, now I'm embarrassed that I connected with it so strongly. I'm like, I'm a watered down white settler that connected to the simplified version. It's fine. I'm from this society. It's fine. It's fine.
Bogs (00:21:12):
Maybe watered down is the wrong way to put it, but learning directly from a more Indigenous person is it's hard mode because they don't teach you the lessons that I'll teach you directly. They'll tell you stories and they'll talk to you for hours, and it's up to you to really pick out the information that you want. Oh,
Lezley (00:21:32):
That's interesting.
Bogs (00:21:33):
Whereas I like to pick out the information and then condense it into a consumable format.
Lezley (00:21:41):
Well, I like it. I, it's definitely working for me. It's definitely working for me though. I do have a lot of respect for the Indigenous education mode that is very allowing. It's allowing you to make your own choices. No, you're not forced nurturing parenting. Basically, it's the nurturing parent model of life, which is just, it feels so nourishing. You're allowed to learn or not take what you're ready to learn.
Bogs (00:22:15):
What I love the most about the Indigenous teaching practices is you're allowed to become distracted. If you show up to a lecture, say your elder wants to give you a lecture about medicinal plants, and then you're out in the forest and you're looking for a certain plant and you find it, and the elder wants to give you a lecture about the purposes of this plant and stories about it, but then suddenly a Bluebird lands nearby, well, all of a sudden the Bluebird is a guest to that lecture, and that might incite a story about the Bluebird instead.
Lezley (00:22:52):
That's
Bogs (00:22:52):
So great. Yeah. It's not only allowed to happen, but it's encouraged, especially with children.
Lezley (00:22:58):
No, it just feels so wonderful and accepting about the interaction of nature with us. This is part of, to me, what is so nourishing about Indigenous knowledge is the feeling of the earth knowing us and loving us. Do you know what I mean? That is not available in the West. The earth has been determined, a dead thing that can be mind for resources and not, I want to cry, not conscious, not feeling. And that is such a wound I where the spirit has been removed from the earth, and I mean Indigenous people, that's never happened to you. I can't even imagine having to watch the earth be destroyed the way the settlers did. I can't, can't even imagine how traumatic that was to watch that happen and to not be able to do anything about it.
Bogs (00:24:14):
For a lot of people, there was a lot of patience in watching the settlers do this. Jesus children will disrespect the earth all the time. And I'm tearing up a little bit just thinking about disrespect to the earth, but a lot of Indigenous people and elders look at what the settlers do with a perspective of patients because the settler culture, the western worldview, it teaches individuals to basically have the emotional and spiritual competence of small children.
Lezley (00:24:52):
That makes sense. And
Bogs (00:24:53):
There's a lot of acknowledgement for that.
Lezley (00:24:57):
That tracks pulling wings off a butterfly, just no connection to what the actual harm that's happening. I don't know what to ask. So please, whatever comes to your mind to info dump, bring it on. Ready.
Bogs (00:25:23):
Well, back on the subject of monocultures, and to really go into depth about why it's so bad. Well, for one, obviously if you think about it, plants don't grow like that in nature, but the way that plants grow, so how it works is each plant its root system secretes chemicals into the soil to attract beneficial microbes. And there's two types. There's the bacterial types and then there's the fungal types, and they both sort work together, and the plant punishes parasitic organisms and rewards beneficial organisms by giving them sugar water.
Lezley (00:26:11):
Interesting.
Bogs (00:26:13):
Now, it's not like 100% foolproof. It's still possible for diseases and things to grow in the soil and para parasitize on the plants, but in general, plants are ecosystem engineers and they're going to engineer the soil to be more beneficial for their own growth. Makes sense. But not every plant has the ability to do everything. So the plants actually depend on their being in their environment in order to have a better immune system and defense against pests and diseases. So it's sort of like they delegate their own immune systems to their environment, and that's taken away when you don't have enough biodiversity in your farm system. So it's sort of taking a bunch of immunocompromised people and putting them in a room with each other and then being surprised that they start getting sick
Lezley (00:27:16):
And then spraying antibiotics into the room and all over them in the hopes that that's going to protect them. Just shooting them with vaccines.
Bogs (00:27:26):
Yeah. Have you tried not putting them in those conditions?
Lezley (00:27:34):
Yeah. Do you think that that diversity culture is, I'm thinking of my own possible in a very small scale, in a backyard scale or in a container situation?
Bogs (00:27:49):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Lezley (00:27:50):
Okay. You just write that book.
Bogs (00:27:55):
I wish, I don't know if I have the fortitude to write a book myself, but I'm graduating this year and I'm going to take a year off and I'm going to create a bunch of projects for myself to do during my year off. So maybe a book run, biodiversity gardening might be one of
Lezley (00:28:15):
Them. Oh my God, that's amazing. Well, maybe we can hope, I just hope that the information comes out somehow. Whatever way is right for you,
Bogs (00:28:24):
But it's definitely possible in a small scale setting. So in nature, biodiversity sort of grows in patches, and you can establish those patches on very small scales. The problem is choosing the right plants for your scale. So if you have a 20 gallon, those fabric buckets, I'm very fond of those. If you have a 20 gallons fabrics,
Lezley (00:28:54):
It's like the fabric pot, things
Bogs (00:28:56):
Like black landscape fabric. I really like working with those. Why? Just because they're cheap and I'm poor, but those have been my go-to because the fabric biodegrades, and so if you want, you can plant those or you can keep them out. You can grow all kinds of crops in them like potatoes. Interesting. Really, my personal interest is native plants.
Lezley (00:29:26):
Okay, good.
Bogs (00:29:29):
And if you want to grow a small patch of those, that can get difficult just because some plants prefer to spread out a little bit more than others. None of them. There are no native plants that grow at the scale of a monoculture, but there are some that prefer to have large clumps or large patches.
Lezley (00:29:51):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes sense. That's cool. You have so much valuable information, and I would like to turn my property into just a native plant oasis, because right now it's grass, which is dumb, but I don't know what to do. I've wanted to do this for 10 years, but I'm like, I don't know what to do. And also, if I establish something, then I feel bad if I have to get rid of it. I don't want to plan anything until I know it can root there and live. It seems mean.
Bogs (00:30:33):
A lot of people have that hesitation there. There's things that you can do to sort of get more confidence in your area. If you search on YouTube how to do a soil test, there's a way where you can go get a soil sample from your yard and you shake it in a bottle and the sediment separate. So you can tell how much of your soil's clay, how much of it is silt, and how much of it is regular dirt. And that'll sort of help you figure out what kind of plants that you can plant in that area. Another thing is if you just throw a really diverse selection of seeds over the grass, some of them are going to grow and you'll be able to, from the plants that grow in your first year, you'll be able to guess what your soil conditions are like. Interesting. So there are some plants that prefer clay soil, for example, or some that prefer acidic conditions. And so if all the plants that grow happen to enjoy acidic conditions, then you could assume that your soil is acidic and then make more acidic plant selections for the next year.
Lezley (00:31:50):
Interesting. Okay. It's very risky. I feel like it's very risky here. I like that though too. I'm going to have to do something.
Bogs (00:32:04):
Another option is to create a garden plot where you remove the turf grass and you actually create a plot, sort of if you were planning on growing tomatoes or something. And then you can grow native wild flowers in patches. So plant a few of them in a circle on the left side, and then next to them plant another circle of seeds. And what works really well is seed bombs. Have you heard of those before?
Lezley (00:32:33):
Okay. I've made them.
Bogs (00:32:35):
Yeah. They're so fun.
Lezley (00:32:37):
They're so fun.
Bogs (00:32:40):
I always recommend to try to get clay from as close to your area as possible. There's going to be microorganisms in the clay.
Lezley (00:32:50):
I used art clay.
Bogs (00:32:54):
I've done that before too, and I don't know if it's going to have negative impacts I
Lezley (00:33:01):
Have. I never thought about what was in it. I'm like, oh, it's dirt, it's fine. It's clay. But that's not true.
Bogs (00:33:09):
I've used modeling clay from the dollar store before, and the plants don't seem to mind, but I was planning on selling seed bombs, so I bought 20 pounds of clay, and at the last minute I was like, wait, this clay comes from Thailand's. What if I'm introducing something that I don't want to introduce? So I pulled the brakes on that project at the last minute, and I don't know what I'm going to do to replace it, but I would definitely recommend clay from the local area just so that you have local microorganisms, and sometimes there can be seeds of plants mixed in the clay, and at the very least, it'll be seeds that are local to your environment. Right. But seed bombs can also be made out of paper, which eliminates that problem altogether.
Lezley (00:34:05):
I've made those too.
Bogs (00:34:07):
That's really, I've done that with some of my younger cousins, and it's so cute to see their little hands rolling. The paper
Lezley (00:34:15):
I got from Michael's, a little cookie cutter, and I put the pulp into a cookie cutter and made little snowflakes
Bogs (00:34:24):
Nice. I would love to have business cards that are made on card paper. Like seed paper?
Lezley (00:34:32):
Yes. That's amazing.
Bogs (00:34:34):
I found a company that does it, but they wanted to charge a thousand dollars for 500 cards.
Lezley (00:34:40):
Oh, that seems not.
Bogs (00:34:42):
Yeah. I was thinking, you know what? Maybe I can buy the materials and the little frames that you make paper from, and maybe I can just do it myself.
Lezley (00:34:51):
Yeah, yeah. Probably that's a lot of work for each one of your business card would be like, do you get one? I don't know. I dunno if you're,
Bogs (00:35:01):
Do you deserve
Lezley (00:35:01):
One? Do you deserve one of my business cards? I think too, you could print food safe on a rice paper. You know what I mean? Because there's food safe inks that are available. There's baking printers that print off things that biodegrade. Where do you go to school, if you don't mind me asking? Unless you want to stay private. That's also
Bogs (00:35:37):
Oh, that's okay. Yeah. I go to McGill here in Montreal.
Lezley (00:35:40):
Oh, you're in Montreal. I had no idea where you were. That's cool. McGill. That's amazing. Can I tell you a terrible story from my younger days about McGill?
Bogs (00:35:50):
Absolutely.
Lezley (00:35:51):
Okay. I went to Queens, so there was a guy from McGill at a bar with me and a bunch of my friends, all girls Queens students, and he was wearing a McGill shirt, and we were so incensed at it that we literally ripped the shirt off of his body in the middle of a bar. I think back to it now, and I think what a bunch of just hellions, what were we doing? And who cares? Who cares? But there was some rivalry, I guess, between Queens and McGill,
Bogs (00:36:27):
The feelings people have about their school. It rivals nationalism.
Lezley (00:36:31):
It really does. I got a tattoo my first year. I was so thrilled with being at Queens and now I don't care.
Bogs (00:36:41):
It feels like such a big part of your life when you're in it. And then I've been going to a lot of workshops recently where people are talking about grad school and the process of applying to get your master's, and everyone who talks about it just says, no one cares what you get your master's in. You'll work in an office and then people will know, yeah, you have an education, but no one really cares what you studied or what your grades were. That was kind of a relief to me.
Lezley (00:37:11):
Yeah. Yeah, true. I mean, it is just the master's and Yeah, I know the grades don't matter. No one gives a shit about grades once you're done. Yeah. But that's exciting. What are you taking? I assume it's science.
Bogs (00:37:28):
I actually study environmental sociology,
Lezley (00:37:32):
So interesting.
Bogs (00:37:33):
It's like environmental science, but half of my coursework is science and the other half is sociology. So I study things like health, geography and basically studying how populations respond to different environments and how that affects their health.
Lezley (00:37:51):
That's so interesting. That's so interesting. And it makes me understand where you come from such a holistic perspective because you are considering how all of this stuff impacts groups of people.
Bogs (00:38:07):
Exactly.
Lezley (00:38:09):
What would you like to do? What's your vision for your life? What's your penultimate in service to? What do you envision? No pressure. Right? There's no figure it out right now, Bogs.
Bogs (00:38:29):
Ultimately, I want to serve Mother Nature, so that's my main, if I have a client, I want Nature to be my client. If I have a master, I want Nature to be my master. I actually recently incorporated a nonprofit organization. Oh, cool. It's called Good Native Plants.
Lezley (00:38:52):
Good native plants. Love that.
Bogs (00:38:54):
The whole purpose is just to educate people and spread native plants. So I don't have a big stock of seeds that I can sell people, but I offer my services as a personal shopper so I can Interesting. I can listen to them about what their environment is like, and I can go out and buy the seeds for them and yeah,
Lezley (00:39:18):
No, I was literally thinking, I wonder if they'd help me seed my property. Yeah, you will. Yeah,
Bogs (00:39:24):
Absolutely.
Lezley (00:39:25):
That's a hundred percent their service. Yes, please. All right. Found you. That's great. Would you ever do personal led out into the nature type things, or is that not your jam either?
Bogs (00:39:43):
What do you mean?
Lezley (00:39:44):
Yeah, I didn't explain that very well. Would you lead Earth Walks, Nature Walks?
Bogs (00:39:54):
I think that's something that I would do maybe in a few years when I feel more confident, because right now I'm about five years into my journey in plants and I don't feel like an expert. I feel like such a noob, but I can definitely see myself taking people on nature walks and pointing out medicinal and edible plants and doing little educational pieces like that.
Lezley (00:40:20):
Yeah, love that. Yeah. Okay, cool. That's cool. I think it's funny, you're five years into plants and you're a noob. First off, you're an advanced expert in comparison to me. And on the other hand, I think, oh, well, we're all noobs. How long are we ever going to be an expert on nature? Probably never. Always something new to learn.
Bogs (00:40:51):
I think about often, will I ever be an Elder? Will I be that Elder that people go to for this type of knowledge? And I don't know.
Lezley (00:41:02):
I don't know either. But the fact that I reached out to you to teach me makes me think probably. you're only five years in. And I'm like, can you teach me what
Bogs (00:41:15):
My journey into plants is? Kind of funny because I never expected it to happen to me. I was always really into Nature, but plants weren't my focus. So I was into ecosystems and things, and I guess plants are a part of that, but I was more interested in animals, so I was like a hardcore, I want to save the lynx. I want to make sure that the caribou comes back to New Brunswick. I had all sorts of dreams about animals, and then I went to school, and the more that I learned about how to conserve animals, the more I realized that it's basically all boils down to plants. So I pivoted my whole career towards plants because I realized that that knowledge was more useful.
Lezley (00:42:00):
Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up. I was a vegetarian for a long time because I loved animals, but then I understood plants are the same and what's more important, the animal that feeds me or the plants that feed the animal. You know what I mean? So reciprocity and respect and honor and gratitude is what I think we need to practice when it comes to being fed by the year.
Bogs (00:42:40):
Interesting. It's so difficult to be fed in the modern age when everything we produce is so unethical.
Lezley (00:42:47):
I know. It is it really unethical. And then how come what's ethical is so fucking expensive. But because I think too, yeah, if you are going to consume another being, maybe it shouldn't be easy.
Lezley (00:43:08):
I don't mean make a struggle. It should be hard, and maybe it should be a struggle. Maybe you should be grateful, celebratory grateful when you are fed, when a being gives up its life to feed you. I we're so sanitized, especially from meat. We're so sanitized from the whole process of that comes in a little clean styrofoam tray, so hardly any blood on it at all. But I chop carrots and whatever in front of my plants that are in my kitchen, and I'm like, sorry, does this upset you? I'm sorry. And they're like, not me. It's fine, not me.
Bogs (00:43:52):
But plants are so far above us. There are plants that are actually evolutionarily designed to be eaten and to be preyed upon.
Lezley (00:44:03):
Tell me more.
Bogs (00:44:05):
Well, like fruits, for example, the plants produce fruits specifically to attract animals to eat it. And the trade off is they carry the seeds away, poop them out, and then disperse the plants that way.
Lezley (00:44:16):
Right?
Bogs (00:44:18):
Or there are other plants that actually grow better after being grazed on by animals.
Lezley (00:44:25):
What
Bogs (00:44:26):
Most grasses, for example, when chewed on it, releases a chemical that causes them to grow more. So the plant is actually more productive after being butchered basically.
Lezley (00:44:40):
Interesting.
Bogs (00:44:42):
A more human example would be, have you heard of Sweetgrass?
Lezley (00:44:47):
Yes. I read Braiding Sweetgrass.
Bogs (00:44:50):
Ah, that's an amazing book. I recommend it to everyone. I recommend that book so much that sometimes I'm scared to recommend it. I know so many people have read it by now.
Lezley (00:45:00):
Yeah. Well keep it spreading. When I first read it, I cried so many times because it was the first time in my life that I had had my feelings and my beliefs in the world reflected to me through science that a scientific perspective was giving me this heartfelt connection to land and plants and animals and caring for them. It was a revelation to me.
Bogs (00:45:34):
Well, sweet Grass is actually one of those plants where if you don't harvest it, it starts dying faster than if you do harvest it.
Lezley (00:45:44):
Interesting. Interesting. Why do you think that connects to it being a sacred medicine? How do you think that connection is?
Bogs (00:46:01):
Well, I think sweetgrass has been a sacred medicine for so long that we've actually started inflicting selection upon it. So it's more like an Indigenous crop than a wild plant.
Lezley (00:46:16):
Interesting.
Bogs (00:46:18):
So if you have a crop that you want to harvest multiple times every year, there's certain traits that are beneficial, and one of them is the ability to grow back healthily from being cut.
Lezley (00:46:33):
Cool. God, it's so interesting. Now, maybe this is too personal to ask too. Do you have a spiritual connection to your education?
Bogs (00:46:49):
That's a good question. I think I try not put up sort of walls because the education system is so colonialist and the way everything is provided where the knowledge is divided into different sectors, and you have different classes and different professors, and I think it's unique to the Western mindset to divide knowledge into sectors like that. So it came as a shock to me. I went through normal high school, so it shouldn't have been that much of a shock, but it did feel very weird going to university and seeing how everything is divided, and especially the divide between the arts and the sciences. So I'm just going to turn off my camera for a second. So that made no sense to me because in the Indigenous worldview, there's really no separation between art and science. And not only is art and science separated, but art is viewed as inferior. And sort of reminds me of the separation between male and female, where female is arbitrarily viewed as inferior
Lezley (00:48:19):
And associated with particular traits that have been minimized and dismissed. The emotion like spirituality, the more am morphous feeling centered types of experiences. Do you feel hindered a little bit by that? I'm not suggesting you do anything about it. I'm just curious about whether you feel that you will have a freedom after you're done the academic portion of your career to actually express full authentic soul in this service to Mother Nature.
Bogs (00:49:01):
Definitely. I felt like for the last few years that my class obligations are a distraction from my true calling. And I'm just sort of going through those motions because I need the degree in order to have some sort of proof that I'm not just crazy
Lezley (00:49:21):
Proof, but that proof is a Western construct. That idea that you have to convince others of your wisdom and your knowledge that you are sharing it and the response and reception isn't enough. You have to prove it with degrees, prove it with structural support, so to speak.
Bogs (00:49:43):
Yeah. And one thing that I,
Lezley (00:49:46):
About school,
Bogs (00:49:46):
Yeah. One thing that I sort of hate about school is the things that I write for grades. They're not read by anyone except for a TA. And maybe I like, I'm a little arrogant, so I like to think maybe my essays are good enough that the TA sends them to the teacher to read. But aside from all that effort and all that work goes into nothing except
Lezley (00:50:13):
No, I'm just saying you will still have that. That's still yours. That's still all your own knowledge. And you get to, yeah,
Bogs (00:50:23):
I've been weaving Indigenous knowledge into pretty much every essay since 2021. My
Lezley (00:50:29):
First, have they noticed, have they caught on yet?
Bogs (00:50:32):
I don't know if they've caught on, but I get good grades. I always tell people that I believe Indigenous knowledge is true within a confidence of 80%. And the reason I say that is whenever I just spew Indigenous knowledge onto a page, I always get at least 80% as a grade.
Lezley (00:50:52):
Oh, that's amazing. At the university level, that's incredible. That's publishable,
Bogs (00:50:59):
But that's awesome. The scientific method demands 95% confidence. So I feel like 80% is pretty good. I'm comfortable with that level.
Lezley (00:51:12):
Yeah, no, 80% is amazing. So interesting. So I'm going to ask you some, I am curious about what you see happening in the world. Like you were saying earlier when we started that Indigenous knowledge, especially in science, is having a golden moment and you're running with it. What do you see happening in that vein more? What do you see happening with changes in Canada? I'm curious if you've noticed or you've thought or reflected about what's changing, what's happening for us, what vision you have, basically.
Bogs (00:52:09):
Yeah. Well, we're sort of on the edge of this change right now, but I think we're going to reach a point where there's going to be two schools of thought that are considered reputable and citable the Western science and the Indigenous knowledge. So I think there's going to be maybe a hundred year period where there's going to be a lot more citations coming from things like Braided Sweetgrass and other publications from Indigenous contributors. And I think that's going to have a huge impact on western science. And the two, after a hundred years, the two are probably going to just meld together and are going to become sort of indistinguishable at some point. But there'll definitely be a period where there's two schools of thought that people are rushing to get information from.
Lezley (00:52:56):
Interesting. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good, good. Great, good start. Because it's like you said, the pie. It's not like the pie doesn't exist, the piece of pie is there. It's just there's so much more. The piece is there. There's so much more to the pie. So if we can access and connect to all the pie, then we're more whole as a result.
Bogs (00:53:24):
For sure. For the longest time, the rest of the pie just existed in the shadow of the Western worldview. It wasn't acknowledged. It was diminished,
Lezley (00:53:33):
It was punished. What do you get? It was punished. It was like literally, don't share it because you're going to get punished. It's awful.
Bogs (00:53:46):
One thing that I found sort of interesting in my anthropology class, I found a relationship between linguistics and Indigenous cultural traits which were being punished. So for example, Animisy, which is the belief that animals and other beings are sold. I'm an
Lezley (00:54:07):
Animist.
Bogs (00:54:08):
Absolutely. I think it's the only way to be. I mean, there are people who are not animist, but those people who are missing out on a huge spiritual aspect of life,
Lezley (00:54:24):
They've got a barrier where it doesn't need to be a barrier. Yeah, I agree.
Bogs (00:54:30):
Before university in Quebec, we have pre university called CGEP
Lezley (00:54:35):
CGEP. Yeah.
Bogs (00:54:36):
And in CGEP, I studied linguistics. That was my main focus. And then afterwards I went into environment. Actually in my anthropology class, I found a connection between linguistics and this history of oppressing animistic thought, where in the English language, for example, all the remnants of animism sort of got pushed into the areas of our lives where the upper class or the enforcers are not able to see. So when we equate people to animals, for example, it becomes trash talk. And trash talk is generally not regulated or it cannot be regulated because it spreads so quickly. So we call people when we're insulting people, we call them animals, and we equate them to animals in a way that the western worldview generally doesn't allow. So we'll call people pigs, we'll call people dogs. And in that sort of linguistic quirk, we're sort of acknowledging that if a person can be a dog, the inverse could also exist. Like a dog could be a person,
Lezley (00:56:01):
But it's been relegated to insults and not to an actual level of equality. It's been relegated to abuse.
Bogs (00:56:15):
Interesting. I think the linguistic term is actually animal abuse. Linguistic animal abuse.
Lezley (00:56:22):
Okay. Okay, great. Perfect. Actually, I want to make this point perfectly. You brought into words something that I had been struggling in terms of pronouns for earth, for nature, and you said if you wanted to decolonize, your mind instantly start referring to nature as They and not It. And I was like, I had been trying that on, and you were like, you nailed it. And I'm like, all right. That's the word that that's what I'm going to say. And whenever I catch myself, I still do sometimes call nature It too. And I'll realize and I'll feel shamed and guilty, and I'm like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to it. I didn't mean to objectify you. That's not because it does change my relationship with Earth. When I call them, They, and I love how mysterious it is. They is a beautiful, beautiful pronoun that is just wide open to it's magical. I love they them. It's magic.
Bogs (00:57:36):
It's funny you bring that up because just today someone commented on that video and they're expressing that they don't understand how that could do anything. Changing the pronouns that you use to refer to plants. And it's like, I'm still trying to formulate my response. Maybe I'll sort of bounce it off you, but I think one, it teaches you to step away from your preconceived mindset because not every language forces you to dehumanize plants the way that English does. So by using they them pronouns, you're able to step out of your English background and analyze it from a new perspective. And I think at least too, if you're using they them pronouns for plants, it suddenly becomes way more intuitive to use it for people.
Lezley (00:58:27):
Yeah. No, absolutely. I don't think it's a coincidence that that's happening kind of all at the same time for me anyway, is the expectation that you will respect pronouns and then the reflection of what pronouns we're using for all of life. I also struggle with just gendered language, period. There's been studies that have shown that languages that use gendered noun, noun,
Bogs (00:59:07):
Verb, like French,
Lezley (00:59:09):
French, there is a more established situation of patriarchy and misogyny that goes along with it. I forget what the example was [article link is in description above] or what language it was, but if you have a room full of authors that are women, they're female authors, but if you add one man, then you turn that case into a male, a masculine. Now they're all male authors. And I'm like, how can you not grow up in a society like that where your language, one man changes the entire construct of that room? One man will change it all to masculine. You can't help but be influenced and absorb the importance of the masculine in that context, which is why in this one way English does have an added advantage to have gender neutral. You can go through your life and use gender neutral for everything. And it's interesting because then you are given the option, choosing to say an actual male or female pronoun is an option that was chosen. It reflects, it's not just baked into and assumed in the language. It's an opportunity to choose, which, I mean, language, I didn't realize how important language was for impacting how I think it literally creates a framework for how I believe and live in the world. It's super powerful.
Bogs (01:00:55):
Yeah. Language, I find it basically traps your conscious mind into a specific worldview shaped by your language. So English, for example, is heavily focused on objects
Lezley (01:01:13):
And categorization,
Bogs (01:01:14):
Categorization and objects.
Lezley (01:01:16):
Yes, a hundred percent. Absolutely.
Bogs (01:01:18):
Yeah. That reflects the colonizer culture, like what's an object? What can I rule over?
Lezley (01:01:24):
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting
Bogs (01:01:30):
Though. You're right though. I hadn't thought about that. But we are lucky that our language has a gender neutral pronoun here in Montreal, the French speaking portion of the population who are trans or gender switching to English social groups, because the French language doesn't give them the ability to accurately describe themself.
Lezley (01:01:55):
Right. And how, I mean, that's so abusive. It's such an abusive situation to be in where you can't formulate your voice is literally an expression of soul. It is an expression into form of your soul. And to not be able to express accurately who you are through words, it's traumatic.
Bogs (01:02:20):
Yeah. There are activists here who are trying to create a non-gendered pronoun. It's E-L-I-E-L,
Lezley (01:02:29):
El
Bogs (01:02:30):
IEL. Yeah. So he is ill
Lezley (01:02:33):
Her is Listen El just sweet. My whole primary school of I'm being traumatized by French. Oh,
Bogs (01:02:46):
Yeah. Yeah. The way they teach French in public school is traumatizing. Just like the way they teach math now that I think about it.
Lezley (01:02:58):
Are you fluent
Bogs (01:02:59):
In French? Yeah.
Lezley (01:03:01):
Wow. Do you speak your Indigenous language? Sorry. And would you share with me your Indigenous background? Of course. Yeah.
Bogs (01:03:09):
So I don't speak the language unfortunately. It's something that I'm in the process of learning, I’m Mi’kmaq from the East coast. My whole family's from New Brunswick.
Lezley (01:03:20):
Oh, nice. Is Mi’kmaq the actual name of the nation or the anglicized version of the nation?
Bogs (01:03:31):
The Anglicized version is Micmac, spelled with a C, so M-I-C-M-A-C. And the official Indigenous word is Migmak. It's a little bit harder to pronounce. And it's spelled MI apostrophe K, M-I-K-M-A-Q.
Lezley (01:03:54):
MAQ. Okay. Mi’kmaq. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.
Bogs (01:04:01):
But yeah, in Montreal, we have some classes at a native center that I'm planning on going to next year. So hopefully I'll be able to learn a bit more. I've studied a little bit on my own. I know the names of some animals and some words, but I don't know how to put sentences together.
For Mi’kmaq Dictionary click here.
Lezley (01:04:21):
What's the name of Raccoon?
Bogs (01:04:23):
I don't know. Raccoon.
Lezley (01:04:25):
Okay. What is a common backyard animal that you know? The name of
Bogs (01:04:31):
A dog is nice. Let's see. Rabbit is
Lezley (01:04:45):
Does much mean something?
Bogs (01:04:47):
I'm not sure. It sounds like it does because a lot of cute animal names and then mu
Lezley (01:04:55):
Cute, like E.
Bogs (01:04:57):
Yeah. One thing that I found really cute is a moose is called dm.
Lezley (01:05:05):
Dm,
Bogs (01:05:06):
Yeah. And a house is called Ji Guam. And a cow is called Ji dm. So a cow is called a house moose.
Lezley (01:05:19):
A house moose. Oh my God. That's great. Oh, I love that. Oh my God. See, I love that. Language is just wild. Language is wild. How do you say thank you? And is the language called MGMA as well? Mgma as well,
Bogs (01:05:41):
Yeah. So if in singular person it's magma.
Lezley (01:05:45):
Mgma, sorry.
Bogs (01:05:46):
So I would say like I am mgma
Lezley (01:05:50):
Magma,
Bogs (01:05:51):
And you could say, I'm speaking mgma. Or you could say, I'm learning muck.
Lezley (01:05:59):
Why did it change?
Bogs (01:06:01):
I don't know. I don't quite understand.
Lezley (01:06:04):
I'm like, ah, language rules are awful. I am not learning Irish and Gaelic. I'm learning just to say certain words because I don't think I'm ever going to be fluent. And I'm okay with that, but I don't understand the rules. And it's also gendered and things change. And there's long consonance and different letter combinations change the way they sound depending on what's in front of it. And it's very, very complicated. But how do you say thank you
Bogs (01:06:43):
We’lahlin , I might be wrong, but I think
Lezley (01:06:50):
Why do you think you're wrong?
Bogs (01:06:52):
Because I'm pulling it out of the top of my head. Let me check my dictionary.
Lezley (01:06:58):
Do you have a dictionary that you made yourself or is this something online?
Bogs (01:07:02):
Lezley (01:07:14):
Gush has to mean something. Maybe not.
Bogs (01:07:23):
Oh, I was right. It is
Lezley (01:07:26):
Nice. we’lahlin. Nice. Well, do you have anything off the top of your head? Did we finish the whole, what's your vision? Yes, we did.
Bogs (01:07:42):
Yeah. Yeah, we did.
Lezley (01:07:43):
Okay. Do you have anything else that you'd like to share that is pressing, that you'd like everyone to know? Something that is heartfelt, that is very important to you, that you're passionate about, that you would like everyone to know?
Bogs (01:08:00):
I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I feel like I don't know what people don't know. So it gets a little difficult for me. But I guess what I would say, assuming someone comes from a completely western background, knows nothing about Indigenous culture, one thing that's important to know is the interconnectedness that is important in Indigenous culture, where spirituality, linguistics culture is all interconnected in a way where they cannot be taken apart into different academic spheres.
Lezley (01:08:39):
There's a phrase in Irish and Gaelic, it's fite fuaite.
Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Hi, I'm just popping in here. It's editing Lezley. I just want to correct my pronunciation. I've been saying it wrong this whole time. And so that's okay. I mean, that's what's going to happen, right? When we're learning a new language, a different language, especially one that's so different from English fite fuaite (feetza footza) , which is both Irish and Gaelic, and it means woven and sewn. And so inseparable, intermingled, deeply intermingled
Lezley (01:09:16):
In Irish, and it means interconnectedness. It means actually woven and sown, and it applies to all of reality where spirit and the world of form and all the different things are woven, existence is woven and sewn together and is not able to be picked apart. So living in the dead and all of that. So I'm that once again is like, oh, yes, same Z. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for this. Yeah, thank you so much. Say thank you again.
Bogs (01:10:04):
We’lalin
Lezley (01:10:05):
We’lalin. I have to write that down. Alright, I have it recorded here. We’lalin, Tapadh Leat, which is Gaelic for. Thank you. Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed this. I actually hope that I can connect with you again because I would love to see what, no pressure I'm watching. That's creepy. But to see what happens with you and where you go and what you do, because really like to support where you go in the world. I think it's really exciting. You kind of hold a vision that I have for the future of Canada and Turtle Island.
Bogs (01:10:49):
Thank you. Well, thank you for having me here.
Lezley (01:10:52):
It's my pleasure.
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Stella and I had this chat back in February and it was a treat for me to reacquaint myself with this time. For me it was a time of integration and Stella allowed me the safe space to articulate a lot of what I had allowed to go unsaid.
Stella is a Welsh Animist, Storyteller, Wordsmith and DJ. She is re-inhabiting Indigenous Land through mystical discovery of ancient ancestors and rooted being.