Upstream - Liberation Ecotherapy with Phoenix Smith

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Although many therapists are beginning to understand the importance of the natural world in healing and overall mental health — for example by recommending “time in nature” to help with depression and other mental health challenges — very few also address the connected issues of economic and racial justice. Things such as a lack of access to nature, the high cost of eco-therapeutic offerings, the lack of diversity and cultural competency among practitioners, and the fact that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by climate catastrophes and are far more likely to live in areas with heavy pollution.  What if therapy were to be able to help us heal not just at the individual level, but also at the collective levels and in the realm of the ecological as well as the social? Continuing on from our recent conversation with Daniel José Gaztambide Nuñez and Harriet Fraad, this episode takes a deeper dive into a branch of Liberation Psychology: Liberation Ecotherapy — which weaves together reconnecting to nature with community care and with a commitment to social justice and equity. Phoenix Smith, who coined the term Liberation Ecotherapy, is our guest for this episode. They are an Ecotherapist as well as the Founder of the Alliance for Ecotherapy and Social Justice and EcoSoul Health and Wellness Consulting. In this conversation, Phoenix shares their framework for healing justice, they describe what a liberation ecotherapy session would look and feel like, and they offer invitations for how we might make therapy more accessible and helpful for the healing of all people and the planet. Thank you to The Burning Sun for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.  

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please consider going to upstreampodcast.org forward slash support to make a one-time or recurring monthly donation. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, right but we have to do the work we have to do the repair we have to do the reciprocity we have to change our consciousness and relationships can be restored as well restoring our relationship with ourself right to know that we are nature we are nature our cells our body our biology our veins are like rivers right so as rivers and ecosystems can be restored, we can be restored. And then we can repair our relationships. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream.

Upstream. Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. Although many therapists are beginning to understand the importance of the natural world in healing and overall mental health, for example, by recommending time in nature to help with depression and other mental health challenges, very few also address the connected

issues of economic and racial justice, such as a lack of access to nature, the high cost of ecotherapeutic offerings, the lack of diversity and cultural competency among practitioners, and the fact that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by climate catastrophes and are far more likely to live in areas with heavy pollution. What if therapy were able to help us heal not just at the individual level, but also at the collective level and in the realm of the ecological as well as the social? Continuing on from our recent conversation with Daniel José Hatambite-Núñez and Harriet Fraad, today we take a deeper dive into a branch of liberation psychology,

liberation ecotherapy, which weaves together care and reconnection with nature, with community care, and with a commitment to social justice and equity. Phoenix Smith, who coined the term liberation ecotherapy, is our guest for this episode. They are an ecotherapist as well as the founder of the Alliance for Ecotherapy and social justice and eco soul health and wellness consultant. In this conversation, Phoenix shares their framework for healing justice. They describe what a liberation ecotherapy session could look and feel like, and they offer invitations for how we might make therapy more accessible and helpful for the healing of all people and the planet. Here's Della in start with an introduction. How might you introduce yourself for our listeners? Thank you for having me. So my name is Phoenix, one of my names. I have a few names. So I'm known

in the world, in my professional life and among my friends and community as Phoenix. I am also known as Ola Oton Adelele, which is the name I was initiated with into the Afro-Cuban Earth-based tradition in 2008, so almost 14 years ago. And today I am here in Washington, D.C., also known as the lands of the Piscataway people. I arrived here in February from the lands of the Ohlone people in Oakland after living on their lands for 17 years. And I was raised here on Turtle Island on the lands of the Payaya people in a place that is known as the land of the spirit waters, also known as San Antonio, Texas. My maternal lineage goes back to that place. I can count at least five generations.

I am a 54-year-old cisgender, queer, Black American descendant of West Africans who were forced into labor and into slavery to build the economy of the United States plus the African diaspora. I am also a descendant of the European settler that came here and had a huge role in climate chaos and genocide and slavery. And I am also a descendant of the indigenous people. I am mixed. I have light brown skin and brown eyes and short brown curly hair. I am also the fifth child, the youngest child of Barbara and Charles Smith. of Barbara and Charles Smith. And I am an auntie to over 10 nieces and nephews and grandnieces and nephews with the grandnephew on the way. I am also an initiated elder in the Afro-Cuban

earth-based tradition called Lukumi. And I am in community with other elders who initiated me and who teach me through oral-based tradition. I've been in the tradition for 20 years, but I've been initiated for 13. I'll be 14 in September. And my elders in the community are known as Okanoni and Ia Oyelade, also known as Michael Mason and Josette Williamson. I participate in ongoing and regular ceremony with them. And I also serve as a mentor and a spiritual guide and a diviner for students that are seeking support on the path. And last but not least, I was trained in Western education and social work at Howard University, received my master's degree there many years ago. I've been working in public health with communities on the front line for over 20 years,

from people that are formerly incarcerated to mainly people that are living with HIV, LGBT, queer, two-spirit people. And since 2011, I have been practicing what's known in the Western world as ecotherapy. And in that way, I write about ecotherapy, and I've created a framework that I call liberation ecotherapy. And I teach and sit with people on the land, and I work in public health still. So that's who I am. Beautiful. Good to meet you. Thank you. And yeah, one thing that you describe that moves through you. One way that you serve is as a ecotherapist, as a liberation ecotherapist. And I'm wondering if you can share, you know, if there was someone who came to you who sought this support, what might a session look and feel like with a person? Where might it be?

What questions might you ask? And what might that look like in the experiential sense? So I work with groups and communities as a liberation ecotherapist. So it is not like a Western psychotherapist. So what might a session look with me? We would be outside in nature, preferably by water, which is what I prefer. We would be sitting in a circle. I would start the circle by pouring water on the earth as a form of libation to give thanks to the earth and give thanks to fresh water. I would then give thanks to the indigenous ancestors of the place wherever we were. I would then call in my ancestors who walk with me and support me and guide me.

I would then ask each person in the circle to call in their known ancestors. I would then say a prayer of gratitude to be alive, to be in a body, to have another chance at life. I would call in the forces of water and stone and soil and the trees and the animals that are in community with us and give them thanks for allowing us to be together. And then I would ask people in the community to go one by one and put their sacred prayers here on the earth. After everyone had an opportunity to call their ancestors, to say their prayers, we would just sit for a minute to let all of that energy settle and land within our body and within the earth. And often when we do that, the natural world speaks to us. So maybe a bird, I've always had times where a certain kind of bird might come and land near us,

or something in nature would kind of signify and say, yes, thank you, we're here. And so that is how we would start. And that takes the time it takes. Sometimes that's the session. That's it. Just sitting in a circle, calling our ancestors and praying. Because what I find is that we are holding so much that when we get the opportunity to rest together by water or near a tree or in a park or in a balcony in someone's backyard or in a garden that it gives us the opportunity to kind of lay down all those things that we've been carrying and people really open their hearts in ways that they didn't even realize they needed to. And so that is how I begin circles and sessions. And I do that online as well before we do any work. Before I teach, I give thanks to

the indigenous ancestors. I give thanks to call the names of the indigenous people of the land. I call my ancestors. I ask other people to call their ancestors. My elders tell me that before we begin any important work, especially if we are going to even slightly mention our own wounds and the wounds of the earth, if we're going to talk about the genocide or if we're going to talk about whatever we're carrying, that before we even start, that we need to put prayers down. Before we get into any kind of action or any kind of dialogue, that we need to put prayers down because the work that we're doing and us just being together is sacred. So that's how we would move forward. Thank you. And yeah, I'm hearing many, many strands in this weaving of this offering. And I know that one way that you describe this is liberation ecotherapy. And I'm wondering for folks maybe unfamiliar with that offering, liberation ecotherapy,

with that offering liberation ecotherapy, especially the two together. If you might tell us what the lineage and the history of those two strands mean, what is liberation therapy? What might be useful or interesting to know by way of how you've learned that or come to practice it as well as ecotherapy? Where did they come from? When was that departure from Western therapy? And, you know, how did you come to weave those two together in this offering that you described and more? So I brought the two together over the past 12, 13 years since I was initiated. And so it has been a combination of lineage of my ancestors that literally I had a dream, literally a dream, and I woke up with this download, to use language that we know in our technologically advanced world,

this download of information around how I should put this work out in the world. And so one of the strands of the lineage are my own ancestors. One strand of the lineage is the people that I have worked with in the field of public health and social work, who have overcome insurmountable odds to still survive, people that have been living with AIDS and HIV and cancer and depression, who have been marginalized in our society. And in my 20s, when I first entered into the space where I was connecting with them, I was mentored by women living with HIV who were having to fight public health system, medical system, to just get medication. So if we think about people with long COVID now, So if we think about people with long COVID now, it's a long lineage of people in the United States who were poor, some who were former sex workers,

some who were addicts or recovering addicts, some who were just mothers with children, some who had advanced degrees but ended up in the same space as I did when I was 22. And they really taught me how to find my voice. And so part of the lineage comes from those women, right? Many of them are still living, thankfully. Some are not. So part of it comes from learning how to be in a room with people who have power, and they see you as a person who doesn't have power, and you stand up to them to get what you need. So that's part of the lineage as well. Part of the lineage is also my religion in the Lukumi tradition and the elders, my elders that initiated me

and have given me the wisdom, the support and the ceremonies that have allowed me to evolve as a person, to know myself as a person of African descent, to know the original spiritual practices of my ancestors, where we knew that spirit could live in a stone and in a tree and in the river. I did not grow up with that, right? So it was me going back to my ancestral traditions and the elders that taught me. That's part of the lineage. Part of the lineage is white men

in the field of eco-psychology and eco-therapy that started writing about these things in the late 80s and 90s. Two of them that are ancestors now, so I would like to honor them as ancestors. Theodore Rozak, who wrote Eco-Psychology, Healing Earth, Healing Mind. And Howard Kleinbell, who wrote Eco-Therapy. He was a psychologist and also a minister. That's part of the lineage. Part of the lineage is also my indigenous friends that have allowed me to sit in ceremony with them when I was living in Oakland in California, who I went to and gave offerings

before I started doing any ceremony or work on the land myself. And they're so generous with me. My neighbor, Chris, who would help take care of my cat when I would have to go out of town to take care of my ailing mother. And while I was gone, she and her daughter would pray for me and light sage in my house. That's part of the lineage. Part of the lineage is, of course, Martin Baró from El Salvador, who was also an ancestor, who I did not know personally, who was assassinated by the U.S. government, but who knew that Western psychology was actually harming people in many ways. Separation from nature, the sterile environment of being in an office and just talking to one person. It didn't include community. It didn't lift up the voices of the most oppressed. And he knew that he needed to live in community with people in order to support them.

He was also a religious man, a Jesuit priest. That's part of the lineage. and wood priest that's part of the lineage and then my friends in in Oakland California that started a grassroots indigenous healing initiative called the healing clinic collective Carla and other women of color that I was invited to be part of where we would literally bring in our healing from our ancestors, and we would create pop-up clinics in the hood that didn't require you to be a U.S. citizen or have a license or go through the bureaucracy that public health and American healthcare system requires. We didn't care if you had a job. We didn't care if you were a sex worker. And we would set up these beautiful,

I'm going to cry because this is probably one of the most beautiful experience I had. They would set up these beautiful pop-up clinics, healing clinics in the hood in Oakland. And indigenous healers like myself and others, curanderas, acupuncturists, massage therapists, would come and offer our services free. And people in the community would line up. There would be lines around the block. We would have a space to take care of the children and the elderly. We would have food. It was the most healing environment and space that I've ever been into. And it showed me that it is possible for us to liberate ourselves from the dominant narrative that tells us that we aren't valuable as human beings, that tells us we have

to pay the state and rely on the state to take care of us, which they don't. And we've seen that in the pandemic. I never had an experience like that where I didn't want to leave. You just wanted to stay all day. And then, of course, my parents. And, you know, when I say that I grew up on the lands of the Payaya, San Antonio is embedded in the military industrial complex. If you don't know anything about San Antonio, Texas. Five military bases are there. If you join the Air Force, you go to San Antonio, to Lackland Air Force Base. In my family, there's five generations of veterans. And that caused trauma in my family. In addition to post-traumatic slave syndrome, post-colonial syndrome that's passed down through the lineages.

The fact that I had so many people in my family that were connected to the military and the woundedness that my uncles and grandfathers and father came back from being in war and pass that on in violence in my family, right? Addiction, mental illness. So I want to lift that up and as a lineage that also I have the part of my family, usually it's the women, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my great-aunt, who took care of the family garden, right? In Jim Crow, Texas, because there weren't grocery stores for black people to go to, right? So you had to grow your own food and the stories that I heard. And I learned about service from my great aunt, Clemmie, who was an ancestor, who was part of the United Black Methodist Church.

And I would go with her. And then we would always have a time in the church service. And many black churches still do, where we say we are now going to pray for the sick and shut in. And I remember that as a little girl, and I would go with my great aunt, and we would visit those members of our community who were sick or shut in. And we would take them cake or chicken or food and just sit with them. So that is also the lineage and the strand that literally was kind of downloaded into me, like I said, that helped me to say, hey, wait a minute, there's

another framework here on how we can do what is called in the West, ecotherapy, which basically, you know, it was interesting that you contacted me because I was like, this is a podcast on economics, right? When I first read about it, why is Stella contacting me? But you know, the root of the word eco is home in Greek, home, right? And so when ecotherapy, the way I define it is using the roots of the words, I define it as using the roots of the words, eco being home, therapia, meaning to care for, to attend. So ecotherapy, the way that I practice it and the way that I try to teach it to people is what different practices can we use to help take care of home? Home includes the natural world.

Home includes our own selves. Home includes all of our relationships as well. And so liberation ecotherapy is creating community-based practices of caring for ourselves and the natural world that is aligned with social justice. So that means you don't have to be a psychologist to come practice liberation ecotherapy, right? You can just be coming out of prison and come sit with us. And I've created a curriculum and you can come learn and share this practice so that you can take it out into your community. It's meant to be practiced in communities, not as the Western therapy model of a one-on-one session, although you can use that with people, but it's really community-based. And so, Della, I've been working this out. I've been literally sleeping on it, dreaming on it, camping on it, praying on it for over 11 years.

And there are five right now, the way that it's evolving, there are five strands of liberation ecotherapy. So we start with reciprocity. ecotherapy. So we start with reciprocity. And Howard Kleinbell, who wrote ecotherapy, he talks about nurturing nature and being nurtured by nature, right? So for me, reciprocity, that's where we start in that we move from relationships of transaction, like I'm going to go to my therapist, here's my $250, $150 because it's very expensive. Here's my insurance card. If I'm lucky to have insurance that can pay for a 50 minute session and you're going to listen to me and I'm going to go out in the transaction. So reciprocity helps us to expand and move beyond just transactional relationships to knowing that there's a give and a take, right?

So in our relationship with the natural world, when we go out into the natural world, indigenous people of Turtle Island talk about this all the time. You greet the plant, right? You ask permission. So that's the first step is reciprocity and liberation ecotherapy. And then you go to what

I call restoration, which is where we really look at our consciousness as human beings, our ecological consciousness. But I say it needs to be our anti-racist ecological consciousness. It's not enough to just say ecological consciousness, that it's important for all of us, no matter who we are, to move towards being anti-racist in our ecological consciousness. And so we begin to restore our own consciousness in the earth through practices and through community building, where we look at the world and the earth with open eyes in a true way. Yes, I can feel a sense of restoration from being near this tree, but there's also the land is full of blood, right?

There's harm and trauma that's been done to the land and that's been done to us. So restoration is our step in going in deeper into our ecological consciousness and sitting with both of those, right? Then we move to repair, reparation. Once we have spent some time in learning and being in a place of reciprocity and restoration, we begin to say, okay, what repairs need to be made? And I always say, you start within your own weave, your own lineage first. What repairs need to be made with your ancestors? So for example, we know that settler colonialism changed the landscape. It caused genocide, all those things. If you come from those people, what are the stories in your

family that need to be repaired and healed, right? Because usually there's internal relationships in the family that are suffering because of the silence, because of the denial, right? My friend Louise Dunlap, who you should definitely interview is 82 years old we met at a retreat a tick not hon retreat many years ago she just wrote this book inherited silence she's a fifth generation californian she's a white from white settler colonials including white people that were on the Mayflower. Her ancestors were California state senators that participated in genocide and created Chinese exclusionary laws. She just wrote this book about her journey to unpack the silence that she inherited.

It's a beautiful book. I'm reading it right now. And she's a beautiful person. She inherited it. It's a beautiful book. I'm reading it right now. And she's a beautiful person. So the work that Louise has done and is doing is part of the repair work and the restoration work. That's part of liberation ecotherapy. And even in her 80s, she is very active in social justice causes in various ways. Once we move through repair, we can then start thinking about regeneration.

So it even as we begin to repair, for example, there's two rivers here in the area. So there is the Anacostia River, which is where I live close to the Anacostia River in DC. Like I can literally walk out of my house and walk up 10 minutes and I can see the Capitol. That's how close I am to the Capitol. And then I'm 15 minutes from the Anacostia River. And on the other side of the Anacostia River is the part of DC that is underinvested in, underresourced, and has often been neglected. Majority black people live there, right? Just across the bridge. That river recently got, I think, a D rating.

It is so unhealthy. And then the other river, the Potomac, that is perhaps more well-known for this area, that provides drinking water to millions of people, there has been a lot of intention to restore that river. And so its grade is like a B, right? But the Potomac River, it serves various people, but it is not in an area like Anacostia, right? So when I say restoration, it's multiple levels. Ecosystems can be restored, right?

But we have to do the work. We have to do the repair. We have to do the reciprocity. We have to change our consciousness. And relationships can be restored as well. Restoring our relationship with ourself, right? To know that we are nature. We are nature.

Our cells, our body, our biology, our veins are like rivers, right? So as rivers and ecosystems can be restored, we can be restored. And then we can repair our relationships. are moving into the restoration we have experienced some healing or about to experience a little bit of healing and then we move to the reimagining then then we can start to really reimagining and build and co-create this beautiful new earth that people like me who are having dreams people like you have on your podcasts indigenous people who are having dreams, people like you have on your podcasts, indigenous people who are having dreams and who are standing up against pipelines and who are changing whole fields. You know, Rupa Maria, who is decolonizing medicine. I admire her work so much, right? There are so many people like me. I know I am not alone. And so when I say I created, in quotes, liberation eco-therapy,

I was a vessel for the information. And this is not original to me. This is just me listening in the ways that I've listening and weaving together things, right? So it's not like this just comes from Phoenix, but I've been a vessel and I allow myself to be open to receiving the information. but I've been a vessel and I allow myself to be open to receiving the information. So that is what I call a liberation ecotherapy is more of a framework, right? It's not necessarily a practice. It's a healing justice framework on how we can reconnect and re-embed our spirit and ourselves in the natural world, reconnect, re-embed and regenerate our relationships with our families, with our ancestors, with our communities, reconnect and regenerate

and elevate our consciousness so that we can do the work, the social justice work and the re-imagining work that we are all being called to do right now, right? And that is my little attempt at providing a framework for how people can begin to do the work themselves. You're listening to an Upstream Conversation with ecotherapist Phoenix Smith. We'll be right back. Those raptured in rhymes tell me will you stop believing that I was in over my head? True now will be true again. Accessing grace and self-love in this place is a sin Believe me And believe me Words are contested and so is your time And you do not need me

To self-deprecate, to feel safe in your head If I will you to break Then I will break instead The fish are all dying And so are our friends So I dedicate this song to the roses that grow around me And I resonate with the ways that I break And the words that drown me And I choose to love when I couldn't choose to hate

But my will is steady I'm ready, ready to be here again Pulling from heaven a world I can see Listening, learning language Right in front of me. That was Rapture by The Burning Sun. Now back to our conversation with ecotherapist Phoenix Smith. Thank you for the strands that you have listened to and woven into the work that you're doing. Thank you for sharing the healing justice framework.

Thank you for offering those trainings and giving it to folks in that, you know, democratized way that folks, like you said, don't have to be therapists in that classic sense. They can bring it to their communities. And thank you also for giving us a story or a living example of, you know, the pop-up clinics where we can see and kind of feel and sense how this would look and feel like in practice and also the benefit that And so that's that's all really beautiful. And yeah, I do appreciate that you brought this question of, you know, why might an economics podcast reach out and really one of the seeds was learning about liberation psychology. psychology, Ignacio Martin Baró, who you mentioned, and this idea that I had heard from folks studying alternative therapies that in liberation psychology, a person would walk into a session and their anxiety or depression wouldn't only be treated as an individual challenge or problem. It wouldn't just be what pharmaceutical medicine can we throw at it or

what are you doing that you need to change so that you feel better, right? But instead, it was a more systemic view of how might our economic systems, like our sense of precariousness and also alienation, but also the legacies of colonialism and slavery or of trauma through generations, as well as other systems of oppression, too. How might they, and also climate change, of course, how might they also be contributing to anxiety, depression, or a sense of hopelessness for someone? of course, expanding that even. I love that you're bringing in the eco part as well of the liberation part. That's just a beautiful weaving there. And yeah, I don't know if you've ever felt this, but sometimes in some circles, I've felt that the social justice was in competition or at odds with ecological healing and justice. And so as you're speaking, I'm just loving the way that you really weave the two as inseparable, and that they're not at odds. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. But

yeah, I think I have experienced that. And what I've experienced is that people have fear, they're afraid to talk about it, or they're afraid that they are going to be judged that what they're doing is not social justice, right? And so like I think about an example, there used to be these black garden clubs in the United States, a lot of them in the South, black women, right? And Diane Glaive wrote a book called Rooted in the Earth. And in that book, she talks about African-American environmental history.

And she has a section on the aesthetics and the power and the politics of black women's gardens. So I'm thinking about my great aunt Ruby, as I mentioned her as the caretaker of our family garden. Ruby, as I mentioned her as the caretaker of our family garden. So colonial mindset tells us that wilderness is out there, that in order to experience nature therapy, eco-psychology, you need to go on a wilderness journey, you need to go out there in the mountains, right? And that when the Europeans came here, many of them, as Resmaa Minicum says, were traumatized. They were kicked off their lands. They were kicked out of Ireland. They were kicked out of Scotland.

And they came here. They had PTSD. Okay? And then they were told by those who had the money and the resources, the aristocrats, here, here's this land. Do these things for us. And through their PTSD, their trauma, they went out and they committed genocide against indigenous people. Many of them, Roxanne Dunbar-Otis details all of this in her work.

Many of them were Scottish, right? many of them were Scottish right they were Scots Irish and they came here after being kicked off their land after suffering starvation you know abuse by the state by the crown right and they acted out all of that trauma on the indigenous people and a system was created now listen to me here a system was created that said that there was a distinction between the races right it was created we know that race was a construct it was created that led to more separation from the europeans that were kicked off their lands where they had their pagan traditions, right? They had their fairies that they worked with and they engaged with the spirit world and natural world, right?

They were brought here. They said you had to be Christian. And with all of their trauma, they committed atrocities. And so I want to pause right there because in many circles, some just social justice circles, and I have done it too, there's a tendency for us to immediately go into us versus them, black people versus white people, indigenous people versus the settler, indigenous people versus black people, heterosexual people versus queer people, cisgender people versus trans people, cis women versus the patriarchy, educated people versus

uneducated, able-bodied people versus disabled. And we get stuck there because the trauma of colonialism and capitalism, it freezes us. We end up in fight or flight and we freeze up and we are still replaying those same traumas that our ancestors had experienced for 500 years. And if we want to open up our bodies and minds to find a way of healing. When Resmaa Menakem wrote about, wait a minute, when the Europeans came here, they were traumatized. To show that people of European descent or who call themselves white here on Turtle Island, I can have compassion for you. I would not have been able to have that compassion 15 years ago because I was still stuck in my own anger and rage about how racism and slavery and capitalism impacted my life.

But through all my work and the healing that has occurred, through my deepening my relationship with the land and being in ceremony, I've been able to soften, soften my heart where I can say I have compassion for you, Della. And I don't even know who your ancestors are, but just seeing you as a white person, right? But that there's work there for white people to do, just focus on healing from the trauma that their ancestors brought here and went crazy. They lost their freaking minds, right? That harmed, that we are living with today. How many articles and studies say that, oh, wait a minute, colonialism, climate chaos, they're deeply interconnected.

But when I said who I was in the beginning, I said, I am the descendant of the slave and the colonizer and the indigenous person. Again, that is something new for me. I wasn't able to claim the colonizer as part of my lineage five years ago, for real, being for real on that. But look, I'm a light-skinned brown person. In my family, there are people that, you know, look indigenous they have straight hair curly hair right like this comes i've had my mom's dna tested before she passed and it it showed that i had like over 30 percent western european in my dna so i say all that to say that in social justice circles, there can be a fear like, oh, and there's judgment.

But it is all one in the same. I am because you are. Right. And so when my great aunt was in black garden groups, they didn't only talk about, you know, collard greens that were growing or the best way to prune certain trees. They also said, hey, how can we get people registered to vote? That was a social justice act. That was liberation ecotherapy. They were picking their peas and talking about collard greens and were talking about how to get people registered to vote. talking about how to get people registered to vote. They were talking about, hey, you know, I have this pain in my back or my shoulder because there were no doctors that would serve them.

And so one or two of the women in the group who knew about the herbs would say, here, honey, put this, put this on your hip, right? Put these plants together together they were creating medicine for themselves there wasn't a medicaid or a system of care in jim crow texas for them this is liberation ecotherapy so this is you know for for many of us myself included like i said i've been sitting with this for over 11 years what i just spoke to you about, this framework, it didn't come to me downloaded in perfect form. You know, I had to sit with it for many years for me to get clear, like, oh, wait a minute.

What Aunt Ruby was doing was liberation ecotherapy with the plants and registering people to vote. Thank you. Yeah, I'm recalling a conversation that we had with Jessica Gordon Nembhardt, who wrote Collective Courage, a history of Black cooperative thought and action. And she told us a story of a Black women's quilting co-op in the South. And it wasn't ecology and racial justice that was connected, but it was economic and racial justice that were connected. And then she told us about how those two pieces had been split. And so I'm just hearing about how to connect all of the movements. And yeah, like I said, I'm really touched by how you really weave them all together. There is no othering. It's very holistic. And I'm also really hearing a lot of beautiful upstream, like root causal ways of seeing, right, this othering piece, the separation. And so, you know, I know that you have an extensive career in public health, which is where we had heard the metaphor from. So I'm wondering, how did you first hear the upstream metaphor? And, you know,

how might it guide your work and anything else you'd say by way of when you go upstream to the root causes of the social, ecological, political, economic challenges of our times? What are those root causes that you see and feel into? So yes, so I've worked in public health a long time, so I'm very familiar with upstream. And where I really learned more about and heard the phrase more was when I started doing work with people that were living with HIV in the 90s, in the late 80s and 90s. I was 22 years old. And it was specifically, let me be clear, it was with feminists, right? And so they would always frame it that the co-factors of HIV are patriarchy, state violence, right, homophobia, all of those things.

Those are the upstream factors that would make people more vulnerable to contracting HIV. Poverty as well. And it was those feminists, those feminists of color that taught me a different way of framing the conversation around chronic illness. This is not what the NIH was saying. This is not what Dr. Fauci was saying. Like, I know Dr. Fauci from the HIV field. I've read his work and seen his work my whole career. And I admire and respect him very much. But it took them a long time. It took him a long time, right? They were not saying that the co

factors of HIV are homophobia, poverty, state violence, sexism, right? They were saying, oh, it's because you're gay, your behavior, right? Focusing on individual behavior. Oh, because you're an addict. Oh, because you're a sex worker. The public health institutions of which I work in still, that is the way that we still talk about illness that it's an individual problem oh you're promiscuous oh because you're gay that's why you're getting this or that right but it was for me it was with feminists of color and and black queer people here in dc who were organizing who were teaching me things around like what is a co co-factor? Oh, that's what makes you more vulnerable. As we saw with the pandemic, or we continue to see with the pandemic, right?

You don't have, you know, sick leave. You don't have access to healthcare. The number of black and brown people who have become chronically ill or died is exponential, right? We see that now. So, and when I look at upstream, Della, I don't see a stream. I see a trickle because there's drought, right? So when I bring in the ecological framework now with upstream, I see drought. I see homeless encampments upstream. That's what I see.

I see homeless encampments upstream. That's what I see. I see illness upstream. I see violence upstream. I see state neglect, right? I see necropolitics. I think it was a South African or African political scientist that created that term. created that term. Politics of death, where the government chooses and creates policies and systems on who will live and who will die. So when I look upstream, if you do not have access to a doctor and to healthcare, you're more vulnerable to get COVID. If you work in the Safeway grocery store down the street from my house where the majority of people working there

are black and brown people, the cashiers, the people that are stocking the shelves, the people that are coming to clean the buildings are Latina women, right? So if you don't have access to a job, and I have privilege, and I'm speaking this as a black queer person with privilege, I can work from home in the comfort of my air-conditioned home with my laptop. When you don't have access to these things, you're more vulnerable to disease. And these are intentional and deliberate policies. These are policies that are created, right? So when I look upstream, I see drought.

I see homeless encampments. I see poverty. And at the same time, I see people dancing. I see people bringing their resources together to support each other. I see people coming up with new ways of us to share mutual aid societies. And that's not a new way. It's like the co-ops, like the former guest you had and that I'm familiar with. During the pandemic, when I was living in Oakland and Bay Area was one of the first places to go on the lockdown, I volunteered with the mutual SF Bay Area Mutual Aid Society. And it was perfect. It was easy. They would send me a text and say, someone in your neighborhood needs groceries, Phoenix. And it was perfect. It was easy. They would send me a text and say, someone in your neighborhood needs groceries, Phoenix. And they would text me a list, bread, ground beef,

soup. I would just go to the grocery store. I would buy them their groceries. I would sit their groceries on their stoop. And usually it was people that didn't live far from me that I did not know prior to this. And I was incredibly impressed with the way this mutual aid society was organized. Like there wasn't any of the bureaucracy of paperwork. It was a text message, a list. And I could get reimbursed if I wanted, but I used that as an opportunity for reciprocity for me to give back. Once a month, I could do that. I had the resources where I could buy groceries once a month for a family, right? That was

reciprocity to me. And this mutual aid society was so well organized and they were doing it with no foundation funding, no government funding, right? And so this again goes back to how I see people that can be liberation ecotherapists. Majority of people in the United States do not have access to private psychotherapy, okay? We don't have access to psychologists. I am trying to get a story. I'm trying to get a new therapist. I moved to a new city, new state. My old therapist who I loved and been seeing for years cannot practice here. It has been so difficult, Della. And I have insurance and money. And I know how to navigate the system for me to find a new therapist.

One, because therapists are burnt out and overwhelmed because of the pandemic. Two, our system, mental health is at the bottom. It has never, ever been fully supported or funded by our government. Medicaid or Medi-Cal, as it is in California, that gives basic health insurance to poor people, there is no such thing for mental health support, right? It's very difficult, right? We have not valued the need for mental health support. So my vision is that through giving people some guidance and training as liberation ecotherapists, they can provide psychosocial support, right, in nature for

people that are waiting for a therapist, maybe they're on a long waiting list, or people that have some fear about going to therapy so that they don't have to suffer in silence or suffer alone. We will never have enough licensed therapists to take care of everybody. And as we see the increase in the rates of anxiety and depression across all races, across all genders, all ages, we will never have enough people that can go through the four years of undergrad, two years of post-grad, three more years of licensing, depending upon what level you get in order to practice therapy, right? But there are so many models that are out there. In public health, there's the community health worker model that has,

there's lots of research around it that has been in existence for many, many years in the Latino community. They call them promoters and they promote health education. So these are people that get trained and they help people figure out how to take care of their diabetes within their culture, right? Because not everyone can have access to a Dr. Rupa Maria UCSF, right? And so in public health, there is a model where we use paraprofessionals, peers, to provide psychosocial support in the field of HIV.

We train people as HIV testers and counselors, many who have no advanced degrees, and they go through a training and they actually administer tests. guidance, why can't we have liberation ecotherapists all over where people can go in a community-based forum to receive emotional and mental support and community? The model is out there. The model is out there and it can happen. And so when I look at the upstream and I see, you know, the drought and the illness and the violence, I also see people dancing and drumming. And I also see people co-creating and imagining new ways of being. I see both, right? Because, you know, as a person that has always worked in systems with traumatized people, I have to have a practice of balance. If I'm just looking at the data and looking at people all the time as their illness, I'm of no use. I have been burnt out several times. I left my last job in public health in Oakland and just quit and moved here.

I was burnt out. I didn't even have another job. I was part of the great resignation. quit and moved here. I was burnt out. I didn't even have another job. I was part of the great resignation. And I was very grateful and blessed I had the resources. I could take five months off to rest before I started my next gig. I never had that experience before in my life. And as I said, I'm 54 years old, right? So I see the both and, that there are the root causes but i see people going back to the roots to create root solutions or medicine right so many different people mutual aid societies urban gardens the deep medicine that rupa maria is doing in the bay area the healing clinic collective that i talked about that did the pop-up clinics there are now groups of people of color that are doing that all over the country. I think in New York, they called it Harriet's Place after Harriet Tubman, and they would bring together healers to support people

in New York. So people are also organizing around healing, which we could not say. It wasn't called that or happening like that 20 years ago, but people are starting to organize around healing. Disabled people are organizing to support themselves because, listen, the state does not have our back. The state is collapsing. The state is collapsing, but people are organizing towards healing. And so that is what I also see,

that in the midst of drought and a trickle of a stream, indigenous people are getting their land back, right? Indigenous people are fighting to keep pipelines from growing, right? And not just indigenous people, but white people are showing up to help as allies. Young black people from Black Lives Matter movement are showing up to these actions with indigenous people. Because we also recognize that this overwork, this constant grind, it's the cosmology of capitalism, grind, grind, grind, grow, grow, grow. That's death. And people all over the world are waking up to that and saying, no, let's let's let us rest. Let us slow down. Right. I think about Tricia Hersey, who's who I admire her work. Another person doing beautiful work. She's the nap minister. She says rest is liberation.

You know, and I'm reminded in my own healing, like my acupuncturist tells me, Phoenix, make sure you nap. Make sure you take regular naps. And so I do. I have my dog right here napping next to me, and he reminds me when I need to nap. So I'm reminded also that it's not all about in the streets, in your face protests, that we recognize that healing, that there's a just healing aspect of justice. And when we support each other and we create an ecology of care, Della, you don't have to do the work all the time because you have somebody that can come and

take your place so you can have a sabbatical. And then that person has someone that can come. My elders teach me, but my elders have elders that support them. I'm part of a lineage. It's not just me. I'm part of a lineage. So, yeah, I'm hearing many invitations as we go forward. I'm hearing to organize around healing. I'm hearing to turn towards community health models.

around healing. I'm hearing to turn towards community health models and also again, presencing your liberation, ecotherapy, healing justice framework, which I know is on your website, the Alliance for Ecotherapy and Social Justice. So to move through that framework and to take it into our communities. And so to kind of close, I'm wondering what invitations and prayers you might have for folks right now who are maybe seeking therapy, like those who are feeling, you know, the anxiety or the depression or the difficulty in life who are really seeking therapeutic support and also for therapy as an offering in the world? Like what invitations and prayers for all those involved in the therapeutic world might you invite and also what prayers might you offer right now? I want to invite and say a prayer of thank you,

of gratitude to all of those that serve as professional therapists, as psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers. It's a heavy time right now and many of them are experiencing their own burnout. And I want to invite them to take some time to go stand in the grass and take their shoes off and feel their feet on the earth and take a nap outside and to drop the labels of the DSM and all those things that separate us and put us in boxes and to engage in their own ecotherapy practice, communing with garden for their own health or nature and organizing with each other to support each other for rest. So I have a prayer of rest and gratitude to all those that are serving as therapists now. And for those that are seeking some support for their own

spiritual mental well-being, I want to invite them as well to go by a body of water and sit by that water if they can, or if they can't get to a body of water, a glass of water, a bath, a shower, and open themselves up to that water is a living being and has messages and healing for them. To know that their tears are purifying. And to engage with the water wherever they live. To deepen their awareness of where they live. Maybe start a walk every day where they go to the water, the source of water where they live, or they just take a walk by the trees as a way for them to just kind of lay down whatever burdens they're experiencing in the moment.

Or if they are unable to walk, put on the sound of water or the sound of trees. YouTube has a great collection of nature videos that I play every day while I work and while I'm in the house. You would think you were in a forest. My background sound is the sound of trees, the sound of water. Bring that into your environment

and I would encourage them to go to their local garden and just sit in their local garden while they take the steps towards either getting professional help or joining us at the Alliance and some of the offerings that we have. And I want to invite them to engage in some form of prayer. And in my tradition, we say, ofo ashe, which means the power of the word. That is, it's important to pray out loud, because your voice has, we have a term that we call ashe. Your voice, the vibration of your voice has spiritual power. And the creator and the water and the plants and the animals are listening to your voice. And I would encourage them to speak words.

Prayer is just speaking words of intention. Doesn't matter if you're of any religion. And speak to the trees and speak to the plants and ask for guidance and ask for support. I would also invite them to reach out to a friend. Send a text message. People do still call. You can call someone, you know. I would invite them to reach out and to someone they feel safe with and to just share that they are not alone. Even in the midst of continued separation with the pandemic and with COVID, I would invite them to really take their prayers outside in nature. Take their prayers outside in nature. And lastly, I would invite people that

are interested in liberation ecotherapy. I have a community that I work with and I have a beautiful advisory council of people that are also healers and therapists and provide support as well to just, you know, look at some of our videos to learn more about the different ways liberation ecotherapy can manifest and to, you know, send me messages. And I love talking about this and I love connecting people as well. I know people in different places that I can also connect people with. So I just want to invite people to open themselves up to the relationships that they have present with them. And if they don't have any healthy relationships with other humans right now, because humans can suck big time, you know, I invite them to build a relationship with an animal, right? That's part of

ecotherapy as well. Or with a tree, like a story yesterday, I got caught in the rain. It's so weird to be here now because I'm in a place that rains from a place of drought to a place that rains and it's so lush here. And I got caught in the rain walking home and on my street, there's six or seven beautiful beings, beautiful trees, and they were covering me. I did not have an umbrella and I didn't have a hat or jacket. And as I was walking down my street, I was like, oh, when I would walk under the trees, I wouldn't get wet. So I said, thank you to the six trees. I said, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Communicating with the natural world is not just for people that are of indigenous descent from Turtle Island. It is our

birthright. We are nature, right? If you think, oh, I'm going to look weird as a white person doing this, or I'm going to look weird as a black person in the city talking to the tree. Look, you are the tree. You are the ocean. You are the mountain. We all have a responsibility and a right to communicate with the natural world in ways that fit with us. So I would encourage people to take their prayers outside and take it to the tree, take it to the water. Thank you. Thank you for your invitations, your prayers, and for the work that moves through you and that you're offering in the world.

It's been a joy to speak with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Phoenix Smith, ecotherapist and founder of the Alliance for Ecotherapy and Social Justice and EcoSoul Health and Wellness Consulting.

To get in touch, you can email them at ecosoulwisdom at gmail.com. Thank you to the Burning Sun for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. Support for this episode was provided by the resist foundation and listeners like you upstream is a labor of love we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at upstreampodcast.org forward slash support and because we're fiscally sponsored by the non-profit Independent Arts and Media, all donations to Upstream in the U.S. are tax-exempt. Also, if your company or organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming episodes,

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