Transcript: ELLA NOAH BANCROFT on the Intelligence of Our Intimacy /224
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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. Today I'm speaking with Ella Noah Bancroft.
Ella Noah Bancroft I think this is why localization is so important, because we've moved into this global community where people come and go so quickly that they use the landscape as if it is a backdrop to their life and they don't understand the real importance that it plays.
Ayana Young Ella Noah Bancroft is a Bundjalung woman based in the Northern New South Wales, Australia. Ella identifies as mixed heritage Indigenous, gay woman. She grew up living in both worlds, her Indigenous world and the mainstream Australian world. Both challenged her identity in different ways. She is an Australian born artist, storyteller, mentor and founder of “The Returning” and Yhi Collective.
She runs sensuality weekends and workshops, works one on one with women and also has a podcast and book both called "It takes courage to tell the truth". Ella birthed "The Returning" in 2018. An all women's event (Inclusivity to anybody who identifies as a woman) created to encourage all women to retrace their ancestral steps to rewrite a new paradigm of living. The event is a not for profit event, enabling over 65% of attendees to be non-paying on either scholarship or exchange tickets.
Ella Noah Bancroft Jingiwallah, my name is Ella I am Bundjalung dubay from Bundjalung jagun. I also have English and Scottish ancestry and honor all my ancestors from across the land. I'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Indigenous people from all around the world and pay my respects to elder's past, present, and emerging and also honor those who live in harmony and understanding of kinship and connection to nature. I guess for me, my story started at birth, like most of us, perhaps even before that in the womb, but coming from a mixed heritage family upbringing, I was thrust back into culture at the age of five when my mom decided to take me and my older brother back to country that was 11 hours north of where I was born.
And at that time it was on 1993, off grid living wasn't as trendy as it is now, but we moved on to what was off grid, essentially a house with no electricity by a river, about an hour out of town. And being a young child in these very formative years of my belief systems and understanding, living so close to nature and with my Indigenous family and community really impacted me and I don't think I understood how much it did until I kind of stepped into adulthood and saw the way that I walked through the world a little bit differently. I lived there for some time and then moved back to the city and kind of had my foot in both spaces, both me and my older brother. You know, transitioning from a mission, which for those who are in America is the same as a reservation. It's basically a place where the missionaries came over during colonization, and they grouped Indigenous people together, took them off their land and, and christianized them essentially. But what we moved on to was kind of like the fractured missionary, because it was one where all the missionaries had left, but the mission was still standing.
So this kind of, you know, dislocated culture, I was brought up in one where we were living close to the land, eating, you know, a lot of native bush tucker and animals, purely because we were an hour away from town, but also, that was really true for a lot of my family to just be like that, to bathe in the river to to have this kind of deep kinship and relationship with nature without even naming that. And I think having that time, yeah my belief system about the way that I wanted to work in the world was very much ingrained in custodianship and wanting to ally for nature and also for my Indigenous community here in Australia. It's an interesting time that I have been brought up in with a lot of big kind of cathartic moments for Indigenous people happening here on this continent, but still a lot to go. And I really think only in the last couple of years has mainstream Australia started to understand Indigenous trauma, Indigenous culture, and actually, that the Indigenous way of being is, is the most environmental and harmonious. Now we're facing a lot of issues where culture was lost, and people are trying to, you know, grasp or refind that element of our culture, because it was an oral culture, and the time of colonization, you know, the hands were put over the mouth of many Indigenous people and silencing them to continue their oral stories and culture. So yeah, I guess a lot of my work is refinding that for myself, and also trying to educate people on a way of being, a belief system that's beyond this capitalist structure that's been imposed on this continent, and has been around for a very small amount of time in comparison to the 60,000+ years of cultural knowledge embedded in the rocks, and rivers, and mountains.
Ayana Young Beautifully said. In preparation for this interview, and thinking about your work as a sexuality and connectivity coach, I’ve really been thinking about the ways in which sexual suppression directly leads to behaviors and patterns of harm and abuse...And so, as we continue to practice this grave denial, we are unable to learn or teach what authentic sexual relations look like or what consent feels like, thus creating a violent world and severing the self from spirit. To begin, I’d like to ask you what sexual mythologies you’d like to see dispelled, and why is it that you think we are still unable to talk about sexuality authentically?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, I think consent and talking about sexuality are so tied into each other, you know, we live in a mainstream culture that doesn't open discussion and educate us about sexual relating, and sexuality in general, there is still quite a lot of silence around these topics. And I believe it's an underlying belief system that we are upholding both in Australia and America, but also in European cultures, which is that this one that we are separate from nature, that we're somehow not animals, and, you know, I believe that sex is, is one of the most primal acts that leads us back to our truest nature. When we feel connected, it's kind of like, we belong in the world. You know, for me, when I sit in a place of connection, I feel deep trust in my body. And I think that's what we're missing in the sexuality space is a sense of belonging and connection that we can move from this place. Sex is like such a powerful portal to spirituality and altered states of consciousness. And some part of me thinks that the lack of education has been purposeful, that there's so much freedom we can find within sexual relations.
And you know, to anybody that's ever experienced the honeymoon period or falling in love, like what that feels like in your body, sometimes for me, I, I can't eat, I don't want to consume, I just want to be wrapped in connection with this other person. And I think true sexual liberation can actually threaten capitalism and a lot of colonial structures. And so therefore, it's not embedded in our education system, which is why this work is so important to teach our next generation or to, to take on board ourselves to teach our children or open those discussions in the home space. You know, I think that a lot of my work is looking at sexuality from a decolonized mindset. So one that isn't looking to kind of capitalize it, but rather guide people or assist them to realizing that so much of that power is inside of us. And that so much of our ability to go against these mainstream capitalist ways of being is embedded in deep connection.
I think a big myth as well, that I’ve really blown open is just what sex is, and defining that for myself, you know, as a queer woman, I’ve predominantly slept with women for the last 12 years, and being in relationships with them, sex is so different for me, it's not just penetration, it's whatever makes me move into a place of feeling, love, and respect. And I guess for me, love, trust and respect to the other places that I think people should move to sex from, you know, again, these patriarchal viewpoints on sexuality can tend to creep the into our subconscious mind of “I have to be the best at it”, or what that even looks like, to be the best in bed. But through my work, I don't think that there is a best, I think it is just based on connection and presence, and deep listening is for me the number one way to enrich a sex life, then it’s looking at sex the same way as we may look spiritual practice;how can we show up in our entirety? In this current moment, right here, right now with not much else going on in our mind and just a place of fun and exploration. And from these places, I think we can learn to relate more healthily. And not see it as you know, sometimes I think there's this idea we need to conquer and sex, which again, is very much a patriarchal, colonial mindset, rather than just being in the free flow of what's happening. So I guess, a lot of reasons why I do this work is because I want to stick it to the man, you know, stick it to the capitalist system and remind people, that when we're in deep levels of connection, we really aren't looking outside of ourselves for anything, really, you know, whether that be food or clothing, or the next holiday, we can really sit in what we have and be humbled by that.
Ayana Young Yeah, that feeling of limerence and passion and excitement is so beautiful. It's really one of the best, if not, to me, the best feeling we can have as humans. And I also like the idea of expanding that to the more than human world and being in that limerence and sensuality with the Earth and feeling that fire inside. And also, when you're talking about when you're fully connected with let's say another human, or with the Earth, you don't think about other things ,you don't want to, the feeling is so fulfilling. And so I really like that spiritual sexual practice as a way to dismantle the consumer addiction inside of us. And it kind of leads me to my next question because, you know, movements for embodiment and the destigmatization of sexuality have made incremental gains, but they’ve also been co-opted by consumerism. So often it feels like anytime we are given permission to think and speak about sexuality, it’s coming from someone who is ultimately trying to sell us something. And, I think about how our social media may be flooded with influencers who are body-positive, and small scale sex shops who seek out ethical products, and highlight the diversity of the community, and that temporarily may feel like something akin to sexual liberation, or we may confuse it as being proof that we too are in our sexual power, but I think it’s necessary that we stop and take stock of our own consumptive behaviors. Can you speak to the popularity of sexual wellness and how we really need to discern the difference between truly harnessing one’s sexual power versus becoming acclimated with the commodification of sexuality?
Ella Noah Bancroft Absolutely, I think, you know, like anything in our current paradigm of culture, everything gets commodified, we can see this, spirituality gets commodified, which seems so hypocritical in many ways. And the same in the sexual and wellness industries is that we're forgetting that that true teaching that all of our answers lie within ourselves. And I think that, especially with social media, and the influx of information that we currently have, from day to day, it's bombarding us with all of these ideas that may not be true to us. For me working in this space, you start to realize that everybody is so different with the way that they want to relate sexually. And being able to sit with ourselves in that space and really understand what our truths are, and not just because they're trending on social media is so important to authentic relating, it's, for me, the only place that I can act from when I'm moving into places of relating is to really understand myself fully. And in this way, we’re also combating a lot of the consumerist culture, because it does not cost you anything to sit with yourself. You know, it doesn't cost you anything to ask those answers and sit and deeply listen to what may arise in that space. It is an ongoing journey that I think people need to go on to start unpacking consumerism and commodification and how we do that in a lot of, I would say, scarcity mindset, rather than in one that shows a deep abundance and ability to have anything and everything we require.
You know, when you step outside of the lens that you may look through in your own individualistic space, and you look at the bigger picture of where we live on Earth, everything is given to us freely, in many ways. You know, of course, there is reciprocity needed in any relationship, but we forget that so much is given freely, that this world is here to be enjoyed that we are beings that seek pleasure. And in doing so we should and and hopefully can start to see that by changing our belief systems around, you know, where we put our energy, for me that is really looking at nature, and interdependent relationships with, like you said, our more than human friends and also other human beings that we can really move from a place of strong trust.
The commodification of everything I struggle with, you know, and I'm sure many people do, because how can you want to guide or assist people back to their truth, and then have it be so heavy with money, I sometimes struggle with that myself. And I think that purely is because I'm coming from, you know, a belief system and an embodied experience of what it's like to be close to nature, what it is like to have extreme amounts of abundance and not have much money at all, but still live in a place of such deep love and like not at all scarcity. In fact, like being and living in a space close to the Earth or close to the waters or close to my partner or my community actually makes me realize more and more how much I don't need to sell things, you know. And this also takes me back to a lot of things like why we should be living in small communities and so forth, because you develop relationships with people that then they can come to you and ask for guidance, and maybe you can work trade systems and so forth. I'm still trying to figure all of that out. But for me, I fundamentally want to assist people and help people as if it was a spiritual practice and there isn't much, I can't turn anyone away is what I'm saying, with all of my work, regardless of your socioeconomic status, if anybody needs my help, I offer it, and I will always be like that, because that's how I've been born and bred by my family, you know, it's not transactional. And moving away from transactional sexual relations is also really important in finding out authentic expression in that space.
Ayana Young Yeah, I want to stay on this thread of commodification just a bit longer, because it's reminding me of a previous conversation I had with bronte velez, who guided us to think about extending our understanding of pleasure into the realm of accountability because I think there has been somewhat of a lotus-eating phenomenon where we actively deny the reality that so much of our pleasure is derived at the expense of Earth, and just to speak really plainly, I mean look at how many of us enter into sexual exploration using toys that are literally derived from fossil fuels. And, I think at first blush, that statement can sort of trigger eye-rolling, but as someone who is acutely aware of the tremendous amount of waste we are generating, I wonder if I can ask you, how do we need to query our connection to our bodies, and what does pleasure and sexuality, that is accountable to Earth, look like to you? Because dildos in a landfill isn’t it...
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, this is an interesting space to go into, the sex toys, also how it makes people feel as well, you know, there are many people that that feel really comfortable in that space, using sex toys, and having that as a matter, like a material representation of the way that they’re feeling. But I guess I've never been so into sex toys. I never really enjoyed them. And I never really felt that I needed them for any of my sexual relating, in fact, the more that I kind of spent time interlacing my spirituality with my sexual practice, the more I understood the deep intelligence of my body, and the deep intensity of energy when it is human to human contact. And what I would often find is that you know plastic or even crystal, which I just want to point out, you know, a lot of those crystal dildos they are mined, we're still looking at mining in that space, and it would cut something from me with my relationship, or with my relating in that moment, with that person, because it's like, putting a piece of plastic in between two electrical lines, the electricity is halted. That's my own personal experience of it.
So I've never really moved towards them so much. In fact, I think most of the time I've moved towards them, it's just been novelty with a partner, a what can we buy sort of thing and really falling back into the consumerist mindset. But when we start to understand the incredible power of not only our mind and body and stepping into these places of having energetic sex, and maybe that looks like having an energetic dick, even if you're in the body of a woman, or so forth, we can reach cathartic moments here. And really understanding the energy that extends beyond the body also.
You know there is a good half of a meter I would say, depending on how much you're focusing your attention on, replenishing that energy that you can connect with people without even touching them. I think we've forgotten a lot about subtle nuances and subtle ways of being in this world. So much so that we think that we have to have all of this like, extremity, you know, like intensity. But sometimes the most beautiful moments shared are ones that are so soft, and feel like barely even being touched, for me anyway. I definitely don't look to sex toys as being a way to connect with the person that I I want to share with, I in fact, you know, like I said, find it more of a disconnect for me, because what regardless of who is in the space of using it, there is there is an element that you can't feel when you are using something that's plastic, or, or even crystal. And I think we have to come back to this space and, and that deep knowing and belief system that in this constant extraction that we're doing with the planet for our own pleasure, it's so selfish, it's so misguided, and that there are so many other ways that we can experience pleasure, not at the expense of another person or animal or our natural environment. And I think that's something that is going to take a long time to settle in people's bones. And it is a big journey to get back to that space to understand how much this world holds us and how much we take from it.
Ayana Young Yeah, the point of round softness is something I'm personally really working with, this practice of being soft and nuanced, even with myself and gazing and extremely soft touch and feeling the energy of just a tickle and I think for so many of us, we are feeling the intensity of what's happening. And we're also feeling desensitized by it and so it makes sense that that numbness, desensitization, and overwhelm, would bleed over into our sexuality, and to the way we relate to our bodies, and we relate to others. And it's a really interesting question and inquiry to sit in with someone else. I really appreciate being able to talk about this because I know it's something that, you know, many of us feel shy about to go there. And I think too, there has been so much judgment around sexuality and just the whole puritanical shame around it, that it's, it can make it challenging just to be like, Can we analyze this for a minute, and realize we're, we're all in it together. You know, this isn't something taboo. It's just funny how much it's been, yeah, demonized, and all that jazz.
Ella Noah Bancroft I was just going to say, you know, I just thought like, there is also opportunity to use like more organic based sex toys as well, you know, if that is people's options, if people are feeling that they need that, like deeper penetration that they may not be able to get. The first thing that just came to my mind is like an organic zucchini, you know?
Ayana Young Or cucumber.
Ella Noah Bancroft Exactly.
Ayana Young Very hydrating.
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, grow your organic garden and your orgasm.
Ayana Young Oh, gosh, that was wonderful. Oh, wow. That brings a whole new meaning to, to gardens now. So hopefully we're all in the mindset of what we're going to be growing this next year for all the things we may need. But yeah, this conversation, it also brings up another topic you write about, which is truth telling, and authenticity and transparency amidst a paradigm of fake identities and a culture of lies, be it in our media or our own curated identities, and I think it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to find liberation when we are constantly lying to each other, ourselves, and to Earth. And one thing that comes to mind is that we are really telling ourselves a lie when we suggest that misogyny isn’t alive and well in almost all that we do. I think about so many spaces where women, femmes, and gender-non conforming and trans folks are perceived to have power and agency, when the reality is, we are still required to portray ourselves in very specific ways if we want to be taken seriously. And, truthfully, I really see this in a lot of progressive spaces, where we are constantly policing each other in terms of what you need to look like to be considered radical, to be considered powerful, to be considered nurturing…Can you talk about why you think it is that we are still quick to police one another in terms of our identities?
Ella Noah Bancroft You know, if we look at the root cause of why there is so much inauthenticity around us, it really has to do with the culture in which we're brought up in. And for me, if you look at this Americanization, well, you know, Australia is very Americanized in our culture, but our culture is essentially pop culture. You know, when you look at other countries around the world, they have culture embedded in 1000s, and 1000s, of years of being and living and existing on the planet. And we have created this godlike mentality for celebrities, actors, and pop stars. And this is essentially an inauthentic industry, that is teaching our young people how to be in the world. Not only that, it is seen as, for many people in the mainstream, the pinnacle of success to reach that place of fame. And I do think, and I talk about this quite a lot with my mentor that this over policing, this idea that we have to attack each other is coming from a deep desire and need to be heard and seen in a world where we can be drowning amongst the crowds.
Again, it's kind of you know, for me, I say the solution is in returning to smaller communities and returning to places where you may know everybody in that community. For me when I moved back to living on in a small little coastal town, and I started to really spend a lot of time working in my community and doing everything I could, I felt this sense of what I imagined it is to be famous, almost, you know, you go to the farmers market, and you're saying hello to all these people, and they know you and your friends and they your community. And what we've done with the Industrial Revolution, and the kind of dismantling of the village is that we've lost our sense of self, that belonging and connection, our two truths that we need to thrive on this planet have been fractured when we move into these bigger cities, when we're starving to be seen, when we're starving to be different because we want to be seen. And so for me, I think a big antidote is, dismantling massive communities and working on a smaller scale to that.
I think also, it's looking at, you know, the belief system, once again, that runs through us that is the need to, to be the person in charge, to be the teacher. And we see it a lot nowadays with I think the influx of information on social media especially. Suddenly everybody is, you know, a teacher, and it doesn't matter if you're 15, or you're 50, I always look at that as so tricky to digest. Because for me, in my culture, anyway, you have to go through a lived experience, you know, and in my family, you don't become a teacher or an elder until you're beyond 50. And I think it's important when we're in these spaces of trying to craft out our identity and our voices is how much of it is our truth? And how much of it is the echoing trends of pop culture? And how can we try to find what is our authentic expression and also silence ourselves enough to allow our elders to be able to take up space as well. I always fundamentally go to the women in my life who are older than 60 to ask them if I'm doing it, right. If this is what I should be sharing. And I think that's a good reminder for us that it's important to ask those who have come before us, it's also really important to acknowledge those that have come before us. Because, you know, in 2021, this current paradigm, there's no new ideas, everything has been taught and done and we are walking behind the people that have done that before us and to acknowledge that it's really powerful, because it just acknowledges were a step in a lineage but we are not the the ultimate creator of that lineage, if that makes sense.
Ayana Young Yeah, absolutely. That's a really important point. And I’ve heard you speak about the reality that the feminist movement, as it unfurled in Western societies, particularly in the United States, is actually really detrimental to the work we are trying to do now, because it shifted women away from the care economy, away from the community, and away from family in the name of equality. Before we talk about The Returning, can you preface why women need to sort of examine what has transpired in the name of equality and if these so-called strides are compatible as we prepare for moments of collapse?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, this one is an interesting space to maneuver from, you know, my whole life, I've felt like I've been a fierce feminist and that definition has changed as I've gotten older, for sure. But I definitely started to realize through deep investigation, not only with my spiritual practice in my 20s, but also just the feminist movements, how it was underpinned by the fact that women had to rise to meet male standards. And for me, that is so lacking that we couldn't be seen as our most powerful selves for what we contributed to our community, as the healers, as the mothers, as the bearers of life and creation, that that has somehow in our mainstream culture fallen to be the lesser.
One thing that I'm constantly striving to do is to change the belief system, that motherhood and mothers is actually one of the most significantly important roles that we need in our community, and that those people need to be lifted up and told how important they are. Because in this current space, a CEO of a bank is seen to have much more credibility and status than a mother of three. And for me, I can't comprehend that, I think the feminist movement as much as they have done so much good for us as women in terms of our ability to make choices and think freely and be in a place of strong embodiment. It has also told us that we are only successful if we put those pants on and get into that office. And, you know, I think breast milk formula actually came out of a lot of mothers returning to the workplace, and there not being a space for them to breastfeed. And I'm not saying we don't need women in the workplace, but I'm saying if women are mothers, we need more businesses to bend so that we can raise good healthy children with strong mothers who are able to do what is biologically beneficial for that child.
And that's where I struggle sometimes in space. Because for me, you know, I look at so many of my family members and you know, the mother is a lot of the time the the predominant carer, but in that is also responsible for, you know, the health of the whole family and she's the alchemist, you know, it's not just preparing dinner and lunch and breakfast. It's about preparing medicine. And I feel like we've lost that somehow along the way, our role, our crucial role as women and stepping into also motherhood if we do choose that is to really look at the health of of our children and how we're growing them up and, and how we can actually make so much change in one generation if a collective of women all chose to do things a little bit differently.
Ayana Young I like what you were saying about making medicine. And yeah, I just got a really beautiful visual as you were speaking, and now The Returning as an anti-capital event and what that practically looks like, but first, what is The Returning and how does it seek to address the reality that the wellness, self-care, and embodiment spaces have historically been very white?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, The Returning birthed out of my need to see more Indigenous and diverse voices stepping into spiritual and wellness spaces. So it essentially is 100 women event run over two days, there's 15 workshops, two panels, and all organic local produce served throughout the day, both lunch and dinner plus snacks, the event is a little bit different in that we only actually sell 35 tickets, and the other 65 to 70 are given away to scholarship holders, Indigenous women, refugees, single mothers, and women with disabilities. Also, we have exchange tickets for women who want to be a part of creating this space. And, for me, it was about creating a space where everybody is welcome, where everybody can reconnect to nature, where everybody can learn the skills that have for 1000s of years been freely shared amongst women, in order to make communities healthier. For me, this is my one way to give back to my community and to women to show a different, a different structure. And one that's a little bit more embedded in the gifting economy and for us as a community to see how that ripples out how we can stand in, for me my privilege, I can stand in my fair skin Indigeneity and the privilege I have to run this event to put it on for other women who are less privileged than me.
It's about giving up a bit of my own power and and also kind of trying to get other people to look at giving up a little bit of their own power to make space and way for women to step into these pretty white dominated structures and systems and health and wellness and spirituality, for me are the pinnacle of a good life. And women are also the backbone of society, I believe that to be so true. So if we can continue to come together and share knowledge freely with each other on how to live that best life outside of the education system, that's definitely not rearing us to be the healthiest people and look after a planet the healthiest way, then that's my small amount of service that I can do I see it as, yeah, I just see it as a way of moving forward. I don't think that we can continue to create things just for capital anymore. We are really running low on resources. And we have so much knowledge to share, we have so much to share. I just want to reinstate to my community and the women that attend this event sharing and how powerful sharing can be. And it really, it is it's Indigenous ways of being, it is removing this Western mindset of hoarding and scarcity, to see that when we share and when we are there as a collective, how much we can do. And it's been such a big growing time for me to put this event on.
I've done seven now and I can hope to continue it for the rest of my life. The way it works, is it really is the most circular gathering I could imagine because the 35 tickets that we do sell, enable all 100 women to eat and be and live on land. And, you know, I'm also very fortunate to do it at a location that's completely off grid. So we just had our carbon emission calculation done and I think 20 plants over the full two day event need to be planted to bring us back to a equilibrium of not creating any emissions, which is also really powerful, and a big part of my work is also trying to create events or gatherings that are not taking and extracting. You know, we have gathered on this land for 1000s and 1000s of years and given back to it in those gatherings. And I think It's a time to remember that and remember that we can come together without it having to be at the expense of each other in the US.
Ayana Young I’d like to expand our conversation on whiteness, identity, and belonging a bit. In the United States, historically at least, those who were physically in closer proximity to whiteness, regardless of ancestry, often took the opportunity to distance themselves from their ancestry in the name of social mobility. But now, I think we are also witnessing the desire of folks to actually try and distance themselves from their whiteness because of shame. And comparatively, you talk about how the Australian government desperately attempted to breed out Black skin, so, as someone with mixed ancestry, the act of acknowledging your Indigenous relations is pivotal. Can share about what proximity to whiteness means in Australia and how that molds your views on embodiment for those who have inherited the legacy of being, as some describe, “colonized and colonizer”, which is something that I think more and more people are going to have to navigate through?
Ella Noah Bancroft I mean, my whole life, this has been such a big topic for me, being a fair skinned Indigenous woman, but I grew up with a mother who was fiercely passionate about owning her Indigeneity, because of the implications that had occurred to my grandfather, because of his Black skin, you know, there was a rebellious child in my mother for sure, that went against the grain, even when her family persuaded and told her that they shouldn't talk about their Aboriginality.
You have to also remember in the context of, of our country, it wasn't until 1967, that Indigenous people were even seen as human beings in their own country, before that, we were considered flora and fauna. At this current stage with 3% of the population, and in the many different policies that the European government, which has colonized this country has put in has all been about disconnecting culture, and breeding out the Black or assimilating, we're still seeing a lot of these policies today. And and the way that our government is trying to kind of make Aboriginal people invisible, and I think that runs deep through every Indigenous person that has Indigenous blood and lineage is that we must identify because we're fighting for our lineage, we're fighting for our ancestors, we're fighting for our family who were unable to talk out loud about their culture. And if we stop claiming identity, then they've won, the policies have done what they’re meant to do, they have successfully removed us from our truth. And I grew up with a mother who painted you know, landscapes and Indigenous artwork all all over my house. Her studio was our lounge room and I was just always brought up knowing I was Aboriginal, but it wasn't until I started kind of stepping out into the world and claiming that that I was rebutted with “Oh, you don't look Aboriginal.” or “How Aboriginal are you?” And I think sometimes we can forget how offensive these questionings of people's identity are. You know, you wouldn't walk up to somebody who is queer and say like, “Oh, you don't look queer.” Or “How queer are you?” You know, and we just take that current moment and don’t look at the context of the bigger picture, which I think is slowly creeping into our society, especially with things like ancestral trauma and epigenetics.
But it's a confronting place to be in because I also recognize my white privilege being a fair skinned woman, but I can spend time with my family and most of my cousins are, you know, very much Black, identifying and looking. And so, you know, how do we create this kind of like separation of Black and white, it's just the continual divide, you know, that we're trying to, I feel like society to permanent permeating this continual divide, you know, and I think for me, a good way to look at white guilt, or even to assess people who are dealing with those spaces is recognizing what is your ancestral story? And where was it in your line that you got displaced from living close to the land, because we can continue the Black and white polarities, but until we start to actually understand that we've all been colonized, and some have been colonized, you know, earlier than others, until then, how can we re-return to a place where we feel like we belong to this Earth.
So a big part of also the returning is, is, is really encouraging women to refind their story through their ancestry, refinding that person, deep, deep in their line, who may have been taken away from perhaps her, her herbalism practices, perhaps her, you know, like, potion practices, there is somebody in our line, and and I like to remind all women that somewhere we've had a witch, you know, witches are a global, unifying identity that every culture around the world has encompassed in one time or another. We are from this earth, all of us.
Ayana Young In the spheres of wellness and ceremony, and festival culture, so much of what makes up these spaces and what binds people together, has been birthed out of extraction, but it’s an extraction that takes place under the guise of appreciation and knowledge. But, if we say we care about Earth, and we care about community, then I think it’s our responsibility as well to really explore the legacy and impacts. So, I’d like us to sort of explore and challenge this notion that wisdom can be extracted from so-called “other places” without ramifications... How does this legacy continue and how can we make reparations for the long-lasting effects of spiritual tourism? As well as any reflections you might have on this, or how localization, and learning locally without appropriation, can fit in this conversation?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, I mean, again, this ties back into what I was saying about finding out your own story, and really diving deep into your ancestry to understand what in your lineage you want to continue and pass forward. And I think we see this a lot in spiritual communities, it's just a real disregard for those who have the blood connection to the teachings and those that have merely done a course or training in a space. I think, in order for us to move forward, we have to start recognizing what our own story is in this place, and teach from our own lineage and, and our own stories, because any other thing is just colonization.
Again, continually, you know, I say this more and more, not just in the festival, ceremony space, but even on Instagram, it's like you can get all of this information so freely given to you without any form of initiation, and suddenly you believe yourself to be the teacher. And this is very dangerous, you know, like, with reference, again, to what I was saying about elders is that it takes time it takes time and life to be embodied in teachings to share with other people and we live in this very fast paced society that sees quickness as a level of success, and so therefore, you know, if you're trained in something, you did it for one month, right? Go out and teach it. But we've forgotten the full embodiment of what that means to walk through the world with that, living inside of us.
I studied Tantra for seven years, it's not my modality, but I studied it, because I was trying to find my way back to my cultural understanding. I also spent time in Central America, studying Mayan culture, because again, I was trying to piece together these parts of Indigeneity that ran all around the world, which was basically the same theme which was living close to nature, connecting with oneself and other animals that occupy the planet. So yeah, I just, I feel like there's so much more awareness than there's ever been right now, about stepping on the toes of other people and their teachings. But in saying that, it's not to say that we can't be our own individual spiritual teacher, you know, if you are learning, strong meditations and Vedic meditations, or you're learning yogic practices, and you want to do them in your life, and, of course, do them wake up, do your practice, meditate. I think it's once we step into the teacher role, and then also, the commercialization of these things, that there starts to be an imbalance, especially in a world that sees money linked to power, and the continual oppression of Black/Brown voices in this space. I think that's where it can start to be dangerous. And we need to return to ourselves first, we need to return to our strong spiritual practices first, and encourage other people for sure to do it. But perhaps we can start to move from a place that doesn't look like gaining capital over these, these traditions that for so many 1000s of years, never had a monetary exchange involved in them.
Ayana Young When I think about what you're speaking to this noncapital way of relating, I know, it can be hard for so many of us to imagine what a world could look like beyond capitalism. But if we don't practice it, we're not going to get there. And so I think the practice that you're in is important, not only for your own community, but also to inspire others that people are doing it. And the more we do it, probably more space and our hearts and our mind will open to how we can continue down that path. So I really appreciate hearing your experience.
You’ve used the term “big picture activism” and, something that really struck me in preparing for our conversation is the way you talk about big system change and how settlers can support this, in terms of addressing contemporary colonization of Indigenous people through dominant understandings of success. Similarly to Australia, here in the States, settlers think that celebrating the BIPOC community in positions of power, any sort of power, is equivalent to the rightings of historical wrongs, but you push us to interrogate this further. Can you speak to this facet of big picture activism?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, big picture activism, I firstly like to acknowledge my mentor, Helena Norberg-Hodge who has been in the localization movement and the forefront of it for a very long time and introduced me to this idea that a lot of the times were all fighting these little fights, but the little fights all got to do with something that's much larger, and if we just zoom out a little bit, we understand big picture activism as pulling down a structure that has created oppression. And by that, I mean, the colonial capitalist structure, which I try to explain to people is like a pyramid scheme, if you can see that everything is going up and being funneled from the masses down the bottom all the way up to the top, rather than implementing another kind of system or structure, which may look like a circular, reciprocity, something that is working in conjunction where you're giving and taking.
Now, the problem I'm finding, especially in today's day and age is that we're just replacing one puppet with the next and somehow thinking that that is going to be the solution. And you know, I'm talking about politics mostly in this space because the politicians are just oiling the big machine-like system that controls all of us. So I don't see us having changed by having an Indigenous Prime Minister who's operating under the crown, the colonial crown, which created and destroyed this land, I don't see that as being able to make change, what I see as being able to make changes is to pull down the entire structure, and this system, which is embedded in exploitation, and extraction. And if we can look at anything that it has done in the last, you know, for us 200 or so years is destroy, and desertify, our beautiful continent that is Australia.
So I don't understand how jumping into this structure and trying to make change is going to occur, we need to pull it all down. I am so fiercely passionate about the big picture activism, because I think we get lost in the little fights. And, you know, we can forget sometimes that we're all trying to fight for the same thing, which is essentially freedom, the essential need to be free in this world, which is our birthright, really our birthright to be able to be close to nature to understand intrinsically of what it means to be on this planet to belong, to connect. And all of this, this machine-like intense technological future that we're moving into, is only going to perpetuate more harm. I can see that happening, so close. Like it's like, the veil is lifted. And I'm like, “Oh, right, if it doesn't make sense to move into a technological future where most of our sustainable renewable energy is also being mined.” So if we're still using the same for-profit structures, and we're trying to be green, it's just greenwashing. It's just, again, feeding something that is ultimately destroying our right as human beings to be in our healthiest version of ourselves on our healthiest planet that we can be.
Ayana Young Yeah, thank you for bringing up the mining of renewables. That even though I know so many of us just want that solution, we want the quick fix or just a fix in general. But that's not it, and it never will be. And so yeah, we really need to truth tell each other about that to each other. So we don't put so much energy and hope and creativity into the technological future. But instead, one that is grounded in realness.
Ella Noah Bancroft And it's all it's all there. You know, like our history, it's all there. Like, we have the ways to be able to live symbiotically with nature, we have the answers, you know, they are the answers that will actually make the majority of people come from a place of being able to benefit but that's not the system that we're under right now. And until people lift that veil and understand that we're all working in this system, that is not beneficial for us, it's most certainly not beneficial for the next generation, it's beneficial for a small amount of people who are so fiercely disconnected from what is their truth, you know, as they continue to work for this, like, again, I say it's a machine like structure, because I do believe that human beings have the utmost wanting to to be the best that they can, but our belief system is wrong. You know, our belief system is embedded in an economic structure rather than an environmental one. And that's something that we need to look at: how do we shift that core fundamental belief system so that we're fighting for the thing that really needs us to be fighting for it, which is the Earth?
Ayana Young Yes. Yes, absolutely. I wanted to read this quote of yours and it reads; “I acknowledge the lore system that has been in place on this country for thousands of years, way before a law system that breeds society to live in fear. I acknowledge the original custodians, our wisdom speakers, the water keepers, the land protectors and the relations for our other more than human beings. I recognise that sovereignty was never seeded, the land was never given. I won’t let my power go but I will start a journey of forgiving. My power is deep inside of me, not embedded in currency. My power is our power. In my language the bark of the tree means the same as the skin on my body.” As we come to a close, I’d like to discuss lore and law, and just how you see these as incompatible, but more so, how you understand lore’s role in fostering a relinquishment of power and getting us out of competition with our relations?
Ella Noah Bancroft Yeah, this is so fundamental to the way that I walk through the world and really embodying my culture, the best that I can, in my cultural practices and learning language has been one of the most powerful things for me to actually understand. Because I think language speaks volumes to the culture. And when I've been learning Bundjalung, and understanding what all the words mean, everything is connected. So we as human beings have the same names, and traditionally, in my culture, you would be given a name of an animal or a name of a rock or a mountain that represented you or your collective, and this is to understand that there is no separation, even when you look at Indigenous dance, it is an embodied form of empathy, where we get to embody the kangaroo where we get to move into the eagle, and we get to really, on a cellular level, understand how they've walked through the world.
The lore and the law of this country are so fundamentally opposed. One is about extracting and creating a belief system that states we are removed from nature, we are somehow above nature. And the law system and cultural system of my ancestry is that we are so interconnected and intertwined, that if one thing in our environment is suffering, we all are suffering, you know, we've been sold this lie through capitalism, this individualistic lie, that states that we're somehow single celled organisms that don't have an impact on each other, which is just so incorrect.
You know, the interconnectedness of this entire planet is so vast, you can see the butterfly effect, you know, and think something happens on the other side of the world can affect the other side of the world. This is constantly a state in which we can bring balance back to the Earth by creating balance within ourselves by being able to understand that that kinship goes beyond humans. That kinship is to that tree that you spend every day with for four years and meditated under and provided you with berries and allowed you shelter, you knew that the difference is that we no longer live in a natural world where nature is always like our biggest protector, you know, we've created these structures, and we've moved away from it, even though all of these structures are embedded in natural materials in some form, in their original place, but we've dislocated ourselves from this.
And I think until you start to reestablish your relationship with nature, you can't fully understand it. And so I beg people to go out and embody the experience of what it is like to build a relationship with a rock, you know, a rock that may have been on this planet for 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years, you know, and carries the spirit as well. And, to not see the natural world as something that is there for us to use, but to see it as our actual family, that it has a living spirit inside of it, that we can move from a place of magic and discover great magic when we fall into a subtle relationship with nature. And for me, it's been a big journey of trying to slow down unpack my very fast moving mind to sit in a space with one thing, maybe for an hour, maybe for two, you know, that could be a plant that could be a flower that could be an animal, you know, but to really start to reestablish a strong connection and I think this is why localization is so important because we've moved into this global community where people come and go so quickly that they use the landscape as if it is like a backdrop to their life. And they don't understand the real importance that it plays with us. And when we localize, we spend time in the same place we become familiar, we make memories with the rivers, you know, the river, it becomes more than just a place to swim, it becomes a place of great understanding of our life. And that's how the lore system worked for my people was that, you know, these things, they hold the stories, the dreamtime stories are part of who we are, and they're embedded in our natural landscape. And they are our ways of telling the next generation how to grow up with a thriving abundant life. You know, it's so fundamental that we continue the oral communication and understanding of storytelling, embedded, in a perspective, that same nature as our deep deep kin.
Ayana Young That was beautiful. Thank you, Ella, for closing us out that way. Really appreciate your time and all of the places that we went to in this conversation.
Ella Noah Bancroft Thank you, and thank you for all you do. I love your work. And yeah, I really appreciate being on the podcast today.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Harrison Foster, Lady Moon & the Eclipse, and Suculima. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Melanie Younger.