1/27/2025 0 Comments A new year and a new direction...
The IDDC Project came about at a time when it felt like the world was on it's knees-the outset of a worldwide pandemic. This project aimed to gather resources for coping with death, dying, grief and loss. Slowly, we began to build a network and host regular Zoom sessions to offer a free and safe space to discuss feelings and ask questions about grief and loss. We hosted death cafes. We worked toward meeting our goal to train more than 200 people on our waiting list, before the project ended in March 2025. Through the creation and launch of the online training, we successfully met our goal within the first eight months. My role in the IDDC project has been fairly large. Counsellor, curriculum developer, content and communications, administration, team manager and training facilitator. I drew from my educational background as a Sociologist and Healing and Wellness Counsellor, personal and work experiences to create the Indigenous Death Doula Training Program. Throughout this time, I was able to complete several additional trainings to build upon my capacity as a Registered Social Services Worker, for the benefit of delivering professional training and support services. But I also drew on my grief and own understandings of loss and death. Slowly, through engaging with over 1300 people, I came to new understandings and I carry new teachings. I received my spirit name while doing this project. I got married. I turned 40. I travelled many, many places I had never been. I took on new grief and watched my kids begin adulthood. I had to watch my daughter's heart break when we put our family dog down in old age. I had a miscarriage and my grandfather died. Now, I am proud to share this all with you. All the pain, all the joy and all the laughter that is the fruit of community. I pray that this work continues. The work of awakening and training death workers. I originally started my business in 2014 to share my writing and storytelling, to bring untold stories forward from my memoire. My passion for writing began as a child and as I moved through my university degree as a single parent in my 30s, returning to writing became a therapeutic practice while I managed burnout, family, multiple work and school commitments along with a new diagnosis of Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When I realized I needed to shift my career in 2017 from author to doula entrepreneur, I continued to sort out what my care practice was really about. This sole-proprietorship has grown and shifted in shape alongside me and I am excited for the new ways that this work has grown. It was with urgency that I felt called to gather plant medicine teachings and lessons about living and dying. As I've often heard, I was right where I needed to be as I learned the most from my grandfather in what would become his final years. In 2018 I renamed my humble social enterprise Blackbird Medicines and as I conclude ten years of entrepreneurship, I am in awe of the experiences I've had and the people I have met. It hasn't been easy operating a social enterprise and often I have heard that my services should not be offered through entrepreneurship, but through a nonprofit organization. The past four years have made certain aspects of my work very clear. I love travelling to communities to provide training. It is incredible to engage with helpers and hear their stories. To know healing from their stories. Offering counselling and support groups have been a major responsibility and required bringing in support from the IDDC to continue to ensure that there was balance to prevent burnout. I have struggled with burnout at different times in my life and I was determined to ensure that I took care of myself in order to deliver our project. I am grateful for the people I have met and the people who have been able to step in and support grief support services. While these services have been a big part of this project, it is not sustainable for Blackbird Medicines to continue to provide free counselling and grief support groups after March 2025. Instead, these services will be made available, across Canada through the national nonprofit organization now registered and known as Birchbark Medicine Lodge Society. What remains of this project is the training and educational resources. I am very proud to have created what is now known as Part 1 and Part 2 of the Indigenous Death Worker Training Program: Harm Reduction for Indigenous Kin. Blackbird Medicines will continue to provide community trainings and create Indigenous death education resources as a social enterprise and sole proprietorship. Additionally, I am launching the following Collective Membership Directories as a method of building connection and community supports for caregivers.
The IDC membership provides supportive space for building connections, identifying collaborative opportunities to enhance caregiving for individuals and families from socio-economic communities that experience systemic oppression and marginalization. Opening for Membership Applications in May 2025.
The IDWC membership provides supportive, safe spaces for building connections, identifying collaborative opportunities to enhance caregiving for individuals and families from socio-economic communities that experience systemic oppression and marginalization. Members have completed the IDWC training and will receive special access to training and workshops, as well as work referrals. Opening for Membership Applications in April 2025.Membership fees will help subsidize scholarships and support community needs as donations made to Birchbark Medicine Lodge Society, to help cover the costs of travel and accommodations for those trying to attend to the dying and the dead. Chii miigwetch/Big thanks for supporting this work. It has been an honour to have your interest and your community's trust. In friendship, Chrystal
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10/15/2024 0 Comments 20 Years of Action: October 4th on unceded Algonquin-Anishnaabe Territory, 2024a reflection written by Chrystal ToopThis past Friday, October 4th marked the 20th annual Families of Sisters in Spirit Vigil to honour Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SpiritLGBTQQIA+. This somber day has always been for families and friends, in and around Ottawa, to flood Parliament Hill holding enlarged photos of loved ones with their names. This movement began with a seemingly small action to show the outside world that we have not forgotten our missing and murdered. When Bridget Tolley’s mother Gladys was murdered, her search for truth and justice led her to Parliament Hill, photo in hand. Sadly, the necessity of this day has not diminished, but amplified. To commemorate a 23rd year of her search for accountability, Bridget cut and burned her hair in a ceremony, with help from her great grandchildren and supporters. Nations across Turtle Island have different teachings about the sacredness of hair. The ceremony of cutting hair represents the significance of a loss. Whether you cut your hair to honour someone in death, or to honour the grief you carry for the loss of your safety, the practice of growing and braiding hair to cut off is a ceremony of reflection and release. Each day Indigenous women and girls grow up knowing they are overrepresented in correctional and child welfare institutions, missing and murdered statistics. This day is a protest of no more stolen sisters. This day is a necessary movement to shout, in the first world country that is Canada, we are not expendable or invisible. Indigenous women matter. Like most First Nations, Inuit and Metis people I carry my own stories of grief and loss and have attended many, many Sisters in Spirit Vigils over the years to honor people who impacted my life and were taken away in tragedy. On this day, I was accompanied by loved ones to the Hill and this was a form of safety planning. This was one way that I could try to offer myself care and harm reduction, during and after what I knew would be an emotionally difficult afternoon. Even though we ended in ceremony with the day’s vigil, I began to formulate a plan for more self-care and wellness. As a tattoo revivalist, ink sessions are one way to practice my ancestral spirituality. I chose to end this solemn day of mourning in a good way, by receiving clan marking with my family. This healing way we have with lots of laughter helped to carry us from the bittersweet reunions with others in this movement, all the way home that night. #NoMoreStolenSisters #SistersInSpirit
2/6/2023 0 Comments Solstice OfferingsPerhaps you have been following along with this blog as someone interested in completing the Indigenous Death Doula training program. Maybe you have attended one of the public speaking events or virtual workshops offered where I was invited to talk about Indigenous death, dying, loss and grief.
This work is an area where I have cast my heart, countless hours spent curating an offering to Indigenous caregivers that I had promised way back in 2020. Foolishly, I thought I could drive deadlines and tasks to completion like I do with everything else. This training is more than a program, it is an offering of care to Indigenous people everywhere. I thought obtaining funding would mean we could bring this training into reality and while this truly did make a difference, it was only one aspect of creating this community experience. Now, with the training close to launching, I am moved by all the teachings I have added to my bundle. What an experience this has been. I found myself mourning while working on the training's content. This past year, my uncle and aunts departed from this world. Some of these relatives felt more connected to me than others. This too was cause for reflection as I answered queries about education for the dying and coping with grief. I worry about missing out on moments of connection with the generation before me. Do they know how grateful I feel for the unconditional love they gave me? With all of these deep pensive moments, I was surprised to find myself pregnant. A welcomed surprise, my husband and I were ecstatic to learn we were expecting and before long we had vitamins ready, names picked out and a doctor's appointment scheduled. In our excitement, we shared our news wide and far. We told our families, our workmates, our favorite taco restaurant staff. Our joy was short-lived and I will never forget the moment I understood that a miscarriage had taken place. My doctor was, and always is, amazing. I wish everyone could have a doctor like I her. She expressed her condolences and bolstered our broken hearts by sharing statistics (we are research-loving, data people) and encouragement to begin trying to conceive. Getting pregnant at all was a confirmation of our fertility. Armed with a positive outlook, I tried my best to carry on. Helpers reached out with their messages and teachings from ancestors, enveloping me and my family in love. Despite the teachings I carry in my bundle about reproductive health, mental wellness and healing, none of this insight seemed to relieve me of my grief. Here I was working away at creating tools to support others coping with loss, simultaneously struggling to find solid ground in the wake of losing our baby, of losing my uncle, and then my aunts, and the vibrance they brought to our family. I felt the weight of multiple losses, compounding on my shoulders and in my heart. What truly helped disperse the clouds and helped me cope was the many lovely friends and family who took a moment to share stories of their own pregnancy losses. What a terrible club to belong to, yet I am so grateful to each and every person who took a moment to disclose their membership and mirror what we were going through. All at once, I understood the journey that creating this training had become. By connecting and supporting each other, there is always care and love to get through the darkest times. Even though this training has taken far longer to launch than anticipated, I am excited to invite the previous Indigenous mentees to form the first cohort in time for Summer Solstice. A humble offering from my laptop to yours, with the help of many, many incredible knowledge carriers will arrive just when it's meant to. chii miigwetch for reading, sharing and commenting. 2/6/2023 0 Comments Who are you?It seems like an easy enough question. For most First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people this is a question that we have come to expect from new faces that also belong to these communities.
Who claims you? This question once made me stammer out the word Pikwakanagan and it took memory games to help me remember the proper way to share the name of the community on my status card. Eventually, I would become known to some people from my ancestral community and I am proud to claim my mother and grandfather's name Sarazin, his mother's name Buckshot, her mother's name Lemure, and her mother's name Pessindiwate, and her mother's name Whiteduck. Today, I am proud to know the names of 14 generations of my Algonquin grandmothers. It is not knowledge I always possessed and their names are part of my ceremonies and the guidance I know is with me, through everything on this journey. Where do you come from? A question that was infinitely harder for me to answer as I later learned that my life had been formed in transit, never living more than five years in one place. Two years here, one year there, oh-time to move again. I became vague in my response and told people I had grown up between Thunder Bay, Montreal and Ottawa. I didn't care to explain all the small towns I had grown familiar with in my one, two and five year stints. All of the small towns in northern Ontario like South Gillies, Manitouwadge, Caramat, Mattawa, and eastern Ontario places such as Winchester, Oxford Mills, Russell and Kemptville. These places didn't remember me and some I tried to forget. It was easier to explain my life when I said I was a city girl. My time in cities had consisted of bouncing from one parent's home in Thunder Bay or North Bay, to the other's in Ottawa. In Thunder Bay I attended high school for grade eleven and managed to pick up an English credit for grade 12. Who are you? It's a question I haven't always known how to answer and when I did, there seemed to be intricacies that I wasn't aware of. There were teachings I was missing and it showed. The first time I met someone else from my community, it was in Toronto and she was not impressed. She taught me that I couldn't say I was 'from Pikwakanagan' because I had never lived there. She was harsh and she was right. I was from so many places and nowhere, all at once. If you are supposed to answer the question of who are you by acknowledging the place that you are from, I didn't know where to start. Eventually, I would answer this question by moving back to where my mother's family was from. Generations of my grandparents' relatives have been married and buried where I too was married, and one day will be buried. Who is your family? When I worked at KAIROS Canada, this question was posed to me by other Indigenous people I encountered. "Who is your mother?" An Inuk Elder asked. She wouldn't know my Algonquin mother, but I answered the question anyway, as I had learned to do, without hesitation. When she asked me again a few hours later, I felt annoyed but answered again. Over and over this woman interrogated me and I found myself wondering at her motivation. There are many raceshifters who have found success and acceptance in faithful spaces. When I think back, I am happy to know this question is being asked by these Elders, with insistence and relentlessness. It doesn't matter what compels someone to ask, it is my responsibility to always answer and I do, each and every time. This accountability is a teaching I carry and share. These are the questions I ask when someone presents themselves as First Nations, Inuit, or Metis and express interest in working with me. And I also expect an answer. If someone wishes to occupy space as an Indigenous person, they should have no problem answering questions. A person should have no issue with me asking my contacts from the community you claim to belong to, in order to confirm you are who you say you are. Today, I found myself reflecting on the ways I have practiced accountability and the moments where collaborators on my path have not practiced this same value. Visit this archive to learn more about me and my journey, the works and collaborations I've enjoyed being a part of and birthing into life. Chrystal 'Waban' Toop Archive This past weekend has been difficult for many and I am no exception to this. The Freedom Convoy made it's way through my community and onward to Ottawa. Once there, this group was reported on by many bystanders for waving symbols of racism, openly breaking laws and bylaws, and mocked First Nation drummers and singers by chanting and banging drums. While I won't get into the problems of this movement, or why it's not okay to support social action taken in support of racism, I do want to discuss something I come across often in my different fields of work.
Cultural appropriation is not respectful practice. Imitation is not always a form of flattery. Time and time again, I find myself in specific training around funerals or end-of-life practices and these trainings are facilitated by white death workers. I am always shocked at the ease with which these practitioners culturally appropriate ceremonies to offer in their private practices. As a First Nations-mixed woman with white privilege, I am particularly sensitive and aware of the importance of positionality and community recognition. It is common for me to provide proof and verification of my community connections with the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation and this is something anyone who IS actually First Nations, Inuit, and Metis has the ability to grasp. In death work, many of my peers find no problem with smudging, carrying sacred items and practicing their own version of cultural ceremonies. I've heard the decision to use these traditions validated and quantified by white practitioners in all sorts of ways. The most common justifications are: 1. I learned these from an Elder/Teacher who gave me permission to use these practices. Elder/Teacher has passed on and claims are not verifiable. 2. It's okay, I have Indigenous ancestry. 3. I only do it for people at end-of-life, when it brings great comfort. The reality is that these justifications are massive red flags of cultural appropriation. For each of these harmful end-of-life care providers, there are as many working to center voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color in ways that are meaningful and impactful. By speaking out against these moments of cultural appropriation, they are practicing allyship in an important form. Cultural appreciation is practiced by allies who insist on an actual First Nations spiritual practitioner or end-of-life doula being engaged and compensated for their knowledge, time and travel. Here are some helpful strategies when practicing allyship around end-of-life care. These tips are widely applicable to many situations and I am always happy to engage in discussions that promote and center the good steps taken by allies looking to do better. 1. Hire a First Nations, Metis, or Inuit death doula, counsellor, cultural practitioner to facilitate healing, ceremonies, and rituals like talking circles, smudging with traditional medicines, or drumming and singing. Blackbird Medicines is comprised of numerous First Nations spiritual practitioners, teachers, helpers, singers and drummers. We are always happy to provide these services and have many options available, regardless of cultural background and will ensure your end-of-life arrangements are respectful and appropriate. 2. Ask for community references from the Indigenous community. A letter from a federally recognized First Nation or Friendship Center are great. Blackbird Medicines offers genealogical services at an affordable cost for people who are seeking information on their background and will provide a letter of support regarding validated genealogical claims. 3. Ask for genealogical background. A general and vague association with a single or many communities is a red flag. Blackbird Medicines offers genealogical services at an affordable cost for people who are seeking information on their background and will provide a letter of support regarding validated genealogical claims. If you need additional resources, please don't hesitate to reach out. We can all use help to do better when moving forward. 2/6/2023 0 Comments That doula revolutionYou may have heard me speak or read something written by me where I spoke about training to become an Indigenous Full Spectrum Doula.
You may have heard about Doula work and the important impacts this role is having for families and health care navigation. I'm excited to be a part of the Cornerstone Birthwork Training team with Capstone Canada. This training is fullsome and radical-two of my favourites qualities. Sign up for this year's first cohort and learn what's in your Doula bag. REGISTER HERE: https://cornerstonedoulatrainings.teachable.com/p/capstone-canada-feb 2/6/2023 0 Comments DYING WITH DIGNITYRecently I was honoured with an invitation to present at the virtual conference Reflections on Death and Dying: Creating Space for end-of-life conversations.
I was nervous to address this audience and this is far from typical for me when speaking in public. How many people would sign up? Would the words I share resonate? How would I be received when I started in on systemic oppression and capitalism creating harm and trauma for people? As the attendee count climbed past 120, and higher, my nerves began to abate. Idling at 188 participants, the organizers decided to start and began to introduce me by reading my bio. The bio is always too long and I find myself making mental notes to trim it back and before the thought can land, I am bolstered at my own history. I've survived so much and that is exactly what I am here to talk about. Indigenous people have survived so much, to enjoy this privilege of life and I'm going to begin this mostly one-sided conversation with my ancestors on my shoulder. They are guiding me in this sharing and so I take a deep breathe. I begin. The first Annual Day of Care & Healing took place virtually with the support of my coworkers at the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan Mental Health Team and Victim Services of Renfrew County.
For some of us who are staff and community members, this day was about realizing a dream of offering a community-led moment of healing. This day was an important chance to connect with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members and show Renfrew County what services are available. The planning team worked hard to make this day possible with funds from the Department of Justice Canada and technical facilitation offered by Dpearce Productions, a First Nations owned business. **** Algonquin Elder Roberta Della-Picca **** opened our event by grounding us with Sema teachings and a mindful practice to reconnect with our bodies. My own session was about embracing the Winter Medicines in preparation for the cold nights ahead, followed by a chaga tea medicine tutorial. Tasheena Sarazin shared her beautiful music throughout our day and provided teachings on the power of using our voices. Joseph Pitawanakwat of Creator's Garden helped to end the day with plant medicine guidance for healing. We are so grateful to all of the partners who helped realize this day of healing and care and we are humbled at the response of attendees. There is no limit to what our community is capable of and we're excited to do it all again next year! **** Fraudulent Represenation: Roberta Della-Picca is not Algonquin or an Elder, associated with Pikwakanagan First Nation, or any Algonquin or First Nation community. This statement is made with informed genealogical research and personal/professional experience with raceshifting, identity fraud working in unceded Algonquin territory. 2/6/2023 0 Comments Registration Maxed outLike many of our ideas at Blackbird Medicines, this idea of a grief support group exploded unexpectedly with interest from across Turtle Island.
The awesome Indigenous Death workers who make up the Indigenous Death Doula Collective had an idea. An idea to offer some support over some of the most difficult months of the year. Why so difficult? December and January are extremely busy times for death and grief workers. For those who have lost loved ones, the holidays are a time of year that we think about their absence or maybe the traditions that are changed by their loss. It can be a time heavy with grief and sadness. With the holidays of 2020 on our minds, we created this offering for community with a plan to welcome 12 participants. We hoped we would get at least 8 people who wanted to come together to discuss grief and loss as part of the annual Winter Medicine teachings we offer. We could have guessed what would happen next. We didn't, but we could have! Within hours of the registration form going live our hopes were fulfilled with 24 registrations. We collectively discussed how to accommodate twice the amount people. A few more days went by and registration hit 44 people. We announced that registration was closed and our total reached 50. This time of year cold embraces most things in the north and these Winter Medicine offerings are a hug of warmth for spirits weary by months that have gone by. Some of us brace for the long nights and cold, others look to it as respite from the hurried expectations of the long, warmer days. If you missed out on registration for the December 2021-January 2022 Grief Workshops, please know that another opportunity will come! We're so excited for the upcoming January release of our Indigenous Death Doula Training and Certification program and know that NDN country has been waiting patiently too! |
About ChrystalMy name is Chrystal Toop and I am a member of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation and am Anishnaabe, French & Polish. Archives
January 2025
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