Moving from restoration to healing
Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing
by Dr. Jennifer Grenz
Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2024
$23 / 9781039006034
Reviewed by Kenneth Favrholdt
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I found this book challenging to read and review. But why should it be a simple matter? Dr. Jennifer Grenz describes her long journey from her training as an academic steeped in the dominant paradigm of Western science to become an Indigenous researcher. Just as it took time for Grenz to transform her thinking, so I have needed to spend time digesting her ideas.
A Nlaka’pamux woman of mixed ancestry and member of the Lytton First Nation, she came from a family of lost relatives which led to a decade-long quest to prove her Indigeneity. Grenz is now relearning her language and culture and has always felt a deep connection to the land.
Growing up on the BC coast, Dr. Jennifer Grenz has spent nearly two decades as a restoration ecologist working as a consultant for Indigenous communities and for government. She has a BSc in Agroecology and a PhD in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems from University of British Columbia. Her focus has been on so-called invasive species.
As a specialist in invasive species, she studied ecological restoration. Defined in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary as “The act of returning something to a former owner, place or condition,” Grenz soon learned the fallacy of remaking nature to a pristine state. But Jennifer’s path and process was long and purposeful. “This book is about the journey to connect my head (western science) and my heart (my Indigenous worldview).”
Throughout the book Grenz provides personal stories that emphasize her ideas of field observation: “The adoption of an Indigenous worldview … more than a simple adoption of a “fresh perspective” or a “beginner’s mind,” a Zen Buddhist concept she cites that “refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying, even at an advanced level…” (Wikipedia).
One story that fascinates me concerns Ye’yummuts, a sacred ancestral site of the Cowichan people on Vancouver Island, where Grenz spent time researching for her PhD. She recounts Cowichan history and “The Lesson of Permission,” the first and most challenging lesson that Ye’yumuts taught her. On her visit to the site, she saw a snake among the Garry oak trees and the vines of invasive species.
I knew deep down what it was. In the same way that I had suppressed my own Indigenous worldview in my work, I attempted to suppress the acknowledgement of the profound spiritual experience of the vision I just had. It was not an escaped pet snake. It was Sisuital, the two-headed serpent. Sisuital, a spirit of revival and transformation, as bringing me a message from the ancestors. A very serious message. You see, to look Sisuital in the eyes means that you turn to stone. It is why I had to get away… It was a message that came to interrupt my reflexive thoughts regarding the landscape; a shock to the system meant to stop that “invasive plant specialist” reflex… forever. From then on, I would honour the land by seeing it from our relational worldview…
Upon this realization, still feeling terrified, I called an Elder to relay what had just happened and to get advice about what I should do. He said, “You have learned the lesson. You are safe. Now you must go back in with the fresh eyes you have been given. I hung up. Took a couple of shaky deep breaths. And I walked back into Ye’yumnuts transformed. The ancestors with me.”
Jennifer’s journey is represented by the sacred circle of the medicine wheel, with its four directional quadrants, which taught her the importance of balance. Grenz introduces each of the four parts of her book with an explanation: the northern direction, “where the colour white reminds us of the hair of our Elders. The place we draw not only upon their knowledge but, most importantly, upon their wisdom;” the (yellow) eastern direction “where new journeys begin with the spiritual work to connect us to the land so that we may release ourselves from our current ways of knowing and doing;” the (red) southern direction, “a time to leap with humility and with faith that learning and applying these new-old ways will give us what we need to prepare for a hopeful future;” and the (black) western direction, “Where it is time to reap what we have sown. To begin a new trajectory for caring for our lands and waters, a new trajectory for ourselves.”
She describes a relational worldview as “the very foundation of our knowledge.” She speaks of the need for a new language that is reciprocal rather than set in transactional short-term exchanges. “I believe that by consciously moving away from transactional language, we will quickly find ourselves resting upon the relational foundation of an Indigenous ecology, and at last realize the consistent, long-term successes we have been longing for.”
Grenz concludes that the term restoration is too general, “an intention that fails to acknowledge both the dynamic nature of our planet and the legacy of the relationships my ancestors had with the land.” She proposes that we use the word healing, instead of restoration. She also suggests the departure from the use old dichotomies in our language, such as native versus non-native species, and good versus bad. “A change in terminology will help us to move away from this polarizing guidance in our land healing effort.”
To conclude the book, Grenz synthesizes her research journey with the story of a frog. The frog, she notes, symbolizes the ability to traverse two worlds, water and land.
As a frog, it was clear to me that we needed the lessons of both realms, the water and the land, to heal our Earth Mother. It was clear to me that frogs could not do this alone.
So I led my land relations to the shoreline. I taught them to swim as I could. I taught them the lessons of the Great Mystery, of relationality, of reciprocity, as they taught me of Western science. I taught them of their role as balancers of our ecosystem.
Today, with her Elders, Jennifer is helping to reclaim and revitalize Nlaka’pamux land stewardship practices with the help of acclaimed ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner.
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, Dr. Grenz has created a provocative, moving, and timely book which every scientist and student, whether Western or Indigenous, should read. Indeed, it is a book for everyone to discover who is concerned with the future of our planet — the water, air, plants, and animals, including ourselves.
[Editor’s Note: Medicine Wheel for the Planet was a finalist for 2025’s Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize]
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Kenneth Favrholdt is a freelance writer, historical geographer, and museologist with a BA and MA (Geography, UBC), a teaching certificate (SFU), and certificates as a museum curator. He spent ten years at the Kamloops Museum & Archives, five at the Secwépemc Museum and Heritage Park, four at the Osoyoos Museum, and was past archivist of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. He has written extensively on local history in Kamloops This Week, the former Kamloops Daily News, the Claresholm Local Press, and other community papers. Ken has also written book reviews for BC Studies and articles for BC History, Canadian Cowboy Country Magazine, Cartographica, Cartouche, and MUSE (magazine of the Canadian Museums Association). He taught geography courses at Thompson Rivers University and edited the Canadian Encyclopedia, geography textbooks, and a commemorative history for the Town of Oliver and Osoyoos Indian Band. Ken has undertaken research for several Interior First Nations and is now working on books on the fur trade of Kamloops and the gold rush journal of John Clapperton, a Nicola Valley pioneer and Caribooite. He lives in Kamloops. [Editor’s note: Kenneth Favrholdt has recently reviewed books by k’ʷunəmɛn Joe Gallagher and John Matterson, Leigh Joseph, James R. Gibson, Patrick Brode, Taiaiake Alfred, and Wayne McCrory for The British Columbia Review.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster