Patricia Vickers: Where the Return of the Buffalo Began...

Patricia June Vickers was "born into complexity—the heritage of a missionary mother who went to teach in the village of Gitxaala where she married an Indigenous fisherman." Patricia says of her family inheritance that it was "not only a playing-out of oppression, but also an invitation to creative possibility."

Patricia has paid attention to healing possibilities wherever she has found them, from the Eucharist to the Sweatlodge to Neurofeedback therapy. All of these have come together in Patricia's recovery from her own trauma of childhood sexual abuse, and in her accompaniment of others on their healing journeys.

When she was Keeper of the Learning Circle in 2014, Patricia planted the seed of Indigenous family healing work at Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre that has grown into the Return of the Buffalo Indigenous Family Well-Being Initiative. She has gone on to become an internationally respected leader in the field of trauma research and programming, specifically for Indigenous peoples. Her interdisciplinary doctorate included research into Ts’msyen language (Sm’algyax), and  the transformative aspects of ancestral law.

In this episode, Patricia talks about her history with the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre, and her vision for what is possible for Return of the Buffalo, based on her own experiences with traditional ceremony and cutting edge clinical trauma treatment methods.

Links to learn more:

• https://www.patriciajunevickers.com/
• Patricia mentions her time at The Meadows Clinic, which has some excellent primers on some of the treatment methods she describes, including Neurofeedback and EMDR.
• She also mentions the Deep Brain Reorienting work of Frank Corrigan.