We hosted a webinar with The Oxygen Project to hear Tom Blue Wolf of the World Elders Council and youth climate activist Te Maia Wiki offer an intergenerational Indigenous perspective on mental and environmental health, and how language influences the way we see the world.
Interview by Vasser Seydel and Rebecca Gerny
Video by Molly Nemer
May 29, 2024
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and terms like self-care and climate anxiety are getting much attention, but what does mental health really mean?
Western ideas regarding the nature of the self, and the mind, are latent within the language that produces these words––an ideology that sees the individual mind as insular. Conversely, Indigenous philosophy purports the mind to be inseparable from the surrounding environment.
To truly address the climate issues we face, we must understand the modern ideas of individualism at the root of the dysfunction. Indigenous wisdom can inspire the mental, emotional, socio-spiritual shift needed to reconnect the Western mind with the greater world.
Tom Blue Wolf is an Muscogee Elder, global spiritual healer and shaman. Te Maia Wiki is an Indigenous youth leader, climate activist, and digital storyteller from the Yurok, Tolowa, and Māori peoples.
Vasser Seydel is the President of the Oxygen Project. Rebecca Gerny is our Climate Books Coordinator and Host of Authors on Climate Words.
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