THE POLYGON PODCAST: CEASE and SENAQWILA WYSS

Cease Wyss, Oregon Grape.

On the latest episode of The Polygon Podcast, Ethnobotanists Cease and Senaqwila Wyss talk about Indigenous plant medicine, and how they’re using botany to strengthen and sustain the Squamish language.

About Cease Wyss

T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss is an interdisciplinary artist, ethnobotanist and educator of Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Hawaiian/Irish-Metis/Swiss ancestry. Also a food security activist who is traditionally trained by Indigenous knowledge keepers and Elders, her 30-year practice has focused on sharing Indigenous knowledge through community engagement. She was the Vancouver Public Library’s 2018 Indigenous Storyteller in Residence, and in collaboration with Anne Riley, is currently working on a City of Vancouver public art project, A Constellation of Remediation, that involves planting Indigenous remediation gardens.

About Senaqwila Wyss

Senaqwila Wyss holds a Bachelors of the Arts Degree in the faculty of Communications, Arts and Technology, minor in First Nations Studies. She also holds a First Nations Languages Proficiency Certificate in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim. She is raising her three-year-old daughter to be a first language speaker, which has not been done in her family four generations after colonial impacts. She practices ethnobotany with traditionally trained mom Cease Wyss with Indigenous plant medicines. She was raised learning these ancestral teachings and uses plants as teas, medicines, tinctures and ceremony.

You can listen with the player above or iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

About The Polygon Podcast

The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver has been truly encouraged by the many ways people are meeting the challenges of our current situation, and how difficult circumstances continue to inspire acts of creativity. The podcast is their way to share some of these stories. New conversations every week.