“To see the truth that destruction comes only from myself is not depressing; it is freeing. To see this truth, to finally see this, is to be awakened to freedom,” writes Patricia June Vickers in Singing to the Darkness, her 2019 book of monologues and meditations interspersed with a score of her mixed-media artworks.
At 67, Patricia is experiencing that freedom now more than ever, leading a vibrant, multifaceted life. She is a teacher, trainer, consultant, facilitator, program developer and psychotherapist for Indigenous communities along the coast of BC. Thanks to a boundless source of energy and curiosity, she is also an artist, writer, tango enthusiast and continuing learner – not to mention the mother of four adult children and grandmother to 10.
The journey, though, was not a smooth or enviable one. The daughter of an Indigenous father and British mother – victimized by abuse at home and pervasive anti-Indigenous prejudice in the broader community – she had to overcome tremendous obstacles early in life.
“I grew up with trauma from incest and cultural oppression,” says Patricia. “Coming from that hellhole, I was incredibly fearful for much of my life and with that fear came the belief that the world is a dangerous place and that people want something from you. That suspicion was about protecting oneself. Eventually our play and our curiosity are diminished because we are looking for the violence.”
Nonetheless, her zest for life and curiosity can be attributed, in part, she says, to redeveloping the aspect of childhood that is not only playful and joyful in the present moment but free of judgment. “When we are children, we are not completely aware of the darkness that is in our home or at the door of our home.”
Although the darkness accompanied her through much of her adulthood, Patricia was able to complete her post-graduate education and get established in her field.
In April 2017, she experienced a “nervous system crash.” It was then that colleagues introduced her to low-energy neurofeedback system or LENS, which she credits with leading her towards the feelings of inner peace she has now. The neurofeedback was essential in healing what is defined in psychotherapy as dissociative amnesia, an involuntary response to trauma.
“At one point, I could not separate myself from incest,” she remembers.
Yet in time, through the healing process, she was able to find the grace and mercy that, she vows, kept her sane. “It is a blessing to come to a place where I am curious and not have judgments, even more so when I am playful.”
In September 2017, she returned to work and that December she developed her first trauma training program.
Patricia has found art beneficial to her healing as well. Her youth was spent with art all around her. Two of her siblings, Roy Henry Vickers and Arthur Vickers, are well-known and established artists in their own right.
Roy Henry was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2019 for his design work on a 19-box disc box set of recordings by the Grateful Dead. He owns and operates an art gallery in Tofino. Arthur, an Order of British Columbia recipient, is known for his gold leaf works and is versatile in many media, including drawing, painting, carving and printmaking.
The family’s patrilineal roots are comprised of Ts’msyen, Haida and Heitshuk ancestry, Indigenous peoples who live in the coastal communities of BC.
In 2019, Patricia had an exhibition at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, where she presented 30 mixed-media works using acrylic, watercolour and collage to create layers, which were then combined with written contemplations on the process of healing from dissociative amnesia through art. At that time, she reflected on those artworks and the multilayered nature of life.
“Truth can sometimes be underneath all these layers. The artworks came out of a need to express what I couldn’t say in words.”
In summer 2021, Patricia’s work was featured at the Bill Reid Gallery’s Hands of Knowledge exhibition in Vancouver. This spring, she travelled to Toronto to present her 24” x 18” acrylic painting, Betrayal, at Crossings, an outdoor exhibition set at locations throughout the city.
As she describes it, painting is a means of bringing about the healing process through one’s emotions. “While I am painting, I am feeling things that have not even been stated yet. It’s relationship. I pray with a brush and paint. It’s like a conversation. Things are being revealed to me as I am in conversation. And then when I am finished, I say, ‘oh, so that’s what is happening.’”
In her own words, Patricia says she grew up “with suffering and beauty woven together.”
“There is, I believe, the desire within the human soul to transform suffering into peace and beauty. I started at age 12, working with my hands to transform my own suffering, which had to do with giving up my authenticity, trading it for acceptance in a family and society that was out of balance. I had been conditioned to believe that beads were the definition of my ethnicity, so I used that as my first medium, creating functional art with beads of all colours, shapes, and sizes, making jewellery, guitar straps, moccasins and bags.”
Inspiration, she asserts, was all around her during those formative years; symbolism, beauty and grace were parts of her upbringing. To be sure, there were some positive memories of traditional storytelling, gatherings during which her paternal grandparents sang traditional songs in their language and the artistic passions of her older brothers.
Her father’s father, Henry Vickers, Patricia recalls, brought a lightness and gentleness that countered the shame. Further, a carved mountain-goat feast-hall spoon and a small argillite pole were two particularly symbolic items in her parents’ home, which provided a deep understanding and connection with her heritage.
At a time when intergenerational suffering befell her daughters, art has filled a need “to express in a more direct way a prayer for transformation. Having young children, it was easiest to find inspiration under different artists rather than in art school, learning techniques and methods for watercolour, acrylic, oil, encaustic wax, and cold wax.”
Regarding the trauma that gets passed on through the generations, Patricia observes that since she started working on healing the brain in 2017, her thoughts and perceptions have shifted, sometimes in a rapid way.
“I can look back and say, ‘I did the best I could with what I had.’ And now I know how to live in a place of respect.”
Nowadays, Patricia, through brushes and paint, depicts “a lived experience through texture, hue and composition to express the spiritual and supernatural, living under the shadow of the wing of Creator.”
“My intention with each painting is to create a harmonious union of suffering and beauty as healing medicine, and to portray aspects of the actual coupled with mystery.”
In all the introspective study Patricia has conducted in the past five years, the hardest part, she admits, was the eventual realization that there was not the support from the source one would expect.
“The last thing I faced in my childhood experiences, and could not accept, was that my mother was not there for me. A mother goes through all the pain to give birth and then nurture us. She was not there to see what I was going through. Accepting this as an adult, instead of being in that place of dark alienation, was not as frightening as what I went through as a child.”
Patricia is planning another book, My Soul is Escaped: Healing from the Confines of Incest, which both explores her personal experiences and blends her artworks with her writing.
“Each neurofeedback session brought me closer to the energy that is uncluttered truth and solely and fully for the good. It took some time to see the presence of the Supernatural that had kept and protected me from insanity. As I follow a chronological expression of collage studies that document the healing sessions, I can now clearly see the growing presence of the Supernatural as it gained clarity in my life,” she notes.
As a counsellor, Patricia has a curriculum vitae that begins with an interdisciplinary PhD dissertation from the University of Victoria, entitled, “Ayaawx (Ts’msyen ancestral law): The power of transformation,” and extends to numerous scholarly works delving into First Nations teachings and efforts to transform the suffering of Indigenous communities.
Focusing primarily as a trauma specialist, she has, among other positions, been director of mental health and wellness clinical services for the First Nations Health Authority, a conference minister for the United Church of Canada, and Aboriginal psychologist for Vancouver Coastal Health.
Meanwhile, along with Indigenous school survivors and an Indigenous family therapist, she conducts trauma trainings. To date, she has helped deliver these trainings – which focus on Indigenous perspectives on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – to over 200 health and administrative participants who are Indigenous or work in Indigenous communities in BC, most recently this summer at Esk’etemc First Nation (Alkali Lake), in the central interior of the province.
Ultimately, Patricia would like to settle in a community to train the next generation of First Nations on the use of neurofeedback to connect them with brain re-orienting. The “real meat,” according to Patricia, is what is being learned in neuroscience through means that are grounded in the wisdom of cultural teachings.
“I am hoping that something like that works so that in another 10 years, there will be a group of people who know how to treat people with PTSD. What we need to be doing as Indigenous people is to be understood before others gather information on our community.”
After having spent much of the past two years on Haida Gwaii, Patricia is now based in North Vancouver where she continues to write, paint and take photos that she regularly posts on her Instagram account. What’s more, she plans to learn piano and the Ts’msyen language of Sm’algyax, which was spoken by her paternal ancestors.
These days, to hear or speak with Patricia is to engage with someone who brings with her an immeasurable, youthful inquisitiveness and who holds a profound belief in the interconnectedness of all things and experiences.
Though she lives alone, hers, she assures, is not a life of solitude. She does not yearn for anything aside from being a loving, compassionate and wise person.
“I don’t have a life of rigidity,” she says. “I value and appreciate dialogue whether it be with my four-year-old granddaughter or an academic. I value another perspective. It challenges my delusions and my old rigid pattern of thinking. To me that means there is a greater knowing than yours or mine. We are all working to find that greater knowing.”
What’s helped her stay grounded in the present, she declares, is to become educated with her emotions. “If I get into an argument with someone, most of what got me into the conflict has to do with the past,” she says. “If I pay attention to being hurt, if I notice that I am hurt, then I see that the hurt brings up all the hurt from childhood. However, if I pull the emergency brake early, then I can make a choice. And the choice is not to bring up the past, not to attach myself to the past, and to see how small the hurt is in this moment. And I am then present in the moment.”
“It is not because I no longer wish to criticize or judge. But without going in that direction, then there is space for curiosity and to wonder about all kinds of interesting things. To wonder how, to wonder why,” Patricia clarifies.
“Childhood is gone. I am a grandmother now. When I look back at the horrors of childhood, I no longer have this dark sense fall over me. Instead, I find grace and mercy. It is a circle in the sense that I am blessed to come to this place,” she muses, enjoying each day as she does.
SIDEBAR QUESTIONS:
If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give her?
“You will find healing and understanding for all that you went through as a child. All that you can remember and all that you can’t remember right now. You’re perfect in who you are, and you will find your true self.”
Who or what has most influenced you and why?
“The life of Helen Keller when I was a child because she not only overcame alienation through learning to communicate but she also became a teacher.”
What keeps you grounded?
“Daily spiritual practice and beauty.”
What are you most grateful for?
“Life. I’m grateful for light and truth and the ability to appreciate beauty that can be seen daily in many different shapes and forms.”
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