A lifelong learner · Est. long before the career

My Path

Kalga Jaad — “Woman of Ice”

Four decades of learning, gathered from Elders and anthropologists, ceremony and classrooms, canoes and teepees and sweat lodges. This is the story of the experiences that shaped me — and what I carried forward from each one.

The larger story

My path began long before my career did.

From adolescence onward, several threads were unfolding in my life at once — and they never stopped weaving together. I didn’t discover Indigenous culture later, or arrive at healing through psychology. I grew up inside an extraordinary period of Haida cultural resurgence while being immersed in Indigenous ceremony, spiritual psychology, and the emerging human-potential movement.

For decades those threads developed side by side. Eventually they converged into my work. Here they are, and here is where they led.

Culture & Art

Haida cultural resurgence, Northwest Coast art, family, language.

Healing & Ceremony

Talking circles, sweat lodges, Indigenous Knowledge Keepers.

Psychology & Human Potential

Consciousness, spiritual psychology, decades of intentional inner work.

Education & Practice

Formal study, community service, and the work of putting it to use.

1986I was about 11

Witnessing a cultural resurgence

Culture & Art

My family met Bill Reid as he carved Loo Taas — the first Haida canoe of its kind in more than a century. My mom had been the cook on my Chinii Wylie’s fishing boat for years — deckmates with Tucker Brown, a deckhand who was helping Bill with the canoe. I didn’t know it then, but I was standing inside a turning point in Haida art and cultural life.

What I carried forwardThat history isn’t only in books — sometimes you’re living inside it.
1988–89I was about 14

A question from Claude Lévi-Strauss

Culture & ArtIdeas

As Bill Reid prepared for his solo exhibition in Paris, we went to the Museum of Anthropology to meet the famed anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. He asked me why I thought Haida art had grown so highly developed. I told him I didn’t know — I had never considered it.

What I carried forwardA question can stay with you for the rest of your life.
“Our ancestors lived in a place of tremendous natural abundance — and that abundance created the capacity to devote extraordinary time and energy to art.”
Claude Lévi-Strauss, on why Haida art flourished
1989The art world at home

Inside the Northwest Coast movement

Culture & Art

I helped my mom put on her first Indigenous art show at Sinclair Centre in Vancouver. Our family was immersed in the flourishing art scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s — we even had our own short-lived gallery, Kinsalang Haida Fine Art, on Hamilton Street.

What I carried forwardCulture isn’t something you visit. It’s something you live and help carry.
1990–93From about 16

Healing as a way of belonging

Healing & Ceremony

Through PNWA — founded by my Aunt Blanche MacDonald — I became immersed in Indigenous healing and community work as a teenager. Monthly talking and healing circles on Broadway became a regular part of my life, and I sat with many Indigenous healers — there, and at ceremonies on the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh reserves.

What I carried forwardHealing happens in a circle, together — not alone.
1991The youngest in the room

My first workshop, at 16

Psychology & Human Potential

At sixteen I attended my first personal-development and healing workshop, with Christopher Moon of Vision Mountain. I was the youngest person there. It marked the beginning of what became decades of intentional exploration into healing, consciousness, psychology, spirituality, and human potential.

What I carried forwardStart early, stay curious — the inner work is a lifelong practice.
1992The summer I graduated, age 17

A week in the teepees at Four Worlds

Healing & Ceremony

My brother, some friends and I travelled to Lethbridge for a week-long Four Worlds healing gathering, arranged by my boyfriend’s mom. We lived communally and slept in teepees, immersed in sunrise ceremonies, sweat lodges, talking circles, and holotropic breathwork. It was here I first met Phil Lane Jr., who became a very influential teacher to us. Soon after I turned 18, I moved to Skidegate — and ran our first gift shop during that summer season.

What I carried forwardCeremony isn’t an event you attend. It’s a way of living.
1992–2000Eight formative years

Psychology of Vision

Psychology & Human Potential

For years I was involved with Chuck Spezzano’s healing work (Psychology of Vision), and helped bring this process-based spiritual psychology to First Nations communities, coordinating all-native healing workshops. My mother, Edna Brillon, became a facilitator, and I coordinated workshops for them for a number of years.

What I carried forwardHow I see a situation is a choice — and that choice can heal or harm.
1990sTwo rivers running together

Ceremony, yoga, and many teachers

Healing & CeremonyHuman Potential

Throughout the decade, Indigenous ceremony and personal-development work ran side by side — talking circles, sweat lodges, sunrise and pipe ceremonies, smudging, Yuwipi (~1993–94), Round Lake (~1996–97). My first yoga teacher, Francine, had studied three years in India, so yoga came to me as a way to unify mind, body, and spirit — self-loving, not self-punishing. Over the years I explored Three In One Concepts, BodyTalk, meditation, labyrinth walking, and more.

What I carried forwardThe threads were never separate. Culture and consciousness are one practice.
1999On Haida Gwaii

Deep Democracy & the least-heard voice

Psychology & Human Potential

I spent a weekend on Haida Gwaii with Dr. Arnold “Arny” Mindell and Amy Mindell, founders of Process-Oriented Psychology, Worldwork, and Deep Democracy. Their work explored awareness, group dynamics, and conflict — and the importance of letting the marginalized or less-heard voice enter the process.

What I carried forwardThe voice least likely to be heard often carries what the group most needs.
2002Portland, Oregon

Jean Houston’s Mystery School

Psychology & Human Potential

I attended Jean Houston’s Mystery School, including work on cultural creativity. Her approach brought together mythology, archetypes, psychology, consciousness, creativity, and social transformation — the whole of human potential in one room.

What I carried forwardMyth and archetype are tools for understanding a real life.
2003 +A lifelong syllabus

The teachers who kept teaching me

Psychology & Human Potential

A three-day Tony Robbins Mastery workshop in Vancouver — and, over the years, learning from Gabor Maté (several times), Gordon Neufeld on attachment, Jane Middleton-Moz, Vandana Shiva at Naropa University, John Gottman, and Hollyhock’s programs. My education never had a graduation date.

What I carried forwardStay a student for life. Every teacher adds a thread.
~2000s9½ years of practice

From learning to service: Wachiay Friendship Centre

Healing & CeremonyEducation & Practice

For roughly nine and a half years I developed and facilitated cultural and wellness programming for Indigenous youth and families — healing and talking circles, youth leadership, community events, program and grant development. Decades of personal learning finally became professional practice. Along the way I trained in the Circle of Courage® with Dr. Martin Brokenleg (2009), Roots of Empathy, and at-risk youth work.

What I carried forwardWisdom becomes real the moment you put it in service of others.
2011–13Greece, Italy & VIU

Formal education — on my own terms

Education & Practice

My interdisciplinary studies spanned art, architecture, literature, science, philosophy, and religion, from Ancient Greece to postmodernism. I was fortunate to study abroad for requirements of my undergrad — in Greece (2011) and Italy (2012), walking through the places, art, and philosophy I was reading about. In 2013 I earned my B.A. in Liberal Studies with a Psychology minor from Vancouver Island University — a 3.67 GPA, earned while raising three children and working half-time.

What I carried forwardThe Western canon and Indigenous knowledge aren’t rivals — each illuminates the other.
The question was always “what did this teach me, and what am I able to carry forward?”
The guiding principle of this journey
Today

Where the threads converge

Everything I gathered — culture and ceremony, psychology and human potential, formal study and years of service — now lives in one body of work: wellness rooted in Indigenous knowledge, storytelling, and community. My path didn’t lead away from where I started. It led me home to it.

Indigenous culture & art→healing & ceremony→psychology & human potential→education→community practice→storytelling & media
Explore my work todayListen to the podcasts

Kalga Jaad · Erin Brillon · Haida & Cree Nation · a lifelong learner still walking my path.