Tracy

Sagittarius Sun · Sagittarius Rising · Aquarius Moon

Tracy works as a non-Indigenous researcher in Indigenous Education. She has been invited by the Elders Council at the Urban Indigenous Education Centre to support research guided by Elder Dr. Duke Redbird. Her work focuses on the history of education in Canada and the many harms enacted against Indigenous peoples since first contact. It is careful work that requires humility, listening, and a commitment to truth-telling.

Her research also extends to supporting a highly specialized team at York University working on the History of Harmsproject. The goal of this work is to document, with accuracy and care, the historical systems and policies that have impacted Indigenous communities. As their visionary Distinguished Professor Dr. Debra Pepler often reminds the team, the History of Harms is a settler record of what has occurred in this country, while the story of Indigenous resilience, brilliance, and survival belongs to Indigenous peoples themselves.

Outside of her work with Indigenous communities, which occupies most of her time, Tracy maintains a quiet personal hobby of growing medicinal mushrooms. Her interest in health and well-being shows up in her fascination with fungi and the role they play in supporting human health. She tends to think of herself less as a grower and more as a steward, helping these helpful little organisms find their way into the world.

Last year a very close friend, a respected Chinese doctor, invited Tracy to travel to the mountains of Costa Rica to help establish a small mushroom cultivation lab to complement her Chinese medicine garden. The three-week project was ambitious, requiring a surprising amount of equipment to be transported by plane, caravan, and truck deep into the hills. Against the odds, the lab came together, and Tracy returned home having learned a great deal about mushrooms, determination, and what can be accomplished when people decide to build something together.

At heart, Tracy considers herself a connector. She thrives on bringing people together and creating spaces where conversation, creativity, and community can flourish. One of her particular gifts is generating ideas. So much so that she also runs a brainstorming company called Ideations, which fills nearly every free moment she has (though not in a work sense, but rather in the most creative way). Tracy has always been an outside-the-box thinker (a.k.a. Aquarius Moon), someone who enjoys finding imaginative solutions to almost any challenge. From the moment she moved into The Gables, she felt the house wanted to be shared. The energy of the place (creative, playful, and vibrant) seems to invite people in to engage it.

Finally, Tracy would want you to know that she also has a love of astrology and the metaphysical, which may not be surprising given her double Sagittarius placements. Warm, curious, and deeply thoughtful, Tracy tends to prefer philosophical conversation over pop-culture chatter, and she is always happiest when people gather around a table to share ideas, stories, and to wonder a little bit about the nature of life and the world.