Tonja Reichley shares her journey of her pull to Ireland as a teenager, and how when she finally visited Ireland in her 30s, she knew she had to return. Her journey of returning, of learning and becoming an herbalist and teacher. She now lives in western Ireland and leads pilgrimages with people who want to connect with the land in a spiritual and ancestral way, to heal and connect to the ancestors before there was the label and construct of whiteness. Tekla will be leading a retreat/pilgrimage to Ireland September 15-22, 2025 with Tonja - details coming soon at teklacayers.com. Throughout this episode, Tekla and Tonja discuss:

• How a pilgrimage to Ireland can heal ancestral wounds of oppression- the importance of diving into ancestral history and traditions, and how it can heal the cycles of oppression.
• Irish goddess and saint Brighid- who she was and how she is inspiration and guidance for both Tonja and Tekla- Tonja shares a bit of storytelling and experience with Brighid.
• We begin and end the conversation pulling cards from Tonja's 2 oracle decks, and discuss the offerings Tonja shares with the world.
• How holding space to be in community and to have stillness and quiet is an act of healing and resistance to the capitalistic and white supremacy culture we live in.
• The importance of community and how what we learn in community, and in classes, ripples out beyond us when we share it with others.
• Tonjas' experience working through Resmaa Menakem's programs and how she brings these practices to her students.
• The journey that Tekla and Tonja have been on together, doing anti-racism work and sharing it with other white women through holding healing spaces.

More about Tonja: She is a tender of hearths. She tends to the hearth of her home in Kinvara Ireland where she welcome pilgrims and hold sacred space for guests. She tends the hearth of community, of the Earth, of the Cailleach, who guides her way on. She tends to the hearth of her ancestor’s, the nameless ones who through the mists of time have created herbal remedies, as she does. She tends to the hearth of the wise woman, the bean feasa, the hag, the crone, the witch, those who ever seek, as does she, to live outside of dominant culture with values of sovereignty, simplicity and participation. She tends to the hearth of storytelling, sharing the myths of her heritage through lived experience and story, keeping them vibrant and relevant and ever new. She is a student and teacher of herbal remedies and of the Irish Wisdom Tradition, as she has for over 20 years. Her legacy to these learnings includes her Way of Brighid Oracle Cards, honoring Irish goddess and saint Brighid, her book Wild Irish Roots: A Seasonal Guidebook of Herbs, Ritual and Connection. Her latest culmination project, released November 2022, is The Way of the Wild, An Oracle Experience into the Irish Wisdom Tradition.

Connect with Tonja here:

www.dancingwiththewild.com- her website

https://tonjareichley.substack.com/- her Substack- subscribe to receive her daily sacred act haikus seasonal spellbooks

https://www.instagram.com/tonjareichley- her instagram

We talked about White Supremacy Culture and the incredible resource of https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ and invite you to explore.