Pronouns: she/her
Birth place: Toronto
Ellen Hayakawa was a wildlife biologist for over a decade with the Canadian Wildlife Service. She is the author of The Inspired Organization: Spirituality and Energy at Work and a pioneer of the concept of spirituality and soul at work. She is also a coauthor of Amazon bestseller and Best Inspirational Spiritual book of the year: Healing the Heart of the World: Harnessing the Power of Intention to Change your Life and Your Planet where she shared some of her family’s story during the War, that results in her mission of global peace.
Ellen brought the message that “ultimate fulfillment comes when you fully express your gifts and live your life purpose” to millions of people through speaking on stages and telesummits with other visionaries like Deepak Chopra.
Ellen is also a pioneer and expert in the area of children’s spirituality. Through her program Journey to Joy Discovering your Children’s Spiritual Gifts, she has trained parents, grandparents, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists to understand and discover their own psychic, intuitive and healing gifts as well as to understand and help the children whom they steward to find theirs.
One of Ellen’s current projects, motivated by humanity’s history of racism and wars against each other over land, is called Spirit Holding Land. Spirit Holding Land is gathering 360 ecospiritual retreat centres, lands and communities around the world in a land and educational network. One of the purposes of the network is to support indigenous people and other global ecospiritual leaders to teach how to live in harmony with Mother Earth and Spirit and to make those teachings accessible to people from around the world. Another goal of Spirit Holding Land is to take land out of the colonial model of ownership of land, and buy and sell in order to make a profit. This is aligned with the spiritual law that air, earth, water and fire, land are part of the global commons, to be shared and that her resources are meant to be stewarded and shared equitably with all beings for their survival on the planet.
For more information www.EllenHayakawa.com
Facebook: Ellen Hayakawa
Email: EHayakawa@EllenHayakawa.com
How do you identify? (e.g. Canadian, Japanese Canadian, Japanese, other?)
Canadian of Japanese ancestry
Can you share a little about why you identify the way that you do?
First of all, I never identified with the more commonly used Japanese Canadian. As much as I’ve tried to develop compassion for a question that has been asked of me thousands of times within this lifetime, it still annoys me when white people ask me, where I am from. I answer, Toronto, Canada. Then of course they ask me where my parents were from and I answer, Vancouver. And then they ask about my grandparents who were naturalized citizens. And then once they realize that I have Japanese ancestry they make comments, irrelevant to me about the one Japanese person they or someone in their family knew as though the only thing we have in common is to talk about “race.” Why does this conversation thread that starts out with the “where are you from” question annoy me. Because it makes me feel like I don’t belong….after 3 generations.
My observation was that a white person in Canada was never questioned about their being a Canadian or their lineage so why should people be questioning me about mine without revealing first their own lineage. I also felt that being called Japanese-Canadian, likely by white people (not sure who the first person was to use this terminology but I imagine it was a politician or a government). Why is that that hyphenating Canadian-ness is only for people of colour, when white Canadians didn’t have to tack on their ancestral lineage to their Canadian identification?
I believe that words are very important because they create our reality. The use of my words and labels change and evolve as I become more conscious. I choose to identify as a Canadian of Japanese ancestry and as a global citizen when I’m asked. Being a Canadian of Japanese ancestry makes a statement of both where I feel rooted and grounded and acknowledges my deeper ancestral roots in Japan.
I was born on the land (that wasn’t called Canada by its original inhabitants but for now this is what we call it as a colonial nation). I love this land. This may also be because I’ve travelled and had so many rich experiences in the wilderness of this land, learned about and continue to imbibe her medicines and her edible wilds This is the land that has nourished me and from which my physical body is made and to which I belong. I believe like many of my indigenous brothers and sisters that we belong to land. And with my identification as a Canadian of Japanese ancestry, I want to also acknowledge the roots of my ancestors and heritage in Japan.
This identification with being a Canadian of Japanese ancestry is what resonates in my blood, in my body and in my bones.