Chén̓chenstway Food Forest – VUFFF

Chén̓chenstway Healing Garden and Indigenous Food Forest

Chén̓chenstway in the Squamish language means to lift each other up, to stand and work together.

This garden is a partnership between VUFFF, the Aboriginal Mother Centre Society and the Vancouver Park Board.

Running Free Wildflowers

Memorial Garden

Chén̓chenstway Healing Garden also features a Running Free Wildflowers Memorial Garden for the children who never came home from residential schools.

The video features Elder Valerie Nicholson and Leona Brown at the opening ceremony of the garden explaining the significance of this project.

Contact Info

info@vufff.org

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Come and join us for a gathering of music, art and

Come and join us for a gathering of music, art and learning from the plants to celebrate Earth Day and our connections with nature.

Chén̓chenstway Food Forest, Oxford Park, 2050 Wall Street

10:30am - 12:30pm

Putting our hands in the Earth and planting in the garden

Burrard View Park, 545 North Slocan Street
1:30pm - 4:30pm

Family activities, live music and Turtle Legend Painting Workshop with Cree artist Blue Sky (James Groening)

It is an honour to do our work and to dwell in the unceded, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

Dear dreamers, How is your Spring dreaming time g

Dear dreamers,

How is your Spring dreaming time going?

In our dreaming circles, we have shared about the relations between the moon phases and our dreams. The moon takes 29.5 days to complete a cycle around Mother Earth, about a week in each phase, and 2 to 3 days in each of the zodiac constellations. So we could say we are talking about a short period. For our next dreaming circle, we would reflect on how we could connect our dreams with a little bit longer cycle, the seasons.

What are you dreaming of? Are you dreaming of birds or blooming flowers, are you having colourful dreams? Is the morning light waking you earlier or supporting your dream recall? Have you noticed any differences between the Winter and Spring dreams?

This is an invitation to continue diving into our conscious dreaming practices and learning about ourselves.

Conscious dreaming is one of the practices buried by our Western and colonial way of living. A polarized one, where everything is divided between good/bad, female/male, black/white, light/dark, positive/negative, and many more. This way of being, acting, and dreaming has become a collective nightmare. In which we live in competition and wars with each other; a world where a dead tree has more value than a living one.

But we also hold the power to weave a beautiful collective dream. In conscious dreaming, we could find medicine to create a New Earth, a New Collective Dream.

We will have some dreaming tea together and share practices, habits, and rituals to enhance our sleeping/dreaming. This workshop is free! Please let us know if you’re unable to make it or if you plan to bring a friend.

We will meet in the community room (outside/back downstairs entrance) at the Cottage Hospice, 650 North Penticton Street on Saturday, April 20th from 11am - 2pm.

Just a note on the location: Please enter around the back (below/outside/downstairs) and not through the upper/main/private entrance to the hospice.

If you can please come earlier or stay late to support the room setup.

The camas lilies are just about to bloom in the ga

The camas lilies are just about to bloom in the garden! Come take a look and join us on April 12 from 1-3pm for our second food forest work party slash garden jam of 2024.

The location is Chén̓chenstway Food Forest in Oxford Park, 2050 Wall Street on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and sə̓lílwətaʔɬ Nations.

Our main tasks this time around will be to mulch the garden with wood chips, to plant orange flower seeds in the Running Free Memorial Garden and plant sunflowers.

The event is rain or shine so come dressed for the weather! You may also get dirty!

No gardening experience necessary. Feel free to bring kids!

We have gloves for everyone but you can bring your own if you want.

If you have questions, please contact us here or email info@vufff.org.

See you in the garden!

As we near the Spring Equinox please join us this

As we near the Spring Equinox please join us this month’s Dreaming Circle with @cindymcharleyboy on Saturday, March 16th from 11am - 2pm!

Once again, Laura @unfoldingsenderos brings us together to co-create time and space to share dreams and reflect on our own thoughts, desires, and aspirations, a space for self-discovery and self-understanding, allowing us to earn insight into our own purpose and dreams.

During this session our guest facilitator, Indigenous dreamer, Cindy M Charleyboy will again share her dream medicine, ways to cultivate dreams, and of connecting and learning from the land through stories and songs. We will deepen our understanding of dreaming with the collective, conscious and unconscious. As always we will have some dreaming tea together and share practices, habits, and rituals to enhance our sleeping/dreaming.

This workshop is free! Please RSVP by messaging us here or email info@vufff.org.

We will meet in the community room (outside/back downstairs entrance) at the Cottage Hospice, 650 North Penticton Street on Saturday March 16 th from 11am - 2pm.

Just a note on the location: Please enter around the back (below) and not the main entrance. This is a larger space than the fieldhouse also located in Burrard View Park.

*if you’re able, please plan to come early and stay a bit late as we do need help bringing items from the fieldhouse to the community room, and back again.

Please bring a bit of food to share at the end of our time together. We will provide the tea and cups. We will have mats, blankets and pillows available but feel free to bring your own shawl, blanket or pillow if you wish. You can also bring a journal and writing tool of your preference.

Looking forward to seeing you soon dreamers!