Custodians
of
Anam Cara
Victoria McKay
Victoria had a sense of things being 'not quite right' in the world from an early age. This led to her rebelling against the constraints of nuclear family living, mainstream education and societal norms as a youngster, which set her firmly on the road less travelled towards seeking new/old ways of being human in the world.
Anam Cara is the culmination of a four decade long journey questing with community living. Intentional community, spiritual community, institutionalised community and accidental community! Victoria has traveled far and wide both literally and figuratively, in her attempts to unearth what is going on for modern humans and how we may effectively respond to the dilemma we now find ourselves in.
Along the way, Victoria has worked and studied in the areas of animal health, herbal medicine, Vedic philosophy, yoga teaching, and Steiner education. She has done her time in the trenches of coalface activism for women's issues such as birth rites, domestic and system violence, as well as medical and legal advocacy for women in crisis. Both of her children have been home educated with a blend of Steiner and unschooling philosophies.
After burning out in her own battles within the Australian legal system, Victoria left with her two children to return to the UK for a year of travel and an exploration of her Celtic roots. Scotland captured her heart and she found herself drawn to the teachings of the Findhorn Foundation, and finally to life on the small Hebridean island of Erraid (a part of the Findhorn Community), where her family joined the community. Life on Erraid had a profound and shaping effect on Victoria, and this experience has deeply informed her vision for the Anam Cara community.
She is dedicated to visioning pathways forward for humanity by creating grassroots networks of healthy interdependent webs of right relationship. To become kin with Country and one another. And to create what she calls 'bridging medicines', which are the specific remedies and practices needed for these times to heal us into a more healthy future.
Yin Paradies
Yin is a Wakaya man whose maternal ancestors have lived, died, thrived and survived in what is now colonially known as the Gulf of Carpenteria in the Northern Territory, his grandmother being a member of the Stolen Generation. His paternal ancestry is Fillipino. Thus Yin began life with a deeply personal understanding of the oppressions of colonisation and their traumatising effects on those close to him.
Yin began his academic career in the field of epidemiology and medical statistics, becoming a respected consultant on anti-racism both at home and abroad, with a wide body of publications to his credit. He is currently Professor of Race Relations at Deakin University, with a focus on Indigenous wisdoms.
Yin describes himself as an 'animist-anarchist-actionist', seeking to cultivate radical intimacy, embodied kinship, healing, co-liberation and reverence with all life through transformed ways of knowing, being and doing grounded in wisdom, humility, respect, joy and generosity.
He is a passionate truth-weaver and sharer of primal, Indigenous, and decolonial knowledges.
