A Whitby café offers work—and other opportunities—to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
By Yuwai Brian Wong
On October 18, 2022, Hillary Myhal hands out colourful miniature aprons to children as news crews gather to witness the grand opening of Melly’s Market + Café in Whitby. Parents from the Lucky Few, a Down syndrome advocacy group, smile and talk about how their children will one day be working at Melly’s.
The Lucky Few are a group of parents raising children with Down syndrome and other intellectual/developmental disabilities. The Down Syndrome Association of Toronto reports that approximately one in every 781 babies is born with Down syndrome in Canada.
Melly’s has been a passion project of its directors, Ellen Elizabeth McRae and Aimee Ellen Ruttle, for years.
“It all started with my daughter, Melanie, who has Down syndrome. She wanted more to do. This made us think about all the adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a similar position as Melanie,” says McRae. “We wanted to give people with disabilities the chance to fulfill their own personal goals, work towards independence and feel like a part of society.”
Aimee Ruttle, Melanie’s sister, has been working as a director for adult employment programs for years. Through their collaboration, mother and daughter were able to develop a new program that could provide people with intellectual and developmental disabilities meaningful and sustainable employment; They named the café after Melanie.
The news cameras turn towards the front of the café where the children and workers are getting into place. Quadre McFarlane-Wilson, one of Melly’s first part-time workers, cuts the red ribbon and Melly’s is officially open for business.
Two-year-old Charlotte Myhal excitedly bounces around in her bright blue miniature apron outside Melly’s. Charlotte smiles, her mouth covered in blue icing while she munches on cake. She looks up at 34-year-old Melanie Ruttle. Ruttle reaches out and picks up little Charlotte. “We have the same eyes,” she says.
Melly’s is a socially conscious café and not-for-profit charity that exclusively offers adults, over the age of 21, with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a work experience program. Created by Down syndrome advocates and parents, Melly’s work experience program is unique because it can be tailored to fit each worker’s unique accessibility needs.
Myhal supports local organizations like Melly’s because she believes people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, like her daughter Charlotte who has Down syndrome, deserve every opportunity to work towards and fulfill their own personal goals.
“People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are too often overlooked and they just need to be given the chance to show how capable they are,” says Myhal.
Higher Unemployment
Unfortunately, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities face higher levels of unemployment than the general population.
In 2017, Statistics Canada reported that adults with disabilities (ages 24 to 64) were less likely to be employed than those without disabilities. The severity of disabilities also had a major impact; those with mild disabilities were more likely to be employed than those with very severe disabilities.
Recently, the Ontario government has made commitments to help students and families with special education needs through donations and partnerships,
“We are fully committed to improving educational outcomes and job prospects for students with special education needs, which is exactly why our government is funding new partnerships to better support children with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental and intellectual disabilities,” says Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education.
But despite these commitments, there remains a negative perception of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
McFarlane-Wilson recounts growing up with autism in Scarborough. “From a young age there was a lot bullying from peers and teachers,” he says. “Kids would pick on me and even one of my teachers said I’d never amount to anything, no college or university.”
A Safe, Welcoming Space
Melly’s provides its workers a safe space and a welcoming environment for all who come visit.
In the backroom of Melly’s, where the workers take their breaks and socialize, there is a shelf full of colourful jars. They are filled with pictures and trinkets meant to represent each of the workers’ dreams and goals. McFarlane-Wilson’s jar is filled with pictures of world class martial arts titles and fighters because he is working towards becoming one of the world’s elite fighters.
McRae and Ruttles’ advocacy for Melanie and their aspirations for her to feel included as a member of society, resulted in place that would do that and more—not only for Melanie, but for others with special gifts as well. Thanks to Melly’s and its business inclusion partners, McFarlane-Wilson will be starting a new part-time position at CrossFit Oshawa.
Hillary and Charlotte Myall frequent Melly’s because it’s a place that empowers and gives hope for future generations of people with intellectual disabilities. Like McRae, Hillary has big aspirations for Charlotte: “We want Charlotte to grow up believing she can be anything she wants to be. If she dreams of going to college or university, we will do everything in our power to make sure that happens.”
As a professor at OCAD, the founder of Toronto’s first pagan festival, and a witch, Monica Bodirsky is anything but the average Torontonian.
By Shahroze Rauf | Featured photo courtesy of Shahroze Rauf | April 22, 2019
Crystal pendants
of black quartz and a clear white gem hang around Monica Bodirsky’s neck,
framed by brightly coloured locks of red hair. A 57-year-old professor at OCAD University,
she teaches sustainability, design, and drawing. And she’s just what you’d
expect of an art teacher. Her quintessential dyed, edgy hair and a laid back
and surprisingly cheerful attitude contrast her dark wardrobe. She is also a witch.
Her Toronto
house is adorned in almost every corner with symbols and objects emblematic of
her pagan beliefs. One of the most distinctive, and seemingly typical objects
in her house, is a collection of short broomsticks. One in particular hangs to
the left of the entrance: a simple wooden handle not longer than two feet, with
another two feet of yellow straw bristles held together by two thin black
strings.
“A broom is used to literally cleanse with sweeping,” Bodirsky says. “You’re focusing your intent on getting rid of the negativity and sweeping it out the door. There’s a great deal of integration between physical movement and activity with your spirits.”
From
sweeping magic with brooms to tarot readings and herbal poultices, Bodirsky is
one of the many real witches of Toronto who practice magic every day. She
attends rituals and even has her own coven. But, most importantly, she is the
founder of Toronto’s first pagan month-long convention, WITCHfest North, and
one of the few forces in Toronto leading the pagan community out of the
shadows.
Many witches and warlocks follow a tradition dating back to the early 1900s – the revolution of modern witchcraft known as Wicca. According to American religious history professor, J. Gordon Melton, who teaches at Baylor University, the history of Wicca leads back to a man named Gerald Brosseau Gardner.
Born in 1884 in
the small town of Great Cosby in Blundellsands, Lancashire, Gardner would come
to be dubbed internationally as the “Father of Wicca.”
“Gardner spent most of his career in Asia,
where he became familiar with a variety of occult beliefs and magical practices,”
says Melton. “He also read widely in Western esoteric literature,
including the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley.”
After World War
II, Gardner is said to have been involved with an occult community somewhere in
England, which led him to become the founder of Wicca. The practice is
nature-based, surrounding the phenomena of magic and the worship of the goddess,
alongside other deities. A decade later in the 1960s, Wicca flourished
throughout the U.S., Melton says.
Another decade
later, Bodirsky and her family moved from the Scandinavian region of Northern Europe,
into Canada in the 1970s. At the time, she remembers how her parents simply
wanted her to fit in. This was around the time Bodirsky began to realize they
weren’t necessarily like other families.
“I come
from a line of seers. They are clairvoyant, clairaudient, clairsentient — go
through all the ‘clairs,” she says. “They would have a precognition and they
would see certain things coming and tell people about that.”
“These traditions – what the mainstream would perceive as magic or witchcraft – were simply a way of life for Bodirsky’s predecessors.”
Her
family’s ‘magical’ practice was abstract. From relying on the phases of the
moon to herbal mixtures and poultices and seasonal timing, Bodirsky defines the
practice in general as beyond physical and rather spiritual.
But
during the lives of her ancient ancestors, Christianity flourished throughout
Europe. And, as a result, her family’s teachings and traditions were persecuted
and driven away. But these traditions – what the mainstream would perceive as
magic or witchcraft – were simply a way of life for Bodirsky’s predecessors.
“They
didn’t define themselves as witches because that was just not a term anyone
used. Folk magic, practical magic, yes. There’s still this stigma about using
certain terms because my family has had to move from place to place to avoid
persecution. So, they weren’t very upfront about it,” she says. “It was so
inextricable from my family’s life that it’s strange in a way for me to have it
seen as such a separate thing.”
Growing
up as a child in Scarborough in the 70s, and feeling she had these sensitive
abilities, Bodirsky was encouraged not to attract attention to herself. Her
parents told her to simply fit in to the best of her ability.
“My
parents were hypersensitized to having to leave after post-war Europe and be
bounced around as refugees and displaced persons. They told us to do what you
can to fit in. And if those people are eating horrific white bread, just eat
it. We’ll eat our own food at home.”
However,
things are now different for witches. Especially now that it’s been almost three
years since Canada repealed an outdated witchcraft ban in Section 365 of
Canada’s Criminal Code. Trying to tone down and fit in is no longer a concern for
Bodirsky and many other witches who gathered on Halloween night this past
October for WITCHfest North.
It was
a gathering of around 80 witches and warlocks on the night of a Gaelic pagan
festival called Samhain, which comes right after Halloween. They all stood in a
circle in the Trinity Square labyrinth on Elm St. in the heart of downtown
Toronto and participated in a sort of ritual: three women in the middle brewed a
concoction while speaking incantations that hailed the elements and various
deities, after which the circle sang a song, welcoming the night of Samhain.
“We
have come to the labyrinth tonight,” they sang, walking in a line tracing the
circle that frames the Trinity Square Labyrinth. “Walking one by one, in the
dark of Samhain, a riddle burning bright, and the candles waving down.” They
repeated these verses over and over, as each member of the moving circle
crossed in front of Bodirsky, who held a jar of mixed dried herbs to be taken
and dropped in the cauldron at the centre of the circle.
“We’re here to
build a community,” Bodirsky told the circle. “Put aside our egos and all our
differences in practices and just share the common spirit and one common time
and be here – with one another. If not for all of you participating, we
wouldn’t have had the month of successes that we’ve had. This is only the
second year and so many beautiful people have come out and introduced
themselves, so thank you very much for that!”
The WITCHfest North closing march to Trinity Square | Courtesy of Lisa East.
Bodirsky tells
the story about how the Canadian Criminal code is what led her to be inspired
and start WITCHfest North.
“I heard about all of the sections from a Bill C 51 being rigid and one of them, 365, was about witchcraft. It was being reworked and it has been stricken. I thought since it’s being stricken from the record, I’m going to put an event on Facebook.”
Bodirsky
decided to take the month of October and have witches who were already holding
events of their own join WITCHfest North. According to her, it was simply an
easy and informal way for individual workshops and witches to be a part of a
larger organization.
“It’ll
just give us more of a presence and visibility if we become a consolidated
community and certainly one that reflects the diversity of Toronto, which I
don’t find some organizations do,” says Bodirsky.
She adds that
she expected no more than 20 people to join in. But when her Facebook event
page hit 1,200, she was shocked. Bodirsky banded together several organizers to
facilitate events all throughout October. And it worked.
Within the month, there were a variety of events, such as an art display at the Beaver Hall Gallery, a panel discussion at U of T on decolonizing witchcraft, and guest speaker, Aysen Farag, a witch from Egypt, who talked about her brand of indigenous African witchcraft.
“It’s
been a success. People are coming together and they’re sharing,” Bodirsky says.
But
aside from uniting people of diverse backgrounds to practice witchcraft
together, she had another goal – to show the people of Toronto, and those witches
who practice in private, who witches really are as a community.
“I would just like [WITCHfest North] to be large enough and diverse enough that people can see beyond stereotypes. It’s an arts and cultural festival. These are artisans who happen to be witches because when you look at it that way, you’re understanding diversity,” Bodirsky says.
As the
WITCHfest North closing walk and Samhain ritual on Halloween night came to an
end, the circle of witches and warlocks erupted in howls and cheers. Practitioners
of all kinds, alongside non-pagan participants, broke off into conversation.
The intimacy of the night seemed to have demystified what magic happens between
a circle of witches in the dead of night.
“The
more familiar people are, the less afraid they’ll be because they’ll just see a
such a diversity. They’ll take you as an individual instead of just as that
word, witch, which can be said for anybody in any community. You have to have
community support,” Bodirsky says.
She is dedicated
to making her vision of establishing her community as a visible and integral
part of Toronto a reality, according to her WITCHfest North manifesto. Her
plans going forward are to attract more people to the event, and hold it on a
larger scale.
But if people do
come with prejudice, they won’t need to worry about attracting hexes or curses.
The only thing anyone is in danger of is losing an opportunity to learn about a
world where magic and witches are not a fairy tale, but rather a vital part of
faith and life.
Shahroze Rauf is a freelance writer and Creative Director for The Scribbler. For inquiries, please contact him at shahroze78@hotmail.com.
With Canada’s wetlands disappearing at an alarming rate, the fight to save the Rattray Marsh became even more important.
By John Wilson | Featured photo courtesy of David Dibert from Pexels | April 19, 2019
Nina
Munteanu, an ecologist and writing instructor at the University of Toronto, was
devastated when she heard that long-time Mississauga City Councillor Jim Tovey
had died suddenly on January 15, 2018 at age 68. In November 2017, Tovey had
taken Munteanu on a guided tour of the proposed site of Inspiration Lakeview.
The plan for the site is an ambitious one, calling for the rezoning of the land
previously occupied by the Lakeview Generating Station to make way for a
26-hectare man-made wetland along the eastern shore of Mississauga’s
waterfront, a short drive from the Long Branch GO Station. Munteanu says Tovey
was “so in his element” that day, “joyful and inspirational.”
Inspiration
Lakeview was Tovey’s brainchild, and the project will be carried out by the
Credit Valley Conservation authority (CVC) and the Toronto and Region
Conservation Authority (TRCA), according to the City of Mississauga’s
masterplan for the site. It is going to be modelled after the only remaining
natural wetland along the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario, Rattray Marsh, which
is a few kilometres to the west.
Munteanu
notes that Canada has lost nearly 70% of its natural wetlands as a direct
result of human interference. Rattray Marsh is a rare success in the
conservation of these sensitive ecosystems, making it an example for the
Inspiration Lakeview team to follow.
For
many years, the key figure in the conservation of Rattray Marsh was Ruth
Hussey. In 1954, Hussey, a thirty-eight-year-old veterinarian by trade, moved
to the southwest corner of Toronto Township (now Mississauga), with her young
family in tow. She soon fell in love with the nearby lakefront property owned
by Colonel James Rattray, who encouraged Hussey and her children to swim and
fish in Lake Ontario. Rattray offered to sell his 148-acre property to the
township in the mid-1950s, for use as a conservation area, but the offer went
unanswered by the township council.
After
Rattray died in 1959, at age 72, part of his property was sold to developers.
For a time in the 1960s there was a plan to develop the entire property into a
subdivision, marina and yacht club—it was envisioned as a resort for the rich
and famous, a “Florida of the north,” as Jean Williams, chairperson of the
Rattray Marsh Protection Association (RMPA), dubs it derisively. The appeal of
the Rattray property, with is dense deciduous forests, cobbled beaches and
diversity of wildlife, was intense for Hussey, and she refused to let the
property be developed without a fight. Thanks largely to the determination of a
band of local citizens under Hussey’s leadership, the municipal government
eventually saw the wisdom in acquiring the remaining 95 acres of the property.
Williams,
who succeeded Hussey as chairperson of the RMPA following Hussey’s death in
1984, has been involved with conservation efforts at the marsh since she moved
to Mississauga in 1975. Fortuitous timing, for that was the same year the City
of Mississauga, under its first mayor, Martin L. Dobkin, finally saw the wisdom
of purchasing the Rattray Marsh property, south of Lakeshore Road West and a
few kilometres west of the Credit River. “Though Dobkin’s tenure was brief,
administration significantly changed the city’s evolution,” John Stewart, a retired Mississauga News columnist, wrote in 2014.
Dobkin
was an early proponent of including greenspaces in urban planning. In addition
to the marsh, his administration oversaw the acquisition of many other parks
and public lands in Mississauga, an expensive move that was derided at the
time, but the value of which in the decades since has been incalculable.
Munteanu says it was the acquisition of such properties decades ago that allows
people today “to connect with, and develop an appreciation for, nature in urban
centres.” If anything, building cities around the natural environment enhances
the tranquility of greenspaces. Without leaving the city, Rattray Marsh
provides people with an escape from the busyness of life on the west side of
Mississauga’s waterfront.
“The marsh, according to CVC, is currently home to 428 species of plants, 227 species of bird, 26 mammals, 18 reptiles and amphibians, and 11 species of fish.”
Beyond
Hussey’s efforts, there were other factors that influenced the newly-formed
Mississauga City Council to purchase the Rattray Marsh property in the early
1970s for use as a conservation centre. The CVC website states that, in 1969,
the marsh was recognized by the federal government “as an environmentally
significant Area, a provincially significant wetland, and an area of natural
and scientific interest including a number of protected species at risk.” More
importantly, Stewart says that heavy rains flooded the marsh in 1973, which
reduced the asking price for the property from nearly two million dollars to a
little over one, more in line with the new city’s modest budget.
Nonetheless,
Williams and Stewart both say the real savior of Rattray Marsh was Hussey. At
the entrance to the marsh from Old Poplar Row, one of several side entrances
from the surrounding neighbourhood, there is a plaque that reads: “Ruth
Hussey—because of her, Rattray Marsh is ours.” When Stewart interviewed Hussey
in the late 1970s, she was blind, had a guide dog by her side, and had
difficulty moving, due to advanced arthritis. But she still took him on a tour
of the marsh, and showed him the highlights from memory. A short time before
their interview, Hussey’s doctor told her she should stop walking. She ignored
her doctor’s advice, telling Stewart that she had been walking all her life and
did not want to stop. Because of her, people today continue to enjoy walking
the trails at Rattray.
Urbanization,
and the resulting build-up of sediment in Sheridan Creek, which flows through
the marsh out to Lake Ontario, poses a significant threat to the diversity and
sustainability of wildlife at Rattray. It is a threat made worse by the
presence of invasive exotic carp, which, as Williams explains, disturb the
sediment in the water to feed. The marsh, according to CVC, is currently home
to 428 species of plants, 227 species of bird, 26 mammals, 18 reptiles and
amphibians, and 11 species of fish.
As
the only natural lakefront wetland along the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario,
Rattray Marsh is a priority area not just for CVC and the City of Mississauga,
but also the federal and provincial ministries of natural resources. There are
a lot of stakeholders invested in seeing the continued preservation of Rattray
Marsh. This has been helpful for funding projects at the marsh, because the
volunteer-run RMPA no longer has to rely on the generosity of wealthy,
anonymous local benefactors to carry out conservation projects. Canada 150
signs, signalling support from the federal government’s Community
Infrastructure Program, are now sprinkled throughout the property.
No
matter the involvement of higher levels of government, the community
surrounding Rattray Marsh remains heavily involved in its upkeep, as Williams
is quick to point out. Many local residents have homes that back directly onto
the Marsh and they are quick to report sightings of invasive species of plant
and animal life and assist in cleaning up waste. RMPA organizes spring cleanup
days, which are well-attended each year. Freyja Whitten, the invasive species
coordinator for CVC, says that, in the last seven years, volunteers from the
local neighbourhood have put in over 500 hours cleaning up the marsh, helping
to restore its biological diversity and ensure its long-term health and
sustainability.
Rattray
Marsh is one part of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, which extends from
Niagara-on-the-Lake in the west to Brockville in the east. The Waterfront Trail
was opened in 1995, following a 1988 report from the Royal Commission on the
Future of the Toronto Waterfront, chaired by former Toronto Mayor David
Crombie. Williams caught up with Crombie, an old friend, last October, when
they were on the 2017 Conservation Authorities Biennial Tour, a guided tour of
sites controlled by CVC and Conservation Halton. During their chat at the
marsh, Crombie lamented the fact that the Waterfront Trail is not as natural
everywhere as it is at Rattray, that in many places the trail is obviously
manufactured.
While
man-made green spaces are the cause of concern for Crombie, they are not for
Munteanu. A limnologist with a degree from Concordia University, meaning she is
trained in the study of inland waters, Munteanu now teaches writing courses at
the University of Toronto and George Brown College. The author of the 2016 book
Water Is…, a critical look at the importance of Canada’s wetlands,
Munteanu says that we have our work cut out for us if there is to be any hope
of preserving wetlands. In her words, they are among the “least-appreciated”
ecosystems, because of their hybrid nature.
“With the loss of more than two-thirds of Canada’s wetlands, we have also lost much of the services these spaces offer.”
In
Munteanu’s field, the technical term for wetland is ecotone—a term referring to
the convergence of two ecosystems into one. In particular, the convergence of
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. With the loss of more than two-thirds of
Canada’s wetlands, we have also lost much of the services these spaces offer.
Wetlands serve as natural combatants to climate change. The fertile soil in
wetlands acts as a “carbon sink,” in Munteanu’s words, storing carbon and other
pollutants that otherwise would be in the atmosphere. So, manufactured green
spaces like Inspiration Lakeview have become necessary to fill this important
role.
By
mixing terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, wetlands also provide a balance and
complexity that would otherwise be lacking in our ecosystems. This allows them
to act as a refuge for plant and animal life. But a diversity of wildlife can
only thrive at places like Rattray Marsh thanks to the efforts of CVC’s Whitten
and others in her field.
Whitten defines invasive species as any species of
plant or animal that is not native to an area and outcompetes and outgrows the
native wildlife. By the time Whitten and CVC were getting involved with
invasive species management at Rattray Marsh in 2009, it was too late to
reverse the damage that had been done by the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), a beetle
that infected the ash trees in the region. The effect the EAB has had on the
canopy at Rattray has been, in some areas, devastating, leaving gaping holes in
the sky where a few short years ago there were tall, healthy-looking trees.
Even if Whitten’s team had come aboard the struggle
with the EAB sooner, it is unlikely they would have been successful in
affecting a meaningful change—a chronic lack of dedicated funding for CVC means
there is only so much she can do, regardless of support for other conservation
projects from the federal and provincial governments.
On other fronts, Whitten’s team has enjoyed greater
success. Purple loosestrife, a beautiful flowering plant that takes over
waterways and crowds out virtually all other organisms, is under control at
Rattray, thanks to years of effort. And invasive carp are now blocked from
swimming up Sheridan Creek by a mesh fencing where the creek flows out to Lake
Ontario. Those efforts have been so successful that Whitten now provides advice
to other conservation authorities on the best management practices for dealing
with those invasive species.
By coordinating with other conservation
authorities, Whitten is accomplishing a key goal of the Ontario Invasive Plant
Council (OIPC). As OIPC’s chairperson Kellie Sherman explains, ten years ago
there was a crying need for an umbrella organization to “bridge municipalities”
and coordinate the battle against invasive species among all of the province’s
conservation authorities. OIPC has provided that service and, while a lack of
money is still an issue, Sherman says the organization is “getting there” in in
terms of funding.
Back at Rattray, for Whitten it is a case of
getting one step ahead and then falling back again in the fight against
invasive species. The carp are under control, but high-water levels in the
marsh last spring resulted in the reintroduction of invasive plants, such as
the tall perennial grass Phragmites, in areas where Whitten had gotten their
presence under control. So high were the waters in 2017, Williams said that she
cannot recall a worse year for flooding in the marsh in the four decades she’s
lived in the area. It’s an uphill battle to maintain the health and
biodiversity of Rattray Marsh and other wetlands, but for Whitten the fight
never ends.
About the outlook for the marsh, Williams is
optimistic. She is in her late eighties, though her vigour belies that fact and
she prefers to say, “I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.”
Young people give her a reason to be optimistic in the twilight of her years.
In a transatlantic accent similar to the actress Angela Lansbury’s voice in its
patrician air, Williams speaks enthusiastically about involving students from
the local elementary schools, many of them first-generation Canadians, in
conservation projects. “They are the future, and they care about this place.
And they get their parents to care. It’s a wonderful thing to see.”
Projects like Inspiration Lakeview give Munteanu
reason to be hopeful about the future of wetlands in general, since she says
that conservation happens at the local level. When Inspiration Lakeview is
completed, it will join Rattray Marsh in providing refuge for the birds,
insects and other species of wildlife that rely on the shoreline of Southern
Ontario as a stopover area on migratory routes. Mike Puddister, the restoration
and stewardship coordinator for CVC, described the Lakeview site to The
Toronto Star as his organization’s own “field of dreams,” saying that if
they build it, wildlife will come. That will be Jim Tovey’s legacy. In
Munteanu’s words, “what a cool way to honour a man who dedicated his life and
career to making this world a better place for everyone.”
John Wilson is a Toronto-based freelance editor and writer. For inquiries, please contact him at editor@thecompass.ca.
The perplexities of the spiritual world are explored through John Pothiah, a well-known Peterborough psychic.
By Bianca Mazziotti | Featured image courtesy of Pixabay | April 18, 2019
We hear his footsteps coming down the stairs. Andrea Hester and I stop our conversation and look up to see her husband, John Pothiah, standing in the doorway. The 67-year-old psychic comes to about 5’ 4,” with dark skin and brown eyes that are always moving and never seem to focus on anything in particular. He appears completely drained and distant, which begs me to wonder if I am welcome. Pothiah lifts his hand so I can shake it and gives me a small smile before leading me up to the second floor of his red-brick house, nestled in the quiet suburbs of Peterborough.
As I walk up the stairs and enter a room I have only been in twice before, my mind wanders as to what my true intentions are. I’ve been lying to most people, saying I am here just for an assignment, undeniably masking the fact that I am looking for more. The truth is, I am searching for proof that the world beyond the physical exists.
I sit down in a big red leather chair, knowing I am going in with a skeptical eye, searching for the smoke and mirrors behind the magician that is Pothiah. I take a deep breath as he quickly enters the room, wondering if my questions will be answered soon.
He stands in front of me as he begins my third psychic reading with him, and I immediately notice a change from a few minutes earlier. The tired man I saw before now has transformed into what seems like an energetic child.
Pothiah begins to talk at a rapid speed, and his face lights up as he discusses what he says have been my past lives. “You’ve been a writer in many lifetimes,” he says. “You used to be a short man, a bit plump, but you could write sonnets like crazy.”
Pothiah speaks about the spiritual world as if he has never known anything else. He says he is clairsentient, which means he is able to interpret the energy around him and make predictions based on the information he receives. He will try to convince anyone that past lives, spirit guides, ghosts and aliens exist. Pothiah speaks about these topics with such conviction that it’s easy to get caught up in his beliefs. After being around Pothiah for some time, I feel a push to try and find evidence to back up his claims. The problem is that finding such evidence is quite difficult, to understate.
Life beyond the physical is challenging to measure; however, Michael Newton, who has his doctorate in Counseling Psychology and is the Founder of the U.S. Newton Institute for Life Between Lives Hypnotherapy (TNI), claims he found a way to detect what happens after you die. Newton used a technique that has existed since the 2nd century BC, called past life regression. Past life regression involves a patient being hypnotized to remember their past lives, because it is believed we store everything in our subconscious that our soul has gone through. Usually, hypnotherapists use it to help patients discover and heal from the trauma that has been brought over from their past lives; however, Newton decided to use hypnosis to take the patient back between their past life and current life, so they can relive their last death and discover the spirit world that follows.
In Newton’s 1994 book, Journey of Souls, he explored the many case studies he conducted that support life after death. What Newton discovered was that his patients had similar experiences after they died in a previous life. The main commonalities involved a feeling of being pulled out of the body and continuing as a radiant white light, which is believed to be the soul. Newton said after his patients realized they had died, they mostly had the same response: “The most common type of reaction I hear is a relieved sigh, followed by something along the lines of, ‘Wonderful! I’m home in this beautiful place again.’” The patients say their soul feels at peace and they are happy to be rid of their human body. However, proclamations that suggest there is life after death are difficult for most people to accept. people are beginning to accept the possibility of something beyond the physical. There is an increasing number of people turning to psychics when life becomes uncertain. In an article by IBISWorld, titled Psychic Services Industry in the US, the rise in popularity of psychics is explored: “Over the past five years, the Psychic Services industry has grown by 2.0% to reach revenue of $2bn in 2018.” It is clear psychics are more widely accepted by the public, but they haven’t always been accepted.
A Psychic From a Young Age
When John Pothiah was a young boy, society treated him harshly. In 1956, at the age of five, he moved to Tottenham, England from South Africa, and had to learn the hard way just how different he really was. It became obvious when he was enrolled in a Catholic school and started attending church regularly. He would look up at the stained-glass windows of St. Francis Catholic Church and notice the array of colours surrounding the people depicted in them. The colours he saw mirrored what he saw every day: auras.
Pothiah describes auras as a unique formation of colours that radiate from us, based on our personality and soul. It is not something that most people can see, but Pothiah believes everyone has them, and he has been seeing auras since birth. When Pothiah told the nuns at his school, they would beat him and say he was evil. This made Pothiah suppress his connection to the spirit world and not tell anyone about his abilities for years to come.
Aside from having to deal with the difficulties that come with navigating the spiritual world at such a young age, Pothiah also had to contend with racism. Pothiah’s family had escaped apartheid, but Britain, was not free from discrimination. Being of Indian descent, Pothiah was not treated the same as the other children at his Catholic school. Pothiah was neglected by his teachers and because of the lack of attention, he was still unable to read and write at age seven.
But what happened next seems like something out of a fairy tale. Pothiah says that, at this time, his spirit guides stepped in. These are evolved beings of the spirit world that Pothiah says taught him everything he knows. He says they taught him how to read: “They showed me how to absorb the knowledge of any book, just by holding it,” he says. This new skill catapulted Pothiah to the top of his class. “The teacher thought I was a genius. I wasn’t! My spirit guides helped me cheat.”
Pothiah excelled in school and discovered many subjects of interest, but he did not find his true passion until he moved to Peterborough, Ont., at age 21, and got a job as an aerospace machinist at Magna, Dowty ITT.
Pothiah says his spirit guides stayed with him throughout every challenge and success in his life and eventually encouraged him to become a professional psychic in his downtime. Due to the words of assurance from his spirit guides, Pothiah has been a successful, professional psychic for over 30 years, and he says it all started with just one small advertisement he placed in the Peterborough Examiner.
One of Pothiah’s repeat clients is Nicole Spradbrow, a 42-year-old massage therapist from Peterborough. She has had seven readings with Pothiah over the past 15 years. At first, she was skeptical of Pothiah’s abilities, but after his predictions rang true, she kept coming back. “He told me when people in my life were going to pass away,” she says. “He described the people and the circumstances around them and then told me approximately when they would die. Both times, his predictions were accurate.”
“He told me when people in my life were going to pass away.”
Pothiah does not usually tell clients when their loved ones will pass away, because it is far too much for most people to deal with. He will also not tell you when you will die, or if your partner is cheating on you. If you are single, however, he will say in great detail who your next partner will be and roughly when they will come into your life: “He describes them, the circumstances around them, what he sees us doing, and at the time, I don’t think it is ever going to happen, and then I meet that person and it freaks me out,” says Spradbrow. She is just one of many believers in Pothiah.
John Armitage, however, is not as convinced of Pothiah’s abilities. Armitage’s first and only reading with Pothiah took place in 2013, and the now 25-year-old executive chef at Peterborough’s Summit Terrace Luxury Senior Apartments says the psychic was wrong on multiple fronts; the first concerning his career. “He told me I would move to Toronto and become a big-time chef, and that didn’t happen.” Armitage still lives in Peterborough, where he was born and raised. Another prediction that was not accurate relates to Armitage’s love life. Pothiah told Armitage he would meet a woman named Jenn within the following four years and eventually get married. “I have not found anyone named Jenn, or even come close to marriage.”
When I confronted Pothiah about his inaccurate predictions he told me some people are more difficult to read than others. “You can see through the walls they put up but you can just see hints because they don’t want you to know everything.” Pothiah also points out that certain spirits are more challenging to connect with. “When spirit comes in it’s like trying to fine-tune a radio station for someone until you get them in clear. Sometimes spirit comes on strong and sometimes it’s weak.”
Due to inaccurate predictions and the rise in fake psychics, scientists have often tried to find evidence to prove or disprove psychic abilities, but few have gone as far as James Randi. Toronto-born Randi, a scientific skeptic and the Co-Founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), decided to create a series of challenges to prove the validity of psychics. This was first developed in 1964, and anyone with enough confidence was allowed to take it on. If the psychic could prove their abilities, they would win one thousand dollars. Over the years, the prize money increased, and by the termination of the challenges, in 2015, it had grown to one million dollars.
Over the course of five decades, up to a thousand people had taken Randi’s series of challenges, and none was able to pass.
With no solid evidence proving there is such a thing as psychic powers, then why do many people still spend time and money consulting with psychics?
A Huffington Post article titled Are More People Turning to Psychics for Life Advice, investigated just how expensive some psychics can be. “In 2015, Fortune profiled some of the top business psychics in the U.S., with many charging up to $10,000 a day for guidance,” the article reported. Pothiah, on the other hand, charges $100 per hour and, at the height of his psychic career, he was seeing about 21 clients per week.
When asked what is the most common reason people go to psychics, Pothiah says most want to find their purpose. Jeff Brown, a 57-year-old former lawyer from Toronto, turned spiritual writer, went to Pothiah for this reason, and found his one-hour psychic reading to be life-changing. “I feel like the essence of what he said to me made me feel validated and empowered. I walked out of there feeling like I am on the right path. I am here to do something intensely powerful, and I have what it takes to do it. Who gets a message like that just anywhere?”
Brown’s reading with Pothiah affected him greatly, to the point where he discussed it in his book, Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation. “If the best adventures are those that turn our expectations upside down, then I was in a full-blown headstand,” he wrote. “This stranger seemed to know my story inside out. Every word he uttered resonated.”
Hearing about Brown’s experience with Pothiah only reminded me of my own reading.
What Pothiah instilled in me, that cold November night, was hope.
As I left his house, walking down the front doorsteps, hearing the fresh snow crunching under my feet, I felt a sense of calm in the knowledge that I was on the right path regarding my career. Pothiah seemed to understand me on a personal level; he fully expressed my fears and dreams, without me saying anything. My reading with him only left me with more questions about the existence of the spirit world. Comparing the many failed scientific studies indicating that psychics do not exist, with my own reading, I wondered if we are not meant to know for certain what is beyond the physical. Maybe psychics, spirit guides, past lives and ghosts are all meant to remain a mystery to us, just like death.
Bianca Mazziotti is a freelance writer. For inquiries, please contact her at bianca0830@hotmail.com.
thescribbler.ca 