In the energy of early June’s strawberry moon, longtime Newmarket resident and Indigenous medicine woman, Asha Frost, received word that she had been awarded a $10,000 book deal with a large and influential human empowerment publisher.
Frost, who is Anishinaabe and calls the Ojibwe First Nations band Cape Croker home, answered a call-out for voices from folks of colour from Hay House Publishing. It was the publishing house’s first diverse wisdom initiative and a process that began last summer.
Guided by her July 2019 essay, Dear White Woman, who wants to be like me, that went viral and has so far been shared on social more than 23,000 times, Frost was one of 13 people selected to go to a Hay House writers workshop in Houston, Texas.
“I wrote about how there aren’t many Indigenous voices that are in their publishing house, and a lot of the teachings that are shared through their authors come from Indigenous people,” said Frost. “So, I was like, I want to be the one, I want to be the voice because my voice is underrepresented in these spaces, and they agreed.”
From there, Frost developed a book proposal with the working title, You are the Medicine, and that subject matter landed her the deal.
“It really is like a lifelong dream, a 23-year-long dream,” Frost said. “I feel so grateful because now I get to write the book.”
“Because I’m an Indigenous person, the book is coming from my own sacred medicine teachings and lineage,” she said. “So, it’s going to be based around our moon cycles and it’s going to be like a monthly practice for people to get into the habit of coming back to their own knowing, their own wisdom, and how they can heal through what I’m teaching, and find their own medicine way through that.”
Frost credits her mentor, Rebekah Borucki, for standing with her through the Hay House journey. The bi-racial mom, meditation guide and fellow Hay House author was a “fierce voice” in calling on the publisher to welcome diverse voices, she said.
For nearly two decades, Frost has served thousands of people in Newmarket and throughout York Region with her healing circles, medicine teachings, ceremonies and workshops.
She studied psychology at Guelph University, and later went on to become a homeopath with a practice in Newmarket. When she became pregnant with her second son a few years ago, Frost decided to move her practice online, where she has created a global community whose members can experience her healing circles, teaching and energy in a virtual way.
“I feel so blessed that that had happened because if I was still in private practice, I’d be at a loss at what to do right now,” said Frost, of the nearly three-month-long shutdown of the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Frost’s introduction to Hay House and its namesake author, Louise Hay, came during her late teens when she was diagnosed with chronic illness, Lupus.
Hay’s bestseller, Heal Your Body, was the first such self-empowerment book Frost read by the author.
“My number one mentor is my mother, I consider her my greatest teacher, and my elder, actually, she’s taught me so many things that I know,” said Frost, who has studied with many teachers over the years.
“There are medicine men and medicine women in my journey,” she said. “I have Lupus, and that’s what got me on this journey, all the people that have helped me through healing myself is where I’ve learned the most.”
“People have taught me knowledge and that’s important, but the biggest teaching and learning that has happened has been through this illness, and how it’s broken me apart, and the people who’ve helped,” Frost said. “I’ve just got some great therapists and healers and space-holders in my life that I can dedicate all this to because they’ve helped me to find myself again.”
You are the Medicine is expected to be published in 2022. Frost said she has about nine months to write it, starting now.
About the same time, she will also pursue another dream project to create her own oracle deck, which are medicine cards that carry healing messages to help people on their own journey.
During this time when many people around the world are reflecting deeply, Frost said she wishes people would learn more about Canada's history.
“I hear a lot that we’re not a racist country, but racism exists in many places in our country,” she said. “I’ve experienced racist behaviour in Newmarket.”
“I would want people to see how many of our First Nations communities don’t have clean drinking water, our women go missing and are murdered and nobody really seems to care about that,” Frost said. “There’s a lot of things that are happening that I just wish people would start to acknowledge, and not put blinders on to the real stuff that’s happening to Indigenous people.”
For more information on Asha Frost, visit here.
