Born into a primarily English-speaking family in Montreal, Odette identifies as a Norwegian Ashkenazi Jew with not so distant
Norwegian, Russian, Polish Nomadic roots. She was raised speaking English and French and hearing a lot of Yiddish and Norwegian. This was the beginning of her interest in how our use of language uses and shapes us. The disciplines of dancing, horse training, and skiing kept her grounded and focused until a moment of not listening to her intuition brought her into full collision/impact with a car. That moment in 1996 was the beginning of a profound unfolding of healing, exploring, teaching that continues to and beyond this day.
Plant medicine has lightly woven its way through Odette’s life since 1981 as well as dance, hand drumming, vocal work, the Vedas, gardening, almost obsessive seed saving, herbalism, and homebirth.
As a dancer, movement and meditation teacher, birth keeper, performing artist, entrepreneur, Odette has presented at drumming, athletic and dance conferences; organized community events; received support for the creation and performance of her own installations; facilitated blessing way ceremonies for emergent moms and babies as well as rite of passage moon ceremonies for young women; and has created and presented sacred sound workshops for the last five years, with her life partner, at The Sentinel Retreat Centre. Their next retreat offering in July of 2023, will guide participants into meeting and embodying the fullness of the sun and moon through practices including movement, drumming, Sanskrit mantra initiation, and deliberately connecting with nature and her elements.
As the divine feminine is emerging in this world, so must the divine masculine to create unparalleled balance, rigour, ease and harmony in our individual unfolding.
Odette is profoundly grateful to be a mother, sister, auntie partner and grandmother living, loving, playing and sometimes grappling with everything in the the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples – S?wx?wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:l? and S?l?ílw?ta?/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and x?m??k??y??m (Musqueam) Nations.
Odette Slater
Somatic Facilitator
BA (HONS) Contemporary Dance
Yoga Pilates Reiki Cranio-sacral Doula
