Ofrenda Magazine Issue 02: Nepantla

L ATI NX SPI RIT UAL IT Y • A N C E STR A L C O N N ECT I O N • E A R T H + JUST I C E • H E A LI NG A R T S

ofrenda M A G A Z I N E

ISSUE 02: NEPANTLA

Art Feature: Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá

All My Relations/Nepantla, or the Human Condition

Nepantla Lessons for Transformation

Sabrina Zarco

Chicueyi Coatl

AnaLouise Keating

FROM THE EDITOR

What does “nepantla” mean?

N

EPANTLA IS A Nahuatl word that’s been translated as “between,” “betweenness,” and “tierra entre medio.” Nepantla conjures ideas of blending, mixing, and being of two cultures.

It suggests a process of weaving two into one. In the natural sense, it suggests union, transformation, and the energetic connection of everything in the cosmos.

Many of us can thank Gloria Anzaldúa for bringing the concept of nepantla into our consciousness and vocabulary. Largely because of her work, we now often see the word used in relation to the experience of living in, among, or between two or more cultures or experiences—and acknowledging the transformative work and power of that space.

It was through Anzaldúa’s writings that I first learned of this special word, nepantla. It helped me label feelings I had sensed since I was a young child. For as long as I can remember, I felt that being of two spaces, of two worlds at once, was part of what made me who I am: one foot in one world, one foot in another. In my youth (also the days of hyphens), the worlds were “Mexican” and “American.” Protestant and Catholic. Brown and güera. Later, as one of the first in my family to go to college and the first to move away for further education and jobs,

the worlds were West Coast and East Coast, “working class” and “ivory tower.” North and South. Eastern philosophies and Western ideologies. Theism and animism.

It wasn’t that I claimed all of these spaces directly, but I understood the inherent power of having experienced them. I knew how to code switch. Having one foot in one world and one in another gave me the ability to both empathize and critique in ways I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. I could “see” in ways that others—whether my family of origin or my ever-ivory-tower colleagues—couldn’t. My nepantla helped me value the nepantla of others, including my two-spirit and neurodiverse friends. Nepantla can be painful, but it is also a superpower.

My appreciation of this special word, nepantla, deepened when I learned more about its original meaning in Nahuatl. James Maffie, scholar and author of Aztec Philosophy, explains that nepantla is a “root metaphor” in the metaphysics or cosmovision of the Aztec/Nahua people. It is one of the expressions of teotl (the “ultimate reality”),

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characterized by the merging, blending, churning, and weaving of two into a new whole. Nothing is static. Transformation itself is reality. As Chicueyi Coatl points out in this issue, the Nahuatl meaning of nepantla reminds us that everything is related—and constantly merging, growing, evolving into a new whole.

In this issue of Ofrenda Magazine, we honor all these ideas of nepantla: expressions of two-ness, liminality, weaving, discovery, and transformation—including the seasonal transformation that is spring. With deep gratitude for their wisdom, unique perspectives, hearts, and words, I share with you the work of this issue’s contributors. May the words from their sacred breath inspire you— bringing you joy, encouragement, and healing. Be on the lookout for audio versions of these creative works, too. A few are included in the web version of this issue, and we’ll be posting more in weeks to come. Thank you for being part of the community.

—M. Carbajal, Editor in Chief

“Seed Memory” design by John Jairo Valencia

FALL FUNDRAISER September 26–October 5 www.bonfire.com/store/ofrenda-magazine (Click anywhere on this ad to shop.)

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Contents ISSUE 02: NEPANTLA | MAR / APR 2021

FEATURES COSMOVISION + CULTURE

All My Relations / Nepantla, or the Human Condition | 14 WORDS BY CHICUEYI COATL COSMOVISION + CULTURE

Nepantla Lessons for Transformation | 22 WORDS BY ANALOUISE KEATING ARTIVISM

Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá | 34 WORDS AND ART BY SABRINA ZARCO TESTIMONIOS

Blaxicana Futures, Part 1 | 38 WORDS AND IMAGES BY NAYA JONES

PRACTICES / CURANDERISMO

Rebirthing with the Sun’s Energy | 44 WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL

Learning from Red Alder | 50 WORDS BY LARA PACHECO

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TESTIMONIOS

Nepantlera—Becoming Verb: Shapeshifting in the Modern World | 56 WORDS BY BRANDI AMARA SKYY

Living la Vida Pocha | 60 WORDS BY CHARLENE BENCOMO AND KAT SÁNCHEZ

stillness. | 64 WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMERON NAVARRO

BOOKS + AUTHORS

On Iwígara | 70 AN INTERVIEW WITH ENRIQUE SALMÓN, AUTHOR OF IWÍGARA

MEDITATIONS / VERSE

YOSOY | 76 WORDS BY SERGIO C. MORENO DENTON

Divine Right | 80 WORDS BY XOLAYRUCA

Find links to online content and shops where you see the link icon.

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CONTRIBUTORS

AnaLouise Keating

Brandi Amara Skyy

Cameron Navarro

ANALOUISE KEATING is a

BRANDI AMARA SKYY (Brown

CAMERON NAVARRO is a

nepantlera/x, womanist

Indigenous Xicanx) is a healer,

white Xicanx social worker

spiritual activist, scholar,

writer, and Nepantlera for

working to create purposeful,

and yoga teacher/student,

folxs who are ready to make

sustainable, healing-centered

who worked with Gloria

(r)evolutionary change in the

(trauma-informed) change in

Anzaldúa on numerous

world by living, creating, and

our community by challenging

projects, including Interviews/

sharing from the center of

and dismantling systems

Entrevistas, this bridge we

their full, authentic selves.

of oppression. He is the co-

call home, and Light in the

Book a reading, listen to

founder of Pa’lante Consulting,

Dark. Keating is the author of

her podcast The Plática

LLC and the co-host of Life is

several books, most recently

Sessions, and join her free

Work podcast, available on all

Transformation Now! Towards

Mi Gente Community at

platforms. Find him on IG at

a Post-Oppositional Politics

brandiamaraskyy.com.

@palanteconsults and

of Change, and a professor

@lifeisworkpod.

of Multicultural Women’s

PHOTO CREDIT:

& Gender Studies at Texas

BRANDI AMARA SKYY

Woman’s University.

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Charlene Bencomo & Kat Sánchez

Chicueyi Coatl

Cuauhtli Cihuatl

CHARLENE BENCOMO is a

CHICUEYI COATL, born in

CUAUHTLI CIHUATL

proud Chicana and mama

Mexico-Tenochtitlan, comes

(Indigenous), who is also

of two, born and raised in

from a lineage of Nahua

known as Maestra CC, is an

southern New Mexico. KAT

temazcaleros, pulqueros,

elder and the founder of

SÁNCHEZ, a self proclaimed

growers and protectors of

Kalpulli Teocalli Ollin in New

political junkie, is a queer, first-

huauhtli (amaranth), tlaolli

Mexico. She is a Mexhika

generation Latina raised in the

(corn), etl (beans), and

Huesteca, Raramuri, and

Texas/Mexico borderlands. You

metl (agaves). A scholar of

Lipan Apache ceremonialist.

can hear more from these

Anahuacan Traditions, she

She holds a J.D., a Ph.D. in

mujeres on the Pocha

teaches at Calmecac Tlalocan

public health and community

Podcast, where they routinely

and has been invited to teach

education, and a master’s

navigate the world as Pochas,

at UC Berkeley, UC Santa

degree in social work. Now

women, survivors—and,

Barbara, California College of

retired, she spends her

occasionally, as chingonas.

the Arts, and other institutions

energy on her Jardin Patzin.

Find them on Instagram

in the U.S. and Mexico City.

Her mission is to share her

@PochaPodcast and Twitter @PochaPodcast.

PHOTO CREDIT: KAT SÁNCHEZ

Abuelita’s traditions, for “la PHOTO CREDIT: PATRICIA JUÁREZ

medicina es para todos.”

PHOTO CREDIT: D’SANTI NAVA

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CONTRIBUTORS

Enrique Salmón

Lara Pacheco

ENRIQUE SALMÓN (Rarámuri)

LARA PACHECO (Taíno, Latinx)

NAYA JONES, Ph.D., is a

is head of the American

is a mamita who runs Atabey

Blaxicana geographer, cultural

Indian Studies Program at

Medicine of Seed and Thistle

worker, and ceremonykeeper.

California State University,

Apothecary, an educational

Through ritual art and

East Bay, in Hayward,

resource that centers Queer,

community-rooted research,

California. He has spoken

Trans, and Gender-fluid Black

she lifts up Black “old ways”

and published on indigenous

and Indigenous voices within

from North and Latin America.

ethnobotany, agriculture,

herbalism. In connection with

She is an Assistant Professor

nutrition, and traditional

their Taino roots, Lara is a

at the University of California,

ecological knowledge, among

behike (ceremonialist) training

Santa Cruz. She has guided

other topics. Dr. Salmón has

with the Caney Indigenous

meditation and ceremony

authored the books Eating The

Spiritual Circle. Lara is also a

since 2008, and she continues

Landscape: American Indian

second-year Qi Gong student

to learn with elders. Find her

Stories of Food, Identity, and

and a first-year student

work at nayajones.com.

Resilience and Iwígara: The

with POCA Tech’s Liberation

Kinship of Plants and People.

Acupuncture program, helping

He is also a contributor to

to bring access to care to

the edited volume, Wildness:

everyone.

Relations of People and Place.

PHOTO CREDIT: PAIGE COMMON PHOTO CREDIT: ENRIQUE SALMÓN

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Naya Jones

PHOTO CREDIT: KEVIN THOMAS

Sabrina Zarco

Sergio C. MorenoDenton

Xolayruca

SABRINA ZARCO is an

SERGIO C. MORENO-DENTON

XOLAYRUCA is a poet, writer,

award-winning autistic,

is a hospital chaplain

and student of life. Growing

ChicanIndia, queer femme

specializing in the care of

up in Southeast Los Angeles

multi-media artist, activist,

patients with long-term

(SELA) has deeply influenced

poet, and cultural worker.

illness and at the end of life.

who she is and where she

She fuses her unique way

They serve as meditation

is going. Her poetry flows

of experiencing the world

and dharma instructor at a

in English and Spanish

with cultural influences to

Buddhist center in Kansas

inspired by the richness of

create her visual artwork. Her

City, Missouri, where they

the concrete jungles of her

distinctive visionary processes

live with their partner, their

childhood and the lessons

of creating art manifest in

two daughters, and two

learned a trancazos. SELA

a variety of multi-textural

dogs. Sergio’s interests

courses through her veins

media. Sabrina’s works tell

include spiritual caregiving,

and erupts in a lava of poetry

stories, show us dreams, and

curanderismo, Nahuatl

that is thick with emotion, hot

visually articulate how she

language, milpa food systems,

with coraje, and hardens to

views the world. Find her at

and decolonial ways of being.

shiny pieces, where, if you look

SabrinaZarco.com.

closely, you can see yourself.

PHOTO CREDIT: SC MORENO-

PHOTO CREDIT: LILIANA HUESO

DENTON

PHOTO CREDIT: KARINA MARTIR

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LISTEN ONLINE

ALL MY RELATIONS /

Nepantla, or the

Human Condition

How do you say “all my relations” in Nahuatl? Scholar, healing practitioner, and Nahuatl speaker Chicueyi Coatl explains the significance of the word nepantla.

WORDS BY CHICUEYI COATL

H

OW DO YOU say ‘all my relations’ in Nahuatl?” A dear friend of mine, a relative who has followed the path of the Sundance Ceremonial life for more than twenty years, asked me this question not long ago. With only these nine simple words, this dear relative touched so many deeply complex and profound aspects of what a lot of us Mexican/Chicanx practitioners of our Indigenous cultures experience every day here in “el gabacho,” “el Norte,” “gringolandia,” “America,” “the land of the free” (free to develop a whole range of consumeristic addictions, mind you).

Axcan nican tichantih. We now live here.

Yes, many of us now live here in Xučyun (Huichin) Territory, unceded Ohlone Land, also known as the Bay Area, California. We came here uninvited; uninvited guests in this sacred land, we are. Most of us came running away from violence, whether physical, sexual, or economic—or all of the above. For others of us, the horrific wound called “border” crossed our lives, leaving separated families with members on each side of that wound.

Some of us who are Nahua people brought our full Nahuatl language, culture, and cosmovision along, which has given us strength.

Others of us, unfortunately, carried only vague memories of a forgotten Nahua ancestry.

All of us, however, came looking for work, for a better life. All of us dedicated ourselves to learning as much as we could. All of us worked hard to survive. Most of us were confronted with dehumanizing work conditions that, in some cases, allowed us to send much-needed funds to our families on

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the other side of the wound. Long hours, long shifts, long days, over and over again.

Exhausted and depleted on the outside, but with peace of mind on the inside, we worked, knowing our work was helping our loved ones survive. This knowledge brought some much-needed comfort to our wounded souls.

Sometimes, however, when we came back home exhausted, painfully craving our mother’s tortillas de comal, hechas a mano, when we were painfully yearning for our pueblos, our old towns, for the beautiful, delicious smell of the soil when it’s raining, one of those days when the only thing we could do was to cry, alone, we were heavily confronted with that very present or long-forgotten ancestry. To different extents, whether we were practitioners of our Nahua culture or thought we had forgotten it, we all felt like orphans. Orphans of our culture, we felt naked and vulnerable while having to face the monster of capitalism, a predatory monster that engulfed our lives, our sanity, our health, our bodies, and ultimately our souls, our spirits, our willpower.

Fortunately, that’s exactly when some of us, lucky enough to have paid attention, lucky enough to have opened our eyes and hearts, found the “All My Relations” philosophy, or Aho Mitakuye Oyasin in Lakota. Or should we say that All Our Relations found us? We were then no longer orphans in front of that monster. We knew pretty well that we were not Lakota, but that didn’t matter because we knew we were their kin. We felt it, we loved it, and we appreciated it.

This kinship saved countless of us from both horrific physical and unbearable spiritual

deaths. Without consciously knowing it, we had opened one of the doors to nepantla, the middle, the in-between, and we walked in— this time, though, joyously invited. We had found a home far from home, one where, if respectful of the Traditions, we would not only be respected in return but, most importantly, taken care of, supported, listened to, attended to. In reciprocity, we offered our hearts, our work, our loyalty.

And, when given permission, we offered sacred copalli, Nahuatl healing cantos, and Nahuatl prayers. Some of us, a lucky few, were allowed to offer Cauhpohualli, the Nahuatl Counting of Time and Space. Some of our people started being trusted among our hosts, who then gave us important ceremonial cargos, or responsibilities. “Nepantla characterizes a particular kind of process or activity: one consisting of middling mutuality and balanced reciprocity,” as scholar James Maffie points out.* And then, after decades of living the Sundance Ceremonial life, some of our Mexican/ Chicanx relatives started verbalizing longheld questions, such as, how do you say so-and-so in Nahuatl? Do Nahua communities also do so-and-so? Always eager and hungry to know an equivalent in the Nahua Tradition, they were trying to find “mirrors” of each recently learned or long-practiced ceremonial movement, element, or prayer.

W

HEN MY FRIEND contacted me exclusively to ask, “How do you say ‘all my relations’ in Nahuatl?”

I was elated to try to answer that question, and knowing that this wasn’t going to be a direct-translation type of answer, I started

As a Nahua woman, my heart fully knows that there are many beautiful and complex layers to our being here as uninvited guests.

One of those layers is how we Nahua learn, practice, share, and talk about Sacred Traditions from our relatives here in the North.

typing a long email to respond. Nahuatl is such a complex, beautiful, deep, philosophical language that does not deserve to be translated directly; we lose a lot of meaning when we try. It was already late, so I went to bed and decided to continue writing the

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Since everything is interconnected, and given that we are but only a small fraction of that everything, whatever we can see, as well as what we can’t, is an extension of us.

next day. But that night, and for several consecutive nights, my dreams reminded me of the beauty and complexity of the word nepantla. No, there is no simple translation, they, my dreams, told me. No, you know that any relationship is not as simple as a direct translation.

As a Nahua woman, my heart fully knows that there are many beautiful and complex layers to our being here as uninvited guests.

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One of those layers is how we Nahua learn, practice, share, and talk about Sacred Traditions from our relatives here in the North.

We live in our own unique nepantla: we are Mexica danzantes or Nahua curanderxs; we attend sweat lodges; we pray with cedar; we sing some cantos in Nahuatl. We love what we do, and we love being in Huichin, sacred Ohlone Land. Can you be in love with two or more lands and Sacred Traditions at the same time?

As Maffie notes, “Nepantla functions both descriptively and prescriptively in Nahua philosophy. It plays a central role in Nahua metaphysics’ account of the nature of reality and of the human condition. It also plays a central role in Nahua wisdom, ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics, e.g., in their normative conceptions of the good life for human beings, good conduct, good cognizing, and good art. Nepantla accordingly figures prominently in Nahua prescriptions concerning how humans ought to conduct their lives in all respects: how to behave, think, feel, judge, speak, sing, dress, eat, create, weave, and work.”

In the Nahua Tradition, everything (whether we can see it or not) is a living being, an animated being, a being with consciousness and at least one soul, and all of this is sacred since Tloque Nahuaque, the Great Spirit, granted it. As I learned with maestro Gerardo Roque, Nahuatl language notemachticatzin, my venerable maestro: everything is connected; everything is related to everything—the above with the below, the far with the near, the water with the fire, the earth with the wind, the living with the dead. We, macehualtin (human beings), are

connected to each other and with the cosmos, and the cosmos is connected with nature. Everything is in relation to everything.

Since everything is interconnected, and given that we are but only a small fraction of that everything, whatever we can see, as well as what we can’t, is an extension of us. Therefore, we are an extension of that immense vastness—a vastness so profound, so deep, so complex that we might never be able to comprehend it. Because everything is an animated being, everything is living—a table, a rock, a chair, animals, the water, the wind, and so forth. Because it is living, everything has consciousness and at least one “soul.” (You see, we macehualtin have at least three “souls,” according to maestro Alfredo López Austin). Any animated being, any holder of a soul, deserves the utmost respect and is therefore venerable. If we ever hurt anything that surrounds us, we will eventually feel that harm in our own body, as notemachticatzin, my venerable maestro, says. We will feel that harm in any of our atleast-three souls.

tives; nonantzin, my venerable dear mother; notahtzin, my venerable dear father; noconetzitzinhuan, my venerable dear children.

(By the way, do you think that if we raised our children to know they are venerable, they would go to sacred Maya lands during spring break to disrespect not only that sacred land but also themselves?)

NEPANTLA, THE HUMAN CONDITION Let us now take a quick look at the following Nahuatl verbs that delineate important facets of the human condition (list adapted from Maffie): • • • • •

nenepantlazotlalo, “to love each other”; nenepantlazotlaltia, “to create bonds of friendship between people”; manepanoâ, “to get married, to join hands”; motlatolnepanoâ, “to agree on what is said”; nepanotl titotlapaloa, “to greet one another.”

Reciprocity is core to the life of every community. In our Tradition, everyone gathers to share in tequio, or community work. Those who don’t honor reciprocity are thought to be relinquishing their humanity. They have decided, one way or another, to turn themselves into beasts, which also means something like relinquishing membership in the cosmos, as if they could move to another cosmos, detaching themselves from this cosmos, our cosmos.

Let us now consider these nouns (list adapted from Maffie):

This reciprocity is embedded in the language: nocniuhtzitzinhuan, my venerable dear rela-

•

•

• • •

tenepantla moquetzani, “one who puts himself between those who are quarreling in order to calm them”; nepantla quiza titlantli, “messenger between two people”; nenepantlapaloliztli, “reciprocal greeting”; monepantlapopolhuia, “those who pardon each other”; and tlatolnepaniuiliztli, “agreement or conformity of reasons and opinions.”

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TOP: Modern-day Nahua/Mexica people live in nepantla as seen in this image where, on a wall in Mexico City, a Mexica warrior is depicted bearing the image of a peyote button. The use of peyote belongs to the Wixarika Tradition, not Mexica. MIDDLE: Tlatlauhqui (tlah-tlaooh-keeh) describes this special color, in between red and orange and in between red and pink, that we can see during sunset. This is the color and direction of healing in the Nahua Tradition. BOTTOM: The beloved volcanoes Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, as viewed from in between the earth and the sky, while flying towards Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Before dawn, they are in between the darkness of the night and the rising of the sun.

Photos © Patricia Júarez.

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T

HE NAHUATL LANGUAGE is the product of Nahua people, as notemachticatzin Gerardo Roque, my venerable maestro points out.† It is the product of those who created and live the cosmovision I described above. Nahuatl is a binding language: speakers can put together several words that when separate mean something specific and when together create yet another meaning. This binding nature suggests that with almost any word Nahuatl speakers utter, we are saying “all my relations”’ in a literal, metaphorical, and philosophical way: all my visible and non-visible relations, all my human and non-human relations, all my natural and “supernatural” relations. We need to, we have to, lest we are actively looking to relinquish our humanity.

We do not need to say a single, specific phrase because we know that in every word, every thought, every emotion, and every action, we will be addressing the whole vastness of the cosmos and every single one of its elements. We know that we will be addressing ourselves, too.

There are many nuances to our being here, far from our beloved homeland, living in a sacred and beautiful land that has blessed us with so much love. But, for now, in a nepantla state of mind, where we no longer speak Nahuatl all the time, and where we can’t expect that all our relatives know about or understand the Nahua cosmovision, how can we Nahua people try to convey the meaning of “all my relations” in Nahuatl? Let’s start by saying ica nochi notlacayo, all my human and animal relations.

condition called nepantla. May the Sacred Energies guide, bless, and protect ica nochi notlacayo, all my relations, on this journey!

OMETEOTL Dedicated to my dear venerable sister Naty, who, precisely while living in Tlalnepantla (Estado de Mexico) initiated her transition to Mictlan a few months ago. May Tloque Nahuaque, the Venerable Great Spirit, heal her wounds and guide her with love in her journey to Mictlan.

OMETEOTL

NOTES *From James Maffie, “The Centrality of Nepantla in Conquest-Era Nahua Philosophy.”

In The Nahua Newsletter, November 2007.

The lists of verbs and nouns quote Maffie’s translations. † From Gerardo Roque de la Cruz, “Características Generales de la Lengua Náhuatl,” Mexico City, December 2020.

Yes, we live in Huichin, Sacred Ohlone land.

Yes, we live fully immersed in the human

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Nepantla Lessons for Transformation AnaLouise Keating, editor of Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro, teaches us what we can learn from Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of nepantla.

WORDS BY ANALOUISE KEATING

You want to heal; you want to be transformed. You begin the slow ascent, and as you rise feel as though you’re passing through the birth canal, the threshold nepantla.

—GLORIA ANZALDÚA*

T

HIS STATEMENT, THOUGH written almost twenty years ago, seems entirely appropriate for the present time. Here we are, a little more than one year into a global pandemic, people’s anxiety spinning out of control–and for many good reasons. The cosmos calls out, inviting us to transform–forcing us to change.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of nepantla can speak to this moment; it offers clues and an approach (though not a solution) for how we can heal, how we can work thoughtfully with our current situations to effect transformation.

In what follows, I interweave Anzaldúa’s words with my own, offering three nepantla lessons for transformation. But let’s begin with nepantla itself—as Anzaldúa defines it.

*This and all subsequent quotations are from Anzaldúa’s Light in the Dark/ Luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality (Duke University Press, 2012).

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“In nepantla we undergo the anguish of changing our perspectives and crossing a series of cruz calles, junctures, and thresholds, some leading to a different way of relating to people and surroundings and others to the creation of a new world.”

—GLORIA ANZALDÚA

“Nepantla,” the Nahuatl word for “in-between”: Anzaldúa takes this word and deeply lives it, bringing into the theory her esoteric studies; her research in liminality and Nahua philosophy; her bouts with depression; her struggles with Type I diabetes; her experiences of alienation (of feeling, literally, nonhuman); her complex mestizaje ethnic/cultural/sexual/gender identity; her activist work and encounters with racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression; and much more. She develops a multilayered theory of transformation in which nepantla plays a starring role.

Nepantla represents complex, synergistic non/temporal points of uncertainty, contradiction, and risk. (In astrological terms, perhaps we could say that nepantla represents Uranian energy.†) Nepantla hurts! It speaks to the chaos in our lives, our thought, our world.

And yet, as Anzaldúa’s association of nepantla with thresholds suggests, nepantla also offers opportunities for change. But how do we work with nepantla’s (painful) opportunities? How do we transform–ourselves and our worlds? Fortunately, Anzaldúa has traveled this path before us; diving into her theory can offer us clues.

†Anzaldúa herself had a lot of Uranian energy; in a January 2004 email to me, she explained that Uranus “rules/makes the most aspects in [her] chart.”

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“Only when you emerge from the dead with soul intact can you honor the visions you dreamed in the depths. In the deep fecund cave of gestation lies not only the source of your woundedness and your passion, but also the promise of inner knowledge, healing, and spiritual rebirth (the hidden treasures), waiting for you to bear them to the surface.”—GLORIA ANZALDÚA

Lesson #1: Have faith in our inner wisdom, our soul’s visions.

Even as we’re wandering in nepantla, trapped in uncertainty and perhaps paralyzed by fear—we also have a deep inner wisdom, our divine guidance, or what Anzaldúa here refers to as “soul.” Although the situation can be incredibly bleak, filling us with despair, Anzaldúa reminds us to have confidence that our internal guidance remains intact, though deeply hidden in the shadows.

Believe in “the promise of inner knowledge.” When we do so, when we dive into the shadows, we allow our soul’s dreams and visions—“(the hidden treasures)”—to appear. Patience and faith function here as invitation, grounded in Anzaldúa’s reminder that the source of profound wounding and deep points of pain is also the source of great creativity and insight.

(Anzaldúa’s entire life is instructive here, as is the Tibetan Buddhist practice of feeding our demons.)

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“En este lugar entre medio, nepantla, two or more forces clash and are held teetering on the verge of chaos, a state of entreguerras. These tensions between extremes create cracks or tears in the membrane surrounding, protecting, and containing the different cultures and their perspectives.

Nepantla is the place where at once we are detached (separated) and attached (connected) to each of our several cultures. Here the watcher on the bridge (nepantla) can “see through” the larger symbolic process that’s trying to become conscious through a particular life situation or event. Nepantla is the midway point between the conscious and the unconscious, the place where transformations are enacted.

Nepantla is a place where we can accept contradiction and paradox.” —GLORIA ANZALDÚA

Lesson #2: Embrace contradiction.

When we acknowledge nepantla, we embrace the contradictions that nepantla represents and contains: Wounds can heal and be healed (though scars remain). Coyolxauhqui, though torn asunder into over 1000 pieces, can bring wholeness. We can be, simultaneously, detached and attached to our various cultures/families/allies/enemies/friends.

As we sit patiently with these contradictions, they mingle and interact synergistically, creating something new. Patience is crucial: Though insights might occur in a flash, they do so only after much attentive waiting and careful reflection. Breathe with the contradictions. Observe, listen, learn, and then listen some more.

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“Our perspective’s stability relies on liminality and fluidity... The nepantla mind-set eliminates polarity thinking where there’s no in between, only “ either/ or”; it reinstates “and.” Because our perceptions and thinking contain subtle and hidden biases, we need a nepantla brain to prompt the questioning of our usual assumptions and beliefs. Such a brain would facilitate our ability to look at the world with new eyes. Navigating the cracks is the process of reconstructing life anew, of fashioning new identities.” —GLORIA ANZALDÚA

Lesson #3: Activate the “nepantla brain.”

When we have faith in our soul’s wisdom and sit patiently with the contradictions, we activate the “nepantla brain” that Anzaldúa refers to in this passage. One of her least developed theories, the nepantla brain represents a startling, relational mode of thought that awakens whenever we can sit with the contradictions and hold paradox with patience, curiosity, and faith. (Faith here refers to the confidence that these contradictions have secrets to reveal.)

When we activate our nepantla brains, we don’t pick sides but instead take in all sides; we sit with the cacophony (the conflicting experiences and views) and allow the new insights to arise; we make decisions from this holistic, relational perspective. We reconstruct “life anew;” we transform ourselves and our worlds—very slowly, step by painful step.

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Visit Our Bookshop Support Ofrenda’s work and mission whenever you buy books!

AUTHORS FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE OF OFRENDA

ENRIQUE SALMÓN Iwígara: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science Enrique Salmón

Wildness: Relations of People and Place Edited by Gavin Van Horn and John Hausdoerffer Enrique Salmón, contributor

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ANALOUISE KEATING Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality Gloria Anzaldúa Edited by AnaLouise Keating

This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation Edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating

Transformation Now!: Toward a Post-Oppositional Politics of Change AnaLouise Keating

Ni de aquí, Ni de allá Sabrina Zarco—who identifies as an autistic, ChicanIndia, queer femme multi-media artist—invites us into her creative process.

WORDS AND ART BY SABRINA ZARCO

M

Y RASQUACHE ART process begins with my entering the borderlands of creating. Nepantla: someplace in between here and the other side, where I surrender to the process, listen to my guides, and let the story lead me as I audition materials for the greatest impact. I move through life seeing details of things, each with its own patterns, textures, and colors that make up the whole of something. Because I experience life in this way, my artwork can be a juxtaposition of messages, layered in patterns, textures, and colors. It doesn’t really matter what the materials are; the art might take the form of a mixed-media fiber art piece using fabric, thread, or beads. Sometimes it may be a mixed-media painting using paper, paint, and markings. This is how I begin my visual storytelling.

OPPOSITE: Bosque Visions: Ni de aquí, ni de allá © Sabrina Zarco

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My artwork often reflects who I am, using cultural imagery through the lens of animism, gods, goddesses, and creation stories to portray social justice issues in the context of a modern colonized world.

I focus on traditional Indigenous metaphors, symbols, and colors to draw in viewers. These images of my heritage are contrasted with textural layers, which may be beads, buttons, painting, drawing, photos, hand embroidery, and even found objects, that further illuminate the stories of the work. These seductive surfaces draw the viewers in to examine not only the materials I have selected but the subject matter as well.This seduction draws their attention and pushes the viewer to contemplate and perhaps motivate some kind of external or internal action. I’m looking for people to step out of boxes and try on new ways of thinking and being—for people not only to see the world through a lens of intersectionality but to see further into an interconnectedness with nature and each other based in love and grounded in kindness. A kind of healing.By using a traditional soft textile base, I invite the viewer to consider this traditional form of “women’s work” as a venue for challenging subject matter, which may consist of social and political reflections of our times.

OPPOSITE: Magia de Mujer.

TOP: Nopal en Frente BOTTOM: Calling the Four Directions

© Sabrina Zarco. All images courtesy of the author.

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LISTEN ONLINE

Image © Naya Jones. Courtesy of the author.

Blaxicana Futures, Part 1 A personal and collective testimonio from Naya Jones, Blaxicana geographer, cultural worker, and ceremonykeeper.

WORDS AND IMAGES BY NAYA JONES

Like The New Mestiza in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, La Blaxicana is both personal and collective. The testimonio is mine but may also be yours.

They were Tejanxs who worked on ranchitos and, later, on farms in Wisconsin, in fabricas in California, and in oilfields in Texas.

Beginnings

Your “people” come from space: wide skies, farm fields, and ranch lands.

You want to start with the future, but ancestors call you back. As a Blaxicana from Tejas, your ancestors know the West Texas desert and the East Texas pinelands. Your people were earthworkers. They were enslaved Africans. They were the descendants of enslaved Africans. They were African-American farmers and, later, gardeners and landscapers.

And while your mother is white and Xicana, the white ancestors feel distant. For now, you name them, but your African-American and Xicanx ancestors are the ones who call you.

Claim you. Maybe because their stories can tell you something about surviving la nepantla/the in-between as a Black woman. Como una Blaxicana.

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Images © Naya Jones. Courtesy of the author.

Reading Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, you resonate with The New Mestiza, who may “choose to cross the border into a wholly new and separate territory.” In this territory, The New Mestiza occupies herself.

Territory is reimagined, loosened from its colonial roots. Knowing that resistance all day, every day, is unsustainable and threatens her survival, she turns inward.

She gathers herself. The borderlands within (and without) nourish her. She knows this is enough. She knows by existing, she resists.

La Blaxicana no es “La New Mestiza,” pero son hermanas.

The Blaxicana is not The New Mestiza, but they are sisters.

As La Blaxicana, you resonate but choose to thrive from another space, one that is often erased or denied in still other ways. Your existence recalls a long history of Blackness in

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Mexico that is largely unacknowledged, even in Anzaldúa’s classic work.* While Anzaldúa’s writing inspires you, you also love yourself.

Seeking When you are just beginning to love yourself, you seek your story in-between Black and Xicana feminism.

You savor conversations between bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains. You relish the book Homegrown, in which they respectively bring Black/African-American and Chicanx histories, lives, and movements into relationship. In your favorite chapter, Mesa-Bains honors Chicanx altars and altarmaking, and hooks recalls the altars Black folks make in the Deep South.

You savor writing that brings Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde into conversation, mapping linkages between Xicana and Black

feminism through their shared attention to spirit and ancestors and mythmaking.

You savor these, but you still seek.

You seek where Blackness and Xicanidad meet. Where Blackness and Xicanidad inhabit each other. Where La Blaxicana and her kin—La Afromexicana, La Afro-Tejana, La Afro-Indígena, for example—are expected to exist because they have for centuries. You seek places where, even if people do not identify with any of these labels, the history of afrodescendientes in Mexico is still named.

You turn to history, or rather to what history you can find: The first enslaved Africans arrived in Mexico as early as 1519 with Spanish conquistadores.

Afrodescendientes “outnumbered” Spanish settlers in New Spain from 1570 until 1810.

Their lives were deeply interconnected with

Indigenous/Native, Spanish, and other communities (or castas/castes in colonial terms).

During the Mexican Inquisition, Afromexicanas (Afromexican women) were questioned for healing with herbs, speaking to ravens, and talking to the sea . . .† Here, you pause, Blaxicana. As a Black woman, you know the magic stereotype well.

You know how old ways, Indigenous ways that honor all our relations, can be misread.

You know how Black healing ways have been stigmatized. And you know, in your huesos, your bones, the language La Afromexicana may have been speaking. You know from reclaiming old ways. From reconnecting with the sacredness of the sea. From ancestral migrations across the same Atlantic Ocean.

Tu sabes la frontera, y sabes bien el mar. You know the borderlands, and you also know the sea.

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Crossings La Blaxicana no es la Afromexicana, pero son hermanas.

The Blaxicana is not the Afromexicana, but they are sisters.

Now the future calls and the ancestors call you forth. You spent so many years seeking yourself in other people’s stories, Blaxicana, that you did not see the poder, the power, of your own.

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As una Blaxicana, you know this truth from traveling to Veracruz, Mexico, where, for the first time, people assume you are mexicana.

Where, for the first time, people expect you to speak Spanish. Where Afro-Mexicans tell you “no se pagan los negros” (they don’t pay Black folks) who cut caña, or sugar cane, in nearby fields. This is partly why they cross the border: to make a living. To send money back. To live, not just survive.

La Blaxicana knows migration, but not this migration.

In 2007 and again in 2008, you travel across the border between Mexico and the United States with ease. (One time, when you’re returning to the United States, airport authorities run after you—literally run—and ask for your passport again. Otherwise, ease.)

You witness the border from the plane. From the window, you see the Rio Grande etched into the desert. The river turned territorial boundary is narrow and turquoise. A twisting of the stomach, a jump in the breath, a pause in the heartbeat, and you know that in your search for comunidad, you assumed too much. In your search for community with other folks of Black and Mexican descent, you disregarded privilege. You disregarded power. You cross with ease, while Afromexicanxs you interviewed will risk their lives to make the journey.

You take a twelve-year pause from traveling across la frontera, back into Mexico. You name reasons for the pause: cartel violence, lack of funds, desire to travel with others, need to find so-and-so’s number, and now, COVID-19. The truth? You have inner work to do. You remember Anzaldúa’s words: “The struggle is inner, and is played out on outer terrains.” By avoiding the crossing, you avoid discomfort. You avoid the feeling, the knowing, that you survive the crossing, when others may not. Do not. You don’t yet have the rituals and tools and language to hold all you’re feeling. To be honest and tender with yourself al mismo tiempo, at the same time.

Return Now the future calls and the ancestors call you forth. You spent so many years seeking yourself in other people’s stories, Blaxicana, that you did not see the poder, the power, of your own. You begin to bear witness. You gather corn kernels and cornmeal, findings from the sea, and flower petals. You begin

to make art. You remember ritual. The more you do, the more you feel into your presence.

You hear the mensajes: Your being is the thing. Your aliveness is the thing. Your thriving is the thing.

You begin to know—to know—what Anzaldúa means by choosing the borderlands.

By unapologetically claiming la nepantla.

When you do, you are not in-between at all.

You can meet La Afromexicana and kin with awareness. You can practice solidarity from deep grounding.

And because your existence continues to be una sorpresa, you exist in a kind of other time where anything is indeed possible. What will you dream?

Look for part 2 on nayajones.com.

NOTES *Anzaldúa draws on La Raza Cosmica/The Cosmic Race by José Vasconcelos, which acknowledges the presence of Afrodescendants in Mexico but also envisions their eventual disappearance if the nation is to evolve. Also, visit Madeline Cahaus, “Interrogating Absences in Latinx Theory and Placing Blackness in Latinx Geographical Thought: A Critical Reflection” (Society + Space, 2019). https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/interrogating-absences-in-latinx-theory-and-placing-blackness-in-latinx-geographical-thought-a-critical-reflection

† I drew historical details from several sources: Bobby Vaughn, https://afromexico.com/historical-sketch/; Joan Cameron Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches: Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth Century (University of New Mexico Press, 2007); R. Douglas Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994).

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Rebirthing with

the Sun’s Energy

Curandera and ceremonialist Maestra CC shares prayers and practices for spring equinox and Mexica New Year.

WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL

Cuauhtli Cihuatl in front of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, Mexico. Image courtesy of the author.

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Who has said we come to Earth to live? We only come to dance. We only come to dream.

—Nezahualcoyotl

I rise facing the sacred East direction with Tata Tonatiuh (Father Sun) on my face.

Ximolla, Ximolla, Ximolla, Ximolla. (Welcome.)

Nahuatl TLAHUITZLAMPA QUETZALCOATL. Nimitztlahpaloliz. Nimitztlazcamatilia Chanehque Tlahuiztlampa. Tonatiuh quizaya yahuatzinco xochicuecuepoca. Hueyi ni calli Chipahuac campa ichan Quetzalcoatl.

Tzotzona atecocoli. Ce.

Spanish Yo te saludo. Yo te agradezco, cuidador, Tlahuitzlampa. El sol sale en la mañana cuando abren las flores. Esta grandiosa casa, de color blanco, donde vive Quetzalcoatl. Suenan los caracoles. Uno.

English I greet you. I give you thanks, caretaker of the East, Tlahuitzlampa.

The sun rises in the morning when the flowers open. This great house, the color white, where Quetzalcoatl lives. Sound the conch shells. One.

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C

OMING FROM THE North direction, out of the abyss of shadow work guided by Tezcatlipoca—the smoking mirror—can be like a plantita peeking out from Madre Tierra, poquito a poquito. Tata Tonatiuh teases us with his warmth, his light, and his energy like the turquoise waters of the ancient cenotes.

March brings the Spring Equinox and the time to celebrate nature’s rebirth by freeing oneself from anything that hinders progress.

It is the time where days and nights are equal.

Spring Equinox’s connection to the Mexhika New Year—as we welcome and receive Tata Tonatiuh—is one of renewal, honoring new beginnings, expressing hope, and planting seeds both symbolically and physically. It is a time to nurture the seeds that will nourish our bodies, as well as our spirits, hearts, minds, and futures. It is a time to leave the past behind and awaken to see the world with fresh eyes. Spring is the time of year when we focus on self-care while we care for Mother Earth. We take time to renew ourselves in our gardens, walk and hike in nature, celebrate life and the sweetness of all things blooming—including ourselves.

Take a moment to visualize the harvest you would like to reap: “Creator, today, let me begin to plant the seeds that will yield me a prosperous harvest. Help me to be a diligent gardener when tending the garden of my life, removing all those things that do not nourish me along the path.”

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Then carefully begin to plant the seeds that will manifest your vision. Remember to tend those seeds. They need to be fed, nourished, and protected from the intrusive weeds that will stunt their growth. A wise gardener tends their garden daily and removes anything that does not nourish it. Don’t be afraid to remove weeds from the garden of your life. Although it is not always easy to completely remove them, you can remove the weeds from your garden with time, patience, and diligence.

O

NE OF THE best ways to counteract hibernating in winter is to wake up early so that we can connect with nature and increase Creator’s energy in our lives. Rising to greet Father Sun, no matter how we feel, recharges us with the powerful healing rays and vibrations of the universe.

I am a night owl, and it’s difficult for me to rise in the mornings because my physical body struggles. However, after offering prayer and sacred smoke and after receiving from the sun’s energy, my body feels better spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

I learned from my elders to honor Father Sun. In Curanderismo, we learn that our lives are interconnected not only with the moon’s cycles but also with the sun’s cycles; we learn the importance of getting enough sleep so we may rise early to greet the sun.

The sun is a symbol of the strength, light, and power of one’s own soul. Every morning since ancient times, Indigenous people and other ancient cultures have performed

Allow yourself to be washed in the immense healing energy that is soaring around the cosmos of a thousand planets as the SUN rises.

various rituals honoring the external sun, as it reflects the eternal. Waking up before the sun and preparing to greet it is a wonderful way to connect with the light within ourselves. Connecting with our own light enables us to start to see and connect with the light within others—for others are only a reflection of our true selves. We are beings powered by solar energy.

T

AKE A DEEP breath. Hold it... hold it... hold it... Now let it go. Let’s multiply that feeling of euphoric release a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times over. Raise your arms towards the sun and close your eyes. See yourself being bathed by the warmth of the rays and recharged by the magnificent energy as you become ONE with the beauty of Father Sun’s Light. Allow yourself to be washed in

the immense healing energy that is soaring around the cosmos of a thousand planets as the SUN rises.

If you cannot be outside in the sun, you can set an intention to receive Light by lighting a candle and allowing the flame’s energy to fill you with warmth. Meditate a few minutes on your inner light, allowing it to expand into the grander version of you. Your inner light will illuminate your heart, allowing abundance to enter your path. We are all connected. A’ho Ometeotl.

ISSUE 02 | NEPANTLA 47

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Learning from

Red Alder Plant teacher Lara Pacheco compares the red alder tree to our lymphatic system.

WORDS BY LARA PACHECO

N

ATIVE TO THE Northwestern Pacific Rim region of Turtle Island, red alder (Alus rubra) is a healer of the land. A broadleaf tree that loses its leaves in the fall, red alder is the largest alder in North America, typically reaching between 70 and 120 feet in height. You might think of red alder as a fast-growing scab that forms over the scars of the forest. It sprouts readily in disturbed soils—after a fire, landslide, or logging, for example. Although maligned by the logging industry as a weed, the tree is actually a vital successional ecosystem partner, coming in early to prepare the way for other plants. The roots contain symbiotic bacteria that help enrich the soil so that life can regrow. The seeds are spread widely by wind. As an Indigenous person who occupies the land of the Chinook rather than the land of my own ancestors, I find that connecting with and supporting this tree are ways I can honor the land and its original inhabitants.

Communing with Red Alder

Recognizing Red Alder

With astringent properties, red alder supports the tightening and toning of tissues and helps soothe inflammation. We can work with the dried bark and catkins to make teas and tinctures for internal use and compresses and oils for external use. Taken internally, red alder helps stimulate bile and support digestion through bitter actions. It strengthens immune cells that are within lymph tissue and helps expel waste from lymph nodes, especially when they are enlarged due to immune activity. Used externally, the inner bark alleviates any type of skin irritation or inflammation.

Red alder looks much like other birches and alders but, true to its name, has red inner bark. You can recognize red alder in the springtime by its dangling male and female catkins, the flower clusters common to the birch (Betulaceae) family that sprout from the previous year’s growth right before new leaves emerge. Male catkins, which grow in the spring, can reach up to five inches long, while female catkins are smaller, growing up to three-quarters of an inch and remaining on the tree through the year. The seeds are food to many woodland creatures, and the bark is home to many mosses and lichens, creating splotches of white.

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Spring, the season of upward and outward movement, is the ideal time to greet and gather red alder. When the sap is running from the roots up through the inner bark to nourish the budding process, you can easily peel the moistened bark from the inner wood. The medicine is in the sap, and you can collect the bark for extraction. There’s no reason to harvest from a standing tree: spring storms often knock down branches— and sometimes entire trees—that you can harvest. Look for branches that still have live buds. As soon as you strip the branch, you’ll see how the inner bark turns red and understand why many of the Indigenous ancestors of the Pacific Northwest, including the Chinook, Cowlitz, and Salish, named it for its red coloring, which is still used as a dye.

Medicinal Uses

There has been reductionistic, biochemical research on red alder’s chemical compounds like betulin, which has antitumor actions,

Much is stirred up in me when I sit with the medicine of red alder. To me, everything from that tree speaks of and evokes the element of water.

and hirsutenone, which has inhibitory actions on mast cell activity that comes with allergic outbreaks, such as hay fever and dermatitis. Another chemical compound, platyphyllone, has shown action against influenza. These chemical compounds tend to be valued in pharmaceutical use and research. What is lost with these uses, I believe, are the inherently wise energetics of the tree bark in collaboration with our bodies’ elaborate immune systems.

Learning from Red Alder This tree has much to teach us through its role in tending disturbed land, giving back again and again through its nitrogen-fixing roots, and doing so all within a short life span—typically a mere 60 to 70 years.

Red alder grows quickly, coming in after a disturbance in the forest and preparing the earth for longer-living conifers. The roots have a symbiotic relationship with rhizobacteria, a type of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that captures, or fixes, nitrogen from the atmosphere and makes it available to the tree and surrounding organisms. The bacteria also “digest” nutrients and minerals that are locked in bedrock. This process allows for a rock to slowly disintegrate while it releases more minerals and nutrients that feed the growth of surrounding life. In fact, the red coloration of its sap comes from the nitrogen-fixing bacteria. If you look at the root nodules, you’ll notice they appear red.

This coloration is caused by leghemoglobin (similar to hemoglobin in blood) that controls oxygen flow to the bacteria. The red alder contains the blood of the forest.

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Similar to blood, red alder embodies the two elemental worlds of water and earth. Like earth, it forms boundaries: the astringency from the tannins in the bark tightens and tones anything from skin to digestive and lymphatic tissue. And like water, it supports movement and flow: its bitter properties stimulate bile, helping to release stagnant fluids within the body.

Much is stirred up in me when I sit with the medicine of red alder. To me, everything from that tree speaks of and evokes the element of water. Most commonly, you’ll find red alder wherever there is a river or stream.

(Its wood remains durable even under the water, which is why our Indigenous siblings use it for making canoes.)

I see Alnus rubra’s watery affinity in action when it works with our bodies’ inner waters through the lymphatic system. This system of lymph nodes, ducts, and vessels assists with the movement of immune cells, proteins, excess interstitial fluid, and waste.

The lymphatic system also absorbs fat and fat-soluble vitamins from the digestive system and then moves them back into our circulatory system. This is all to say that red alder acts like the lymphatic system for its ecosystem, supporting the earth as it supports our bodies. It cleans and it heals—with and through water.

This article was adapted from a plant monograph originally published by Lara Pacheco on HerbRally.com.

Medical disclaimer: The information in this article is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content is shared for general information purposes only. Please see our full terms for details.

Please seek the advice of a qualified professional before using any herbal treatments.

References Author’s note: Most of the information from the references below was taken from the Indigenous people of Turtle Island who worked with this tree species intimately.

Deal, Robert L. and Harrington, Constance A., eds. Red Alder: A State of Knowledge. U.S. Forest Service General Technical Report (GNW-GTR-669), March 2006. https://www. fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr669.pdf Felter, H.W. The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Eclectic Medical Publications, 1922.

Kloos, Scott. Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants: Identify, Harvest, and use 120 Wild Herbs for Health and Wellness. Timber Press, 2017.

Oregon State University. “Nitrogen-fixing trees ‘eat' rocks, play pivotal role in forest health.” ScienceDaily, 25 February 2019. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225170247.htm “Red Alder.” Plants Database, USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center. https://plants. usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_alru2.pdf Sati, Nitin, et al. “Bioactive constituents and medicinal importance of genus Alnus,” Pharmacognosy Review, vol. 5, no. 10, July-Dec. 2011, pp. 174-183. NCBI, https://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263052/

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Nepantlera—

Becoming Verb: SHAPESHIFTING IN THE MODERN WORLD

Brandi Amara Skyy celebrates her grandmother and declares an anthem of becoming.

WORDS AND ART BY BRANDI AMARA SKYY

M

Y GRANDMOTHER IS 94 years old. Like all grandmothers, abuelitas, and elders, she is a link, a bridge between worlds past and present.

My Grandma Gloria, as I have called her since I could speak, is the first generation on my mom’s side to be born “here,” on stolen lands. Her father saw Indigenous-Mexico lands become modern-day Texas. Her own

life would see her marry at fourteen, birth eight children (one lost in infancy), live through the Great Depression, and work as a housekeeper all her adult life. Her memories, stories, essence, and food (!) are goldmines that have helped me rediscover my own history, lineage, and culture. They are reflections of a self I am slowly beginning to materialize.

A verb, made known.

Ay, mija! Mira! she would say when she wanted to point out something special. Something she deemed worth seeing.

Ay, Grandma, mira! I hear myself say as I point to my question of Are we? and search for “evidence” and “proof” of our Indigenous roots.

WE ARE! was all she said, officially closing the door to any further questioning.

WE ARE! These two words are planted firmly as a border between my doubt and her reality—an unwavering wall built with a steeled sense of knowing oneself without needing to be deemed, anointed, or proven as such. A wall of absolute certitude that I have desperately been trying to erect in my life—a wall that so many of us need. Not a wall of us and them, but a wall around WE and ARE. Around our cultural ways of knowing that don’t need or require our receipts, proofs of lineage, or demands that we know everything before we can become anything.

WE ARE! becomes the heartbeat of my days.

Still, there are moments on this voyage of healing and reclaiming my Indigenous self that I feel alone in my story of being a little gxrl lost on lands native to her feet but drained of their culture, traditions, medicines, and tongue. I feel that, in my attempt to walk this path, I am somehow a traitor or fraud to myself—and my grandmother.

Instagram ignites a serious bout of mal de ojo where I, scrolling, split into two: one piece swimming in a pool of envy of possibility— That could have been me! If only!—the other piece beaming with pride—Ay, mira! This!

This is who I am! This is who WE ARE! I see post after post of that little gxrl lost to time-god Saturn and mirrored in all the youth of mitú. Youth proudly draped and seeping in tradition, speaking and teaching all those elementals and allies—all those native tongues—that I’ve had to wage wars within myself to even venture out a simple “hola” to.

Here in these modern, mine-filled borderlands, I find myself straddling the world that was (the lands of my grandmother), the world that is (the lands of my mother), and the world they both imagined and worked hard for it to be (the land of opportunity and dreams; the land of the free).

And somewhere in the middle, the Nepantla, is me.

What started as a venture to find evidence of my roots led me down an inner rabbit hole and into a wonderland of bones. The joints of me. The fissures, tissues, and connective matter, where what has always been begins to flesh itself out to be seen.

And what my bones led my seeker-soul to alchemize was this: there are no words or tests that will prove what the fascia in me intrinsically knows. I am of this land. And this land is of me.

And these modern borderlands don’t help.

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Image © Brandi Amara Skyy. Courtesy of the author.

There are no labels—queer, Indigenous, brown, native, other—that can prove this energetic knowing. I have nothing to offer the self-appointed guardians of the gateway, armed and ready to call out those without receipts—save for a life that bears the scars of a voyager split down the many middles of both/and/all.

grandmother’s, and all the grandmothers’ cante jondo of—

Ay, Grandma! Mira! Here! Here WE ARE!

Sana, sana, my ancestors sing.

HERE I AM...

I take one last look behind me and see all worlds collide. A multitude of fragments coming together for one millisecond. All pieces, all parts healed whole.

In the Nepantlaland of my 40s arises the all-spirited, split-whole soul reaching for the sun. It’s a long way from here to there with nothing in between. No mirage. No bridge.

Just space.

And yet, I am pulled to take a step out into the nothingness anyway—the soul of my foot merging with the soul of the earth. In the space where they meet, I feel every grain of sand, soil, and stone grow and come alive, rooting me in my grandmother’s, and her

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Ay! mija, mira! WE ARE with you.

I take another step into nothing. The empty, frigid air begins to crack, burn, and blister my feet.

I turn and face my future. I tune my ears to the new song being sung into existence.

Nepantlera. One who bridges.

My soles rise and fall. One foot up. One foot down. Beat after beat, my souls drum their very own cadence, forming a bridge as I walk, becoming verb.

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Living la Vida Pocha Podcasters Charlene Bencomo and Kat Sánchez turn the disparaging term “pocha” into a source of pride.

WORDS BY CHARLENE BENCOMO AND KAT SÁNCHEZ

W

E DID NOT realize it immediately. In fact, it took years of living, laughing, and learning about one another to understand what bound us. Kat and I began this journey of amistad over ten years ago. As a queer, first-generation Latina raised in El Paso, Texas, Kat has taught me so much about what it meant to grow up knowing she was a lesbian in a Catholic household dominated by the dichotomy of machismo and maternal strength. As a proud Chicana born and raised in Las Cru-

ces, New Mexico, I am still learning about the complex history of my own family, who has lived here for generations, and what that ancestry means for my children and me. Over the years, Kat and I began to share stories and life experiences, all of which had one resonating theme. Once we named it, it began to take shape.

We are Pochas. We exist at the intersection of brown pride and assimilation. We are simultaneously our ancestors’ wildest dreams

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So it is here that we take our stand.

Pochas do not have to exist in a cultural binary. We do not have to be Latino or American, brown pride or assimilation, religion or faith, curvy or flaca, salsa or ketchup.

and American failures struggling to find our way. You may have heard “Pocha” used as a derogatory term for a person of Latinx ancestry who has lost their own culture and language to assimilate into whiteness.

Pochas often find themselves at the crux of deep cultural pride and societal pressure to assimilate in order to find acceptance in the dominant culture. For many Pochas, there are times when our identities meld beautifully.

There are other times when they clash, leaving us with feelings of confusion and shame about who society says we should be, who our cultura says we should be, and who we truly are.

It was only when Kat and I began to dissect our contradictions that we began to take pride in our identities as Pochas. We both shared a history of family members being punished for speaking Spanish or having heavy accents when attempting to communicate in English. Both of us witnessed some of our own family members choosing proximity to whiteness so that they could experience success in the same ways that their non-Latinx counterparts could. For many of our ancestors, proximity to whiteness was not only a means to success but a matter of survival. Assimilation promised opportunities for safer housing, secure employment, better schools, and the chance to move beyond living paycheck to paycheck and actually begin to accumulate wealth. The “American dream” seemed attainable only if they could become American enough. This was often

true not only for those in the U.S. but for those residing in Mexico, too. The standards set by white supremacy have extended far beyond our borders for many years. The influence of whiteness has ingrained itself into the daily lives of many, and still, we have not completely forgotten who we are. This in-between is the fertile valley of a Pocha.

Belonging means asserting your existence as a complex mezcla in a society that wants to simplify. By labeling you, this society can more easily assign your place in the world— as if knowing one thing about you, whether skin color or political party, someone could have a realistic glimpse into your complex life.

While speaking Spanglish or imperfect Spanish is often the telltale signature of a Pocha, it is about so much more than language.

It is a broken relationship with our raíces, our roots. It is an inability to connect the fragmented pieces of that relationship with our ancestry to an American culture that in itself feels more fragmented every day. Ultimately, though, it is a need for belonging.

This basic human need leaves us fighting internal battles about the ideas and biases that were steeped in whiteness from the moment we were born. These biases infringe on our perceptions, causing us to question our validity as brown-skinned beings. Structures compel us to forget our powerful history, one that precedes colonization. Despite this pull towards the dominant culture, there is a desire that leaves us searching for more.

There is an urge to deny the individualistic tendencies of American society and instead live in collectivistic joy with our gente. There is a deep knowing, el conocimiento, that pulls us back to our roots. This knowing is a grounding space that holds us in the smells, sounds, and comfort of belonging.

So it is here that we take our stand. Pochas do not have to exist in a cultural binary. We do not have to be Latino or American, brown pride or assimilation, religion or faith, curvy or flaca, salsa or ketchup. The wholeness embodied in all that a Pocha is can be your home. Both de aquí y de allá, from here and from there. To choose one or the other is to deny the path that got us here to begin with.

The existence of this in-betweenness was not an accident. Our ancestors fought for our opportunity to be everything all at once. They struggled so we could more easily find our pathway to abundance.

As Kat and I came to these conclusions, we realized we weren’t alone. There are thousands of Pochas just like us. Too brown for some, too white for others, and together we are reclaiming this state of being. We are reclaiming our belonging. We are thriving in our cultural fluidity. Las Pochas are exactly who we need to be.

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stillness.

Cameron Navarro’s testimonio on learning to live with uncertainty through mindfulness.

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPH BY CAMERON NAVARRO

F

OR QUITE SOME time, I’ve been on a search for a place or group in which I feel a sense of belonging, an ease. Often this takes the form of a search for labels to which I can finally claim, “Yes! It’s me!” This applies to my culture (Xicanx?

Latinx? white?), gender (man? nonbinary? queer?), and spiritual practices (???)—you name it. While at one time (many times) this has manifested as an angsty teen “I’ll never be understood,” it has settled into more of a consistent curiosity: “Who am I?”

This question has been with me since I was eleven, when I began searching for a spiritual community. I was looking for a group of folx who wanted to ask big questions and maybe have some of the answers—or at least want to discuss possibilities. (Clearly, I was a very popular kid in middle school.)

After a few decades and quite a few different groups, like Bono, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

A few years ago, as I turned 30, I finally yielded to my partner’s loving persistence and began exploring meditation and mindfulness. But not without reservations. I had willingly and wholeheartedly internalized broader cultural messages that this practice was likely just for hippy-dippy-love-and-light folks who had too much time on their hands.

I had assumed it would be another drop in the doesn’t-quite-fit bucket that had become my spiritual experience thus far.

My first few tries affirmed those stories, but likely those experiences had more to say about me than the other practitioners. I halfheartedly continued to piddle with the idea until I was gifted Dan Harris’s book,

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10% Happier. Like all good books, this one was written specifically for me. It was an account of meditation and mindfulness that didn’t tout enlightenment or magic solutions but that detailed the struggle to utilize these tools in our exhausting Western culture.

After reading Harris’s book, I found a formal sitting practice, discovered the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course, and enrolled in an MBSR teacher training scheduled for the following year, early 2021.

Thanks to our fast-paced culture and many obligations, meditation quickly became a box for me to check, another item on the ever-growing to-do list. Yet another instance of my humanity being edged out in pursuit of more productivity. So I dropped my sitting practice, having experienced enough to know that meditation and checkboxes are two great things that don’t taste great together.

Apparently, January 2020 was not the best time to drop a meditation practice cold turkey.

I

LIVE WITH chronic kidney disease and was lucky enough to receive a transplant about ten years ago—not a cure-all, but a gift to continue life relatively uninhibited.

Until recently. This past year has brought my partner and me a strict home quarantine, along with a new set of coping habits to protect our hearts and minds from the stress of the eighteen percent mortality rate for organ transplant recipients. (Thanks for crunching the numbers, NIH!) As we entered 2021, a vaccine appeared, and my circumstances found me inching towards the top of that list. The waiting game began,

the cabin fever finally set it, and the anxiety increased ten-fold. And along came that MBSR teacher training I had enrolled in over a year before, requiring a five-day silent mindful meditation retreat. Offered on Zoom, of course.

Thanks to our fast-

Five days of silence.

paced culture and

Stillness.

many obligations,

No phone, computer, email, to-do lists. My supportive partner would care for the house and our furry family members. Upon hearing the title of the event, most people, including myself, immediately respond, “Oh, I don’t think I could do that,” as if the silence is an opponent or the stillness a feat to conquer.

meditation quickly became a box for me to check, another item on the evergrowing to-do list.

And so, before it started, I raced through my week in order to “hurry up and stop.” I had to earn my break, right?

My mind still racing from a trying day, I listened to one of the leaders open the retreat with a story of one of his first retreats. He detailed its remote location and the unlikelihood of catching a bus out of town—and his similar feelings of unease. Then he offered an invitation to lean in as if you’re on the tip of an arrow, going straight into the heart of the experience. “Why not?” he offered.

My mind had many answers to that question in the forms of “but what about!” and “did you add that to the list?” But I quickly returned to the invitation, wanting to be the tip of the arrow so I could earn my A+ in silent retreat. Gotta check that box!

On the second day, a shift occurred.

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My heart and my mind wanted space. Craved it, really. To stop the distractions that so kindly helped me survive a long year and the stress of quarantine. To stop the anticipation of “when this is over.”

No white light. No enlightenment.

Simply an ever so slight widening of my perspective.

My heart and my mind wanted space. Craved it, really. To stop the distractions that so kindly helped me survive a long year and the stress of quarantine. To stop the anticipation of “when this is over.”

To be still and rest.

M

INDFULNESS AND meditation may be paths to enlightenment, or at least that’s what others tell me. For me, it’s a space to be myself in this world. A space to be more compassionate in my journey between what has been and what might be. A space to ask big questions like “who am I?” and sit without answers.

There is a story from the Zen tradition about a master speaking with some students who were sidetracked by a large storm during a pilgrimage:

To be.

Master: “Why do you go on pilgrimage?”

And to grieve.

Student: “I don’t know.”

What was lost in this year.

Master: “Not knowing is most intimate.”

The loved ones who passed on.

The plans we made.

May each of you be safe, be well, and live with ease.

To sit with the uncertainty of what’s next.

A safe, comfortable space to be. Without reaching or searching or grasping.

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On Iwígara Author Enrique Salmón teaches us the meaning of iwígara and tells how his book came to be.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ENRIQUE SALMÓN

EDITOR’S NOTE: In Iwígara: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science (Timber Press, 2020), ethnobotanist Enrique Salmón shares a collection of descriptions, teachings, and traditions about eighty native plant relatives. What sets the book apart from other plant guides is that each plant description is framed with a story. When I was reading it, I imagined myself sitting with Enrique—perhaps on a porch or near a campfire—listening to his personal recollections from childhood and other teachings he’s learned through the years. We are grateful to hear the story behind these stories from Enrique in his own words.

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Iwígara: The Kinship of Plants and People.

Image courtesy of Timber Press.

Ofrenda Magazine (OM): Tell us a bit about Iwígara, the book: How do you typically describe it? What prompted you to write it?

Enrique Salmón (ES): Actually, I did not

OM: The title is special: Iwígara. Can you share a bit about what the word iwígara means and how it relates to the phrase you coined, kincentric ecology?

come up with the idea to write the book. It was an editor at Timber Press who reached out to me to suggest the idea. Years ago, the press had published a book by Daniel Moreman called Native American Medicinal Plants (2009). I have a copy of the book in my personal library. It is a great resource if you are looking for information on how Indigenous tribes use certain plants or what the plants’ native names are. It is very extensive but reads more like a dictionary.

ES: The word iwígara comes from my Rarámuri language. It has several meanings, but most simply, it alludes to the idea of interconnected and overlapping cycles of shared breath, life, and energy.

My people, like so many other Indigenous peoples, believe that we are directly related to everything around us. We share life energy, such as breath, with all the animals, insects, rocks, and plants. They are our kin, our relatives.

Timber Press was wanting something more than just the names and uses of plants. They had seen my previous book, Eating the Landscape (University of Arizona Press, 2012). In that book, I presented American Indian agriculture using lots of story and Indigenous perspective. Timber Press was hoping that I could approach Indigenous plant knowledge in a similar way. I suggested that I focus on a smaller number of plants, sharing them from an Indigenous perspective through story. They agreed, and I immediately contacted my American Indian and ethnobotanical network of friends and colleagues from across the country and asked them to give me a list of ten plants that they felt were the most important ones from their region or culture.

From the various lists that I received, I came up with the eighty plants that are in the book. Each plant is unique, and each plant entry, I hope, reflects the spirit and soul of the plant.

When one makes choices with a landscape based on the concept that everything around you is a relative, then the land management practices that emerge from that realization tend to be sustainable. Practices connected to managing the land become more of stewardship and ministering to the land. This is the central concept of kincentric ecology.

When people read about or hear me explain kincentric ecology, they often assume that I am speaking about reciprocity. However, reciprocity assumes an exchange that resembles commodification. This is very much a Western concept. Kincentricity is not an exchange. It is a responsibility to our human and non-human relatives, to the ancestors of those relatives, as well as to our descendants.

I am often bothered by non-Native people and organizations who so easily misappro-

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I embrace Trickster consciousness. It is a recognition of the gray space inherent in everything.

Polar opposites exist only because of the gray space

and spirituality. She said that, to them, religion is like the cereal aisle of a grocery store: everyone can pick and choose their favorite one. However, there is only one box of Wintu. Indigenous ways of interacting and relating to our local lands are not something that we choose one day and then change our minds about the next. We are our lands, we are the rain that nourishes the land, we are the rocks, we are the salmon that spawns in the rivers, and the eagles and bears that feed on those fish. We are the pollinators. What we do to them, we do to ourselves.

that binds them.

OM: The theme of this issue of Ofrenda is nepantla, which has been associated with concepts of “between-ness,” being of two places, borderlands, and liminality. Are there any plants from your book that come to mind in relation to this theme?

priate Indigenous land management practices. I am bothered by their imperative to identify “models” for everything. It demands that there is a single “Indigenous” agricultural model. It’s as if 10,000 years ago, all our ancestors from across the continent sat down one day to decide how they were going to go about farming. Besides, models such as permaculture or regenerative agriculture are ultimately Euro-American frames applied to Indigenous practices.

ES: It would be too easy to focus on peyote with this question or maybe even tobacco, but the plant that I feel best relates to this concept is cattail—Typha latifolia, Typha angustifolia, or Typha domingensis. Many people reading this will recognize that cattails are water plants: they sprout, germinate, and live in water, or at least, very wet soils.

They can be used for food, for medicine, and even for weaving clothing, baskets, sleeping mats, and roof thatching. But most of your readers probably do not realize that cattails occupy space that exists between this and other spiritual dimensions. The Western Apache spread a mixture of cattail and corn pollen onto the forehead of young women who are engaging in their puberty ceremony.

I do not want to go into too many culturally sensitive details, but for four days the young

The larger implication of this thinking is that interested individuals can pick and choose which agricultural model they want to follow—or that they can mix and match all of them. It reminds me of what Wintu leader Caleen Sisk-Franco once said about how non-Native peoples approach religion

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women are imbued with the energy of the Apache legendary figure Changing Woman.

In short, it was Changing Woman who played an important role in the emergence of Apache people and culture. Therefore, for a few days, these young Apache women occupy Changing Woman’s as well as their own dimensions.

OM: We might say you’re a nepantlero as an ethnobotanist. How do you navigate between the worlds of Western ethnobotany on one hand and Rarámuri and other traditional knowledges on the other? How do you balance or blend the two?

ES: I embrace Trickster consciousness. It is a recognition of the gray space inherent in everything. Polar opposites exist only because of the gray space that binds them.

Our [U.S.] society largely admits to the existence of two genders, but there are at least four other kinds of genders that exist between male and female. There are yin and yang, but there is also the wu chi of the universe that holds the yin and yang in their space. There is dark and light, but if all we could see was dark, how would we recognize light? It is that gray area in-between that is more important.

Unfortunately, our society fears the gray.

We are taught to gravitate to only the light, to see only two genders, and to maneuver away from the unknown and unexplainable areas of the universe. Trickster occupies the in-between space because that is where most of the universe resides. Therefore, it is not a balancing act for me to be both academic and traditional. I feel secure and steady.

OM: You’re a person of many talents— scholar, professor, writer, musician.

What’s next up for you? What upcoming projects are you excited about?

ES: I am thinking of writing a book focused on kincentric ecology. To date, my writing about that topic can be found in the Ecological Applications article, published in 2000, by the same title, a few paragraphs in edited books, and a couple of written online lectures that I have composed for my students.

I am thinking I will identify the specific themes, ideas, and concepts from the original article and expand on them as individual chapters. Much of the materials in each chapter would come from my experiences with my tribe and with other indigenous communities that I have worked with in North America, Alaska, New Zealand, and Africa. I plan to continue teaching for at least a couple more years, but I will continue to do presentations, talks, and contribute to edited books.

Regarding my music, during this pandemic, I have been able to really concentrate on my cello and classical guitar playing. I can almost get through the Bach Cello Suites without too many errors. I am composing a cello/ guitar sonata that I would like to record one of these days, but I am also looking forward to making music with my jazz trio again and with my blues buddies.

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ISSUE 02 | NEPANTLA 73

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YOSOY SC Moreno-Denton shares a meditative poem for those who swim where identities converge.

WORDS BY SERGIO C. MORENO-DENTON

W

HEN I FIRST found my Maestra, I was looking to heal from a sense of Coyolxauhqui-ness, a dismembered feeling in which all my parts were disjointed and at odds. Through consultation and practice, I spent several months beginning to heal, reconnecting with my ancestors (known and unknown), and finding my way back to the source, Tonantzin, the Mother. Under my Maestra’s direction, I created a ceremony, which I called “Toci Tonantzin: Healing Through the Mother,” to remember and to bring back into the circle everything I have been, everything I am, and everything I’m yet to be.

At the core of my healing ceremony lies the “I am” poem my Maestra instructed me to write. This poem became the circle to hold and remember all of my disparate parts: my mexicanidad, my americanidad, my ni-de-aquí-ni-de-allá, the cristiandad I left behind, the Buddhism that brought me back to the ancestral wisdom of Madre.

This poem is loosely patterned after a chiastic form prominent in the Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures. The first and last lines correspond, the second and second-to-last, and so on. And at the heart of the poem is my nepantla.

When saltwater and freshwater meet, they make something new.

This in-between water is both ocean and freshwater and also neither at once. I first experienced this type of water when I was floating weightlessly between a lagoon and the ocean in Akumal, Mexico. I swayed back and forth, in awe of this convergence where the two waters met and a new, brackish water was made; it seemed impossible, and yet there it was. That is how I best understand my nepantla, the in-between space I inhabit, the blurry waters that have always been my home, where all my queernesses and transgressions, my seemingly disparate parts converge and cohabit, creating something new and whole.

This poem is my heartfelt ofrenda to any fellow swimmers. It can be read as it’s written and then again in reverse, where the last line becomes the first and the first becomes the last, like a wave swaying back and forth. May all mother sentient beings benefit.

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YOSOY For all those who have mothered and guided my heart, For the teachings bestowed for the love they impart.

For the spiritual friends who have walked by my side, For those gone long before, for my lineage, my pride.

For the time that I’m grounded on this precious earth I hold space, I make silence, I honor my worth.

This is all that I am.

I am all this and more.

In the vast, fertile silence, I rise and I grow, With the heaven above, with the earth down below, I’m becoming an elder for those yet to be.

As my people surround me, I know that I’m free.

With the lessons I’ve learned and the teachings I heed, May I be as the Mother, who guides, nurtures, feeds.

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Divine Right

Performance poet Xolayruca shares that healing intergenerational trauma requires self-love. Read and listen to her powerful testimonio in verse.

WORDS BY XOLAYRUCA

A

S WE DO the work of decolonization, it is difficult to separate and distill who we are into one generational lineage. We cannot pick and choose the biological ancestors who are responsible for our existence in this terrestrial plane and time. I have struggled with acknowledging and accepting that my bloodlines are made up of oppressed and oppressor. Healing, true healing, is facing truths that many of us want to run away from. This poem, “Divine Right,” reveals my process of facing realities that do not sit comfortably with me and that I am learning to embrace. Yet to heal, we need to acknowledge that just as we are not a monolith of culture, neither were our ancestors.

We do the work to heal transgenerational trauma because we are the ancestors of future generations. As we take on this responsibility to heal our lineage, we must look into our own Obsidian Mirrors to see how we can make changes that will benefit generations to come.

Xolayruca

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Divine Right Self love is my Divine Right.

El quererme a mí is an act of ancestral healing donde el amor es bálsamo to the generational trauma de mi linaje.

Donde tomar el tiempo to sit with bloodlines of colonizer and colonized fuck with my perception of what is right.

Where feeling shame at the pale skin I can’t hide is a reminder of the rape my grandfathers subjected my abuelitas to.

En mi para esta destrucción.

En mi hay possibility of healing the hurt that spills into coraje, resentment, and hardness.

My heart is clay, maleable, soft, and smelling of wet earth.

My veins carry shards of obsidiana cutting wounds of “no me olvides.”

My throat holds centuries of pride, holding in cantos left in silence to survive.

My eyes hold years of tears refusing to fall por orgullo.

My hands are stained with blood and shame.

My soul is tortured with gross violence inflicted por la sed of the conquest.

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I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams not because I am a guerrera.

But because in me there is hope of “maybe.”

En mi se encuentran el conquistado y el conquistador.

En mi hay el susurrar de “a la mejor se puede.”

In me is a battle refusing to hide living a duality.

En mi están la duda de quién soy y la pregunta de quién seré.

Porque al amarme I honor those who came before me.

When I heal my abuela, sano a mi madre, al sanar mi madre sano yo, al sanar yo sana mi hija y al sanar mi hija sana mi linaje.

I love myself as an act of defiance, Porque una bastarda como yo shouldn’t be digna of self-love.

But a bitch’s lineage is strong, and she loves herself despite being told she can’t.

Because to love myself is a radical act of revolution where those at war in my bloodlines are allowed to release centuries of hate and rabia.

Self love is my Divine Right.

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ofrenda MAGAZINE Ofrenda Magazine is a multimedia publication exploring Xicanx and Latinx spirituality, earth-centered wisdom traditions, justice, and healing arts. Our mission is to inspire holistic wellness, ancestral connection, social and ecological justice, and spiritual creativity.

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ISSUE 02: NEPANTLA | MAR/APR 2021 (RE-ISSUED OCT 2021)

Editor in Chief / Publisher / Creative Director: M. Carbajal, MA Editorial support: Gavin Van Horn, PhD Advisory Circle: Nadia Zepeda, PhD; Sarah Monroy Solis, JD, Cameron Navarro, LMSW; Suzy González, MFA. STOCK IMAGE CREDITS: creativemarket.com/ BarvArt ; La Paloma; RuleByArt. iStockphoto. com/Andrey Danilovich; borchee; db_beyer; Elijah-Lovkoff; ilbusca; MarjanCermelj; timisaak; Vladimir18. All effort has been made to attribute the copyright holders of all the visual material used. If you have questions or concerns, contact support@ofrendamagazine.com. © Big Like Jupiter LLC. All rights reserved. Individual contributors hold original copyright to their words and works of art.

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I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams not because I am a guerrera.

But because in me there is hope of “maybe.”

—Xolayruca (p. 83)