L AT I NX SPI RI T UA LIT Y • ANCE STR AL C O N N ECT I ON • E A RT H + JU ST I C E • H E A L I NG A RT S
ofrenda
M A G A Z I N E ISSUE 03: LUZ / ILLUMINATION
Verano: A Meditation on Motherhood
Decolonize, Ecologize, and Indigenize
Working with the Energies of High Noon
Leeanna T. Torres
José G. González
Erika Buenaflor
“ The season of the South direction is summer, when Mother Earth is full of blooms, expansion, growth, lightness, outward activity, brightness, and creativity.
—CUAUHTLI CIHUATL (pg. 57)
FROM THE EDITOR
Luz. Light. Illumination. Summer sets our attention on warmth, the sun, and joy. In this issue, we feature the themes of the summer: brightness, awareness, all forms of light—including the sun and moon—and the energy of the South direction. Through works like Natalie Solis’s essay on “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” we celebrate the boldness of embodiment; in articles like Cuauhtli Cihuatl’s “La Luz of Your Inner Child,” we learn specific ways to nurture ourselves with the help of the sun and water. Through Erika Buenaflor’s teaching, we learn ways to connect with the energy of the sun at high noon. And our featured interview with José González shines a light on his leadership at the juncture of education, ecology, and diversity. I encourage you to listen to the authors read their works as well. (Look for the headphones icon.) There is something especially powerful about words when expressed through their authors’ original voices. As you read through the issue, you’ll notice that many of the pieces shine a light on motherhood. This wasn’t an editorial plan for this issue, but as the submissions came in, I started to notice the synchronicity. My interpretation is that mother energy must be strong right now—perhaps because of Mother’s Day in the U.S., or perhaps because we’re being called to dwell upon this energy in our relationship to each other and to the Earth. So we celebrate those of you who are mothers and grandmothers, and we also invite you to express your gratitude to Madre Tierra and Madre Mar during this season of joy. May the warmth and brightness of the luminaries in the sky energize you. M. Carbajal, Editor
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Contents
ISSUE 03: LUZ / ILLUMINATION | JUNE / JULY 2021
FEATURES / ESSAYS ECOLOGY + JUSTICE
Decolonize, Ecologize, and Indigenize | 12 AN INTERVIEW WITH JOSÉ G. GONZÁLEZ COSMOVISION + CULTURE | WITH AUDIO
Sunkissed: Seed, Root, Stem, Leaf | 22 WORDS BY CHICUEYI COATL REFLECTIONS / TESTIMONIOS
Verano: A Meditation on Motherhood | 32 WORDS BY LEEANNA T. TORRES PLANT TEACHINGS
A Summer Tale of Yerba Mansa | 40 WORDS BY CHARLES R. GARCIA
PRACTICES / CURANDERISMO
Working with the Energies of High Noon | 48 WORDS BY ERIKA BUENAFLOR
La Luz of Your Inner Child | 56 WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL
Harnessing Moonlight | 60 WORDS BY SUHALY BAUTISTA-CAROLINA
ISSUE 03 | LUZ/ ILLUMINATION 03
MEDITATIONS / VERSE WITH AUDIO
Earth/Side: For Gabriel | 68 WORDS BY CARMEN MARGARITA MALIS KING
BOOKS / REVIEWS
Revisiting Sandra Cisneros’s “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” | 72 WORDS BY NATALIE SOLIS
Q&A on Funeral for Flaca | 76 AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR EMILLY PRADO WITH AUDIO
“La Llorona,” an Excerpt from Funeral for Flaca | 81 WORDS BY EMILLY PRADO
What We’re Reading | 86 IN CLOSING WITH AUDIO
Amanece | 88 WORDS BY LEMUEL ISAI TORRES
Find links to audio versions where you see the headphones icon.
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CONTRIBUTORS
Carmen Margarita Malis King
Charles R. Garcia
Chicueyi Coatl
CARMEN MARGARITA MALIS
CHARLES R. GARCIA
CHICUEYI COATL, born in
KING (Latinx) is a new mama,
(Californian Hispanic) is a
Mexico-Tenochtitlan, comes
a writer, and an herbalist of
curandero and teacher of
from a lineage of Nahua
Guatemalan, Panamanian,
Hispanic Herbalism and lives in
temazcaleros, pulqueros,
and Irish roots living on
Richmond, California. He was
growers and protectors of
Anishinaabe lands in Detroit,
given most of his knowledge
huauhtli (amaranth), tlaolli
Michigan.
from his mother, the late
(corn), etl (beans), and
Martha Navarro Garcia, from
metl (agaves). A scholar of
PHOTO CREDIT: STEPHANIE
the age of four. He is aided
Anahuacan Traditions, she
HILL-WOOD
by his friend and partner in
teaches at Calmecac Tlalocan
healing, Ms. Lori Pino. www.
and has been invited to teach
hispanicherbs.com
at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, California College of
PHOTO CREDIT: LORI PINO
the Arts, and other institutions in the U.S. and Mexico City. PHOTO CREDIT: PATRICIA JUÁREZ
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Cuauhtli Cihuatl
Emilly Prado
CUAUHTLI CIHUATL, or
EMILLY GISELLE PRADO is a
Maestra CC (Indigenous), is
writer, DJ, and educator living
elder and founder of Kalpulli
in Portland, Oregon, with roots
ERIKA BUENAFLOR, M.A., J.D.,
Teocalli Ollin in New Mexico.
in the San Francisco Bay Area
has over 20 years of practicing
She is a Mexhika Huesteca,
and Michoacán, Mexico. As
as a curandera, mentoring
Raramuri, and Lipan Apache
an award-winning multimedia
with curanderx and shamans
ceremonialist. She holds a J.D.,
journalist, Emilly spent half a
in the Maya Yucatecan jungle,
a Ph.D. in public health and
decade reporting on stories
Peru, and Los Angeles. Erika
community education, and a
and amplifying the voices
has a master’s degree in
master’s degree in social work.
of people from marginal-
religious studies with a focus
Now retired, she spends her
ized communities. She is a
on Mesoamerican shaman-
energy on her Jardin Patzin.
Blackburn Fellow and MFA
ism and has written several
Her mission is to share her
candidate at Randolph College,
books on curanderismo. As a
Abuelita’s traditions, for “la
and a previous Community
modern-day curandera, she
medicina es para todos.”
Journalism Fellow awarded in
utilizes her knowledge and
partnership with Oregon Hu-
vast experience to reveal how
manities, the Andrew W. Mellon
this sacred wisdom can help
Foundation, and the Pulitzer
her clients heal holistically—
Prizes. www.emillyprado.com
and live their BLISS.
PHOTO CREDIT: D’SANTI NAVA
Erika Buenaflor
www.realizeyourbliss.com PHOTO CREDIT: JOSHUA JAMES HUFF
PHOTO CREDIT: ERIKA BUENAFLOR
ISSUE 03 | LUZ/ ILLUMINATION 07
CONTRIBUTORS
José G. González
Leeanna T. Torres
Lemuel Isai Torres
JOSÉ G. GONZÁLEZ is a
LEEANNA T. TORRES is a native
LEMUEL ISAI TORRES is a Latinx
Chicano educator with training
daughter of the American
poet who has been writing
in the fields of education and
Southwest with deep
for more than 20 years and
conservation while engaging
Indo-Hispanic roots in New
has been published in several
in different artistic endeavors
Mexico. She has worked as an
journals. He has a bachelor's
with art and messaging—
environmental professional
in English and is working on
often exploring the inter-
throughout the West since
his master's in English with
section of the environment
2001. Her creative non-fiction
a concentration in poetry.
and culture. He plays with
work has been published in
He enjoys reading about the
design, words, science, and
Blue Mesa Review and Tupelo
human condition and being
education—engaging in the
Quarterly, and is forthcoming
with his family.
interdisciplinary intersections
in an anthology by Torrey
of how we view and engage
House Press (2021).
with the world. PHOTO CREDIT: LEEANNA TORRES PHOTO CREDIT: MICHAEL ESTRADA
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PHOTO CREDIT: YLEANA TORRES
Natalie Solis
Suhaly BautistaCarolina
NATALIE SOLIS (Xicana) is a
SUHALY BAUTISTA-CAROLINA,
first-generation graduate of
aka Moon Mother, is an
the University of Southern
AfroDominican herbalist, artist,
California and a Presidential
educator, and community
Scholar of Harvard Divinity
organizer whose work lives
School. Born and raised in Los
intentionally at the intersection
Angeles, she currently resides
of plant power and people
in the San Francisco Bay Area.
power. In 2018, Suhaly founded
Natalie aspires to pursue
Moon Mother Apothecary,
her interests across religion/
a practice and offering of
spirituality, arts, and the law.
heart-centered, moonpowered medicines created
PHOTO CREDIT: IARITZA MENJIVAR
in the traditional wisdom and knowledge of her ancestors. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and Oprah Magazine, among others. moonmotherapothecary.com PHOTO CREDIT: NAIMA GREEN
ISSUE 03 | LUZ/ ILLUMINATION 09
ON THE COVER
“Fire” by Manuela Guillén of Lazy Beam Arte Manuela Guillén’s art touches on our intimate desire to imagine a world that is better for one another. She uses her artwork as a platform to bring awareness to art education, sociopolitical, mental health, and environmental issues. Her art gives a feeling of softness, light, and comfort. She is inspired by plants, soft tropical colors, and her cultural upbringing as a Cuban and Salvadorian first-generation Americana. Her art holds space for healing, love, and resilience, and she hopes her art can bring solace and light in dark situations. PHOTO CREDIT: MANUELA GUILLÉN
Art by José González. Courtesy of José González.
DECOLONIZE, ECOLOGIZE, AND INDIGENIZE How might ecology inform the practice and models of DEI? José González, educator and founder of Latino Outdoors, shares his ideas, art, and metaphors. AN INTERVIEW WITH
José G. González
Y
OU MIGHT KNOW José González from the group he founded, Latino Outdoors, whose mission is to “inspire, connect, and engage Latino communities in the outdoors and embrace cultura y familia as part of the outdoor narrative, ensuring our history, heritage, and leadership are valued and represented.” I’m also familiar with José’s consulting work through the Avarna Group, which supports those in the environmental sector in their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. What stands out to me about José
is how incredibly smart he is: he’s able to hold historical facts, cultural themes, social imperatives, and ecological frameworks in conversation and then braid them together in articulate and insightful commentary. But beyond being smart, he is also wise—and that is why I asked him to share a bit about himself and his work with Ofrenda’s readers. In this brief interview, José shares ideas about his diversity, equity, and inclusion work as well as his take on joy and luz. —M. Carbajal, Editor Ofrenda Magazine (OM): Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself (your background and the kind of work you're doing now)? José González (JG): I am an immigrant
from Mexico, with an identity that I see as having evolved from bicultural, to ambicultural, to quantum cultural, which holds my multifaceted nature. I have also said that I’m Mexicano by birth nationality, U.S. citizen through naturalization, and thus Latino by sociocultural identity, Chicano by socio-political identity, and Hispanic by Census count. My work overlaps in the spheres of culture, art, conservation, and education, among others. At the moment, this has taken me into a facilitator and educator role in “DEI” work, which more generally is the work of “othering and belonging” and more directly is what that means in the context of power. Oppression and liberation, to me, have direct roots with the land. OM: For those who aren't familiar, what is DEI or JEDI?
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JG: Ah, this can be a whole conversation for many. To start, what the acronyms stand for: diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Now whether to use those, some variation of them, or another combination is where people come with varying opinions. To me, it exists as a tool and incomplete model.
What is important to me is the intention, purpose, and orientation of the terms. And that, to me, has to do with the issue of power in relation to “isms,” ideologies we humans have crafted that rank supremacy in relation to each other and the land—for example, “racism,” which is a social construct, not a biological one. And we can argue that in circles, but the reality is that even as a social construct that we invented, it still comes with direct impact and harm on people and communities. This is also why I approach this work from a lens of “othering” and what the philosophies and framings are for why and how we do that. One thing is to acknowledge the reality and beauty of difference; it’s another to use that difference for reasonings that establish supremacy and impart inferiority. And then, with a bit of humor but to also stress a point, I think of how “DEI” can also orient me to “Decolonize, Ecologize, and Indigenize.” OM: You've written about using metaphors from the natural world as models for JEDI work. Could you share your vision? How does (or how could) the natural world guide our understanding of JEDI?
Art by José González. Courtesy of José González.
JG: I have been thinking about what it
means to have the land mentor us in our evolution, and the ways in which we have disconnected and replaced a life logic with a mechanistic reductionist one. I say this in terms of “modern” society, since, of course, many have retained ancestral traditions in the face of colonization, and those provide some orientations in healing these severed connections.
I think of this at least in two ways. First, Dr. Rupa Marya [a doctor who explores connections between society and illness] once mentioned that she thinks one aspect of colonization was a severing of our earth-connected selves. Second, I think about how the language of ecology pushes me to both think differently from mechanistic reductionist frames of thinking and to see how models from nature can orient me in reference to the land and each other.
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Take, for example, how we may commonly say, “that team runs like a well-oiled machine.” What if we said, “that team runs like a well-nurtured meadow”? How does that push us to think about how we value connection and relationship? How do we think about aspects of leadership? This is part of the “ecologize” that I referred to earlier.
OM: Your work as a consultant is no doubt challenging; to hold space for deep and emotional conversations can be draining. What personal practices (we could also say rituals or exercises) guide and ground you? What keeps your spirit healthy, happy, and in tune for this intense work?
Also, so much work around “DEI” is how we’re in relation to each other, both in harm and healing. We’re really good at the harming, we know how to harm each other and show that consistently. What are the models that orient us to needed healing? So I think of something like a wildfire, and how for a generation in the U.S we treated all fire as bad in the forest. So we overtly and myopically suppressed it. Those past practices, compounded by climate change, have caught up with us such that we can now have intense destructive fires. And we know we cannot simply firefight our way out of that.
JG: This work is indeed draining. Caring for
So we have reconnected with ancestral practices that bring us to prescribed burning. We know that prescribed burning, with skilled fire practitioners, can be healthy for the land, especially fire-adapted landscapes. Otherwise, we set up a tinderbox. So how do we do that with our spaces and relationships with each other? How do we practice prescribed burning in our relationships so that we set up a landscape for healthy succession? For things to grow? Otherwise, we are suppressing any perception of tension, discomfort, and conflict such that if we are not paying attention, we are setting up a social tinderbox, and we shouldn’t be surprised by the outcome.
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self is ongoing work, and sometimes all it takes is a slip, and I fall out of alignment. I have thought about the power and need for rituals, ceremony, and practices. First, nature is a restorative environment, so taking moments to just sit with it can help a lot. Second, developing a meditative practice for yourself can help bring awareness to your space, along with providing a space and outlet for the reactive mind. Third, there’s reasons we may say “la cultura cura”—paying attention to what restorative elements from our culture can help. There are certainly things we’ve inherited that no longer serve us (aspects of toxic masculinity, for example), though there may be some that can point to restorative practices. These may be use of sage and palo santo, while paying attention as to how they are acquired and the reasons for using them. It may be finding things like “tres milagros” tea, which is a combination of chamomile, spearmint, and anise. Spearmint is for the stomach, chamomile for the heart, and the anise for the mind. Mind you, people can still question all of the medical benefits of it, but even the practice of making tea, really sitting with it, can bring you into the present and orient you to a state needed for the
Take, for example, how we commonly say, “that team runs like a well-oiled machine.” What if we said, “that team runs like a well-nurtured meadow”? How does that push us to think about how we value connection and relationship?
Art by José González. Courtesy of José González.
emotionally draining work we undertake. Much like when people state how valuable it is to develop a ritual of reviewing at least five things you appreciate each day, and being really descriptive with it. It is a state of gratitude and appreciation that does not just feel good, but can help with how you are engaging your neural wiring. OM: The theme of this issue is “luz”— which we're extending to mean all types of light, illumination, and even joy. What brings you joy? JG: I think about how when we are in states
of seeding, much like when a seed is planted and begins to root, it may feel like we’re stuck in the dark. Yet, there is still a strong orientation to the light. Thinking of light as joy, I think of my framework for it, and how that manifests in both the practical mundane and the philosophical.
...joy can be a state of disconnecting from the triggers and stressors of survival, and connecting to openness and the affective state of thriving.
I had read about an evolutionary case for happiness, but I thought, “Joy is different. What state does it put us in?” And that connected to work in “DEI” as well. When we “other” in the extreme, we find [a range from] difference to antithetical to us, and that can lead to extreme harm such as genocide. On another side of the spectrum, when we are in play with each other, we fully embrace the other in a state where those evolutionary triggers of “danger” and “danger of the other” are muted or shut down. So I think of how joy can be a state of disconnecting from the triggers and stressors of survival, and connecting to openness and the affective state of thriving. It FEELS good
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and we express accordingly, through laughter, smiling, a range of body language.
it can help looking at kids when they are having fun and putting yourself in that space.
For me, that can be relationships with people I feel safe with; it can be being out on a ridge trail or sitting with redwoods. It can be admiring beautiful art, and feeling connected to culture. It can also be puns—I do appreciate witty wordplay.
Joy I see in others that brings me joy can be when someone revels in self-acceptance. When they are jamming to a favorite song. When they are laughing at a silly joke. When they have surrendered to a moment and there is more to be had in being joyful in the futility of it, or in the radical acceptance of it.
OM: I recently read an article about a Buddhist concept—mudita—which loosely means delighting in the joy of others. The author, Daisy Hernández, who is a writer and justice worker, was lamenting that we don’t have a word for this concept in English (or Spanish) and claimed that we would all be better off if we “relished in the good fortunes” of others. So I’m wondering: What forms of joy experienced by others bring you the most joy? JG: This is an important point. I think about
what it means to practice “liberated joy.” We talk about co-liberation in our work, and how “your liberation is bound in mine,” so we cannot be truly free if we are still oppressing others. So one of the agreements I have to push myself to consider is how to “practice liberated joy.” We can definitely be good at practicing oppressive joy, feeling some sense of joy in the misfortune or harm of others. And so much of humor is sometimes framed in that way too, be it in movies, online, or other cultural platforms. So for liberated joy, what can that look like as pieces of what we need in the future we’re building? Sometimes
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“Seed Memory” design by John Jairo Valencia
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Sunkissed: SEED, ROOT, STEM, LEAF
Scholar of Anahuacan traditions Chicueyi Coatl weaves memories, teachings from the Nahua cosmovision, and wisdom for our bodies in this reflective essay. With audio. WORDS BY CHICUEYI COATL
Seed | Xinachtli ¡Ábreme como una semilla para que yo pueda florecer! ¡Abre mi corazón, revientalo como una semilla a punto de germinar! Open me up like a seed so that I can flourish! Open my heart like a seed about to germinate! Morning plegaria, prayer to Tonatiuh, our dearest father Sun
Semillita, xinachtzintli, dear venerable seed: How does it feel to be broken? How does it feel when you are about to germinate, when a new being, the new and tender plant, is about to come out from you to be kissed by the sun? Is it painful for you to be broken into pieces? Is it painful? How does it feel semillita, dear little seed? How does it feel to know that very soon you will no longer be? Do you cry? Do you scream?
I woke up today feeling like a seed, one that is about to germinate, one that has been under the soil for some time patiently waiting in the sacred darkness, held by Tonantzin, our venerable Mother Earth. Notlahtol, my word, is like the new plant that is about to sprout from my seed/heart to be sunkissed. Notlahtol is about to sprout, and it is painful. Does it hurt? Do you cry? Do you scream? How does it feel? Please forgive me: I hadn’t thought about this before. Until now. Hasta que te sucede a ti, until it is happening to you. Now that my yollotl, my heart, is broken into a million pieces, my true voice is fighting to come out. My true voice, not the one I was told to use, not the one I have been imposed to use, not the one that uses syntax, verbs, and phrases that don’t belong to me. No, the one, THE one that was granted to me by Tloque Nahuaque, the energy for whom we all live, the energy of the near and the close. This true voice is struggling to come out in full force, as nature does, but in the process, I’m finding it painful to feel the brokenness of my heart-seed. In the process, I don’t know what to make of this pain. Maybe that’s the main difference between a xinachtzintli, a venerable seed, and my heart-seed? While sprouting, the seed knows what to make of the pain—but I don’t.
Root | Nelhuayotl “Después de un año / Bajo la tierra Igual que sobreviviente / Que vuelve de la guerra.” After a year under the ground like a survivor, coming back from war. Mercedes Sosa, “Como la Cigarra” (“Like the Cicada”)
Sitting in front of my altar, I take four deep breaths, one for each corner of the cosmos. As I do so, I gently place my left hand over my navel, noxic (naw-sheec) in Nahuatl. This is my sacred connec-
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tion to my mom, a connection so deep that it will never disappear, even after we have transitioned, even after our bodies are no longer here. Noxic, my navel, connects me with my abuelita too, and with her mom, and her mom, and her mom, and so forth until the beginning of time. Estas son mis raíces; these are my roots. Mis raíces son profundas; my roots run deep. Nelli (neh-lee) means truth in Nahuatl: that which stands tall and which cannot be destroyed because it has deep and strong roots. Nelhuayotl means root in Nahuatl. My venerable mom and all my venerable abuelitas forged strong, deep roots for me. “M’ijita,” said my abuelita, “come sit here with me next to the tlecuil, the hearth. You must be hungry; I’ll make some tortillas for you, my dearest.” That’s how I recall one of my earliest memories. I was maybe three or four, but I was already sitting with my beloved abuelita in front of the sacred fire, Chantico, the feminine energy of the fire in the Nahua tradition. I remember my abuelita sitting on her legs on a petate (mat) on the floor in the position Nahua women sit when making tortillas and other food on the tlecuil. My beautiful abuelita! She is having a sacredly loving conversation with Señora Chantico, while making sacred food for us all, while making tortillas just for me. It smells delicious! I attentively observed how she would massage the corn dough, then clap on it until she got a perfect circle, which she then placed on the hot comalli, or Nahua griddle. Then, I saw how the tortilla would puff up! Yes, it smelled delicious! And it was hot, too! But I never got burned. My mom and all my abuelitas have forged strong connections with the sacred fire. Lots of years later, I learned that my mom had been the family’s “fire keeper” and tended with love and care to their temazcalli, the steam house. Yes, my roots run deep, my roots are strong. Chantico, the sacred energy of the fire, always tells the truth. I can stand tall in my truth, the same truth of my mom and all my venerable abuelitas. The truth of Señora Chantico. That truth is in my navel.
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Stem | Quiyotl “Varita bonita, varita de nardo / Cortada al amanecer” Pretty little stick, freshly cut in the sunrise little nard stick... Joaquín Pardavé, “Varita de Nardo” (Nard’s little stick)
Look! Here comes Quetzalcoatl, the energy of the precious knowledge, the matiliztli, coming back from his painful journey through Mictlan, the place of death, to bring back the bones with which he would create us all, macehualtin, human beings. It’s been a journey in the darkness, through dark waters, through the vastness of our consciousness, that for which the disappeared Jewish-Mexican maestro Jacobo Grinberg could not find a definition, but which he used to call “the backbone” that sustains us all. The backbone, the stem, el tallo, quiyotl (keeh-iotl). In his journey to and from Mictlan, Quetzalcoatl travels through a series of butterflies, seemingly static and fragile, but at the same time strong and flexible, which, in our bodies’ taxonomy, translate to the vertebrae. The function of the vertebrae is to protect and support the spinal cord, which, along with our brain, forms our nervous system. Our brain is like the command center, and the spinal cord is like the messenger between our brain and our body. Our brain: our thoughts, our intellect, our tonalli (taw-nah-lee), the energy we carry, the energy we were bestowed with at birth; the first part of our body that was sunkissed after we came out from the sacred waters, from the sacred cave of our moms; our crown, our mollera, the place in our body where our tonalli is located. But it is not fixed there, and it could easily be detached with a susto (a fright or shock), so we need to give it maintenance and protection. For example, during limpias (cleansing ceremonies), it is of utmost importance to clean our molleras, our crowns, so that Tonatiuh, the Sun can continue blessing it with his sacred kisses. I like to perform a special limpia with flowers, healing yerbas, sacred smoke,
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Ehecatl—the breath of life, the essence, the force that is with us all our whole lives, and which we usually do not pay much attention to—is the single force that can bring us back to earth, back to our center when we are “navigating” through the dark waters of our ego, of our pain, of detachment from whom we really are.
and agua florida (special cleansing water prepared with flowers and yerbas) to our whole tonalli system—the head, the neck, the back—so that Quetzalcoatl can travel freely between our own Mictlan and so that he can come back full of wisdom to our brain, so that our knowledge can flourish, so that our sacred knowledge can be sunkissed once again.
Leaf | Xihuitl ¡Tatita Ehecatl, viento sagrado! ¡Señor Ehecatl, el sembrador! ¡Tatita Ehecatl, mil bendiciones me has dado tú! Dearest father Ehecatl, sacred wind! Lord Ehecatl, the sower! Dearest father Ehecatl, thousands of blessings I have received from you! Chicueyi Coatl, “Prayer to Ehecatl, the Wind”
I was born during the Anahuacan thirteen-day period called Ce-Ehecatl. One wind. You see, we Anahuacan people, original people of this continent, count the time and space in a very different way than our European-descended settler relatives do. For thousands of years, we have known, among other things, that the Earth is not flat and that time and space form two axes that when intersecting create what we call “nican axcan” (nee-can ash-can), the here and the now. Mother Earth is not flat, nor are time and space. The sun does not gravitate around us; rather, the opposite. Neither does life gravitate around us; rather, the opposite. Ehecatl (eh-heh-caw-tl), the energy of the wind, is so directly related to Quetzalcoatl, the energy of precious knowledge, that together they create yet a third energy called Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl. Ehecatl, the energy of the wind, can be a nice and soothing wind, a devastatingly strong hurricane, and everything in between. Ehecatl, the breath of life, comes to us for the first time minutes or seconds after we have been born lest we suffer great physical damage to our brain, our tonalli.
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Ehecatl—the breath of life, the essence, the force that is with us all our whole lives, and which we usually do not pay much attention to—is the single force that can bring us back to earth, back to our center when we are “navigating” through the dark waters of our ego, of our pain, of detachment from whom we really are. Ehecatl, the breath of life, is that which abandons us at the precise moment of our last breath. Ehecatl, the breath of life, is the sower, the sacred energy that transports the seeds, that helps the pollination of the plants, the one that allows the sound to travel. We can hear each other thanks to Ehecatzin, the venerable wind. Ehecatzin is my cosmic father, as I was born under his tutelage and guidance. In our tradition, the force that rules during the first day of the thirteen-day period when we’re born is the one that commands our whole lives. Es el jefe, or jefa. He is the leader of many lives; he is my guiding force. Have you heard Ehecatzin talking to us through the tree leaves on a sunny day? Have you dared to suddenly stop your regular, mundane activities to pay attention to how the wind moves the leaves?
Have you heard Ehecatzin talking to us through the tree leaves on a sunny day? Have you dared to suddenly stop your regular, mundane activities to pay attention to how the wind moves the leaves?
...I dare you to listen.
Have you paid attention to the celestial chorus sung by millions of leaves when rocked and rhythmically caressed by Ehecatzin? Have you ever noticed how the sunlight falls through the leaves when they are dancing the sacred dance with Ehecatzin, their lover? I dare you to listen. It can be overwhelming at first if you have never done it. But I can assure you that once you surrender to the strong and powerful beauty of millions of voices singing to you—for you and only for you—the backbone, the vastness of our collective consciousness that sustains us all, will make your heart-seed open up, explode, and flourish, and you will finally be able to receive the sacred knowledge of Quetzalcoatl. You might be able to start listening, through the sacred voices of the leaves, to the voices of all your dearest abuelitas and abuelitos, your dearest grandmas and grandpas. Pay attention, pay close attention. Ehecatzin, the wind, the sower, is bringing the voices of your ancestors, and in the process is planting the seeds of their knowledge in your heart. Listen closely to Ehecatzin, my beloved cosmic father. Pay attention to him. Then, humbly thank him, for he will continue bringing the voices of your ancestors as long as you remain willing to open up your heart to him like a blooming, blossoming seed. OMETEOTL Dedicated to my mom Paulita, to my beloved abuelita Loretito, and to all my grandmas whom I never met in person, but whom I know I have met many times in my dreams. OMETEOTL
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Verano A Meditation on Motherhood
New Mexico writer Leeanna T. Torres shares a beautiful essay about connecting with her mother over RuPaul’s Drag Race— and the interconnections among us all. WORDS BY LEEANNA T. TORRES
M
AMA MAKES HERSELF comfortable on the couch, setting her large plastic cup of Diet Coke next to her on the end table. “Tienes a blanket I can use? It’s a little frío in here mija,” she asks, and I get the light throw blanket decorating the chair in the den to drape it over her midsection and legs.
Despite being deep into the month of July, New Mexico heat pushing itself into the center of each day, Mama asks for a blanket. “Sometimes it’s too cold in your house, mija, probably because of that refrigerator air” explains Mama, and she takes a drink of her Coke. “It’s ‘refrigerated’ air, Mama,” I correct, and approach her with a light blanket,
covered in images of Paw Patrol, one of my son’s favorite cartoons. Growing up, we’d only ever had a swamp cooler in our house, so “refrigerated air” was new. Fancy. “Eeeee, that’s perfect,” Mama says after I provided her the blanket, and I watch as she adjusts her petite body into the couch— acomodarse, as is the word used in our region—a body nestling itself comfortably, fondly, with great ease, “into” a space. Mama doesn’t know, doesn’t realize, but when I look at her, easing into her late seventies, more and more she resembles my grandmother at that age, hair graying, body shrinking, smaller bites and smaller meals. Mama makes herself comfortable on the couch. I look hastily for the TV remote. My husband and young son had taken an out-of-town trip, leaving me alone in the house for a week. Mama offered to come over one of the weeknights to keep me company, to spend time with her only hija. Mama brought over Panda Express for dinner, and we shared a large “combo” meal, complete with chow-mein, orange chicken, and egg rolls. An ordinary gesture of love. And I thought back to all the afternoons, ordinary as July, when I’d kept Mama wondering where I was—drinking again, off and wandering, pretending to be at work. In the depths of her intuition, she must have known. “What are we gonna watch, mija?” “No sé, Mama. What do you want to watch?”
“Eeee, I don’t know.” “What about a movie?” “No, pienso que a movie might be too long, it’s already getting late.” It was already twilight, the summer sun easing its way down, the evening finally cooling from the day’s summer heat. Outside, the crickets had started their calls, and the neighbors were taking their dogs for a walk along the ditch-banks. But Mama and I were settled inside, for once, enjoying an evening when we didn’t have to cook, didn’t have boys or husbands to take care of, and were free for a bit to do what we wanted. “Let’s watch that show you were telling me about the other day.” says Mama. At first I have to think—which show? But then it hits me, and I smile, surprised but glad. “Really? You want to watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race?” I am surprised that Mama is open to a show about drag queens. Sometimes I’m also surprised that I’m so open to a show about drag queens. And I surprise myself as much as Mama surprises me. And Papa isn’t around to make fun of us, or make comments, or even give us a carra about what we want to watch. So I sit on the couch, next to Mama but with a few JCPenny pillows between us, and we pick an episode on Season 3 to watch. RuPaul comes on the screen—“Start your engines! May the best woman win!”—and sings the intro. Race checker flags flying behind him, RuPaul is sporting a tight, black, full bodysuit, and by the time his black suit changes
to hot pink, both Mama and I are smiling, pansas full with Panda Express noodles, and sitting on a summer couch with ‘refrigerator air’ keeping the house cool.
Summer and Mama and I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, the farm fields of the valley just outside, alfalfa and chile growing with the blessing of water and sun.
a Since as long as I can remember, despite being her only daughter, despite being her oldest child, Mama and I have had a hard time communicating with each other. I mean really communicating with each other. There is a chasm between us, not of anger or distrust or malice of any kind, but just an unapproachable space, and it seems we cannot really be honest with each other. I try, and she tries, but we can’t quite ever get there. Mama never explained anything about “the birds and the bees” and only very briefly explained what my period was (although she wept right in front of me when I told her I’d started bleeding, and at the time, I didn’t understand why she was crying). Mama was also an only daughter to her mother, my grandmother. Summer and Mama and I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, the farm fields of the valley just outside, alfalfa and chile growing with the blessing of water and sun. Mama’s father was from northern New Mexico, but he moved to Wyoming to find work, and there met a Mexican woman, married her, and made a family. Mama got the hell out of Wyoming as fast as she could, impacted by deep racism in the small town of Rawlins, and she earned a bachelor’s degree, and then a master’s, from two universities in New Mexico.
Mama was/is an only daughter, and she left her mother to follow brighter days in the ancestral lands of her father. She chose to stay and raise her family in the landscape of the American Southwest, a place where her Chicana language and culture were appreciated, cultivated, accepted, and even refined. a As a child, I remember Mama always cleaning house on Saturday mornings—always on Saturdays—while Spanish music was playing in the background, large records spinning
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until you had to turn them over on the other side. Washing and hanging the clothes, vacuuming, scrubbing toilets and the bathrooms, then the tiled kitchen floor. And on some Saturdays, Mama would make me dust, and I hated it. I’d pout around the house with a dust rag and a bottle of lemon Pledge, wishing I could be outside instead. Mama was not forceful, but she insisted that I participate in housework. Then, by the afternoon, Mama had completed most of what had to be done, and she finished always by starching my father’s blue jeans and button-down shirts. a The episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race keeps both Mama and me entertained, and I look over randomly to see Mama slightly smiling. Men dressed in women’s clothes, heavy make-up, and the most brilliant wigs. “Eeee, look at that one!” says Mama when a very fat drag queen makes his-her way down the runway, his fast strut in high heels flawless, and Mama reaches for her Diet Coke on the end table beside her. a Mama keeps a photograph of her mother in the living room, front and center, perched on the large cabinet that holds a record player and old cassette tapes. The photo of Cita, an 8 by 10, is unmistakable, and Mama often buys a bouquet of fresh flowers, setting it adjacent to the photo, an offering to her mother from this side of the grave. I have noticed Mama clinging to her own mother’s love, so desperately, so fervently, that I wonder if I, too, will do the same when
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she is gone. And just as our parish priest likes to remind us, the definition of a mother is the absence of her. a The memory of lying in Mama’s arms while riding the Greyhound bus is sparse. But what I do remember quite easily is watching my father write numbers on a paper, any paper, sitting in his school office, the way his pencil always pressed down confidently and intentionally, the lead tip creating the number two with a curved top and slightly curving bottom. Even to this day, my numbers resemble those of my father, his teachings found in my everyday nuances, my number seven looking just like his number seven, my number two just like his number two. My penmanship resembles my father’s penmanship—this he taught me, and this I made my own. But what of my mother, what did I learn from her? To cry? To remain silent? To worry? Or was it something more than these negative things I’ve always named? Mama would travel back to Wyoming to visit her mother during summer breaks. Sometimes she would take my brother and me with her, traveling by Greyhound bus on a teacher’s salary, two young children nestled in her arms during the twelve-hour bus ride. Mama would travel back to visit her own mother, this obligation all her own, these memories hers more than mine. I try to remember something about those Greyhound bus rides with her but can’t. Is it time that has made them disappear, or were they never mine to begin with? a
And we sit and watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race, those flamboyant, flashy, colorful drag queens speaking and acting for us in ways that Mama and I absolutely cannot. We speak in drag. Drag speaks for us. Drag speaks because we cannot.
We speak to one another, and yet everything remains unsaid. Everything except for the “I love yous.” And this is what mama says to me again and again—I love you— but I am closed off, listening for it when really I need to just see it.
What beauty has found you this summer is the question I catch myself texting to Rey, a gay man from our community who is good at giving hugs. When he hugs you, he seems to embrace you with his soul, oddly tight at first, and holding the embrace so that it catches you by surprise. “Oh, I LOVE getting hugs from Rey!” Mama admitted once, and I thought it was just me. Because he holds
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you in a deep embrace, a kind of hug only reserved for someone like a mother, but he shares these kinds of embraces often, among community members, with Mama and me, and it makes us feel loved. a Am I angry because Mama didn’t really teach me about being a woman? Or did she tell me, in her own way, in an unfamiliar language of subtlety and silence that I had to learn to decipher? Or were my expectations of Mama just too much, too much to expect? I wanted things from her because I am a “taker,” because I am a daughter. I wanted her to be my “best friend” like I’ve heard other women reference their mother. I wanted to be able to talk with my Mama about anything. But what I’ve come to realize, over time, is that often our expectations of a mother are just too much, too grand, for one human being. What if I pulled back the binding expectations I’ve often had, and just surrendered to the core notion that she loved me? She loved me. She raised me. And she still gives me love in her own way. And we sit and watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race, those flamboyant, flashy, colorful drag queens speaking and acting for us in ways that Mama and I absolutely cannot. We speak in drag. Drag speaks for us. Drag speaks because we cannot. a What they don’t tell you about watching the Season 6 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race is how guilty you’ll feel, first of all, for watching it,
then second of all, for how much you enjoyed watching it. “You should be dusting the house, or vacuuming, or washing the floors instead of watching that garrero,” you imagine Mama scolding, but another part of you snaps back, realizing Mama enjoys the show, too, mesmerized by the flamboyance, the costumes, the overexaggerated and confident exuberance. And most importantly, to not take yourself so seriously (as RuPaul often says), to drop the heavy expectations and seriousness, and to just have flamboyant fun sometimes. a And I remember the remedios of my childhood—Mama rubbing Vicks on the bottoms of my bare feet at night, and on my chest, and giving my brother and me warm 7-UP to drink. A few times, Mama put papas and vinagre on my forehead during a heavy fever. I remember the disgusting scent of the vinagre dripping down my forehead, onto my face. “But it will help,” Mama insisted, and I couldn’t/didn’t understand then. I was too caught up in the scent of the vinagre itself, its disgusting stench driving me to gag and want to vomit. a In a Vanity Fair interview, RuPaul was asked: “You’ve said, ‘We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.’ What does that mean?”
His reply in the interview as the camera comes in slow and tight on his face: “What that means is that we are all more than just what it says on our driver’s license, or what it says we are in our job description. We are actually, in reality, an extension of the power that created the whole universe…[pause]… Can you handle it?” a I go to bed before Mama does. She stays in the living room, watching the news after Drag Race is over, and I say, out loud, as I head for my bedroom down the hall, “Love you, goodnight.” We speak to one another, and yet everything remains unsaid. Everything except for the “I love yous.” And this is what mama says to me again and again—I love you—but I am closed off, listening for it when really I need to just see it. “Good night, mi hjita,” Mama replies affectionately, and as I leave the living room, I see from my peripheral vision the outline of her body. She is shrouded in the evening darkness of a room lit only by the flickering light of a television showing the nightly news. Her body rests this way, in the darkness of day, and she, too, is a flicker of light. I return to the fold of what it is to exist as a daughter, existing just as this, a daughter to this woman who is my mother in the softness of summer.
The video of the interview draws in tight on RuPaul’s face during his response to this, and he isn’t dressed in drag, but is instead wearing a black suit and glasses, and not as a flamboyant drag queen, but just as himself.
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A SUMMER TALE OF
yerba mansa Curandero and herbalist Charles Garcia shares memories of collecting yerba mansa with his curandera mother. WORDS BY CHARLES R. GARCIA
I
WAS BORN AND raised in a time when neighbors did not lock their doors at night, when summer nights were punctuated by the rumbling of the nearby Contadina cannery, and when pickup softball games could last until midnight. It was a time when you didn’t know you were poor because everyone else was.
WHEN I WAS a boy helping to inhabit Riverbank, that little town alongside the Stanislaus River, I did not know the use of plant medicine was wrong or could even be a crime. Our healing plants were strewn in the backyard, and as a child, I learned to memorize them by sight and smell. My mother—the most diminutive of women—was the curandera of our block and all other blocks in view. From injured kittens to damaged knees (some quite serious if I remember the tears and blood stains of my blue jeans), Mom patched up animals, children, adults, and drunks, my father being a premier example of a functional one.
the banks. From the highway, we could smell the slow river, rotting foliage, wild morning glories, blackberries, and wild grapes. There was a path down to the water if you knew where to look. And Mom knew where to step. The pathway was dry and safe to tread. Across her shoulder, Mom carried a crocheted bag of white, pink, and blue. It seemed tight enough to hold water. Her father might have taught her what the plant looked like. We found it in the shade of an ancient willow tree only a few yards from the river. Mom would tell me yerba mansa was also called “lizard tail” by white people. This confused me because it resembled nothing of any type of lizard I had ever seen.
Some yerbas could not be grown in backyards or gardens. One memory that is almost a dream now is the summer trip we took down to the Stanislaus River to find yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica). In those days, I was old enough to walk to the Del Rio Theatre, a grand old edifice where we kids learned that Jesus had blue eyes, cowboys killed Native Americans and Mexicans with impunity, and man (and it was always men) would travel to Mars and find beautiful women waiting for them.
The roots and stringy rhizomes were easier to pull out if the plant was as close to the
Mom and I would walk several blocks north and cross the dangerous Highway 108, which had already claimed a dozen lives in foggy winters and bright sunny summer days when the mirage of shimmering water blinded people to oncoming cars. Mom crossed herself, and we hurried across it. The banks of the river were steep, and in later years, a sign would be raised by the city warning people not to attempt walking down to
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We found it in the shade of an ancient willow tree only a few yards from the river. Mom would tell me yerba mansa was also called “lizard tail” by white people. This confused me because it resembled nothing of any type of lizard I had ever seen.
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water as possible. And according to my mother, the medicine of yerba mansa was at its strongest the night after a full moon. The moon had been a silver full moon the night before. This was considered good luck, as silver was the enemy of all things evil, and a full silver coin would keep milk fresher for a longer period. (I’ve tried this with raw milk and it does work!)
The roots and stringy rhizomes were easier to pull out if the plant was as close to the water as possible. And according to my mother, the medicine of yerba mansa was at its strongest the night after a full moon.
But before we began the muddy work of harvesting, my mother found a soft dry place to sit. I liked being here, far from my tormentors on the streets and comfortable in the shade of the willow. Central Valley summers can be brutal with triple-digit temperatures lasting for weeks at a time. She pulled out a rosary and began to recite a decade of prayers. After ten Hail Marys, she was ready to begin pulling. I once asked her why she said her prayers before most of our harvesting. She told me we were killing one of God’s creatures, and it was right to give thanks to God and the plant. “Never take something without giving back,” she said in her quaint Spanish that is no longer spoken in California. AS A WORKING herbalist, I learned decades later that yerba mansa is used as an antimicrobial, an antibacterial, and a treatment for vaginal issues. Traditionally, yerba mansa is used to treat inflammation of the mucus membranes, swollen gums, and sore throat. The roots can be taken as a diuretic to treat rheumatic diseases like gout; the plants work by ridding the body of excess uric acid crystals, which cause painful inflammation of the joints. Yerba mansa prevents the buildup of uric acid crys-
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tals in the kidneys, which can cause kidney stones if left untreated—which explained why mom used it for stones and gout. A powder of dried root can be sprinkled on infected areas to alleviate fungal infections like athlete’s foot, jock itch, or diaper rash. I had a client soak her feet in the infusion of the root and leaves to rid a particularly stubborn case of athlete’s foot with bleeding. I also had her drench the inside of her boots with the same infusion. It worked within 48 hours. Yerba mansa is versatile: it can be taken orally as a tea, used in tinctures and infusions, used as a douche and an enema, or taken dried in capsule form. It can be used externally for soaking inflamed or infected areas. It can be ground and used as a dusting powder. According to my Hispanic friends in the Southwest, the leaves can also be used to make a poultice to relieve muscle swelling and inflammation—although I never saw my mother use it this way. While most non-Hispanics do not tend to use the leaves, we used it for a spicy tea on cold winter nights. If the core temperature of a person seemed to be dropping, yerba mansa tea with a pinch of cayenne and a teaspoon of honey drove the chill away. Harvesting yerba mansa is a dirty, muddy job. The roots and rhizomes bring up twice to three times as much mud and soil as the weight of the plant. Being close to the rolling Stanislaus, we managed to rinse most of the mud off before placing the plants in the
crocheted bag. Our search, though, was not over. If used for uric acid buildup, the urine flow can feel hot and burning. To ease this problem, Mom picked a large bush of cheese mallow, sometimes called Chinese mallow (Malva neglecta). The buds do taste a bit like cheddar and were always a treat to munch on. If memory serves, Mom would soak the root of yerba mansa and the entire mallow plant in an unglazed clay pot. After a day and a night, she would strain off the water and place it in a sealed Mason jar. She then placed the jar in the refrigerator for whomever needed it. Through childhood, I had a painful gut and drank my fair share of it. It tasted a bit like cucumber water. If she needed to preserve the water for a later date, she froze it. THE LATE MORNING had turned into early afternoon as we trudged up the hidden path and braved the crossing of Highway 108. We had missed lunch, so I knew Mom would warm up yesterday’s tortillas and make us tortillas and butter. The house would smell like fresh soil, mallow, warm tortillas, and summer wind. Bob Dylan wrote a song, “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” reminiscing on his boyhood life in Minnesota. It ends with, “Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat, I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.” Yes I’d give more than that if I could walk that hidden path down to the river with my mother. Just one more time.
Medical disclaimer: This information 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 seek the advice of a qualified professional before using any herbal treatments.
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A FEW NOTES ABOUT OUR FRIEND
yerba mansa Where can we find yerba mansa? Yerba mansa likes water. You can find it growing in marshy areas and near rivers through northwestern Mexico, the Southwest (U.S.), and even in the Midwest.
What are some other names for yerba mansa? Bavisa, Bear Root, Lizard Tail, Manso, Raíz del Manso, Swamp Root, Yerba del Manso
Can we grow it at home? Yes—it’s possible in warmer climates. Plant it in loose, moist soil, and give it plenty of sun. If you’re interested in using it for medicinal purposes, growing your own may be the best way to go so that you don't disturb yerba mansa in its natural habitat.
How can we help yerba mansa? According to United Plant Savers, the biggest threat to yerba mansa is loss of habitat. Our wetlands are shrinking, and yerba mansa, which distributes its seeds by water, needs these sources of water to both grow and reproduce. You can help yerba mansa by advocating for the protection and restoration of wetlands near you.
SOURCES: UNITEDPLANTSAVERS.ORG; THENATURECOLLECTIVE.ORG.
WORKING WITH THE
Energies of High Noon An excerpt from Sacred Energies of the Sun and Moon WORDS BY ERIKA BUENAFLOR
W
HEN WORKING WITH high noon, I recommend going on the internet to look up when the sun is at its highest altitude in your area. An easy site to navigate that is loaded with great information on the positions of the sun and moon in particular areas around the world is timeanddate.com. Working within one hour of the daily zenith of the sun, one hour before or after, will still be potent enough to garner the energies of high noon.
Here are some sacred items, some activities, and a solar deity associated with the energies of high noon: • • • • • • • •
• •
Recharging the physical body Reenergizing sacred items Revitalizing breathwork Activities that require a show of strength, courage, and leadership Fire rites, especially those coupled with snake totems Turquoise stones Headdresses with turquoise or hummingbird paraphernalia Hummingbird and snakes, and sacred images or items connected with them, such as feathers, snakeskin, and snake fangs or teeth (as long as they are obtained ethically) Ritual offerings Solar deity, Huitzilopochtli*
High Noon Mantras for Divine Power and Peak Strength Connecting to the sacred energies of high noon is perfect for garnering more power, particularly equalizing power dynamics, building authentic self-confidence and selflove, and stimulating strength and vitality. Before engaging in any mantras, take a moment or two to connect with the sun at high noon. You can go outside and invite the sun’s highnoon energy into you, or you can close your eyes and visualize the sun directly above you radiating and nourishing you with his sacred essence energy.
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Here are some sample mantras for high noon: • I am the sacred energies of the highnoon sun. I am always in my full divine power. • I am the sacred energies of the highnoon sun. I am divine self-confidence and love and adore myself. • I am the sacred energies of the highnoon sun. I emulate divine strength and vitality. JOURNEYING TO THE FLOWER REALM This meditative journey and breathwork help to instill feelings of power and strength from a graceful and balanced space, rather than with the typical harshness associated with these qualities. You can do this trance journey by cleansing and recharging your body with breathwork first, or you can go straight into the journey; it depends on how readily you can go into a trance state and whether you enjoy breathwork. Because it induces calm trance states and replenishes sacred essence energy, I always recommend it. Purifying with Breath of Fire
The Breath of Fire exercise can purify and replenish us holistically. Start by sitting with your spine straight in a butterfly pose, with the soles of the feet touching so the legs are in a diamond
shape, or cross your legs in a comfortable position, with the feet underneath the opposite knee. If neither of these is an option for you, sit in a chair where your spine can be straight. Quickly breathe in and out of the nose. Pull the abdomen in toward the diaphragm during the exhalation and out during inhalation. (If you are unfamiliar with Breath of Fire, watch a YouTube video that shows how to do it.) Continue Breath of Fire for 30 seconds to a minute, or longer, and intertwine it with the following facial mudra.* *Mudras are postures that trigger and speed up electromagnetic charges in the body. Like acupressure points, they stimulate particular areas of the body and correlating energetic systems. There are different kinds of mudras, involving the body, face, and hands. Raising Adrenaline with a Facial Mudra
This facial mudra raises a balanced flow of adrenaline, which can inspire graceful feelings of power and strength. Start by taking a deep inhale, and extend your tongue out toward your chin while engaging in a nasal exhale. Repeat sticking your tongue out with nasal exhales 3 times. Then go back to Breath of Fire, and repeat the deep inhales and exhales with your tongue out. Repeat the cycle one last time, so you have done the Breath of Fire and tongue out exhales for three complete cycles.
I am the sacred energies of the high-noon sun. I am always in my full divine power.
This mudra—with tongue down to the chin—is identified with power and strength in different traditions. Huitzilopochtli and Tonatiuh, displayed at the center of the Sun
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Stone, and the Hindu goddess Kali, destroyer of illusions, are shown with this mudra. Balancing Breathwork
Finally, inhale through the nose for a full 6 seconds. Hold the breath for 6 seconds. Then exhale out of the mouth for a full 6 seconds. Repeat until you feel relaxed in a slight trance state. Journey within the Sacred Heart
Set the intention of connecting with the divine presence within you, your I Am presence, and journeying to sun at high noon through your sacred heart—the space where you are infinite, untouchable, pure love. If you are having trouble connecting with your I Am, a powerful and effective method for doing so is both a command and a statement of truth: “Stand aside, ego, in the name of God: I Am That I Am.” (I use the term God free of any particular religious association, but rather to name a principle of divine love. If you do not feel comfortable with the term God, use a word or concept that signifies pure Divinity, Love, and Consciousness to you.) Visualize a mirror reflection of yourself as your divine I Am presence in front of you. This is the Self that is always encouraging you and inspiring you to be patient, loving, tender, and compassionate with yourself and others. It is the you that is pure love and only love; the real you. Now look at your I Am, and allow yourself to fall more deeply in love with you, opening your heart to you more and more.
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Now see your I Am become infinitely small, standing on a zero-point stream of light radiating out from your sacred heart. Walk into and toward the sacred heart as your I Am presence. The first doorway into the sacred heart is the violet fires of transfiguring divine love and infinite physical perfection. Allow the violet fires to completely encompass you, caress you, and love you. Place into them any lower emotions or beliefs that you are ready to let go of, including fears, doubts, and regrets. Allow yourself to remain in the violet fires throughout this journey, releasing energies that you are ready to let go of, as well as things that may come up in the journey. Remember, within the sacred heart you are multidimensional and can be in many places at one time. The second doorway into the sacred heart is the white fires of purification and resurrection. Allow these white fires also to completely encompass you, caress you, and love you. Let these white fires inspire you and remind you of your infinite potential. As you step into your sacred heart, see yourself in a floral paradise, a place like the Garden of Eden, where everything is alive—the numerous flowers surrounding you and all of nature welcoming you home. A handsome bronze deity, Huitzilopochtli, welcomes you to this paradisal realm, Xochicalli (the place or house of flowers). He takes you over to a lake of floating chinampas, rectangular strips of floating beds of vegetation, where luminous beings are
sunbathing. He invites you to get on one of the sunbathing beds. Get on the bed and lie down. As you are lying on the floating bed in the lake, let the high noon replenish you and fill you with divine power, strength, and vitality. Know that the magic of Xochicalli and its chinampas will recalibrate your sacred essence energy to an ideal balance of power and strength. Once you have had your fill of sacred essence energy from the high noon, exit from Xochicalli through your sacred heart. Visualize yourself in the sacred white fires of purification and resurrection, and then in the violet fires. The sacred fire angels here congratulate you for taking the time to do something loving and nurturing for yourself. Then take six deep inhales and exhales, inhaling into the nose and exhaling out of the mouth. Gently rub your thighs with your hands, coming back fully present and grounded.
You can also depart from the color correspondences and place crystals on your chakras according to their gifts and properties, based on what you feel you need energetically. Chakras, Colors, and Properties of Crystals 1.
Root chakra and red crystals. The root chakra is located at the base of the spine, inside the vagina in women and above the testicles in men. Working with the root chakra can help to ground and center us. The color associated with the root chakra is red. Red crystals raise and ground energy.
2.
Sacral chakra and orange crystals.
The sacral chakra is found just below the navel in the center of the body. Working with the sacral chakra can help us to feel emotionally balanced. The color associated with this chakra is orange. Orange crystals can help to move, release, and balance energies.
SUNBATHING WITH CRYSTALS This ceremony helps to cleanse, energize, and clear blocks within our energy centers (chakras) and subtle energetic bodies. Each chakra resonates with a particular frequency and is associated with specific colors, which also vibrate at particular frequencies. You can place the crystal of the corresponding color on the chakra. This will help to clear any blocks in the chakras, ensure they are resonating at an optimum frequency, and provide you with more energy through the energies of the high-noon sun and the crystals.
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3.
Solar plexus and yellow crystals. The solar plexus is between the navel and sternum. Working with this center can enhance personal will and sense of power. The color associated with the solar plexus is yellow. Yellow crystals help to reduce tension and revitalize and balance power.
4.
Heart chakra and green or pink crystals. The heart chakra is located behind the sternum. Working with the heart chakra can induce peace, compassion, and love. The heart chakra
is associated with the colors green and pink. Green crystals promote peace and understanding. Pink crystals induce calmness, softness, and compassion. 5.
Throat chakra and blue crystals. The throat chakra sits right above the hollow base of the neck. Working with the throat chakra can aid communication and creativity. The throat chakra is associated with the color blue. Blue crystals bring a sense of balance and intuitive knowing.
6.
Third eye and indigo crystals. The
third eye chakra is at the center of the forehead. Working with the third eye develops imagination, discernment, and intuition. This chakra is typically associated with indigo. Indigo crystals can enhance intuitive gifts. 7.
Crown chakra and violet crystals.
The crown chakra is located above the very top of the head. Working with the crown chakra can develop inspiration
and expansiveness. The crown chakra is associated with violet. Violet crystals enhance spiritual growth and awareness. Go outside to sunbathe for 15 to 20 minutes between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m., and lay crystals along your energy centers to cleanse and energize you. The ancient Mexica ritually sunbathed to garner sacred essence energy, although too much sun was believed to have adverse effects. If possible, do this ceremony after you have taken a baño (see pages 56–58 [of Sacred Energies of the Sun and Moon] for instructions). As you are lying down, set the intention of connecting with the energies of the sun at high noon. Thank the high-noon sun for cleansing and energizing you and for whatever additional intentions you have included in your sunbathing rite. *Author’s note: For more on Huitzilopochtli see pages 30 and 65 of Sacred Energies of the Sun and Moon.
From Sacred Energies of the Sun and Moon: Shamanic Rites of Curanderismo by Erika Buenaflor, M.A., J.D., © 2020 Bear & Company. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com. Find this book on Ofrenda’s Bookshop.org site.
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LA LUZ OF YOUR
Inner Child Curandera and Indigenous elder Maestra CC teaches us to nurture our inner child with the help of sunlight, moonlight, and spiritual bathing. WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL
T
HROUGH ANCESTRAL teachings of curanderismo, I learned that the South direction is called Huitzlampa or Witzlampa, depending on the Nahuatl dialect. It is where the sun is at its hottest point. It is the place of honor in our relationship with Tata Tonatiuh’s (Father Sun’s) energy. The South direction is the male energy that balances the female energy of the North direction.
The season of the South direction is summer, when Mother Earth is full of blooms, expansion, growth, lightness, outward activity, brightness, and creativity. This is a period when the days experience full sun. We humans are natural solar systems and need the sun’s energy for our own growth.
The South is the safe place of our soul, the place for reframing our mitote (distorted thoughts) that our traumatized little souls absorbed when we were young. It is the place of healing abuse, abandonment, fear—anything that might have broken our innocence as a child. By entering into the energy of the South direction while receiving support from a healing practitioner (curanderx), we learn to create a nurturing environment for our inner child and find balance in our relationship with our parents. The difficult part is surrendering our ego and breaking down the walls formed from hurt, pain, and trauma. Entering the warmth of the South direction is always a bit unsettling for me. It brings up memories of not feeling worthy of
permission to play and be joyful. My chiquitx, my inner child, struggles to find balance between fulfilling daily obligations and wanting to play outside on Madre Tierra, walking barefooted and splashing water. How can we maintain our balance while walking upon the slippery earth and still honor our interior light? In my case, I had to work through early traumatic experiences and heal my inner child by accepting that my parents did
Photo of an altar honoring the inner child. Image courtesy of the author.
what they thought was best regarding the circumstances life dealt them around my birth. Creator gifted me with the unconditional love of my Abuelita Casi, who taught me so much and continues to teach me from the other side of the sacred veil. Through her guidance, I was able to survive all that life dealt me when I was young and safely care for my chiquitx. A simple but powerful method she taught me was to take
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spiritual herbal baths outside in the sun. Why the sun? Because it represents my universal father enveloping me in warmth, healing energy, and light so that I feel safe and comforted.
Spiritual Bathing Spiritual baths (baños) are extremely helpful in working with the energy of the South direction. The water helps one’s inner child experience the feeling of being in the womb again. Spiritual water rituals offer a deep experience of purification and renewal. Water can be used in combination with prayer, meditation, herbs, and flowers as a means of providing a spiritual connection with our Divine Energy, the inner Light. Spiritual bathing is ancient and is now being re-appreciated for its healing qualities: We “modern” folks—who are often so out of touch with the power and rhythm of nature—need these spiritual therapies. Combining water, prayer, ritual, and sometimes plants or gems, spiritual bathing has its roots in a wide range of world cultures, each with its own philosophy, prayers, lore and rituals, and something unique to teach us. Spiritual bathing is a deeply healing, connecting, and soul-fulfilling practice. It awakens our senses and offers balance and rejuvenation in our daily lives. BATHING WITH ROSEMARY
One of my favorite forms of spiritual bathing is soaking in rosemary. I take fresh rosemary sprigs and drop them in a tub of hot water. I soak for 20 to 30 minutes and then air dry while drinking a cup of rosemary tea. I use
it to rinse my hair also. If you don’t have fresh rosemary, you can make a tea with dry rosemary and then pour the strained tea into the bath water. These baths cleanse the soul, washing away the negative effects of anger, fear and anxiety, grief and trauma, exhaustion and world-weariness, confusion and disquietude, unwanted and harmful emotional baggage, and general stress. They can be taken at home or while traveling. VARIATIONS OF SPIRITUAL BATHING
The most powerful spiritual baths I’ve taken have been outside during a full moon and under the stars in a large water trough. I release so much negative energy through tears, screams, and deep breaths. The new moon is also a good time to sit in water outside to restore the inner light of our chiquitx. If you are by the ocean, you can give yourself a limpia in Madre Mar. If you are by a river or lake, you can use the same concept. You can also use simple methods to start: take a shower or bath, wash your feet, or even just wash your hands. Water is healing; water is life.
Other Ways to Honor Your Inner Child
you flourish like a garden. Raise your hands high up to the sky, and gather the sun’s energy, bringing it to your head, face, heart, and core. Do it four times for your spirit, heart, mind, and body. Take some deep cleansing breaths and feel the light within you grow brighter. Take time to honor your inner child and the children in your life by finding playtime. Set aside the dishes, the laundry, and the mopping—the chores will wait. Turn up the music and dance, jump on the bed, blow bubbles, skip, or have a pillow fight. Then consider: What made you laugh and brighten up your inner child by leaving them breathless with laughter? Watch the hummingbirds and butterflies as they fly from flower to flower or herb to herb, taking in the nectar of las plantitas sagradas. They teach us that life is sweet during this season, and our chiquitx needs that sweetness to keep the light on in our hearts. I share my affirmation for the South: “I am Life, I am LIGHT, I am Love.” —Anonymous Remember to greet each day with JOY! A’ho Ometeotl
Beyond spiritual bathing, you can honor your inner child by nourishing yourself in the sun and with play. Try to awaken early in the morning and reach to the sun for nourishment so that
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Harnessing
Moonlight WORDS BY
Suhaly Bautista-Carolina
“T
here was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose—a gleaming, round saucer—over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul—or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon.” —Haruki Murakami
M
OONLIGHT, IN THE scientific definition, is the light that reaches us here on Earth from the moon, composed of mostly sunlight with some earthlight and starlight, reflected off of the moon’s surface. Since its birth from its mama (our very own Earth) approximately (and debatably) 4.5 billion years ago, the moon and its light have fascinated, guided, and inspired every civilization on our precious blue planet. From folklore and science to art, literature, and language, the moon and its influence are undeniable and have left a permanent mark on the history of humankind. It has also made our closest celestial neighbor a continuous, beaming inspiration across human cultures, spiritual practices, traditions, and more. For the indigenous Taíno people of my ancestral homeland of Kiskeya (presently the Dominican Republic and Haiti), the moon was said to rise from the cave Mautiatbuel at dusk and return at sunrise. It was, and remains, the illuminating equal and pair to the sun in our cosmos, a light that reflects the luminance that is already nascent inside of us. This ritual offering for harnessing moonlight brings us into closer proximity with the light within. You can perform this ritual during any phase of the moon, at times when you are needing to invite more radiance and glow into your heart, mind, body, and spirit. However, the ritual is ideally performed when the moon is at its highest illumination, also known as the full moon phase. Depending
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on the clarity of the night sky, the moon may not be visible during the full moon. I ask that you do not let this deter you from your ritual practice. The light of the moon is always present, even when not visible to human eyes. The energy and light of the full moon are also available to us in the three days leading up to the full moon and in the three days after.
Harnessing Moonlight Ritual I welcome you to take what serves you and to also add your own unique and personal modifications over time. If you are able to perform this ritual outdoors in the open air, under the light of the moon, I encourage you to do so. If you do not have access to an outdoor space or are unable to perform this ritual outdoors, a spot inside of your home or space, nearest to a window, will be just as suitable. Making Lemon Balm Tea Brew some lemon balm tea to drink throughout the ritual. Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a medicinal plant in the mint (Lamiaceae) family with several herbal actions, including those of a nervine. Nervines, such as lemon balm, support and nourish the body’s central nervous system, providing relief from nervous exhaustion, tension, and restlessness. Spiritually, lemon balm also holds the wisdom of the moon, and even more specifically, evokes the visual of the full moon suspended over the ocean. It is my favorite plant to work with when the
moon is in its full moon phase and also my daughter’s namesake: Luna Kai, translated as Moon Ocean. To make the tea, pour eight ounces (8 oz) of boiling hot water over one tablespoon of dried lemon balm or two tablespoons of fresh lemon balm. (Organic and/or ethically harvested or sourced lemon balm is best, whenever possible.) Cover the cup and let the herbs steep for about 5-7 minutes. Strain and sweeten to your liking. You will sip on this tea throughout the ritual, as desired. Preparing Your Workspace or Altar Fill a glass vessel with drinking water. A vessel can be a mason jar, a drinking glass, or a repurposed honey/sauce jar from which you are comfortable drinking. Ensure you are able to see through the glass. (For anyone who is blind or partially sighted, it is not necessary for you to view inside of the glass, but instead for the water to be contained in a transparent glass, where light can move through the water molecules freely and with no obstructions.) Surround your workspace or altar with tools that bring forth and carry lunar energy. This can include moon crystals such as moonstone, opal, or selenite; a Goddess of the Moon statuette or a moon figure from your own culture; an image of the moon or the moon tarot card; or any other personal item that evokes the spirit and energy of the moon for you. For example, for me, this is a statue of Diosa Luna from the Domini-
Illustration of Diosa Luna by Tiffany Diana, commissioned by Moon Mother Apothecary. Courtesy of the author.
can Republic. Wear white clothing, if possible. The color white reflects light in the same way that the moon reflects the light of the sun. It allows us to absorb only what we choose and refract all the rest. Harnessing Moonlight Anoint yourself with an oil of your choice, rubbing a few drops onto each wrist, then pressing your anointed wrists gently onto your third eye, and finally onto the back of your neck. This anointing oil can be any oil that is grounding and calming for you and offers you peace. This should not be a pure essential oil, as essential oils are very strong and must be safely diluted before using directly on the skin. Instead, if you are using essen-
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tial oils, they should be infused in a carrier oil such as olive, sunflower, or jojoba oil, as long as these oils do not irritate your skin.
throughout the full moon until your glass is empty. You can consume it in one sitting or over time, for up to three days.
Light a white candle. Place the lit candle near your water glass, at least 6” away so that the heat does not shatter the glass. Allow the light from the candle to bounce off of the water glass, mirroring the way the sun’s light reflects off the surface of the moon. The glass is the moon. The flame is the sun. Watch the flame dance against the glass and give thanks. Reflect on your full moon harvest and all that you have brought forward during this particular moon cycle. All that is in motion, and not yet complete, will carry over into the next moon phase.
Take a few minutes to write and reflect on the gifts that the moon goddess offered you during your meditation. Consider what layers you shed on your journey to the moonlight, what you received or harvested, and what is left to bring forward into the next moon cycle. If this is the start of your moon journal, be sure to return to it during each full moon ritual to take note of the richness of your journey.
Read the following moonlight meditation (pgs. 65–67) aloud, or record your voice while reading this meditation aloud. With a recording, you will be able to play it aloud for yourself anytime you’re doing this particular moonlight ritual. Accompanying background sounds for this meditation might also include ocean waves or gentle rainfall, as the moon is also ruled by the element of water. •••
O
NCE YOU ARE back from your meditative state, take your water glass and speak one to three (no more than three) full moon intentions into your drinking glass. Make sure your breath hits the water when you speak, causing ripples on the top layer of the water. Once your intentions have been spoken, drink from your water glass, and continue drinking
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May we find the blessings and opportunities for transformation as we work together with the magic of the moon, and may we always know that the light lives within us.
Full Moon, Luna Llena Meditation Sit or lie in a comfortable position with the palms of your hands facing up in a gesture to receive. If you feel comfortable, close your eyes. Bring your awareness to your breath and take a deep inhale in through your nose and an extended exhale out through your mouth. Do this four more times (for a total of five deep breaths) before returning to your normal breath and breathing. Focus on your breath and breathing. Tune in to the sounds around you. Notice them and allow them to be. It is now time to travel.
It is a dark night, and you are feeling safe and protected as you begin your journey towards the beach. As you begin your journey in the darkness of the night, your path becomes illuminated, and the floor beneath you begins to shine with a silvery glow, leading you down a winding path, the ground beneath your feet slowly turning from moist, dewy grass to warm sand.
You arrive at the beach and now see that your path is illuminated by the fullness of the moon. You continue to follow the beacon of light in the night sky, leading you closer and closer, with each step, towards the sounds of the ocean waves crashing against the shore. Imagine that this glowing path of silver light was put before you to illuminate all that you have been hiding, perhaps from others, but even from yourself. Tonight, the mystery, the secrets, the things hiding in your personal cave are brought to life. As you walk, with each step you take, you feel yourself shed a layer, like clothing. With every intentional step on your illuminated path, you become lighter. You are letting go of all that no longer serves you. You are releasing old beliefs, habits, people, things, myths, and narratives that have been weighing you down. Every step offers you levity, peace, and clarity. With every step you take on your path, you and the light begin to merge until you, too, are glowing while walking on the illuminated path. What becomes illuminated is what we can see clearly. Now, you find yourself standing naked at the shore of the ocean, the waves crashing at your feet, cleansing your toes with saltwater, your feet sinking gently into the sand beneath you. As you look onto the horizon, you see the full, round,
bountiful moon breaking through from behind the clouds, shining a beam of light onto the ocean’s surface. You hold up your arms to receive the moonlight, and as you do, you see the goddess of the moon float down towards you from the moon’s surface on the beam of light. When the moon goddess reaches you, she offers you a message and a basket, containing three gifts that represent your full moon harvest. You accept these gifts and thank her, as she floats back onto the beam of light and up onto the moon’s surface. You take one final look at the full moon, reflecting on its gifts, and walk back on your illuminated path, through the warm sand, up through the winding path of dewy grass, and back to your starting point.
••• Bring your awareness back to your breath and take a deep inhale in through your nose and an extended exhale out through your mouth. Do this four more times (for a total of five deep breaths) before returning to your normal breath and breathing. Focus on your breath and breathing. Tune in to the sounds around you. Notice them and allow them to be. It is now time to return. Open your eyes, slowly and gently.
LISTEN ONLINE
Earth/Side
FOR
Gabriel WORDS BY
CARMEN MARGARITA MALIS KING
E
ARTH/SIDE: FOR GABRIEL is a mosaic of writings from 2020-2021 that I started weaving together after birthing my son, Gabriel, in November 2020. This piece began as a non-linear narrative about the time in my life leading up to his conception, through my pregnancy, and into the post-birthing cuarentena (40 days postpartum) and fourth trimester. As I was piecing these writings together to become a cohesive poem, it took on a more linear shape; this was happening alongside my internal processing of our birth story. At the heart of this poem is the recognition of pregnancy as a middle-ground or liminal space between the worlds of conceiving (creation) and birthing (guiding someone into an earthly existence). To dar a luz (to birth/ bring forth light) is a transitional state between inside/outside of the womb. Through
the process of birth, the birthing person takes on the journey of guiding a new being from one phase of being into another. This poem is also about the passage of stepping into being a mama, about the shift in identity from my pre-baby days to understanding what it means to be a mama to a new baby. As I was writing this poem, I was also thinking about how Gabriel was “transverse breech” (in biomedical terms), and despite my efforts to encourage him to move, he stayed in this sideways lying position (necessitating a C-section). While assembling this poem, I was surrendering the “perfect birth” narrative I had created by seeing that despite things not going how I envisioned, I brought strength to the beautiful ceremony of welcoming Gabriel.
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Earth/Side: for Gabriel Becoming into light/ness. Weaving bones & muscle Vessels & cells Fabric of eternity Water-Memory. Preparing a place for you: Aquí te espero. I am in the garden with the golden light, Your Baba &I Manzanilla, calendula, lavender, plumajillo. I steep myself in ceremony, & walk through the quiet months. Looking for you: Will you be familiar? Will you be familial? You, side-ways in your womb-like home. Skin stretching my body of water Held by river currents coursing through ancestors—me—you: Esperando oír tu voz.
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Out-breath, Ombligo rising above, Emerging like hyacinth, like crocus. Tides pulling gravity. Water flowing from Other waters Everywhere, Flowers singing: “El día en que tu naciste nacieron todas las flores.” Shifter of sleep/Your hair like feathers, Your hair, wet. Touching your face, Skin silken like petalos de rosas Tracing your head, Knowing your scent. My body-mind given for you. My body imprinted with your shape. Watching the stillness before spring again— Red buds, their tender existence on maple branches. The unfolding of my new identity: Being, breathing here.
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71
Revisiting Sandra Cisneros’s
“Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” Religion scholar Natalie Solis explores ways Guadalupe is being recast and reclaimed in Xicanx/Latinx youth culture. WORDS BY NATALIE SOLIS
E
VER SINCE READING Sandra Cisneros’s essay “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” during my junior year of college, I have intended to embody that “sexy mama” goddess energy of “becoming a woman comfortable in her own skin.” In the essay, Cisneros divulges her relationship with sexuality, religion, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Cisneros writes that her
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upbringing in a traditional, Mexican Catholic family led to silence around her own body and sexual expression and caused her, initially, to rebel against Our Lady of Guadalupe, a symbol evoked to stress purity and suppress sexuality. As Cisneros unearthed Guadalupe’s own herstory, particularly her pre-Columbian influences, Cisneros was able to recast and reclaim Guadalupe as a sex goddess—not as the mother of god, but as a goddess herself.
As much as I embrace Cisneros’s later sentiments, I still find myself falling into a culture of guilt, denial, and silence of sexuality, clumsily mirroring Cisneros’s testimonio. Indoctrinated into the puta-virgen (whore-virgin) dichotomy through thirteen years of Catholic school—and reminded during every sacramental upgrade, from my first communion to confirmation, of the dire importance of remaining a virgin until marriage—I still face an ongoing battle to heal my relationship with sexuality. Searching for a guide to illuminate an inner sex goddess, I began to research ways that Guadalupe has been reclaimed in the arts and popular culture. I share examples from my research on ways Latinx/Xicanx people are using Guadalupe to break free from the chastity belt that is often imposed by conservative-masked-as-traditional strains of Christianity, Catholicism, and dominant U.S. religious culture. Cisneros’s essay, first published in 1996, inspired experimentation with La Lupe symbolism, particularly in aesthetic and artistic creations. Thanks to Cisneros, La Lupe is everywhere, including clothing. Having evolved over the last few decades, La Lupe of the 2020s is sexier than ever. Moving far beyond the nondescript Guadalupe necklaces their mothers and grandmothers might have worn, Latinxs of today have created a plethora of Guadalupe-inspired adornment. From crop tops, denim jackets, and thongs to face masks, wearing La Lupe on my body has helped me get in touch with my sexuality. Whether dancing in the clubs of Roma Norte in a Guadalupe-patterned bustier to
wearing my Guadalupe socks as a reminder of my own sacrality, I find pleasure knowing that La Lupe is with me, blessing rather than
“Invoking Guadalupe the (Pink) Sex Goddess.” Image courtesy of the author.
condemning my sexual journey. Guadalupe’s image on clothing even spreads beyond Xicanx/Latinx/Mexicanx cultures, with fast fashion brands like Forever 21 trying to tap into the Guadalupan marketplace by selling bodysuits of La Lupe, ones that echo the aesthetics of Mujerista Market, a trans/Latinx-owned brand that popularized the Guadalupe crop top in 2017. In popular culture as well, Guadalupe’s modern-day apparitions take place across digital realms such as social media and podcasts. A significant development is Guadalupe’s popular recognition as a sex goddess, reclaimed
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as la santa patrona (patron saint) of neoperreo, an increasingly widespread alternative subgenre of reggaeton centered around bodily and sexual inclusivity, empowering fans of neoperreo music to embrace perreo (twerking) as acts of self-love. La Lupe appears in the work of neoperreo artists like Ms. Nina’s 2019
Photo of Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe. Image courtesy of the author.
album “Perreando Por Fuera, Llorando Por Dentro” (“Twerking on the Outside, Crying on the Inside”). Neoperreo highlights the shape-shifting, migratory nature of La Lupe. At Ms. Nina’s September 2019 Mexico City concert at La Galera, a mix of symbols from U.S. Latinx/Xicanx street culture flashed onstage and dominated the set by DJ Rosa Pistola. A recognition of Latinx/Xicanx’s constant reinventions of La Lupe exists in the neoperreo scene yet is overlooked across U.S. and Latin American scholarship and religious/spiritual practices. Aside from the growth of La Lupe within the arts, there are still many unrealized intentions to living out “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” in everyday life. First, Cisneros’s
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testimonio with accessing contraception and practicing safe sex still rings true for many Xicanx/Latinx young adults. As confirmed through conversations I’ve had with colleagues, so many of us have experienced a secretive and at times painful relationship with accessing resources for sexual health. We need to learn to let go of this shame and can start by affirming each other. Second, there is a need to focus on La Lupe’s diverse gender and sexual expressions. I envision that Guadalupe’s migratory, shape-shifting nature does not stop at the borders of gender and sex; I see her embracing the journeys of LGBTQIA+ identifying people as well. Third, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, it is important for us to create a more inclusive future regarding sexuality, especially the prominence of digital sexual expressions in a time when physical touch is so limited. We must reimagine how “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess” would engage in sexuality today: Would La Lupe be on dating apps? Create an OnlyFans? Engage in sex work? I imagine she would encourage us all to experiment and respect sexual exploration. Living out sexuality with the intention of becoming comfortable in your own skin is a difficult task. The necessity of isolation during a full year of quarantine has undoubtably put a strain on the relational, sexual, and social desires of many sex goddesses in training. In light of this tension, I urge us all to lovingly examine our relationships with sex and La Lupe in 2021. Hopefully, we’ll be able to embrace each other safely in person again.
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Q&A ON
FUNERAL FOR FLACA An Interview with Author
Emilly Prado Funeral for Flaca is the debut book from author Emilly Prado, an award-winning journalist and DJ from the Portland area. In this collection of essays, each titled with the name of a song, Emilly “retraces her experience coming of age as a prep-turned-chola-turned-punk” creating an offering that is “one-part memoir-in-essays, and one-part playlist, zigzagging across genres, tastes, and decades.” We’re thrilled to share a preview from the book with you, a chapter called “La Llorona,” in the pages that follow. In this interview, Emilly sets the stage, offering a sense of both the book and her practice as a writer. —Ed. Ofrenda Magazine (OM): Thank you for sharing an excerpt from Funeral for Flaca with our readers. There are so many rich layers in your book—experimentation, heritage, social justice, and healing, among others. Can you share more about what this particular selection, “La Llorona,” means to you?
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Funeral for Flaca by Emilly Prado. Future Tense Books, 2021. Image courtesy of the publisher.
Emilly Prado (EP): “La Llorona” is an essay
that appears near the end of this collection, and it started with a memory of a tree in my grandparent’s house in Mexico. I didn’t know exactly where I’d go from there, other than I knew I wanted to spend some time thinking and writing about this tree. My writing often feels like a tree—messy and sprawling with many possible branches to explore, and as I thought more about the tree, it sparked memories of Mexico, my roots, growing up, and the lifecycle of things—myself, traditions, and relationships. It documents the changes of this tree, this house, and my body. It marks the “end” of my disordered eating, and perhaps more accurately, a forced severing of my ties to the nickname Flaca. I say end in quotes because I think the stage of my life I’m in now feels something more like a remission, as the stressors and societal messages that fueled my body image struggles still exist, and, like I write, require ongoing monitoring, even on a subconscious level, to not let myself get caught up in the toxicity. Finally, the title for the essay came after it was written because each essay in Funeral for Flaca is the name of a song, and together, they make a playlist. I picked it because in addition to being known as Flaca, I also grew up being called a cry baby. I thought “La Llorona” was a fitting ode to this other nickname, to the powerful queer icon Chavela Vargas, and the terrifying Mexican folktale of the ghost woman who sobs for eternity, roaming the land, especially near rivers, as
she cries out in mourning for her three children—each of which she drowned. OM: What is your writing practice like? EP: I like to spend mornings, whenever I
can carve out the time, writing stream-ofconscious thoughts in a journal. I was never a morning person, but my partner converted me into one when I set my own routine to his former teaching schedule. I’m a convert, and I love rising early and easing into my day with quiet and a cup of tea. When it comes to writing creatively, with the intent to write an essay or maybe a scene towards another memoir project I’ve been slowly building towards since 2012, I start with making sure I’m comfortable. I live with chronic pain stemming from a few overuse injuries, so I’m typically limited to writing in an ergonomic desk set up. I put on headphones and listen to weird atmospheric instrumental music, and eventually the world around me dissolves. If I’m feeling anxious or don’t have a huge urge to write, I’ll set a timer. I make a promise to keep writing until the timer runs out, and often, I’ll find I’m enjoying it so much I want to continue. Then I keep doing this until things become more coherent and take plenty of breaks. I like to revise as I go, but also do several full sweeps after I’ve come to what I think might be a conclusion. I don’t write every day, but I’m okay with that. OM: Many of the essays you write about document traumas that occur
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Emilly Prado. Credit: Josue Rivas. Image courtesy of Emilly Prado.
to you, your family, or to a wider community, and yet there is still humor and gentleness woven throughout. In what ways has writing this book impacted your relationship to these particular memories? EP: Writing these essays felt healing, albeit
very difficult and triggering at times. I had to reckon and sort through what I thought about different experiences I had, then zoom out enough to think about how to structure the essays and the collection as a whole. My work often reflects on the micro and macro—zooming in and out to examine how individual instances connect to wider systems, so I needed time to process to be able to analyze and step back with a critical lens. Part of that processing and move past, or at least through, the stages of heightened emotionality that memoir stirs in me occurred away from the writing desk alone or with friends or in therapy, and part of it also occurred through the writing process itself.
My work often reflects on the micro and macro— zooming in and out to examine how individual instances connect to wider systems...
What’s interesting is that Funeral for Flaca started out as a class project for the Prose and Bookmaking Certificate Program I participated in at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland in 2019, and in the two years since, I’ve already found I feel differently from how I wrote about the experiences then. I added new essays written in 2020 and 2021 to this expanded and heavily revised edition. It’s now about twice as long as it was originally, and some major changes have happened to essays that appeared in the first version of this collection. It was
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exciting to see this growth from a personal healing and craft perspective.
and how it has felt and still feels for me to reckon with contradictions.
I also found that in the time that had passed, I had actually forgotten about the lightness within the essays. Maybe because of my brain’s tendency to remember the painful subjects I covered more? I was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing along the book when I reread it in preparation for adding new essays. That might sound odd or a little pompous—laughing at my own writing—but I laugh at my own jokes in-person all the time, so this was comforting to me and made me feel less nervous about putting out the collection again because it suddenly was a more balanced, accurate reflection of my experience than I had remembered. Yes, terrible, painful things have occurred in my life, but I am also so grateful for all the times when that isn’t at the forefront of how I’m feeling and for all the sweet, funny moments in this life that I get.
What does it mean to be an intersectional feminist that hates the patriarchy, but still wants a relationship with her dad—a human whose values and actions often feel opposite to what I believe in? How do I, as a survivor, feel about accountability in a transformative justice lens, sans police, when it comes to the white man who sexually assaulted me? What does it mean to heal my relationship with my body when the rejection of ethos and emphasis still feels centered on size?
OM: The theme for this issue is Luz/ Illumination. Looking back on what you’ve written, what is a topic or theme that you feel particularly proud to have shined a light on? EP: I think one of my favorite things about
this collection is the sense of untidiness and getting the chance to write into the gray. I think we, living under the white supremacist United States perspective, have been taught that many things in life are binary—good or bad, right or wrong, genders are limited to two, et cetera. I wanted to explore the gray,
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I still don’t have precise answers to the questions I pose, but I continue to reckon with what my beliefs and values are, and how they impact one another. I’m proud that Funeral for Flaca feels like a documentation of the messiness of my humanity. Like Carmen Maria Machado writes in In The Dream House, it’s in this complexity of humanity— the right to be portrayed as messy or as villains—that marginalized people can be seen as whole.
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LA LLORONA
AN EXCERPT FROM FUNERAL FOR FLACA BY EMILLY PRADO
I
N THE MIDDLE of Mama Coyo’s house in Aguililla, Michoacán, there is a tree with thick beige roots buried deep into the ground. Papa Nano lives there too but I have become accustomed to referring to it as her house on account of my own single mother, the single mothers of all my friends, and the true matriarchs running households on both sides of my family. The tree in the middle of the house is majestic and several feet taller than the roof. Its branches sprout high up through a wide, squared opening in the roof, curling over the kitchen and above the cemented pila holding this week’s clean water. The
tile that surrounds the tree—the walkway between the kitchen and bathroom—has tilted uphill under its roots. It grew right before our eyes even though no one noticed. If you’re not careful and walk too heavy, you can kick a square tile loose. As kids, we’d climb up the arms of the tree. We’d run to the tree for safety—for protection from Mama Coyo’s viciously nippy macaw. One time my sister Daniela wasn’t careful enough and tumbled down, so many feet, onto her back. She cried but she did not die. Growing up, I was sure it was because God had been watching.
The hole in the roof of Mama Coyo’s house is not an accident. It’s more like a broad sunroof made without glass. If I chopped down the tree at the heart of this house, I could count the rings to tell you how old it is, but I can tell you instead that it was more than two embraces wide when I was seven years old. It took almost twenty years before I saw anything else like it—another tree smack in the middle of a house.
Even now, when I feel like I’m constantly scanning my thoughts for corruption, filter what media and celebrity accounts I consume... I continue to search for my own version of healing.
In the daytime, el sol beams down, and Papa Nano lays across the plastic-weaved folding chair in the salon, warmed and swatting flies in his sleep. I have never seen Papa Nano’s eyes because he hides them behind thick black sunglasses, having lost one to a dart or maybe a stick as a kid, but I am sure he is asleep when I see him lying there (at least some of the time). At night, the stars glimmer and the black shadows of fleeting birds and bats dash overhead. The tree at the heart of the house continues to grow and happily laps up the rainwater when it pours. Unlike me, the tree is not afraid; not of the water or the lightning or the thunder that shuts off our electricity and shakes the other two-toned houses around. When I was still little in every way, my tiny body would shake as I cried and covered my ears, holding my breath when the flashes brought light and the dread of a mounting roar. I was taught to be less scared because Mama Coyo told me in Spanish that God built
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an invisible barrier around this pueblo to protect it from being burned by lightning strikes. She’d tell me how this pueblo had existed for thousands of years and not once did it get burned to a crisp or crack under a bolt of ice-white relámpago.
••• This house is where my Papi grew up when he was blonde and blue-eyed for the first two years of his life. This is where my Papi continued to grow when his hair turned black and his skin turned brown and he lost two of his nine siblings: one from a gunshot and another from a scorpion sting inside her baby cuna. This is the house I spent my summers in, growing up and into my morena skin and learning the feeling of what it’s like to blend in for the first time. In Mexico, I learned the nicknames of every kid on the block and wore my own name proudly. My Papi must have called me his Flaca the first time he laid eyes on me—a slippery and noodly 22 inches long, 6 lbs. light. “Skinny Girl” doesn’t have the same ring to it, like so many other words that lose their poesy by way of translation, but his Skinny Girl I was. In Aguililla, I was also Flaca, and there was the loud and wildly goofy Chucho. The rude ass, gold-chain wearing bully was called Carlingas. Across the way were Ticho y Toco, the older neighborhood sisters-turned-lifetime family friends (one of which I
witnessed pretending to be my aunt when my family helped her cross the border as I sat in the back row of our Suburban), and a few blocks further out lived Canelo, the cinnamon-haired, amply freckled moreno. Plus, my little brothers, Flaco (Hector) and Gordo (Hector) were also named on account of their weight. My Papi was given the nickname of Chayote when he emerged from the womb with hair eternally reaching high up into the sky. His strands the prickly spikes of the chayote vegetable— known in English less beautifully as the mirliton squash. My mom’s nickname is Chatiya—a nickname passed down from her own mother’s nickname of Chata, and one given to people blessed with allegedly funny noses. My Tia Delfina was always known as Concha and when she died, my family wrote it on her funeral invitation with pride. Having witnessed nicknames lasting lifetimes, and up to and beyond the grave, I did not know names could have an expiration date until my own had come and gone. I do not know when my own Flaca was annulled, but maybe it was right after my 21st birthday? There was no coroner or grim reaper who appeared after the scale passed a certain number nor a memo sent from my father alerting me my nickname was dead. What is the name for a grief that creeps in after losing something, mixed with the back-dated guilt and shame of not really
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noticing? What is the nickname for a person who no longer embodies their name? What happens to a person who has become unrecognizable to some? What do we call a tree that’s been severed from its roots? A person who has been robbed of their identity?
••• Men in my family have come up to me to tell me I am no longer Flaca. Women in my family have told me this too. When I told my mom a mustached man—some distant relative—approached me at my Papa Nano’s birthday party and said he remembered “when I used to be spaghetti,” my Mami laughed. “Spaghetti!” she cackled. “Spaghetti!” she repeated the punchline back several times. But when my mom stops laughing, she tells anyone who will listen that she used to be spaghetti too. I am mad at the mustached man, but I am even more mad at the mustached man for the sake of my Mami. Maybe I should have realized my provisional nickname was a challenge. The two syllables a double-edged sword yielding adoration and taunting—daring me to live up to my name. To govern the food that touches my lips when I can no longer eat “without consequence.” Fla-kah. A hissing reminder that I should hunch to make myself seem smaller and that
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giving up on counting calories meant giving up on who I was born to be. Flaca is a name to be earned and not a name for the weak. Flaca is not even given to girls or women who are “average,” or who teeter to the other side of BMI. Flaca is not to be given to girls who look like me.
••• Sometimes I wonder what being seen as skinny again would give me. What I’d get in return—if only I was thinner, if only my kind of overweight didn’t result in a belly as rolly, if only my hips didn’t jut out disrupting that Kim K hourglass illusion—the only figure thicker girls are allowed to have. Sometimes I wonder what ribbons I’d win, what clothes Cosmo magazine would tell me I could finally wear, what it would take for Papi to rechristen me as Flaca again. And then I remember there has never been a time I believed I lived up to my nickname of Flaca. There was never a time I looked down at myself and thought, “This body is so beautiful. I am such a skinny girl.” There was never a time I was at peace with my body when I was convinced all I needed was to be at war. There was only the time when accidentally starving myself became purposely starving myself. The years when my Mami called me an anorexic without knowing how to take it more seriously, or help. The sophomore year of high school dotted by walking pneumonia, a sinus
infection, and half a dozen colds in the span of six months. The many seasons of feeling perpetually cold. The day nearing high school graduation when I looked up the signs of suffering from an eating disorder and checked off my matching symptoms (thinning hair, brittle nails, easily bruised, low immune system, low self-esteem). The same day as my matching symptoms when I told myself going through formal treatment wasn’t an option because of cost and sure-to-mortify family chisme. There was also the near-decade of falsely thinking all recovery meant was forcing food into my body. In the years since, when grocery store shopping still felt like an impossible math equation—every bagged item another calculation. Even now, when I feel like I’m constantly scanning my thoughts for corruption, filter what media and celebrity accounts I consume, and even though my fear of relapse still follows, I continue to search for my own version of healing.
••• This house in Aguililla has witnessed and cycled right alongside my own family’s births, growth, and deaths. I have not been back to this house in at least twelve years, but I have heard it, like me, looks different. My cousins tell me Mama Coyo has a new macaw, still as vicious as the last. Mama Coyo has retired from making cheese. The cows Papa Nano once herded back into the small rancho next to the house have been replaced by parked cars. And
they’ve maybe closed up the opening in the roof, chopping down the once-sprawling tree. I think this is what change looks like. All I can think of is what’s gone. This house is a casket where I will lay Flaca and las vacas and Maya Coyo’s first macaw to rest. At the funeral, I will dig a hole into the foundation and drop each letter of my old name, one-by-one. I will stir the dirt with the remains of tree roots and say a prayer for us all—for old time’s sake. At the funeral, there will be no procession or eulogy. No explanations necessary. And for once, I won’t be wearing all black.
From Funeral for Flaca by Emilly Prado.© 2021. Printed with permission from the publisher Future Tense Books. You can pre-order a limited-edition hardcover or a paperback edition now at futuretensebooks. com/shop. Learn more at www.emillyprado.com or on social media @emillygprado.
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What We’re Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics Mirabai Starr Sounds True, 2019
New Mexico-based writer and religion scholar Mirabai Starr weaves together reflections, meditations, and practices that honor the divine feminine. Featuring sections on archetypal Earth Mothers and goddesses—from Gaia and Ix Chel to Indra and Demeter—and women mystics from many cultures, Starr’s book helps us embrace healing and care for the Earth and for ourselves. From the publisher: “Wild Mercy provides a much-needed alternative to the models of religion and spirituality that have dominated history. Here, Mirabai invites you to welcome the wisdom of women back into the collective field where it may transform the human family, heal the ravaged Earth, and awaken the divine love in our hearts.”
Coatlicue Girl Gris Muñoz Flowersong Books, 2020
Coatlicue Girl is a bilingual collection of poems and short stories from celebrated frontera writer Gris Muñoz. Poignant and vivid—and hitting on themes from spirituality to cultural identity—the collection reflects the rhythm and textures of her experience as a woman, daughter, mother, and mystic. In the foreword, author Luis Alberto Urrea describes Gris as “a rock and roll curandera with a syncretistic religious heart. Tossing off chains as she goes.” Look forward to work by Gris Muños in a future issue of Ofrenda.
Reading Feathered Serpent / Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico David Bowles Cinco Puntos Press, 2018
In Feathered Serpent / Dark Heart of Sky, David Bowles takes remnants from pre-Columbian codices and oral histories and weaves them into a cohesive epic that tells the origin story of Mexico, from “its beginnings in the dreams of the dual god, Ometeotl, to the arrival of the Spanish.” Bowles explains in his introduction that he grew up fascinated by myths, legends, and epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey; however, despite growing up on the border, he wasn’t exposed to any similar stories from or about his own Mexican culture until he began studying them in college. This book is his effort to fill in that gap and help us reconnect with these stories.
Beyond the Surface of Restorative Practices: Building a Culture of Equity, Connection, and Healing Marisol Queveda Rerucha Dave Burgess Consulting, Incorporated, 2021
Marisol Queveda Rerucha’s Beyond the Surface of Restorative Practices provides guidance for implementing restorative justice techniques in the classroom and other group situations. While written primarily for educators, the book is a valuable resource for parents, families, and anyone who seeks to bring healing to community relationships. From the publisher: “Rerucha draws on Indigenous traditions, researchbased frameworks, and the support of fellow educators and scholars in order to offer… vital tools for facing crises with compassion.” Look forward to work by Marisol Rerucha in a future issue of Ofrenda.
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Amanece Lemuel Isai Torres shares a meditative poem celebrating the blessing of dawn.
WORDS AND AUDIO BY LEMUEL ISAI TORRES
Amanece, desde los sonidos de la noche que lentamente desaparecen, luna, rosa nocturna manantial de estrellas, Tonantzin, eres luz amarilla. la oscura tristeza transparente termina, la mañana entallece desde su raíz otro día, veo hacia arriba y el cielo derrama nubes, espías de los dioses. la mañana llega, un regalo. Despierta.
Dawn arrives, from the deep sounds of darkness that slowly disappear. The moon is a nocturnal rose, a secret spring of stars, Tonantzin, you are yellow light from which the transparent sadness ends, morning sprouts from its core another day. I look up and the sky spills out clouds, they are the spies of the gods. morning arrives behold, a gift. Wake up.
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ofrenda MAGAZINE Ofrenda Magazine is a multimedia publication exploring Xicanx and Latinx spirituality, earth-centered wisdom traditions, and healing arts. Our mission is to inspire holistic wellness, ancestral connection, social and ecological justice, and spiritual creativity. WHERE YOU CAN FIND US Website ofrendamagazine.com Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn @OfrendaMagazine Audio ofrenda-magazine.simplecast.com NEWSLETTER SIGN UP ofrendamagazine.com/newsletter ISSUE 03: LUZ / ILLUMINATION | JUNE / JULY 2021 Editor in Chief / Creative Director: Marcy Carbajal Editorial support: Gavin Van Horn Stock image credits: iStockphoto.com/07_av; amygdala_imagery; Benjavisa; Discovod; Dole08; emreogan; Gerald Corsi; jacoblund; jamielawton; kdshutterman; NickyLloyd; NNehring; shakzu; Sundry Photography; Viktor_Kitaykin; VvoeVale; Yurdakul. CreativeMarket.com/Alaina Jensen; Doodle Cloud Studio; Lana Elanor; Laras Wonderland; Tom Merton; Solefield. 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 copyright to their words and images. NOTICE: No part of this publication may be fully or partially reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. The publisher disclaims all liability for damages resulting from typographical errors or mistakes.
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“ I share my affirmation for the South: “I am Life, I am LIGHT, I am Love.” —Anonymous
Remember to greet each day with JOY! A’ho Ometeotl —CUAUHTLI CIHUATL (pg. 59)