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

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Spotlights: Businesses to Support this Holiday Season

Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl: A Plática and Medicine Story

Returning to Center: A Guided Mindfulness Exercise

Community Marketplace

Gris Muñoz

Cameron Navarro

FROM THE EDITOR

A Special Issue:

Centering our Community We’re switching things up a little for the last issue of 2021. As we circle back and consider all that we’ve accomplished and shared this year, we wanted to honor and celebrate those who make this work possible: our supporters and contributors. One of our most prolific contributors is Cuauhtli Cihuatl, whom many of you know as Maestra CC. A beloved healer from New Mexico, CC has generously gifted Ofrenda with several writings, one for each issue so far. To celebrate CC and to say thank you for all she has shared with us, I invited storyteller and healer Gris Muñoz to write a profile about her. As you’ll read in her piece, author Luis Alberto Urrea describes Gris as a “rock and roll curandera” in the foreword to her book, Coatlicue Girl. This phrase stuck with me when I first read it, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it again as a description for Maestra CC in Eliseo “Cheo” Torres’s book, Curandero: Traditional Healers of Mexico and the Southwest (p. 33). I felt the inspiration to connect these two beautiful “rock and roll curanderas”—so that our audience might hear their conversation and learn from all that their storied lives might teach us. So as an extended feature in this issue of Ofrenda Magazine, we offer you Gris’s essay as well as an edited transcript of her interview with CC. While this issue is a bit shorter than those we usually produce, we wanted to give full attention to CC and her wisdom. May you be blessed by her medicina. In this issue, we also celebrate the members of our “Community Marketplace,” a space on our website where we offer free advertising for the small business owners of our community (ofrendamagazine.com/classifieds). We encourage you to take a look and get to know the people and the stories behind the businesses advertised* there. Let’s support each other as we head into the holiday season. Marcy Carbajal, Editor in Chief

*Legal disclaimer: We share advertisements as a service to our community, but this service does not constitute endorsement by Ofrenda Magazine. We do not accept any liability for the content of the advertisements, promises advertised, or the claims made.

Contents ISSUE 06: CENTERING | DECEMBER 2021

EXTENDED FEATURE

Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl: A Plática and Medicine Story | 10 ESSAY BY GRIS MUÑOZ INTERVIEW BETWEEN CUAUHTLI CIHUATL AND GRIS MUÑOZ

Seasonal Rituals for Fresh Starts | 32 WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL (Originally published in Ofrenda Magazine, Issue 01: Intention)

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHTS

Returning to Center: A Guided Meditation Practice | 54 WORDS BY CAMERON NAVARRO

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CONTRIBUTORS

CAMERON NAVARRO is a white Xicanx social worker working to create purposeful, sustainable, healing-centered (trauma-informed) change in our community by challenging and dismantling systems of oppression. He is the co-founder of Pa’lante Consulting, LLC, and the co-host of the Life is Work podcast, available on all platforms. Find him on IG at @ palanteconsults and @lifeisworkpod. PHOTO CREDIT: CAMERON NAVARRO

CELESTE CONTRERAS is a Xicana-Indigenous artist who works in mixed mediums to share stories of ceremony, palimpsests, and memory with reflections of identity. Her work includes illustrations, print, book arts, and animation. Her research includes storytelling through images and objects, relearning and decolonizing through ceremony and art, and much more. She is currently enrolled as an MFA candidate at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts. PHOTO CREDIT: CELESTE CONTRERAS

CUAUHTLI CIHUATL (Indigenous), who is also known as Maestra CC, is an elder and the founder of Kalpulli Teocalli Ollin in New Mexico. She is a Mexhika Huesteca, Raramuri, and Lipan Apache ceremonialist. She holds a J.D., a Ph.D. in public health and community education, and a master’s degree in social work. Now retired, she spends her energy on her Jardin Patzin. Her mission is to share her Abuelita’s traditions, for “la medicina es para todos.” PHOTO CREDIT: D’SANTI NAVA

GRIS MUÑOZ is a frontera poet and storyteller. She is the author of the bilingual poetry and short-story collection, Coatlicue Girl, most recently named a finalist for the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry by the Texas Institute of Letters. She is also the co-founder of the digital map and storytelling project, GeoTestimonios Transfronterizxs, which aims to record the experiences of women living on the El Paso/Juarez border. She is Xicana of Apache descent. PHOTO CREDIT: GRIS MUÑOZ

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ON THE COVER Xitlalinikwe, by Celeste Contreras, a Xicana-Indigenous artist who works in mixed mediums to share stories of ceremony, palimpsests, and memory with reflections of identity. She is currently enrolled as an MFA candidate at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts.

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OFRENDA MAGAZINE 2021 ISSUES

Explore this year’s issues at ofrendamagazine.com/issues. Digital copies are available for purchase through the Issuu app.

Issue 01: Intention

Issue 02: Nepantla

JAN/FEB 2021

MAR/APR 2021

Issue 03: Luz/ Illumination JUNE/JULY 2021

In this first issue, we invite

Nepantla is a Nahuatl word

In the Luz/Illumination issue,

you to meditate on the

that’s often translated as

we honor the sacred South

many meanings of intention.

“between.” It conjures ideas

direction (the direction of

After a challenging 2020,

of blending, mixing, and being

summer) and celebrate all

where might we aim in 2021?

of two cultures. In Nahuatl,

forms of light, awareness,

What goals should we set,

it suggests a process of

illumination, growth, joy, and

individually and collectively?

weaving two into one.

radiant energy.

How might we tap into

Kinship. Transformation. In

intention as the creative

this issue, we honor all these

power of the cosmos?

ideas—including the seasonal

What might intention-as-

transformation that is spring.

healing be, literally and metaphorically?

Issue 04: Power

Issue 05: Memoria

Issue 06: Centering

AUG/SEPT 2021

OCT/NOV 2021

DEC 2021

In the Power issue, we center

In the Memoria issue, we

Coming full circle at the

the images and voices of

remember ancestors, honor

end of the year, we focus on

power as expressed for,

transitions, and celebrate

grounding, reflecting, and

through, and alongside water.

the season of autumn/otoño.

centering our community.

We center the power of water

Contributors share their

This issue includes a special

itself and the power and

ofrendas and teach how to

feature on healer Cuauhtli

wisdom of those fighting for

craft ofrendas and velaciones

Cihuatl, also known as

the protection of water. We

for el Día de los Muertos.

Maestra CC.

center the wise elders, who, like water, surround us with wisdom and emotional care.

PRINT COLLECTION

2021 Anthology

A celebration of our first year, this book-quality anthology contains over 200 full-color pages of essays and other creative works from 38 contributors— approximately half of the content from issues 1-5. The limited-edition print version is a special gift to our donors* at the “Readers” level and above.

Reserve your copy today! ofrendamagazine.com/issues/2021-anthology

*Ofrenda Magazine is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Ofrenda Magazine must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only. The value of the Anthology is $40; any contributions above that amount are taxdeductible to the extent permitted by law.

Photo byJen Beall Photography, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl A Plática and Medicine Story An intimate interview between Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl and Gris Muñoz WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY GRIS MUÑOZ, AUTHOR OF COATLICUE GIRL

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Courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl

An Introduction

ing of her lifelong path in traditional Mexican curanderismo, but for comfort to my spirit as well. Her Instagram account (@nmcurandera) offered such a flowered impression of the woman behind it—rows and rows of heartfelt, medicinal snapshots of her life as a healer and community leader. There was so much shared wisdom, the wisdom gained only through doing the work: the illuminating and often painful work of untwisting hearts, of realigning the connections between others and spirit.

I instantly felt a connection.

I’ve been on my own curanderismo journey for what feels like a lifetime. Formally, it’s been about sixteen years, including ten years working with women and children within my community after completing my four-year commitment to La Danza Xochimetztli, or Moondance, in Mexico.

by Gris Muñoz, November 2021 PIRIT LED ME to scroll across an Instagram post one morning when I first learned of Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl, who goes by CC. The image that caught my eye showed a woman: a healer and elder, reverently holding a lit popoxcomitl and wearing a bright red embroidered huipil. Her head and hair were covered with a matching red paño and most noticeably, her ears were accentuated with a pair of large gold hoop arracadas.

I found myself going to her Instagram page more and more, not just for her candid shar-

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I’ve sat with and within myself and observed, and I have learned under elders who taught me what was passed down to them. All of this work has facilitated my physical and spiritual healing and has fed my work as a writer, mother, and healer. I was honored when Ofrenda Magazine invited me to interview Maestra CC. She has gifted several works to the publication, and it felt absolutely fitting to dedicate a space for her to tell her story and share what is in her heart.

This interview is not about a medical diagnosis. It’s about a healer you should know.

One of the greatest surprises from living a life connected to spirit is you are always open to surprises, seeming coincidences that are actually reaffirmations that you’re on the right path, but in a way that you never would have imagined. Moments of perfectly executed synchronicity have led me to believe that the spirit that moves the world around us is so much wiser than we are, and infinitely more creative. Spirit has always found innovative ways to bring me towards healers who have brought me insight I needed through their presence. Healers like Maestra CC. I connected with Maestra CC, introduced myself and sent her my collection, Coatlicue Girl. She responded lovingly and let me know it had resonated with her heart. Through that connection, I learned how similar we are. Maestra CC is a queer elder and grandmother with Lipan Apache ancestry; she is a writer, poet, and healer born in the powerful Rio Grande Valley borderlands. La medicina is embedded in her lineage. Raised by her curandera grandmother, she grew up learning to decode the language of the plantitas, of the desert, of the wind.

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She learned to identify and follow her own path, entering the U.S. Army early on, and was invigorated by the rigors of military life. “It was like a ceremony,” she explains. “We woke up with the sun and said goodbye to it every evening.” Weeks after our interview, so much of the imagery she had shared about her military life stayed with me, like how taking apart, cleaning, and reassembling her rifle was like a meditation, and how she would have visions and connect with the natural world around her on long, mandatory jogs and hikes. After the military, her visions eventually led her to the enchanted New Mexico desert, where she became a wife and mother, and then a university student, earning advanced degrees. Through it all, the medicina was always moving.

TOP: CC with her partner, D’Santi; Bottom: CC with her sons. Photos courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

One of the original founders of the curanderismo program at the University of New Mexico alongside her compadre Eliseo “Cheo” Torres and the late iconic healer Elena Avila, author of Woman Who Glows in the Dark, Maestra CC has taught countless students the decolonial framework of the soul, the flowered path of the self. Her life path eventually led her to her current partner and the other half of her heart. She has built her curanderismo practice in Bernalillo, New Mexico, a circle that has through the years become a thriving community. “Mi abuela decía que la medicina es para todos,” she says. Her grandmother taught her that the medicine is for everyone, and she has made that her life’s work and constant song.

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Through our short but potent exchanges, I also discovered that Maestra CC had been recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, her oncologist estimating she might only have months to live. Spirit always knows. I was devastated to know of the diagnosis she was facing. I know it well, as I have been walking alongside my mother for the past three years on her own stage-four cancer journey. Witnessing my mother carry excruciating pain in her body has been a difficult, soul-and-spirit-depleting time, as well as a time during which I’ve had to hone my own healing abilities, my own medicina, to do what I can to make her more comfortable. Maestra CC has good mornings and bad, but through it all—the tiresome, difficult days on an experimental chemotherapy, and the long hours at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center—she is also thriving. She is still teaching, leading curanderismo workshops and retreats, and continuing on with her commitment to the medicine and her community, to the land. About her diagnosis, she says, “Creator is the ultimate timekeeper,” words that humbled and strengthened me and can serve as a guide for us all, especially those walking themselves or a loved one through a difficult diagnosis.

needs of the present time. I enjoyed our plática that covered so many topics, like how tradition and the old ways that were passed down can be modified and modernized but still have to be respected, and the importance of lineage in these ways, learning under an elder, putting in the hard work, and being tied to and accountable to a community. People who practice curanderismo serve as bridges between the physical and spiritual realms, and because of this, our paths may be incredibly lonely and painful at times. But even then, there is so much to learn from those challenges, each lesson bringing us closer to our soul’s journey and mission in this lifetime. This interview is not about a medical diagnosis. It’s about a healer that you should know: a U.S. Army veteran and warrior who has always stayed close to the fire, a wild daughter and dancer who has time and time again fought the battle of the guerrera, the battle against fear itself. She is the original “Rock and Roll Curandera.” A grandmother. A wife. A lover. A true carrier of the medicina, who for decades has walked with and held her own community in her arms. On behalf of Ofrenda Magazine, I share my interview as an offering to Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl and her loved ones, as well as to readers who have enjoyed so many of her insights. —Gris Muñoz

Maestra CC has given Ofrenda so much of her palabra, her heart-speak. Like language, curanderismo is always changing and transforming to match the

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An Interview

between Cuauhtli Cihuatl and Gris Muñoz, recorded on July 31, 2021. Editor’s note: This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Gris Muñoz: I’m very honored to be able to

spend an afternoon listening and sharing with Maestra CC. She’s an incredible [Ofrenda Magazine] contributor and lifelong medicine person here from the Southwest. My name is Gris Muñoz. I’m a poet, writer, and curandera who practices here on the border. I just wanted to let you all know how extremely honored I am to be sitting here.

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I wrote a collection called Coatlicue Girl. It took me about thirteen years to write, and it has been doing well. In the foreword, Luis Alberto Urrea, another abuelo, who doesn’t like to talk about how he’s an abuelo curandero, called me “the rock and roll curandera.” And it came to my attention that there was actually already a “rock and roll curandera.” I got to know about Abuela CC and felt absolutely—a little embarrassed and humbled, but also connected because I saw that this abuela was also Apache, and we shared that Chicana-Apache lineage. I started following her and really resonating and seeing a lot of my own path in her incredibly wise posts and in her contributions to Ofrenda Magazine. She’s just been such an addition to Ofrenda, y la queremos mucho. So that is my short and very long intro with the Abuela CC.

Photo by Jen Beall Photography, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

Cuauhtli Cihuatl: Well, tlazocamati, Gris, for that introduction. Yo soy Cuauhtli Cihuatl y Itsa Izdan. That is my traditional name. I do have a Christian name that I no longer use. It’s been many, many years. Many people can’t pronounce my whole traditional name, so I go by CC. I am Lipan Apache on my paternal side, from south Texas. I was born and raised in San Benito, Tejas. But I crossed the border a lot with my abuelita and my mom. I am very grateful for being raised by my grandmother, my Abuelita Casimira Rocha Sánchez, and that’s where I learned all my ceremonial and traditional teachings. They were from her, from very chiquita (since I was little). She passed away when I was fourteen.

But my siblings and I would cross the border. I mean, there was, there really wasn’t a

border at that time. I remember we’d go back and forth to Tampico and then back home to San Benito. I picked cotton desde chiquita. We were migrants, hard workers. My mom was the only one of four siblings who came to the United States—[undocumented] at that time. But then again, there were really no restrictions during that time when she crossed over, like there are now. And she worked hard. She has worked hard. She worked for almost sixty years as a waitress, a nanny, and gave us a better life. I moved to New Mexico many, many years ago. I fell in love with a soldier, and we moved to Belen, New Mexico, and raised our children. We divorced, and I stayed. And I really felt like New Mexico opened up my heart and my soul around finding myself as a Chicana Indigenous woman. Even though

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I lived between two borders in Tejas, I felt like New Mexico just opened this wealth of knowledge. My biological mom always says there’s something about the Land of Enchantment that just brings that out in you. And so I stayed. I raised my children and went to school at UNM and NMSU and got all these fancy-wancy degrees [a J.D., M.S.W, and Ph.D.]. But still, I always returned back to the medicina. Always the medicina. Somehow weaving that, like a rebozo, into my regular jobs. I have been very blessed to have had job opportunities where I could share the medicina with clients, with organizations, and in the community. I have never really separated that. It’s always been a balance of bringing both worlds together. Ofrenda Magazine has a big part of my heart. I’ve been asked many times [in the past] to share my thoughts or my words, my writings. But it just never felt right. And there was just something about Ofrenda Magazine, opening it up to Chicanas, Latinas, gente. So the very first time I reached out, I was a little apprehensive, like, is this good enough, you know? Will they take it? And they did. And I was like, oh my God, you know, I’m going to get my stuff printed!

So that’s a little bit about me there. I mean, my story is very eclectic. Those who follow me [on social media] know that I am a bisexual queer woman in my sixties. And I was in the military at one point, as a drill sergeant. I have a huge family. My co-parenting person and I have six sons together. And now I have my life partner, who is a transgender man. So my life is a little “historia,” you know? But I feel like we all transform and transmute as we evolve from our past. The hijita that was fourteen, you know, being raised by her grandmother and her amá, has evolved into a more firme (strong), confident woman. I speak my truth, y me vale. Me vale (I couldn’t care less about) what people think, because if we don’t speak our truth, we are not being authentic to ourselves or this path.

The Medicine Path Gris Muñoz: You mentioned that you came

across the medicine path through your abuela. Can you tell us a little bit about that and maybe about the medicine path itself? It can be full of signs everywhere, and it’s kind of like you have to be very aware of doors that are opening and closing. Well, my mom’s mom was very Indigenous in her ways. She would rise with the sun, and she would be grateful to the moon. There was always a cycle of rituals and ceremonies, but it was just everyday things, you know? It wasn’t called ceremony; it wasn’t called ritual. It was just la vida, the way it is. Cuauhtli Cihuatl:

I’ve had a lot of opportunities along my path to have my work published, but it’s just never really worked out. If my corazón doesn’t feel it, then I just move on. Ofrenda gave me that opportunity, that platform, to be able to speak from my heart and share the wisdom from my abuelitos and abuelitas and my ancestors, and so I’m very grateful for what Marcy’s doing with that magazine. It’s given us a voice. It’s given us a voice.

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So, from very chiquita, I learned to honor las plantitas, and honor the moon, and honor

water, and fire, and earth, and wind, and all that. But it wasn’t a trendy thing or “vamos a hacer una ceremonia today” (let’s do a ceremony today). It was just the way it is. And, you know, we would be outside with las plantitas. She loved roses, so we always had roses, and she would talk to me about her rosas, and she would tell me what they were good for—but it was just part of life. It was like regular school, right? You know, you went to school, you learned history and English. And then at home, this is what we would be learning. Anytime somebody was sick—one of my siblings would be sick or myself or somebody—she would get out her pomadas or her liniments or whatever. So I would learn how to do that. And my sisters also learned, but they didn’t really continue with it. You know, it just seemed that I felt it more. It was connected to me. I’m not sure why. But that’s just the way it was. I think the most meaningful time was when I had a dog named Samantha. She got sick, and my abuelita was telling me, “tú vas a curar a su perrita” (you’re going to heal your puppy). You know how to do it. And so, I would just lay my hands on her, on the perrita, and do sobadas and all this stuff. And the perrita got better. My abuelita was like, “You have the don. Tienes las manos para curar.” (You have the gift. You have healing hands.) So with that support, it just kept evolving and evolving.

CC as a child. Photo courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

So the hijita that was fourteen, you know, being raised by her grandmother and her amá, has evolved into a more firme, confident woman. I speak my truth, y me vale.

Then when she died, I was pretty traumatized by her death. She had been the life force for the elements, and for nature, and for how to walk sacredly. I don’t think even my siblings and my biological mom knew

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I mean, people just showed up at the door: “I hear that you can do sobadas. I hear that you can do a limpia.” I never advertised. I never told people. People just seemed to find me.

how much my grandmother meant to me. And so between fourteen and seventeen, I kind of had a wild side and lost track of the medicine. I found myself at that young age, just questioning where I was at. I didn’t fit in with the regular teenagers, the regular high school people, or at that point it was junior high. I was quite a loner in my own world around plants and crystals and stones and all that kind of stuff. I joined the military because I felt it was my way out of the barrio. We lived in a barrio, and there was a lot of poverty, even though at that point, I didn’t realize how poor we were. I joined the military for that, but at the same time I joined the military because it was another form of ceremony, another form of ritual. You know, no matter what the political thing is out there about the military for people, for me, it was that we rose up in

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the morning to be in formation; we were up with the sun, and then at the end of the day, it was the moon that was taking us to bed. Gris Muñoz: Oh, I’ve never heard anyone make this connection with ceremony and the military, so I’m just amazed here, listening to you. Cuauhtli Cihuatl: Well, that’s the connection that I felt for me. And then there was a lot of marching in the woods, in the forest, in the bosques. And for me, connection with nature. You know, I was young, I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I could march for hours. Miles and miles of just being in the forest. I was a runner, and I always felt so connected to the forest—all the flowers and the trees and the bushes and that connection. So for me, even though it was military, there was a little bit of connection

with nature, you know? My basic training was at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It was covered in forest. So I just loved it. I really excelled in the military, and I think it was because I had this internal schedule of rising, and then giving gratitude in the evening, and being in nature. Of course, there were all the details with the military and things like that. But even now I think about—and I know this is gonna sound a little out there—but even the lesson of breaking down and putting together a rifle. The whole routine of what is next, what is next, what is next? Breaking it down, putting it together. And, to me, there was a ritualistic kind of process with it. I know it sounds far out there. Gris Muñoz: You are blowing my mind. Cuauhtli Cihuatl: It was just the whole mechanical, put it together, this thing, take that apart, you know? So yeah, even something simple, like as shining your boots—there’s a meditative state when shining your boots and making sure that the top of the boot is all nice and shiny, and you can see your reflection, and then spending hours going round, and round, and round, trying to get the thing shining. It’s meditative.

I’m very grateful for my time in the military. It gave me structure, ritual, and ceremony. Pero through time, people would figure out that I had some type of medicine, and they would ask me, “Sarge, do you know how to do a limpia? My hijito, I think he’s got ojo.” [Mal de ojo is negative energy thought to be caused by other people’s envy.]

Of course, in the military, you couldn’t talk about that stuff. And I would tell them, “Ah, I can’t talk to you about it right now, but maybe we can meet after, and I’ll check on your hijito.” It was the Puertorriqueños, the Hispanos, Latinos who would reach out because it was kind of—I don’t know—they had a sense, I guess. And so they would seek me out, and I would do that on the sly, and I started to do that a little bit. I ended up leaving the military after a really traumatic thing happened in Germany. It changed my world quite a bit. Then I got married, had my children. I went to school, and, still, in the community that we were part of in Belen, New Mexico, people would come and ask me for help. I mean, people just showed up at the door: “I hear that you can do sobadas. I hear that you can do a limpia.” I never advertised. I never told people. People just seemed to find me

UNM Curanderismo Program Cuauhtli Cihuatl: In 1989, I met Elena Avila [revered curandera and author of Woman Who Glows in the Dark]. She was doing a blessing at UNM. At that time, it was called Hispanic Student Services; now it’s el Centro de la Raza. We just gravitated toward one another. She looked at me and said, “Ah, tú sabes la medicina” (you know the medicine). And so we connected.

For about sixteen years, we were in each other’s lives on and off as maestras with

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students and as friends. She taught me a lot, you know, basically the stuff that I had learned from my abuelita, but it became more profound or deeper. I was very blessed by her guidance and her truth. And her regaños (corrections), too. Gris Muñoz: Yes, she was taught by Tata Andres [Segura], right? And he was tough, from what I hear. Cuauhtli Cihuatl: Yeah. And another maestro from Mexico. He went by Ehekateotl. He just passed away a couple of years ago. [...] And yes, Maestro Andres was very tough, but she was very tough too. But it was a good tough, the kind that helped you to be on your path and not to get sidetracked from that. Because we tend to get sidetracked. But I did learn, and I was able to incorporate her teachings, and my abuelita’s teachings.

TOP: CC with Maestro Laurencio; BOTTOM: CC with Cheo Torres. Photos courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

Then I met Maestro Laurencio [Nuñez] from Oaxaca. He has been one of the most incredible maestros of my entire life. Because, at that time, I really didn’t talk about being queer, bisexual. You know, it was all secrets. Maestro Laurencio was the one who said, “tienes que hablar tu verdad.” If you’re going to walk this path, you have to speak your truth. And so with him, I was able to unravel all those secrets and all those lies I told to hide who I was. I met him in 2000, I believe, and we’ve been really close since then. He’s taught me a lot. I learned how to be a temazcalera from him. He helped me build the temazcal (sweat lodge) that I had at one point, and I had it for almost fourteen years.

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So I [learned from] my abuelita, and then there were a few other brujas that I kind of grew up with—the neighborhood brujas. Doña Emma, and Doña Lola, and I think her name was Begonia. They were the neighborhood brujas that I would sometimes go and bug, and they would teach me something. And then, of course, Elena Avila and Maestro Laurencio have had a big impact on my life. And, of course, my compadre, [Dr. Eliseo] Cheo Torres [VP of Student Affairs at the University of New Mexico]. I’ve known him since I was like eighteen.

And Maestro Laurencio was the one who said, “tienes que hablar tu verdad.” If you’re going to walk this path, you have to speak your truth.

Gris Muñoz: Oh, wow. Cuauhtli Cihuatl: He is a very gentle, kind man—very supportive. He uplifts so many people.

I met him in Tejas, right before I joined the military. He had found some scholarships for me to go to school, and I rebelled, and I didn’t take the scholarships. And then I joined the military. I lost touch with him, but we found each other when he came to New Mexico in 1995, I believe. He’s the padrino to my boys. And so we have this really amazing familia-comadre-compadre relationship, you know? So that curanderismo class that started at UNM was him, me, Elena Avila, Sandrea Gonzalez, and Lola Robledo. Those are the five of us who sat around and discussed how to do this. The curanderismo classes—what [the program] is now is not what it was back then. The vision was very different. The five of us processed and brainstormed and all that. And it became this beautiful

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Photo by Jen Beall Photography, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

exchange of medicinas between the eagle and the condor, basically from the curanderos of Mexico and the curanderos of the Southwest. In the beginning, there was no funding. It’s not what it is now. Cheo paid a lot out of his pocket. And so did the rest of us. At that point, my husband and I would rent vans and go all the way down from Albuquerque to the border at Santa Teresa. And we would pick up the curanderos who would be riding in a bus for thirty-six hours from Cuernavaca. We would pick them up in those vans and have trailers full of their suitcases. And then we would house them within the community. There were no hotels or anything; it was all within the family. We did that for a long time. We would feed them, and house them, and all that. And it was beautiful.

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Then I got sick about 2010, the middle part. 2011. I backed away from the curanderismo program. I got sick with my second bout of cancer. I had to take some time off, and other people came in and kind of took the lead of the class. And it is what it is now. But my toes and my fingertips have always been in the medicina, in one form or another— whether it’s housing people, or feeding people, or offering limpias, or just sitting and talking with them, it’s always been there. It’s just part of my path, you know?

“The Medicine is Deep” Gris Muñoz: Absolutely, abuela. And, you

know, it’s a commitment.

What I have found is that when I step away from my medicina, or the fire, that’s when I start to feel unwell. I really feel that the fire is what in so many ways has kept me going. [...] Cuauhtli Cihuatl: Yeah. The medicine is deep.

The medicine runs through all of us. And, you know, I’m on my third bout of walking with the big C. At the time of my first one, I was a young mom with breast cancer and ovarian cancer at the same time. But they caught it really early. The treatment was just a lumpectomy, and I had one of my ovaries removed. I was able to have another child after that, but during my second bout, I didn’t think I was going to make it because it was pancreatic cancer.

But when [my youngest son] was chiquito—and he was like maybe six or seven—he would tell me, “Mommy, I’m going to make you better.” And he would put his hands on me. And so that’s energy, right? We all carry that energy.

You know, my youngest son—I call him CJ because his name is Christian James—he has the medicine. He’s like six foot four, and he looks so Irish because his father’s Irish and has red hair and freckles. But when he was chiquito—and he was like maybe six or seven—he would tell me, “Mommy, I’m going to make you better.” And he would put his hands on me. And so that’s energy, right? We all carry that energy. Now, with this third cancer, I’ve always believed that our diseases—our Western-named diseases and illnesses—that there’s a connection to a spiritual imbalance. So I believe my first bout of cancer had a lot to do with abandonment issues from my biological mom. I always felt that. I felt those abandonment issues, and I healed them, and my biological mom and I are great. And then the pancreatic cancer, to me, was that I was always giving the sweetness and amor

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and cariño to others—but I wouldn’t give it to me, right? I had to learn how to give that to myself. That’s when CC was born. My given name is Laura, and I stopped using that name. I became Cuauhtli Cihuatl (Eagle Woman), CC. I really felt that taking that name was being authentic to myself, nourishing myself, and loving myself, you know? That’s where CC came from. So I got better from those cancers. I am free from that. Then came 2018, which, for me, was the best year of my life. My partner and I were traveling; we drove all the way to Canada and back. I went to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead, and I was doing some incredible work. And then bang, I got hit with this, but I thought it was a hernia. When I went in to get it fixed, they found that it was a ten-inch mass behind my stomach, and it was this cancer that I’ve never heard of. I’m still trying to figure out: What is the spiritual connection to it? And I can’t figure it out. It’s retroperitoneal leiomyosarcoma, a very rare cancer. There’s no cure for it. My oncologist says I’m in the terminal stages of it, but no me doy por vencido (I don’t give up). Right?

Going Back to the Basics Cuauhtli Cihuatl: I think the gift that has come from this time was that the pandemic came [and the world slowed down]. I was able to go inward a lot. I was able to go outside and start from the beginning, where I started learning the medicine. Digging in the

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dirt, being in the garden, being in the roots of the plantas. Watering, weeding, all that. Last year, and this year, I felt really strong being around that, walking barefoot. And I would be out there temprano, from las seis de la mañana until one p.m. (early, from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.). So I go to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center every two months. The oncologist looks at me, she goes, “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think that you have cancer.” She goes, “You look great, but your labs say something else.” Look great. Right? I’m still processing all that, you know? I feel like somewhere, the medicina in me is telling me that I need to go all the way back to the basics of curanderismo. The basics of planting plants and watching them bloom. The basics of doing the limpia and really considering: Why are we going in a certain circular motion? What is the whole thing of doing the fire and the copal and all that? And so what I’ve been doing this last year is going through the basics: deconstructing all of that, and breaking it down. That’s the whole point of this account that I ended up creating on Instagram (@nmcurandera). I used to have a Facebook account. I had almost 70,000 followers at one point, and it became too much. I think I became egotistical around it and said, “Oh, I have 70,000 followers.” Right? And so I closed it down. But then, when I was going through this process of breaking the medicina down, I thought, I need to share it now, because this

is so simple. Why do we make it complicated? It’s our hands for energy. It’s the elements. We don’t need all those kumbaya feathers and whistles and bells. The medicine is earth, you know? It’s fire, it’s your breath, it’s the water—even just washing your hands. So that’s where that Instagram account came from. And I felt like I have built a little community with it. I’ve had a little backlash from people saying, “You’re sharing too much.” And “this stuff is secret.” And I say, well, no, it’s not secret. It’s our lineage. You know, it’s in our blood, and we all have it, but we forget. I think that my path through all these years, from birth to sixty, has been to guide people to re-remember that we are the medicine. That we are the earth, that we are the fire. We are the wind, we are the water, and together, all that, we can help others, and we can help ourselves. We don’t need all the other stuff. People tell me they don’t have [certain tools]. And I say, “You know what? You have your hands!” [...] I don’t want people to feel like they have to go to Maestra CC to get healed. You need to learn the tools so you can learn how to heal yourself, and heal your community, and heal your family, and your amigas, and all that. And imagine that domino effect, if we all take it back to our own communities! Oh my gosh! A whole chain of people learning the medicina. So that’s my purpose: to help people re-remember it in themselves. I’m not healing anyone. I’m just guiding them to what they already know.

Photo by D’Santi Nava, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl.

I think that my path through all these years...has been to guide people to reremember that we are the medicine. That we are the earth, that we are the fire. We are the wind, we are the water, and together, all that, we can help others, and we can help ourselves.

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Photo by Devyn Galindo, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl and Devyn Galindo.

Retreat in California, June 2021 Cuauhtli Cihuatl: I was fortunate that, in June, I led a retreat in California. I’m not sure why, but California has been calling me for years. And I always tell them “sí, sí, voy” (yes, I’ll go), and then I never go. Then this year, I told my partner and some of my comadres, “Even if I go to California como la Frida en la cama (like Frida Kahlo in her bed), I’m going to do it!” And I went. It was so incredibly amazing. I literally had to turn away over 200 people who wanted to be part of this retreat. We ended up with forty people. Everything was outside. Everybody was vaccinated, which was amazing. And it was such a powerful, authentic retreat.

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It also ended up being about seventy percent queer people who had always been afraid of coming out, and being who they are, and not feeling worthy of carrying this medicine. So I would say: “You are the Ometeotl. You are the ome, the two, and the sacredness, teotl, right there, the male and the female. That’s what we are. We carry that medicine. We carry that balance.” It was one of the most incredible, profound, life-changing retreats for me. I could see it for them also. And we bonded. We became a community and I call them my corazoncitos (little hearts). It was just incredible to see how many people are starting to wake up their own medicine and find community with one another. And I told them, you don’t need me to come here to California. We have community all

around: Who’s sitting next to you? Your comadre, your compadre, your hermana, your tíos. This is your community. We forget that we have community around us. We forget porque andamos el mitote in our head (we ruminate): who’s doing what to who, and who’s doing it better, right? That’s not community; that’s why we’re sick the way we are in this world. And I think the virus has brought that as a lesson to us: to find our community.

Gris Muñoz: Absolutely. It really brought me closer to the medicina. And you’re right. I suddenly was taking care of my neighbors a little more and making sure that people had the basics, and that everybody was watching out for each other. [...]

I saw the pictures from your retreat, and I was just so happy. You looked great. And I saw you all went to the ocean and were giving those prayers.

Photo by Devyn Galindo, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl and Devyn Galindo.

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Photo by Devyn Galindo, courtesy of Cuauhtli Cihuatl and Devyn Galindo.

Cuauhtli Cihuatl: Yeah, the retreat was all outside, and we were very blessed to have this beautiful piece of property. I believe it was in Riverside, and it was able to hold all of us with this beautiful garden, and the plantitas, and everything was just amazing. Every day was outside. We didn’t do anything indoors.

But one day, we spent it at the ocean because I wanted to give them the medicine of honoring Madre Mar and doing a limpia out there with roses. And making a hole, and having everybody sit in that hole and bury their penas (troubles). All that. Then leaving it there, and rinsing off in the ocean. It was amazing. It was powerful. I hadn’t done that in a long time. [...] To have forty people out there on this piece of isolated beach area, doing this incredible work. You

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could feel everyone’s ancestor in our circle, how we were being held by the wind, and how the ocean nourished us, the sand. I mean, you could feel everything around us holding us. It was powerful. At the end of the day, I would be really tired. I could hardly move, but during the day when we were doing this work, man, I just felt it. I felt strong. I felt firme. I mean, I could feel my feet planted and receiving from Creator. It was just todo (everything), you know? I told my partner D’Santi, “People tell me I shouldn’t be doing all this kind of work because it takes all my energy—and yes it does—but man, it also feeds me.” It makes me strong, and I felt alive, and I felt on fire. That fire in us, you know, our sacred fire. I felt the connection with Creator and firme

on Mother Earth, and just being held by all the elements. It took me about three weeks to finally get grounded back at home. But yeah, you’re right. We need the medicine, and we need to be in community. [...]

The Ultimate Timekeeper Gris Muñoz: There was something you had said during one of our past conversations [about] dealing with what is being called a terminal illness. You said, “Creator is the ultimate timekeeper.” Cuauhtli Cihuatl: The Creator is the ultimate timekeeper. Well, you know, when I had my surgery in November 2018, they gave me six months, and my kids decided that I should seek a second and third opinion. My second and third opinion all gave me six months. My fourth opinion is where we are now at M.D. Anderson. They’re an experimental hospital with all these new technologies and therapies. I’m on an experimental medication. I have twenty-four tumors in my body. I have eleven on my left lung, nine on my right lung. I have one on my kidney, one on my ovaries behind the initial incision, and then a little piece of the tail of the pancreas. So there’s no way that they can remove all these tumors. [...]

not afraid of dying. I’ve never feared death. It’s just another part of life. I’ve lived a beautiful, complicated, eclectic life. I’ve made a lot of memories. My sons are amazing men, and I have been blessed to have loved people who have known me. So I’m not afraid of what the doctors tell me. I keep saying, “Creator’s the ultimate timekeeper.” But I’m also a realist. [...] I just had some blood work saying that my liver, my kidneys, are shutting down. They’re just taking their time, but they’re shutting down. And so I do have a hard time, pero no me doy (I’m not giving up) until my last breath. I tell my partner D’Santi that I will continue talking and teaching the medicine until my last breath—until my very, very last breath. Gris Muñoz: Thank you. I just want to thank you. [...] It means so much to me, and I know it means a lot to Marcy and to all the people who love you just to have this interview and recording. Would you like to close with anything? I know that you’re resting, and I could talk to you all day. You know, I really feel that was powerful. Cuauhtli Cihuatl: I just want to share this: Speak your truth; honor your medicine. There are three things that I always tell my students. Remember to always say to yourself: I love myself. I accept myself. I embrace myself.

You know, I have some really bad days. [...] But then I have the good days where I’m around my grandkids and my partner, and I do things. I’m outside. And those are the days that make it better. It’s not that I’m ready for death; it’s that I’m not afraid. I’m

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Seasonal Rituals for Fresh Starts Curandera Maestra CC offers a series of simple practices for setting intentions at the start of a new year. WORDS BY CUAUHTLI CIHUATL

VEN THOUGH WE designate certain times to begin afresh (like New Year’s Day), each sunrise and moon cycle offers that chance as well. Every season and cycle, we can welcome new beginnings, new goals, and new opportunities to evolve and un-peel what no longer serves us. These past months, many of us spent the full and new moon cycles clearing off the sludge from 2020 and transmuting the toxicity into opportunities for real transformation in 2021. With spring approaching, we feel the need to clear, clean, cleanse and move forth with new projects, birthing our dreams.

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For example, in our casita over the last few days, my family and I have been busy clearing out, filling two truckloads full of items to donate to our local thrift shop, one truckload to take to the dump, plus a barrel full of papers ready for a bonfire. Our home feels lighter and ready to receive the mystery of life, helping us love one another and make new memories filled with laughter. Personally, the pandemic has given us insight, moments of contemplation, and lessons in being PRESENT. I am a person with a lot of energy and on the go 24/7. I tend to multitask and overextend my energy, at times forgetting to just sit and hold my partner’s hand and listen to his guitar playing. Both the pandemic and being diagnosed with terminal cancer have given me pause, brought on the brakes, and placed many projects on hold. So I am reaffirming the RELEASING of the past with all its shades of toxicity, and I open my heart to RECEIVING the present with all its mystery filled with love, hope, and memories. I share with a humble heart a few simple rituals that you can do anytime you might need a boost towards a new beginning or wish to cleanse the energy no longer serving your path.

Thoroughly clean the house to release and receive Sweep with a broom from the door to the street when you want to drive out bad vibes, troubles, and negative things from the home. I make a rosemary tea floor wash and use it to sweep my floors or mop them. Then I leave the broom across the outside of my doorway until the first week of the next month. This practice is not an everyday kind of sweeping; it is a sacred ritual of creating peace and order, and refilling our homes with love by letting go of that which is ‘at war’ with our spirit. The broom represents the winds of change bringing us the bright energy of hope and the promise of a fresh new start. Sweep away.

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Throw out a glass of water Throwing a glass of water out towards the street symbolizes the expelling of tears, worries, and negativity. I hold the glass of water and release my sorrows into it and then toss the water onto a tree or flowerbed. I experienced many losses last year, and I honored them by placing the energy into a vessel of blessed water, and then allowing them to flow back to Mother Earth.

Open doors and windows Opening doors and windows will cause negative energy to leave and good energy to enter your home. With the doors and windows open, I smudge my home with copal, holding the incense burner in my right hand and following it all through the house, starting from the front door and coming full circle back to the front door. I let the copal burn completely down, releasing the negative energy and blessing the renewed space.

Make some noise Making loud noises drives away spirits that do not belong in your home. Try playing some fun music. (I like Celia Cruz’s “El Yerberito Moderno,” “Rie y Llora,” or “Aché Para Todos.”) Ring bells, play a singing bowl, beat a drum, play a flute. I keep wind chimes outside by my portal porch for this purpose, but even just ringing your doorbell several times works. This year, my five-and-a-half-yearold granddaughter has been drumming the sacred huehuetl.

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Light candles For those who like candles, you can light three candles in a triangle at exactly midnight to set an intention or new beginning. If you choose, you can light one red candle for love, one green candle for prosperity, and one yellow candle for abundance. Place these on your altar together with grains of rice, lentils, and 13 coins (of any value), which represent good fortune. Choose the colors and objects that feel right to you; the power is in your intention and intuition.

Create a ritual of mindful eating As I prepare for each New Year, I make sure to have a plate of grapes close by. Following Spanish tradition, I eat twelve grapes, representing the twelve months of the year, while making a wish for every month. However, I use the same idea each season, adjusting it for different purposes: for example, I might eat seven grapes for seven new goals, thirty for thirty days of envisioning a new job, six for six months of manifesting. Adapt and adjust the ritual according to your needs and intuition. Create a mindfulness ritual by eating the grapes with intention.

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Burn the negativity Once a week or month, take some time to write out everything you’d like to forget or release, and then, in a safe place, simply burn the paper up. Once you’ve burned it, you’ll be ready to take on the new without all that weight on your shoulders!

Write out a ‘lista de deseos’ Write out a wish list. Not resolutions—just realizations or wishes. A lista de deseos (wish list) for the new year, the next six months, or the next thirty days (adapt it to your situation) should include all those goals you’re intending to reach. Whatever it is that you put on your list, make sure to also place your heart and soul energy into them. At the beginning of the year, I plant my list in a new pot with new seeds and water it through the winter months; by spring, my plant (which is usually an herb) has bloomed along with my wishes. I then plant the herbs in my garden.

Give yourself a rose limpia You can give yourself a limpia (energetic cleansing) with white roses or any color of roses that speaks to you. Sweep your body with the roses, expressing gratitude for the cleansing. You can then take a bath with the petals or set them free into the ocean, a river, a lake, or other body of water, thanking them again for their gift. The belief is that this limpia helps you start fresh because it cleanses and releases you from past energetic cords. Roses, a powerful companion for the heart, can encourage self-love. Desde mi corazon, may these ideas offer some comfort and hope toward our new path together in the present. Cuauhtli Cihuatl (CC)

Note: This piece was originally published in Ofrenda Magazine, Issue 01: Intention (Jan/Feb 2021).

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ADVE RT I S E M E N T

This page includes an affiliate link to Bookshop.org. Ofrenda Magazine earns 10% of the price if you purchase through this link.

Coatlicue Girl by Gris Muñoz Coatlicue Girl is described as “A moving collection of bilingual poetry and short stories rooted in the author’s experience as a queer Xicana and based on the defragmentation of cultural and personal memory.” The poems and prose pieces examine themes of spirituality, identity and the cultural loss of indigeneity for colonized peoples. The work also examines sexuality and the politicized body. The book includes a foreword written by Luis Alberto Urrea and illustrations by fronterizx artists, Los Dos.

“A rock and roll curandera with a syncretistic religious heart. Tossing off chains as she goes.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter “Full of thunder and revelation. Gris travels between language and role and culture to unravel stories with humor and grace and profound love. The craft andpower of the text was empowering and I am full of gratitude to have sat with this work, which was collective and like auntie work, sister work, healer work—it was all beauty and fire.” Terese Marie Mailhot, author of Heart Berries

Find Coatlicue Girl in Ofrenda Magazine’s Bookshop:

Bookshop.org/Shop/ofrendamagazine

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Featured Sellers from Ofrenda Magazine’s

Community Marketplace

AS WE WRAP up the year and head into the holiday spending season, we’d like to encourage you to explore Ofrenda’s Community Marketplace: a place we allow advertisers* from our community to spread the word about their business offerings. We invited a few vendors to go a little deeper into their work and practices through the short interviews on the following pages. Get to know the people behind the ads and what inspires their work. Let’s support each other this season and through the next year! Find all the marketplace vendors on Ofrenda’s website: ofrendamagazine.com/classifieds And if you’re a seller, sign up to post your own ad. It’s free if you sign up in 2021. ofrendamagazine.com/advertise

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Xochi Quetzalli of

Spirit Medicines

Eureka, California

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Tell us a little bit about yourself and Spirit Medicines. My name is Xochi Quetzalli, and I own Spirit Medicines. Spirit Medicines was born in 2008 as a small art business on Etsy. In the past decade, it has transformed dramatically—just as I, too, have grown and changed. As an artist, I offer Native American sacred tools, art, and regalia, and as a healer and practitioner of curanderismo, I offer classes, healings, and ceremonies. What's the story behind your business? What was the inspiration for getting it started? In 2015, I was

initiated by my maestras in Guatemala as an Aj’Qij (a spiritual guide) and keeper of the ancient calendar system. Over the past seven years, I have slowly built Spirit Medicines from an art business into a folk healing center, one that now focuses not only on art but on classes, healings, and ceremony as well—all based in ancestral medicine and curanderismo. As my healing practice grows, I still find time to make art, as I love offering medicine tools used for healing, such as rawhide hand drums, ceremonial rattles, feather smudge fans, and much more. What's your favorite Ofrenda Magazine issue,

Issue 02: Nepantla speaks to my heart on all levels, as I, too, feel like an “in between.”

and why is it special to you?

What are you looking forward to in 2022? At Spirit

Medicines, we look forward to offering new classes and more healings in 2022. We also hope that we can safely gather once again for community ceremony. Learn more about Spirit Medicines and Xochi’s 9 Moons Series in the Community Marketplace. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ spirit-medicines www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ 9-moons-series

Images courtesy of Xochi Quetzalli. ISSUE 06 | CENTERING

Reina Prado of

Healing Queen

Southern California

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business, Healing Queen. I’m a bi-lingual

bi-cultural love conscious coach and holistic energy practitioner. I established my practice, Healing Queen, in 2013 which is based in unceded Kizh/Tongva territories (Southern California). My practice reflects a mestizaje that blends traditions from my ancestors, many of whom were curanderas, midwives, herbalists, and sobadores, along with modern energy healing modalities such as Reiki, 13th Octave LaHoChi, and Polarity. When I began my holistic energy practice, I incorporated both ancestral and modern traditions to create my own signature offering called Love Limpias. The Love Limpias guide folks to understand the root causes of feeling disempowered in this area of their life. By identifying and clearing limiting beliefs, a transformation can emerge, and clients

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become more resourced to reclaim their connection to their soul’s purpose and love as an expansive force in their lives. What's the story behind your business?

created this work that centers on love so that it does not take anyone years to trust love again. This is why I call my coaching “Love Conscious.” When we cultivate a deeper and greater awareness about love guiding our choices in life, we can experience more joyful living. When I was ready to meet my divine match, I had done my own work but I was not fully stepping into my power. I was the best at camouflaging my heart’s desires and accommodating what my then-partners wanted in their divine match. It wasn’t until I loved from my heart’s truth that I met my divine match. We’ve been happily together for over 10 years. Living and honoring my heart’s truth also allowed me to heal from my moth-

er-wound. I was able to tend to at least four generations of healing within my matrilineal family line. I have expanded the work from the private Love Limpias into workshop series and group coaching programs to support women to learn to trust Love again. Workshop series include Love You and The Hummingbird’s Map. The group coaching programs are Ámate and Alchemy of True Self. Since 2018, I have seen over 400 of my clients heal from wounds of feeling unloved and meet the love of their life. I have even been invited to officiate a couple of weddings. I cultivate deep relationships with my clients and peers, many whom I have worked with for over a year through different programs I offer. What’s your favorite Ofrenda Magazine

The Luz/ Illumination issue was among my favorites because of the variety of essays. I follow Erika Buenaflor and enjoyed her piece about harnessing and connecting to that energy of high noon. I also enjoyed the beautiful piece about working with our inner child by Cuauhtli Cihuatl. Both articles offered some great suggestions to work with the energy of the South direction.

issue, and why is it special to you?

been doing offerings remotely through them. Many new programs and birthing another book project are in the works, too. Learn more about Healing Queen in the Community Marketplace. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ healing-queen

Image courtesy of Reina Prado. What are you looking forward to in 2022?

I’m creating a book tour for my newest publication, Spring Into Love, a twenty-one-day bloom of guided experiences and reflection prompts, which is being published by Balboa Press. I’m also excited about traveling to the East Coast and meeting with the spaces Minka in Brooklyn and Rainbow Soul Collective in Gloucester, Massachusetts. These two venues have welcomed my practice, and I’ve

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Yoshabel Shay of

Metztli Healing

Las Vegas, Nevada What would you like Ofrenda’s readers

My name is Yoshabel Shay. I was born and raised in Las Vegas. I earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a minor in art history and then a master’s in education with an emphasis in school counseling. I’ve been working as a high school counselor for about seven years now. I’m also enamored with learning about my Indigenous roots. My parents migrated from El Salvador in the 1980s and are descendants from the Maya-Nahuatl people. Though history has been lost, my passion is to redefine what it means to be Maya-Nahuatl and share this knowledge with my son. I’m married to a Diné photographer and have a silly little dog called Milo. to know about you?

Tell us about your business. Metztli Heal-

ing focuses on spiritual guidance through holistic practices including tarot reading, natal chart readings, pláticas, and more. The inspiration behind Metztli Healing came from an idea of bridging spiritual and mental healing together. I have been doing

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spiritual work for about eight years now and came to the conclusion that our spirit and our vessel need to function as one in order to operate in the physical realm. The use of folk healing and astrological information can mend the two. What drew you to Ofrenda Magazine? I really enjoyed the first issue of Ofrenda Magazine. It really set the intention of the magazine and encouraged the readers to plant the seed of prosperity in the year of 2021. Tell us about your plans for next year. I’m

looking forward to more community building and personal growth in 2022. Learn more about Metztli Healing in the Community Marketplace. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ metztli-healing

Image courtesy of Yoshabel Shay.

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Brandi Amara Skyy of

Woke Magic

Dallas, Texas

What would you like Ofrenda’s readers to know about you? Hola, friends! I’m, Brandi

Amara Skyy, a queer, Indigenous, non-binary artist, curandera, and transformational coach. I’m the HWIC (Head Witch In Charge) of WOKE MAGIC—a galaxy centered on personal, creative, and life transformation through Radical Personal Alchemy. We offer tarot and astrology readings, 1:1 Strategy VIP days, an online community and resource library, plus books, candles, and other magical mano-made tools. Our galaxy vision also includes an Intersectional, Queer, BIPOC, and marginalized folx publishing haus focusing on tarot/oracle decks, magic/medicine tools and books, and a foundation plus animal sanctuary. What sparked the idea for your business, and what’s your vision? I want to live in a

world that is radically inclusive, deeply transformational, and rooted and connected to everyday magic. As someone who lives at the

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intersection of multiple identities, I never felt at home in any spiritual/magical community. One side of myself always seemed to be missing from the narrative. And I got tired of waiting to be anointed as special, magical, and purposeful. So I anointed myself—and created the kind of world I was seeking out. I was gifted WOKE MAGIC in a divine download, and I’ve been following Spirit’s guidance in its creation ever since. I don’t see the folx who come into my orbit as customers. We’re familia; we’re soul-gente. And just like my blood family, I want mi familia del alma to experience the power of real transformative magic—the best this life has to offer. And that begins with personal agency. That begins with harnessing our experiences and oppression into our power—and powerful art, life, and magic. I want you to experience this life, multidimensionally. And that’s exactly what WOKE MAGIC was born to do.

What’s your favorite Ofrenda Magazine issue or article? I hold a two-spirit answer.

The Power issue. That entire issue itself is a manual in personal transformation and the spirit of WOKE MAGIC. That issue spoke to my bones. But my heart and spirit wants to claim my own article, “Nepantlera—Becoming Verb: Shapeshifting in the Modern World,” because I wrote it as tribute to my grandmother before I found out she had colon cancer and was dying. A few weeks after writing this piece, I was writing her funeral memorial. Tell us your plans for 2022. I’m continuing

Learn more about Brandi Amara Skyy in the Community Marketplace. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ brandi-amara-skyy

Images courtesy of Brandi Amara Skyy.

to build, usher, and steward in the kind of world I want to live in through WOKE MAGIC. Deep, radical personal transformation and magic for myself, my wife, and the world. Quiet evenings. And a deeper connection to my own medicine and magic. Walking in tandem with my ancestors. Healing myself and mi gente whole.

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Salem Islas-Madlo of

Deep Wild Coaching

Vienna, Austria What would you like us to know about you

What’s the story behind your business? As

I’m Salem Islas-Madlo, the founder of Deep Wild Coaching and a holistic energy coach. I support womxn and femmes in transition to trust the gift of their presence as they open to their own intuition, creative power, and energy flow inherent to their deep wild nature. This path is about seeding a new life where an individual’s natural rhythms come into alignment alongside the cycles of Mother Earth.

a Xicanx, I have the sacred honor and privilege to draw from a rich, indigenous heritage of Yaqui lineage entwined with Germanic/ Spanish European roots. The dignity this human experience brings into my life allows me to honor my ancestral truths and reclaim the freedom and sovereignty of my deep wild spirit back into a celebration of life and beauty. Bringing this deep wild nature into alignment has not only been the inspiration

and your business?

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behind my business, but the whole story from where I started until the present moment within my life and work. My personal experience lends me strength and insight as I help people in transition; it also allows me to hold space for them to reclaim, trust, and embody their own deep wild nature while connecting to the Earth through the gift of their presence. What’s your favorite Ofrenda Magazine article, and why is it special to you? I have to say my favorite article is “A Día de los Muertos Perspective: My Path with Mictecacihuatl, ‘Lady of the Dead’” by Maestra Cuauhtli Cihuatl. It’s special to me because in many ways, it reminds me of how my own soul has connected with death and life since I was a child. It also brings me tenderly to a place of honoring my own ancestors and their legacy of remembrance. What are you looking forward to in 2022?

I’m looking forward to completing my second coaching training, which will be working as a trauma recovery coach, working with a mentor to continue walking the red path of growing into curanderismo, and returning to the land of my birth—Puebla, Mexico—in sacred pilgrimage to sacred sites. Learn more about Deep Wild Coaching in the Community Marketplace. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ deep-wild-coaching

Images courtesy of Salem Islas-Madlo.

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Cameron Navarro of

Pa’lante Consulting

Fort Worth, Texas

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your

My name is Cameron Navarro. I am a licensed social worker working with communities to improve systems in an effort to promote justice for all people. Pa’lante Consulting is one avenue for this work, as my business partner and I work with organizations, businesses, and individuals to improve their environments in a way that promotes our humanity alongside our creativity. business.

What was the inspiration for getting your business started, and what do you hope

The business was born from an intersection of a few paths: mindfulness, neutral facilitation, self-care, and community collaboration. The name “Pa’lante” was inspired by the song of the same name by Puerto Rican artist Hurray for the Riff Raff. My hope is that our

work provides an opportunity for people and groups to tap into the unlimited resource of compassion for themselves, their communities, and our world. What’s your favorite Ofrenda Magazine

The Nepantla issue was particularly inspiring for me, as I have long occupied a space in the middle of two worlds. The concept itself invited me to submit my own testimonio, but all of the submissions in that issue really connect me to something that I’m still exploring and getting curious about.

issue, and why is it special to you?

your customers will experience?

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What are you looking forward to in 2022?

After the unexpected interruption that the pandemic brought to all of our lives and systems, I am hopeful that we can begin building a little momentum again as some new opportunities are unfolding. Specifically,

I am teaching a few more Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MSBR) courses, and those are always quite an adventure! Learn more about Pa’lante Consulting in the Community Marketplace, and find a guided mindfulness activity from Cameron on the pages that follow. www.ofrendamagazine.com/sponsors/ palante-consulting

Image courtesy of Cameron Navarro.

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Photo courtesy of Cameron Navarro.

Returning to Center: A Guided Mindfulness Exercise WORDS BY CAMERON NAVARRO

S WE APPROACH the end of one Gregorian calendar year and the beginning of another, I offer a guided mindfulness exercise to you and our community. For most of my life, I have been a highly sensitive empath, driven by my emotions. I often felt pulled and pushed all over the place, depending on what life threw at me. A Weeble that wobbled and often fell down, too. As I have explored mindfulness and continued to practice it in my life, I still wobble, but with more resilience. It seems to take more effort to knock me off center and less time and energy to regain my center. I share this ofrenda with the hope that it provides each of you a few moments of stillness and reflection as you look toward another year.

Mindfulness Practice

Editor’s note: We recommend you make a recording of the script and listen to your own voice as a guide.

I invite you to get curious about it: Where is my breath right now? Can I locate it in my body? Is there a rhythm or cadence to it? Is it shallow or deep?

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To begin, I invite you to find a comfortable position. And to see if you can transition to it with intention and curiosity. Maybe you approach the position as if you’re making this movement for the first time, noticing how your body feels as you transition. As you find your position, you might direct your attention to your breath. Or your seat. Or your hands. This will be our anchor point for our time together. Like an anchor on a boat, it will keep us rooted to the present moment as the tide of our thoughts ebbs and flows. There’s no need to alter or force your anchor.

If your anchor is the seat beneath you or the sensation of touch, is there a certain pressure or texture? Temperature? There’s no need to judge or alter here. What’s happening right now? You may choose to close your eyes or soften your gaze or even leave your eyes open. If your mind has wandered, you might offer gratitude to your mind for doing its very natural, normal job of thinking. And then you might gently redirect it back to your anchor with kindness and compassion. Maybe you begin to notice your connection to the Earth beneath you. The physical connection of your body to the rest of the world around you. Maybe your anchor is also a long tap root, digging deep into the soil, connecting you to the rest of the world. All of the other life, the joy, the sadness, the kindness, and the compassion that ebbs and flows. And maybe your mind has wandered. If so, with kindness and care, we return to the present moment. If you’re ready, we might shift our attention to our ears, noticing any sounds around us. Not reaching or straining. Only inviting what is here. The vibration of this recording, the sound of the heater or fire. Whatever brings itself to your ears: Is there a certain texture? What does it feel like to hear this sound?

air around you? Getting curious about your experience right this moment. And a gentle reminder to our minds to return to now. Each moment an opportunity to return and begin anew. I invite you to return to your anchor point. How does it feel right now? What is present for you in this moment? And as we come to the end of our time together, I invite you to gently open your eyes if they are not open already. And to begin to notice the space around you. You might look at it as if it’s the first time you’ve been here. Maybe you start to notice certain items or colors or light. I welcome you now to this moment, and invite you to carry this practice with you into your day and your year, using it whenever you would like to return to your anchor or root. Thank you for sharing this time with me. May you be safe, may you be well, and may you live with ease.

Author’s note: I am a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher, qualified through the University of California San Diego (UCSD). If you would like to learn more about MBSR or chat about mindfulness in your life, please reach out and I’m happy to support you. www.palanteconsulting.com

And now we might direct our attention to our hands and the sensation of touch. What do you feel right now? Your lap? Your other hand? The

ISSUE 06 | CENTERING

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LEGAL: Ofrenda Magazine is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Ofrenda Magazine must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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

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ISSUE 06: CENTERING | DEC 2021 Editor in Chief / Publisher / Creative Director: Marcy Carbajal Editorial support: Gavin Van Horn Stock image credits: creativemarket.com/Graphik Shop; La Paloma. istockphoto.com/ becau; leonello; lisegagne; Liudmila Chernetska; mnm71l Sven Jakubith; wabeno. 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. © 2021 Big Like Jupiter LLC / Ofrenda Media LLC. All rights reserved. Individual contributors hold original copyright to their words and works of art. 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.

WITH GRATITUDE TO OUR DONORS Foundations Kalliopeia Foundation Find names of individual donors + supporters on our website: ofrendamagazine.com/about

DONATE / GET PRINT COPIES We rely on donations from you, our readers, to produce this content and offer it openly on our website. If you appreciate the wisdom and voices of Ofrenda Magazine, please donate to show your belief in the value of this work and community. In 2021, we’re saying thank you to donors* at most giving levels with a limited-edition print anthology. Find out more on our fundraising page:

ofrendamagazine.com/support

*Ofrenda Magazine is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Ofrenda Magazine must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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BACK ISSUES Digital issues are available for purchase through Issuu. Find links at ofrendamagazine.com/issues.

DONATE / ANTHOLOGY We rely on donations from you, our readers, to produce this work and offer it openly on our website. If you appreciate the wisdom and voices of Ofrenda Magazine, please donate to show your belief in the value of this work and community. In 2021, we’re saying thank you to donors* at most giving levels with a limited edition print anthology. Find out more on our fundraising page:

ofrendamagazine.com/support *LEGAL: Ofrenda Magazine is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Ofrenda Magazine must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

“ I’ve had a little backlash from people saying, ‘You're sharing too much.’ And ‘this stuff is secret.’ And I say, well, no, it’s not secret. It’s our lineage. It’s in our blood, and we all have it, but we forget.

—Cuauhtli Cihuatl (p. 27)