00:04:59.280because I know that you've had your toes in so many streams and it's so interesting but I guess
00:05:10.600at the same time really understandable that we're sitting with a really similar question because
00:05:17.100we're you know soulmates I think in this life and when you're speaking to what is it to be human in
00:05:24.180this time I'm so deeply in that question myself but what you had brought up which I think was
00:05:32.240really interesting that I haven't personally been exploring is how that connects with your lineage
00:05:39.020like what is it to be human in this time with the lineage that you came from and what is your role
00:05:46.000in community resilience based off your ancestry and all that you've come from so I want to just
00:05:56.260dig a little deeper into that and hear you speak to how your lineage is guiding
00:06:03.980the questions and the way that you're showing up right right thank you so much for that question
00:06:11.800And I mean, if I if I put it in the context of 500 years, as a people, we have been stripped of so much, you know, through colonization, through capitalism, through white supremacy.
00:06:24.660and I've known this my whole life but I think I'm just finally at a point in my life where I'm
00:06:31.100getting braver and just saying this out loud to myself that I very much believe that my purpose
00:06:39.780for existing is to reclaim my ancestral ways in the midst of so much death and collapse around me
00:06:47.800and part of that has been like the restoration of spirituality of of our spirituality and it's
00:06:57.080interesting that that you know we're sitting with these questions because this year actually in my
00:07:01.840tradition i'm gonna i'm gonna be receiving my name and and the way that that happens for us
00:07:06.780is our godmother of ceremony she they read our birth chart um and it's similar to like you know
00:07:13.340gemini aquarius capricorn blah blah blah but like in a lot of different cultures i think our
00:07:21.620ancestors left us a lot of useful tools to understand who we are and the energies the
00:07:28.280cosmic energies that guide us and that influence who we are and this year i had i had i had my
00:07:34.980birth chart read to me and a lot of it made sense but a lot of it also made me you know think about
00:07:43.320and ask myself like what did what did humans forget like what did we forget right like I
00:07:52.920you know I I practice my culture I believe in my culture I believe in these things that
00:07:58.020these my ancestors left for me these ancestral technologies that they left by way of songs by
00:08:05.060prayers, uh, by way of, of life ways, um, so that I wouldn't get lost so that I would have meaning
00:08:13.280and purpose. And I would understand my existence and relationship to others. And it's painful to
00:08:19.120see that like, as a human, like humanity has lost so much of that, you know, most people right now
00:08:25.900are probably waking up to get dressed and like get on a zoom call for a job that doesn't really,
00:08:32.780isn't really in conversation with like what ancestors had planned for them to be right um
00:08:38.320there's so many things that influence us and we give priority to right like and I just think that
00:08:45.660our life is so much more precious than that the preciousness you brought this word up twice
00:08:52.720since we've been talking and you reference that word in relation to your own life and how you're
00:09:03.100choosing to take the next steps and you have some pretty big steps ahead of you with your work so I
00:09:12.300want to explore this word preciousness and how you're feeling its relation to you and and maybe
00:09:19.780even to the earth and what it means for the earth to be seen as precious in this time yeah i mean
00:09:29.520so i'll tell you the story of like where the where how i've become so like how i've been so in touch
00:09:36.560with this word of preciousness um i was driving actually from dc to new york after a full week of
00:09:44.420direct actions with the people versus fossil fuel right you know we're in the middle of
00:09:49.840climate change and politicians are still not moving a finger on like getting us as a society
00:09:57.420to where we need to be to begin to recover and to survive climate change and I thought to myself
00:10:07.960how can it be possible like no other living being destroys their own habitat yet like
00:10:17.560we are doing it like our our species is intentionally poisoning our water destroying
00:10:27.740land things that we rely on and so you know I'm like what are people thinking like what did we
00:10:39.100forget um why are we so disoriented as a humanity as to how much we need to realign our priorities
00:10:46.640with life and I was just deep in thought as I was driving up and I looked to the side and there's
00:10:53.000this beaver and this beaver is just you know digging a hole and like gathering its branches
00:10:58.500and then I look up at the sky and the birds are flying together harmoniously they're probably
00:11:05.840going somewhere where they know they need to go like they didn't forget what they came here to do
00:11:15.040like you know we see we hear about oil spills and I don't know I think I saw somewhere on my
00:11:21.620newsfeed how like you know who are the first people to respond to oil spills beavers like
00:11:26.500they know that their purpose is to take care of water and to help the river stay clean and so I
00:11:33.420think about how precious beavers are and wise how wise they are I think about how precious salmon
00:11:39.760are and how wise they are and birds and then I want to hold I want to keep humans in that same
00:11:48.440light like that we we are also just as precious and just as wise so um what is it going to take
00:11:58.220for us to remember what we were called here to do you know like our unique precious purpose
00:12:07.860and service to ourselves to mother earth and all the other life forms that we share this existence
00:12:15.060with whoo take us there nydia damn yes what is it gonna be oh gosh i've i have had that question
00:12:28.760probably every day um one thing that you were mentioning at the beginning of your response was
00:12:38.900you were coming from a movement uh event you know the politicians and this is something that you've
00:12:47.580been working within the systems for a long time through sustain us i mean you've done a lot of
00:12:55.220policy work you've done a lot of grassroots work you've been really at the intersection
00:12:59.700between so much movement building with frontline defenders spiritual leaders and
00:13:07.920politicians and un uh conferences i mean yeah it's an interesting intersection to be at and
00:13:16.040we are just days away from cop 26 i don't even know what cop is okay um what are you thinking
00:13:28.360about these not just conferences but also ways in which grassroots community frontline needs are
00:13:40.580being heard by the people in power in politics in corporate power how are you seeing that work
00:13:52.960at this point since you've been grinding in it for so many years yeah yeah that question you know
00:14:00.560because we're i'm i think yesterday i was texting with a friend about i was with them out there for
00:14:06.760cop 25 in 2019 and then of course the pandemic happened so there was no gathering and there was
00:14:13.020no change like these international gatherings i think have a lot of power in what they do
00:14:21.540I wouldn't say necessarily for the policy like yes it's important to be working to solve these
00:14:30.520issues at all levels but in the several times that I've been there what I think those spaces
00:14:38.980have really actually I think the role that they play is they provide a space for all of us you
00:14:49.120I'm not talking about politicians and polluters, right?
00:15:13.980We rally together and we build together.
00:15:16.920That to me has been the moments where I feel most powerful and most effective when I'm, you know, in a prayer circle with indigenous youth from all over the world.
00:15:28.500And we're just getting to witness each other and really just see how much we're trying to help humanity in this time, right?
00:15:36.600We're trying to help everybody remember what it is that we're meant to be doing as humans in this time.
00:15:45.120And, you know, some people listen, some people don't. But ultimately, I think that
00:15:51.780those times really serve us as a global community to remember that the real work starts at home
00:16:00.200and that the solutions are never going to come from the top down. Like, yes, we should still
00:16:06.960show up to rally and say, hey, you need to do better. You need to represent us. Yes. And
00:16:12.840it's important for us to not overlook how much power and meaning and energy we get from just
00:16:22.840showing up and meeting people all over the world who are caring and fighting for the same issue
00:16:27.140because when you're talking about solving climate change it can be a little bit abstract
00:16:30.440but then you go and you meet people who like also care about this global issue and you're like oh
00:16:36.200wait, like I'm going to show up to my community meeting today and advocate for inclusion for my
00:16:43.380community, for better housing, better living conditions, because I know that my friend
00:16:47.720in South Africa is going to show up to her city hall meetings. And she may be the only one that
00:16:52.540stands up and speaks for the climate, but we're not alone. So as I'm thinking about these meetings,
00:16:59.800I'm just like yeah let's not let's not overlook how powerful we are right I think a lot of times
00:17:06.500we like will look towards politicians because they quote-unquote hold the power but really
00:17:11.560the power has always been in the people.
00:17:29.800La mujer que tiene besos y plumas en la piel
00:17:36.180Y mi sangre, y mi sangre la entrego a la tierra0.99
00:17:58.400I feel so aligned with what you're speaking to.
00:18:26.040and i want to explore this idea more of the power of the people and what it really does mean to show
00:18:38.180up in your local community and get involved and get engaged and understand the issues
00:18:44.240i know that there's been so much happening in your home community of oregon with your parents
00:18:52.020with I mean I could go on but I want you to go on about this so I'll just pause there and
00:18:58.740would love to hear from you about showing up and about what it means to be locally engaged
00:19:07.620and take the power back it is an uphill battle like I'm not gonna even lie or be like we could
00:19:18.900do it because it's hard and for yeah i guess i could just explain a little bit about um how
00:19:24.700climate change is unfolding in my local my hometown um last year september 8th of 2020
00:19:31.140the rogue valley in southern oregon was impacted and hit really hard by the almeida fire um
00:19:40.760people call it a wildfire but it i i have a hard time calling it a wildfire because
00:19:46.400that fire was in city limits it burnt down almost 3 000 homes in a small in two small rural towns
00:19:58.100one of those homes was my father's home and my community accounted for 70 percent of the
00:20:05.940structural losses reported by the state of oregon and so you know like like i shared i've been to
00:20:12.240COP, I've been advocating for global leaders to mitigate the crisis, to account for loss and
00:20:20.880damages. Almost 3,000 households lost their home. And you can bet, we're doing community-based
00:20:28.420research right now back home to be able to quantify and prove with numbers that a large
00:20:36.240majority of that over 50 percent of those people who lost their homes were folks of color disabled
00:20:43.520folks poor folks and so as you know Oregon is a predominantly white state I think for many years
00:20:52.540it was it it like took pride in being like it like wanted to be the perfect white state and
00:21:00.480like had you know I think the KKK was still marching in my hometown in like the late 90s0.72
00:21:05.420And so what happens, this wildfire burns out the poor and the people of color out of these towns. And now for the past year, we've been showing up to city hall meetings, showing up wherever we need to show up to say, yo, like, don't forget about us.
00:21:22.300Like it's been a year. And as as we already expected, because we know how climate change and injustice plays out, the the few houses that are getting rebuilt are houses that are owned by middle class white families.0.63
00:21:36.720Meanwhile, the mobile home parks where my dad lived, where farm workers, construction workers, people who work in the service industry, people of color, veterans, poor white communities too, those mobile home parks are still empty, a lot of them.
00:21:57.800and the ones that aren't empty are filled by FEMA trailers you know temporary housing right I mean
00:22:07.260it just it's completely bizarre that uh the key people the essential workers in our economy
00:22:13.140that their housing is treated as temporary right like we have families who've who've moved into
00:22:18.560their FEMA homes and are like this is temporary like where am I gonna go like nobody's rebuilding
00:22:23.540for me um we were we were in negotiations with a park owner because we're like all right like
00:22:29.540let me to make sure that families have ownership right a lot of families were burnt out and we're
00:22:35.940at the hands at they were at we were at the mercy of owners of these mobile home parks who live in
00:22:41.960canada who live in korea who are just international investors that don't really care about the people
00:22:47.360yet have so much power on the everyday realities of local communities and I just think to myself
00:22:55.380we cannot continue to perpetuate and normalize and think that this is okay uh when families are
00:23:03.220living in garages you know this summer was really really hard because as you know our community is
00:23:08.880facing massive amounts of PTSD and we we experienced hazardous smoke quality for about
00:23:16.020half the summer and uh last year my friend and i um we were able to fundraise some money with
00:23:23.680crowdfunding and and we got together with a community right because you know this is where
00:23:27.620i'm from people know me they're like i wanted to have open discussion with impacted families
00:23:32.920and elders to be like all right we're gonna set the priorities together of who's gonna get this
00:23:37.900money and we you know one family uh was that we were in touch with was living in a garage with
00:23:44.360the newborn without any proper ventilation. And I'm just like, can we not do this? Can we
00:23:52.320create and imagine a different way of living and being on the land? And yeah, it's exhausting. To
00:23:59.960be honest, it's exhausting because it feels like people don't care. People act like they don't
00:24:04.160care. But like I shared with you, what gives me so much strength that helps me keep showing up
00:24:11.480is knowing that like I said one of my friends who also understands climate injustice is going to
00:24:16.360keep showing up to her local meetings and and so I feel less alone showing up because I know that
00:24:22.280I'm a part of a larger web of of people who understand how important it is to show up right
00:24:28.580now and to more than anything show up locally to what is happening in your town yeah it's really
00:24:38.280sick how the united states particularly and so many of the u.s citizens treat immigrants and
00:24:49.560farm workers in this extremely classist way and really in so many ways only see them as
00:24:57.960what they can give to the economy or to food production but not as humans who have their
00:25:06.320own lives and their own families and rituals and you know it's it's very dehumanizing what right
00:25:14.420what i know your community has gone through and with your mom and dad um you know and the history
00:25:23.240of their work and how compartmentalized their work is from environmental work quote unquote
00:25:31.300and climate justice work it's like they're not asked um even though they're so much closer to
00:25:37.700the land than these politicians are they don't because of classism they're not treated with the
00:25:43.980respect or respected for their wisdoms so i don't know if you could speak to your parents and
00:25:50.440how you see their roles in being wisdom keepers of climate change and land relations.
00:26:03.920Yeah, I mean, thank you for uplifting them. As you know, I love them so much. And I'm so proud
00:26:09.680to be their daughter, right? Like, my dad and my mom don't call themselves activists. But they are
00:26:17.840by definition very much so activists who've been resisting the system and like doing so many
00:26:26.980beautiful things like my dad um when he first came to the united states he planted over eight
00:26:35.320million trees in the pacific northwest like he he intimately knows these forests like i think i was
00:26:43.360I was out at ceremony with the Winnemum one time and I was telling him that I was going to go to
00:26:48.480to ceremony with them near Shasta and he's like oh you're going to Shasta I I know that I know
00:26:55.240that mountain like oh yeah I planted trees all over there you know like it's a beautiful place
00:27:00.760I was like oh dang dad like really he's like yeah he he spent 12 years as a northwest tree
00:27:06.580planner I'm like dang I wonder how much carbon your labor is sequestering right now
00:27:12.900um and but he doesn't because he's not an activist right he's not a climate justice
00:27:17.540activist even though he's planted millions of trees and my mom on my mom's side we are you know
00:27:25.180agriculture people we have inherited family seeds and um my mom for the past uh I would say
00:27:36.340at least 10 years now, she went back to Mexico and brought some of those seeds with her from
00:27:43.680our family, right? These are seeds that my family has had for hundreds of years, and she has been
00:27:49.980growing them. And I'm like, wow, you are keeping biodiversity alive. And as you uphold a thousand
00:27:59.180year old ancestral responsibility in the middle of climate change and like you're
00:28:06.320you rely less on grocery stores because you have seeds that you grow for you for your for what you
00:28:13.860need and um I think it's such a it's such a we I think as a society we need to reframe
00:28:23.640and rethink how we think about immigrant communities, communities of color, like completely.
00:28:31.200I think there's this narrative of like, we need to help frontline communities. We need to help
00:28:37.440poor people of color. I'm sorry, we are not poor. We are, you know, economically exploited,
00:28:44.920but we are incredibly wealthy and rich in culture, in traditions, in Cosmo visions.
00:28:52.180I didn't share this earlier, but like when the days after the fire happened, we were phone banking a lot of families and I ended up phone banking, you know, hundreds of people.
00:29:06.160And the difference culturally that I noticed when I, when I interacted with like Americans versus interacting with like Latinos or indigenous families is that when I was interacting with like, you know, American families, there was like this sense of like, you know, anger and like frustration and like almost like they were angry at me.
00:29:34.620and I was like oh my gosh I'm just like trying to help but they were like upset right they're like
00:29:40.420very rightfully so upset with like I need a bed and like you know where is FEMA and you know
00:29:48.060very rightfully so um and I could see that it was probably very hard because you know they haven't
00:29:55.880been let down by the system. Maybe, maybe never. But when I was phone banking, like my community,
00:30:05.180you know, offering them hotel rooms, we were trying to get families into hotel rooms.
00:30:09.640Almost every single person that I called was so grateful that somebody was reaching out to them
00:30:17.000to make sure they were okay. And almost every single family that I called declined support.
00:30:25.880not because they didn't need it but because they wanted to make sure that we were giving that
00:30:32.160support to who really needed it you know i had one family who was like yeah i'm staying with my
00:30:37.580brother-in-law um there's three of us there's like 20 of us in a two-bedroom apartment we're
00:30:42.660sleeping on the floor but we're okay please give that room to somebody who really needs it and i'm
00:30:48.320like that right there is cultural wisdom like is ancestral uh technology right how we orient to
00:30:58.420each other in moments of crisis and I'm like how do we normalize that how do we um make that the
00:31:07.900way that we we treat each other how does that become mainstream like crisis is happening like
00:31:13.4003 000 families lost their home what if everybody was like well who really needs it instead of like
00:31:20.260i need it i don't care about the other people like i need it like and i think that's i think
00:31:26.560that our communities have a lot to teach the world as far as what resilience is because we're in a
00:31:35.000perpetual practice of being resilient because of how left out we are by the system and so it's not
00:31:41.880so much that we need to help frontline communities or folks of color society needs to let itself be
00:31:50.060helped by the wisdom and power that we have cultivated for thousands of years
00:31:54.920yeah the entitlement of those who have more is really strange
00:32:09.620it's just shows a type of to me it shows a type of deep loneliness and spiritual bankruptcy
00:32:20.240so I want to explore this idea of spiritual bankruptcy a bit more with you because I know
00:32:28.300you've been on such a journey with your own spiritual practices with other spiritual leaders
00:32:35.080You know, you've spoken many times in this conversation about ritual and prayer and coming back to that as not necessarily that you're calling it a solution, but as people are struggling to find solutions for the predicament you're in, I feel like you continually come back to the earth in prayer and say, hold up.
00:32:58.380Like, before we create carbon sequestering plants and, you know, just crazy ideas, like, let's come back to this wisdom that is so much more powerful than any intellectual solution that we'll ever create.
00:33:17.040um so yeah I'd like to just hear about your spiritual journey and how that relates to
00:33:25.560the spiritual bankruptcy of this time oof that is such a heavy question
00:39:35.360what you were speaking to about taking care oh gosh care this word is so overlooked and I think
00:39:50.620in so many ways this dominant culture has conditioned us to forget what care is what
00:40:00.080it feels like for us what it feels like to receive it what it feels like to give it
00:40:04.980And I think maybe our, that, you know, this, and I say, you know, I, I'm careful when using our, this, this kind of generality, this general word, but I think this forgetting of care has allowed us as a dominant culture to then overthink solutions.
00:40:29.320so i want to hear you speak to what what care looks like like if if we could just spend a
00:40:38.600moment imagining a dream or a future of what care looks like what what do we need how do we get away
00:40:48.160from these false solutions that keep us so distracted and keep us working so hard for a
00:40:57.500lifestyle that only keeps us from fulfilling our purpose and actually loving each other and and
00:41:06.720just to also say the gratitude the gratitude piece i mean how many times at cop 26 when somebody's
00:41:14.640doing a panel about carbon sequestration are they talking about gratitude i i've never heard it so
00:41:21.780um yeah just I'd love to take a moment with you to dream into I don't want to call it a care
00:41:28.580economy I've heard that being used but you know whatever words we want to use for I mean and then
00:41:33.940yeah even even that like the care economy all these terms I'm like that's overdoing it
00:41:40.760can't we just be relational can we just have a conversation can we um truly just understand that
00:41:50.300like my wellness is intertwined and dependent on the wellness of those around me right like
00:42:01.340sometimes I have like I don't really understand this thing with like self-care because I don't
00:42:07.760really see myself like I understand who I am in relationship to like everything and everyone
00:42:16.280around me right so it's like how can I care like I'm never really ever caring for myself because
00:42:22.520there's always other things that are caring for me and I think that's maybe something we should
00:42:29.380we should explore uh right I'm thinking about the the weeks during the quarantine you know right
00:42:38.540when the pandemic happened um and it's still happening but right when it started do you
00:42:43.320remember all those pictures of how clean the the canals in Italy and how the fish had come back
00:42:51.160and there's all those images of like the wolves and the coyotes coming onto the streets in San
00:42:56.320Francisco and I was like wow maybe we just need to stop like just stop like stop and let everything
00:43:06.500else do what they know to do because we're the ones who are lost like the wolves know what they're
00:43:12.640doing the salmon sure as hell know what they need to be doing we need to just pause
00:43:18.560and you know i i say that because i know pause is a privilege um and i also recognize that for
00:43:29.180some of us it's not an option like you know i'm thinking about all of our relatives at line three
00:43:34.420who can't you know who can't fully stop right i'm sure like and i know i don't also don't want to
00:43:41.140like over over project the story that like yes the front lines are hard but there's also a lot
00:43:47.820of joy in in the resistance that is happening right now for mother earth I don't want to
00:43:53.140overlook that you know when when I'm out there it's I feel powerful I feel in my purpose but
00:43:59.700yeah it's like what what do we need to be doing as a as a collective to actually let ourselves feel
00:44:08.500cared for in this moment um because life just life wants to live and the life around us wants
00:44:18.140to live the question is does humanity want to continue to live um that's i think like as a
00:44:27.000species we need to sit in circle and actually have this conversation all right my fellow humans do we
00:44:32.980want to continue to exist as a species because we deeply understand that if we continue to operate
00:44:37.920in the way that we're doing it we're pushing ourselves into our own extinction um yeah I
00:44:44.800don't know what else to say well this is a perfect transition this oh my gosh yeah this question do
00:44:55.060we want to continue to live and it brings up the word well I won't even say it because I'm just
00:45:02.160going to read a quote from your instagram and i'll just say i think instagram is weird but
00:45:10.300nidia's is worth following because there's some real truths in there and um so okay you wrote
00:45:17.500i chopped wood for hours and just reflected on the fact that people talk about our movements
00:45:23.760getting infiltrated by the government or getting co-opted by the state or saviors but how many
00:45:29.960times was it our own baggage our own ego our own traumas getting in the way of us actualizing
00:45:37.240collective liberation how many times is it us sabotaging our liberation because we refuse to
00:45:45.640heal that's deep i wrote that and so the word sabotage like what i feel like what you were
00:45:56.700just speaking to was this grand sabotage of our species of our humanity of our hearts
00:46:05.800so yeah speak to that for us just let's let's go down the wormhole of us sabotaging ourselves
00:46:14.680I mean, yeah. Self-sabotage. Whoa, that is a major topic. I think the older I get
00:46:28.000doing this work, the more aware I become of just this painful reality that we're not all
00:46:39.880going to make it and I can't continue to um stress my nervous system or like rely on other people
00:46:52.200understanding what times we're in and like getting them to change the way you know just getting other
00:47:02.500people to change like and at the end of the day the the our truest power lies within our ability
00:47:08.160to heal and transform ourselves and so i think that it's so important for us to find those other
00:47:17.260people who understand what time it is and who want to move and be open to um letting spirit move us
00:47:28.100in the direction that we need to move to actually make it out of this alive and i mean nobody gets
00:47:34.300out alive everybody dies in the end so like let's not take life too seriously uh but let's try
00:47:42.180like let's try to find a way and find a path to where humanity can be restored to its full splendor
00:47:55.320to where there is a day not far from today
00:48:17.380I was just thinking of the listeners out there
00:48:22.260that maybe in this cycle of self-sabotage and trauma and ego death and grief and frustration
00:48:32.860and maybe this feeling of where do I belong or how do I exist in this world or how can I make a
00:48:40.460difference and I had this question of like well Nadia what would you tell them or you know what
00:48:45.280ritual would you give them and I'm kind of like well this whole episode is you know what the
00:48:50.880I mean I feel like everything you're saying is speaking to maybe even the little ones in us like that the little ones inside of us that feel scared or feel confused by this time and yeah because I you know it's obviously not just the polluters who are sabotaging it's not just the quote bad guys
00:49:20.880eye like this poison is now i think within all of us which is heartbreaking to admit to that
00:49:29.180this type of whether we want to call it wheat to go or this type of um you know maybe the colonized
00:49:38.200mind or heart i think you know even like i'll speak personally i it feels like a practice
00:49:46.980every day for me to deal with the poison that is inside of me and to not allow that poison to
00:49:54.600sabotage my relation to my relationship to the earth to other humans to myself um
00:50:02.200so i don't know if you want to you know share a personal story of self-sabotage and how you got
00:50:09.920through it or or you know not the sabotage of of the other but the sabotage within our movement
00:50:17.980spaces within ourselves um yeah maybe a story or maybe small practices you know of course not the
00:50:25.920complex solution practices but like the the little things that we can do to move past
00:50:32.720really the story of separation and um yeah yeah well it's so special to be having this conversation
00:50:43.640um at the end of October on a full moon because um in my tradition
00:50:49.380that we use the end of October beginning of November as a time where we
00:50:55.080where we believe that our ancestors on the other side come back to visit us
00:51:01.120and um how do we tend to this self-sabotage that lives inside of us well I think it really is a
00:51:12.780symbol it's like it's time that we just begin to cultivate our relationship with our ancestors
00:51:18.780right like who are we not just who are we in this lifetime but who have we been as a people right
00:51:27.540um you know whiteness didn't exist in the six in like the 1500s that was not a thing
00:51:34.880Hispanic what is that you know I think about my ancestors coming back and like filling out
00:51:41.060a census from they'd be like I'm none of this Latino what is that oh my god like I'm just a
00:51:48.120person who lives on this part of the land and tends to this um to to like this community
00:51:54.480and so it's hard because we're like society is so lost and far removed from like
00:52:02.260the ancestral technologies and tools that were given to us by all of our ancestors literally
00:52:09.540everybody has um tools practices rituals songs sacred places where ancestors have gone to
00:52:21.140for healing for guidance um and it's it's time that we act like that stuff matters
00:52:28.780more than what we're seeing on our phones more than what commercials we're seeing more than
00:52:35.740what you know new you know you know to say there's so many distractions right now in the world about
00:52:43.680you know that are tricking us into believing that like new cars every year matter and like
00:52:48.880getting the latest gucci bag matters matters for what right like um it's so important in this time
00:52:58.200as we as we as the portal between um the living and those on the other side gets thinner um not
00:53:07.580just for like dia de los muertos and what that means to to us but also in the larger context
00:53:15.340of climate change right there's a massive portal of death that is opening um that a lot of our
00:53:20.980people are going through you know i've lost so many people this year uh since the pandemic um
00:53:26.700we're all there's also mass extinction happening and it's important that we cultivate that
00:53:31.920relationship with those that are on the other side to be able to understand how we can be in
00:53:37.880service to life while we are still on this side who and it's not it's it's not we don't have to
00:53:45.540overthink it i don't know it's and it's a lifelong journey it's a practice you know like sometimes
00:53:51.640when i i get in all kinds of funks about um different things but in the end you know it's
00:53:59.540it's important for us to like go to those places where we feel um the essence of who we of who we
00:54:07.000are beyond what society and those around us think that we are like it's important that we cultivate
00:54:13.780that because I think that is the doorway and um and the the head of the trail towards the path of
00:54:21.400like finding out who who we're meant to be oh Nadia this has been such a profoundly beautiful
00:54:29.400conversation for my heart I know for the people listening this will move so many hearts um
00:54:37.980so thanks thanks for being with us thanks for being with me oh thank you um I just wanted to
00:54:45.540I I just wanted to share something that that I wrote about this question of like of joy right
00:54:52.200because I think sometimes um when we when I when we talk about our ancestors and what our ancestors
00:54:58.100went through um we we hold them in a light of like oh my gosh they endured so much hardship
00:55:04.240um but there's this conversation that i was having with some of my ancestors um a couple months ago
00:55:11.080where they were like don't they anyways i'm just gonna i'm just gonna read the piece but um
00:55:15.820i wrote um the insight that came through was that um liberation is not a destination it is a journey
00:55:23.500and it is the moments of peace and joy we create along the way in the face of struggle
00:55:29.720some of my ancestors corrected me in prayer the other day they told me stop crying over us or
00:55:35.840praying for us like we were martyrs like we were like we never had joy like we never were free in
00:55:41.000our struggle we were the most free in our choice to rebel to fight and to die and they showed me
00:55:48.100those moments, the times that they laughed around a fire, not knowing if they would wake up a lot,
00:55:53.640times they sang songs together, the times they made each other laugh, and the bedtime prayers
00:55:59.820and morning prayers they said to stay anchored in their gratitude and surrender to the will of
00:56:04.620creator. The truth is that many of my ancestors died at the hands of colonizers. My great-grandmother
00:56:11.680as a child spent several years living in caves and riverbanks getting tracked by the military.
00:56:16.220she saw her father get ripped away from her by the military to be taken to the top of the mountain
00:56:23.280with many other men to meet his death so how powerful that even in those moments of struggle
00:56:29.940and of life or death our ancestors created rituals of liberation moments in time spaces where they
00:56:36.500could experience the beauty of life and joy and we must commit to rituals that liberate us as much
00:56:44.000as we must commit to showing up to protests and actions. Liberation is not a destination,
00:56:50.380it is a commitment. As activists, organizers, artists, writers, poets, visionaries, medicine
00:56:58.140people, cultural keepers, musicians, kin, we cannot forget this. So how are we creating spaces
00:57:06.540of freedom in our minds? How are we creating spaces of freedom in our bodies, in our spirits,
00:57:13.160in our hearts? What are the daily moments in our life in which we can absolutely reclaim our
00:57:19.140freedom and power, even if just for one moment in the day? What do we do daily that can be made
00:57:27.280sacred? Pockets of joy in the resistance will carry us through.
00:57:39.200thank you for listening to for the wild podcast the music you heard today was by santiago cordoba
00:57:46.920paloma and the range of light wilderness for the wild is created by ayana young
00:57:52.620erica ekram francesca glassbell and julia jackson