Transcript: NIRIA ALICIA on Pockets of Joy in the Resistance /260
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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Niria Alicia.
Niria Alicia You know, most people right now are probably waking up to get dressed and like get on a Zoom call for a job that isn't really in conversation with what ancestors had planned for them to be.
Ayana Young Niria Alicia is a Xicana Indigena community organizer, human rights advocate, educator, and storyteller dedicated to protecting the sacredness of Mother Earth and the dignity of historically oppressed peoples and the more-than-human world. Born 500 years after Columbus’ invasion in a migrant farmworker community, her struggle for love and liberation exists at the intersections of migrant justice, climate justice, and Indigenous rights.
In 2020 she was given the highest honor the UN awards young people by being named the Young Champion of the Earth for North America. Niria’s proudest accomplishments and honors have been learning how to make tortillas in the traditional way for her abuelita, growing her first milpa from her family’s heirloom corn seeds, and inheriting her great-great grandmother’s metate, a culturally significant ancestral tool made from lava rock that has the hand imprints of the strong women she is proud to descend from.
Ayana Young Niria maybe for our listeners you could introduce yourself in the way that you feel most, yeah just feel like who you want to share with us of who you are.
Niria Alicia Oh, thank you, Ayana. I'm so moved to be having this conversation right now. It is you know, we're living and feeling the energies of this Full Moon in October. So definitely want to just ask for our grandmother moon to be with us in this conversation. You know, I was driving yesterday looking at her and I'm like, wow, like this grandmother has like known every single one of my ancestors. And I was just really, really moved by that. But yeah, as you said, my name is Niria Alicia, I’m Xicana Indigena, born and raised on Takelma territory, it’s where I learned to be human. My ancestors on my mother’s side come from P’urhépecha Matlatzinca territory in so-called Michoacán, I’m from the Garcia-Miranda family, my family is from Las Pilas, and that is how identify myself when I am home there. People know me, people know what that means and who my people are. On my dad’s side, we’re from Rarámuri territory, in a town called Santa Bárbara, Chihuahua, from the Torres-Macías family, and yeah I guess like I was sharing with you earlier, I'm just sitting deeply with this question of like, what does it mean, to be alive in this time? Given that, you know, I was born in 1992, I'm a millennial, I was born 500 years after colonization, you know, after 1492, and so, yeah, I'm just, you know, thinking about my ancestors, and what was their reality back then, and trusting that they sent me here at this time. I've been sitting with this question of, who do I need to be for future generations, 500 years from today, and so I'm so happy to be having this conversation with you and more so exploring some of these questions together.
Ayana Young Well, I love how we just kind of jumped into this official interview from having a very personal, sister catch up, and how it is all kind of snowballing into each other and I loved how you spoke to the question of what are you most impassioned by? And what is your work in this moment? Because I know that you've had your toes in so many streams, and it's so interesting, but I guess at the same time, really understandable that we're sitting with a really similar question because we're soulmates, I think in this life, and when you're speaking to, what is it to be human in this time? I'm so deeply in that question myself. But what you had brought up, which I think was really interesting, that I haven't personally been exploring is how that connects with your lineage. Like, what is it to be human in this time with the lineage that you came from? And what is your role in community resilience, based on your ancestry and all that you've come from? So I want to just dig a little deeper into that, and hear you speak to how your lineage is guiding the questions and the way that you're showing up?
Niria Alicia Right, right. Thank you so much for that question. I mean 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 and I've known this my whole life, but I think I'm just finally at a point in my life, where I'm getting braver at just saying this out loud to myself, that I very much believe that my purpose for existing is to reclaim my ancestral ways in the midst of so much death and collapse around me, and part of that has been like the restoration of spirituality, of our spirituality. And it's interesting that that, you know, we're sitting with these questions, because this year actually, in my tradition, I'm going to be receiving my name and the way that that happens for us is our godmother of ceremony, they read our birth chart, and it's similar to like, you know, Gemini, Aquarius, Capricorn, blah, blah, blah. But like, in a lot of different cultures, I think our ancestors left us a lot of useful tools to understand who we are, and the energies, the cosmic energies that guide us and influence who we are. And this year I had my birth chart, read to me and a lot of it made sense, but a lot of it also made me you know, think about and ask myself, like, what did humans forget? Like? What did we forget? Right? Like I practice my culture, I believe in my culture, I believe in these things that my ancestors left for me, these ancestral technologies that they left by way of songs, by prayers, by way of lifeways, so that I wouldn't get lost, so that I would have meaning and purpose, and I would understand my existence and relationship to others. And it's painful to see that humanity has lost so much of that, you know, most people right now are probably waking up to get dressed and like get on a Zoom call for a job that isn't really in conversation with like what ancestors had planned for them to be. Right? There are so many things that influence us and we give priority to and I just think that our life is so much more precious than that.
Ayana Young The preciousness, you brought this word up twice since we’ve been talking and you reference that word in relation to your own life and how you’re choosing to take the next steps and you have some pretty big steps ahead of you with your work. So I want to explore this word preciousness and how you’re feeling its relation to you and maybe even to the Earth and what it means for the Earth to be seen as precious in this time.
Niria Alicia Yeah, I mean, so I'll tell you the story of how I've been so in touch with this word of preciousness. I was driving, actually, from D.C. to New York after a full week of direct actions with The People vs Fossil Fuel, right? You know, we're in the middle of climate change, and politicians are still not moving a finger on like, getting us as a society to where we need to be to begin to recover and to survive climate change, and I thought to myself, how can it be possible, like no other living being destroys their own habitat? Yet we're doing it. Like our species is intentionally poisoning our water, destroying land, things that we rely on. And so, you know, I'm like, what are people thinking? Like what did we forget? Why are we so disoriented as a humanity as to how much we need to realign our priorities with life. And I was just deep in thought, as I was driving up, and I look to the side and there's this beaver, and this beaver is just, you know, digging a hole and like gathering its branches. And then I look up at the sky, and the birds are flying together harmoniously, they're probably going somewhere where they know they need to go. Like, they didn't forget what they came here to do. Like, you know, we see we hear about oil spills. And I don't know, I think I saw somewhere on my newsfeed how you know, who are the first people to respond to oil spills, beavers? Like they know that their purpose is to take care of water and to help the river stay clean. And so I think about how precious beavers are and how wise they are. I think about how precious salmon are and how wise they are, and birds. And then I want to keep humans in that same light like that. We are also just as precious and just as wise. So what is it going to take for us to remember what we were called here to do? You know, like our unique precious purpose and service to ourselves to Mother Earth and all the other life forms that we share this existence with.
Ayana Young Whew, take us there Niria, damn yes.
Niria Alicia What is it going to take?
Ayana Young Oh gosh, I've had that question probably every day. One thing that you were mentioning, at the beginning of your response was you are coming from a movement event, you know, the politicians and this is something that you've been working within the systems for a long time through SustainUS, I mean, you've done a lot of policy work, you've done a lot of grassroots work, you've been really at the intersection between so much movement building with frontline defenders, spiritual leaders, and politicians, and U.N. conferences. I mean yeah, it's an interesting intersection to be at and we are just days away from COP26, what are you thinking about these, not just conferences, but also ways in which grassroots community, frontline needs are being heard by the people in power, in politics, in corporate power? How are you seeing that work at this point since you've been grinding in it for so many years?
Niria Alicia Yeah, that question, you know, yesterday, I was texting with a friend, I was with them out there for COP25 in 2019, and then, of course, the pandemic happens so there was no gathering, and there was no change, like, these international gatherings I think have a lot of power in what they do, I wouldn't say necessarily for the policy, like, yes, it's important to be working to solve these issues at all levels. But in the several times that I've been there, what I think those spaces have really, actually, I think the role that they play is they provide a space for all of us, you know, I'm not talking about politicians and polluters, right? COP is funded by polluters and the solutions are not going to come from COP, I'm sorry. Solutions happen there because people like us show up, we meet each other, we listen to each other, we grieve together, we pray together, we rally together, and we build together. That, 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 and we're just getting to witness each other and really just see how much we're trying to help humanity in this time, right? We're trying to help everybody remember what it is that we're meant to be doing as humans in this time? And you know, some people listen, some people don't. But ultimately, I think that those times really serve us as a global community to remember that the real work starts at home, and that the solutions are never going to come from the top down. Like yes, we should still show up to rally and say, hey, you need to do better, you need to represent us, yes and it's important for us to not overlook how much power and meaning and energy we get from just showing up and meeting people all over the world who are caring and fighting for the same issue. Because when you're talking about solving climate change, it can be a little bit abstract. But then you go and you meet people who like also care about this global issue and you're like, “Oh, wait, like, I'm going to show up to my community meeting today and advocate for inclusion for my community for better housing, better living conditions, because I know that my friend in South Africa is going to show up to her city hall meetings and she may be the only one that stands up and speaks for the climate, but we're not alone.” So as I'm thinking about these meetings, I'm just like yeah, let's not overlook how powerful we are right? I think a lot of times we like will look towards politicians because they “hold the power” but really the power has always been in the people.
Ayana Young I feel so aligned with what you're speaking to and I want to explore this idea more of the power of the people, and what it really does mean to show up in your local community and get involved and get engaged and understand the issues. I know that there has been so much happening in your home community of Oregon, with your parents with, I mean, I could go on, but I want you to go on about this. So I'll just pause there and would love to hear from you about showing up and about what it means to be locally engaged, and take the power back.
Niria Alicia It is an uphill battle, like, I'm not gonna even lie or be like, we can do it, because it's hard. And yeah, I guess I could just explain a little bit about how climate change is unfolding in my local, my hometown. Last year, September 8 of 2020, the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon was impacted and hit really hard by the Alameda Fire, people call it a wildfire, but I have a hard time calling it a wildfire because that fire was in city limits. It burnt down almost 3000 homes in two small rural towns. One of those homes was my father's home and my community accounted for 70% of the structural losses reported by the state of Oregon. So you know like I shared I've been to COP, I've been advocating for global leaders to mitigate the crisis, to account for loss and damages, almost 3000 households lost their homes and you can bet, like we're doing community-based research right now back home to be able to quantify and like prove, with numbers that a large majority of that, over 50% of those people who lost their homes, were folks of color disabled folks, poor folks. And so as you know, Oregon is a predominantly white state, I think for many years it took pride, it wanted to be the perfect white state and the KKK was still marching in my hometown in the late 90s. 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, like it's been a year.” As we already expected, because we know how climate change and injustice plays out, the few houses that are getting rebuilt, or houses that are owned by middle-class white families. Meanwhile, the mobile home parks where my dad lived, where farmworkers 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. And the ones that aren't empty are filled by FEMA trailers, you know, temporary housing, right? I mean, it just is completely bizarre that the key people, the essential workers in our economy, that their housing is treated as temporary, right? Like we have families who’ve moved into their FEMA homes and are like, this is temporary, like where am I going to go? Nobody's rebuilding for me? We were in negotiations with a park owner because we're like, alright, we need to make sure that families have ownership, right? A lot of families were burnt out and we're at the mercy of owners of these mobile home parks who live in Canada, who live in Korea, who are just international investors that don't really care about the people, yet have so much power on the everyday realities of local communities.
And I just think to myself, we can not continue to perpetuate and normalize and think that this is okay, when families are living in garages. You know, this summer was really, really hard because as you know, our community is facing massive amounts of PTSD. And we experienced hazardous smoke quality for about half the summer and last year, my friend and I, we were able to fundraise some money with crowdfunding and we got together with a community, right? Because, you know, this is where I'm from, people know me, they wanted to have an open discussion with impacted families and elders to be like, alright, we're gonna set the priorities together of who's going to get this money. And one family that we were in touch with was living in a garage with a newborn without any proper ventilation and I'm just like, can we not do this? Can we create and imagine a different way of living and being on the land? And yeah, it's exhausting to be honest. It's exhausting because it feels like people don't care, people act like they don't care. But like I shared with you, what gives me so much strength, that helps me keep showing up, is knowing that, like I said, one of my friends who also understands climate injustice is going to keep showing up to her local meetings. So I feel less alone showing up because I know that I'm a part of a larger web of people who understand how important it is to show up right now, and to more than anything show up locally to what is happening in your town.
Ayana Young Yeah, it's really sick, how the United States particularly, and so many U.S. citizens treat immigrants and farmworkers in this extremely classist way, and really, in so many ways only see them as what they can give to the economy, or to food production, but not as humans who have their own lives and their own families and rituals. And, you know, it's very dehumanizing what I know your community has gone through and with your mom and dad, you know, and the history of their work, and how compartmentalized their work is from environmental work and “climate justice work.” It's like, they're not asked, even though they're so much closer to the land than these politicians are, because of classism. They're not treated with respect or respect for their wisdom. So I don't know if you could speak to your parents and how you see their roles in being wisdom keepers of climate change and land relations.
Niria Alicia Yeah, I mean, thank you for uplifting them, as you know, I love them so much and I'm so proud to be their daughter, right? Like, my dad and my mom don't call themselves activists, but they are by definition very much. Activists who've been resisting the system and doing so many beautiful things, like my dad, when he first came to the United States, he planted over 8 million trees in the Pacific Northwest. Like he intimately knows these forests, I was out at ceremony with the Winnemem Wintu one time and I was telling him that I was going to go to ceremony with them near Shasta and he's like, “Oh, you're going to Shasta? I know that mountain too, I planted trees all over there, it’s a beautiful place.” And I’m like dang dad, really? He spent 12 years as a Northwest tree planter and I'm like, dang, I wonder how much carbon your labor is sequestering right now? But he’s not an activist right? He’s not a climate justice activist, even though he’s planted millions of trees. And my mom, on my mom’s side, we are, you know agricultural people. We have inherited family seeds and my mom for the past, I would say 10 years now. She went back to Mexico and brought some of those seeds with her from our family. These are seeds that my family has had for hundreds of years and she has been growing them and I'm like, “Wow, you are keeping biodiversity alive, as you uphold a thousand-year-old ancestral responsibility in the middle of climate change, and you rely less on grocery stores because you have seeds that you grow for what you need. And I think it is such a, - we as a society, we need to reframe, and rethink how we think about immigrant communities, communities of color, like completely. I think there's this narrative of like, we need to help frontline communities, we need to help poor people of color. I'm sorry, we are not poor, we are economically exploited, but we are incredibly wealthy and rich in culture, traditions, and cosmovisions.
I didn't share this earlier, but like, 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. And the difference, culturally, that I noticed 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. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I'm just like, trying to help.” But they were like, upset, right? They're, like, very rightfully upset with like, “I need a bed and like, you know, where is FEMA”? And, you know, very rightfully so and I could see that it was probably very hard, because, you know, they haven't been let down by the system. Maybe, maybe never. But when I was phone banking, like my community, you know, offering them hotel rooms, we were trying to get families into hotel rooms, almost every single person that I called, was so grateful that somebody was reaching out to them to make sure they were okay, and almost every single family that I called, declined support, not because they didn't need it, but because they wanted to make sure that we were giving that support to those who really needed it. You know, I had one family who was like, “Yeah, I'm staying with my brother-in-law. There are like twenty of us in a two-bedroom apartment. We're sleeping on the floor, but we're okay. Please give that room to somebody who really needs it.” And I'm like that right there is cultural wisdom, like ancestral technology, right? How we orient to each other in moments of crisis. How do we normalize that? How do we make that the way that we treat each other? How does that become mainstream, like crisis is happening, like 3000 families lost their home, what if everybody was like, “Well, who really needs it?” Instead of like, “I need it. I don't care about the other people like, I need it.” And I think that our communities have a lot to teach the world as far as what resilience is because we're in a perpetual practice of being resilient because of how left out we are by the system. So it's not so much that we need to help frontline communities or folks of color, society needs to let itself be helped by the wisdom and power that we have cultivated for thousands of years.
Ayana Young Yeah, the entitlement of those who have more is really strange. It just shows a type of, to me, it shows a type of deep loneliness and spiritual bankruptcy. So I want to explore this idea of spiritual bankruptcy a bit more with you, because I know you've been on such a journey with your own spiritual practices with other spiritual leaders, you 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, like, 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 will ever create. So yeah, I'd like to just hear about your spiritual journey and how that relates to the spiritual bankruptcy of this time.
Niria Alicia That is such a heavy question. Yeah, I mean, we're not just in a climate crisis, we're also living in a massive spiritual crisis. We're not tending to ancestors. We're not tending to the elements. We're not singing songs together, we're not dancing together. We're not doing the things that Creator asked us to do. In terms of this question, I'm like, thinking of this memory and remembering one morning, the day after the closing ceremony on Run4Salmon, there are these amazing Pomo brothers Pomo relatives there, Gary and Stewie, and they come on this journey to help hold the song and the prayer with us, and so every morning, it’s everybody’s favorite thing on the run is waking up to Uncle Gary singing, and on the last day, I remember waking up at like sunrise and just, you know, coming out of my dreamspace into this into his song, and I got into my tent, and I walked down to the river and there was Uncle Gary and Stewie and they're just singing really, really old, beautiful, traditional songs. And I didn't go down there because I didn't want to bother them, I just, I just let the song vibrate off the mountain and just receive that music, and that prayer, and that vibration. And it was like this moment where I looked down and I saw them, father and son, waking up to sing and pray. And I thought, you know, I don't know, if it was like a download or like a moment where I was able to remember like, ancestrally like something. But it dawned on me that like, Creator made of this world, perfect. Like Creator gave us everything water, gave us animal relatives to teach us about medicines and food to like, you know, to eat to be alive. All Creator asked us was to take care of Mother Earth. Like, that's the only thing that was asked of us. Right? And like, how do we take care of Mother Earth? By like, singing and praying to her and being with her, humbling ourselves to how grand she is, and how pitiful we are as humans, you know. And I just became so moved. I think that moment really changed me because I realized, you know, how much those types of things matter and the importance of our ceremonies, right? Like our ceremonies are times where we, where we get together, where we talk to our ancestors, where we pray, where we ask for guidance. There's so much more in this world than what meets the eye. There are so many energies and beings around us that really just want to help us. And yeah, that's why I think in order to respond to this spiritual crisis, it's so important for us to just get together and circle and pray and sing, right? Honestly, I think humanity is overthinking the solutions to this problem, to be completely honest, we're overdoing it. We just need to sit in circle and pray and like how about we give thanks for like this food, and just dance and be in our joy and like work with joy and be in our dignity and respect each other's dignity and right to be here, and like precious purpose, trusting that ancestors have sent every single person here to fulfill a unique role that only that person can play, that is how precious and special we are. Right? And so I think in this moment of spiritual bankruptcy it's so important for us to make time to really be in that conversation with the more than human world and do some deep listening as to what is our unique purpose, your unique purpose, my unique purpose and I think the more we do that, the the more clear the solutions will become.
Ayana Young What you're speaking to about taking care, oh, gosh, care, this word is so overlooked and I think in so many ways, this dominant culture has conditioned us to forget what care is, what it feels like, for us, what it feels like to receive it, what it feels like to give it and I think maybe, you know, and I'm careful when using 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, so I want to hear you speak about what care looks like. Like if we could just spend a moment imagining a dream or a future of what care looks like, what do we need? How do we get away from these false solutions that keep us so distracted, and keep us working so hard for a lifestyle? That only keeps us from fulfilling our purpose and actually loving each other. And just to also say, the gratitude, the gratitude piece. I mean, how many times at COP26 when somebody is doing a panel about carbon sequestration, are they talking about gratitude? I know, I've never heard it. So, yeah, just I'd love to take a moment with you to dream into, I don't want to call it a care economy, I've heard that being used, but you know, whatever words we want to use.
Niria Alicia Yeah even that, like the care economy, all of these terms I’m like we’re overdoing it. Can we just be relational, can we just have a conversation, can we truly just understand that my wellness is intertwined and dependent on the wellness of those around me, right? Sometimes I don’t really understand this thing with self care, because I understand who I am in relationship to, like, everything and everyone around me, right? So it's like, how can I care? Like, I'm never really ever caring for myself, because there's always other things that are caring for me. And I think that's maybe something we should, we should explore. Right? I'm thinking about the weeks during the quarantine, you know, right when the pandemic happened, and is still happening, but right when it started, do you remember all those pictures of how clean the the canals in Italy and how the fish had come back, and there's all those images of like the wolves and the coyotes coming onto the streets in San Francisco. And I was like, “Wow, maybe we just need to stop and let everything else do what they know to do.” Because we're the ones who are lost, like the wolves know what they're doing. The salmon sure as hell know what they need to be doing. We need to just pause. And, you know, I say that because I know pausing is a privilege. And I also recognize that for some of us, it's not an option. Like, you know, I'm thinking about all of our relatives at Line 3, who can't fully stop, right? And I also don’t want to over project the story that front lines are hard, because there is also a lot of joy and resistance that is happening right now for Mother Earth, I don’t want to overlook that. I feel powerful, I feel in my purpose when I’m out there. But yeah, it's like what do we need to be doing as a collective to actually let ourselves feel cared for in this moment? Because life just wants to live and the life around us wants to live. The question is does humanity want to continue to live? That's, I think, like, as a species, we need to sit in circle and actually have this conversation. Alright. My fellow humans, do we want to continue to exist as a species because we deeply understand that if we continue to operate in the way that we're doing it, we're pushing ourselves into our own extinction.
Ayana Young This is a perfect transition. Oh, my gosh, yeah, this question, do we want to continue to live and it brings up the word, well, I won't even say it because I'm just gonna read a quote from your Instagram and I'll just say, I think Instagram is weird, but Niria’s is worth following because there are some real truths in there, and so okay, you wrote, “I chopped wood for hours and just reflected on the fact that people talk about our movements getting infiltrated by the government, or getting co-opted by the state or saviors, but how many times was it our own baggage, our own ego, our own traumas getting in the way of us actualizing collective liberation. How many times is it sabotaging our liberation? Because we refuse to heal.”
Niria Alicia That’s deep, I wrote that?
Ayana Young Yes, and so the word sabotage, like what I feel like what you were just speaking to, was this grand sabotage of our species, of our humanity, of our hearts. So yeah, speak to that for us just let's go down the wormhole of us sabotaging ourselves.
Niria Alicia I mean, yeah, self sabotage, that is a major topic. I think the older I get doing this work, the more aware I become of how, just this painful reality that we're not all going to make it and I can't continue to stress my nervous system, or like, rely on other people understanding what times we're in. And like getting them to change the way, just getting other people to change like at the end of the day, our truest power lies within our ability to heal and transform ourselves and so I think that it's so important for us to find those other people who understand what time it is, and who want to move, and be open to letting spirit move us in the direction that we need to move, to actually make it out of this alive. And I mean, nobody gets out alive. Everybody dies, man. So like, let's not take life too seriously. But let's try to find a way and find a path to where humanity can be restored to its full splendor, to where there is a day not far from today where we will wake up and remember why the Creator and ancestors put us here, what our unique and precious purpose was, and will continue to be.
Ayana Young I was just thinking of the listeners out there that may be in this cycle of self sabotage, trauma, ego death, grief, frustration, and maybe this feeling of where do I belong? Or how do I exist in this world? Or how can I make a difference? And I had this question of like, well, Niria what would you tell them? Or, you know, what ritual would you give them? I'm kind of like, well, this whole episode is, I feel like everything you're saying is speaking to maybe even the little ones in us, like 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 “bad guy,” like, this poison is now I think, within all of us, which is heartbreaking to admit to, that this type of whether we want to call it wetiko, or this type of you know colonized mind or heart, I think you know, even like I’ll speak personally, it feels like a practice every day for me to deal with the poison that is inside of me and to not allow that poison to sabotage my relation to, my relationship to the Earth, to other humans, to myself. So I don’t know if you want to, you know, share a personal story of self sabotage and how you got through it or, you know, not the sabotage of the other, but the sabotage within our movement spaces, within ourselves. Yeah, maybe a story or maybe small practices, you know, of course, not the complex solution practices, but, like, the little things that we can do to move past really the story of separation.
Niria Alicia Yeah, well, it's so special to be having this conversation at the end of October on the full moon because in my tradition, we use the end of October/beginning of November as a time where we, where we believe that our ancestors on the other side come back to visit us and how do we tend to this self sabotage that lives inside of us? Well, I think it really is as simple as like, it's time that we just begin to cultivate a relationship with our ancestors. Right? Like, who are we? Not just who are we in this lifetime? But who have we been as a people? Right? You know, whiteness didn't exist in the 1500s, that was not a thing. Hispanic? What was that? You know I think about my ancestors going back and filling out a census from they'd be like, “I'm none of this, Latino, what is that? Oh my god.” Like, I'm just a person who lives on this part of the land and tends to this community. And so it's hard because we're, like society, so lost and far removed from like, the ancestral technologies, and tools that were given to us by all of our ancestors, literally, everybody has tools, practices, rituals, songs, sacred places where ancestors have gone to for healing, for guidance, and it's time that we act like that stuff matters. More than what we're seeing on our phones, more than what commercials we're seeing, more than what, you know, you notice that there's so many distractions right now in the world about, you know, that are tricking us into believing that like new cars every year matter, and like, getting the latest Gucci bag matters, matters for what, right? Like it's so important in this time, as the portal between the living and those on the other side gets thinner, not just for like Día de los Muertos and what that means to us, but also in the larger context of climate change, right? There's a massive portal of death that is opening that a lot of our people are going through, you know, I've lost so many people this year, since the pandemic, there's also mass extinction happening. And it's important that we cultivate that relationship with those that are on the other side, to be able to understand how we can be in service to life while we are still on this side. We don't have to overthink it. I don't know and it's a lifelong journey. It's a practice, you know, like, I get in all kinds of funks, about different things. But in the end, you know, it's important for us to like, go to those places where we feel the essence of who we are, of who we are beyond what society and those around us think that we are like, it's important that we cultivate that because I think that is the doorway and the head of the trail towards the path of like, finding out who we're meant to be.
Ayana Young Yeah, this has been such a profoundly beautiful conversation for my heart. I know for the people listening, this will move so many hearts to thanks. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for being with me.
Niria Alicia Oh, thank you. I just wanted to share something that I wrote about this question of like, of joy, right? Because I think sometimes when we talk about our ancestors and what our ancestors went through, we hold them in a light of like, “Oh my gosh, they endured so much hardship, but there's this conversation that I was having with some of my ancestors a couple of months ago, where they were like, don't- anyways, I'm just gonna read the piece that I wrote. The insight that came through was that liberation is not a destination. It is a journey. It is the moments of peace and joy we create along the way in the face of struggle. Some of my ancestors corrected me in prayer the other day, they told me “Stop crying over us or praying for us like we were martyrs. Like we never had joy, like we never were free in our struggle. We were the most free in our choice to rebel, to fight, and to die.” And they showed me those moments, those times that they laughed around a fire, the times they sang songs together, the times they made each other laugh, and the bedtime prayers and morning prayers they said to stay anchored in gratitude and surrender to the will of Creator. The truth is that many of my ancestors died at the hands of colonizers, my great grandmother as a child spent several years living in caves and riverbanks getting tracked by the military. She saw her father get ripped away from her by the military to be taken to the top of the mountain with many other men to meet his death. So how powerful that even in those moments of struggle and of life or death, our ancestors created rituals of liberation, moments in time, spaces where they could experience the beauty of life and joy. And we must commit to rituals that liberate us as much as we must commit to showing up to protests and actions. Liberation is not a destination, it is a commitment. As activist organizers, artists, writers, poets, visionaries, medicine, people, cultural keepers, musicians we cannot forget this. So how are we creating spaces of freedom in our minds? How are we creating spaces of freedom in our bodies, in our spirits, in our hearts? What are the daily moments in our life in which we can absolutely reclaim our freedom and power? Even if just for one moment in the day? What do we do daily that can be made sacred? Pockets of joy in the resistance will carry us through.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Santiago Cordoba, Palo-Mah, and the Range of Light Wilderness. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.