As I sit in contemplation writing the sentiments of my heart, I want to acknowledge that I am sitting on the traditional homelands of the Tongva peoples. I take this moment to recognize and honor their dedication to love, life and the land.
I celebrate my Indigenous roots. I acknowledge and pay tribute to my origins. I honor my ancestry.
Growing up, I had never felt part of one particular team, bloodline, nation, race or culture. I felt squeezed, lost, misplaced in my efforts to fit into defined identities, something man made, border lines drawn into the earth and solidified by power, religion, politics, conformity, colonization.
In the midst of trying to survive my domestication, I fell in love with color, sound, texture, movement, which came through in the form of culture, art, and generosity. The mountains became my sanctuary, my refuge. The trees and the stone people are among my greatest teachers. I recognized and experienced the creepy crawlies, the winged, the four-legged and the five-fingered beings as my relatives. The sky became my playground. The river and the ocean are the choirs I sing with. The earth, the cosmos are my family, my ancestors.
In a weak moment of conformity, I once tried to squeeze into a definition that followed the trail of the bloodline but that trail fell short. The bloodline showed my passage through the Americas, Africa and European Continents.
It did not include all the non-human microbes growing, thriving and sustaining my body.
It did not include who I am or where I came from before The Big Bang.
It did not include all the elements that existed prior to the formation of the fire, earth, air, and water — and it did not include the fire, earth, air and water.
It did not include the uncountable infinite number of universes, black holes and stars.
It did not include all the known and unknown, the seen and unseen, the untouchable, and the unimaginable.
In Ceremony and in Meditation, free from drama of fear, separation and not enoughness, it is in this space that I come home to myself. I can begin to experience the wonder of who-what I am. My lineage goes way beyond my human ancestry and where I was born on this earth, but rather to the source of my existence.
I celebrate my Indigenous roots. I acknowledge and pay tribute to my origins. I honor my ancestry. I am Indigenous, the Sacred Source, Power of Creation, Love and Light. I Am. Yo Soy. Zanniman iuhniuiz (Translation “I am naturally like this”. In the language of Nahuatl).
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Stella Cruz is a heartfelt, playful, medicine woman and lover of life. She is a Meditation and Mindfulness Facilitator, Energy Healer, and Artist. Stella considers her work to her life path. She is the founder of Medicine Pathways — Aqui y Ahora Healing Arts. It is her desire to share meditation and mindfulness utilizing traditional and innovative practices, incorporating art, song and nature. Her objective is to help show people who they are beyond the many layers of stories and wounds they have experienced by guiding them inward to the present moment, that they may come to know the vast beauty of their inner being and their true loving nature…READ MORE |