August 22, 2025 • 33 mins
Light your candles and schedule your limpia because today's episode is all about the power of intuition. First, we talk to scientist Galang Lufityanto about his research into intuitive decision-making. Then, we head to the Brooklyn Brujería festival and learn about how intuition has been part of a growing Latina feminist movement. Finally, we learn about Reporter Cindy Rodriguez’s journey to embracing her intuition through her relationship with her mother.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Dear Latino USA listener. Before we start, you should know
that if you want to listen to this episode ad free,
just join Plus and you can join for as little
as seven dollars a month. Joining also gets you behind
the scenes access and yes, some cheese may so click
the link in the episode description and after you do that,
(00:30):
then click play. Let's go to the show, Dear Latino
USA listener. Today, we're gonna dig into our archives to
bring you an episode about intuition. We're gonna look at
exactly what intuition is while we ask is it real?
(00:51):
Do we all have it? Okay, I know you're going
to enjoy this episode. Sitting in the studio with writer, producer,
and storyteller Cindy Rodriguez. Hey Cindy. Hello, So Cindy. All
I know is that, let you know, USA has been
working on a story around intuition. It's been up on
our whiteboard and I know that you're here to talk
(01:13):
about it with me. And that's it, Isla.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's all you need to know. I'm going to take
you right through it. Okay. So it pretty much starts
with I think my inkling, my obsession with intuition ever
since I was a teenager. I didn't really believe in
intuition until high school. There was a weekend I really
wanted to go down the shore with friends. Four or
(01:39):
five of us were going to the beach, but my
mom's super strict, super pertuana wants to know everywhere, like
where I'm going with friends, and she the minute I
asked her, she was like, no.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I feel something, very very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
She was just like no, no, mcaybien, You're not going.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Which means I have thisnition.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And I told my daughter, please don't go, No, not
this time, because I feel sting.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't like it. So I called my friends. I
was like, just tell tell our friend to take my spot.
And then I asked her thereafter. I'm like, what was
it about this particular trip that you were just so
head on saying like.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, doube accidente memante abe and an accidente.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And she's like, I just saw like an accident. I
just don't have a good feeling. And that was very specific,
and I let it go. Three days passed by, my
friends called me and they're like, something happened. Our friend
fell asleep at the wheel. Oh my god, the car
turned over. And the person that replaced you passed away,
(02:45):
and I was like shocked. Even when I say it now,
it kind of gets me emotionally.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It sounds completely unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That was a moment when my mom called that accident
specifically and what happened. That was the moment where I
started to like really respect my mom's intuition. That's when
I started looking at it like this is a superpower
of sorts, Like how does she know about this? Like
how does she tap into it? Right? Like asking all
these questions.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Quondo pil primerro riki to savilla luisiono.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Lyntusion I started, Okay, okay, simple type of of this
nonly a set moscasso.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So your mom says that we all have the gift
of intuition, but not all of us listen to it.
From Pluturo media, it's Latino Usa, I'm Maria no posa.
Today we get into a six sentido, the sixth sense.
We're gonna look at it from both a scientific point
(03:46):
of view and also one of cultural understanding. Intuition as
a concept has long been a part of many spiritual
practices in Latin America, and it plays a critical role
one that today is guiding a Latin feminist movement. First
(04:07):
journalist Cindy Rodriguez is going to introduce us to some
cold hard science about intuition in this story that we
first brought to you in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
The way my mom defines intuition is that it's a
gentle truth or an inner knowing. But I'm a journalist,
so I needed to look into this myself. I started researching,
and I realized people have tried to define and measure
it for years. Plato believed intuition was the basis of
all knowledge. Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond as
(04:40):
an experiment to prove that he could rely on his
innate instinct rather than society's knowledge, And as recently as
twenty eighteen, the Office of Naval Research was conducting studies
on how sailors and marines used their gut to make
snap decisions. But still, the idea that someone has a
gift of perceiving or know going into the future is
(05:01):
considered scientifically unprovable by many, but not all.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
So my name is Golan lufianta doctor.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Lufitiano is one of those people who takes intuition seriously.
He's a researcher from Indonesia.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
And I'm here Frightful Bread Foundations and currently I'm doing
research bit NYU Lango in neurology, and I'm also working
with Harvard University in cognitive neurology as well.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Nearly a decade ago, doctor Lufaiano was getting his doctor
in neuroscience. But when it came time to decide what
he was going to do for his thesis, he was
having a hard time.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
I was thinking, like, what about investigating about intuitions? But
at that time it was really really hard. And then
a lot of people kind of like again like doubt,
how do you message intuition? But I really really wanted
to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And so he and a team of other researchers designed
the study that would test people's ability to sort of
predict the future.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
So I kind of like set up like behavioral toss
with random dot movement.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
This is how it would work. Imagine you're sitting at
a computer. On the screen, there are a bunch of
dots moving either left or right randomly. You watch this
for a while, and then you're asked to try and
predict in which direction the dots are going. To move.
It would seem impossible to do this since there are
no obvious patterns to the dots, but secretly there's a signal.
(06:33):
Right before the dots move, a subliminal image flashes on
the screen. The images are things like guns, or flowers
or snakes, things that for most humans, create an emotional response,
either really positive or really negative. If you're flashed the
negative thing like a gun, the dots move to the right.
If you're flashed the positive thing, like a flower, they
(06:55):
move left. Remember these are subliminal images, so you don't
notice the images con just the point of the whole
thing is to pick up on the feelings that subliminal
images give you and use them to predict which way
the dots will move. If you can do that, you're
more intuitive or more in tune with your emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So basically what it's doing is it's measuring your capacity
to trust in.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
What you know, not so much what you know, but
what you feel. As doctor Lufayana explains, there are two
types of decision making. The first is rational.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Where you kind of like wait all of the options
and the probability and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And the others intuitive, in which.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
You use emotional kind of a memory to guide on decision.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
What doctor Lufayano found is that both kinds of decision
makers have a visceral emotional response to the images, but
it's only the intuitive people who listen to their emotional
ORCS responses and use it to make a prediction.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So your mom was right on the money that everyone
does have intuition, but that some people listen to it
more than others.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, doctor Lufaiano and his team didn't prove that people
can see full visions into the future a lah, that's
so raven style, but they were able to prove that
people can use their gut instinct to make predictions. After
hearing about this research, we wanted to test our own intuition,
(08:29):
but it's a whole expensive computer setup. So doctor Lufaiano
sends us a questionnaire that he says works just as
well to measure how intuitive you are. So for fun,
we grabbed a bunch of people in the office and
some of our friends to see if they could guess
how intuitive they are. So we gathered everybody into Latino
(08:52):
USA's conference room. Yeah, I've been on reporting on intuition
for a year and you are all here, So we
can test your intuition, how good it is, how you think,
how you make decisions. Before subjects took the questionnaire, everyone
went around and said a little bit about themselves and
how intuitive they felt. First up, someone who does believe
she's already in touch with her intuition.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
I'm Amanda Alcantra, the digital media editor here at Latino USA.
I'm Dominican and Dominican culture. You know, there's a lot
of Afro syncritic religions and beliefs, and I have been
doing a lot of family research now, and you know,
I found out I have a great grandmother who was
a witch. She had a whole alter devoted to like,
you know, different sort of spirits. I feel like I'm
(09:37):
a very intuitive person, but I have a hard time
listening to my intuition because my rational brain is.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Like no, So yeah, Then we have somebody who has
been fooled by his own intuition before.
Speaker 7 (09:48):
My name is Tommy McNamara.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Tommy is a stand up comedian that lives in Brooklyn.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
We didn't talk about any feelings. I would say, as
an Irish Catholic Midwestern family, I think I used to
to trust my intuition more I got took advantage of
a few times.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He fell for Craigslist scam.
Speaker 7 (10:05):
And now I don't trust my intuition.
Speaker 8 (10:08):
I would say.
Speaker 9 (10:09):
I'm Alisa Scarce. I am a associate producer here at
Latino USA.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Alisa grew up in Los Angeles and she's on the
fence about the role of intuition in her life.
Speaker 9 (10:19):
So on my dad's side of the family, the Cuban side,
my great grandma was still alive and I remember looking
in their closet one time and seeing this board, which
is like a Ouiji board. So they would make a
lot of their decisions with the Ouiji board. It was
not something like my parents thought that was weird, so
and so it was not something that I really got
in touch with. But I remember as a kid like
(10:40):
thinking it was very cool. Feel I have a lot
of feelings that feel like intuitions.
Speaker 10 (10:45):
My name is Zach Swan.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Zach is yet another stand up comedian.
Speaker 10 (10:49):
I'm very white. My family background is I'm very white
like Scottish and Welsh, maybe French Canadian.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
He wasn't raised to think about his gut instincts.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
My family, we didn't intuition wasn't really like a subject
that was mentioned. I would fall in a similar campus Tommy.
I think I feel like I'm certainly not intentional about intuition.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And when it comes to you, Maria.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think I'm definitely an intuitive and a lot of
what I kind of stand for, kind of even in
my life and my work is to say own it,
trust it, believe it. You know the way you're seeing
it is right, because I feel like, oftentimes as a woman,
and certainly as as a woman who wasn't born in
this country, it was like, you're an impostor, you shouldn't
(11:41):
be here, that's the wrong thought. You're going to mess up,
and that what actually helps us is when we get grounded.
I trust it. I absolutely trust it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And then the questionnaire began. First question, I would rather
do something that requires little thought than something that is
sure to challenge my thinking abilities. The questionnaire was only
ten questions long. Each question was about how you handle
decision making and problem solving. I don't like to have
the responsibility. I would prefer complex to simple problems. I
(12:12):
had to anticipate and avoid situations. Number five, I trust
my initial feelings about people.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Pencils down.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Good.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I feel like a teacher I'm like, give me your homework, please,
thank you. After ten minutes of telling the results, I
came back. I have everyone's scores here, and I was like, huh. Interesting.
The way the scoring worked was that everyone had two
separate scores, a rational score and an intuitive score, twenty
five being the highest score you could get on either. First,
(12:46):
Amanda got her results.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Rational at ten.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
That makes a lot of sense because I'm like fighting
my rational all the time, and that's a Libra thing.
I have a hard time making decisions interesting. I'm mad
at this result, but I'm also very proud. I also
want to be intuitive, and it's it's pretty good intuitive.
Speaker 11 (13:04):
I mean, you.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Got a twenty three versus a ten, so you definitely
lean on the intuitive side if you were going by this.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
Alissa, So I am twenty one rational twenty three intuitive,
which it kind of makes sense to me that they
would be around the same, but like a little bit
more on the intuitive side.
Speaker 7 (13:23):
Tommy, I got eighteen rational, ten intuitive, which I think
is what people would have expected to be lowly intuitive
based on my answers, so I am not too surprised.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
Zach I got twenty one for rational and twenty four
for intuitive.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Isn't that the highest intuitive score we've heard so far? Well,
Marie is not. The results are in.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Rational I got eighteen and intuitive I got twenty five.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Not surprised at all.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
No, that sounds about right, Maria. Of course you got
the highest intuitive score. And overall, with the exception of Zach,
people were very good at guessing how intuitive they would be,
and that's what doctor Lufreano found during his research as.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Well, at least one of my studies. They actually we
actually found that when they say that they are intuitive,
it is accurate that they are going to behave intuitively.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
So basically, if you think you're an intuitive person, you
use your intuition more like a self fulfilling prophecy totally.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And you can hear people's answers about their background, how
much their families impacted the way they viewed their own
sense of intuition. And that made me wonder if my
own culture plays a role in my intuition, because if
you ask my mom, it absolutely does.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Tu cure queto renduisiones, kumo masso so and lo latinos and.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Latino porque porquereo and a familiar and to a parties.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Basically, your mom is saying that Latinos and Latinas grow
up with this sense of intuition, that you hear about
it from your family, your neighbors, your friends.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, that you hear about it everywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Coming up on Latino USA, how Blu has modern day
LATINX witches are harnessing the power of intuition. Stay with us, Hey,
(16:02):
We're back, And on today's show, producer Cindy Rodriguez has
been teaching us about intuition. We just learned about the
science behind it and the way we use it in
decision making. But now Cindy's going to explore the cultural
role of intuition for the Latino community, specifically how intuitive
women are spearheading a Latina feminist movement.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
In my quest to learn about the role of intuition
and the Latino community, I quickly found myself at the
epicenter of the millennial decolonized wellness movement.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The epicenter of the millennial decolonized wellness movement. Yes, okay,
I didn't know that there was a decolonized wellness movement,
but let's.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Go mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We're hearing the drums of Battala and all women Afro
Brazilian Samba reggaed Percussion band, one of the many performers
during the Brooklyn Bruheti FS. The festival was held in
Dumbo under the Brooklyn Bridge. The festival felt like a
reunion in a lot of the vendors. There are my
friends and the performers are people have gone on hikes
with I live for these sacred spaces.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Why wasn't I there?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Oh, you would have loved it.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
How come you guys didn't invite me?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I know we should have invited you. Mira Iodo, You're coming.
It's magic. There's astro readers, tarot readers, music like indigenous
music where you you feel like you feel seen. Of
these people on stagers, Afro Columbianos, Afro Brazilians and it's
just a bunch of people of color celebrating their ancestral heritage. Hello,
(17:35):
thank you so much for taking time. And we got
to talk to the person who was bringing the whole
thing together.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
I'm Chikita Ruhita. This is Brooklyn Bruheti at the festival.
This is a gathering of magic, music, drums and community.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Chikita Bruhita one hundred percent believes in intuition.
Speaker 11 (17:53):
So there's intuition of trusting your intuition, but then there's
the next step of actually believing indivination. Right, So if
you trust your intuition to trust your guides enough for
them to give you messages and then take action towards those, right,
it's the deepest trust of intuition. So I grew up,
you know, receiving messages from espiditistas and being told, you know,
(18:16):
be careful with this, don't go out there. You know,
So and so got a message like me.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Ruhita learned to believe in intuition because of her family
spiritual practice. She comes from a long line of Afri
Latina spiritual women who grew up practicing Santadiya. Her grandmother
started practicing when she moved from Puerto Rico to New
York City.
Speaker 11 (18:37):
So, my grandmother was crowned a priestess of Yamaya more
than forty years ago. My grandmother and my mother is
a priestess of Ochun.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Bruhita says that her grandma was a crown priestess of Yamaya,
one of the orishas or gods of Santadiya. All who
practice Santhidia are initiated to a particular orisha to their
own deity.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Right and Yeamaya is mother goddess represented by the ocean.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And Santidia is a religion that is the combination of
African spiritual practices that melded in Cuba with Catholic elements
as a result of the slaves trade when the Yoruba
people were brought to the Americas. Tho to Yuba people
still live in what we know today's Benin in western Nigeria.
Chelsea said that her mother was a priestess of osh
O'shuan is a goddess of divine femininity.
Speaker 11 (19:21):
I identify as a third generation practicing Bruha in the
traditional sense or what I understood for my life to
be the traditional sense, which is someone who practices our
black magic.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Rugita says that well, she can trace her intuitive sense
to her family's African and indigenous roots. She's seeing a
lot of Latinas now, regardless of their family history, calling
themselves bruhas or witches.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
I love that Bruja has become and I'm seeing it
becomes sort of this all encompassing term for being like
a Latina LATINX feminist, right, like being part of this
moment of empowered, you know, so empowered that I can
create magic, right, So this is how we're informing bruha.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
You know, it kind of feels like Brujas are having
a big moment right.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Now, definitely, and maybe the best place to witness the
Bluha boom is on social media, thanks where LATX influencers
have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers who seek out
spiritual advice on everything from money so arias your money
for February twenty twenty is coming in the form of
(20:27):
the Nine of Swords, to taking care of plants.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Not only do they clanse the air of toxins blots,
they also provide amazing energy and sometimes it's just too
cold for outside on Hunger Street.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Working on your relationship.
Speaker 12 (20:41):
I'm Valeria Ruelas the Mexican which welcome to pick a card,
advice for your love life and dating life.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And yes, of course getting through our current global crisis.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
So we're going to talk about the coronavirus from an
astrological point of view.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But blu Haas don't just talk about self optimization. The
same person we just heard offering dating advice has some
thoughts on our political system as well.
Speaker 11 (21:10):
Yo.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
I love knowing that we're going to prevail against all
of this evil and bad government. Hell yeah, witches.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's really well, that's taking brujas and bruhiiad to a
whole other level.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Brujas don't play often. Being a Bruja means being an activist.
A lot of blu Haas say they're fighting against a patriarchal,
white supremacist society in their practice. In twenty fifteen, writer
and activist Ganny Slady uploaded a video of themself and
other Buhas hexing Trump Abio Trump. But this idea of
(21:50):
tapping into magic or spirituality more generally as a form
of political resistance is not new.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
We see spirituality as really an integration.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Of this is Latin Medina, a Chicana scholar of spirituality
and religion and professor at the California State University Northridge.
Speaker 8 (22:08):
Spirituality very much nurtures intuition.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Doctor Medina says it's an act of political resistance to
look within oneself for answers. In other words, trust your
own intuition, because for centuries, people of color have been
conditioned not to trust their intuition.
Speaker 8 (22:25):
And our intuition is grounded in our feelings, our emotions,
our bodies.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
During colonization, brujos and brujas and healers, intuitive people or
people with powers in any way were persecuted in Latin America.
Speaker 8 (22:40):
Our indigenous cultures carry so much scientific, spiritual, medicinal knowledge
that was erased silence displays through colonization.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Doctor Medina brings up La Bidille gall Lupe as a
specific example of the invalidation of black and brown instincts.
Speaker 8 (22:59):
So anyways that colonized her or tried to colonize her.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
The story of Labiti Guadalupegos like this. In fifteen thirty one,
an indigenous man named Juan Diego saw a vision of
her on a hill. She spoke directly to him in Nahwa,
his native language, But when he told the Spanish Catholic
fire by what he saw, the friar didn't believe him
and told him to go get proof. There is a
longer story here, but to simplify, Juan Diego went back
(23:26):
to Lavitin, and when he came back, his cloak was
full of roses and Labita's image was printed on it.
The history is debated in academic circles. But according to
doctor Medina, even after Juan Diego brought proof, the Church
didn't recognize her formerly as a saint. Four years.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
The Catholic Church resisted the devotion to her. They were
fearful that the indigenous people were going to confuse her
with the ancient divine mother Donna sing.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But finally the Catholic Church couldn't deny her.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
But the only way they could accept her was to
name her as Guadalupe, which was the name of a
madonna from southern Spain, which is where most of the
conquisadors were from, and to say that she's marry mother
of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So the overall point here is that because of colonization,
the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous people was rejected and
then invalidated by the West.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, Labisi Le Guadalupe story can be interpreted as an
example of colonizers rewriting what an indigenous man saw, denying
his experience, and that's why today things like intuition in
bruheti A are a way of decolonizing and reclaiming that knowledge.
Speaker 8 (24:43):
It's just really difficult times that need not just political responses,
but spiritual responses.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
For many, la Vitin is seen as both a religious
and political symbol.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
Today. She represents you know, brown women. She represents around
ancestry of the Americas. She represents the indigenous sacred cosmology.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
These days, a lot of young LATINX feministy Labitin is
a symbol of empowerment. She's on boat of candles. Everywhere
there are jean jackets with labitin details on the back.
I think for many of us Latinas, we're looking to
spirituality for more meaningful answers than the world is giving us.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
We will be right back. Yes, hey, we're back. We're
going to jump back into the story. So your mom
seems to be like a central figure in all of this,
(25:56):
So tell me a little bit about your mom, just
kind of in from a spiritual place.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
My mom got here at the age of thirty with
my older sister. I think when she got here, as
she has told me before, she relied on her intuition
to make all the decisions because a year into moving here,
she didn't have a husband anymore, she's divorced, she's alone,
she doesn't know the language. So she tells me that
I use my intuition out of survival.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You know, it's really interesting to hear you say that,
because we learned earlier that scientifically intuitive decisions are based
on emotion rather than information. And it really sounds like
all your mom had to go off of was her gut.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, And I think that could be the experience for
a lot of immigrants who move somewhere and don't speak
the language or know the customs. Something that surprised me
is that my mom says it's been harder to listen
to her intuition the longer that she's been here in
the States.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In Latin America is mat passiva lao no tennessee correcre
this and hab.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
She says that life in Latin America is lower paced,
that it's easier to listen to your feelings there than
it is here in the US.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So your mom says this thing, the corricor is So
what's the corricory.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Corricory is the hustle and bustle of just like running
around to get it done, whatever it is that you're
trying to get done.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It's like super American, super American, just moving ahead, moving ahead,
because that's what you do.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's what you do. You get to the us. You hustle,
you launch things, you become an entrepreneur, you become successful,
all of these things that are supposed to define your happiness.
And she said, no, corricorre. I asked her, what is
something that she would want me to just never forget?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Apisa down, Practica down, down, free okum on Latina in
to me if Amilia cabin this.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
She says that although this country can be so practical,
so cold, that she hopes that because I am a
Latina and because she raised me, that I will always
know how to protect my spirit. But it's something I
honestly hesitated to do for a long time. I wouldn't
take my parents seriously when they tried to impart their
(28:35):
spiritual wisdom. But then I hit rock bottom?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
What do you mean you hit rock bottom? What happened?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
About five years ago? I was laid off for my
job at CNN, which meant that I had lost my
health insurance, which I really needed. At the time, I
had just been told I needed to get surgery for
a potentially cancerous lymph node, And to make matters worse,
I was in the middle of leaving a long term
relationship of ten years. I was thirty one years old
at the time, and it felt like I had lost
(29:04):
everything and I didn't know how to begin again. So
I moved in with my mom. Her first thing on
my to do list to get better was when olympiasa.
You know, you leave a breakup, you lose a job,
you start to think, okay, maybe the world is against
me here. So she prescribes me this baynyo.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
She prepared umbagno, which means she prepared a bath for you,
a particular kind of bath that means flowers, usually some
kind of particular sand, oftentimes candles.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And just like, tears are rolling down my face and
you don't rinse the bath off where you have to
air dry. So I am forced to just stand there
naked and think emotionally about everything I've ever wanted in
my life and at the same time everything that I've
lost up until then. And so it it was a
transition in my life, like I remember this day very clearly,
(29:54):
thinking like something changed, something shifted. I go for a
hike every time there's a full moon, burn some palos.
(30:16):
It's the first thing I do. I like to set
the vibe. Palo Santo is a wild tree native to
the Yukotan and it's found in many Latin American countries,
including Peru, where my family's from. And what you'll hear
there is my lighter. And what I do is I
light my palo. I'll ask my ancestors to watch over me,
to bring me guidance, and to send me any messages
(30:37):
that they think I need to know right now. And
so as I write down what I'm gonna let go of,
which I already did, I say I'm ready to go
of X and replace it with X. It's a little personal,
so I won't exactly share what it is. Now. I
will light the paper. The paper's very small. What I'm burning,
(31:04):
it's all gone now, it's turned to ashes, honoring my
inner knowing. It's a way of connecting to my ancestors
and their traditions, voices that have been silenced through a
(31:25):
history of colonization. And it's all led to reclaiming a
part of myself that has always been there. But I
just wasn't listening.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Snidro Didez, thank you so much for opening up and
for taking us on this journey with you.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That was Journalists Cindi Rodriguez the Brooklyn Brugetia Festival is
still going strong every year. This episode was produced by
(32:22):
Antonio Serejuidro and Cindi Rodriguez. It was edited by Sophia
Palisa car and mixed by Stephanie Lebou. Fact checking for
this episode by Nidia Bautista. Special thanks to Maya Hurst Rodriguez.
The Latino USA team also includes Roxanna Guire, Julia Caruso,
Jessica Ellis, Renaldo Lanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Gruzsado, Luis Luna Drooni,
(32:45):
mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica Morales, Garcia, jj Carubin and
Nancy Trujillo. Beene Ramirez and I are co executive producers
and I'm your host, Mariao Jossa. Latino Usa is part
of Iheart's Michael Gudap podcast Network. Executive producers that I
heard are Leo Gomez and Arlen Santana. Join us again
on our next episode, dear listener. In the meantime, I'll
(33:08):
see you on all of our social media and remember,
if you want to get to the meat of the story,
just skip through. Then all you need to do is
become a member of Fuduo plus. Oh my god, it's
so easy, and after you do it, you'll ask yourself,
why didn't I join Futuro plus earlier? Okay, see you there,
I knows, benmos.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
Joe Latino USA is made possible in part by the
John D.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising Simons Foundation. Unlocking Knowledge,
opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org and Agnes
Gund
Dear Latino USA listener. Before we start, you should know
that if you want to listen to this episode ad free,
just join Plus and you can join for as little
as seven dollars a month. Joining also gets you behind
the scenes access and yes, some cheese may so click
the link in the episode description and after you do that,
(00:30):
then click play. Let's go to the show, Dear Latino
USA listener. Today, we're gonna dig into our archives to
bring you an episode about intuition. We're gonna look at
exactly what intuition is while we ask is it real?
(00:51):
Do we all have it? Okay, I know you're going
to enjoy this episode. Sitting in the studio with writer, producer,
and storyteller Cindy Rodriguez. Hey Cindy. Hello, So Cindy. All
I know is that, let you know, USA has been
working on a story around intuition. It's been up on
our whiteboard and I know that you're here to talk
(01:13):
about it with me. And that's it, Isla.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's all you need to know. I'm going to take
you right through it. Okay. So it pretty much starts
with I think my inkling, my obsession with intuition ever
since I was a teenager. I didn't really believe in
intuition until high school. There was a weekend I really
wanted to go down the shore with friends. Four or
(01:39):
five of us were going to the beach, but my
mom's super strict, super pertuana wants to know everywhere, like
where I'm going with friends, and she the minute I
asked her, she was like, no.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I feel something, very very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
She was just like no, no, mcaybien, You're not going.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Which means I have thisnition.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And I told my daughter, please don't go, No, not
this time, because I feel sting.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't like it. So I called my friends. I
was like, just tell tell our friend to take my spot.
And then I asked her thereafter. I'm like, what was
it about this particular trip that you were just so
head on saying like.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, doube accidente memante abe and an accidente.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And she's like, I just saw like an accident. I
just don't have a good feeling. And that was very specific,
and I let it go. Three days passed by, my
friends called me and they're like, something happened. Our friend
fell asleep at the wheel. Oh my god, the car
turned over. And the person that replaced you passed away,
(02:45):
and I was like shocked. Even when I say it now,
it kind of gets me emotionally.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It sounds completely unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That was a moment when my mom called that accident
specifically and what happened. That was the moment where I
started to like really respect my mom's intuition. That's when
I started looking at it like this is a superpower
of sorts, Like how does she know about this? Like
how does she tap into it? Right? Like asking all
these questions.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Quondo pil primerro riki to savilla luisiono.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Lyntusion I started, Okay, okay, simple type of of this
nonly a set moscasso.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So your mom says that we all have the gift
of intuition, but not all of us listen to it.
From Pluturo media, it's Latino Usa, I'm Maria no posa.
Today we get into a six sentido, the sixth sense.
We're gonna look at it from both a scientific point
(03:46):
of view and also one of cultural understanding. Intuition as
a concept has long been a part of many spiritual
practices in Latin America, and it plays a critical role
one that today is guiding a Latin feminist movement. First
(04:07):
journalist Cindy Rodriguez is going to introduce us to some
cold hard science about intuition in this story that we
first brought to you in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
The way my mom defines intuition is that it's a
gentle truth or an inner knowing. But I'm a journalist,
so I needed to look into this myself. I started researching,
and I realized people have tried to define and measure
it for years. Plato believed intuition was the basis of
all knowledge. Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond as
(04:40):
an experiment to prove that he could rely on his
innate instinct rather than society's knowledge, And as recently as
twenty eighteen, the Office of Naval Research was conducting studies
on how sailors and marines used their gut to make
snap decisions. But still, the idea that someone has a
gift of perceiving or know going into the future is
(05:01):
considered scientifically unprovable by many, but not all.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
So my name is Golan lufianta doctor.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Lufitiano is one of those people who takes intuition seriously.
He's a researcher from Indonesia.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
And I'm here Frightful Bread Foundations and currently I'm doing
research bit NYU Lango in neurology, and I'm also working
with Harvard University in cognitive neurology as well.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Nearly a decade ago, doctor Lufaiano was getting his doctor
in neuroscience. But when it came time to decide what
he was going to do for his thesis, he was
having a hard time.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
I was thinking, like, what about investigating about intuitions? But
at that time it was really really hard. And then
a lot of people kind of like again like doubt,
how do you message intuition? But I really really wanted
to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And so he and a team of other researchers designed
the study that would test people's ability to sort of
predict the future.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
So I kind of like set up like behavioral toss
with random dot movement.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
This is how it would work. Imagine you're sitting at
a computer. On the screen, there are a bunch of
dots moving either left or right randomly. You watch this
for a while, and then you're asked to try and
predict in which direction the dots are going. To move.
It would seem impossible to do this since there are
no obvious patterns to the dots, but secretly there's a signal.
(06:33):
Right before the dots move, a subliminal image flashes on
the screen. The images are things like guns, or flowers
or snakes, things that for most humans, create an emotional response,
either really positive or really negative. If you're flashed the
negative thing like a gun, the dots move to the right.
If you're flashed the positive thing, like a flower, they
(06:55):
move left. Remember these are subliminal images, so you don't
notice the images con just the point of the whole
thing is to pick up on the feelings that subliminal
images give you and use them to predict which way
the dots will move. If you can do that, you're
more intuitive or more in tune with your emotions.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So basically what it's doing is it's measuring your capacity
to trust in.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
What you know, not so much what you know, but
what you feel. As doctor Lufayana explains, there are two
types of decision making. The first is rational.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Where you kind of like wait all of the options
and the probability and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And the others intuitive, in which.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
You use emotional kind of a memory to guide on decision.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
What doctor Lufayano found is that both kinds of decision
makers have a visceral emotional response to the images, but
it's only the intuitive people who listen to their emotional
ORCS responses and use it to make a prediction.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So your mom was right on the money that everyone
does have intuition, but that some people listen to it
more than others.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, doctor Lufaiano and his team didn't prove that people
can see full visions into the future a lah, that's
so raven style, but they were able to prove that
people can use their gut instinct to make predictions. After
hearing about this research, we wanted to test our own intuition,
(08:29):
but it's a whole expensive computer setup. So doctor Lufaiano
sends us a questionnaire that he says works just as
well to measure how intuitive you are. So for fun,
we grabbed a bunch of people in the office and
some of our friends to see if they could guess
how intuitive they are. So we gathered everybody into Latino
(08:52):
USA's conference room. Yeah, I've been on reporting on intuition
for a year and you are all here, So we
can test your intuition, how good it is, how you think,
how you make decisions. Before subjects took the questionnaire, everyone
went around and said a little bit about themselves and
how intuitive they felt. First up, someone who does believe
she's already in touch with her intuition.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
I'm Amanda Alcantra, the digital media editor here at Latino USA.
I'm Dominican and Dominican culture. You know, there's a lot
of Afro syncritic religions and beliefs, and I have been
doing a lot of family research now, and you know,
I found out I have a great grandmother who was
a witch. She had a whole alter devoted to like,
you know, different sort of spirits. I feel like I'm
(09:37):
a very intuitive person, but I have a hard time
listening to my intuition because my rational brain is.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Like no, So yeah, Then we have somebody who has
been fooled by his own intuition before.
Speaker 7 (09:48):
My name is Tommy McNamara.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Tommy is a stand up comedian that lives in Brooklyn.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
We didn't talk about any feelings. I would say, as
an Irish Catholic Midwestern family, I think I used to
to trust my intuition more I got took advantage of
a few times.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He fell for Craigslist scam.
Speaker 7 (10:05):
And now I don't trust my intuition.
Speaker 8 (10:08):
I would say.
Speaker 9 (10:09):
I'm Alisa Scarce. I am a associate producer here at
Latino USA.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Alisa grew up in Los Angeles and she's on the
fence about the role of intuition in her life.
Speaker 9 (10:19):
So on my dad's side of the family, the Cuban side,
my great grandma was still alive and I remember looking
in their closet one time and seeing this board, which
is like a Ouiji board. So they would make a
lot of their decisions with the Ouiji board. It was
not something like my parents thought that was weird, so
and so it was not something that I really got
in touch with. But I remember as a kid like
(10:40):
thinking it was very cool. Feel I have a lot
of feelings that feel like intuitions.
Speaker 10 (10:45):
My name is Zach Swan.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Zach is yet another stand up comedian.
Speaker 10 (10:49):
I'm very white. My family background is I'm very white
like Scottish and Welsh, maybe French Canadian.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
He wasn't raised to think about his gut instincts.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
My family, we didn't intuition wasn't really like a subject
that was mentioned. I would fall in a similar campus Tommy.
I think I feel like I'm certainly not intentional about intuition.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And when it comes to you, Maria.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think I'm definitely an intuitive and a lot of
what I kind of stand for, kind of even in
my life and my work is to say own it,
trust it, believe it. You know the way you're seeing
it is right, because I feel like, oftentimes as a woman,
and certainly as as a woman who wasn't born in
this country, it was like, you're an impostor, you shouldn't
(11:41):
be here, that's the wrong thought. You're going to mess up,
and that what actually helps us is when we get grounded.
I trust it. I absolutely trust it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And then the questionnaire began. First question, I would rather
do something that requires little thought than something that is
sure to challenge my thinking abilities. The questionnaire was only
ten questions long. Each question was about how you handle
decision making and problem solving. I don't like to have
the responsibility. I would prefer complex to simple problems. I
(12:12):
had to anticipate and avoid situations. Number five, I trust
my initial feelings about people.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Pencils down.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Good.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I feel like a teacher I'm like, give me your homework, please,
thank you. After ten minutes of telling the results, I
came back. I have everyone's scores here, and I was like, huh. Interesting.
The way the scoring worked was that everyone had two
separate scores, a rational score and an intuitive score, twenty
five being the highest score you could get on either. First,
(12:46):
Amanda got her results.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Rational at ten.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
That makes a lot of sense because I'm like fighting
my rational all the time, and that's a Libra thing.
I have a hard time making decisions interesting. I'm mad
at this result, but I'm also very proud. I also
want to be intuitive, and it's it's pretty good intuitive.
Speaker 11 (13:04):
I mean, you.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Got a twenty three versus a ten, so you definitely
lean on the intuitive side if you were going by this.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
Alissa, So I am twenty one rational twenty three intuitive,
which it kind of makes sense to me that they
would be around the same, but like a little bit
more on the intuitive side.
Speaker 7 (13:23):
Tommy, I got eighteen rational, ten intuitive, which I think
is what people would have expected to be lowly intuitive
based on my answers, so I am not too surprised.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
Zach I got twenty one for rational and twenty four
for intuitive.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Isn't that the highest intuitive score we've heard so far? Well,
Marie is not. The results are in.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Rational I got eighteen and intuitive I got twenty five.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Not surprised at all.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
No, that sounds about right, Maria. Of course you got
the highest intuitive score. And overall, with the exception of Zach,
people were very good at guessing how intuitive they would be,
and that's what doctor Lufreano found during his research as.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Well, at least one of my studies. They actually we
actually found that when they say that they are intuitive,
it is accurate that they are going to behave intuitively.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
So basically, if you think you're an intuitive person, you
use your intuition more like a self fulfilling prophecy totally.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And you can hear people's answers about their background, how
much their families impacted the way they viewed their own
sense of intuition. And that made me wonder if my
own culture plays a role in my intuition, because if
you ask my mom, it absolutely does.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Tu cure queto renduisiones, kumo masso so and lo latinos and.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Latino porque porquereo and a familiar and to a parties.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Basically, your mom is saying that Latinos and Latinas grow
up with this sense of intuition, that you hear about
it from your family, your neighbors, your friends.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, that you hear about it everywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Coming up on Latino USA, how Blu has modern day
LATINX witches are harnessing the power of intuition. Stay with us, Hey,
(16:02):
We're back, And on today's show, producer Cindy Rodriguez has
been teaching us about intuition. We just learned about the
science behind it and the way we use it in
decision making. But now Cindy's going to explore the cultural
role of intuition for the Latino community, specifically how intuitive
women are spearheading a Latina feminist movement.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
In my quest to learn about the role of intuition
and the Latino community, I quickly found myself at the
epicenter of the millennial decolonized wellness movement.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
The epicenter of the millennial decolonized wellness movement. Yes, okay,
I didn't know that there was a decolonized wellness movement,
but let's.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Go mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We're hearing the drums of Battala and all women Afro
Brazilian Samba reggaed Percussion band, one of the many performers
during the Brooklyn Bruheti FS. The festival was held in
Dumbo under the Brooklyn Bridge. The festival felt like a
reunion in a lot of the vendors. There are my
friends and the performers are people have gone on hikes
with I live for these sacred spaces.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Why wasn't I there?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Oh, you would have loved it.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
How come you guys didn't invite me?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I know we should have invited you. Mira Iodo, You're coming.
It's magic. There's astro readers, tarot readers, music like indigenous
music where you you feel like you feel seen. Of
these people on stagers, Afro Columbianos, Afro Brazilians and it's
just a bunch of people of color celebrating their ancestral heritage. Hello,
(17:35):
thank you so much for taking time. And we got
to talk to the person who was bringing the whole
thing together.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
I'm Chikita Ruhita. This is Brooklyn Bruheti at the festival.
This is a gathering of magic, music, drums and community.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Chikita Bruhita one hundred percent believes in intuition.
Speaker 11 (17:53):
So there's intuition of trusting your intuition, but then there's
the next step of actually believing indivination. Right, So if
you trust your intuition to trust your guides enough for
them to give you messages and then take action towards those, right,
it's the deepest trust of intuition. So I grew up,
you know, receiving messages from espiditistas and being told, you know,
(18:16):
be careful with this, don't go out there. You know,
So and so got a message like me.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Ruhita learned to believe in intuition because of her family
spiritual practice. She comes from a long line of Afri
Latina spiritual women who grew up practicing Santadiya. Her grandmother
started practicing when she moved from Puerto Rico to New
York City.
Speaker 11 (18:37):
So, my grandmother was crowned a priestess of Yamaya more
than forty years ago. My grandmother and my mother is
a priestess of Ochun.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Bruhita says that her grandma was a crown priestess of Yamaya,
one of the orishas or gods of Santadiya. All who
practice Santhidia are initiated to a particular orisha to their
own deity.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Right and Yeamaya is mother goddess represented by the ocean.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And Santidia is a religion that is the combination of
African spiritual practices that melded in Cuba with Catholic elements
as a result of the slaves trade when the Yoruba
people were brought to the Americas. Tho to Yuba people
still live in what we know today's Benin in western Nigeria.
Chelsea said that her mother was a priestess of osh
O'shuan is a goddess of divine femininity.
Speaker 11 (19:21):
I identify as a third generation practicing Bruha in the
traditional sense or what I understood for my life to
be the traditional sense, which is someone who practices our
black magic.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Rugita says that well, she can trace her intuitive sense
to her family's African and indigenous roots. She's seeing a
lot of Latinas now, regardless of their family history, calling
themselves bruhas or witches.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
I love that Bruja has become and I'm seeing it
becomes sort of this all encompassing term for being like
a Latina LATINX feminist, right, like being part of this
moment of empowered, you know, so empowered that I can
create magic, right, So this is how we're informing bruha.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
You know, it kind of feels like Brujas are having
a big moment right.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Now, definitely, and maybe the best place to witness the
Bluha boom is on social media, thanks where LATX influencers
have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers who seek out
spiritual advice on everything from money so arias your money
for February twenty twenty is coming in the form of
(20:27):
the Nine of Swords, to taking care of plants.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Not only do they clanse the air of toxins blots,
they also provide amazing energy and sometimes it's just too
cold for outside on Hunger Street.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Working on your relationship.
Speaker 12 (20:41):
I'm Valeria Ruelas the Mexican which welcome to pick a card,
advice for your love life and dating life.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And yes, of course getting through our current global crisis.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
So we're going to talk about the coronavirus from an
astrological point of view.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But blu Haas don't just talk about self optimization. The
same person we just heard offering dating advice has some
thoughts on our political system as well.
Speaker 11 (21:10):
Yo.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
I love knowing that we're going to prevail against all
of this evil and bad government. Hell yeah, witches.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's really well, that's taking brujas and bruhiiad to a
whole other level.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Brujas don't play often. Being a Bruja means being an activist.
A lot of blu Haas say they're fighting against a patriarchal,
white supremacist society in their practice. In twenty fifteen, writer
and activist Ganny Slady uploaded a video of themself and
other Buhas hexing Trump Abio Trump. But this idea of
(21:50):
tapping into magic or spirituality more generally as a form
of political resistance is not new.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
We see spirituality as really an integration.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Of this is Latin Medina, a Chicana scholar of spirituality
and religion and professor at the California State University Northridge.
Speaker 8 (22:08):
Spirituality very much nurtures intuition.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Doctor Medina says it's an act of political resistance to
look within oneself for answers. In other words, trust your
own intuition, because for centuries, people of color have been
conditioned not to trust their intuition.
Speaker 8 (22:25):
And our intuition is grounded in our feelings, our emotions,
our bodies.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
During colonization, brujos and brujas and healers, intuitive people or
people with powers in any way were persecuted in Latin America.
Speaker 8 (22:40):
Our indigenous cultures carry so much scientific, spiritual, medicinal knowledge
that was erased silence displays through colonization.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Doctor Medina brings up La Bidille gall Lupe as a
specific example of the invalidation of black and brown instincts.
Speaker 8 (22:59):
So anyways that colonized her or tried to colonize her.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
The story of Labiti Guadalupegos like this. In fifteen thirty one,
an indigenous man named Juan Diego saw a vision of
her on a hill. She spoke directly to him in Nahwa,
his native language, But when he told the Spanish Catholic
fire by what he saw, the friar didn't believe him
and told him to go get proof. There is a
longer story here, but to simplify, Juan Diego went back
(23:26):
to Lavitin, and when he came back, his cloak was
full of roses and Labita's image was printed on it.
The history is debated in academic circles. But according to
doctor Medina, even after Juan Diego brought proof, the Church
didn't recognize her formerly as a saint. Four years.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
The Catholic Church resisted the devotion to her. They were
fearful that the indigenous people were going to confuse her
with the ancient divine mother Donna sing.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But finally the Catholic Church couldn't deny her.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
But the only way they could accept her was to
name her as Guadalupe, which was the name of a
madonna from southern Spain, which is where most of the
conquisadors were from, and to say that she's marry mother
of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
So the overall point here is that because of colonization,
the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous people was rejected and
then invalidated by the West.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, Labisi Le Guadalupe story can be interpreted as an
example of colonizers rewriting what an indigenous man saw, denying
his experience, and that's why today things like intuition in
bruheti A are a way of decolonizing and reclaiming that knowledge.
Speaker 8 (24:43):
It's just really difficult times that need not just political responses,
but spiritual responses.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
For many, la Vitin is seen as both a religious
and political symbol.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
Today. She represents you know, brown women. She represents around
ancestry of the Americas. She represents the indigenous sacred cosmology.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
These days, a lot of young LATINX feministy Labitin is
a symbol of empowerment. She's on boat of candles. Everywhere
there are jean jackets with labitin details on the back.
I think for many of us Latinas, we're looking to
spirituality for more meaningful answers than the world is giving us.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
We will be right back. Yes, hey, we're back. We're
going to jump back into the story. So your mom
seems to be like a central figure in all of this,
(25:56):
So tell me a little bit about your mom, just
kind of in from a spiritual place.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
My mom got here at the age of thirty with
my older sister. I think when she got here, as
she has told me before, she relied on her intuition
to make all the decisions because a year into moving here,
she didn't have a husband anymore, she's divorced, she's alone,
she doesn't know the language. So she tells me that
I use my intuition out of survival.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You know, it's really interesting to hear you say that,
because we learned earlier that scientifically intuitive decisions are based
on emotion rather than information. And it really sounds like
all your mom had to go off of was her gut.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, And I think that could be the experience for
a lot of immigrants who move somewhere and don't speak
the language or know the customs. Something that surprised me
is that my mom says it's been harder to listen
to her intuition the longer that she's been here in
the States.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In Latin America is mat passiva lao no tennessee correcre
this and hab.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
She says that life in Latin America is lower paced,
that it's easier to listen to your feelings there than
it is here in the US.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
So your mom says this thing, the corricor is So
what's the corricory.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Corricory is the hustle and bustle of just like running
around to get it done, whatever it is that you're
trying to get done.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It's like super American, super American, just moving ahead, moving ahead,
because that's what you do.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's what you do. You get to the us. You hustle,
you launch things, you become an entrepreneur, you become successful,
all of these things that are supposed to define your happiness.
And she said, no, corricorre. I asked her, what is
something that she would want me to just never forget?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Apisa down, Practica down, down, free okum on Latina in
to me if Amilia cabin this.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
She says that although this country can be so practical,
so cold, that she hopes that because I am a
Latina and because she raised me, that I will always
know how to protect my spirit. But it's something I
honestly hesitated to do for a long time. I wouldn't
take my parents seriously when they tried to impart their
(28:35):
spiritual wisdom. But then I hit rock bottom?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
What do you mean you hit rock bottom? What happened?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
About five years ago? I was laid off for my
job at CNN, which meant that I had lost my
health insurance, which I really needed. At the time, I
had just been told I needed to get surgery for
a potentially cancerous lymph node, And to make matters worse,
I was in the middle of leaving a long term
relationship of ten years. I was thirty one years old
at the time, and it felt like I had lost
(29:04):
everything and I didn't know how to begin again. So
I moved in with my mom. Her first thing on
my to do list to get better was when olympiasa.
You know, you leave a breakup, you lose a job,
you start to think, okay, maybe the world is against
me here. So she prescribes me this baynyo.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
She prepared umbagno, which means she prepared a bath for you,
a particular kind of bath that means flowers, usually some
kind of particular sand, oftentimes candles.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And just like, tears are rolling down my face and
you don't rinse the bath off where you have to
air dry. So I am forced to just stand there
naked and think emotionally about everything I've ever wanted in
my life and at the same time everything that I've
lost up until then. And so it it was a
transition in my life, like I remember this day very clearly,
(29:54):
thinking like something changed, something shifted. I go for a
hike every time there's a full moon, burn some palos.
(30:16):
It's the first thing I do. I like to set
the vibe. Palo Santo is a wild tree native to
the Yukotan and it's found in many Latin American countries,
including Peru, where my family's from. And what you'll hear
there is my lighter. And what I do is I
light my palo. I'll ask my ancestors to watch over me,
to bring me guidance, and to send me any messages
(30:37):
that they think I need to know right now. And
so as I write down what I'm gonna let go of,
which I already did, I say I'm ready to go
of X and replace it with X. It's a little personal,
so I won't exactly share what it is. Now. I
will light the paper. The paper's very small. What I'm burning,
(31:04):
it's all gone now, it's turned to ashes, honoring my
inner knowing. It's a way of connecting to my ancestors
and their traditions, voices that have been silenced through a
(31:25):
history of colonization. And it's all led to reclaiming a
part of myself that has always been there. But I
just wasn't listening.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Snidro Didez, thank you so much for opening up and
for taking us on this journey with you.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That was Journalists Cindi Rodriguez the Brooklyn Brugetia Festival is
still going strong every year. This episode was produced by
(32:22):
Antonio Serejuidro and Cindi Rodriguez. It was edited by Sophia
Palisa car and mixed by Stephanie Lebou. Fact checking for
this episode by Nidia Bautista. Special thanks to Maya Hurst Rodriguez.
The Latino USA team also includes Roxanna Guire, Julia Caruso,
Jessica Ellis, Renaldo Lanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Gruzsado, Luis Luna Drooni,
(32:45):
mar Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica Morales, Garcia, jj Carubin and
Nancy Trujillo. Beene Ramirez and I are co executive producers
and I'm your host, Mariao Jossa. Latino Usa is part
of Iheart's Michael Gudap podcast Network. Executive producers that I
heard are Leo Gomez and Arlen Santana. Join us again
on our next episode, dear listener. In the meantime, I'll
(33:08):
see you on all of our social media and remember,
if you want to get to the meat of the story,
just skip through. Then all you need to do is
become a member of Fuduo plus. Oh my god, it's
so easy, and after you do it, you'll ask yourself,
why didn't I join Futuro plus earlier? Okay, see you there,
I knows, benmos.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
Joe Latino USA is made possible in part by the
John D.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising Simons Foundation. Unlocking Knowledge,
opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org and Agnes
Gund
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