Somos Semillas EP 3: Sacred Fires, Returning to our Sexual Creativity

Somos Semillas, We Are Seeds: A Podcast about Indigenous Sovereignty & Collective Storytelling

This creative collaboration with indigenous poet & scholar Erika Murcia invites us to explore inquiries about living with greater purpose, presence & rootedness.

EP 3: Sacred Fires, Returning to our Sexual Creativity
In this episode Erika, nicky & Cat are joined by healer, steward, and guardian Ember Phoenix to discuss the element of fire, and how its sacred force shows up in our communities, relationships, bodies, and more.

LINKS
Episode transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oV_r9DCxiCeXwVYvcnicifovp4HiQlNf6mZz-8Wkpsg/edit?usp=sharing

Our theme song of this podcast series is Sumergirse by @La.Clave.de.Sol

Connect with us atweriseproduction[at]protonmail[dot]me, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at weriseproduction, & on twitter at WeRise Producers.

Connect with Erika Murcia at https://linktr.ee/Mujeryselva

Connect with Ember Phoenix @SoulThriveApothecary & @MelaninRising.Co.

Podcast Art by @NicoleGervacio

Episode Transcript

(00:28):
What does it mean to walk ourjourneys on Earth's Mother with more depth?
Why does it matter spiritually to weaveour walk with rooted purpose? Are we
capable of synchronizing our heart with theheart of Earth's Mother and the heart of
the cosmos. We invite you tonavigate together in Sommo Semias. We are

(00:52):
sid a podcast about indigenous sovereignty andcollective storytelling. My name is Erica Murcia.
I am a poet waking my talkin Mesoamerica and whatever Earth Mother calls
me. My name is Nicole Dravascio, an artist who moves, dreams,
and creates with ancestors and future generations. My name is kat Petru. I

(01:15):
am a dancer and pollinator, rememberingmy roots to show up grounded in our
movements for collective liberation. Together,we have been weaving stories that gather and
recall our ancestral memories. We haveinvited voices of sacred, feminine and two
spirit leadership from various communities of thediaspora. In this five episode series will

(01:42):
deconstruct the ways we connect to eachsacred element, water, fire, wind,
earth, and ether. We'll learnabout the journeys of our guest storytellers
including astrologer Karina Falcon, doctor UzoNonpa and healer Stewart and guardian Amber phoenixath

(02:07):
Welcome. This podcast is to upliftyour souls stories. Welcome everybody. We're

(02:38):
so happy you're joining us today.This is Kat joining y'all back in Portland,
Oregon, MoMA Lacamus Calopuia Tribal Lands. And we have a very special
guest with us today who will introducethemselves shortly, but I'll pass to Nikki
first to introduce themselves. You know. Hi everyone, It's Nikki from We

(03:01):
Rise, tuning in from unseated AloneyLand, hu Chen also known as Oakland,
California. Erica, Hi, Hieverybody, this is Erica. I'm
joining from now What Land also knownas San Salvador. Welcome everybody, and

(03:23):
can our special guests introduce themselves please. We're so thankful you're here. Thank
you. I'm Ambrose Phoenix. Iam joining in today from unseated Cherokee Land
and the mountains of Asheville, NorthCarolina. Welcome, Welcome, Thank you
Erica. What are we going tobe getting into today? Thank you,

(03:47):
Kat. Welcome Amber, thank youfor joining us so today. We're going
to be Dialloween about the element offire, and more specifically, we will
be going a little into the deathof how we acknowledge and embody this sense

(04:12):
of reclaiming and returning to the mostessential fire that is our sexuality, and
how we connect with our creativity froma place of sovereignty, from a place
of abundance. And we will havequestions poetic invitations that also allow us to

(04:35):
understand how we are going, likehow sometimes our fire can be if it's
not purposely focused right, it canburn. So I don't want to say
anything else, but Kat, couldyou help us with this first inquiries place?
Yeah, I'm just marveling at themagnitude of these inquiries and like,

(05:00):
yeah, so I have like ayes, let's see. I appreciate that
every recording is also an opportunity tokind of reveal to ourselves what we know
and what we're still learning. SoI'm curious, Edka, you know you

(05:20):
start with breastfeeding. How does breastfeedingconnect with this topic of fire? Yes,
thank you for bringing it back.I want to invite our audience,
our friends who are listening, whoare choosing to listen to these beautiful dialogue

(05:44):
about you know, I use breastfeedingbecause of these feminine energy we have talked
previously, right that beyond gender constructs, right that allow us the sense of
nurturing, the sense of credle likethis sense of rootedness. And actually today
we are recording on the full moon, that brings us this reminder of the

(06:09):
importance of earth element too. Sofire is is that powerful energy that balance
in both the feminine and the masculinecan support us feel full, feel at
the heart level, at the soullevel, at the vody level, at

(06:30):
all of the levels. And sobreastfeeding from a place of so many folds
that almost like reparenting ourselves, youknow, embodying being that caregiver that we
the serve right to the our innerchild. But also how do we allow

(06:53):
our co creations, whatever those are, whether we are recording these episodes or
you know, whatever ways we expresscreatively, how do we sustain them,
how do we rest feed them andguarding them in a way that we just
you know, we are responsible alsoof those co creations. Is this dance

(07:14):
between how do we sustain and supportour well being as we also support the
wellbeing of our co creations and partof that is also our communities, right,
our relatives that is beyond two legsrelatives, but much more expensive.
So I will leave it out there. That makes a lot of sense.

(07:36):
That's really beautiful. I can justsee I feel Ember ready to go.
Also, like their name is Ember, so we just gotta you gotta start
there. I think I'm really I'mjust curious. You know, when we
ask you to join too, youit felt like you were you knew you
were, Like, I want totalk about fire, so I'm curious to
hear you speak to anything Edika hasshared so far, which is everything.

(08:00):
And also like, why what sparkedyour interest in talking about this beautiful a
huge topic? Pun intended absolutely.My name is Ember and that's not my
government name. That's the name thatthe ancestors gave me for a reason.
Fire is my element. And interestinglyenough, I think you asked if I

(08:24):
wanted to do wind or fire.You know, my big three are Gemini,
Gemini, Scorpio, so I'm anair Sun, air, moon,
Scorpio rising, which is technically water. But as I've said before, scorpio
is not a water sign. Itis liquid fire. But also on the
Dagara tradition, which is an Africantradition. My teachers Malodomisme and Saboname.

(08:48):
I am fire as well. ThereI sit at the gate of the ancestors.
So fire for me, fire islife. My favorite tree is a
sekoia tree. Sekoa trees cannot growunless their seeds are set on fire.
We're talking about, like you know, I met you all dealing with climate
change and pipelines, and we're talkingabout all of this stuff that's going wrong,

(09:11):
the fact that we've gotten away fromindigenous ways of like controlled burns,
which now we have all these wildfires. Fire is integral to everything we do.
And as Erica is speaking about likebreastfeeding and fire, and I giggled,
it makes complete sense to me.A little bit of a different take
on it, but coming from along line of midwives and being a midwife

(09:33):
of life and spirit. When ababy is feeding from its parent, it's
sending signals to those nodes and likethe body literally ends up producing exactly what
that child is lacking. It's away to nourish. Fire nourishes it creates,

(09:54):
and so like to me, likebreastfeeding fire they go hand in hand.
It's like you've got this seed.We all come here with everything we
need, Like our ancestors did notsend us to Earth School without giving us
the things we needed. It's reallyabout us re remembering what we need to
access through those portals to be ableto thrive right and for a lot of

(10:18):
that, that's going through major transformations. That's literally burning the weight of the
things we no longer need to carryso our truest, most creative selves can
come into being. So it's likefire. We're always creating and consuming and
rebirthing ourselves and what better element tonavigate that with. And fire it doesn't

(10:41):
just destroy, it literally creates life. Amber you just you just open up
this portal door to go into thedeath of how we have that lost right
in our ways, and that iscolonization. So that's how this inquiry that

(11:05):
we have this you know, it'skind of like an umbrella, very broad.
It's like how colonized station has impactedhow we see love, how colonized
station has condition or has condition askedto romanticize love and put it in boxes.
And so you just talk about thispowerful work that midwifes do and this

(11:30):
bringing life that it's a full spiritualembodied journey and then this process of breastfeeding,
right, like the caregiving, howthe baby and their caregivers are in
a constant dialogue and it's valuely dialogue. Right, So what comes for you

(11:52):
and for everybody here? For Mikia cat with this question of how colonization
has impacted or how colonized station hasconditioned as the ways we think about love,
romanticize love, or limit ourselves inhow we nurture ourselves. Oh yeah,

(12:13):
it's a really impotent question. Whatfirst comes to mind is so my
people come from the islands known asthe Philippines, and when we go back
before colonization from European influences of likeSpanish culture, Catholicism, I really do

(12:33):
feel like what still shows itself isthis expansiveness in Filipino ways of being as
like in gender but also in sexuality. There's expansiveness in our beings that we're
limited by these you know, sisheteronormative and also like monogamous relationships, that
there's this limitation for love that wecan have for partnerships. In pre colonial

(12:58):
Filipino culture, we have deities,God's goddesses that are trance, non binary,
and also the ways in which peoplewere relating with each other was just
so much more expansive. Even inour language, the mother tongue. We
don't have pronouns that are him,she, herd that was brought to us

(13:18):
by colonialism, and so the factthat we were moving through the world as
like you we myself, there wasmore expansiveness for what we could be.
There were spectrums for the ways thatwe could express ourselves and relate to each
other. And then also just rememberinghow we met number in community. The

(13:39):
ability to feel love for people thatyou don't know and feel connected to people
who you don't know because you're unitedin a struggle such as trying to stop
a pipeline. I feel like thatwas one of the hardest things. Was
like I have the ability. Ialways share this as a middle sibling,
the way I was brought up,but also I do feel like it's deeply
incess stroll. The ability to deeplylove and connect with people that I barely

(14:03):
know. If I understand you,or if I could understand a certain amount
of you, I feel like Icould connect with you and feel that collective,
that interconnectedness, and I can loveyou even if we don't know each
other. We haven't known each otherthat long, and I feel like when
that first time we met, whenI had to leave that community, it

(14:24):
was so heartbreaking. I went throughdepression because it's hard to unlink yourself when
you've been so deeply connected to peoplethat you've built bonds with. And we're
moving together as like a collective.And I do feel like my people have
that, our ancestors had that,and I'm sure we still do. It
still shows itself even as we arestill colonized and healing. So those are

(14:46):
just some first thoughts. There's justso much expansiveness in the ways that we
can love each other, hold eachother beyond these boxes that were forced onto
us, literally forced onto us withcolonization. Absolutely, Like I have my
pronouns up right now, but that'sjust because I do a lot of stuff

(15:07):
where I want to make sure thatthere's space for people who need them to
be heard and supported. But like, as of late, I'm done with
pronouns. I am done with usingthe colonizer's language to decolonize. My spirit
name encompasses who I am. Inever needed to tell a person how I

(15:28):
identified because the name that I wasgiven, the name that was chosen is
the name that speaks my spirit tomy people. And so like colonization has
literally created all of these boxes thatwe either are trying to claw our way
out of or finding one that fitsus because everybody else has one. And

(15:52):
I think it's just such an interestingthing to watch us grow and shed as
humans as we're learning what it meansto let go of whiteness and re remember
our roots to be like, ohwait a minute, but do I actually
need to put a word to that? Can I not just be who I
am and like love, Like that'sliterally what I talk about in the community

(16:17):
that I'm in all of the time. The reason you were able to show
up and I was able to openmyself to you is because you are my
people. Love is not just aboutromantic or sexual love like intimacy is the
thing we all share. And Ifeel deeply connected to all of you that
I met, some more than others. Right, but like you are my

(16:37):
people. I recognize that my soul, my heart, my body connected on
that level of like we're family.I remember your energy, I remember your
brilliance. I recognize that bright,beautiful light inside of you, that shining
from back in the days when we'reall just hanging out in the galaxy is

(17:00):
stars? Right, I recognize that, and so like, I spent a
lot of time talking to my communityabout that, because we're talking about what
does care look like? Right?How do we decolonize care outside of these
constructs of like monogamy, birth familiesand all of this other thing and recognize
we're all family, and like,how do we figure out where we connect,
where our gifts are, where ourstrengths are, and also where our

(17:23):
weaknesses are as a community, sono one is ever forced to feel like
they have to give something that's notwithin them to give, but that they
also have the support they need whenthey have something that they're not good at
but need. Like what does itmean to be Polly outside of colonized factory?
Right? Like, what is Pollyreally? It literally just means you

(17:45):
recognize that no one person can beyour everything, but we've all got enough
to provide each other from a mindsetof abundance versus the scarcity models that white
supremacy culture has drilled so far intous that we don't know how to show
up see each other and be like, I see you, I love you.
That's scarcity when we can't do that, it's abundance when we can show

(18:07):
up in the middle of trauma fightinga pipe and be like, I see
you, sibling, I love you, sibling. I will have your back
here and wherever you end up,you are a part of me. And
my freedom is tied to yours,because how can I ever be free if
you don't feel free. That's love, That is abundance, That is decolonizing

(18:33):
to me. And it all justlike feeds into each other and weaves the
web that connects all of us ancientlybecause we are all ancient in many ways,
we're holding our ancestors they provided forus. We are not unprepared.
We are just unaware and unlearning sothat we can re remember what we need

(18:56):
to. Oh. Yes, hello, yes, yes, hello, yes,

(20:45):
damn it, um, I'm justkidding. I don't actually I'm not
actually saying damn it. I'm justreally moved. There's so much And I
want to be really truthful with this, y'all, because when we got to
Minnesota to honest nave Land last summer, I was not very well. I

(21:07):
was like physically more or less okay, but I was going through a breakup
in the midst of the compounding crisescollectively that we were living we are living
through, and I honestly, Idon't think I'm ready yet to even articulate
all of the things that were happening. I just know that I was like

(21:29):
tight, like I was contracted.It was hard to stay rooted in myself.
I'm also like at a moment rightnow where I'm like, what is
my sexuality? What is the waythat I would want to be with another
Like with physical intimacy, historically Ilose myself with people. I feel so

(21:51):
deeply connected with physical intimacy, likeI feel connected without it. Like as
Nikki said, I can relate tojust feeling like it's the poor is opening
to love with people who we seeeach other. Like that I can relate
to. But between this pattern oflike losing myself but then also being harmed,
right being open, being vulnerable,and then being harmed, I feel

(22:15):
so afraid of that level of likesex, sex with another body, anybody
at this moment, given what Ijust lived through, Like I simultaneously crave
it and I fear it. Soit does feel connected with self love or

(22:37):
a sense of lack in that realmand I don't know why that's been a
struggle for me, but for alot of my life it has been.
And I'm sure that that is notunique to me. And I could speculate
on like ancestral and collective reasons why. But yeah, yeah, I'll pause

(23:03):
there. Thank you Ked for sharing. Would you feel okay if we do
some breathing together just to kind ofcome back to the body and affirm you
and your truth in your body's truth. Absolutely, and I'll just share too.

(23:23):
I feel very comfortable speaking this withall of you. Yeah, but
yes, yes, thank you.Yes. This is just a reminder of
how we can be in intimacy withwhat is your experience. And we're not
trying to do It's not like fixan ET, right, it is accepting

(23:45):
and collectively receive an at. Okay. So that's bring your hands to your
lower belly or your heart, whateverfeels nurturing. It feels as an act
of breastfeeding in our stuff, closeyour eyes if that feels comfortable in your

(24:06):
body, or just gaze down andlet's take three deep breath and as we
inhale, we inhale intimacy, healthyintimacy, and as we exhale we let
go of whatever we need to letgo in our own body, breathing and

(24:33):
breathe out, breathing and breathe out, and one more time, breathing and

(25:00):
and bread out. Gently opened youreyes if you close them, we come
back here to this beautiful shared virtualcircle. Thank you Cat for sharing,

(25:25):
for being vulnerable, and for breakingthat beautiful fire into the center. There
were intimacies what resonates the most withme. Each one of us has mentioned
it in different ways, and Iidentified as to spirit and indigenous traditions.

(25:47):
You know, there is such anexpansion of what that can mean. And
I struggle a lot when I wasin Turtle Island what is known as the
United States and people who are frommeso America and other regions in Abjajala,
after the Spaniards came at least toEl Salvo or what is known as El

(26:08):
Salvo or now or you know thisregion, we had had to deal with
neo colonization all right, with thepresence of US military, US governments involving
in so many things. And Ibring this up because soil right, as

(26:30):
I mentioned earlier, awakens a lotsome memories in me when I walked them
and what I noticed is that Iwas less intimate with my being when I
was in Pearl Island because of thereis a sense right in my experience that
the more connected you are with theelements, right, which is what you

(26:55):
said Amber, pretty much what weneed. Our ancestors are stars, right,
gave us exactly what we needed,and that is abundance. Already we
live in abundance constantly. But thecapital is way of thinking, the colonial
way of thinking and doing and acting, that toxic masculinity we were imposed to

(27:19):
or condition two, has created theseways of just wanting to abstract, right,
stract from earth, stract the abundancethat is for everybody. And in
this process of extraction, we alsolose touch with the intimacy of who we

(27:44):
are. And for me specifically,navigating my own journeys of intimacy with this
South is really connecting with animal spiritand goddesses and deities that are so like
their energy, right, It's sopowerful and so patent that trying to convince

(28:07):
someone else why I am or notto spirit, It's like I feel that
it's a waste of time for me, right, because I only know what
that is and how that feels inmy own skin. So going back to
what you said Embers specifically of howlove cannot be put in box and that

(28:29):
love is intimacy and that intimacy doesn'thave to be Oh, we're just joyful
all the time. It's like thespectrum of what it is to be humans
and co learning and co teaching eachother how to coexist right as community.
So I was just like remembering hownow that I am back in mass America

(28:52):
Land, even just the heat ofthe sun, it's like so unnurturing,
you know, Like it's that senseof like I can be bare food and
that's okay. That is some waysof connecting with food and all the fires
that it feels very, very differentthan in some places in Liland. I
was listening to Kat talk and thenI was listening to you talk Erica,

(29:15):
and one of the things that poppedinto my head about intimacy and love,
I think it was Kat when yousaid that, like you lose yourself.
We've been taught to do that becausewe've been taught to try to mold ourselves
into a thing, to create thisvery idyllic sense of what relationship or love

(29:41):
is, like what does it meanto be in love? And I remember
asking just from my own personal traumasin life and just watching how relationships works.
I remember asking one of my elderswhat the heck was the difference between
dependency codependency her dependency, And usuallymy elders will just talk to me for

(30:03):
hours about things, but at thispoint, the grandma's looked at me and
they're like, why don't you tellus? And I was just like,
can we not answer our question withthe question, please? But it was
actually really good because I just startedpaying attention a little bit more. And
one of the things that I noticedspecifically between codependency and interdependency is for me,

(30:26):
I was watching people who are displayingbehaviors that were codependent not have a
sense of self and because they didn'talready have that rootedness in their sense of
self or their sense of worth,which I will just state, your worth
is determined by your existence and nothingelse. You were worthy because you exist,

(30:52):
period end of sentence. But welive in a world that tells us
different, right, and so like, they didn't have that rootedness of who
they were, and so the moldinghappened without them even paying attention because they
were trying to figure out who theywere using another person as a mirror,
versus coming into a situation being like, this is me, Take me as

(31:14):
I am, and let's see howwe can tango and dance and weave and
make magic together, but without havingto lose any of who I am.
And so I went back to myelders and I was like, I got
it. I think I got it, and I'm sure that this is like
a granule of it, but thisis what I noticed, and I was
like, it looks like the differencefor me is that people who are interdependent

(31:37):
moving away where their gifts, weaknesses, strengths, all of it is accepted
as is, it's acknowledged as theirwhole being and we fill in the blanks,
whereas codependence is a place where peopledon't know any of those things.
And so we're trying to create abeing outside of who they are. We're
trying to flacked somebody else onto aperson, versus helping them figure out who

(32:04):
they are within the larger scheme ofthings and supporting them in that place.
And they've patted me on my headand then threw me in a sweat lodge
underneath, and they're like, see, you're getting it. You don't need
to come to us for all theanswers. But like, for me,
like I think that's really important islike figuring out tapping into that part of

(32:25):
us that's juicy and magical and justwho we are. And it doesn't mean
you have to have it all figuredout, because who the heck dous?
I change every three days, notjust because I'm a Gemini, but because
I'm consistently shedding and changing, pullingin energy, learning something new, and
adapting and growing and expanding with what'sbeing given to me, you know.

(32:49):
And so it's like, as longas I stay rooted in that and I
love myself for that, I canbe interdependent and not get lost because I'm
not expecting anything from another I'm justaccepting what it is they're willing to give
in deciding if it's something that Ineed, and if it's not, I
love them differently and I'm just like, I don't need that, but I

(33:10):
still love you. And then findingout what I do need and being like,
hey, who's got this, youknow, and being willing to like
claim it. Because that's another thingtoo, is that we don't do enough
of asking to get our needs met. Like that is intimacy. It could
be something simple is like it's toohot for me to go outside and mow
my lawn because I have heart issues. Who in my community has got the

(33:32):
space and the spoons and the abilityto come do that? For me,
that's an act of intimacy because I'mmaking myself vulnerable and asking for something.
The more we learn how to dothat, the more we figure out what
the heck we don't want to andthen we can claim that and may not.
But I think we spend a lotof time trying to change each other,
trying to mold each other, tryingto reflect each other in ways where

(33:55):
there's a right or a wrong,which is also for me, colonized speech.
You know, people are worthy.Their behaviors maybe trash, but their
worth is not determined by that,you know, So like this idea of
good and bad, We've gotten reallytied up in these morality things and I'm
like, yeah, your behavior sucks, that has nothing to do with you.

(34:16):
You as a human can choose tochange those behaviors, but your worth
is just determined by your existence.And you're magical and even when you're acting
like a hot mess, I'm recognizingthe majority of that is coming from trauma,
and so how do we deal withthat versus labeling you or not treating

(34:36):
you well, or trying to changeyou and mold you in ways that you
never ask to be molded. Youcan mold your damn self. You don't
even need a mold. Just livefree, Be like the river and flow,
be like the air, and goall over the place. Be like
these dang morning glories in my yardwho just won't go away, and vine
everywhere. Live your best life andshine and find the people that are willing

(34:59):
to you shine and like. Don'tneed sunglasses or to tell you to dem
yourself like because they exist. Makespace for yourself and then the people who
have capacity will show up. Butat first you have to make space for
you to show up and to bebrilliant, because you are brilliant. We're

(35:20):
all brilliant. We're all magical andsexy and juicy, and we just have
to claim it. I like tobe juicy by myself, but I'm still
juicy, right m I remember whenwe were with you, Ember, you

(36:50):
said a lot of those things likeverbatim, and I still think of you
because that is it is truly oneof my biggest struggles is my own sense
of self worth and claiming my ownbrilliance. And again, you know,
not alone in that struggle, andI know there are multifaceted reasons for it,
trauma being one of them. Soyeah, I just wanted to reflect
back to you that your voice hasbeen a teacher and like a touchstone for

(37:16):
me over the last year of likeyou're worthy because you exist period. And
what I also I think is sopowerful about how I've seen you show up
in community. The way I witnessedyou was exactly what you just said,
meeting us with the most expansive andlike richest love which includes accountability. They're

(37:44):
not mutually exclusive, and I thinkthat is also a nuance that collectively,
especially in dominant culture, we reallystruggle with. There's a lot more to
be said about that. But Iam curious, Nikki, because I saw
you reacting, and I just knowthat these are a lot of things that
you have shared with me and ourone on one conversations, and I think

(38:07):
things that you witness and have beendisentangling for yourself. Ever, why are
you laughing at me? Because you'rea hilarious and I love you, and
because I love the way you tryto engage and pull people in, knowing
that inside you there's also a wholebunch more that you would saying and want

(38:30):
to say. But because we're havinga conversation about your word, you're deflecting
a little bit because it's easier.I totally agree. I totally agree with
you. Ever, Oh wow,you ask no, I am like,

(38:53):
thank you for answering that. No, I'm like, oh, yeah,
that is true. I didn't evenYou're welcome up listeners for being the example
for all this shit, y'all arehappening in real time. Yeah, it
is, and I'm so thankful.This is exactly what my community out here

(39:16):
does. We meet at least rightnow we're doing second Sundays, but it's
more than that. We literally gettogether and have these conversations every day with
each other, call each other in, talk about the things, deal with
some shadows. We're healing, Likewe're really focused on healing, like noticing

(39:37):
our patterns, speaking them out,asking for support, talking about the ich,
but also finding the joy like allof it, Like because it's all
intimacy, right, like Erica saidbefore, Like love and intimacy is not
just about joy. It's about howwe are willing to show up and see
each other and hold each other inlove and accountability. It's like a being

(40:00):
compassionate while holding someone accountable. It'sbeing willing to put name to a thing
that you witness in your loved oneand call them in involved. It's you
know, it's all of those thingsand we should all be joined it and
plus having some other secondary therapy.At this point, it's all meeting real

(40:21):
talk, really though. I agree, Yes, thank you for naming it.
Yeah. Can I say one morething? So one of the one
of the things that I could havegone on about that I will just like
splash a little Oh how do youwouldn't splash water on the fire? You
would like just throw a little kindling? Is that? So? One of

(40:43):
the projects we RISE is working onright now is focused on transformative justice.
And we have the honor of gettingto weave in the voice of mea Mingus
who's been Yeah, I see notwho is such a brilliant community member in
transformative justice and in disability justice.And I got to interview Mia several years

(41:07):
ago t J one oh one.It was like this. I was like,
I don't know what this is.I think most people also don't know
what this is, so can wetalk about it? And we did,
and one thing mea named in thatconversation is that people and this is bringing
it back, y'all because we're talkingabout fire as nourishing and as transformative.

(41:29):
And Mia was like, we liketo romanticize transformation. You hear like the
word transformation, like echo transformation,transformation. But it's hard, she said,
It's like walking into the fire.And I feel like, for many
reasons, including just listening to allthis audio from folks going through the process

(41:52):
of learning about TJ for a year, that is very evident. And also
I want to like insert in thatpot as there is no like see this
episode because frankly, so much ofwhat y'all are sharing is a lot of
what ME is breaking down as faras how to practice transformative justice, how

(42:13):
to build these alternatives so there isn'tpunitive carserl systems that intervene. Obviously that's
also a whole other pipeline. Ohyeah, is this like really intimate work.
I just wanted to name that inindigenous traditions and I have co learn

(42:37):
with a lot of folks from differentbackgrounds. I'm grateful for we do talk
about four fires, right, thefour sacred fires. The first is here,
the inner one, the womb heartfire. And for those who do not
name womb as womb, right,that is all different ways to name it.
But that center, that's the firstaltart within our own being, our

(43:00):
own body. Then the altar firewithin our homes, whatever spaces we share.
Then we have the kitchen fire nurtures. Right. We need food,
and we need food that is madewith love, that is made with vegetables
and things that grow from Earth's motherand the heat of the sun. Right.

(43:22):
And then we have the collective fire, which is the community and how
we burn it with bringing our ownfire into that center. And then of
course we have the sun Aboulo son, the Grandfather's son as I call it.
That is part of the whole.I always confuse myself with universe and
galaxies. But you know what Imean, like is the fifth I would

(43:44):
say fire, So, yes,what you were saying, Cat, it
is about fire, because it's thatacknowledgement of interdependence, that bridging. And
you know, for our listeners,I am very visual. I speak with
my arms and my hands and mywhole body. So I'm trying to say,
like, if we want to moveaway from scarcity way of relating with

(44:06):
one another, as Ember said,how do we confrom our sovereignty to the
center, not working more than Ihave to, giving as much as I
receive, but also not trying tocontrol. And the thing about toxic maculinity
and heteronormative and colonization and coloniality isthat they want us to systemically, culturally,

(44:30):
societally and transgenerationally through trauma. Theywant us to be conditioned to be
controlled, and La Selba cannot becontrolled. We are selvas, we are
muntains, we are islands, weare rivers, we are galaxies, we
are stars. And that is whywe need to reclaim that. Part of

(44:52):
this conversation is reminding ourselves of ourworth. But also that because it's hard
work, because we're not doing thebypass spiritual work that also has been a
condition. Right. I pray andmagically think we are magically, but it
requires hard work. So this isthe thing about intimacy is being able to

(45:15):
come close to that shadow, right, and how I transform it into medicine,
how that trauma can allow me throughof course the support I need at
the individual at the collective at thetransgenerational levels, because we need go through
therapy whatever therapists are available in ourown lineages. Right, we need to

(45:37):
do not only mind therapy, butheart therapy, body somatic therapy. So
that's the point. It's like fire, the practice of fire that burns,
only one needs to be shed.It is that it's to add root whatever
no longer serve us. But it'sprogressive. It's not like you know this

(46:00):
idea we have that you put thepot in the fire, and like you
put the thing in and like Ithink we are transformed, like the little
warrant becomes a butterfly, and weare simplical. That's what we're bringing this
spiral the elements, the vents ofall these elements at the same time,

(46:21):
and when we are having more firethan more water, and you know when
the fire and the water are fightingwithin us. But the more we know
it's not about us trying to controlor like trying to like extract our own
elements within is recognizing the abundance ofThe more we understand those elements within us

(46:47):
and embody them in a healthy wayinterdependently, the more we heal what you
said, Ember, at some pointyou said, I cannot be free if
you're not free, right, siblinglike seeing each other as siblings, as
family. I got excited people,and I will, you know, get
someone else joy. Yes, Iwould love to share something that I feel

(47:14):
like the part where you're naming,it's not extracting from these elements within us.
The first thing I thought of,especially around colonialism, is like when
I look at family members, especiallywomen in my family, we've been conditioned
with colonialism to feed this extractive mentality. So we've been conditioned to do it

(47:37):
to a point where we are givingourselves to a point of our life source,
like cutting our lives short. AndI'm sure this is true for so
many people who've been colonized, right, that we're at a point generations deep
where colonizers are necessarily needing to physicallyextract from us. They've conditioned a few

(48:00):
generations now where people don't realize thatwe are extracting from ourselves and overgiving,
we lose our boundaries, we losethat self care, we lose that self
worth and love or understanding of ourworth and love, and so finding that
balance, right, I feel likeit's a constant what you're just naming about
the four Fires Edica. It justreminds me of like and we're we gesture

(48:22):
a lot, so I'm like,my hands are up to and like you
know, they go back and backwhen you were talking about the fires being
from within to the greater galaxies anduniverse. And then you have to balance
the inner and the external constantly becauseif you stay in one, it can
become toxic because you're not grounded inthe community around you, or the collective

(48:43):
or the greater vision. And ifyou get too big, because this is
something I because of some levels ofconditioning I struggle with, is I get
so collective and I get so connectedto the network of everyone that I lose
myself, which actually, Kat,you're just talking about is using oneself in
a partner. But I lose myselfin collective sometimes. And so I didn't

(49:05):
even understand what it meant to bea self individual my own fire until I
was like eleven, twelve, thirteen, and I was like, I have
to be an individual. That's scary, Like I have to make my own
decisions, Like I have to haveautonomy, but without it, I lose
myself. That also takes from thelife force of yourself too, because I
saw when it was happening, Iwas losing myself. I literally Cat knows

(49:30):
people who know Cat and I andwe rise like I literally was losing my
physical voice because I was losing myselfin the collective. So Eddika and you
name the fires going big and thenall the way back into our internal fires.
We have to constantly ground ourselves inthose relationships. The boy okay,

(51:34):
two things they're conducted. We calllike those fires. As an indigenous person,
like we talk about them all thetime. And it's I think why
I'm grounded in the more of aninterdependent life force instead of the kitchen fire.
We tend to call it the hearthfire. But I'm about to start
a fire on the podcast. Okay, it's one of those controlled birds.
It'll be fine. And poke atthe fact that you use the word,

(51:59):
Nikki autonomy. I hate that word. That word is colonized. Stick with
me for a second. I knowagency and sovereignty are words that I love.
Autonomy, I feel like does nottake into account those different fires and
where you're talking about, like youbeing independent and losing yourself in the collective.

(52:22):
I think we have a script goingin this very colonized world that it's
possible to be autonomous and also beabout community. It's actually not autonomy means
you don't really need to care,like you get to just make decisions on
your own. But if we're talkingabout community having agency over yourself, having

(52:45):
sovereignty over your decisions is different becauseyou're still hopefully considering how your internal fire
affects your altar fire, how itaffects your kitchen fire, and then ultimately
how it affects your community fire.Up North, we saw a lot of
people coming in with autonomous actions thatwere mostly white, male bodied, patriarchal

(53:08):
a holes who just wanted to fucksome shit up but did not care how
their actions were going to ultimately affectthe people who lived there, and how
them getting in front of the copsand hollering was going to cause just proportionate
harm to the people who had tostay when they could just leave, And

(53:28):
like, that's them being autonomous.I can do whatever I want. So
I have a problem with the worldautonomy because I feel like it feed into
colonization. I love the fact thatwe can use sovereignty in our agency to
make decisions, and I think weneed to get better at that because literally
the black side of my family,black women's self sacrifice, it is what

(53:52):
they do. They were forced todo it because they had to feed white
babies and keep them alive and givetheirs up, and then they needed to
do it to keep their people alive. And then the world is just actively
against us and it no longer servesus. Look at all these black activists
that have literally died from stress,suicide, heart attack because they're giving,

(54:15):
giving, and they're willing to diefor their people. But what ends up
happening is that we forget the narrativethat they are their people. They deserve
to be healed, to be caredfor, to be loved, to be
nurse just as much they should neverhave to sacrifice for the greater good.
Our ancestors in every culture have alreadyat some point done that. They have

(54:40):
already done that to set us upfor differently. But colonization has taught us
to self extract so that they don'thave to consistently obviously do it, so
that we're losing so much of ourselveswe have no capacity or energy left when
they throw another thing at us.It's why I'm on that train of like

(55:00):
joy and abundance as well, likeI'm no longer sacrificing this very finite being.
My spirit is infinite, this bodyis finite. It has an expiration
date for the larger, greater good. I'm working with my community to figure

(55:21):
out how we can all balance andnourish each other in intimate ways so that
no one has to give so muchthat they don't have what they need,
So that I'm not going around herebreastfeeding or chest feeding a hundred folks when
there's twenty other people who've got thecapacity to help in that, and if
there's twenty one of us doing it, no one of us is like losing

(55:44):
ourselves. We're still able to keepgrounded in our own internal fires and fill
it up, but we still haveenough to also feed all those other fires,
because what ends up happening is thatif you just focus on that big
fire, you're fire dim because you'renot tending to it. Fires require tending.

(56:06):
Sometimes it's light tending, like anember, but even an ember requires
tending not to go out. Andso like learning how to like spread out
who we are and how we movewith ourselves and with each other is how
we learn to be a fire tenderof our hurts. And we've got so

(56:27):
many fires collective and then the oneslike supremacy culture keeps throwing at us to
tend to. We really need toget very good at tending fire. We
really need to know when the firecan be small and an ember and when
we need a nice, big forestfire to make space for something new.

(56:50):
But it has to be collective andit has to be focused. It can't
just be destruction for the sake ofdestruction, because then we're just feeding them
to write supremacy culture and using theMaster's tools to try to take down the
Master's house, which we all knowis not actually possible. It's just so

(57:10):
much, so much potent stuff there. I appreciate so much you're sharing that
about autonomy versus sovereignty and agency becauseKat knows this. I always say English
is my second language, even thoughI don't speak any of my mother tongues,
because surprise colonization has me speaking English, and so I always talk about
the limitations I have with these words, and I am so appreciative of like

(57:37):
understanding those words further. So thankyou, Ember. I just wanted to
appreciate you both for this teaching moment, I really appreciate it for being mirrors
to us into our listeners. Whatresonated with me, ember of what you
said is two things studies the burnoutculture. I have work in justice,

(58:00):
social, racial, immigrant right,so many as part of the diaspora,
the global diasporas, and most ofthe time the funding was coming from nonprofits
that were funded by white people,right, the European, US, Canadian.
And I'm talking about work that Ihave done not only in the US
in Turial Island, but also LatinAmerica. So burnout culture and the savior

(58:25):
complex, which is both rooted inwhite supremacists. Right. So I know,
I know how much I have thisassociated from my body because of the
trauma of surviving a war, fromthe trauma of being born in the exile,
because of my community being burned byI forgot how you say it in

(58:47):
English, but pierra rasta, whichis pretty much a military strategy that we're
trained by the School of the Americas, you know, like soldiers from from
the US train in soldiers in aSalvador and in the whole world. So
something that I am healing that hasto do with fire is how to root

(59:09):
in home, in my body sothat I can shed that fear of my
home right, the house, butalso the home being burned because of violence.
And then the other thing is likeI am an intellectual and not because
of academia. I love learning andI am three air signs, so I

(59:29):
love walking on earth, mother andlearning from trees, through everything. But
the point is this sense of howwhen I learned that I cannot really support
others or accompania, like accompany othersin their journeys when I'm empty, when
my pot broke because the water dryin the fire, It's like I can

(59:52):
so that for me now that Iam at this moment in my journey,
that I can say like whoa,I can set up boundaries. It's like,
you know what I mean. It'ssuch a huge deal, and it's
so interesting because borders crossing is sucha biaspora work, right, reclaiming the
land, reclaiming everything that is alreadyhorror of who we are, but also

(01:00:15):
that we belong to in a differentway. So fire can burn us,
and you said not focusing that firecan just be in a cycle of like
continuously burn out culture. It takesus to death, right, But also
these controlling behavior of trying to saveothers because we think that we can take

(01:00:38):
their suffering away, we also destroythat. Like, how do you say,
blow the little fire we still havewithin? Thank you for listening.

(01:01:46):
I think we're coming near the close. Ember stuck their tongue out, so
you know, rebellion looks lots ofdifferent ways. Um, we give you
going, But that was my sense, and I want to also on our

(01:02:07):
folks time. Maybe we can takea few deep breaths again and consider if

(01:02:57):
there's any last words. There's somuch, there's so much thinking about how
we might want to leave folks.I think like the last thing that I
would want people to hear from meis basically just the importance of tending to

(01:03:17):
your own fire, to learning whatthat means for you, because it is
so different for all of us.You know, my fire burns bright most
of the time. It's a ragingfire, so it takes a little bit
more skill for me when I needto dam it so that I can just
be an ember. Right, Butlike that is enough talking about burnout culture.

(01:03:42):
Learning to tend to your own fire, learning to do your own healing,
doesn't just benefit you, It actuallybenefits the people that you are in
community within the world as a whole, whether or not specifically through like your
intimate relationships, or whether it's justmodeled for somebody else who is in your
general vicinity. Because we're beings whopick up all those things right like we,

(01:04:08):
whether we like it or not,are all learning and teaching at the
same time. People are paying attentionor unconsciousness is paying attention and like really
understanding that it's there are many waysto build a fire and to tend to
a fire. There are many fires. They are going to be many fires
for a very long time, andlearning to tend to your a fire and

(01:04:30):
find out the best way to dothat will help you find where your lane
is to help tend the community fires, because we can't all tend to model
at the same time. That's whatwhite supremacy culture would like us to do.
They would like us to be sopulled apart and so at our wits
ends that we never have enough togive to any one thing. There are

(01:04:53):
many of us doing this work,and all the ways and all of the
different lanes are valid, But likefiguring out how to tend to your fire,
so you can figure out what laneyou belong in where you drive,
where you grow, where you replenishyourself is how we do this work together.
It's how we heal, and it'show we create the new world that

(01:05:15):
we want for ourselves. It's howwe topple all of these systems is literally
by understanding that we matter within thelarger construct. We cannot talk about community
if we don't acknowledge how we moveand fit and belong to that community.
I don't have much more to addbecause there's just so much that we discussed

(01:05:38):
that it's sitting in my heart andI know that I'll sit with it for
many hours, days into the future. There's so much wisdom that came from
this conversation. So I'm just fullof gratitude of all that we got to
share in this space and with therest of our audience in our community.
Just really grateful for the beautiful energyand the ancestors lit all shut up to

(01:06:00):
this space. Just lots of gratitude. I think I'm trying to absorb it
all. And I also like don'treally want it to end. And I'm
hungry and that's a fire and likemy little snack is like that was cute.
Now I needs some more food.For the fire. And that's something

(01:06:21):
Nikki and I have talked about too, and something that was also present back
in Onshna bay Land. Although thatpoof that's another train of thought and conversation.
Yeah, I hope we remember theseteachings. For me at least,

(01:06:42):
the practice the journey of decolonizing myself. It's like all this input, but
like I can learn forever, butuntil it's in my bones and in my
spirit or not until. I don'twant to say that, because the learning

(01:07:04):
is all part of it, butit's it's like what I think Eddico is
saying about fire, that you don'tjust light the pot and it goes up
in flame and that's it and it'sdone. But we learn a bit and
then we practice and we fuck upand sometimes we forget, but we get

(01:07:26):
to keep remembering how to take careof, how to tend, how to
tend all these fires, so helpthe memory fire gets strengthened as well.
Thank you everybody. This was powerful. I feel that we needed another one
and like a second dialogue to continue, because that is way too Mary or

(01:07:50):
even like a specific you know,can we just talk about kitchen fire or
collective fire? I mean, Ijust want to remind us that the more
we learn how to embody this beautifulfire that is creative right, that brings
our most authentic voice, as Nikkisaid it at some point, that allow

(01:08:14):
us to feel joy and pleasure inevery corner of our skin, and and
be able to embrace ourselves that beingwe are in nurture it in different ways,
not just you know, when Italk about intimacy is not just masturbation,

(01:08:35):
it's beyond that right. But alsowhen we give ourselves we're able to
show up in intimacy with others indifferent ways. So I do hope that
this invitation of reclaiming the sacredness offire in ourselves, it allows us to
bring that intention into our journeys,our work on Earth, Mother, so

(01:08:59):
that we awaken that is sence thatwe were pray by our ancestors to embody
here that poetry that we already are, and that allow us to continue to
bring healing for everybody and not justhumans, but beyond humans. So thank

(01:09:21):
you Emver so much for joining us, for bringing your verty things, for
bringing your fire, and Nikki andKat, thank you, thank you for
doing this for this beautiful circle andlike cold creation that we have been at
our own rhythms, cultivating and tendingto and thank you to everybody who'd listened

(01:09:45):
to us. I hope that youcontinue to drink a lot of water as
you embodied your fires. What typeof seed do welong to be in our

(01:10:50):
journey on Earth? Mother? Literallyand mythologically speaking, get people as semi
as a Musser term. Thank youfor listening to Somo semis. We are

(01:11:11):
Sets a podcast about indigenous sovereignty andcollective storytelling. Our theme music is Sumerhirse
by La. You can find alink to their beautiful music in our show.
Note. This is a we Riseproduction and we'd love to hear from
you. Connect with us at weRise Production at PM dot M on the

(01:11:38):
socials, and at we rise productiondot com. You can continue to support
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rise production dot com. Thank youall, take care. We look forward

(01:12:01):
to stay connected to the the biggerthe big do do do do? Begin

(01:17:00):
begin beginning the Gappenden, the