The Rainbow House - Casa Acozamalotl
A podcast from the borderland of spirituality, race, identity, and community, the Rainbow House highlights the voices of mixed race and minority people who choose a spiritual path other than Christianity or generic spirituality. Walk with those of us who are looking at our heritage and hoping to craft healing, fight injustice, and honor our ancestors and ourselves!
The Rainbow House - Casa Acozamalotl
Bianca Herrera, Therapist for the Soul
In this episode of Casa Acozamalotl I delve into the profound spiritual journey of Bianca Herrera, a therapist and curandera from Chicago. Bianca shares her experiences growing up as a Mexicana in Chicago, exploring her identity, and embracing her spiritual path. From her roots in Mexico to her transformative practices in the city, Bianca's story is one of resilience, cultural connection, and personal empowerment. Tune in to discover how she weaves her heritage and spirituality into her life and work, offering wisdom and inspiration for all.
Welcome back to the fall season of Casa Acozamalotl, the Rainbow House. This summer was a really beautiful opportunity for me to spend a lot of time with my children. They only had a couple weeks of summer camp, which meant that they were home with me a lot more. We also saw a whole lot of family. Two of my great or two of my aunts, my dad, my sister, her son, her partner, my mother. It was just a real explosion of family. We also connected with my husband's family. With all of that travel and moving around, we went to San Francisco and we camped. It was beautiful. We were up near Jenner in Northern California, and we had foggy mornings and sunny afternoons and lazy swimming and splashing in the in the river. So between all of that, my podcasting took kind of a bag seat. So the kids are now or home. The kids are off at school during the day, and I'm ready to dive into another season. Not another season, but the rest of the season of the Rainbow House. So this episode is Bianca Herrera. She is a therapist here in Chicago, and she shares a lot about her journey toward her spiritual self, her identity, and how growing up here, a mexicana in Chicago, influenced all of that. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Bianca's wonderful guest, and thank you so much for listening to The Rainbow House. Welcome to Bianca. Bianca, thank you. Bianca Herrera is joining us from Chicago. She's my first Chicago native interviewee. So I'm really excited to have you here on the podcast, Bianca. Thank you so much for joining.
Bianca:Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Um yeah, and making the space generally.
Nicte-Ha:I'm excited. I feel like getting somebody to kick this off here in Chicago, you know, I'm hoping to feature more Chicagoans because I think there's just such a wonderful diversity in the diaspora here in Chicago that I think that we have people that can represent all different stages and types and approaches to this journey. So it's really nice to have you on. So maybe I thought maybe you could just introduce yourself a little bit to the folks who are listening on the podcast and just give them a flavor for like where you're from, if you're from Chicago, if you were born here, uh born somewhere else, raised here, you could even shout out your neighborhood. But just give a little background into your connection to Chicago and uh and your your Yeah. All right.
Bianca:So my history is um I was born and raised in Chicago on the south side of Chicago. Uh I grew up and went to school in Brighton Park. And my family is from Mexico. Both my parents migrated from Mexico. They landed in Pilson and Bridgeport when they got here. And yeah, so I have a little bit of history with many different neighborhoods in the city, but mostly all Southside neighborhoods. And then I lived in a couple different neighborhoods throughout like my young adult life and adult life. Now I'm back in the neighborhood I grew up in, Brighton Park, which is really special and exciting. Let's see what else. I have had kind of a history with working in community in various settings, always like in a helper kind of role, right? So right out of high school, I was doing, you know, a different like volunteer work, education work around uh sexual health, reproductive health, right? Woman's health. I was doing like bystander intervention trainings. So I was working with people on college campuses and in communities around like just interpersonal violence, right? And relationships. I continued to kind of like work in all of these different fields, always from a very, I would say like social justice, a very abolitionist lens. Truthfully, since I was in high school, just because I was fortunate to be ra radicalized pretty, pretty young through knowledge and information and great teachers. So yeah, so I was always interested in relationships and community and kind of like social justice, right? Like aspects of that until I found myself working at a rape crisis center for many years in various capacities, and realized wow, like my skill set lies in people, you know, being connecting with other people, really seeing other people and seeing the potential in people, right? And somehow having the words, the words and the presence and the energy that people needed, right, in that moment. And one of the therapists told me, like, you should look into this. Uh, one of the therapists that worked there was like you should look into this becoming a therapist for yourself. So I was like, you know what? Yeah, maybe I had imposter syndrome and I was, you know, about going in further in my education, getting a master's and all of that. I'm like, could I? Could I do that? I don't know. So it took me a few years, but eventually I went back to school and yeah, I actually graduate tomorrow. Um What? Congratulations!
Nicte-Ha:That's amazing. I think I think, yeah, when we had when we had to when we first met, I think you said you had just finished your d your dissertation defense or your um or not defense, but um you just finished your your master's and my internship. Yes. Oh, that's really cool. Congratulations. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast the day before your graduation. Is your family gonna have a big party for you?
Bianca:We're gonna have a little, yeah, we're gonna just uh get together at a restaurant in my like close family. It's like my dad's friend's restaurant, so it's pretty chill, it's like um Mexican restaurant. So that'll be nice. I get to just be with my family and celebrate. Yeah, so it's I it's it's been a long journey, like three years of my time, but I don't regret it. I think it was the best decision, and it very much allows me an avenue to connect with people and fulfill like I think like my spiritual purpose and my life purpose in a way that feels very like just sustainable for me. So I'm grateful for that.
Nicte-Ha:Yeah, it sounds like that thread of helping people has sort of followed you for a lot of your life. And what initially drew you to being to getting that bystander intervention training? Because that's pretty heavy. You did that in high school and college? In college, yeah. In college. So was that like interpersonal, like when people were fighting, or like was it within the college environment, or was it like you went out with teams into like streets or neighborhoods where people were having interpersonal personal difficulties? So was it like directly interventional in like things that you see happening immediately on the street, or is it like we know that these like groups of people are having trouble? So like let's get people together to talk in like a safe third place. Like what does that kind of look like?
Bianca:Yeah. So essentially it's a little bit of all of that, right? And the bystander intervention training that I was particularly involved in for most of college had a lot to do with like um dating violence, domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual violence, that kind of thing. So I just ended up getting involved with that in college, right? And through through different groups. And I would train different student groups on how to identify these issues within their own groups, within their own communities, and how to intervene in the moment, how to check in with people, what are people's options, you know what I mean, after the fact. And yeah, it that that world made sense to me given from like high school, I was already, you know, witnessing a lot of, you know, violence happening, right? And so you see it happening in your city and in your community. And I think you're learning about the ways that these things are interconnected, right? Like these kind of like systems and traumas are interconnected with each other, the ways that we have like larger violence, and then the ways that people, our own people, our own communities are enacting that amongst themselves, right? And with each other. And so I think that kind of bridged that for me from like high school like going to protests and you know, like, and then college learning more about I think like a feminist lens and women's rights and that kind of thing, and kind of bridging those things together. So I trained people and I intervened on campus, like in various situations.
Nicte-Ha:Wow, that's really intense. Um, I mean, because in in in a lot of ways you make yourself vulnerable to experiencing that, you know, retaliatory violence. It's very difficult when people are. I mean, I've intervened a couple of times with friends, like at clubs and stuff, when they were being bothered by by men whose attention they didn't want. And fortunately, in all the situations I was involved in, all the men were shorter than me. So that was easy. Helps to be a physically intimidating woman.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Nicte-Ha:You know, but to uh it it does take quite a bit. I was those were more situational, and I was not trained, and I probably didn't de-escalate the right way, but they went away. So at least that was effective. Um but you know, I'm wondering because like one of the things that you shared with me is that it sounds like during this time also was when you were working on learning, you know, spiritual kuras and that you were working as a curandera also. And so we had a friend, my friend talked about a little bit about her curandera practice. But it sounds like these are very much complementary parts of your calling, right? To have the curandera spiritual healing part, and then also, you know, violence intervention and like supporting people who've experienced trauma through the rape crisis center and everything. So, how did the curandarismo or curandarismo uh practice help you personally? And did you ever bring any of that to some of the folks that you were working with or that were in your community? So does it sound like those dovetailed during that time?
Bianca:Oh yeah. Like I think I, you know, I was always a very spiritual kind of person growing up, but I was kind of struggling to find like what is my belief, what are my beliefs, what is my practice, right? And that took me a little bit of time. I mean, I was raised Catholic, I went to a Catholic school for a couple of years. I but I I didn't always feel like it fully called to me, like it fully aligned with me. There were a few things that I like, like I always say, like I keep like the practice of saints, right? And like um praying to, right, or calling upon like certain saints or deities, like that part of Catholicism I think I've kept, right? Because it feels very meaningful, right? It's almost like something, you know, and saints, you know, often they were real people, right? And you look at how do how were they actually living their lives, right? And what things were they doing? What good deeds or practices were they doing? And then you call upon them to embody that. That's kind of how I take that. And so I'm like, okay, I like some things. It doesn't fully call to me, right? Um, my parents were not particularly uh super religious, although I went to Catholic school for a few years. Uh they were they really weren't. Uh like my mom is Catholic, but she's not conservative by any means. She doesn't like push a lot of things. Um, and then my dad from a young age of mine didn't really identify with Catholicism. Um like we talked about, like he explored more like um Buddhist uh philosophies and beliefs that he definitely did teach me about, right? Like I was able to learn about, you know, discipline and meditation and you know, like okay, letting things be, non-attachment, like all these kind of things that without knowing, I was also being influenced by, right? As I was growing up. And so, and then we had like Buddhas in our house, and you know, so yeah. So I was like, okay, we got saints, we got Buddhas, we got these different things happening, these different rituals and like beliefs happening at the same time for me. So I'm like, okay, I don't know what exactly I am. Like, do I have to choose? And I always felt pressure, like I gotta choose something, you know, like it has to be like a religion, like I gotta choose something. Otherwise, it's not valid is kind of how I kept feeling. And we talked a little bit about that too, like the idea of your spirituality being valid or not, and tying it back in, right, to all this social justice journey, like my my uh awakening, or as like Lorian Seldua, what it's uh conciencia, right? Conciencia that I experienced in high school, college, like early adulthood. As I was learning all of this information of my people and other other communities of color and their histories and our our shared histories, right? And things that were lost, that we all lost, and the idea of trying to rediscover that and reclaim that, it kind of spurred this awakening probably towards like my early 20s, like early and mid-20s, where I'm like, it became a very spiritual-driven mission for me to uncover a lot of these histories for myself, my own lineage, my own culture, the spiritual practices and the philosophies of my people that kind of and became a very like key core part of my spirituality.
Nicte-Ha:And I know you're very close to your grandparents, your family in Mexico, and you still visit them. And and we talked about you getting back just now from uh a long visit with your family. Well, I think what, 10 days, two weeks?
Bianca:Yeah, it was like 16 days, a little over.
Nicte-Ha:16 days, yeah. So a nice long chunk of time with your family. And your your parents are from where in Mexico?
Bianca:So my mom is so we have roots. My mom is technically born in Jalisco, but family from Michoacan, and then afterwards, some family ended up then being from Jalisco after, you know, my migration.
Nicte-Ha:And then my dad happens within Mexico as well as between the United States and Mexico.
Bianca:Exactly. And they're neighbors, so it makes sense. And then my dad is from Durango, which is a part of El Norte, and specifically from La Sierra, so from like very like mountainous part of that area, which is important because there's a distinction between people who live in the like cities and valleys and people who are from the mountain um area. Just like culturally, there's also huge class differences there as well.
Nicte-Ha:So that's where when you you were in Durango. So when you were formulating your your spiritual beliefs and sort of thinking about what am I, what do I believe in, you know, and wanting to uncover the past, did you talk to your grandparents and when you went and visited, you know, did you ask them questions or look in the area? Did you research where they were or like, you know, how much of it was reaching back? Because when I was doing my own journey, I didn't my grandparents had already passed away. And I think my grandmother, my grandmother was very Catholic and probably would not have known much beyond just, you know, being Catholic.
Speaker 1:So Yeah.
Nicte-Ha:So and they, you know, I think they very much had the idea of like they left Mexico. Like my grandmother was actually born in California, but her mother and her and my grandfather, I think they just were like, We left. Like we're not there anymore, we're here was kind of the idea I got of the kind of person they would be. So I'm just wondering, you know, when you spoke to your grandparents, if you spoke to them about it, like what did they say? Were they encouraging of your interest in looking back at practices, or were they just sort of like, I don't know, this is what we do, and you know?
Bianca:Yeah.
Nicte-Ha:So how how much did your did your grandparents and your elders in your community back in Mexico like support that inquiry that you had?
Bianca:Oh, for sure. I think both sets of grandparents, right, um were have been very helpful. The grandparents that are like from like Mitroacan Jalisco raised me mostly. So they taught me a lot of things. I would when I was going through this process, I asked them a lot more questions about just like life over there in Mexico. What did they do? What do they believe? Why do they believe it? You know what I mean? What kind of practices did they do with my grandmother for Michoacan? I specifically asked her a lot about health and like herbalism because she was very much always like making remedios and doing these little things. And like, you know, she had like many plant medicine, right? Lots of plant medicine. And like many, I think maybe like Mexican grandparents, I don't know. I feel like I've asked a few people and they're like, yeah, this was normal. Like my grandma just had like marijuana like soaking with arnica and alcohol, and just like that was just like.
Nicte-Ha:Yeah, this is what my grandma did to rub on her, on her uh her joints. I was like, what's in this bottle, Dad? And he was like, uh, marijuana and alcohol. And I was like, oh. Exactly.
Bianca:And so, like things like plant medicine, like very much like utilizing um various uh modalities. So I asked her a lot of questions about that, thankfully. She has dementia now, so she has pretty much lost everything this point. And my grandpa has since passed away. But I'm very grateful that I did ask them all of these questions during that time. I have some uh recipes written down for like food and remedios, and I have a few a couple recordings of like stories or things like that. So I'm grateful for that. But this trip to Durango, I think I had not been as connected to that side of my lineage. And I really felt like I got to learn a lot about what where I came from, right? And for me, like I was reflecting on this even before we recorded what is spirituality? Like I was reflecting on, you know, we're gonna talk about my spirituality, like what does that mean? And what are the aspects? So I'm like, what is the definition of that for me? Like, what does that actually mean? And I think for me specifically, it includes various points, right? Like I think it includes this piece of lineage, right? Ancestor work and lineage, culture. And then even within that and separate from that, it includes a connection to land, definitely land and nature and beings that live there. And it includes a connection to my own body, my own body and my own senses. That to me is a huge part of what it means to connect to my spirituality. And then the the last part that I was like, okay, this is definitely an important part of a dimension of what spirituality means to me is this idea, this connection to the concepts of uh hope and acceptance, right? And so I say that because that those are just the themes I I see myself no matter what I'm doing, and it can seem all over the place because sometimes I'm like saints or Buddhism, or I'm going on this journey and I'm on this trip and you know, like I am connecting to the land in this way. Like, what are the rules? You know what I mean? But all of it ends up somehow relating right to like these themes of the body, the land, the lineage, and some sense of acceptance around things that are and hope.
Nicte-Ha:So yeah, I think that's beautiful. I think, you know, I think that's one of the challenges for folks like us, and maybe for some of the people who might be listening to this who are on that journey of reconstructing or reclaiming practices, right, is like pulling different threads and then finding a structure that works for you as a person. Because similarly, you know, my my personal rituals can be all over the place because when you go to an organized church, right, or faith community, they're like, oh, these are the things we do in this order. These are the things you do on this special day. And so there's not as much, you know, there's not as much personal creativity involved and trying to figure out and also self-discipline, right? Because you have to impose whatever whatever structure works for your spirituality. You kind of have to impose it on yourself when you're outside of a faith community that has like a set doctrine and structure. And so that that self-discipline can be a little challenging um, you know, when we are in, you know, engaged in building our own personal spiritual practice. So your journey to Durango, you mentioned that you were going to go uh with your grandfather and see a cave that he lived in. Yeah. Did you have an opportunity to do that? If you want to share, did you do any rituals around that for yourself, like to connect to that lineage? I mean, that must have been very special. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Bianca:Yeah. Yes. My grandpa very much wanted us to go that when we went, that we would go further up the mountains to where he was born and raised and where my great-grandparents lived, which is like a really remote area, like I don't know, maybe like 9,000 feet in elevation in the mountains. And, you know, I told people that I was gonna go see this cave where my grandpa lived in for the first several years of his life. And people looked at me like, what? What do you mean your grandpa lived in a cave? Like, what? And I'm like, they did not believe me. I think some people were like, what? And I'm like, no, this is a real thing.
Nicte-Ha:Why build a house when the mother earth has given you shelter, right? Like Exactly. I I'm I'm with it. I think, I mean, there's like cave houses in Italy, but that is so special. Okay, continue.
Bianca:Exactly. No, see, uh, cave houses in Italy, exactly. And that makes me feel like, but then that would be looked at as like so fancy or like cute or something, like rustic, but then in Mexico, it's like, oh my God. Which, mind you, I mean, poverty did have an impact, right? On as to why my grandpa lived in a cave and why several people lived in caves, not just my grandfather. Because when we got there, you know, first of all, it was a heavy road. There was some off-roading driving that we had to do to even get there. Yeah, in the on the way, like my grandpa's like, oh, we to tío vivía en esa cueva. And like so-and-so lived in that cave too. And I'm like, what? So many people lived in caves. It wasn't just like randomly my grandpa. That was a normal thing. It was not like uncalled for. People lived in caves, and my uh, if they didn't have homes, right, like they could not buy land, right? Or have the ability to build a home yet, right? Like my great-grandfather built the house, the log house they ended up living in by hand with an axe. So, you know, they had to live in this cave until he built the house, which took many years. That was just kind of like a normal thing. And so we got to the cave, and within this cave, he's showing me, like, I have a video, thankfully, too. Like, he's showing me, like, this is where the bed was, and this is where like we, you know, could cook. This is where we made the fire, uh, this is where we kept these things, this is where he hung stuff. And it's essentially kind of like a like like it has a top and like sides, right? And it wasn't like too deep. And essentially they would kind of build like a little fence, right? Like a little kind of like makeshift fence or something like lean to into it, right? And then live in this cave. And it's it works because it's really hot during the day, so it keeps cool during the day the rain, right? So, and and they were able to like have a fire and have it heat up like at night when it was cold. Very much something that felt very ancestral for sure. My grandpa cried, you know, when he got there. I'm the only grandchild that has seen this, and who knows if other grandchildren will be able to see this? Because you know, my grandpa's old and it's a it's a lot, it's a long trip, not just to Mexico, but then driving to the mountains and then driving seven hours further up the mountain, like it is a trek, right? It's a whole thing. So it's possible I'm the only grandchild, right, that will ever witness that. So that's amazing.
Nicte-Ha:And is there uh is did he is it is that area like part of where his family was from like for a long time in the past, or did they move into that area? Does he remember if his parents or grandparents talked about where they were from before? Because I know what the Sierra Sierra Madre is like Taroumara, right?
Bianca:And then there's what are the native groups that live in the and uh yeah, Tarumara and uh Tepewan Tepewanis people.
Nicte-Ha:And is he is he either of those, is he connected to either of those two groups, or did his family live in that area because they had been moved internally due to like war poverty? Do you have do you have any idea?
Bianca:Yeah, so it's hard. Like we don't have a direct, I don't have a necessarily like a direct link, but what I do know is that they lived generally in those areas, right? So I know that his parents moved into that particular like area of the mountain, but they they moved from like another part of the mountain, like they were up there in these remote areas. So for as long as we can kind of remember, they were in these kind of remote areas of the mountains, kind of like rotation.
Nicte-Ha:You know what I mean?
Bianca:Yeah, I'm just not gonna be.
Nicte-Ha:Yeah, I was just wondering if you knew because I know like a lot of a lot of people in our situation in the diaspora, you're like, well, my family came from Mexico, and then we don't I mean, there's very little connection to the indigenous groups that lived in those areas. And so it's really special that you know at least that your your people are from that area. Whereas, let's see, my I found out that my like great-grandmother is from Wanajuato, but I'm like, I don't know if that's because like I think we forget, you know, there was like civil war and there were people moved for jobs and all of that stuff. So just because your ancestor, just because your great-great-grandmother came from an area that was heavily pure pecha or whatever, doesn't mean that your family's necessarily pure pecha. And I know that there are some areas of Mexico where the indigenous communities have held on to their individual identities more strongly than in other places. And so that's why I asked that, just to see if that was something that you that you connected with with your grandfather. But it sounds like you know the area, but maybe that they've now moved out of the mountains. Does he still visit family in the area or it sounds like it's a long way out there?
Bianca:So yeah, people don't really live out there anymore. Thankfully, it's still in family hands, like distant family hands, so we can visit, but um, but people don't necessarily live that far. They actually live in a town still in the mountains, but called Tepehuanis. So that's where my dad kind of grew up, and that's where a lot of family lives now in that area, Tepehuanis area. Something I did learn though, um, about specifically my grandpa's lineage, like paternal, all the way paternal lineage, but my family name actually Herera and how we got that name through Athea who did like records search through like the ancestry, like she did like a like searching the matching the records, matching and matching and matching. And so something I did learn about the family name that I thought was kind of cool was that Herrera came somewhere in the 1600s. My paternal lineage, like dad, grandpa, great-grandpa, their father, their father, their father. But it initially came from a woman who was passed down by a woman. So she was a Spanish woman who married, I think, in like an indigenous man. And I guess for that reason, he took her name. Herrera. Oh, that's so interesting. That's so interesting. Yeah, I guess because of you know, racial.
Nicte-Ha:Yeah. You know, and I I mean, and also maybe the concept of surnames. Like, who knows if he if he because not everybody has surnames in different indigenous communities, right? So the idea of a surname, it just might have been easier to take hers. That is really interesting. That's so neat that you could find that. Props to your aunt. Props to your aunt for for for hunting back that far. It's not easy.
Bianca:No, it's not. So that. That's as far as I know. And I don't even know like what if it is even like the same area of Daramara. Like I have no idea what tribal affiliations that man had, you know, my ancestor. But I just thought it was cool that like that means to me, and I'm gonna make my own meaning of that, right? Because I don't know. These are records. You don't know actually what was happening. But to me, that means that it's possible that they married for love. It's possible that that wasn't like a because otherwise, why would they do that? You know what I mean? It just felt like, okay, maybe at least one little line of my lineage is not, you know, due to horrible, forced, you know, forced.
Nicte-Ha:Well, I think that's the complexity, right? That's the complexity of our history and remembering that it was like we have to remember that there, that there was love, right? And passion. And there were power and balances, and there were certainly relationships that weren't by choice, but there definitely were, right? Just like it's hard, I think. I always thought, like, oh, you know, the Spanish came in and forcibly converted everybody and it's awful. And yes, that did happen. And also there were people who who voluntarily converted. I'm sure many people fought for their own beliefs, but then other people might have felt, you know, drawn to what they were saying, right? Or found meaning in in what Catholicism had to offer them, right? So it's hard to think about that, right? Because then it's to me, it's like it's like you don't wanna you don't want to have any positive anything associated with the kind of colonization, but it doesn't mean that it made it right. It's just nice to know that it wasn't all horrible that there were there was love and there was human resilience and there was free will in all of that as well.
Bianca:Of course, that once things happened, right, they were here that yeah, people were people, right? Yeah, yeah. And you fall in love. So Yeah, I learned a lot about about that, and I wanted to share something about the cave. Um so in this cave, like talking about like rituals, I did do a little ritual in there. Well, I sat in there with my grandfather, had him tell me the story, right? Like of like why they lived there and like what was that like? What does he remember? That kind of thing. Asking and I also asked him, like, how does he feel to be sitting here? You know, he's gonna be 78. Like, what does that feel like to be sitting in this cave right now, like with me, like with his grandchild, you know, given the events now of his life, right? Um, and he, you know, that's when he was like crying, and I was crying. I was like, uh I think that's where my connection with like what does hope look like? What role does hope play in spirituality? Because I think like he had to have had hope, right? Like his parents had to have had hope, and he had to have had hope to even for this to happen for me to be sitting in this cave right now with him in this context, right? And you know, we did all of that, and I brought some items to do like a little from my altar, and I laid them in the cave, right? And I just kind of sat, I meditated, um, and I tried to pray and just kind of call upon my great-grandparents, and I think what what I ended up going with in this like prayer or this like meditative state was very much like letting them know it's okay. Like, thank you for cer for being so resilient, thank you for everything that you've done. And I also forgive you for anything that you had to do in your life that maybe wasn't the the best, you know what I mean? Because again, like intergenerational trauma and what that does to people. And I'm like, I don't hold that against you. I understand you, thank you, and it's different now. We're different now. So for me, that spirituality moment and having that ritual, like how did I make that into that ritual? That's what it felt like a place. Here's a physical place connected with my lineage, right? And I'm like meditating and like holding objects, like I'm sitting here, so I'm very much using like my body, like my physical body connecting with that. Um, and then connecting with that, those concepts, like acceptance and hope. And that to me is like the elements of a ritual. You know what I mean? Like what, how does how do you create it? It can look anywhere, you could do it anywhere, you could, you know, and I could do it in a cave.
Nicte-Ha:That's beautiful. That's really wonderful. I'm glad you had that moment of connection kind of with the land and with your ancestors. And I think I took a I took a course um on ancestral lineage healing that was really uh useful. It was a it was a really cool course, but it did talk about that there you can heal generational trauma spiritually by calling on your well and whole ancestors, like you did, right? Talking to the ones that came before and telling them that it's okay, right? And you they're forgiven and that your family's flourished. And I think that's really healing. It's I think it's always a little bit of a tension, right? With us growing up in such a secularized and also Christian Christian secular reactionary kind of world where, you know, somebody who's a complete either atheist or just not a super spiritual person might be like, Why would you? They're dead, like they're gone, right? But then you think, but it's but when you express to them that you have all of this trauma that's come down and expresses its way and that there's brokenness in everybody's family, and that healing he i if if nothing else, right, it heals your own, it can start healing your own feeling of disconnection and brokenness. And so that's beautiful that you got to do that in the place that your grandpa was was born um and lived. That's wonderful. So was he? I mean, I he must have been, I'm just trying to imagine like 78-year-old Mexicano like sitting there crying with his granddaughter. He must have been a little surprised. I think sometimes, sometimes ritual can take us by surprise, right? So was he a little he must have been a little surprised. You don't have to talk about it, but I'm just trying to imagine. I would imagine he's kind of like, where'd that come from?
Bianca:Yeah. I mean, I honestly, like I had, I had not felt this like connected with my with this grandfather. You know what I mean? Before. Like this felt very much. I I was talking about it with my dad too, and I'm like, I really felt like I saw him. Like I really saw him, you know, during this experience. And I think he also really saw me. Like he understood, he saw me. Like my first of all, my willingness to go and learn about this and and hear from him, my questions and the things I was doing, which I'm like, what is he gonna think? Like, I'm like doing all these ritual, you know, like he's on the phone, padre, padre. He was pretty chill about it though. Like he was very, you know, and then afterwards I'm like, let's go in this in the stream and like dip our feet and like go in there. My grandpa was like, Yeah. And he like took off his shoes and he like wet his head, and we I don't know. It just my dad was like meditating in the stream. I don't know. It just became a thing.
Nicte-Ha:That is amazing. How wonderful for your father and your grandfather and for you. I'm getting all teary. That's beautiful. What a beautiful moment. That's amazing. Um, okay, woo! No, I really am getting teary. That's so that's so wonderful.
Bianca:I haven't even fully processed, you know, every just how how that, how powerful that was, right? Like what that felt like. Yeah.
Nicte-Ha:For sure. Beautiful. Well, um, your graduation tomorrow, you're becoming a therapist. And so you're bringing all this wonderful healing, personal energy and moving it forward into kind of this, into a more professional sort of like, well, what we view as professional, right? Medicalized space. And so I had a question. Okay, so you're so you're, I mean, I'm like, I'm still like all teary-eyed from the from the grandpa story.
Speaker 1:That was beautiful. Yes. All right.
Nicte-Ha:So when we when we talked before, you had mentioned that some of the curandera work that you had done, you'd felt like you'd put a lot of your own spiritual energy out and that you had sort of put a pause on it because you had felt very much like um like you had it had been draining, right? And then you also had school on top of that. And so how do you think the practices that you've learned and that you've developed for yourself and like learned over the last couple of decades, how would you how how do you hope to bring that into kind of your mental health practice? And are you focusing on the community around you? Um, because I think I saw a little bit of your of your bio on where you did your internship. And so I know mental health has been a big area that, you know, hasn't really a lot of Latinos and don't really access mental health as much. And so how do you feel like your background's gonna help your more secular like mental health practice?
Bianca:Yeah. So yes, I I I think I mentioned like, you know, early 20s, like college, early 20s, like starting to really like, you know, resource my lineage and integrate that into all this knowledge I'm learning about academically, right? About social justice and my my own community history of oppression and different communities of color and integrating that into kind of like a spiritual practice, right? So that's when I was doing, you know, curandera work. That's when I was tarot reading. Tarot became a tool. It just became a tangible, a really concrete tool for me to use, right? Like in this work. It makes sense that I'm a therapist, right? Because I'm using that intuitive kind of like right work. You don't need the tarot cards, right? At times to read someone's energy or to like read something, but the tarot cards serve as like a tool, right? To like help you. So I used that for many years. I did markets, right? Like I was doing like little markets, I would do like private events, I was taking like consults. I did consults for rituals. So ritual work became a big thing where people would consult me. Like, I have this issue, like, I don't know. I kind of want to do some sort of ritual, right? Like, or something to to let go of this pain or something to access some part of their spirituality. I didn't do any like contacting of dead or medium work, but I definitely did do some like ancestor healing work, right? Like, so similar to what I was doing, right, in the cave, like helping people come up with some sort of ritual for themselves to connect with their ancestral lineages, to release something from themselves or to embody an energy, right? Like within themselves, like what is gonna help them. And I think that, you know, doing all of that from that context, at least for me, it started to become very draining. I felt like maybe I wasn't protecting myself, my energetic boundaries as much as I should have been. And I just started to feel really burnt out. So I'm like, I don't know, like somehow maybe this isn't the way that I'm gonna be able to do this. Also, I found myself kind of blurring the lines as well at times with people who were then actively struggling, like with acute trauma or mental health things, which I had some training on, right? Because I worked at the crisis center, but I was not a therapist, right? So like I had to then be like, I'm not a therapist, you know, like I can't do certain things. And then I was like, people actually have certain things that maybe we need to connect them with other services in tandem with what I'm doing, right? Like, so when I started to go back to school and become a therapist, that was very important to me as I was like learning was how can I integrate this cold, often, you know, like can be a very clinical field, right? Like in the US historically, right? White men, right, like created this field and caused a lot of harm, often co-opted a lot of practices and beliefs from many people, from like Native American people, like Eastern Asian philosophies and practices, like even like CBT, if we think about cognitive behavioral therapy and like mindfulness, a lot of that was taken, right? Co-opted from Buddhist practices, right? Of radical acceptance, of non-attachment, breathing exercises, and those things were then kind of co-opted, right? So I'm thinking like Yeah, you know what, you're right.
Nicte-Ha:I never really thought about that. But I was like, yeah, this is just it's just it's insight awareness meditation and like watching your thoughts and change and letting go and not holding. Yeah. Yeah.
Bianca:Yeah. Exactly.
Nicte-Ha:Did they were they open about that when you were in school? Were they open about that? Or did you, or okay, so at least the program you attended, people were fairly open about the fact that these mental health practices are attached to other practices.
Bianca:Yeah. So I went to the Chicago School. It was like it's an like a nonprofit school. I went because they have like a really good Latino mental health program. And some uh Latina therapists that I knew at the time like went there and recommended it. So I took a lot of those classes. So at pretty much every class, they were very open. At least thankfully from my experience and the professors I had. Maybe there might be other professors, I don't know. But thankfully, I mostly had the experience of people being really open and honest about that. Um, and also offering alternative readings and like information, right? So that was very helpful. And because I found myself like, I don't want to practice therapy from this clinical cold place that's very like only intellectualizing, you know, only intellectualizing because again, like when I talked about the dimensions of my spirituality, it's it's more than healing work to me, is more than just the intellectualizing, right? Which I think you can do. You definitely need the intellectualizing to, for example, instill hope and to find acceptance, right? To rationalize things and like understand a different perspective. But you need more than that, right? Like you need your body, you need like your connection with your body, you need a connection to something else, right? That's above you. Right. So often that can be like our larger like lineage, ancestor, cultural affiliations, right? Collective beliefs, right? Like you need something bigger than you. To like anchor you. Whatever that is. I'm not bashing anyone that's not. I think every form of spirituality kind of has that, right? In some way, shape, or form. And even people who are atheists, right? Which I have many friends that are, they still have a sort of collective uh anchor. They have like a collective belief, right? And it's often social justice or like a belief in like human connection, right? That anchors them. So to me, that feels spiritual, even though they're like, we're not spiritual.
Nicte-Ha:I'm like, or No, I feel like, I mean, I feel like very much there is that tension between, you know, mental health care and spiritual care. And they both like, they kind of I think they're complementary, right? And especially for somebody like you who's out there providing direct services, right? You're putting yourself out there to I feel like the mental health portion helps to give you more of a grounding and and in-depth background into the causes of people's struggles, right? Where maybe some sometimes in the past we might have explained the spiritual feeling through just like bad spirits or attachment. And now, yes, it's important to understand that. And also, you know, we can look at that as like, well, that's depression and that's generational trauma. And I remember talking to my mom, because she's Buddhist, and I was like, Well, it's kind of like I was like, So these bodhisattvas and like these, like all of the are they, I think it's Tibetan Buddhism has like these like demons of some kind. And I was like, so are they real or are they like psychological states? And my mom was said, yes. Yes. The answer is yes. And I said, What do you mean yes? She was like, both of them, both, either, both. And so I feel like that's the tension you're sort of in, you know, having the background of more spiritual training, and then also entering into this more medicalized area, and you're finding your path between the two. So both and it sounds like is your experience and understanding.
Bianca:Oh my goodness, like that resonates with me so much that just yes, like what is it, right? Like, what is the line there? Because sometimes, you know, the outcome, like the healing outcome can end up being the same anyway, right? Like, regardless of what you believe. Like I'm thinking about, you know, yes, it's important. We know facts. Yes, research is important, science is important. Absolutely. We understand how traumas and different things impact people's nervous systems and changes to the brain, and statistically, like what kind of behavioral problems people could develop, right? And like what treatments show that they work, you know, they end up working, that kind of thing. But then when we start looking at, like, okay, what works, right? Um, then we're looking at, you know, the mindfulness and breathing and uh awareness of these things. And I'm thinking about myself from like a psychodynamic lens and using like internal family systems or like parts work. That kind of work is really good for trauma, right? And like especially like trauma, intergenerational trauma. So I really do end up using it a lot just because I end up working with a lot of people of color and um and so oh are you still there?
Nicte-Ha:What is this parts? I've heard I've read I've done some reading before and I've read a little bit about the family systems, but can you cause that sounds a lot like it would be sort of a like a this generation idea of like ancestral healing, right? Is that what it kind of is? Is it it's kind of can you can you use that to kind of also do like ancestral healing? Do you feel like that informs that aspect of what you do?
Bianca:I think so. I think so. I mean, I feel like the part a little like short, you know, informational, right? Like of what is parts work, is essentially the concept that we have different parts of ourselves, right? And these parts of ourselves have different functions, right? There are protector parts, wounded parts, and then very like integrated like self-parts, right? So when we think about wounded parts, we're thinking about parts that experience stress or harm, right? Or trauma. And they could be born at any point in your life. You can have several wounded parts from when you were a child to when you were, you know, 22, right? To when you lost your mother at 35. I don't know, right? Like you have wounded parts of you, they could be different ages, right? And then you have protector parts of you that kind of like develop to protect those parts. So how did you cope essentially? How did you cope? You developed certain like personas, right? Parts of you to cope and protect the parts that were feeling like affected. And there's many different parts. And then there's your self parts, which is probably like, you know, your parts that you feel when you are meditating, when you are deeply in love, in connection. Just like you cry from looking at art, right? Like something moves you. That's like your parts of you that you just are. They just are you. They were your natural personality without this, like, and from Buddhist perspective, right? Like it's like it's you. It's you without attachments, it's you without mental. It's your Buddha nature, right? It's your Buddha state, exactly. Self energy, right? And so there are these parts of you, and then you can start to work with those parts. You identify them, you can name them, you can start to talk to them and specifically do embodied practices to work with those parts and and heal them or talk with them, right? So that to me feels really witchy.
Nicte-Ha:I was gonna say, like, that sounds super witchy, and like, I mean, aren't there rituals like in curanderismo where you've lost parts of your soul, right? And so you do soul retrievals. Yep. It's like it sounds like a medicalized version of soul retrieval.
Bianca:Yep. Which I, you know, again, frustrating because like things it's frustrating to see things kind of like co-opted, recycled without credit given, things like that. Like that is very frustrating, right? And useful for me at regardless in working with people, because then it makes really sense, right? Like, and when you're talking about like the yes and when your mom's like, are they demons or are they mental formations? And I'm like, well, yes, right. Like, do we actually have like parts of us that we're like talking to? Like, I'm like gonna talk in the mirror and I'm really thinking I'm talking to another person or I don't know, right? Like, yes and no, no, but yes, because you actually do have to believe it a little bit and like embody that essentially like have these different parts of you like embodied, right? And like personal uh personalized in order for you to heal them and then integrate them back into yourself, right? It really helps people to look at it that way because it makes it less painful necessarily to confront them because it's like, okay, this other part of me, right? Like it makes it easier to understand the parts of their nervous system and the parts of themselves that were fractured, right? From different experiences and why their coping skills develop. Because we humans love stories. Humans love stories, and we love, you know, connection. We are connection-driven people. So of course we're gonna find it easier to connect with something from this nervous system part of your brain, and this your amygdala. What you can intellectualize that all you want, but is that actually gonna like help you heal? It's useful, but what's actually gonna help you heal is creating this, you know, the narrative part of it, the story part of it, the personified and embodied practices and rituals. Those are the things that show that they work. The mindfulness, all these, and those are things that all these communities of color already had. We already Right.
Nicte-Ha:And then we demonized, then they got demonized and they were told they were playing with the devil and that we had to stop all of them or that they're primitive and all of that stuff. You know, it's interesting you talk about that because just last night my dad's here, my aunt's here, and uh and you know, they, you know, they experienced a fair amount of trauma just because of the community and the way that they grew up, right? And but my dad, it was last night we were really we were talking, and he was I realized he was talking about a specific time in my childhood when we moved, and he was he was expressing to me that his sorrow about the lack of support that my sister and I received from him and my mom during that time in our childhood. And when he was talking about it, I was thinking, oh my God, you know, he had graduated from medical school and he had done his residency, so he had just gotten out of his residency. His father had just died. Like we had moved, and my parents were having additional issues within their marriage. And I'm just like, the amount of stress and my dad was working 60 hour weeks. He did not get, you know, he didn't, and he had two kids, an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old. He didn't go to therapy for the grief, right? And he had a very complicated relationship with his father in many ways. My grandfather was a very hard man in in a lot of ways. I mean, he worked very hard and he was a hard person. He had a lot of his own internal trauma. And so I'm sure that the grief, I mean, my grandmother basically like took to her bed. She was active, but she was she mourned my grandfather very deeply. And so there was just like all of these other family dynamics that were happening in addition to the loss and the 60-hour work weeks and all this stuff. And he's apologizing to me. And I'm and I'm able as an now as a more healed person to sit back and be like, ooh, like that was a lot for you to be dealing with, you know, and I don't I don't know if you ever dealt with the grief over the loss of your father and all this, right? And so, right, but then but for him, he's like, Oh, well, you know, that that happened a long time ago. And I'm kind of like, yeah, but it clearly is still resonating with you inside, and there's still something happening in here that's not fully resolved, right? And we were talking about some other things too that's happening in his personal life, and and I just suddenly had this feeling, I was like, when was the last time you got smudged? You know, like when was the last time? So we did a ritual because I just had this feeling that it was like there was more that needed to like happen, right? Not just to talk about it, not just to but that there needed to be an additional sort of like cleansing of the self, right? The physical body. Yes. And so we did that last night and it it just made me think, you know, we tell our stories and there has to be that com that ritual component to kind of like give ourselves, you know, permission to to move on to a different understanding or whatever. And so, you know, what you're doing is is I think gonna be fantastic for you and for your clients because you have that deeper understanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Nicte-Ha:So yeah, it's it's always nice, and we can do that for our for our loved ones, you know, and we can hold that and see that in ourselves.
Bianca:Yeah, because your your dad essentially was able to like embody the embodiment part, right? Like through that smudge, like he's able to embody that pain and release it. He can through metaphor, right? And through through the smudge, through the smoke, like watch it wash off, like feel it and actively um envision it leaving him, you know? And that is extremely powerful. And like research does show that like these kinds of things are healing, these kinds of embodied rituals are they are healing, you know? They do they do make shifts like in in our nervous systems and in the way that like our brains are wired. And so whatever it is that people believe, like people are like, this isn't are they demons, right? Like the is that actually doing are they demons or are they mental formations? Well, yes, right, because that is what allows us the story part and this these like beliefs is actually what allows us to get into that and embody it, and it works. It works.
Nicte-Ha:So that's wonderful. So I am curious a little bit about just not to shift too far away from from this uh the spiritual journey and question side, but the growing up Mexican American in Pilson, kind of between the two countries, how was that in terms of your identity? I think we talked a little bit about it in the in our pre-meeting. But did you ever feel pulled between having to choose, right? It's similar to choosing a belief system, right? You have to choose, are you an American, are you Mexican? Right. How do you, how do you resolve that? And did you ever feel like you had to make a choice? Did you ever feel any tension either here in the US with family or in your community or when you visited Mexico, right? How do you, how do you structure your identity? And do you identify as like Latina or Mexicano or Indigenous? Or how have you arrived at that understanding of yourself?
Bianca:Yeah. I mean, yeah, it it's such a it's been a journey, I think. I think it's definitely a journey. It's it's probably a journey for most of us, right? Like of the like Latino diaspora. So I I do do identify um as Mexican. You know, my roots are there. They were there for so long. Like both my parents are from there. The lineage is there for a very long time, as long as I can. Um oral history exists for me and as as long as records exist, right? So I definitely identify with the land and with Mexico, even though I was not born there, right? Because I was still raised in a Mexican neighborhood by my Mexican family, with Mexican community and neighbors, right? So I feel very connected in a lot of ways, right, to that land, to the culture, right? To the lineage. But I also then feel right very much from Chicago, like I feel very much like diasporic. Like I certainly, and I was reminded once again on this trip to Mexico that I am not from Mexico, that I was not raised there, that I am very much, you know, American, that I have different influences and experiences and uh privileges and opportunities. And so I very much identify with that experience, right? I think I used to identify a lot as like chicana, like chicana with an ex. I've like veered somewhat away from that. I don't know. People are in uh we have so we, you know, we were Latinx and then we're, you know, we're Latine. Like we're all trying to figure this out collectively. Like what could what works? What is going to be more inclusive? What is what makes more sense? You know what I mean? Like what actually is gonna give us an idea of who people are, right? Like and where people are coming from. And so for me, whenever people ask me, I'm like, yes, I am Mexican. My parents and my family are from Mexico, right? I'm born and raised in Chicago. So I have very much that experience, right? Of um, like an urban experience, I guess, uh, an urban American experience. So that's important to understand my lens and my experiences. I also have to, I mean, I guess you can't tell right now because this is only audio, but you know, I have very light skin, right? Like, so that is apparent. I have very light skin, I have mixed features, I have very, very textured hair, curly hair.
Nicte-Ha:Super jealous of the hair, by the way. Super jealous. Celosa over here. My I got like nothing going on. You have these gorgeous curls.
Bianca:I'm like, thank you. It took me a little while, too, on that same note to to accept that. You know what I mean? Because I think people didn't value it, or people just, you know, people were mean. Other Mexicans were kind of mean to me sometimes. Like, you're Puerto Rican, but in a bad way, they would say it in a bad way, and I'm like, Well, I'm not, but also what's wrong with that? There's nothing.
Nicte-Ha:That's one of the things that's I think people don't know that there's uh, you know, there are people of African descent. I mean, I don't know if that's in your heritage, but there are people of African descent in Mexico, and unfortunately, there is in Latin America, more broadly, not just Mexico, there is a considerable amount of discrimination against black Latinos. And it's not complimentary to be, you know, oh, are you Dominican or Puerto Rican? And usually that's in my experience, that's a coded way of asking, are you black? Right. And there is that stigma in the in the Latin community in in many countries, not just Mexico.
Bianca:Exactly. And so I think, you know, for these reasons, like I have a very like, depending on if I like put makeup on in a certain way and straighten my hair because I have light skin, I can pass, right? But if I don't, if I like, you know, allow myself to not hide certain features, right? Of my facial features, like accentuate certain features. And if my hair is natural, then I then people assume something else of me, you know? So it's like living in this like very racially and ethnically ambiguous space that I think is important for me to note, right? Like, because there is privilege with that, right? Like there is definitely a lot of privilege with that. And it's not all great. There's also certainly white people know I'm not white, right? So so then there's also that. Colorism is complicated in that way, right? Where I think there's a difference between like passing and then having privilege under this horrible system of colorism. There's a spectrum, right?
Nicte-Ha:So that's I agree. Yeah. It's a political dis I think passing to me implies like the political decision to to not raise your non-white ancestry and to not like to me, passing is like I'm just gonna completely pretend that part of myself doesn't exist, right? Like, at least that's that was my understanding of it historically. And there, but there is there is that feeling of like it's odd to have to step up sometimes and be like, no, no, I am this. Don't get it twisted, people. Like I'm all of the rainbow and completely having to push forward your non-white heritage and be like, no, I'm choosing actively to embody this and make it make it obviously part of my public presentation. You know, that's a very different, it's kind of a very different feeling.
Bianca:Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm someone who like, like I said, if I put certain makeup on and I stayed out of the sun and I straightened my hair, if I made certain little tweaks, I have the privilege and the opportunity to pass if I if I were to make those adjustments and choose to do that, like you said, right? But I choose not to, right? And so then that is part of, I guess, my identity as well, right? Like that I am someone who would have that privilege if I were to so choose, which is very different than someone else's experience who has no choice, and I'm someone who's choosing not to, right? So that's yeah, definitely part of part of that uh identity. I think I'm also thinking about like I'd be, you know, remiss if I didn't during Pride Month talk about like, yeah, my queer lineage, right? Like I am a queer person. And I think that that is not separate from my lineage, right? Like that's not to me, in fact, that feels almost like embracing my like fluidity, right? In my sexuality. Um is and that feels very much part of embracing my like cultural lineage as well. That feels connected, that feels like that intertwines. Um, and especially just having community with a lot of other queer uh people from the Latino diaspora and queer people of color from various other, you know, uh cultures. I'm very blessed to have that and to have learned from a lot of people and to have learned from a lot of like elders, both people I've met in person and people who I've read, just like followed authors and and have been had the opportunity to learn from. I think that very much shapes as well then my identity, right? Because there's, you know, you could be a Mexican person that is like, again, I'm Catholic and I'm straight and I follow, I live this certain life. There's like a way of life, right? That's very different. Then I'm like, well, I'm also queer and I value platonic relationships and chosen family, and you know what I mean? Like, what does that look like?
Nicte-Ha:So yeah, no, there's a there's a wide range of of like living your own like it sounds like that's all part of you as a spiritual person, too, right? Like it's choosing your family and it sounds like a lot of like living at crossroads, right? Like intersections and your whole life being at an intersection, right? And flexible and fluid between dichotomies. And the world very much wants us to be either or, right? Gay or straight, right? Nothing in the middle, no, no, or just straight, right? But you want people want to have you into easily reducible categories. And exactly. You know, it sounds like in many aspects of your life, you know, you live in the I want to say interstitial, like the the boundaries and the spaces in between. And that's uh really fluid and powerful place, and actually very relevant to the cards that I drew today. I think it's really relevant. Like, cause I'm talking to you and I've got I the for the listeners, I did a drawing from the Jade Oracle. I think I'm saying this correctly, Oraculo Jaide. I don't know if that's how you say jade in Spanish. Jade? I don't know, J-A-D-E.
Bianca:How do you say it?
Nicte-Ha:So it's this beautiful, I've used it before. It's deities and symbols of ancient Mexico, and it's it's this beautiful deck. I drew uh Oselot, the jaguar, quat, the serpent for the snake, and I drew uh quat first, and I'll read you what it says. I think this is very like relevant. Okay. So it says one of the most important sacred symbols in ancient Mexico, the snake was carved in monumental structures drawn in codices and woven in textiles. Because snakes crawl on the ground and some live in trees, snakes are a connection between earth and sky. There are many images of snakes as a conduit between the worlds, past and present. The reptile also symbolizes the fertile earth and the link between the earth and the celestial waters or rain. So the snake is a synthesis of generative and transformative power. So the image on this one is a snake petate or snake mat. And so this mat in folklore transported the writer to different dimensions, and the snake is a writer, a reminder that you live in a multidimensional universe and that you're in constant transformation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Nicte-Ha:Remain open to all possibilities and allow the serpent to devour you. So I feel like that you are truly like a conduit and a connection between multiple worlds on different levels, and that you've you're weaving a journey for yourself that embodies all of that. This is Bernadette from the future, just breaking in to say that after the call ended, Bianca shared that when they were descending from the cave, there was a rattlesnake stretched across the trail on their way down. So she and I both thought that these were wonderful and magical synchronicities between the snake petate and her rattlesnake connection at the trail. Okay, magic's real. Carry on. And then the Oselot they have here, it says, hello. I can, oh wait, I can do my I know which letter comes before which letter. Know that. So the there it is. Okay, Jaguar. A nocturnal hunter and excellent swimmer, Jaguar symbolizes the night and the underworld and is associated with water. The jaguar is a symbol of power, and many deities sit atop a jaguar throne. Uh, the eagle is considered masculine energy. The jaguar represents feminine energy, and jaguar brings the power and understanding of the underworld, amplifying your intuition. You're invited to embrace your feminine side and the magic of the cosmos. The jaguar brings the energy of personal empowerment through divination and ritual, and jaguar opens the door to transformation, assuring assuring you you can walk safely through the dark underworld. So, you know, all about journeys and transformation and bridge building between worlds and dimensions. And I feel like that really embodies what you do and how you practice and what you've developed for yourself.
Bianca:Oh, a thousand.
Nicte-Ha:So thank you.
Bianca:Thank you for pulling those.
Nicte-Ha:Thank you for sharing all of this with me.
Bianca:I really love the image, that imagery, right? Like of Yeah. Yeah, just like the weaving, just the weaving of different things and like essentially, yeah. Well, we talked about weaving all these different things to create a structure. And you know, but that that you sleep on it, so yeah, the place where you rest, you know, like a where you rest your body.
Nicte-Ha:Well, thank you so much for sharing. I think we're we're I think we've reached like a closure part in our conversation for now.
unknown:Yeah.
Nicte-Ha:But I hope we continue the conversation another time and that we see each other again here in Chicago. Um this was wonderful. So one last thing that I add that I have been asking is, you know, if you have something that you would want to pass on or share with people who listen to this about their own spiritual journey, any advice that you can offer or things that you want them to think about. I just want to open it up and see if there's anything that that comes to mind or into your heart that you want to say, kind of as a as a closing remark for the listeners.
Bianca:Yes. I think for me, probably the most important thing uh that I'd want people to know is to remember that everything is a societal construct, right? And that there are no rules. Like there are rules because there are traditions and there are things that carry can be carry meaning and that you can add meaning to, right? Like certain practices and rituals you can add meaning to, but ultimately there are no rules, right? So that's how I practice. And I've heard it being called chaos magic. I think we talked about it as like a rasquet, just kind of like again weaved together, thrown together with what you have available to you. I want to offer that as like consolation. Like don't try so hard to find you know the rules and the right thing. Like ultimately, you gotta create what is going to be best for you and what means, what is meaningful for you, and what feels right in your body and in your heart. So live in live in the in the liminal space a little bit. Live in the uncertainty a little bit. Allow that, and that might lead you somewhere.
Nicte-Ha:Thank you so much, Bianca. And I'm gonna go ahead and end the recording now, but thank you. It was really a pleasure to have you on.
