The Indígena project is . . .

a series of 4 day gatherings / residencies for self-identified Indigenous girls, women, mothers and birthkeepers of Turtle Island / Anahuac (aka: the Americas) who want to restore and revitalize their connection to ancestral ways and wisdom of birth and mothering.

This is of particular interest to women who have lost connection with their lineage – and who want to restore what has been broken for their children and ancestors. Many of us are diasporic Indigenous people who have lost contact with our lineages and Indigenous Eldership as a direct result of the The Indian Relocation Act, corrupt Indian adoption policies, Indian residential and boarding schools, military recruitment of Indigenous people, forced migration, borders, mestizo consciouness, shame and hiding etc…

Many of us in the group feel that we do not belong, cannot belong, and yet still feel drawn to make sense of the call of our Indigenous ancestors.

We come together seasonally in residency gatherings to re-create ceremony that has bee lost. We turn to each other relationally to remember, recover and restore who we are as Indigenous women who have lost connection with ancestral relatives, lands, language, and culture of Turtle Island.

We will gather and connect using the gentle tools of Indigneous storywork, laying-on the earth, community theater, dream work, appreciative inquiry, Somatic Experiencing, constellation ceremony, Myth Mending, Earth-Womb medicine, the mesoamerican sweat house (Temazcalli) (to be clear we are working toward an actual community lodge and are committed to honoring local band as well as traditional temazcalli protocols. In the meantime, we learn about the lodge as earth-womb medicine), Susto and Limpia (soul loss and spiritual cleansing) and trauma-driven performance protest – which we will present publicly for the creative representation and restoration of our people.

The Indígena project emerged from our need to:

• remember and restore ancestral wisdom for the descendants of Turtle Island
• interrupt structures and systems of subtle (and not-so-subtle) violence
• create connections across tribal/national/urban/migrant divisions
• collaborate creatively in the ceremony of performative-protest
• celebrate and grieve our Indigenous ancestors
• repair ruptures at individual, relational, socio-cultural and ancestral intersections
• restore somatic healing and visioning ceremonies for birth and mothering

We have been exiled and silent long enough.

We, the members of the Indígena Project, see a way out of the confusion and division and assert that this world has has reached a level of disconnection and disorder that must be addressed… We believe that working together in restorative collaborative creative intimate and activist work will restore our selves, our relationships, our communities and our lineages.

We believe the time has come for this kind of work to find support outside the (perpetuating) structures of schools, therapy, research and the non-profit sector. We believe that our work is important and that with your help we can make real transformations in the way Indigenous people of Anahuac are represented and viewed as well as how they participate in the unfolding future of humanity.

We come together knowing that we cannot do this work alone. We need the earth, the elders and each other.

If you were adopted or otherwise separated from your Indigenous family, we invite you to join us. We welcome girls, women, mothers, grandmothers and birth keepers.

UPCOMING GATHERINGS & PERFORMANCES