My name is Lupita, I was raised in Arizona. The Sonoran desert is the first terrain I grew up with. I went to school to study education and received my degree during lockdown. This saved my ass because I would not have passed my student teaching if classes continued as scheduled. So I learned that 1) I am extremely lucky and 2) maybe I’m not right for teaching? (more on that later) I then entered into special education and did that for shy of two years. Try being a type B person and juggling writing extensive service plans, keeping in contact with your students’ parents, and grading as well as lesson planning.

Yeah.

Luckily, the school I worked at was exceedingly supportive.

I learned how to tailor the learning experience for my students, however, and I was good at that. My department chair called me a “natural” my first year. I’ll take that!! And then I began working in behavioral health. I worked as a peer support where I was tasked with providing empathetic support to peoples experiencing crisis. It was one of the most rewarding titles I held. I learned how to offer my heart of servitude to the population we cared for.

I learned how to talk about the hard stuff with patients and turn it into gold.

And then I left to pursue what lights my heart up! This.

It all started when I was introduced to the notion that Mexicans are indigenous, black/African-American, and European. My DNA results from six years prior proved as much. So, I started playing around with the Nahuatl language which eventually led me to read the books Where We Belong: Chemehuevi and Caxcan Preservation of Sacred Mountains by history professor, Daisy Ocampo and Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future edited by Melissa K. Nelson and various authors.

The latter was a series of discussions presented at the Bioneers conference (which I hope to attend one day, someone sponsor me ;)).

So, I did what any normal person would do - I enrolled into a women’s soul business mentorship program. I developed my skills and learned about my intuitive gifts.

In this program, I learned what my gifts are just by being in a container that is built on the foundation of sisterhood and spirituality.

I eventually learned that my sacred medicine is in dance and the root of my work is re-indigenization.

My work with re-indigenization is emboldened by these four pillars:

1) everyone is Indigenous

2) it is about bringing the peoples of the planet back to the planet - our sacred relationship to Earth strengthens the essence of itself

3) re-indigenization is necessary to create a planet that is sustainable for future generations

4) this work is impossible to achieve without community

And dancing for me is like taking a natural pill for depression/anxiety.

I literally sometimes feel so down and then I am willed by nature and by God to make dance videos. And when I do I am exuberated with all the medicine that exists in this embodiment.

And I want and need to pass this embodiment on to other people. It is in my medicine to pass on accessing joy at any given moment and using it to de-center depressive/moody episodes.

Everyone deserves to feel true, natural joy and I know I can show people that through dance.

All this to say I am a natural born teacher and a natural born dancer and a natural born empath and also a wise woman. At the intersection of these virtues, there lies my power. I am meant to bring forth a new foundation for this world. I can’t and won’t do it by myself. I need every soul willing and ready. We #reindigenize because we revitalize. Reindigenizing is about re-aliving ‘what was claimed by others, belonging to us, without sacred respect.’ This is how we fight back. By reindigenizing our bodies and Earth as one.