48. Atava Garcia Swiecicki Teaches How Curanderas(Latinx Healers), Herbalists, & Ancestral Connections Can Be Used to Empower Underserved Communities Who Have Lost Their Healing Roots

Atava Gasrcia Swiecicki is the author of The CuranderX Toolkit Reclaiming Ancestral Plant Medicine & Ritual for Healing. IIn it she writes about the work of Latinx healers called curanderas(os) in the US, often teaching from within the holistic community but are not known about or reach underserved communities. She wants to provide access to these communities who have no access due to financial hardships. Spirit Bound Press says about her book: "centering on women of color and queer, trans, and nonbinary lives, . . . successfully demonstrates how to meld ancient wisdom with modern life, one in which fighting for justice is just what we do as part of our daily practice." It's the only book written to try to reconnect those who have migrated to US and their children, like Atava herself, whose ancestors are Navajo, Mexican, and Polish, to the teachings of ancestors or indigenous roots we all come from, and the need to reconnect us back to a form of healing that our souls can recognize. She discusses some of the techniques she puts into her practice, her line of herbal tinctures like Mend a Broken Heart, and speaks about some of the more renowned names in the field of curanderismo today.

Music Featured:

Will Be By Your Side by MeloMance, and Superstar by Lee Seung Hyub (J.Don) (featuring Cheeze) Solo Debut 

 

Guest Bio: Atava was born in Detroit, Michigan to Mexican/Navajo/Hungarian mother and a Polish father. Currently Atava lives in Tewa Pueblo territory in Albuquerque.  Atava is guided by plants,her ancestors, and her dreams in healing work and in life. As a clinical herbalist and curandera she teaches throughout the US, at venues such as John F. Kennedy University, the American Herbalist Guild Symposium, and Herbalists without Borders, and the famed Mujeres de Maiz in Los Angeles. Atava received her undergraduate degree from Stanford in Feminist Studies and her graduate degree from Naropa University on the Indigenous Mind.  Atava has also developed her own style of ancestral healing work, called Deep Genealogy Coaching.  She is a founding member of The Healing Clinic Collective, which offers free healing services to underserved populations in the Bay Area and has volunteered as an herbalist at the Charlotte Maxwell Center in Oakland, for low-income women with cancer and has been a member of Curanderas Sin Fronteras, which offers free traditional medicine services. Atava has also created her own line of herbal products which can be found in her online store and throughout the West Coast. She is also the author of The Curanderx Toolkit, Reclaiming Ancestral Plant Medicine & Rituals for Healing.

 

Guest Contact:    ancestralapothecary.com

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