Meet Alicia

My Wayward Path

Alicia at the top of Tumamoc Hill with beloved walking stick.

I am a child of the Sonoran Desert borderlands. I identify as a Chicanx, cis-bisexual-woman. My pronouns are she/her/ella. I am partnered in marriage, and I am a mommy by way of adoption. I was born and raised on the Arizona-Mexico border. I come from generations of people who call the borderlands home. I have come by my work as a curandera through my own pathways to healing. My wayward journeys have taken me to studying anthropology and philosophy, delving into practices of contemplative Christianity, living as a Buddhist monk and nearly ordaining as a Buddhist priest. I eventually earned my Ph.D. in counseling psychology. Throughout all of these journeys, I kept meeting curanderxs who devote their lives to the medicina. As it turned out, no matter which path I took, the medicina was right there too. My medicina continues to be a journey that weaves together both my blessings and my wounds.

The soul's path is not linear. As I lean into the support of land, ancestors, spirit, guides, and the compass of the soul, I learn to trust the bends in the road.
The path is supported, even as it is wayward.

Honoring the Guides on my Journey

(We are nothing without the collective.)

There have been so many curanderxs, teachers, mentors, and friends who have been part of my unfolding journey toward claiming my own medicina. Below I take the time and space to honor some of them by name.

View from the summit at Tumamoc Hill, Tucson, AZ

I honor the Sonoran Desert lands of my birth and the homelands of so many of my ancestors. I honor my parents and their parents' parents' parents before them. In ways they may not even realize, they watered the seeds of the medicina in my heart, ready to sprout when the time was right. I honor the Madres de Maíz, the Corn Mothers, who have nourished the peoples of these lands for millenia.

I honor the land ancestors of the Tucson Basin, where I now make my home with my family. I honor Cemamagi Du’ag, or Horned Lizard Mountain, otherwise known as Tumamoc Hill. The first time I walked this hill after moving back to the Sonoran Desert, I sobbed. By a mystery that is bigger than I understand, I feel a great reunion when I step foot on this hill. Here I offer my most heartfelt prayers to the ancestors and the guardians of these lands.

I acknowledge these lands as the territories of the Tohono O'odham Nation and Pascua Yaqui Tribe. I also acknowledge that the history of Tucson is deeply tied to the Camp Grant Massacre, a brutal massacres of Aravaipa Apache families. May there be healing and restorative repair on these lands.

Me and Rev. Virginia Marie on Guadalupe Tonantzin's Feast day.

I honor my maestra in the medicina, Rev. Virginia Marie Rincon. I honor her maestra, Elena Avila, a great curandera from El Paso and New Mexico. I honor my compadre Logan Sparks, whose work in both the medicina and family constellations has been a continued blessing and healing as I continue to walk this path. Compadre Logan wrote a wonderful paper about Maestra Elena entitled Elena Avila and Curanderismo at the Frontera.

Madre del Mundo sculpture by Marsha Gomez. Alma de Mujer, Austin, TX

I honor with heart, soul, and body the lands, ancestors, elders, and friends at Alma de Mujer in Austin, TX. I was in graduate school studying counseling psychology when I met mentors and friends of a lifetime at Alma: Maria Elena, Beth, Brenda, Gloria, Cynthia, Modesta, Yvette, Velia, Lourdes, Iris, Sylvia, Graciela. You can read about their history and wisdom in my dissertation from graduate school.

I honor Marsha Gomez, one of the founding mothers at Alma de Mujer. I never met her in person but will forever be grateful to her for her vision and offerings to the world.

Ceremony for the coming together of the ancestral medicinas. Serpent and Madre Maíz prayer beads by my friends Erin and Patty at She Said Beads. The Peacock's Tail Alchemy Card LV by Kim Krans.

As a Chicanx person, the more I have been able to root into my Indigenous ancestry, the more I have noticed an inner readiness to acknowledge my own European ancestral threads with roots in Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula.

I honor shamanic practitioner Eamon Willow Davies who has helped me regain my ground and find ancestral support when I was in a process of deep descent. Through Eamon Willow, I have found a living connection with my Celtic ancestors and a path for weaving the medicines.

I honor soul sister and gifted healer Mary Parr of Sourland Wellness, who has journeyed with me through daily prayer, ceremony, and deep questions of parenting in these times.

I honor the rewilding rosary community of Way of the Rose, and the deep Earth-centered offerings of Clark Strand and Perdita Finn. I honor the Firegazers circle of radical reclaiming in working with the dead, as tended by Perdita.

I honor Sabin Bailey who has been a faithful healer, guide, and friend.

I honor Shea in the Catskills, who modeled for me the liberation to enter into the Tarot through a spirit of play and curiosity.

I also honor the invaluable lessons from the teachings of Daniel Foor and the Ancestral Medicine community.

My backyard altar when I lived in Texas.

As a person in my twenties, my first forays out of my Mexican Catholic upbringing were through Buddhism. My wayward journey owes a great deal to the huge leaps of consciousness and worldview I encountered as I stepped into this path.

I honor my first teachers, Ven. Samu Sunim and Sanha Sunim of the Zen Buddhist Temple; as well as Roshi Joan Halifax at Upaya Zen Center.

I honor my dear Dharma brother, Sensei Shinzan Jose Manuel Palma. He and I are Guadalupanos in the Dharma.

Shrine at the foot of Tumamoc Hill, Tucson, AZ (photo by author)

I honor my partner who agreed to take a wild leap of faith and move our family to the desert, so I could return home. I honor my sister who started putting me to work as a curandera almost as soon as I'd moved back to Arizona.

This land, this desert lifeworld, is a place of soul belonging for me. I offer my prayers to the ancestors of this place in gratitude for this life and this gift of the medicina.