Introduction:

The following is an article about the powerful healing journey of Mixtec woman and Intentional Creativity Teacher, Laura Nancy Cruz, created through a special collaboration between her and myself, Intentional Creativity Teacher and Coach, Rosamaria Polidura, Phd. We also collaborated with Intentional Creativity Teacher, Emily Grieves , who has also shared in Laura’s and my own journey with Intentional Creativity here in Mexico.

Laura shares, by first hand accounting in Spanish, about her journey with the Color of Woman training and I have provided translation in English. This translation comes through a bond of trust and sisterhood we have created through our work together as therapist and client, and shared practice of Intentional Creativity.

When I asked Laura how she became involved with Intentional Creativity, she explained her relationships with Emily and myself. And her powerful mystical experience of being led to her own ancestral curandera lineage guided by her great-grandmother who’s spirit showed herself from the very first sessions with me and stayed with her every step of the way.

As well, the first Intentional Creativity Teacher in Teotihuacán, México – Emily Grieves – was an intrinsic part of the reweaving of Laura’s identity as a Mixteca Woman. A very important part of the healing process for Laura has been writing and sharing her healing experience that involved psychotherapy sessions, studying intentional creativity and a deep personal quest with her ancestral lineage.

In this article, there will be sharing from Laura in her own words (translated from Spanish to English) as well as reflections from me on Laura’s story. We hope you will enjoy this collaborative storytelling.

**Note: Full permissions for release of information for the purposes of disclosure in this article have been given by all participating women.

Rosamaría Polidura
Intentional Creativity Teacher and Coach, Phd. in Psychotherapy

 

 

La Mujer Mixteca que Vive en Mi
(The Mixtec Woman that lives within me)

~ By Laura Nancy Cruz, translated to English by Rosamaria Polidura

 

Part 1: The Beginning of My Journey with Intentional Creativity ®

This journey began in weekly psychotherapy sessions that I had with Rosamaría Polidura. During the meditations that we did, a brush always appeared, and I simply painted, but the sensation it produced within me made all the energy flow exponentially. It was at that moment that my psychotherapist put me in contact with Emily Grieves, an Intentional Creativity teacher, located in Teotihuacán, this was my first contact with Intentional Creativity®.

Since the first Muse that I painted with Emily Grieves, my great-grandmother was very present, she was a healer in a town in the State of Oaxaca, México, and the connection with her grew little by little. I continued in therapy and my psychotherapist, Rosamaría Polidura, was in Color of Woman, and I noticed how the energy was shifting, and that is when I told her that I also wanted to be in Color of Woman. I felt like the magic was spread through a paint brush, as well as the connection with the earth, which was beating in the same rhythm as my heart.

In November 2018, I received my acceptance letter to be a Color of Woman 2019, and from that moment my spiritual connection began to change, but this process accelerated with a retreat in Teotihuacan, México where magic supported me in a deep reconnection with my origins, my center as an indigenous woman; between dreams and sacred places, the Mixtec Woman who lives within me was reborn, with a wild spirit, opening an ancestral wisdom that I had not known yet. All this process was captured in a Reliquary Painting, and in all my Color of Woman paintings which was not a short process, taking almost an entire year.

Reflections from Rosamaria:

When I asked Laura about how she uses IC within her own cultural lineage, she poignantly describes how her creative journey took her back to her indigneious heritage. The somatic experience that I had as I was reading and translating her words was that a portal had been opened to her ancestors and to the medicine that lives in her DNA. Laura is now carrying and expressing her medicine with a sovereignty that dignifies her Mixtec Heritage which she poignantly describes here.

“Being a woman with indigenous blood running through your veins and awakening the connection with this earth and the universe through Intentional Creativity, makes magic happen. I began to have strange dreams that allow me to travel in different dimensions, and to connect in a different way with the exterior, especially in Pre-Hispanic Ceremonial Centers.

I started using products that indigenous people use to perform certain rituals, such as COPAL and CACAO, although these products are not necessary to connect with my spirit, I like to use them because it is a reunion with my origins. When I was a child, I remember that the aroma of COPAL was associated with a sacred healing or ceremony. And they gave us COCOA to feed our spirit. These ideas lost strength at a stage in my life, because they were indigenous traditions that to society I should not have. I had to study and to forget all about those ideas, but they came back to me in Color of Woman, where I began to rescue traditions and indigenous rituals that I had in my mind when I was little girl and that helped me to connect to my inner wisdom.”

I was struck by how Laura’s experience reflects the deep healing of the wounds that racism left in her; she needed a sacred space weaved along creative intention to heal deep in her bones the scars of racism and to gather the pieces and beats of her indigenous ancestral heritage, so she can reconnect with the real rhythm of her own wisdom and find her own voice that reflects the codes of her mixtec heritage.

 

Part 2: My Life Journey as Women with Mixtec Blood and Origins

For me from a very young age, racism was part of my life without realizing it. I was born and raised in Huajuapan until I was 18 years old. When I was going to enter the University, I decided to move to Mexico City.

During my childhood and until just a year ago, I felt ashamed of my indigenous features. I told myself over and over again, why I was not born with white skin like my sister, or why I didn’t have light brown hair like some of my cousins, or why I didn’t have green eyes like my grandmother.

I remember since I was a little girl that it was normal to call the people that came from an indigenous community ‘indios’ in a derogatory way, as well as, consider them ignorant people that spoke a dialect and dressed in the typical costumes of the area.

The Mexican festivities on September 15th “The Independence Day”, November 20th “The Mexican Revolution” and December 12th, “Day of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe” were very traumatic experiences for me because it was a tradition in my family to dress like the mixtecs, which was the indigenous community that founded Huajuapan. It was confusing to make a racial difference on one hand and on the other hand, to see that I am a descendant of that race. I am an authentic Mixteca.

I believed that having all the school degrees that I could, I would stop being ignorant, because that was what I thought as a child. On the contrary, the connection with my inner wisdom was getting further and further away, and I continued to be ashamed of my indigenous features.

When I went to schools in Huajuapan, I had classmates who came from various indigenous communities, they spoke Spanish and also a dialect; I remember that most of us didn’t want to team up with them because according to us they were different, and the same thing happened to me in the University; I felt that my classmates didn’t want to team up with me because I was different, so I tried harder in school to show that I had the ability to be there even though, I was different.

My racial perspective began to change when in therapy it came out that I was ashamed of my indigenous traits, there I could see my trauma but I did not heal it.

My healing occurred between the training to be an Intentional Creativity® Teacher and a retreat with the Intentional Creativity ®Teachers Emily Grieves and Rosamaría Polidura, my traumas were healed. Now, I feel happy, at peace and exploring a totally unknown world full of extraordinary adventures.

I understood that having indigenous blood running through my body is the best thing that could have happened to me, because all the ancestral wisdom has passed from generation to generation through our DNA, and it is there ready to be discovered.

The Mixtec indigenous people from whom I descend were very wise people, they left several temples and cities that were destroyed during the conquest, but today these archaeological sites continue to maintain the energy and the ancestral wisdom to which we can have access.

The indigenous communities that live near where I was born continue to maintain many of the customs that our ancestors had, as well as an inexplicable connection with the universe, so they are not ignorant, as I thought when I was a little girl. A university does not teach you to connect with the universe, much less to know your soul.

I remember that when I was little my mother took me to a curandera, and I told my mother that she wasn’t going to help me that we needed to go to the doctor. The curandera only asked me to breathe and to have tea because the heartbeat of my womb was out of control. Now, I understand that she was healing my emotions.

My great-grandmother was also a curandera; she was one of the energies that was also present during the process of reconciliation with my origins; through the painting brushes she was showing me all the light that has been within me and that I could not see.

Before, I wanted to be different from all my grandmothers and great-grandmothers; therefore to cook was not part of my plans. Now, I understand that my female ancestors practiced alchemy while cooking, one of my aunts continues to cook as they did, and there are meals where there must be several women gathering in a circle around the food. Now, I see everything different, it was the way to heal each other, and the food ended up being a delight. The last time I cooked mole with them, I saw how the universe is reflected through its color, flavor and ingredients.

 

Part 3: Living my Life as act of Intentional Creativity®

Legend painting by Laura Nancy Cruz

I became a certified Intentional Creativity ® teacher in 2019. Intentional Creativity is the magic that makes the inner light spread and reflect on the outside, healing every wound and transforming the world.

The racial difference that I saw before has been transformed into bonds of love. Now, I love and honor each of my ancestors.

Although I came from a miscegenation, my indigenous blood continues to run within me, and it beats like a heart about to explode – that energy explodes within each painting I make.

Being in Color of Woman was an alignment of the universe, which supports me to reconcile with my indigenous part with which I was constantly in dispute. I began to heal each of the wounds that I brought in my soul. I believe that within me is the power to heal myself, making all that energy explode and be captured on a canvas, thus rewriting my story.

Intentional creativity has been for me the bridge that connects different dimensions, through which I can return to my origins and honor my ancestors. It is the energy that makes magic happen, and it is the same energy that awakens each cell through a constant vibration, allowing my true spirit to return strong and wild as is its true nature.

As an indigenous woman, I would love for you to know that reconnecting with our origins and our center makes our essence to come out, blooming like a flower in spring.

The indigenous people, in addition to being a warrior race, were wise people who were strongly connected to nature, they recognized its power and its functioning. They connected in a natural way with the cycles of earth, they knew when it was the rainy season for them to sow, as well as the cycle of the duality that exists in nature. Likewise, they recognized nature as our mother because in HER the fruits that feed us are sown; they embraced this same creative power in all women.

Reconnecting with our origins causes information that is stored in our DNA to come out and to transform the vision we had of us, allowing our spirit to flourish again and our intuition to become the guide of the path we walked on this earth.

When you connect with your origins, or with your center, magic simply happens, your vibration and your energy changes, allowing you to see with the eyes of the soul, with your essence, things that you cannot see with the eyes of old identity.

This reconnection is a sacred journey, and our ancestors knew that path, for this reason during the journey you are not alone, and you really find that power that lives within you and was asleep. It is a power that makes you vibrate in a rhythm aligned with mother earth, your heart connects to the power of that infinite energy and messages begin to arrive through dreams or during meditations.

Allow your ancestors to guide you to your center, to that source, where you can change your vibration and your true self is reborn.

Allow the sound of the drum to ring in the same rhythm as your heart and reconnect with your origins, where your life essence and the purpose of your life is in alignment.

Here is a photo at the Top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico (underneath the four petal flower is crafted). It was taken during the Reliquary Retreat that Emily and Rosamaria led. From left to right: Emily Grieves, Guille, Rosamaria and Laura.

 

Learn about Laura’s Intentional Creativity Offerings!
https://lamagiadelacreatividad.com/

There are several workshops that I could not do last year due to the pandemic, and the universe called me to focus on different projects. Now that the path has been opened again, I would love to teach them via zoom. Once we can gather again in person, I have a deep desire to facilitate retreats using Intentional Creativity® in Pre-Hispanic Ceremonial Centers.

I have been using Intentional Creativity® with my colleagues at the office to support and to empower them to reconnect with their essence.

In addition, there is a workshop that I am developing, exploring the history of the “Nahuals and Alebrijes” – seeing the latter as their protective animal.

You can find more about me and my offers here: https://lamagiadelacreatividad.com/

 

 

Learn more about Emily Grieves and Villa Las Campanas in Teotihuacan, Mexico – one of our Musea Global Centers

We have carefully created our small hotel and retreat center for you as a place to feel at home while exploring the energies of the 2000 year old pyramids of Teotihuacan. We welcome all forms of creative expression in our art studio classroom and meditation salon.

Learn more here: https://www.villalascampanasmexico.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article co-authored and translated from Spanish to English by Rosamaria Polidura Intentional Creativity Teacher and Certified Coach; a member of the Intentional Creativity Guild, as well as Musea Co-Curator. Rosamaria holds a PhD in Gestalt Psychotherapy and is the founder of Education as The ART OF HOPE. She lives in Mexico City.