Decolonize Everything

This episode attempts to weaves together personal encounters and academic, historical accounts of human and animal relationships. I reflect on my own encounters with so-called "dangerous and dying" animals--Miko, a reactive dog we adopted; and Francie--a hedgehog dying from cancer. I turn to wisdom from Amazon, Singapore, and ocean mammals. This was produced as a project for a course cal...

September of 1519 in Yucatan, Mexico. September of 2018 in Denver, Colorado, USA. Copal is a powerful incense across centuries, a scent and ceremonial presence familiar to Indigenous peoples, Mexicans, and Chicanx communities alike. But what happens when copal is stolen from Maya sacred sites and brought to storage in Massachussetts? For over 100 years thousands of bodies from Chichén Itzá have be...

On this episode Johanna Guevara of Dropping Seeds joins Rebecca to discuss the ways that we can relate to plants and remember ancestral survival skills and healing practices. Johanna shares her personal journey of Indigenizing her family structure, homeschooling her children, and cultivating herbal medicine. Johanna inspires us to be held by nature and in rooted relationships even in fast-paced ur...

In this episode Rebecca is joined by Jamee Pineda for a conversation about ancestral healing, traditional medicines, and decolonial approaches to remembering and reclaiming knowledge and practices for collective liberation. Listen for insights about food, fractals, and an invitation to reject ideas of "purity" while embracing decolonial pathways for wellness in daily life.  Support Jamee...

In this episode Rebecca is joined by Diana Morales, Purepecha artist and a graduate student at UCLA. Diana generously shares stories from her family, her community, and from the earth. Tune in to hear Purepecha origins of the sacred tabaco plant,  the power of seed memory and planting in community, and Diana's journey of self care and representation through art.  About Diana Morales Diana is...

Welcome to season 2 of Decolonize Everything podcast! In this episode Rebecca is joined by Curandera Erika Buenaflor to celebrate her fourth book, Animal Medicine : A Curanderismo Guide to Shapeshifting, Journeying, and Connecting with Animal Allies Listen to Erika's journey of embracing her gift as a healer. She offers insights and invitations around issues of appropriation and accessibility...

This is the final episode of season 1 of Decolonize Everything and it's a very special episode. Rebecca is joined by her sister Sara Nicole Mendoza. Sara Nicole is a life coach who helps highly sensitive people and empaths learn to regulate their nervous system, and ultimately to step into their power and heal.  In this episode Sara and Rebecca share laughter and lament. Sara offers insights...

In this episode Jenny Medrano (she/they) joins Rebecca for a conversation about deconstructing DEI (diversity equity & inclusion) and envisioning "holistic liberation." Jenny offers practical tips, potential rituals, and profound insights for our path towards decolonization. Also : Join us in celebrating! Jenny has spent the last four years at Building Bridges and when we recorded th...

In this bonus episode I offer critiques of colonial systems and academic assumptions about religion and medicine. I share a bit about my research and experience of an unfolding relationship with copal. The decolonial healing path continues to draw me in. I am deeply grateful and increasingly aware of all that I need to un-learn and re-learn. This is a project for a wonderful course I took this spr...

Have you thought about the way that our transportation systems are colonial? The violence of our cars? On this episode, Jonathon Stalls speaks about "unhurried movement" and every-day opportunities for connection and action in the face of a violent car-centric society. Join the sacred circle as Jonathon and I explore how walking/rolling/moving has transformed our experiences of self and...

In this episode I’m in dialogue with a fellow woman of color podcaster, Natasha Pepperl. Natasha is a foster mom to a teen girl and as a woman of color, she is passionate about finding and sharing diverse perspectives when it comes to foster care.  On this episode we push the edges of our definitions of family, discuss how to care for one another to sustain  good work, and we confront power-dynami...

This is a short audio piece from October 2020 that I created for a Harvard Divinity School spiritual practice "pop-up." As you can see from the last two episodes, I learned a lot of this from Maria and Denise and continue to humbly work towards decolonizing my own spirituality through tending to my altar. As an end of 2020 bonus I want to thank everyone who has come on the show, subscrib...

The second part of Rebecca's conversation with Maria Sierra & Denise Vaughn. To fully engage this conversation go back and start at part one. In this episode we discuss creating and tending an altar as a sacred space and a practice for decolonizing our healing and spirituality. Also check out the bonus episode (right after this!) about Rebecca's altar and reflections after learning f...

Maria Sierra & Denise Vaughn join Rebecca for a virtual sacred circle to discuss decolonizing our understanding of healing. Denise and Maria have been social work professionals for over 25 years and have started to deconstruct the space from many angles. In this episode (part I of the series) we talk about social work, healing-centered engagement, and the ways that we have become more embodied...

 Alejandra (Ale) Salemi, MPH joins Rebecca for a conversation on COVID and Colonization. After graduating with her Masters in Public Health,  Ale spent summer 2020 deployed as a contract tracer for the state of Florida during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We start this show with some time in a virtual sacred circle to breathe and reflect before we dive in to a heavy topic. Tune in to hear A...

Should we get rid of the whole idea of tenure? How is the academy a tool of capitalism? In this episode of Decolonize Everything Dr. Derrick Hudson joins Rebecca in the studio for a conversation about higher education and the institutionalization of learning, wisdom, and knowledge. We had a blast starting the conversation about rethinking tenure, academic journals, and the framework of "publi...

Talking to LaQueta McCauley about #BLM in Episode 1 was just TOO GOOD, so I couldn't help but share this rest of this conversation. In this episode we talk about Denver which LaQueta calls "a place for white people to have fun."  While this is a Denver specific episode, this episode can be seen as a peek into a particular story that has a lot to teach us about the universal reality...

In the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless other black lives lost to police and state-sponsored violence, we have seen a social uprising alongside #BlackLivesMatter. This has been and will continue to be a defining moment in our shared memory of the summer of 2020 and COVID-19. But who is telling the stories of this moment? Capturing the wisdom and insights from marg...