Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives

Foreword: A Meditation

xiii I am deeply honored to have been asked to write the foreword for this book. As I write, I pay my respects first to the Patwin people, who are the original peoples of this land where I live. May they always be blessed. I give thanks for this day of life, for all the lessons I have learned, and all the blessings I have received. I give thanks to Spirit for working with me on this foreword, for my guias personales who inspire my thinkingheart, for the signs I have received as I write, for the songs that have come to me, for the singing of the birds when I go outside to smoke a sacred cigarette, for the singing copal I have burned with sage, cedar, angelica, for the image of Gloria next to me on my left and the votive candle in the purple glass holder. Grácias. Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives is a labor of love, yes, a birthing labor, with analysis, autohistoria , testimonio, poetry, art. As Norma Cantú says, “Every step along life’s journey is indeed a step along a spiritual path” (202). The caminos are distinct for each contributor; some caminos intersect more directly than others. The path is winding como una serpiente, sometimes smooth, tender, sometimes arduous, immensely painful, almost unbearable, full of anguish, llanto, gritos de coraje. With this birthing, though, there is joy, rapture, cariño, relief, healing , y amor, mucho amor. Patrisia Gonzales writes, “Indigenous natural law(s) stress generosity, mutuality, and interdependence” (221). The editors of Fleshing the Spirit have brought together a collective of voices that represent these attributes. As I read the manuscript, discovering the many references to the Earth, the female sacred, the goddesses, the saints, the folk saints, the sweat lodge, known in the north as “Grandmother” and called by women’s names in Mexico, I saw in front of me a familiar image. When I was Director of the Chicana/Latina Research Center at the University of California-Davis, I Foreword A Meditation Inés Hernández-Avila xiv · Inés Hernández-Avila chose for the website an ancient Mesoamerican image from Teotihuacan, a mural fragment (http://clrc.ucdavis.edu/). I wrote, The image is of the Great Mother birthing Coyote. The Great Mother is the Female Principle of the universe, present in all of life. . . . [T]he act of birthing has to do not only with the physical act of giving birth, but also with personal creativity and the creative spirit of the universe. Coyote is the Trickster par excellence, and as such she/he is fitting to represent the radical, transforming, subversive, cutting edge work that is being done by Chicana, Latina, and indigenous women scholars. The divine hands of the Female Principle are also shown, and for us, they represent everything we do, writing, living, loving, being. Fleshing the Spirit reflects an intimate understanding of this principle. Even though there is no direct mention of Coyote or Trickster energy, I find threads of playfulness, directness, boldness, risk, outrageousness, danger. The Trickster, if anything, trusts herself/himself and goes for it, punto. The writers in this collection do the same. It is part of being nepantleras. In a way, nepantleras are in step with the cosmos, because they recognize that the space/place of nepantla is definitely not static, but utterly dynamic, slippery, sometimes rocky, sometimes flowing. Negotiating this space requires alertness, often choosing at a moment’s notice what to do, having a clear sense of self (with all our flaws and virtues), shrugging our shoulders when mistakes are made (sometimes remembering what did not work, sometimes forgetting and repeating the mistakes), laughing at ourselves and at life, longing, wanting what is prohibited, what seems absolutely unachievable, sometimes saving ourselves and others miraculously, with grace and compassion, sometimes surprising everyone with our generosity, wit, and wisdom, picking ourselves up, putting ourselves back together when we are knocked down or destroyed, moving on, always moving on. This is Trickster energy, Coyote energy (I can say this, because I am Nimipu/Nez Perce, so I am a daughter of Coyote). This is nepantlera energy. As many of the writers have indicated, Chicana/Latina/Indigenous women ’s spirituality, the fleshing of the spirit and the spiriting of the flesh, are linked intrinsically to social, environmental and global justice, to the wellbeing of us as women, to our communities and all of life...