WoC Summit Podcast: Ellenie Cruz on How Reclaiming our Ancestral Practices Is Deeply Creative Work
Welcome back to Season 1 of the Womxn of Color Summit Podcast!
The Womxn of Color Summit podcast came from a desire to learn from WOC about how they are stepping into their power and embodying their life purpose while dismantling oppressive systems.
Join your hosts Harpinder Mann and Irene Lo as they support BI&WOC on their journey of self-love and soul-care by highlighting speakers who can speak to creative living. We are inherently creative beings with unlimited potential but we can forget the spark within ourselves. Creativity is an act of bravery and our hope with the podcast is to inspire BI&WOC to own their power and pursue their liberation
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/womxn-of-color-summit-podcast/id1531995133
In this episode, we cover:
Creative spark coming from divine guidance
Acknowledging fear & still creating your divinely guided projects despite it
Anxiety is fear when there’s nothing to be afraid of
Ellenie’s journey of listening to her intuition, connecting with her great grandmother & discovering generational trauma
Transcript
Harpinder: [00:00:18] Hi, I'm Harpinder Mann.
Irene: [00:00: 20] Hi, I'm Irene Lo, and we are so happy to welcome Ellenie Cruz as today's speaker for the Art of Creative Living: Womxn of Color Summit. So, before we get started, please, Ellenie, let everyone know who you are and what you do.
Ellenie: [00:00:37] I am Ellenie. I am and do a lot of things. I am a doula, and midwife, and herbalist artist, poet, educator. And I do all of those things, also. All of those things aren't just a title, but those are my kind of ways of being in the world as well. I'm also a Capricorn, and it's really hard for me to separate myself from my work.
So, as you can see, like, my work is literally who I am. And even when I look back at my life, like in some way, I've always been a doula. And a doula means to serve, and I've always been like that serving person, that person who's been helping others, who's been encouraging others to do whatever they want with their life because they have that power and potential to. That's always been a core belief of mine, and I do serve in that way primarily in New Orleans. But I do often travel as well to teach workshops and classes and provide services at conferences and things of that nature.
I'm also the founder of Asc3nsion Art, which is a small, holistic wellness business in New Orleans. And Asc3nsion Art is the hub for many other healing modalities, services, courses, things like that for my community. So, Asc3nsion Art Seeds Atabey School of Cultural Healing, which now hosts some herbalism courses and is going to host a whole lot of more courses for BIPOC people. Asc3nsion Art also seeded the Nola Herb Gathering, which is finished its fourth year this year. And Ascension Art does a whole bunch of other stuff, too. So if y'all want to go to Asc3nsion AKA Asc3nsion spelled with a three, y'all can check out more of the work that I do there.
Irene: [00:02:36] Thank you so much for that. How are you? I hear that you had a big day today.
Ellenie: [00:02:44] Yeah, today was very interesting. I spent yesterday baking cakes for postpartum people who had just had their babies. Some of them were my clients, some of them were my community members. And after that, I spent the rest of the day working on a project proposal for something that I am still working on and not talking about because I am in the stage where, like so many things have manifested from what I've talked about, that this one is just not ready yet. It's kind of like that first couple of weeks of pregnancy where you just find out you're pregnant, and you’re like, I don't know if I want to tell anybody. So it's still in that formative phase where, like the idea and the concept is solid, but it needs a lot of power behind it in order to bring it into fruition.
Harpinder: [00:03:40] So a question that we're asking all of our speakers is what does it mean to be creative to you?
Creative Spark Can Come From Divine Guidance
Ellenie: [00:03:47] For me, to be creative is to be able to manifest whatever your spirit gives you. And when I say manifest, whatever your spirit gives you, it can be a vision. It can be a book, it can be an idea. It can be a saying. It could be something tangible. It could be a network. It could be a family. It could be a friendship or relationship. But being creative is like literally having that power to create and really tapping into the God in yourself. I also feel like being a creative is to have a some type of liberation, even when you don't necessarily feel liberated to be able to create despite what's going on around you, and to have your willpower focus on like, I see this thing and I'm going to make that thing happen, whether it's like I see this friendship and I'm going to make this friendship blossom. I see these plants and these seeds, and I'm going to make these seeds grow so I can have a garden. I see this canvas and I'm going to put my vision and paint it on this canvas. It takes a certain amount of being able to tap into the fact that you are liberated enough to put that out there into the world and make it something tangible.
Irene: [00:05:18] I love that. Yeah, I think that sometimes we put creativity in a box where it's only certain things that we think it's creative, but yeah, it can be a friendship. It can be just creating speech, and that's as long as we tap into the spirit, that is creativity.
Ellenie: [00:05:38] Mm hmm. Just keep thinking about this word, “create”, like and create as like to make. To bring forth. Like, for me, like, I always think about like, these things called syllables. Not syllables, synonyms. The synonyms of all of these different words. So I'm thinking about “to create, to make, to conceive” and like, it's just these like really beginning things that turn into something much larger. And when I think about something so small, like I can't help but think about God. Like you, you just can't help it. And that's literally like tapping into your own god power. When you're taking this little itty bitty thing, this little idea or like this little bit of stardust. And now you have made a person like, there's so many different ways to spin this, this little seed. They always say, What is it? The faith of a mustard seed? And if you ever see a mustard seed is like the size of a head of a pin, but then it gives you these huge, long big leaves that you can feed your whole family with. So, yeah, creating and creating.
Harpinder: [00:06:47] That's so inspiring because I think for me, like, a big part of creating— we were just talking about this— is that connection to spirit. Is when you get this message or whatever it is, that's just like, Hey, you should do it, you should do this. And then either you can listen to it and then create whatever the thing is, or allow the fear to come in to say, well, “What, are you going to make money from that? Is it something that's actually going to become something?” We become focused on the destination, like you almost just cut off your connection to spirit. You're just like, no, like, I already think that this is going to be anything, so I stop it on the path. And I think just this thing of trust, of like, I trust what this is telling me, I'm going to do it anyway.
Acknowledging Fear & Still Creating your Divinely Guided Projects Despite It
Ellenie: [00:07:33] And that's the part. That's what liberation looks like. When you can get out of that fear or you can get away from that fear that's in the back of your head. Or you can just like, acknowledge the fear and say, I see you there, but I still have the free will and free power to create and to continue this project that I'm working on. Or to continue this art piece that I'm working on. Whatever it is, that's where that liberation comes in. When you make the conscious decision that nothing is going to get in your way from making happen whatever it is that you're making happen.
Harpinder: [00:08:08] What are some of the strategies that you have like, when that fear does come and it's just like… whatever it wants to tell you, whatever it’s trying to pull you back from.
Ellenie: [00:08:20] So, I'm going to say the first thing that's coming to my mind. The first thing is coming to my mind and I'm trying not to say it all the way, but it's to not give a f. Like, you really have to like… You can have all the obstacles the world could be falling apart, and you're like, I don't care. I'm still going to do the thing, especially if it's something that makes you feel free, or that makes you feel whole, or that makes you feel happy or satisfied, or it makes you feel gratitude. And the second thing I do, is I actually feel into what is holding me back or what is giving me fear. And I don't ever give myself a lot of time for it, but it feels like a lot of the time I give myself five minutes. And in five minutes if I need to cry, if I need to scream, if I need to destroy something, if I need to… badger myself, if I need to ask myself, what the heck do you think you're doing? I give myself five minutes to do that. I give myself five minutes to be, you know, a regular human being and say, you know what is doubt? Like, Why am I feeling doubt? Why am I feeling like I'm not enough? And like, challenge myself in that space and then say to myself, OK, but how do I move forward after those five minutes of whatever it is that I'm feeling? Whether it's crying, screaming, whether it's rage, whether it's whatever it is, I'm feeling whatever it is. And expressing, because you have to express those things.
But whatever it is that I need to express, I do that and then I say, OK, now what? Because my life don't stop here, like my life don't stop here. My mission don't stop here. My journey don't stop here. So now what? Where do I go with this? And sometimes it's not always so extreme where I have to go through the stages of grief around, like just feeling incapable or like feeling not liberated, feeling stuck. But when I do get to that space, it's like I'm going to go ahead and feel this out, because once I feel this out, I'm going to be much clearer because that fear is going to be gone because I express it. I'm not going to say I've got rid of it, but like I addressed it, I acknowledged it. I said, I see you. I know that this is normal. I know that this is a part of this process. And now that I've acknowledged you, I've got to get back to what I was doing.
Harpinder: [00:10:55] Yes. Yeah. So powerful. I think the part of acknowledging the fear and seeing it and being like, I see you like you are a part of me and I don't need to try to ignore you or pretend like you're not there, or just completely listen to it and give in to it and not go past it. I think that's really powerful, what you said.
Irene: [00:11:21] Yeah. Not letting fear be in the driving seat, but knowing that it's still there with you and you've got to work through it. I would love to know a little bit more about, perhaps, an experience that you've had where you did face that challenge on your path of creation and how you overcame it.
Ellenie: [00:11:41] Man, I have to pick one and I'm like, swirling in my head with all the times that that has happened. I'll start with this. But I remember, and this was not too long to me, like a year, maybe like even two years ago or a year and a half or so, that I was writing in my journal about fear. And it was right before I had decided, you know what? It's time for me to actually go back to therapy. I had only been in therapy when I was a child, and when I was a child, I was an adolescent. I was a teenager. And when I was a child, my mom was there with me, so I didn't really get to say anything, and the psychiatrist automatically put me on medication. I went to school the next day to give the teacher the medication so that it can be taken to the nurse, so I can take it on a regular basis. And my teacher was just like, What happened in therapy? And I was just like, nothing that I can say that my mom said everything. I just sat there and they put me on medication and I got to take pills. He was like, look, it ain’t my business, but I don't want you to get addicted to that stuff. You don't really need to be on it. And I just threw it away and never asked no questions after that. And for some reason, my mom never followed up. So we just, you know, kind of continued to act like nothing happened, right?
I say all that to say that when fear came up, I feel like I kind of like took a twist and I don't know where I was going with that, for one, there came up for me. Oh, because I went back to therapy. So that was my experience with therapy. So I decided that being my experience with therapy and being like, I'm not going to go back because they're just going to medicate me. And I knew when I was young, like at five, like, I don't want to be on medications. And then I knew when I got that medication that I still don't want to be on medication. Like, I knew there was something wrong with these pills that we were getting, so I didn't really want to go back to therapy. But about two years ago, I was just like, No, I need to try to go back to therapy. I need something because there's definitely some things that are missing. And I had gotten to a point in my journey where I realized that healing by myself wasn't possible anymore, that I hadn't done all of the work that I can do as an individual, and now I needed resources for my community. And right before I went back to therapy, I was writing about fear and I had wrote in my journal that… fear moved into my house and.. Is kind of like, she was just real, messy all the time.
She would just come in and walk in the room and throw her clothes everywhere and just be messy and funky and stank. And if she went to go make herself something healthy, she left the blender and turned the blender on and didn't put the lid on. Just turned the blender on and now there's food everywhere. And I'm just feeling all these things in my body, too. Like, I'm feeling all this fear in my body. And that's what fear felt like in my body and in my heart that this blender was going with no lid on. And there's like fruit splatters going everywhere. It's like, I'm trying to be healthy, but they're everywhere. And that being a result of anger leading. Because that was who I was used to. Anger was my roommate. Me and anger were real, intimate together. We were passionate. We were involved. And now fear is in here and fear won't even talk to me. I can't even navigate fear.
So fear has been definitely a challenge for me, because it's been something that's so new. It's been something that is so crippling at times. I've been in a relationship with my partner for seven years now, and there have been several moments where fear has caused me to have an anxiety attack. And I want to mention this because people don't understand that anxiety is fear when there is nothing to be afraid of.
Anxiety Is fear When There’s Nothing to Be Afraid of
It's literally what anxiety is when we're getting nervous, when we're feeling shaky. But we're safe. We have food, we have shelter, we have a job, we have a good life, we have great friends like everything is in order. But we have anxiety. Ok, so that's fear.
That's fear that's uncalled for. And that fear can come from things like doubt. It can come from things like the inability to create, or the inability to see a way out, or the inability to see the positive things that are in your life. And with my partner, he actually made me realize that, by literally.. I'm mid anxiety attack, during some very intimate moments sometimes, if you know what I mean! And like, literally bringing me to the mirror and saying, Look, you're OK, you're OK, you're OK. And then he was like, Say that to yourself, like, look at yourself and say, you're OK. And I was like, I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK.
And it brought me back to a saying that I would say before I knew fear and when I knew anger. I'm not dying and like that, like I'm not dying. There's nothing wrong right now, I'm not dying. And sometimes we get caught up by this anxiety and fear, because sometimes that feels like we're dying. We're not. But it's really hard to get out of that, that feeling. I feel like that was a long answer.
Harpinder: [00:17:34] Yeah, there are some… Just kernels of truth in there. Just like drops. I was like, you need to repeat that! The anxiety is… Just to repeat it again, because I don't think I can even articulate it as well as you did, I was just like, Yes, I feel that in my body.
Ellenie: [00:17:54] This is why I'm glad things are recording. You all better make sure this is recording. And I said this on the healing hypertension thing, too. I don't usually prepare things because I just need to speak for my speech, and sometimes I don't know what I say! I said fear… I don't know. We're going to have to rewind the video and watch it again.
Harpinder: [00:18:20] But isn't that also so telling of like, when we allow a spirit to come through us, the knowledge and the wisdom that just comes out. Other people are like, what did you say? That was the best thing ever. You're like, I don't know.
Just the beauty of creativity and allowing that free expression. Like, not allowing anything to block it. Whether that's fear or like, I feel like sometimes, womxn of color as I walk there are some systems in play, like wether, like we were talking about capitalism, white supremacy, like those things that will try to inhibit us, like inhibit our connection to spirit. And one reason we really wanted to have you on is that, we feel like you're having such a strong connection to your ancestral healing and those healing practices. Not only to heal yourself but to heal the community, heal other people, which is so beautiful. How did you find yourself going to herbalism and going to midwifery and becoming a doula? Because I know in your bio it said that you used to be a high school English teacher, is that right?
Ellenie: [00:19:37] Yeah, yeah. So, I definitely used to be a high school English teacher. And the thing that most people don't know about me is that I've actually been teaching since I was 11 years old. And I've been saying since I was five that like, there has to be something more natural. And I didn't really know then what I was looking for, but like now that I'm 30 and like, have been thinking about this really specifically and being really focused on it in the past five years, just connecting back to my childhood this is also me recovering who I am supposed to be. Me remembering who I'm supposed to be, me remembering who I come from. And in that, in remembering who I come from, I'm able to be my true, authentic self and give that back to my community, so that my community can also do the same thing if they so choose to.
For me, I started teaching when I was 11 and it was in the realm of reproductive justice, which I didn't even realize until last year. I used to teach with a group of peers, literally in middle school, we would be able to get out of our classes and go to all these other schools and put on educational performances, and scripts that we wrote and ask them out. With the topic of HIV, STD, AIDS prevention, teen violence prevention, gang prevention, teen pregnancy prevention and so many other different topics that our community was facing. And that was when I was in Newcastle, Delaware. We taught all over that area. So like we taught in Delaware, we talk in Pennsylvania, we taught in Maryland, which was rare for like teenagers to be able to leave school, to go and teach other people about sex and about reproductive justice because those are all parts of reproductive justice.
And then that was kind of like my way in that got me into like educating and educating after, like graduating at University of Delaware that brought me all the way down to New Orleans. I don't really plan to stay in New Orleans for 10 months, but in New Orleans, I always tell people New Orleans had a completely different plan for me. I did not choose to be here. I was very determined to be here for 10 months and to leave. And when I tried to leave, the universe literally sent me right back. Like, literally. That's a whole other story, but it set me right back and when it sent me back. I continued to teach. But when I continued to teach, I started having these dreams, and when I was having these dreams, it kind of started getting in the way of my life, daily routine and my daily work.
Listening to the Voice of Intuition & Connecting with Ancestors
So when I was on a summer break from teaching, I had a kind of download in the middle of the day that I needed a black woman Reiki teacher. I didn’t really know what Reiki was. A friend had mentioned it to me once when I lived in Delaware, and she was like, I don't want you to think I'm evil, but I want to do Reiki. And I was like, OK, girl, you evil? But I don’t even know what that is!
She was just like, Yeah, it's like, she didn't really know either. Like, I think we're like 19 when she told me. She was like, It's like energy stuff and blah blah blah. And I'm like, Okay, that's what’s up, girl! And then five years later, I was like, I need a black woman Reiki teacher. And when I talked to a friend about it, she was like, Well, why don't you find someone Asian? Isn't that their stuff anyway? And energy work is no one's stuff.
Energy work belongs to everyone. We have these like titles that belong to certain lineages, but everybody can. Every lineage in every culture has a type of energy work. But that's what she said to me. She was like, Can't you just find someone who, you know, is Asian or something? Isn't that their stuff anyway? And I was just like, my spirit, said Black Woman. So I'm not going against my spirit. I'm just going to listen to my spirit. And sure enough, two days later, I found Valerie McMillan, who is the owner of The Ohm Well, and she was on her first Reiki training in two weeks. I did her training, and it amplified my dreams, but it also really messed up my educational career as a high school teacher.
I started teaching that school year, that was in August. I started teaching that school year and in September I started having anxiety attacks in front of my kids. And it was like I couldn't teach anymore, and I was having these dreams of orishas, which comes from the ifa tradition in the Yoruba culture. I was having these dreams of orishas and me dressed as these orishas. And it was kind of like signalling to me that there was a big change about to happen. From there, that same thing that told me Black woman Reiki instructor told me, go be a doula and go to the Earth. And ever since then, it's just like, OK, everything is about the Earth from now on. If it's not connecting me to the Earth, which is also my root. Like we talk about yoga root chakra, which root chakra is also your bloodline, your ancestors. If it's not involving my root, it's not involving the Earth, then I'm probably not going to deal with it too much. And then I quit, I quit teaching. I, like, literally quit, everybody came to me, it was like, Don't quit. Even the janitors at my school, y'all! These janitors, elder black folk that were like, You have a salary job with benefits…Are you crazy?
Everybody: [00:25:33] Mm-hmm.(Everybody laughs.)
Ellenie: [00:25:36] And I went to [inaudible] for three months and I just like spent time in Brazil like looking for people and things. And I was a capoeirista for six years at that point, and I was just like, I'm just going to do capoeira and see where my ancestors lead me. And they ended up leading me from Brazil to Costa Rica to do a flower essence training with what was then known as Central Ashé, which is now a Wild Ginger Herbal Community Center. And after I did their flower essence training, I went into their herbalism training. In between all that, I also did a Doula training. So all the money I had left over from teaching, went to those three months in Brazil and all of the classes. I kind of paid for all the classes ahead of time and then was like, I'm going to stay in Brazil as long as I can until my money runs out and I'll be an English teacher there if I need to. So I taught a little English there. But that journey kind of… not kind of. It completely connected me to my ancestors by the way of the ifa or Candomblé in Brazil.
And then also when I came back to do my doula training. When I came to do my doula training with Nicole Dagens, she had us learn or say the names of our maternal lineage. I was irritated. I was mad. I was like, I don't want to say my mom's name like, I'm not even cool with her right now. I said my mom's name. And I said my grandmother's name. And I don't even know my grandmother's maiden name at that point.
So I said my mom's name, and my grandmother's name. And then when I asked my mom about my great grandmother or her grandmother, she said her name was Armenia. And the moment she said her name, like all of this information, I felt like it started just like flooding back to me. And ever since that point, the direction has been, like most of the time, very clear. Every once in a while, it's just like, Wait, what do you really want me to do? Because that's a lot, that's a lot at once. But the direction has been pretty clear. And even when it comes to learning, like just learning my family's history and understanding the trauma my family has experienced, like when I learned my grandmother's name and now I can ask about my great, my great grandmother. Ok, I know her name. What did she do? What does she work? Where does she work? What was her childhood like? And through asking all those questions, I found out she was an orphan.
And from there, like I can piece together all of the things that have happened to my mom and my grandmother, all the trauma that they've experienced. Because we know what happens to children who are orphans and to be an orphan in a barrio in Puerto Rico on one of the or near one of the oldest or longest lasting indigenous communities, like we know that that wasn't easy. We know that there is lots of trauma involved in that. And then to also marry my great grandfather who was also an orphan, so to also marry an orphan.
It's just like so much in that in so many ways that they fought for survival. I did get to meet her, but I just never knew her name. So like now, knowing her name and knowing some of her history, it makes sense for me. Something that my mother told me was that she used to make these herbal milk concoctions and she used to rub people's bellies. And for a long time, I kept wondering, why do I want to do abdominal massage so much? Why? I don't know why I want to do that. And then to learn that my great grandmother did that? She was like, Whoa. And then epigenetics, I'm trying not to keep rambling, but epigenetics. We were in the wombs of our grandmother. I was in my mom's womb, when my mom was in my grandmother's womb, when my grandmother was pregnant, my mom was there, I was there, you know? So like everything that my grandmother experienced while she was pregnant, my mom I experienced. I may not remember it in detail, but those things impact me as a vessel, as a vessel filled with fluid in my mother's womb. And then all of my mother's life. That's part of the reason why there are some families that have these cycles where, like, maybe the women choose the same partner, where they find themselves falling into the same cyclical trauma that their mothers experience. It's not uncommon to see that because we have already experienced those things, we're already being conditioned while we're just an ovum in the ovary… Yeah. I said a lot y’all, I’m sorry!
Harpinder: [00:30:27] I mean, I just learned about generational trauma and breaking those cycles just last year, and it's so powerful when you start to learn these things and even starting to understand like, how connected we are and how we have access to our ancestors. And like being able to not speak to them in an intellectual way, but be able to like source knowledge and wisdom. But no one teaches you that! You don't go to school and people are like, Hey, like you can speak to your ancestors, you can get wisdom like you can connect with the Earth. No one ever teaches you that. And I think that's why, like on my path, I've been drawn to people like you and to others that are doing this ancestral work because it's just like, there's just no words for it. It's just so powerful. It's just so visceral, like feelings. So everything you said, I'm just like soaking it in. It's so good.
Ellenie: [00:31:34] I’m trying not to make the rest of the answer as long as hell. (Everybody laughs.)
Harpinder: [00:31:39] I mean, I feel like we're coming towards the end. We'll ask you before people how, like how people can connect with you. Just one last, question of like, what brings you joy? Oh, gang, in two sentences or less.
Ellenie: [00:31:59] Oh, I think possibility brings me joy. I'm grateful for that question because that's a small question and it's very simple. Possibility brings me joy. When I think about all the things that are possible, that's joy for me, even in this time, like we're in, we're dealing with COVID right now. We're dealing with the Black Lives Matter movement and the need for justice for black and brown people, the need for defunding and taking off the… how we rely on police because they're not reliable to keep us safe. Even in the midst of all of that, even in the midst of trauma that has been experienced both on personal, on a systemic level, there are so many things that are still possible. There are so many beautiful things that are still here. Even with death being present, it's just like, OK, but I'm still here, and that means they're still possibilities. They're still options. There’s still time. And that brings me joy. That and food, I love food! (Everybody laughs.) And shaking my ass. I love shaking my ass. (Everybody laughs) Yeah, that is the most important one for real.
Irene: [00:33:16] No. Thank you so much for this great interview. We have learned a lot.
Ellenie: [00:33:25] Thank y'all. I guess people can connect with me by following @Asc3nsionArt on Instagram, and that's A-S-C-3-N-S-I-O-N second underscore art. You can also visit Asc3nsionArt.com And then also…What is the other one? Oshun’s Garden podcast on Instagram as @oshunsgarden, it’s oshunsgarden on SoundCloud. Let's see. And then there are some other things, but I'm going to send them to you also. It's just a link that people can click on.
Harpinder: [00:34:07] Perfect. Yeah, we'll share it out. Thank you so much for just such a powerful interview. Like, I'm feeling just so inspired. Thank you so much for agreeing to be a speaker and for being here and for just being a life force that you shared with us and for everyone that's going to tune in. Thank you so much.
Ellenie: [00:34:30] It's a true honor. Like just on the joy tip. Like, I want everyone to be able to feel and see that anything is possible if they have dreams, that those dreams can come true in this lifetime and that they can see them through. And just to acknowledge that whatever hardships come, whatever feelings arise, that they're worthy of being acknowledged. And also you still got work to do because you've got to make them dreams come true.
Irene: [00:34:55] All right. Well, on that note, because I don't think you can top that off. We'll say goodbye for now. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Bye bye!