3.2 Treading Paths of Legacy, From D.C. Protests to Honoring the Ancestors

When my feet first touched the ancestral soil of the South, alongside my best friend, Emily, I didn't just feel the ground beneath me—I felt the presence of history, struggle, and an unspoken bond with those who walked before us. This episode is a tapestry of my move to the East Coast, the shared adventures that redefined our approach to advocacy, and a profound quest through lands that hold the whispers of our ancestors. We join forces in Washington D.C. for a powerful protest for Palestine, embodying the spirit of activism and the need for visibility in confronting global injustices.

Journey with us as we navigate the complexities of friendships amid racial realities, and the process of healing through grounding in ancestral lands. The quest brings us closer to the legacy of revolutionary activists like MLK, opening our eyes to the value of self-care woven intricately with the support of our communities. Emily's unwavering support showcases the depth of protective bonds, and her understanding of racial experiences, offering a glimpse into the delicate dance of personal growth within the social fabric.

Lastly, we extend an invitation to connect with the sacred essence of our roots and nature, stepping outside the constant buzz of modern life to honor those who came before. The formation of a beautiful outdoor altar becomes a channel to express our gratitude and communicate with our lineage. This episode is a call to awaken collectively, cherish our spiritual spaces, and foster gratitude for nature's gifts. And for those yearning to delve deeper, I share opportunities for workshops and coaching that nurture your inner child and facilitate ancestral healing—a journey to empower, transform, and honor our legacies.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to I'maTalkAboutIt. I'm Alicia E, empowerment Coach and Ancestral Healer, and I'm here to teach you how to break generational cycles, self-advocate and ascend to happiness. Without the guilt of wanting a better life for yourself, you don't have to choose the same path as those before you. You can choose a better way your way, because if we can each heal ourselves today, we can heal the world tomorrow together. Hello, hello everyone. It is amazing to be back.

Speaker 1: 0:36

I know it has been a little bit of time between this episode and the last one. I have had many changes happen in my life. I decided to move actually to the East Coast instead of to Texas, so that's cool, but I needed some time to be able to do that. I also took some space to heal and to reconnect with the earth and my ancestors, which led me on this beautiful journey with my best friend, emily, which many of you know if you follow me on Instagram. I thought it would be really, really fun, educational and just you know. It might also inspire you in some way to continue to follow your dreams, especially as empowered people whether you're FM or not, empowered people to really create change in the world. But it starts with us. It starts with us believing in ourselves and creating the capacity in our own lives to be able to experience something new and wholeheartedly choose ourselves. That is why, you know, we ended up taking this trip. We had decided that we needed a fresh start. We wanted to start our lives over. We were saying goodbye to our family and our friends and going after our dreams and what that looked like, and both of us really love to travel and we do a lot of activist work for anybody who doesn't know, and is also FM. She is also a white person, and so it's great that we can work together and create content and create information for people to learn from, because we do need to have more conversations where we can have more diverse thoughts and create change rather than division. So it's been such a beautiful journey and today I really wanted to focus on part one of this trip because there is going to be multiple. It was a really beautiful trip and has been going on for weeks almost a month and there's a lot to share, and so for this episode, I'm really going to focus on the ancestral part of this trip and how the trip really started again, going back to that and along our journey to reconnect with who we are on these new lives.

Speaker 1: 3:21

We wanted to make sure that we were also showing up for our community, which meant showing up at protests as much as we could. When we were in California and we saw that there was going to be a protest for Palestine in Washington DC was going to be a march on the White House, and you know, we had liberated ourselves, we didn't have any more attachments. You know, she ended up selling her condo and we had released a lot of our belongings. So we were traveling light and we just had our dogs and we said it's now or never and we believe in change. And so we booked that flight to get to Washington DC so we could really be there for the Palestinian people and for Gaza and create the change that we really wanted to see in this world and be visible, like I think that's a huge part of fighting against this genocide is that we are visible as much as we can. What can be, whether that's on social media or in our family or walking about the streets right, it's good to be visible so people do not forget what is happening across the seas, in Palestine and Congo and Sudan and many other countries and Yemen right People who are fighting for their lives, and there's a power with being visible. There's a power and seeing so many people gather in one place in solidarity and community and love and in hope. And so we booked our flights and we went and shout out to Azure, amazing friend and healer and activist and soon to be Dula, who gave us some amazing suggestions on where to stay and some food places to eat, like it was just all in good timing and we took the leap and we never looked back.

Speaker 1: 5:37

So we ended up traveling to Washington DC and marching that day on Washington and it was a really emotional event, very, very emotional. There were so many people there from all walks of life, speaking all different sorts of languages, just a certain way, but it was very clear that everyone was there for Palestine and there are people who flew from different countries to be there as well. There were journalists from all over, photographers, artists, indigenous folks like. There's so many people there. I don't even know how to explain it, but it was a very powerful moment and we were where Martin Luther King had been as well, doing his activist work not so long ago, and that moment in time was it was very heartbreaking having to stand in a lot of the same places that many activists before us not so long ago I keep saying that, because it really wasn't that long ago had stood and, you know, fight, fought for the freedoms that we have now, and it was just a reminder to continue to keep going and that there's still so much work to do in this world.

Speaker 1: 7:09

And complacency is a dangerous thing to be around, and you know, when we took this trip, we had decided that we were no longer going to be around friends and family members who were complacent, who were too worried about themselves and how their flowers were growing and how to entertain people in their house, and having to ask them for permission to sit in their living room like we. We've gotten to this point where we were like fuck that we're leaving, and again like it's now or never, and we decided to leave and we ended up at this March, and so there was a moment, many moments, during the time we were in DC, because we were there for a few days. Now we're also very inspiring learning about the history and also just seeing the massive amount of people who were there shouting, yelling, stomping, playing music, bringing their drums. There were children singing and dancing. There were children leading in chance, and people were carrying them on their shoulders, giving them microphones. They were leading so powerfully, and so it was very inspiring to also see other generations being so far ahead already, and it really just gave us a sense of hope and belief in this next generation that's coming in, that we really can all do this together, you know, and people were pushing their strollers, had their animals, like no matter what people were going to be there, and it was obvious why they were there, and so, even though there were many moments, we did feel a lot of worry and had a lot of concern, it was, it was very eye-opening, and Emily and I are actually going to do another podcast episode on the event itself, because there are a lot of beautiful things at that event. But there were also quite a few misses that I think many people could learn from and we can expand on as healers and leaders and we had the pleasure of.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Again. I feel like all of this was in just divine alignment and they had journalists that were in Palestine speaking and in Gaza speaking live, or they had recorded videos, but there weren't any translations, and that was a huge, huge miss to hear from the people themselves. And we just so happened to be standing next to two people, one who only spoke English and another one who was translating for their friend what was being said on the monitor, and it just like moved us to tears to hear, you know, the journalists speak about how much love they feel seeing us show up for them every single day and that it it gave them hope every single minute to not give up on their own life, to not give up on their job, to not just give up in general. And you know, one of the main messages was that you should never underestimate the power of one person's voice, or your voice in general, because it it will literally save lives.

Speaker 1: 10:55

And I wish that the whole crowd could hear all of the things that they were saying and just speaking about wanting to live in dignity and to have food, and that every day they were praying and just so grateful for everybody on the other side, even though they couldn't be with them, that their love was felt and that they were putting it out there that they would be able to see us again. And it makes me emotional just to want to talk about it, but I was so grateful in that moment to have like a moment to be able to stand next to a translator who was sharing that the whole time, because the crowd didn't know and the person who would come on stage would give like a short synopsis of you know, like, oh, they said they're really grateful, but it was, it was not to the depth of how they were actually expressing themselves and you know, there were a lot of speakers that they probably could have cut out to, to be honest. But Emily and I again are gonna talk about that because I could go into that for a very long time. But I wanted to share that because it just was a really powerful moment and we wouldn't have been able to experience that and to stand with these people if we didn't follow our intuition, if we didn't believe in doing generational healing and believe in activism and changing the world and Healing our ancestors and working with our ancestors. All of that work led us to that exact moment that felt like it was heartbreaking, but it was also a gift at the same time to have that translator there, and so I Wanted to make sure that that message was also shared with the world, with the world that you know. Their voices are not forgotten, even if there wasn't a translator there and not everybody could understand. And how much like. Also, we could also do a better job at learning other people's languages to be able to understand and Communicate with each other in a whole different way. But what was powerful was that we were all there in community, and that is a universal language of being together, of dancing and celebrating liberation and believing in something larger than ourselves.

Speaker 1: 13:40

And when we stayed in Washington DC, we stayed at a few places, but another hotel that we stayed at, very beautiful location, like right on the water and, of course, like that was so. It just, I'm telling you, the ancestors were just guiding, or guiding us every step of the way, but it was a place where Harriet Tubman had actually crossed with slaves and Some of them made it and some of them did not, and Whoo, that's harder to talk about. It was really really hard, really hard, and we were there also on Martin Luther King day and you know, we connected with the land as much as we can when, much as much as we could. It was also snowing and I had a hard time keeping it together, not that I needed to keep it together, but I, I had just decided, and my friend and I decided, that we were gonna stay inside and have some time to heal and release and reflect on everything that we had experienced at the March and the location that we were at, being with that ancestral energy and seeing the place. That it was now like and just what gentrification is is just wild. But it was like being In multiple timelines at once, because you have that emotional and deep ancestral connection to what was going on. And Standing in that same place, it was almost like you could feel it and hear it, but yet you wouldn't fully understand it. But if you're, you know, african or Identify as black, you would have a better understanding. But even then it's hard to fully understand what our ancestors truly went through, which is why I appreciate my gifts to be able to, you know, be with ancestors in that way and share in emotions.

Speaker 1: 16:09

And we spent a lot of time releasing that day. I, I cried, I wrote, I ate. I think in one of my reels you you might see me sleeping on the ground. I was grounding myself, we were on the top floor and there was a window, and so I, I put all of my blankets and pillows on the ground and we ordered like a couple of carats of hot water and drink tea and we ate and we took naps and we just allowed our bodies to do whatever they needed to do in that moment. Because it was a lot. There was frustration and anger for white supremacy and colonialism and having to experience this and what MLK had gone through, and just that we're still fighting. There's also a lot of pain and sorrow. There's also a lot of hope, and so it was a lot to have in our energy and in our bodies.

Speaker 1: 17:19

But it was an honor. It was a huge, huge, huge, huge honor and I just yeah, I don't even know what to say I'm so grateful because, even though we didn't plan our trip to start that way, it was such a gift, a very divine gift, to be there, like I said, and just ancestral land is just. It makes you speechless. If you haven't really tapped into where your lineage is from or where your lineage has been, I would definitely do it. There's nothing like it and it was an honor and also motivational to myself and my own products and the generational healing that I offer to people and what I'm ready to bring into the world as well and having a connection to speaking and being in places where MLK had been and fought, and continuing to remember that one person can make the biggest impact on the entire world if they just take the risk, if they just speak from the heart and forget for just a moment that the world exists. In that moment, you just allow that energy to flow, allow your truth to flow, allow your heart to be revealed. That is what he did. He existed in love and that's why he was also so impactful.

Speaker 1: 19:05

So I had many activists. Black activists were so impactful because they did it out of love for their community and their family and their ancestors before them. And, like I've said on Instagram, black folk and brown folk are really good at creating community, and it's not because we've had to, it's because it's a part of who we are. It's a part of how our ancestors lived in community. It takes a village, and colonialism changed that, and so it was beautiful to also see, at this March, so many people coming together in community, in a very ancestral energy as well, to speak up for each other. Right, it takes a village and we're all impactful in our own way, and so just a little bit more of a backstory.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I'm not gonna have this one be too long, because I do wanna break it out, because I don't wanna rush some of the things that I wanna talk about. So our drive through the South, so it started in Washington DC and we had this really strong pull, like a calling, you would say, to make the drive through the South and I immediately started freaking out and I was like ancestors, what are you doing? I don't know if I can do that. And I remember speaking to one of my friends. His name is Elith and he's really sweet, very spiritual, very kind, quirky kind of looks. He's great. He tattooed the whites of his eyes black. He's just very talented.

Speaker 1: 21:07

I remember speaking to them because we've both done readings on each other and, even though I felt like I was protected, there is still that real, tangible fear of being a black person traveling through the South and being in places that you're not wanted at all and what that would look like and what would need to happen for me to feel comfortable doing that and how to plan for it. What would we need? What do we do in case of emergency? If we needed, how many stops are we gonna make? Where are we gonna stop, and he was like Alicia, you are so protected, and just reminding me of the ancestors that you're not a black person, just reminding me of the ancestors that are constantly around me and a reminder that I wasn't doing it alone.

Speaker 1: 22:11

I was doing it this time with my best friend, emily, who wanted to do it too and who I literally trust with my life, and I've gone on many trips with other people and other people who are not black, other white presenting people, and she has a way of just being an amazing friend and an amazing ally and made it very clear to me every single day whatever you wanna do, alicia, is what we're gonna do. Like your safety is priority, like she knows that she can go anywhere. She's white, but it wasn't about that. It was about me in that instance and the difference in privilege, and so it was a very honoring and almost humbling experience. I feel like to have a really amazing friend who could show up in that capacity, because I do have other friends who I'm no longer talking to that much, who do present as white and other ethnicities as well, and they dump on me all the time, all the time texting and asking for things, and oh me, oh my, and not once asking how I'm doing and going through the personal journey that I had gone through with my breakup and evolving my business.

Speaker 1: 23:55

I had realized that there were some folks around who I really needed to cut ties with and I had decided, while in DC and also while leaving California, that that was gonna come to an end. And I was grateful that I did that, because it allowed me to also build this really beautiful friendship with my friend, emily, who is literally the best person in the whole world ride or die, very, very protective, and sometimes it's easy to gaslight yourself as a person of color. But she validates every experience and I was like you should be angry, you shouldn't be getting treated like this. And so it made the journey a lot easier. And if you're a black or brown person, when you walk into a space, sometimes you're looking around, you're reading the room, trying to figure out how many white people are in there, how many brown and black folks are there, what people look like, how they're dressed. Thanks FOR WATCHING. It's survival. That's something we have to do and not many white people do that. They don't even know about it.

Speaker 1: 25:12

And she was doing the same thing and I actually I was doing my scans but then, you know, at one stop I was looking at the sign because there were two fences and it was like a gator watch and I was like good grief, what a drive. And then I had said something to her and she was like, oh no, like it's okay, I'm going to keep an eye out on people, you know. And I was like, wow, like I can even take a breather because someone physically has my back. And so it just was a really beautiful experience and to also just honor the coming together of not just ourselves as friends, but like our own ancestors coming together, like working together, to also get us in a space, me and my best friend, in a space where we could be together, where we could hang out together, and she would provide safety for me and I would provide, you know, safety for her.

Speaker 1: 26:22

And it was just amazing and you know, of course, it made me emotional, just thinking about how not even how far we've come, because there's still so much work to do but thinking about how my mom and, you know, her siblings and their parents they couldn't stop at the gas stations that we could stop at and I think that my mom's best friend, you know, fleeing Texas because there were lynchings in his front yard and lynchings are still happening, just so people are aware. Like that's not something that went away. But being able to go and experience that in a different sense of safety was a gift. And it doesn't mean that it's safe for everybody by any means, but it, yeah, it was just, it was an experience and I wouldn't change it for the world and I'm glad that you know we were guided to take that journey and to begin and I'm going to have some more fun things coming for you because while we were on our drive so if you haven't looked at a map, dc to Texas, there's quite a few states that you pass through so we went from Washington DC, drove through Virginia, north Carolina, south Carolina, georgia, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, and then ended up in Texas and we ended up going actually to a concert there as, like you know, we did it, we made it and it y'all I don't even know what to say Like I wish I could share my emotions through the microphone with you all because it just was phenomenal and there were a lot of magical and sexual things that also happened, like how it seemed that every single town that we stopped in or slept in.

Speaker 1: 28:42

We ended up where Martin Luther King was, and I don't always believe in coincidence. So it was a journey of a lifetime and I am excited to share it with you all and also just talk about some more ancestral stuff. Oh, I do want to share one thing that was really great. For anyone who hasn't been to North Carolina, I definitely would go. A good friend reminded me that that was also where a lot of our ancestors came to the US, were stolen, let's be clear. They were taken and then came to the US as in not voluntarily.

Speaker 1: 29:29

They were in the Carolinas and you know we had spent some time there before we did the Washington DC trip and connected with the land, and that also helped before this big trip, figuring out where we wanted to go next. But also, we went to this really beautiful town where Emily had a friend who was so sweet and let us stay in their house for free. It was amazing, it was so great. Such a gift. I'm telling you y'all, like this, I don't even know what this journey is, but it's just magical. They allowed us to stay at their house and not too far away there was a nature preserve had birds and off to the side it was also an old plantation and a lot of that land was plantation land and so it was really powerful and we were able to walk through there and as a medium, it was wild.

Speaker 1: 30:37

But it was great experiencing ancestors in that way and going to the water, and on our last day there, before our big trip, we built an outdoor altar for them. We brought lots of fruit, mango things that our ancestors really liked, things that maybe they didn't have, that we could share with them, our abundance now giving back to them, and we collected all of the elements while we were there and there was this really pretty rock formation in one of the hills and it was kind of grown over with moss and it kind of sat within these tree trunks and it just was very beautiful and ancestral, and so that's where we built it and we collected shells and placed them there and did our meditations and spoke to them and spoke to the water, because it was right on the water and it was really great to be able to connect with the ancestors in that way, in such peace, and to say thank you. I think a lot of people forget to do that. I think there's a misconception one about working with your ancestors Once they're at rest, then you shouldn't disturb them, but your ancestors are actually trying to talk to you all the time In most cases, which is why I do the work that I do the ancestral tarot readings and it was nice to be able to be with them in a different energy and talk to them and give them gifts and say thank you for all of the support that they've given to us all along the way and what they were going to do, which we didn't even know about on our journey. And I invite you all to do that to say thank you to your ancestors regularly, to keep your altars clean, to go out in nature, be amongst the woods, if you can, be near the water and disconnect from technology and colonialism. For 20 minutes, 30 minutes, because it's so needed for the journey that we're all on right now.

Speaker 1: 33:18

Some people call it an awakening. Whatever you want to call it, it's an important journey. The tides are turning, many people can feel it and there's a lot of work to be had. There's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of connection to your ancestors that are needing to be connected to, so it's important that you make time for yourself, for your healing, and to be with the earth, be with Gaia, be with Pacha Mama and allow it to support you.

Speaker 1: 33:48

And if, for some reason, you are wanting that extra connection, you can check the episode on my podcast where I seeing the earth lullaby. It was after I'd come out of a hospital from being really sick and I did the same thing. I went to the water and I connected and that beautiful song came out as a return to the earth is what they were asking us to do, and so you can go check that out. And I think I'm going to end this here because I really, again, I want to go slow and share everything thoroughly from this trip and just be honest, and not everything has to go into an episode, even though I want to, even though I want to talk forever and ever and ever and ever, but I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 1: 34:45

So, thank you all so much, and if you haven't already done so, go grab my book. It's officially out and, those of you who were on the first round, you also get access to a very special workshop that's going to be coming. I'm not going to announce the name yet, but it is going to be free for you and a few things down the road attached to the empowered feminization that I'm also not saying you will have access to that as well. So, surprise, and for those of you who haven't bought it, please do so. It is amazing.

Speaker 1: 35:24

I appreciate all of the support and maybe my story will inspire you to share your story and really live in a place of unconditional love for yourself and your community and just allowing your journey to unfold, however the fuck it wants to unfold. There is no right or wrong way or what it should look like, how it should feel. It all happens in divine timing, as it should. Your ancestors are there every step of the way. Sometimes you got to let the pieces fall to the ground before you can build it back up. So please do buy the book.

Speaker 1: 36:04

I will list it in the show notes, and if you are wanting that one-on-one coaching, please let me know. I have spots of more than worthy. It's also in the show notes. Or if you just want 60 minutes of inner child healing and space held for you, that is available as well in a fly with me session. So I am sending you all lots of love and lots of light. Thank you so much for showing up for me, for showing up for yourself and showing up for the community. And that is it. My friends Love ya so much. Hey, if you're ready to ascend to happiness and live the life you've always wanted, join me in my empowered living Facebook group for socially conscious healers, witches and spirituals and sign up to get my free, empowered 5 practices to Ascended Happiness Guide. It's helped others expand their consciousness and soar beyond sight, sound and imagination in just one day. It's the catalyst you need to embrace your magic and change the world. Just click the link in the show notes and I'll see you in the group next time.