In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Rocio Rosales Meza, a Xicana/Mexicana seer, mother, spiritual guide, and initiated medicine woman with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Rooted in a matriarchal lineage, her work weaves together ancestral, Earth-based, and cosmic traditions through the Ñusta Paqo path in the Q’ero Inca lineage.

With over 25 years of experience as a healer and teacher, Dr. Rosales Meza shares how reconnecting with our ancestors, spirituality, and inner wisdom is essential for holistic healing and living in balance with all of Creation. Together, we explore what it means to move beyond conventional systems of care and return to community-centered, sacred ways of knowing and being

In this episode, we explore Pretty by KB Brookins, a powerful, award-winning memoir that confronts identity at the intersections of race, gender, and perception. Drawing from personal experience and Black queer studies, Brookins reflects on what it means to navigate the world as a Black trans masculine person in a society that is quick to define others.

Pretty moves between tenderness and critique, examining both the beauty and the harm embedded within traditional ideas of Black masculinity. Through deeply personal storytelling, Brookins reveals the tension between how we see ourselves and how we are seen, and the emotional labor of resisting imposed identities.

Join us as we discuss themes of self-definition, belonging, and the ongoing process of unlearning. This episode highlights how Pretty is not only a memoir, but also a call for recognition, understanding, and change.

In this episode, we step into the winding, layered world of Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings by Myriam Gurba. Blending memoir, botany, and sharp cultural critique, Gurba invites us to reconsider California not just as a place, but as a living archive shaped by language, power, and ancestry.

Structured like a labyrinth, the book moves through stories of plants, personal history, and colonial legacies, revealing how landscapes carry memory and resistance. We explore how Gurba reclaims narrative authority, using ecology as a lens to examine identity, belonging, and survival.

Join us as we unpack how Poppy State challenges traditional storytelling and redefines what it means to root yourself in place. This isn’t just a story about plants, it’s a story about who gets to name them, who gets to belong, and how we find our way back.