Many religious, patriarchal, settler colonial systems have caused much harm in my life, resulting in soul loss. Fragmented and in pieces, I spent many moons disassociated from my indigenous spirit, feeling trapped in sunken places + my tonalli, my sacred life force energy, was weak.

Soul Retrieval, giclee, 2023

With the help of my ancestors, my large and powerful guides, slowly I began to scour the Earth and the unseen shadow realms to collect all the scattered knowledge, traditions, truths + vital parts of self 

the parts I had lost

the parts that went into hiding

the parts forcefully taken from me (and my mother, and my mother’s mother, and her mother and all the grandmothers before us).

The warrior self, the inner child, the water bearer, the creative, the divine mother, the storyteller, the life giver, the life destroyer, the one who follows the plants – she collected all those parts of herself in the dark.

Soul retrieval is about the joyful reclamation of self. Everything taken from us shall be returned.

Artist: Denise Silva, 2023   Xicana | Hopi | Mescalero Apache | Cochiti

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