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monica cadena

@sacred.alchemist

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🇲🇽✊🏽Afro Chicana
📍Oakland
✍🏽 Storyteller
🫛Comms Director @efodcollab
💞ADHD Baddie on a healing journey
🍄 @the.adhd.alchemist

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✨ Things I’m doing as an ADHD Baddie to Avoid Another Toxic Relationship✨

💞Managing impulse control, understanding dopamine cravings, and setting realistic expectations so I don’t get lost in the fantasy are just a few things I’ve been doing to help me experience healthier relationship dynamics and avoid red flags—including the things I do that give big red flag energy. #selfawareness 🚩 🚩 🚩

💞in addition to self awareness, daily meditations to stay emotionally regulated, having a consistent routine, and learning to handle rejection sensitivity with self-love have been key in my journey of avoiding toxic relationships.

This summer, I’m reclaiming my self-love by focusing on myself and healing my blocks so I can fully step into this next chapter of my life and everything I’m calling in. 🌿💖

As I continue to go through this journey, I asked my sister and wellness coach @dayanamendoza.us to create an offering that I could invite others on similar paths. As we approach the halfway mark, let’s recommit to our goals together in Bloom: A 90 Day Summer of Love Challenge.

🌿Sit in on workshops centered around professional development, healing financial wounds, embracing the dark feminine, reclaiming our worth, and cultivating healthy relationships and more. Think of this as an accelerated bootcamp to the best version of you.

All from a: ✨Trauma informed ✨Decolonial practices ✨Anti-oppressive ✨ Neurodiverse lens.

👉🏽First session is this Sunday at 5pm PST. Register via bio.

#summerofselflove #adhdbaddie #adhdwomen #darkfeminine #darkfeminineenergy #adhdrelationships #healingfromabuse by @sacred.alchemist

What does it mean to be indigenous?

I don’t know what it means to be indigenous, but I know what it feels like to be home.

People from the lands of Mexico are often not seen as ‘native’ although our ancestors walked these lands long before borders existed.

We are the farm workers.

We are the day laborers.

We are politicians and service care providers.

We are the entrepreneurs and street vendors.

We are the ones you forget to include when you acknowledge the wisdom keepers of this land.

We are the ones fighting for sovereignty at the border.

We are still here.

You may forget about us,
But we will not forget about each other.

Mexica New Year, 2023. 11 acatl~ May these seasons and transitions be fruitful to you all.

Tlazocamati & thank you @calpulli_tonalehqueh @tochtliwear @ihcsanjose ✊🏽💕🙏🏽 by @sacred.alchemist

On Saturday, I went to the cemetery to visit my grandfather and uncle + prep their plot with the goodies I was going to get from the Di de Muertos festival in Fruitvale. I also put in some marigolds from a bouquet I had purchased just so I wouldn’t leave the space empty.

When I came back today, on All Soul’s Day, I saw that my marigolds were stolen. I was a little hurt at first, that someone would just take them, but I told myself that at least that meant someone visited them.

But I was BLESSED UP yesterday so spirit knew. Hundreds of dollars worth of marigolds and other flowers were gifted to me after the festival I asked some folks who had displays and were packing up and told them they would be going to the cemetery. It never hurts to ask and they were more than happy to contribute to this personal offering that has now turned communal. I am very thankful 🙏🏽

The native figurine is something my brother gifted me for Christmas. I brought it because it looks like she was dropping flowers from the
basked into the earth. That felt symbolic as I feel she was a mirror for me today.

We lit copal, played Don’t Let No One Get You Down on repeat, and blessed up with Santa Maria.

We decorate graves and plots to welcome, honor, and guide the returning spirits of their loved ones back to the physical world for a joyful reunion. Bright orange marigolds (cempasúchil), known as the “flower of the dead,” and lit candles create a pathway for them to find their way back to us.

May I find a love as devotional as I am to my ancestors ~ till death do us part, and beyond. by @sacred.alchemist

Is Día de Muertos a closed practice? PART TWO

Día de Muertos has a commercialization problem. But we’re overlooking another form of cultural erasure.

In my last video, I questioned the idea that Día de Muertos is a closed practice, and a few people brought up some really important things I didn’t address: the commercialization and appropriation of our cultural traditions.

My original video wasn’t about whether cultural appropriation exists. I was speaking specifically to the historical erasure of African contributions to Mexican culture.

If we’re going to talk about cultural appropriation, shouldn’t we first understand the history of the cultures we’re trying to protect?

That’s why I keep asking: What exactly are we protecting? Whose practices? And whose histories?

Cultural preservation should also mean preserving the FULL history, including the parts that have been intentionally erased.

My invitation is that as we work to challenge appropriation and reconnect with our ancestral practices, we remain mindful of whose voices we’re centering and whose we’re leaving out.

Otherwise, we risk reproducing some of the same colonial erasure we’re trying to challenge.

And I also want to acknowledge the original creator whose post inspired this conversation @huicholamade because I do think they brought up some very valid points on who should and should not participate in this holiday, like folks defending the border.

If you don’t support abolishing ICE, protecting migrant farmworkers, and standing up for the communities most vulnerable under this administration, I don’t think you have any business participating in our cultural traditions while turning your back on the very people keeping them alive.

Honoring our ancestors should also mean standing up for their descendants. #diadelosmuertos #diademuertos by @sacred.alchemist

I recently saw a post by another creator saying Día de Muertos is a “closed practice.” (not tagging them here because they turned their comments off so I’m assuming they were getting some pushback which can be overwhelming,) but I wanted to share some thoughts on this.

While I believe the intention was to honor Indigenous traditions, language like this can unintentionally perpetuate historical erasure and anti-Blackness.

As an Afro-Chicana, I deeply honor our Indigenous ancestors, many of whom had to conceal their spiritual practices within Catholicism to survive colonization.

But we also need to acknowledge our African roots. Enslaved Africans arrived in Mexico in the 1500s, and traditions like Danza de los Diablos, performed during Día de Muertos, preserve that lineage and shared connection between African and Indigenous people. Even Mexico’s second president, Vicente Guerrero, had African and Indigenous ancestry.

Mexico has a long history of erasing its Blackness. As we reconnect with our indigeneity, I think it's important to be mindful not to reproduce the same colonial erasure we’re trying to dismantle.

PS: please give me grace for jumping between Los~working on my westernized tongue 😆

#diademuertos #diadelosmuertos by @sacred.alchemist

Maybe this sounds like I’m gatekeeping, or maybe I’m just too sensitive about this, but I feel like there’s a difference between combating anti-Blackness in Latino communities and taking on a lived experience that isn’t yours.

I recognize that as more of us work to divest from colonialism, it shifts how we perceive ourselves in the world. And I love to see that as someone also reconnecting to parts of my ancestry. But I also think we have to be mindful of how we do that work.

Because there’s a difference between honoring the ancestors who came before us and claiming the lived experiences of them which can, even if unintentional, contribute to the erasure of the stories of people who are navigating those realities in this lifetime.

We also have to be honest how colorism, anti-Blackness, proximity to whiteness, and our different lived experiences shape how we move through this world.

We can’t just distance ourselves from the whiteness or privilege we’ve benefited from our entire lives by reclaiming an identity without also acknowledging how we’ve been positioned in relation to those communities.

Otherwise, I think our reclamation can unintentionally become extractive. We end up reproducing the very erasure we’re trying to undo.

I’m not saying that people who are reconnecting with their African or Indigenous ancestry don’t belong in these conversations. I’m saying that we need to understand our positionality within them.

Our ancestry is part of who we are but it doesn’t automatically mean we’ve shared the same lived experiences as everyone who carries that ancestry.

And I think we need to make room for those distinctions without feeling like our identities are being invalidated.

Part of decolonizing ourselves is also being willing to recognize when our own reclamation might be contributing to someone else’s erasure. by @sacred.alchemist

60 years after Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, the city just put their name on Broadway. 🖤✊🏾

Come with me to witness Oakland and Black history!!!

Today, Oakland commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party by naming a stretch of historic downtown Broadway Black Panther Party Boulevard.

And some of the people who helped shape, preserve, and carry this history were there. Bobby Rush, co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party; Fredrika Newton, former Panther and wife of Huey P. Newton; Mama C (Charlotte Hill O’Neal), former Panther and longtime community organizer in Tanzania; Fred Hampton Jr., son of Chairman Fred Hampton; and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.

My family has been in Oakland since the 1920s. My grandmother went to kindergarten here. So did mi madre, who was born in 1949 and grew up in Oakland during one of the most revolutionary periods in this city’s history.

This feels full circle living my adulthood in a place that holds so much of my family’s ancestral memory. Walking these same streets, knowing what generations before me witnessed, and now being present for another historic moment.

60 years later, the Black Panther Party’s legacy is still being honored in the city where it all began and I’m so grateful to witness and be part of this history.

Grateful to have witnessed this moment and to be part of Oakland’s living Black history. Also—how many cities you know has a mayor celebrating Black revolutionary history? 🥹 This is how we do in the town.

Thank you @hueypnewtonfoundation @blackpantherpartymuseum @bpp60th @mayorbarbaralee @xavierbuck

And shoutout to my sis @sadesalchemy capturing the ribbon cutting because my phone overheated 🥵

+++ music choice in honor of Fela Kuti who would have celebrated 87 years on the 15th ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽

All Power to the People. 🖤
#blackpantherparty #bpp #bpp60 #oakland by @sacred.alchemist

Every sunrise gathering I take something new away from me.

The first year I went many years ago, I learned simply being in the space is enough, even if you can’t see anything beyond the crowd and stand the full five hours (and to arrive as early as possible to get a good seat).

This year, I took every prayer with a deep listening. And asking myself what does it mean to be a good relative? The first year I went, simply showing up was enough. This year, showing up is only part of it. This year I asked myself what do I want to do with all these beautiful prayers that have been blessed in the space? How do I want to be a good relative? What are the ways colonialism seeps into my bones without me even knowing?

It is the work of the oppressor to have us be in battle with one another. In a time when so much sorrow, destabilizing events are occurring around the world, a time of great chaos and unrest, how can I lean into the prayers we have for our communities? Our relatives? Our people? Those we have loved even if conflict divides us in this moment.

I released so much in the fire—truly. I let go of shame, guilt, anger, remorse. I remembered that showing up is only part of the work. Embodying the things we truly value and believe in is just as much part of the work.

I shed a few thug tears, tapped into humility and moved beyond the uncomfortable because what’s more uncomfortable is continuing to build walls between us when we could be building bridges back to one another.

Not by pretending harm hasn’t happened, or abandoning our boundaries, but by making room for humility, accountability, compassion, and the possibility of something different.

Because what good are all these beautiful prayers for our communities, our relatives, and our people if we aren’t willing to practice them with one another?

I don’t want to leave my prayers at the fire. I want to live them.

Aho. Ashe. Ameen 🙏🏽🪶🦅

#indigenouspeoplesday #alcatraz #sunriseceremony by @sacred.alchemist

The first time I heard Erykah’s latest album with The Alchemist was when she performed live at the Greek two weeks ago.

What an experience. It felt like my first encounter with the sacred abuelita ayahuasca, in which I asked her how could she have such this deep and profound experience with me and yet with so many others at the same time?

She said “just because you don’t have the capacity to love/can’t comprehend love the way I do doesn’t mean it’s not real.

So many of the songs felt like they were made just for me and all the feelings/emotions I’ve been holding for so long. Six years to be exact. And in a room of 8,500 people, I felt like Erykah was speaking not just to me, but for me. And in the sea of so many, I held that same truth: while she touched so many with her artistry, words, voice—in my own small world, so many of those songs were a gift from the Universe— an expression of things left unsaid or feelings I didn’t fully have the words for. Still don’t. But in that moment, it made sense of so much. And in the sea of 8,500 to know the recipient of many unfinished conversations got to hear in some form my feelings (even unbeknownst to them) was pretty healing.

Anywho here’s some cute selfies I felt needed to be paired with some profound insight expressed through a caption. ♥️ by @sacred.alchemist

I waited FIVE HOURS to board the ARM Cuauhtémoc and it was worth the wait ( And after hours in line, we finally boarded long after the sunset at at 10:00pm, which ended up being the best part!!! Because the ship was glowing, the Bay Bridge lit up behind it, and seeing the full moon over the masts.)😍🇲🇽🌕⚓️

Fun facts: it’s a 300-foot training ship, and this is the first time in 17 years it’s returned to San Francisco.

Cuauhtémoc comes from Nahuatl which means commonly Descending Eagle and honors the last ruler of Mexica Tenochtitlan, who resisted the Spanish colonizers.

I saw this on the full moon during the last few days of “Hispanic” heritage month. It was really important for me to see it after talking with my mom for a few hours about our family history in Mexico and seeing a Mexican ship carrying an Indigenous name docked in the U.S felt like a powerful symbol of resistance during a time many communities are targeted because of ICE. It was beautiful to see families, elders, kids, flags with so much pride. And grateful it was peaceful despite the wait. 🇲🇽

The ship is on a 92-day training voyage from Acapulco through Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and California. Its last stop was in San Diego before she heads home to Mexico. @semar_mx

Would you have waited five hours for this?

Also: I just registered after years of waiting to enroll with @spanishsinpena which helps folks of Latine descent overcome our ‘no sabo’ allegations. I’m excited to continue to connect with all parts of my culture (on both sides) and deepen ways I can connect with my folks through music, ceremony, art and language. ♥️♥️♥️ by @sacred.alchemist

Nopales @foodjusticec2c ! 🌵

I was going through some of my old content, and found this post I wrote in 2020.

Truly a reminder to speak what you want into existence, because two years later, in 2022, I started working at Equitable Food Oriented Development, @efodcollab, a community controlled fund which acts as an intermediary between philanthropy and community led orgs to fund food projects in organizations doing good work around the country. We do this by deploying non-extractive capital and technical assistance support through the EFOD Fund, deploying over 12 million dollars around the country since 2020 (!) and grown our own community of practice which now includes 51 organizations. ♥️

Almost five years later (truly an accomplishment for a neurodivergent baddie), I’ve had the opportunity to connect with amazing folks doing food and community justice projects around the country. My work has not only taken me to dope places, it’s widened my expansion on how I view capital, strengthened my professional toolkit, and truly grown me as a person in many ways. I’m very, very grateful for the work I get to do.

I’ve been able to visit organizations like @eldepartamentodelafood in Puerto Rico, @rage_englewood in Chicago, @foodjusticec2c in Bellingham, WA, @loitereastcleveland in Cleveland and @connect.cip in Durham and @dbcfsn_detroit in Detroit. Locally, with orgs like @mandelapartners @agroecologycommons @planting.justice @oaklandbloom @otk_eats and so many more wonderful folks doing this good work. I’ve been able to collaborate on projects with people I value deeply like @jumakae @ciara_alanaaa @unearthingjoytogether @girasoulll @coolwatergreensky, @eyeadapt, @sstudiooso @karinabross and @halehzandi and connect with (and learn from) Native led orgs through a partnership with @fndi303 on what community wealth means from an indigenous lens. The work I get to do as Director of Communications is working to ensure our stories, voices and work is not co-opted—I am literally living a dream I wished for so many years before I knew this work existed. I am truly living in my dharma.

Our National Director, Trisha Chakrabarti, explaining the work we do during a learni by @sacred.alchemist

Making peace with the place the hiding came from.

I posted this reflection to my stories after a walk yesterday and felt it needed to be witnessed here as well.

My insecurities have had me in a space of hiding over the last several months. But yesterday, I went on a walk and made peace with the thing that kept me hiding in the first place.

It was a short interaction. But I appreciate seeing how something so subtle can show years of growth.

And for that, I’m glad I went out yesterday. ♥️ by @sacred.alchemist