Victoria Moran Interview

Victoria Moran is a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in trauma work in her private practice located in Nevada City, California. She works from an integrative and holistic approach, treating clients as a whole being, including their mental, physical, spiritual and cultural bodies. She holds bachelor degrees from the University of Illinois in both Psychology and Anthropology as well as a master’s degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies in Clinical Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. Victoria is also certified as an EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapist which she interweaves with mindfulness-based practices and expressive arts modalities with clients suffering from acute and chronic PTSD. Victoria is also a creative artist as a means to express herself and further integrate her life way. She plays a variety of musical instruments, is an adept fashion designer and seamstress, a skilled leather worker and beader, a multi-lingual dancer, a writer of prose and poetry, and a mixed media visual artist. Victoria has traveled extensively throughout the world and has spent the last 20 years working with Indigenous and First Nations People learning and integrating ritual and ceremonial based practices, ancient cosmological systems, and mythic storytelling wisdom that have informed all aspects of her life. She believes that these experiences have shown her how to walk her life with reverence, integrity, humility, and reciprocity in relationship with the Earth and all sentient beings which is essential and necessary to live this precious life as an initiated human.

OUR INTERVIEW

Stories Of Rematriation Art

We Are All A Part Of The Sacred Hoop

(Acrylic on Wood) 36x36"

"We are bound together on the sacred hoop of life, there is a place for us here on the Earth as a part of this circle, not elevated above or below the other life that we share the planet with. If we have a roll in the degradation of the Earth, then we also have a roll in its healing. When womxn heal, the Earth heals when the Earth heals we all heal. We are all needed.

The four colors of the rings, red, white, black, and yellow, represent a different space on the Sacred hoop. They symbolize the four directions. The sugar skull is connected to the day of the dead and symbolizes our loved ones who have passed away as an honoring of their life. The marigold flower petals were used to lay down a path to welcome the dead to their place of rest at their gravesite. Those petals are represented around the eyes of the sugar skull. The headdress symbolizes Madam Catrina who is the keeper of the souls for the Day of the Dead." - Victoria

The headdress represents Victoria’s integration of both Mexican and European lineages. The flowers are representing her Mexican lineage and the other foliage of Oak and Fern represents her European lineages.

A note to the listeners from Victoria

Greetings. I feel it is of great importance to clarify and contextualize my use of the terms, Indigenous Paradigm and Thriving Life Paradigm, which I reference throughout this interview and use interchangeably, so as to actively sit in a place of humility and reverence with the acknowledgement of my light skin/white passing mixed raced Mexican-European cis-gendered female body advantage. It is important for me to share with you that I do not claim to own these terms, nor do I claim to own any of the teachings that I share in this interview. I am simply speaking from my lived experience of how I have (hopefully) integrated these blessed teachings into a sensical understanding and in turn, offer them to you here in this interview about Eco-Feminism in faith that it may serve you in a most beneficial way.

I attribute the teaching of these terms to Pat McCabe, a Diné woman, with whom I had the honor of being with during this year’s Science and Non-Duality conference which was held online due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is imperative that I specifically acknowledge and attribute so much of what I share about the historical attempted genocide of indigenous European womxn, its effects on the men, and how it is influencing all of us now to Pat McCabe. Her voice on these matters has influenced me greatly and I can’t thank her enough for bringing this to my awareness in a way I haven’t learned about it before.

The way that I have come to understand Indigenous Paradigm and the Thriving Life Paradigm is that they encompass a worldview perspective that: includes a collectivistic orientation that places all life at the center of every decision we make; is non-linear; is intrinsically tied to the natural world; and is holistic in regards to the health and wellness of all lives and sentient beings which includes their spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and cultural aspects of their lived experiences.

For me, the terms, Indigenous Paradigm and Thriving Life Paradigm, encapsulate the essence of the teachings and experiences I have had with Indigenous Peoples with whom I have so humbly sat with and learned from over the last 20 years. It is with a full heart of deep gratitude and humility that I have to these Indigenous People who have so selflessly offered me their presence, guidance and teachings over the years. They have helped me on my life long journey to dismantle the colonial mind that has infected my being since the day I breathed my first breath in this country, which was founded on the genocide of First Nations Peoples and the captured enslavement of African Peoples.

Therefore, I would like to take a moment to name and acknowledge these Indigenous Nations and the land and/or place where they reside out of respect and reverence for whom and where these teaching come from. I will specify where I learned those teachings if not in the land and/or place of the Indigenous Nation named.

I would also like to add that these Indigenous ones that I name are people that I have spent a concentrated and intimate amount of time with over the years. I did not name most these precious ones specifically in the interview as I wanted to be mindful of our available time. Therefore, I would be remiss to not name them here.

To my Indigenous Relatives, I am forever grateful to you all and will continue to dismantle this beast of the colonial mind within myself and speak my voice in the name of justice to uplift yours because your liberation is, always has been, and always will be, bound to mine. You will not be forgotten and you will always have a seat by my fire.

Bless your lives.

Andalusian-Romani Nation, Grenada, Andalusia, Spain Apache Nation, La Madera, New Mexico Aymara and Quechua Nation, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia Hatun Q’ero Nation, Andes, Peru at Mt. Shasta, Shasta, California, and Nevada City, CA Hopi Nation, Second Mesa, Arizona Kānaka Maoli Nation, Big Island Hawaii, Hawaii Mestizo Nation, Ucayali River, Amazon, Peru Nisesan Nation, Nevada City, California Ni-Vanuatu Nation, Vanuatu at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois Oglala Lakota Nation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota and Allen, South Dakota Pomo Nation, Ukiah, California and Redwood Valley, California Q’ero Nation, Paucartambo, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Peru Shipibo-Conibo Nation, Ucayali River, Amazon, Peru Tsimshian, Tlingit and Haida Nation, Anchorage, Alaska Tz'utujil Maya Nation, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, as taught by Martin Prechtel at Bolad’s Kitchen, Ojo Caliente, New Mexico Wolof Nation, Senegal, Africa at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois Zapotec Nation, Oaxaca, Mexico

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Our First two Questions:

How do you feel connected as a womxn to nature or disconnected?

I feel deeply connected to nature as a womxn and as a human being. The how is many layered. As a quick aside, what I like to point out first is the etymology of the word “woman”. It comes from the Old English “wimman” from wifman, from wif which means a woman and man, or a man or a human being. Therefore, its literal transition is “wife-man”, which I find interesting and telling given the state of patriarchy and its insatiable hunger to own. Wives were seen as objects to own, and still are in many instances, unfortunately. Back to your question though. One of the first things that come to mind is about the essence of womxn, which is wild and extremely powerful. I’m referring to wild in its original meaning which is “to live a natural life with innate integrity and healthy boundaries” as taught by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This wildness is inherent of course, in the natural world, in the Earth. The Earth is Mother, the great Mother, the largest feminine creation we know. Myself, as womxn, is directly connected to the Great Mother, as I am a direct descendant of her through my female form. Therefore, I am microcosm of her form and all her wisdom, in my psyche, my body, and my spirit as womxn.
The Wild Womxn archetype, according to Clarissa, is within every womxn, originating of course from the Mother Earth herself which is hard to succinctly define…she is the “woman who lives at the end of time” or the “woman who lives at the edge of the world…she is the trifecta of maiden, mother, crone, she is the creator hag…she is one with no name because she is so vast and simultaneously goes by many names throughout many myths in a vast array of cultures” (pg. 7, Women Who Run with the Wolves.)

The Wild Womxn is the deepest aspect of woman, the knower of the soul, who needs to be expressed through practice. The connection between the womxn and nature is the Wild Womxn archetype and it is through that connection that gives rise to creation. Not only through birthing another human being, but also through the creative arts.
It is essential for all womxn to create in order to live life as wild, to live life with innate integrity and healthy boundaries. If not, there will not only be a degradation of the health of the womxn herself, but to the culture she lives inside of as well as the Great Mother, the Earth Mother, who has given life to everything we interact with and depend upon to survive. When a womxn creates, she is in the process of craft making. And when womxn craft make, they are in the making of something and that something is the soul, or soul offering. It is a gift to the Earth as well as for those who came before them and those who follow after them, for the future generations, the future creations. There is no separation between that which has given us life. We are inherently connected.

Do you see your identity as a womxn to be linked to nature? How?

Absolutely. This brings to mind the story about the sacred hoop and the concept of a thriving life paradigm. This paradigm says that every living being has a seat on the sacred hoop of life, including human beings, in order to contribute to all life thriving through reciprocal relationship.
Given the context of a thriving life paradigm, I then question….What does it mean to be a female of our kind to hold this seat on the sacred hoop? What is my design and how can I contribute to a thriving life paradigm? It has been my privilege to be invited into another paradigm, the Indigenous Paradigm, in the same place where I live, on this incredible Earth, and learn about different ways of living that promotes a lifeway that is life giving and life feeding. This is the Indigenous Paradigm which has helped me immensely find answers to those questions.

Nature births and creates. The biology of womxn does the same as mirrored through her cycles of menstruation and connection to the cycles of the moon, hence the name moontime by some Indigenous peoples. Because of this moontime, womxns’ bodies have the capacity to literally birth life. Again, mirrored in the life-giving and life feeding cycles of nature. We see this in the changing of the seasons, and through death and rebirth of plants and animals and all the living ones.
I have been honored to sit with and listen to Indigenous elders speak of this and I’ve been taught that womxns’ connection to the Earth, to nature, is so profound and of a different quality than say, a man’s body, because womxn have direct access to the living memory and wisdom of the Earth because we have the capacity to birth life, as she does.

This is one of the reasons why so many womxn had a special place to go to amongst peoples across cultures, in the not too distant past mind you, to menstruate together directly on the Earth and receive womxn’s medicine from the Earth herself. This would inform them how to walk their lives as womxn and serve their communities in a good way.
Not only does this speak to the physical capacity to birth life and receive medicine from the Earth through my biology, but I’ve also learned that my female form gives me a spiritual capacity and a special way to contribute to the sacred hoop the only way that I can, as this womxn, as Victoria Kristen Moran. When I learn what my spiritual capacity is, I become empowered in my specialized medicine that accompanies my female form. I don’t need to replicate what the men can do. I have my own place as a womxn and I have medicine to contribute to the human family as such.
I want to be clear here that what I’m speaking to are the female biological counterparts that further life within the biological sphere of humanity. That is not to say that men or folx on the gender spectrum cannot do this. Of course, they can and they do. For example, men participate in ceremonies to connect to the wisdom of the Earth and beyond, such as in the traditional Sundance ceremony of the Oglala Lakota Nation, where they pierce and offer their flesh and blood to receive their medicine that accompanies them in their male form. There are also ceremonial spaces for folx who identify themselves somewhere along the gender spectrum that may include identifying as non-binary or gender neutral or transgender, which in some indigenous cultures have been known as two-spirited beings. They have the capacity to receive medicine that accompanies their two spirited form that no other being can access because they have the ability to go in-between worlds of the feminine, masculine and beyond.
We all have a place on the sacred hoop to contribute to a thriving life paradigm and each is connected to the Earth in their own specialized way.

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