Ramon Parish - Indigenous & Black Together for Healing (AntiBlackness Paradigms)
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish- Is an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University teaching food and environmental justice through contemplative lenses. He is committed to the revival of rites of passage and ceremonies of natural, cultural and cosmic regeneration, through his work with organizations like Golden Bridge, Youth Passageways and Frontline Farming.
Renee Chacon - Policy Education: Water Rights
Renée M. Chacon, is Diné/Xicana/ Filipina, and is the Co Founder and Executive Director of Womxn from the Mountain for transforming education through justice, art, and cultural education as a Sahumadora en Danza Azteca. She works as a Cultural Educator in several environmental justice initiatives to stop environmental racism in Commerce City CO with Suncor Sundown. She was Co Chair on the Equity Analysis subcommittee for the Environmental Justice Action Taskforce and is currently Commerce City Council Womxn for Ward 3.
Maria Chistina Lopez - Food Preservation & Herbalism as Ancestral Medicine
Maria Christina is a mama of 3, student of the Traditional Postpartum Care Treatments, and an avid homesteader. She has a private practice where she weaves together ecopsychology, body awareness, herbalism, and mindfulness, to guide her clients into a deeper understanding and remembrance of themselves and the healing power they hold within.
Mariamor Pazos - Ancestral Herbalism
Mariamor is a Postpartum Doula, Abortion Doula and Folk Herbalist. She has spent the last few years deep in study with the plants, the Maya lineage, and birth work. She is passionate about supporting families during postpartum with ritual, nourishment and sharing what she knows about infant development. She hopes to continue learning from awesome people and organizations about plants, birth, abortion, and so on.
Monserrat Alvarez Matehuala - Nixtamal an Ancestral Way of Preparing Corn
Monserrat Alvarez Matehuala (Guachichil & Mexica) was born in Ventura, CA but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina where she fell in love with community organizing and the outdoors. Her familia is from Iztapalapa, Mexico altepetl (Mexico City) where she has memories of looking at Iztaccihuatl from her abuelita's rooftop. She is a proud daughter of a single undocumom who nurtured her passion for social justice at a young age. Monserrat is a community organizer, outdoor instructor, climber, and danzante currently based in Boulder, CO. One of her love languages is food, and enjoys sharing her passion for ancestral foods with comunidades. She facilitates community experiences in the outdoors through Brown Girls Climb and Latino Outdoors. Monserrat believes that the outdoors can offer medicine and healing for comunidad through remembrance, reclaiming, and rematriation.
Beverly Castaneda - An ancestral Way of Preparing Food
Beverly Castaneda, (she/hers) is a devoted practitioner of diverse healing modalities, utilizing ancestral tools to bring healing to herself and others. Through her 12-year journey of Sacred Living, she has overcome addiction and experienced profound healing in her mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. With ancestral roots in the Ute, Diné, and Tibetan Cranial Medicine, Beverly serves her community as a Board of Directors and Indigenous Relations Consultant for Harvest of All First Nations, aiming to honor Mother Earth and the cosmos by offering intuitive messages, balance, and forgiveness. She passionately passes down Indigenous Knowledge and Sacred Teachings, having immersed herself in Aztec Traditions and becoming an initiate of Oxalju Ochoch Tz’ikin – The House of the 13 Eagles – School of Maya Cosmology & Cosmic Investigation. Beverly's ultimate mission is to extend healing and awareness to her family, ancestors, and community while striving to restore humanity's connection with nature, promote coexistence, and bring balance to the Earth and all its inhabitants.
Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish - Colorado river history and impacts to indigenous reservations, and marginalized communities
Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish brings over 25 years of experience uniting the fields of sustainability and justice. She is a former US State Department BoldFood fellow (Uganda) and served as a US delegate for the Colorado River in Mexico. In 2016 she founded Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability (FLOWS)-- an environmental justice program inspired by the Colorado River and its communities. She is a student and teacher of permaculture and ecological design, deep ecology, and alternative pedagogies. Michelle serves on the Colorado Water Equity Partnership, the advisory board for Frontline Farming, and was recently appointed to the State of Colorado’s new “Biochar for Oil and Gas Plugging” Working Advisory. As founder of “Once and Future Green”, Michelle works with Frontline communities to reclaim culturally-rooted ecological wisdom and power, and trains and consults for governments, institutions, and philanthropy to forward community-driven solutions with transformative anti-oppression and ecological design tools.
Joseph Medicine Robe- Indigenous Wisdom
Joseph Medicine Robe, will offer traditional Lakota prayer songs on the Native flute, traditional Lakota prayer chants with drum, and spoken words of spiritual encouragement. Joseph has shared traditional flute, song and drum at various events over the past decades, including fundraising events for Standing Rock and the arrested water protectors for their legal defense. Joseph has also performed at events in Los Angeles and San Diego, including Red Nation Celebration Institute events (Ford Amphitheater, The House of Blues), as well as in Europe.
Adriana Paola Palacios Luna - Land and Cultural Rematriation/ Matrilineal Societies Health
Adriana Paola Palacios Luna is from Puebla, Mexico and has worked for more than 28 years on socio-environmental justice and social change projects. Her participatory research approach is Communication for social change, Sociology of Culture, Gender Equity, women and gender studies, Human Rights, Art, Culture, and Identity. Culture and Alternatives Building. Participatory planning for social change. She is an artist, a poet, short story writer, storyteller, textile artist, and explorer in the Maker movement. Her organization Luna Cultura , is a bilingual and bicultural company, that provides training, consulting, and research services in the field of Art and Maker Education, to develop skills, leadership, and healing, from an intergenerational approach of cultural identity and good living.
Jorge Figueroa - Indigenous Wisdom
Jorge Figueroa has always considered himself a "sato of the Caribbean". Like a dog of many breeds and from everywhere, he explains. He was born in the Dominican Republic, but grew up in Puerto Rico, where his father is from. His mother is Cuban and now lives in the mountains of Denver, Colorado, in the United States. For a year, he also moved to India, where he worked with elephants and community forests. He has been a lawyer, a poet and an advisor to governors, but he sees himself first and foremost as an environmental worker. Figueroa, who is also the founder of "El Laboratorio", a project that seeks to promote food security in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, has taken a keen interest in urban water conservation.