Built on Stolen Stones

Hola Regal Ones:

An Indigenous leader and friend once asked me, “Which side of you do you relate to more—the Iberian (Spanish) side or the Indigenous Taíno Caribbean one?”

He wasn’t asking me to choose. He was inviting me to notice—to sit with the ways I had, perhaps unknowingly, separated them in my mind.

Let me explain.

In April of 2022, I found myself wandering the streets of Valladolid, Mexico—a town pulsing with Mayan culture, vibrant and alive. At a small gift shop, I kept noticing a symbol, its presence tugging at me. Curious, I asked the young man at the counter what it meant.

He reached for my hand, placed his gently on top of mine, and said:

“In Lak'ech Ala K'in.”

"I am you, and you are me."

Then, with a knowing look, he urged me to visit the town’s cathedral. "Look at the bricks," he said. "The symbols will be there."

He explained that Spanish colonists had torn down a Mayan pyramid, forcing Indigenous people to rebuild, stone by stone, into a church that now stood as a monument to both conquest and resilience.

So I went. I ran my fingers along the cool, sun-warmed bricks, tracing the faint carvings that had outlived their makers. And in that moment, my blood curled within me—the mindf*ckery of it all.

Because here I stood, both the colonizer and the colonized.

At a cellular level, my ancestors’ stories were never two distinct threads. They were woven together—textured, layered, swirling with both the told and untold stories across the landscape of centuries….

This tangled lineage—of memory, resistance, and reclamation—is why I’m drawn to the work of Dr. Nicholas Powers.

In his book, The Black Psychedelic Revolution, he masterfully weaves history, philosophy, and visionary storytelling to explore the intersections of race, consciousness, and psychedelia—in ways that feel both deeply personal and profoundly universal.

More than an exploration, it is a blueprint for healing—guiding readers through the layers of racial, generational, and systemic trauma with an eye toward liberation.

We will be hosting an interactive virtual session with Dr. Powers on Wednesday, February 26th at 6 PM EST—link to register here.

An excerpt from his book lingers in my mind:

"America is buried under plastic and lies. We have to follow the North Star like our ancestors did before and stand on our tippy-toes, pluck it from the sky. We have to read the night sky like a sheet of music. We have to imagine freedoms that don’t exist yet."

And then—

"I wanted. 

I always wanted.

 I always wanted

 to return to the body

 where I was born…"  Allen Ginsberg, 1954

As we go into this weekend may we ask ourselves, “Do we want to play and live in a world of infinite possibilities or a recreation of our past?”

Con Mucho Amor,

Tanyette