Published by Geez Magazine in 2021 Spring Issue As a mixed person with Indigenous, Latinx, and white heritage, I’ve become practised at acknowledging the historical complexities that live within my own body. I came to doing ancestral work not because I had access to information through websites or even family stories, but because I felt […]
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Naomi Ortiz – Border Narrative Grant Awardee
Ortiz is a 2021-2022 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) Border Narrative Grant Awardee for her multidisciplinary project, Complicating Conversations. Complicating Conversations between Disability Justice and Eco-justice in the AZ Borderlands is a multidisciplinary project using poetry, prose and paintings to describe artist Naomi Ortiz’ personal struggle to bear witness to climate-change and […]
Poetry Finalist for the home(body) project by Cid Pearlman Performance
Announcement from Cid Pearlman Performance Cid Pearlman Performance is delighted to announce the four poets whose work will be featured in the upcoming dance/video/art installation (home)Body, which premieres at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History in January of 2022. This project is made possible by the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship at the Community Foundation Santa […]
Sustaining Spirit Book Discussion Guide
Free GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE for Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice Sustaining Spirit Discussion Guide_Author_Naomi Ortiz PDF SCREENREADER Accessible_Sustaining Spirit Discussion Guide_Author_Naomi Ortiz (For screen reader version, download the PDF) How to use this guide “Self-care is the practice of returning. Of remembering. Of noticing.” This guide is for social justice activists, book groups, social […]
Witnessing is Grief Work
Witnessing is grief work. Witnessing is more than observing, more than watching. I am not unaffected by what I witness – I am not disconnected from the land, community, and world. Witnessing is prayer work. Am I sending fear? More trauma energy? Guilt? Sadness? I gently remind myself that it’s completely fine […]
Pace and place: disability politics at desert speeds
Pace and place: disability politics at desert speeds An interview with Naomi Ortiz by Jessica Suzanne Stokes “From belly button to umbilical cord to roots, Naomi Ortiz traces the relationships between body and place in her work. In the opening of Sustaining Spirit, Ortiz asks: “¿y donde esta tu ombligo? Where are you centered or rooted? […]
Can we practice self-care and still seek social justice?
Update- This show was selected to be featured on KPFA’s National Woman’s Day programming March 8th, 2020. In December, Adrienne Lauby invited me on the KPFA radio show, Pushing Limits, to discuss self-care. We chatted about living in times of political crisis, alternatives to self-sacrifice. Discussing what self-care is, and small doable ways to bring self-care into […]
Nurturing the Diverse Soul
Nurturing the Diverse Soul is out on the 30minutes podcast. This is the second half hour of the Tucson Festival of Books panel, moderated by Dominique Calza, where Dr. Michelle Téllez and I discuss self-care for diverse communities, writing, and motherhood in the academy. From the episode, my response to a young woman of color […]