Episode 52 - Ancestral Postpartum Care with Pānquetzani

🐚Topics covered

• Exploring Mexican traditional medicine (Curanderismo) and its holistic approach to healing
• The sacred postpartum window (La Cuarentena) and its importance for maternal and infant wellbeing
• How colonialism has impacted ancestral healing traditions and ways to reclaim these practices
• The understanding of the womb as both a physical organ and spiritual/energetic center
• Community-based care versus individualistic approaches to healing
• Teaching self-womb care and rebuilding healing traditions in communities

About Pānquetzani 
Pānquetzani breathes life into ancestral traditions, offering time-tested wellness practices, honoring the 4,500 year-old traditions of her foremothers + integrating her lifetime of study into her private practice + daily life.

Pānquetzani comes from a matriarchal family of folk healers from the valley of Mexico (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, y Tlaxcala), La Comarca Lagunera (Durango + Coahuila), and Zacatecas. Hearing family narratives of her tatarabuelas doctoring their comunidades, and experiencing the healing of her abuelas first-hand led Pānquetzani to trust in the innate wisdom of ancestral healing. Use of Indigenous knowledge has transformed + forever impacted her personal, family, + community well-being.

In 2007, Pānquetzani decided to take her practice outside of her own lineage to serve her community. As a traditional herbalist, healer, and birthkeeper, Pānquetzani has touched over 3,000 wombs + bellies spread across three countries + two dozen cities in the last twelve years.

Since 2012, as the foundress of Indigemama: Ancestral Healing, she has taught over 100 live, in-person intensives and trainings, totaling more than 1,500 hours of live instruction on healing and countless hours of free + online education on womb wellness. Today, Pānquetzani has ushered over 8,000 BIPOC members through her online school, Indigescuela. On her days off, you'll find Pānquetzani feeding friends + getting into mischief with her guapo + 4 semillas (children/seeds).

Where to find
Website: https://indigemama.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/indigemama

Book: "Thriving Postpartum" - https://www.indigescuela.com/thriving-postpartum-book

Postpartum Summit: https://www.indigescuela.com/

More about Iris

💬Come say ‘Hi’ on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cycleseeds/

🎓Check out our training

https://www.instagram.com/hormone.cycle.coach.training/ https://cycle-seeds.mykajabi.com/hhcc-20242025

Transcript

[00:00:00] Iris Josephina: You are listening to the podcast of Iris Josephina. If you are passionate about exploring the menstrual cycle, cyclical living, body wisdom, personal growth, spirituality, and running a business in alignment with your natural cycles, you're in the right place. I'm Iris. I'm an entrepreneur, functional hormone specialist, trainer and coach, and I am on a mission to share insights, fun facts, and inspiration I discover along the way as I run my business and walk my own path on earth.

[00:00:37] Iris Josephina: Here you'll hear my personal stories, guest interviews, and vulnerable shares from clients and students. Most people know me from Instagram where you can find me under at cycle seeds, or they have been a coaching client or student in one of my courses. I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into today's episode.

[00:00:57] Iris Josephina: Hello, Panquetzani, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:01] Panquetzani: Thank you, Iris. 

[00:01:03] Iris Josephina: I'm so happy you're here and we have so many beautiful things to cover in this episode. But I would like to start first with, asking you like who you are and what is the beautiful, important work that you do.

[00:01:27] Iris Josephina: My name is  Panquetzani and the work that I do is work with female and women's bodies, reclaiming the womb using ancestral healing. My lineage is from Mexico on my mother's side, we're from Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas everything that's considered La Comarca Lagunera, which is Northern Mexico. Close, bordering Texas. And then on my father's side, we're from the Valley of Mexico, central Mexico, which is Mexico City and Tlaxcala, and what I do is I bring ancestral traditions to life.

[00:02:09] Iris Josephina: I have folks practice the legacy of wellness and healing that our ancestors left for us, so that we can thrive in our bodies, so that we can be hormonally balanced, so that we can be fertile, so that we can have healthy pregnancies recover postpartum and move into menopause in the best way possible. My focus is on health and longevity that includes spiritual, mental, physical health, and all of the things that we need, including community, family, and the social infrastructures that we need to keep us well. Beautiful. And can you share a little bit more about the lineage that you come from, the healing lineage that you come from? Yeah, for sure.

[00:03:04] Iris Josephina: My family practices, what we call Curanderismo. Curanderismo is, it's a Spanish word. It means like healing, like the, the the ism of healing, right? Cura means to here, and it's a Spanish word, but the Curanderismo philosophy is actually not based in Spain or Spanish philosophy. It's rooted in Mesoamerican history, Mesoamerican philosophy.

[00:03:39] Iris Josephina: And we can go so deep into what comes from where, because a lot of post-colonial religions practices and, philosophies of medicine. Curanderismo is not only Mesoamerican medicine, but it also has African influence and European influence. African influence because of the way that Arabs, were in Spain for 500 years and also because of, cohabitation between African enslaved folks and indigenous enslaved folks on Spanish plantations in Mexico.

[00:04:23] Iris Josephina: And this is also where the colonial aspect of the Spanish, European aspect comes into play. So Curanderismo draws from all of these bodies of knowledge to deliver concise, time tested and really relevant, easy healing. So. When I think of Arimo, one of the things that comes to mind is mylan's philosophy of use, whatever you have.

[00:04:55] Iris Josephina: So she'll look in her garden and see what, what is in season, what is in abundance right now. And this is how Arimo grew because that's in Arizona, for example, is not the same aCuranderismo that's in Texas or California or Central Mexico or Northern Mexico. It's all different. And it's all based on local topography.

[00:05:22] Iris Josephina: What can I grab? Are these mountainous herbs? Are these herbs from the forest? What kinds of foods do we have available to us? And so I feel like today, Curanderismo is almost homogenized and it looks like it's supposed to look a certain way. This is right, this is wrong. But those are, it's a false dichotomy because every family and every region practices Curanderismo in their own way.

[00:05:55] Iris Josephina: The philosophy though, is the same. So the philosophy of Curanderismo is that we have a body that is inseparable from our spirit, which means if we treat the body, you also must treat the spirit. You must treat the mind. We are holistic beings. We're not just, patching up a scab. We're cur curing the suto, the fear, the shock that happened when you got that, that cut.

[00:06:34] Iris Josephina: Right? So we're curing everything from, physical to spiritual. The other aspect of Curanderismo is that we believe in animistic forces in our body. We believe in that our organs, they're almost like energy hubs or spirit centers, which means that every organ has its own contribution to the whole. And if one organ, for example, the uterus, if that is not doing well, then the whole is also compromised.

[00:07:11] Iris Josephina: The whole is in WHI Thank you for clarifying that.

[00:07:29] Iris Josephina: Thank you for sharing that. Did you wanna add something more? 

[00:07:39] Panquetzani: Yeah. so in Meso-American philosophy and also in Curanderismo, so the difference between Curanderismo and me, Meso-American philosophy is Meso-American medicine is rooted in ancient religion and medicine, which means all of the herbs and food used are bioregional to me, America.

[00:08:02] Panquetzani: Mm-hmm. But Curanderismo includes everything modern day. So some, not saying I endorse this, but some, some remedies we'll use like Coca-Cola,

[00:08:19] Panquetzani: you know, like boiled Coca-Cola with ginger. some people do that. And I don't say that it's wrong, even though I wouldn't even drink Coca-Cola if I will. for so many reasons. But you know, that's the way that certain people will practice and it belongs to all of us. This is a medicine that belongs to all of us who are practicing. And so the uterus, if we are guardians of our wombs, then we have to realize that when we guard the uterus using Mexican traditional medicine using Curanderismo, that means that the, the spirit of the uterus needs to be, well, not just the physical part of the uterus.

[00:09:14] Panquetzani: And so when we think of, well, what is the uterine spirit? What is the uterine energy? Womb energy is creative energy. It's fertile energy. It's protective energy. 

[00:09:27] Iris Josephina: And 

[00:09:27] Panquetzani: any time that we haven't been able to exert our self-protection or protection of loved ones, any time where our emotions or our soul was chipped away at because we weren't able to use our womb energy, protect, preserve, create, then this impacts the uterus physically.

[00:09:53] Panquetzani: And the way it looks like if the uterus is impacted physically is a dropped womb, a dropped uterus. And in Curanderismo we call this a "matriz caida", dropped womb. 

[00:10:06] Iris Josephina: Hmm. Thank you for sharing that. I love the, the idea that every organ has its contribution, especially if we compare it to like western medicine, how, how. All organs are so separated and literally they have an A department that looks at the kidneys and departments that looks at the womb and everything that's mm-hmm.

[00:10:37] Iris Josephina: Involved in a reproductive system. But obviously we are whole, like our body, literally, it's one piece. When you look at it, it's one piece. 

[00:10:46] Yeah. 

[00:10:47] Iris Josephina: Yeah. So I love how that wisdom is preserved and to me it's the truth. How everything in the body is connected, how organs communicate, and I love that that is how you take that as true and love on and treat the body as a whole so that it can thrive as a whole.

[00:11:13] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And. What, according to you, is the role of this ancestral healing system in our current world. You already explained that every community has their own way, but how do you see this beautiful modality of healing and supporting the body in our current, modern, rather disconnected world?

[00:11:50] Panquetzani: You know, there are so many diverse and unique ways that we implement ancestral medicine today, and one of those ways that I wanna highlight is through postpartum rituals. And I want to highlight this because this is the biggest transition that a woman's body will go through. And culturally, we go through this in silence.

[00:12:20] Panquetzani: We're emotionally neglected. We're neglected a lot of times by healthcare providers. And in the US in particular, we have extremely high infant and maternal mortality death rates. We are in the top five in the world for maternal mortality, and a lot of this happens during postpartum. Ancestral rituals are here to guide us through the sacred rite of passage.

[00:12:57] Panquetzani: And when you compare that to western culture, postpartum is something that we're supposed to do alone and in silence. We're expected to function the same way that we did before. We're expected to be the same amount of productive, we're expected to look good. I say that in quotations, mark quotation marks look good right away.

[00:13:23] Panquetzani: Right? And so there's so much irrational pressure placed on our bodies and our recovery that it really takes the sacredness out. It desanctifies postpartum. 

[00:13:38] Iris Josephina: Wow. Yeah. 

[00:13:39] Panquetzani: And that is a form of gender violence. We, the, the, this country in particular talks about gender violence around the world, right? And we quote unquote it, and we'll talk about other countries and how backwards they are.

[00:13:56] Panquetzani: But what this country needs to do is look at itself. Yeah. This way that postpartum families are neglected is the first form of gender violence that a baby will will experience. 

[00:14:15] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:16] Panquetzani: Right? Because the babies are the ones who are most impacted by this violence against their mother and their families.

[00:14:25] Panquetzani: And so what does postpartum look like in Mexican traditional medicine? And I wrote a book about this. It's coming out September 24th. You can get it at, you can pre-order it now. Actually pre-order it now. Pre-order. Four copies. One for you, one for a family member, one for a friend who's pregnant, one for a friend who's postpartum.

[00:14:54] Panquetzani: I feel like. When you read this book, even if you had your baby 10 years ago, there is such a sense of closure for you. That's why I felt this way. I was right. I wasn't going crazy, I wasn't anxious, I wasn't depressed. I was feeling rage. All of the things that I was supposed to get, I didn't get postpartum.

[00:15:22] Panquetzani: Right. So what does it look like? It looks like traditional foods. It looks like rituals that massage, move limb, bring back circulations that you grow healthy tissue. It's, rebozo rebozo movements, which is, a sheet or a shawl, like a textile, a an indigenous textile that we use to manipulate the body and to.

[00:15:48] Panquetzani: Shift organs to make space in the bones, to stretch out tendons, to make sure there's mobility in the muscle and ligaments, and it's crucial for recovering postpartum. We use healing teas that the vaginal steam bath, herbal slack, bath, and all of these remedies are meant to staunch bleeding in the uterus that you don't bleed out to facilitate oxytocin, which is the love hormone, the hormone that we feel when we're breastfeeding, body feeding or having an orgasm, even when we hope for more than 20 seconds, we're feeling a surge of oxytocin.

[00:16:34] Panquetzani: And so the yerbas do that. They warm the organism, they warm the uterus, they speed healing, they relax your nervous system. So these are protective, these are volatile oils that are protecting, they're guarding you, they're guarding your fire so that you don't burn out. In Meso America, in Lan, where my paternal family's from, we had a tradition where we, and this goes back to pre-colonial times, where you keep a fire lit in the home for at least four days, postpartum, day and night.

[00:17:19] Panquetzani: The fire, the fire, the fire, feeding, the fire, fanning the fire, keeping the family warm, keeping the baby warm, focusing on this fire. One of my colleagues and friends, Jenny Silva, and I quote her in my book, you can read this part in my book, Thriving Postpartum, indigemama.com/book, and she says that.

[00:17:45] Panquetzani: And postpartum and parenting is a sacred fire. And that if we don't tend to that fire, then the fire goes out and chaos happens. Relationships fail. mothers parents don't feel, don't good in their sacred role, you know? Yeah. And it all goes back to the babies. Everything goes back to the babies. I feel like I do work with mothers and wombs, but really the work directly impacts the next generation.

[00:18:24] Panquetzani: Our semi. Yes. We call our, our, our babies, our seeds. 

[00:18:30] Iris Josephina: Oh, I 

[00:18:30] Panquetzani: love that.

[00:18:34] Iris Josephina: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Postpartum is such an. Under honored part of our cyclical continuum. Oh yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. I'm so excited for your book. Like I'm actually in my preconception phase right now, so I'm like researching all the things and I recently discovered that just one and a half generation ago, my ancestors, my grandmothers, they had something called closing sheets in the Netherlands, which are cotton sheets that they used, used to sleep under, and then cut into these pieces, which are very similar to the ribs and the, and the closing rituals and the ung belly binding.

[00:19:18] Iris Josephina: Oh my god. Help this too. You know? That's amazing. I feel it's so important for everybody to just trace back their own ancestry and see what was there, what were, what were we doing before the medical I. took over and destroyed everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:19:41] Panquetzani: That's the first exercise that I have. My students, I teach a course called Reclaiming La Cuarentena and I train practitioners to do what I do.

[00:19:53] Panquetzani: So they go out to their communities and hold these rituals for birthing folks and postpartum folks. And the first assignment that I give them is go back to your mother, your grandmother, your aunts, anyone who was around when you were born, and who gave birth to you. Ask them what that was like. And so many times my students find out exactly what you say, Iris, oh wow, we had these traditions.

[00:20:21] Panquetzani: No wonder I'm here. No wonder I'm in this course. It's because I'm looking to reclaim what is already mine. 

[00:20:28] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Can you explain to people what the is for people who don't know what it's, 

[00:20:38] Panquetzani: I'd love to. The is the sacred 40 day window after you give birth. When you give birth, that's day zero. And then on the 40th day, you complete the Cuarentena.

[00:20:55] Panquetzani: And what do we do in La Cuarentena? La Cuarentena requires you, this is a sacred ritual. It's also a type of self sacrifice, like a, a literal sacrifice where you don't go out, you don't go outside, you don't go anywhere. You stay home, you don't do work. You don't, move your body unless it's to care for yourself or your baby.

[00:21:24] Panquetzani: Hmm. You get taken care of by your family, community, or birth workers. You are given, you were fed three meals a day with snacks in between. We do a, like a corn grill that's really good for calming the uterus, calming after pains, replenishing electrolyte balance, and also encouraging body milk, really abundant body milk.

[00:21:51] Panquetzani: And we drink that in between. You are kept full like a baby. It's almost like they're fanning you up. Yeah, you're never hungry. You're never hungry. If, if you're hungry, then the whoever's taking care of you is doing a bad job.

[00:22:10] Panquetzani: You never got hungry. You're fed before you, you're even have an appetite, and you're just literally being poured into physically, emotionally, spiritually. You're given the rites of passage of the RAs, the closing of the hips, which is really the closing of the bones. We close all of the bones from head to toe.

[00:22:31] Panquetzani: We massage you from head to toe. We do manual manipulation with the rebozo from head to toe, and we feed you caldos, which are soups, bone broth based soups with really well cooked veggies. And, usually corn for carbs. mais like pozoles 

[00:22:55] Iris Josephina: mm-hmm. 

[00:22:57] Panquetzani: they're like giant corn, giant, really starchy corn kernels.

[00:23:02] Panquetzani: and again, those starches keep. Express milk or body, milk abundant. And it keeps, it helps you with your energy because nursing, when you nurse, you burn 500 calories

[00:23:18] Panquetzani: per day. Yeah, per day. Oh wow. You're burning 500 calories to sitting in nursing even if you don't move. So yeah, so it's really important that you have enough nourishment. A lot of folks are worried about, what if I don't have enough breast milk? All you gotta do is rest, eat, and hydrate. And so that's what look Cuarentena is all about.

[00:23:41] Panquetzani: It's about you not having to worry about anything, but you are allowing your body to recover and bonding with your baby. And this is nature. This is nature's cycle. This is what the earth, this is what the universe requires of us in order to have peaceful postpartum. Our postpartum experience will impact our parenting forever.

[00:24:09] Panquetzani: It will impact our relationship with our babies forever. So this small investment, this small sacrifice of 40 days is really, you are investing in your whole life and your child's whole life. And everybody, everybody supports. 

[00:24:32] Iris Josephina: I wanted to say, it doesn't really sound like a sacrifice. It sounds like a 

[00:24:36] Panquetzani: golden, lemme tell you, lemme tell you like, okay.

[00:24:41] Panquetzani: So I was here with my third baby and my mom was cooking for me. It was really good. She, she ferments too. We have traditional fermented foods. My whole family, we, we practice Cuarentena. And so she fermented like huge jars of like different vegetables for me to have every day to make the meals different. She made big old things of soup for me every single day.

[00:25:08] Panquetzani: And then one day she comes over and she's making taco soritos, fried, like flotas, like fried tacos for my husband. And it smells so good. And I can't have fried foods in the La Cuarentena. I can't have hard foods in the La Cuarentena. And so these are like deep fried tacos and I could smell it. I could smell like the corn in the lawn.

[00:25:34] Panquetzani: And I'm like, oh, that's so good. Can you make me some? And she's no, you can't have it. Like you have your soup. Like just, you know, you're doing so good. You're doing so good. Just keep going, having your soup. And I was like, you know, I was like so mad. I was like told my ex-Ray, eat in the other room. I can have that.

[00:25:52] Panquetzani: I wanna watch you. Eat that good stuff. So it, it is delicious. It's wonderful. And a lot of times like you're eating nothing but soups for 40 days. Hmm. Drinking nothing but hot things. It's, it could be a hot ass day, you still gotta drink your hot ass tea and sweat. No ice, no cold water. So it is beautiful.

[00:26:18] Panquetzani: But there are those moments that are like, oh, you just gotta be motivated and know that this is gonna pay off in the end. Yeah. 

[00:26:30] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that. So much wisdom in this. And let's see, we spoke about the ana. I think that's a very beautiful like thing for people to remember because a lot of cultures.

[00:26:51] Iris Josephina: We don't take that time. I know in my country it's five days in the bed, five days around the bed, and five days in the house. that's like the 5, 5, 5 rule. I mean, it's okay. And we have which is postpartum support that comes to your house. So that is I, I can't complain in my country. And I know in some countries in the world, you know, I think in the US sometimes people have to start work after what, like 10 days?

[00:27:23] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. are still bleeding. I know. After 10 days. Oh no. 

[00:27:30] Panquetzani: My, my aunt went to work after nine days. She was like a really young mom. I think she was like 20, 21, but she had something to prove. Wow. Like to where I was like, I want to, yeah. It's like the whole capitalist mindset of I am only valued when I am productive.

[00:27:51] Panquetzani: Yeah. And this is what productivity looks like. Productivity looks like I can, I can pop out my baby one week and go back to work and be so productive the following week. Right. And so some people and my grandma was like telling her, no, you know, my following members were like, no, whatcha doing. And now unfortunately, that same aunt versus my other aunts who did honor the ena, same aunt, is only one suffering suffer from womb issues.

[00:28:21] Panquetzani: And she's had surgeries for prolong uterus. Yeah. She's the only one. Wow. Yeah. 

[00:28:28] Iris Josephina: That really 

[00:28:29] Panquetzani: shows. She super regrets it now. Of course. 

[00:28:32] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. The importance of this, this sacred time and honoring it is. we need to teach everybody to please do that. Yeah. 

[00:28:46] Panquetzani: We need to teach. And also there's a level of unlearning that has to happen.

[00:28:52] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:53] Panquetzani: That same, she had, surgery for her prolapse and everybody told her not to go back to work after her surgery. And she just took a couple weeks off. She said she felt well, she felt good enough. And the surgery, it ended up like not working because she went to work too fast. 

[00:29:13] Iris Josephina: Oh 

[00:29:14] Panquetzani: yeah, I know. So people could tell you all the things.

[00:29:18] Panquetzani: You could intellectually know, all the things. In my aunt's case, she grew up in a family where all the things were done. But societally, there's so much pressure. There is, there's so much pressure. And when we are not grounded and rooted in ourselves, ourselves and our bodies. It's so easy for us to just fall off and follow the norm.

[00:29:50] Panquetzani: Follow do what's expected of us. 

[00:29:55] Iris Josephina: Yeah, and this, this specific topic actually brings me to the next topic that I wanna talk about, which is colonialism. And obviously the sickness of the productivity mindset is like a direct consequence of, of what colonialism is and has done to current societies. I mean, it never stopped.

[00:30:17] Iris Josephina: It's still here, like very prevalent, very much in our face. People don't call it that way anymore. That term, but I believe it's still here. And I'm curious whether you could speak to how you feel colonialism has. Really challenged the preservation of ancestral wisdom and knowledge. Yeah. 

[00:30:42] Panquetzani: Whew. before I answer that, in terms of postpartum, I'm offering a free summit and you can join us at indi mama.com/summit.

[00:30:53] Panquetzani: So yeah, if you're postpartum or Yeah, join it. Join our, our summit colonialism. Damn. So much. So much.

[00:31:06] Panquetzani: Yeah. Oof. In our, so this is the, I feel like the main way that colonialism has ripped us apart is in our traditions healing is not done alone. You heal in community. We call this community care. and really. Self care is community care when it's traditional. Mm-hmm. We care for ourselves collectively. We have rituals for collective care.

[00:31:46] Panquetzani: For example, one of our rituals that my family still practices over in, we have an uncut lineage of going into the deca. And my father has memories, my grandmother has memories of just going in there with everybody, their cousins, the neighbors, and you go into, it's a, it's a giant sweat house. You go in there and you sweat, and this is the most purifying thing you can do for your body.

[00:32:17] Panquetzani: It's not just a shower where you're showering the outside. You're literally sweating from the inside out, your body or temperatures heating up. You're sweating and you're cleansing yourself and you're exfoliating with herbs. As you exfoliate with herbs, the herbal fibers are breaking down, which means the cell wall is breaking down and the volatile oils are being released directly into your bloodstream.

[00:32:47] Panquetzani: And the the mascal facilitates it because it opens your pores when your warm, your pores open. So you're getting a super dose of healing herbs and you're chatting, you're talking, you're bonding in the darkness. It's all dark in there. 

[00:33:03] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:04] Panquetzani: And it's challenging sometimes too because, sweating, you know, raises your heart rate so you're like, you know, a little winded and telling yourself to stay calm and you're still like moving, moving your body and massaging each other.

[00:33:21] Panquetzani: And this is something that was bad in the 17 hundreds. Wow. It was banned. It, they forbade us to do this in the 17 hundreds because they said that why is a grandmother going in there with her grandson and her son? And you know, there must be fornication happening. This is ungodly. Oh, I, so to them, oh, and also we prayed to the, who is the goddess of the, of the, the, so they're like, this is fornication.

[00:33:53] Panquetzani: This is, worshiping idols. And they made it illegal. And this is why so many families have, have lost this tradition. Imagine going into Acal where you're all like, you know, sitting together and you know, it's kind of close. You're kind of close and you're helping each other out with massages and exfoliation and everybody's naked.

[00:34:22] Panquetzani: And it's, and there's no nothing gross or dirty or sexual about it. It's literally a bath, you know? 

[00:34:31] Yeah. 

[00:34:33] Panquetzani: Imagine the amount of shamelessness we had to have in order to go in there. So when we see our bodies, when we show our bodies and we feel like we're scrutinized, sexualized, shamed, like all of that is colonialism and its legacy in many generations of our people, we might have someone in our lineage who directly experienced that shame, that guilt.

[00:35:04] Panquetzani: a lot of times they were imprisoned or tortured, forced to not practice these rituals anymore. And so we hold onto that ancestral trauma. One of the biggest things that I had to overcome when I, when I launched my business in Dig Mama ancestral healing, is that legacy of hiding. If I keep my head down, if no one could see me, I'm safe.

[00:35:37] Panquetzani: But it wasn't until I could feel safe in my body and safe sharing my gifts, my, we call it Aon, is a divinely appointed gift. 

[00:35:49] Iris Josephina: Hmm. 

[00:35:50] Panquetzani: And once I was able to feel shamelessness, I experienced personal freedom and my business grew itself. And I was able to help so many more people than when I was living in shame and hiding and holding onto my ancestral wound of what I'm doing must be kept a secret.

[00:36:16] Panquetzani: Hmm. Wow, that's really big. That's a 

[00:36:21] Iris Josephina: really huge, and I cannot imagine all of the, like the entire journey that you had to move through to get to this point, to feel safe enough and to then go okay, now I'm gonna do it. And then also on top of that, having to deal with what it means to be an entrepreneur in this modern time.

[00:36:43] Iris Josephina: Yeah. 

[00:36:44] Panquetzani: That's fun.

[00:36:48] Iris Josephina: That's a whole different story. Yeah. 

[00:36:51] Panquetzani: Yeah. Wow. It's wild. I actually teach, it's called Embodied Enterprise. I actually teach in a, a business course for indigenous folks and folks of color because every indigenous business on colonial land is revolutionary. 

[00:37:11] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:13] Panquetzani: A radical act of liberation happens when black and brown people who are systemically oppressed.

[00:37:25] Panquetzani: When we have, when we have a business that contributes to our liberation and we only do good with our businesses, we only uplift one another with our businesses, we can only do good. We can only move forward. And so I teach, embodied Enterprise in the indigenous business kinship circle because I feel like it's my job to show others what I had to go through so that they can skip all the hard parts and just move up here to thriving and existing in your purpose.

[00:38:02] Iris Josephina: That's really beautiful. I got goosebumps when you mentioned that. Like it's so, it's so beautiful to hear that, and it takes a lot of courage mm-hmm. To, you know, to step forward and move forward and just do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. You're 

[00:38:21] Panquetzani: welcome. And thank 

[00:38:22] Iris Josephina: you for, for showing the way for other people who may not, who may not have landed in that safety yet, but that you're like, here's my hand.

[00:38:31] Iris Josephina: Come on, let's do it together. 

[00:38:34] Panquetzani: Yeah. 

[00:38:35] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Thank you for that. Thank you. 

[00:38:39] Panquetzani: Yeah. 

[00:38:40] Iris Josephina: So you have a lot of like different aspects of your work. You've, you've touched upon a few already and I would love to talk about what are like the, maybe this is a bit of a two structured way to approach it, but the key pillars of the ancestral.

[00:39:03] Iris Josephina: Healing that you are practicing and that comes with all the things, like the business part is also that. So could you share a little bit about your unique pillars and how you bring everything forward? Yeah. 

[00:39:19] Panquetzani: So the first thing is everything I do is for healing colonial wounds. That's, you know, the big umbrella, like whatever I do, you know, whether it's healing postpartum training, post postpartum practitioners or teaching business classes, it all falls under.

[00:39:45] Panquetzani: We are healing colonial wounds with our existence. I want to honor my ancestors with my existence. I want my existence to inspire others and to heal their hearts. So how do I walk? How do I move, how do I run a business that reaches thousands and thousands of people each year? How do I do this? So one of the things I do is I teach online courses.

[00:40:22] Panquetzani: And one of the things is, we teach, well, I teach, self wound care through a course called Tric self, lifelong Self Wound Care. And we meet online. Folks can also, once they go through this course, they can also come to my in-person S workshop where they're able to, yeah, they're able, they learn how to lift their womb into the appropriate position.

[00:40:48] Panquetzani: They learn how to clear their move, their lymph, how to clear congestion from their abdomen, how to clear their ovarian, their fallopian tubes, or their uterine tubes. How to massage their ovaries, how to clear their colon. They learn the anatomy, physiology, and touch for any type of fibroids, cysts, scar tissue.

[00:41:17] Panquetzani: That happens for a lot of us. endometriosis. So they learn how to work on themselves. one of the biggest pillars is teaching folks how to do for themselves all of the things that they need to do so that they're well. So a lot of people are like, well, it'll be, why do you teach people how to massage other people if, you could just do it for them?

[00:41:53] Panquetzani: It's like one, I can't massage everybody. I'm already, I have a two year waiting list. I can't massage everybody. Yeah. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. And if I truly believe in the liberation of indigenous people, then that means I have to bring back the traditions that were lost. I have to rewrite the book that were burned.

[00:42:21] Panquetzani: I have to rebuild the communities that were ravaged by colonialism. And so through teaching folks how to exist peacefully. Using ancestral medicine is one of the biggest pillars in Indi Mama, so, which is self wool massage, herbalism being your own herbalist and traditional foods. I teach folks how to ferment foods.

[00:42:52] Panquetzani: I teach folks how to make medicinal bone broths. I've had my grandmother come in and teach my students and they just sob. A lot of them don't have, yeah, a lot of them don't have grandmothers who were able to teach them. Either they weren't well enough, they, you know, died before they got to the age to to learn, or they suffered from self-loathing, which is a very real thing in, in colonized communities where we disconnect and we just want to survive.

[00:43:29] Panquetzani: So we hide. You know, and reject, we reject our cultures. And so bringing all of that back is one of the, the biggest things. the other thing is giving back. So not only is this a business, but I give scholarships every single year. I just gave $20,000 of worth of scholarships for postpartum practitioners, and they're all black, indigenous people of color.

[00:44:02] Panquetzani: And it's all thanks to Indigemama. It's thanks to the people who enroll in courses. I put a little bit aside for each scholarship and for everyone who pays, the full price, they are supporting folks who are not able to make it into the course, who wouldn't be able to make it into the six month healing journey.

[00:44:27] Panquetzani: And all of the scholarships go to people who are already doing the work in their communities. They're already giving so freely of their time and energy. So I'm really confident that we're pouring into the exact people who pour into others. That way it creates like a, a, a cycle of a fountain of abundance for everybody.

[00:44:51] Panquetzani: So I'm able, my, my hands, my lineage, is able to touch people who I, I personally wouldn't be able to touch, but my students do. I love that. Yeah. That's beautiful. Giving back training folks and then community building, rebuilding our communities. One of the first things that I do when I have any new course is we have a clearing meditation where we clear.

[00:45:25] Panquetzani: And the ancestral wounds of mother wounds and sister wounds. So all of the times that we were pitted against each other as women, the distrust that we have for each other, the the times where we learned throughout our lives that we can't trust another woman, they're our competition. Taking away all of that bullshit that was meant to keep us weak, to keep us alone, to keep us suffering.

[00:45:58] Panquetzani: So we stay in this cycle of oppression, just decolonizing and bringing back, actually, this is our strength. 

[00:46:07] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:46:09] Panquetzani: Tending to each other, pouring into each other. Being vulnerable and honest with each other is our strength. And after that first call, it's amazing because people. Well, I, I've been doing this work for over 15 years.

[00:46:25] Panquetzani: People are friends for decades after this. They have, yeah. I've seen folks build businesses together. They have built community centers together. They've built like sacred circles of self-care where it's like regular for years. And it's all because we're repairing the wounds of community. We need each other no matter what.

[00:46:54] Panquetzani: We always, if we have community, then we always have abundance. And this is something I learned growing up Mexican. you go to, it doesn't matter if you're, I had a friend who was like living in a, a single apartment with seven people and it was quinceanera and it was so freaking fancy. And it was like tens of thousands of dollars.

[00:47:23] Panquetzani: And it's all because she had her community sponsor everything. All of her loved ones. Like one person took care of the food, one person took care of the decorations, another person took care of the chairs and tables. Another two people took care of the venue. The rest of the people, you know, they took care of the dress and you know, like everybody gets together and puts a little bit in the pot and you end up with so much abundance.

[00:47:52] Panquetzani: And that is the most indigenous shit I could think of is sharing a little bit. And then everybody gains at the end. Everybody wins. We all had a good time. We all ate well. Yeah, it was hurricane Ra but everyone felt like it was their party. We all had a great time.

[00:48:15] Iris Josephina: I love that. Can you maybe explain to people what a quinceanera is for, for people who don't know? Yeah. 

[00:48:22] Panquetzani: So today post colonially, a quinceanera is when you turn 15, you become a woman and you have a big party. it's almost like a wedding. It's funny, you put on the big fancy jar and everybody you know is there.

[00:48:39] Panquetzani: You eat, you dance. Okay, thought I had to sneeze you dance. And a lot of folks before the quinceanera, they go to church and they have a special mass for you. Not post colonially, but its roots are actually indigenous. of course. And we have a special, corn ceremony at 15 for the woman, and she goes from being a young corn flour.

[00:49:13] Panquetzani: To a fully, yeah. I dunno if you've ever seen the lifecycle of corn or even like the delicate corn flour. It's, it's just really the embodiment of it, it does feel like, teenage energy. It's round and you could see like it's about to blossom, but it's not ready, like it's not there yet and it just looks so gorgeous.

[00:49:44] Panquetzani: Like watching corn grow from seed to maturity is like watching a life happen. Yeah. There's so much wisdom in corn. And so the woman turns from a little girl. a little tender corn flour to maas to like an actual corn. And corn is our sustenance. Corn is considered our flesh in our creation story we're created from the grounds of corn.

[00:50:18] Iris Josephina: Hmm. 

[00:50:19] Panquetzani: And yeah, we're created from like the corn masa, like the corn flour blended with, blood from one of the gods. And he mashed us up and created humanity. And so when we eat corn, we're consuming our flesh, we're consuming the flesh of the earth and we're, consuming the ultimate sustenance. Yeah.

[00:50:46] Panquetzani: And so this ritual happens at 15 and then the person or the woman is considered, you know, an adult life spans were much shorter back then. so that was about midlife. A woman back then. 

[00:51:02] Iris Josephina: Wow. 

[00:51:03] Panquetzani: Yeah. 

[00:51:05] Iris Josephina: Yeah. I love these rites of passage. This is, it's a whole other, I mean, it's related, but it's a whole other depth of topic.

[00:51:15] Iris Josephina: But the loss of rite of passage is, I think, hurts so many people in so many ways. 

[00:51:22] Panquetzani: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:51:24] Iris Josephina: Imagine every girl would get this as she was like on her journey after her first period. Yeah. And 

[00:51:34] Panquetzani: there were, there were words that were shared from elders too, like wisdom was imparted from elders, from people older than 15 and the parents.

[00:51:49] Panquetzani: And, the midwife who birthed the 15-year-old there who helped catch the 15-year-old, all shared wisdom for her. 

[00:51:58] Iris Josephina: I love that the midwife is also involved. 

[00:52:03] Panquetzani: Chills. Chills. 

[00:52:05] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Oh, bless the midwives. Mm-hmm. all of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I have one last thing that I want to ask you. Mm-hmm. I would love to see whether you could share what are some indigenous approaches for learning about and understanding the body.

[00:52:30] Iris Josephina: I personally studied with an indigenous midwife from Colombia and they shared such, such beautiful, heartwarming approaches. Mm-hmm. With me and also the, the child there in that specific community, the first thing they learn about is their own body. And as they go on the threshold of puberty and they are about to have their first sexual encounter, they have to show on their, or the, the person has to show on their body, not on their genitals, but on their body how they would please them.

[00:53:07] Iris Josephina: And then the feet are like the vulva and the legs are the vagina and the hips are the cervix. And it was the most beautiful story that I've ever heard in approaching the body. So I wanted to ask you whether you have any wisdom on Yeah. Approaches on like how do you learn about the body? Mm. That's 

[00:53:29] Panquetzani: beautiful.

[00:53:32] Panquetzani: How do you learn about the body? Honestly, like growing up I learned through apprenticeship. And there weren't very many words. It was all, you're immersed now. You in this now figure it out. Observe, you know, observe and do when you're done observing, do it. for example, I grew up watching limpias.

[00:54:07] Panquetzani: You know, if you have a fever, not only do you give physical, like teas for the, for the body, but you do like egg limpia on the person. These are like spiritual cleanses with the egg to, remove any energy that doesn't belong on the body. You can remove suto, anything that contributed to the physical illness spiritually, you're removing it, right?

[00:54:32] Panquetzani: And so I remember this one time, my baby brother, he was really sick. I must have been like. Six or seven. But everyone was really concerned and we all, we put him in our, she was, was, she helped raise us. She was a great aunt. She was maybe like in her eighties. I just remember she was old my whole life.

[00:54:57] Panquetzani: She, she was an old lady my whole life. And, we put him in bed and we all surrounded him and the adults were praying and Lala came and she did her, her egg, his egg named the lens. And only through that really scary moment that I learned that, okay, this is what you do when someone is sick like this.

[00:55:26] Panquetzani: This is the approach you take. 

[00:55:28] Iris Josephina: Hmm. 

[00:55:29] Panquetzani: Living through little examples, seeing, being immersed in, in these moments that really make an impact on you. Is what taught me the most. It's almost like core memories in prompting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So beautiful. Yeah. And, I talked about in my book, thriving Postpartum.

[00:55:56] Panquetzani: I talk about how I apprentice with my aela and the kitchen with my grandmother in the kitchen, and she didn't explain things, but she, she planted seeds. And only later did I realize what she was teaching me, but in her wisdom, she knew I could only learn if I learned it on my own. 

[00:56:18] Iris Josephina: And 

[00:56:18] Panquetzani: if I didn't learn it on my own, I wasn't meant to learn it.

[00:56:22] Panquetzani: I love that approach. Oh my God, it's genius. I, I think she's an excellent teacher. She taught me in the best ways. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, less all the of the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Less the resistance. 

[00:56:47] Iris Josephina: Oh yeah. Yeah, they are. I had a very strong of grandmothers too. I'm very proud of them. I think back with so much like love and care.

[00:57:01] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Yeah. So to close off, what is there, is there any more wisdom or vision you want to share for people and communities worldwide? 

[00:57:19] Panquetzani: Yeah. Pay attention to your bodies and thank your womb. You know, put your hands on your womb and thank her for the work that she's always doing. 

[00:57:33] Iris Josephina: Hmm. 

[00:57:34] Panquetzani: Your womb is just like you.

[00:57:36] Panquetzani: Your womb is always working, always doing. Even when you don't acknowledge it, your womb is working for you. It's holding up organs. It's being a buffer between your intestines and your bladder. It's, you know, contributing to your hormonal balance all month long, not just during bleeding all month long.

[00:57:59] Panquetzani: Every day and every day. She's different. She's growing, expanding, contracting, and that's a reflection of you. So when you think your womb, you think yourself, when you think your womb, you thank the blood that was shed to birth your womb, because every, all of us come from womb blood. 

[00:58:26] Iris Josephina: Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:27] Panquetzani: If you're here, that means the womb that you came out, out of blood for you.

[00:58:33] Panquetzani: So when you think your womb, you're thinking generations. And so always bringing it back to your core, your womb, your ancestors. You will never lose yourself if you just come back to your body. 

[00:58:52] Iris Josephina: I love that. It's the truth. It's really true when we step away and lose our bodies, so we lose everything. Yeah.

[00:59:04] Iris Josephina: Thank you so much for spending so much time and patience coming on here, sharing and giving so generously wisdom that wanted to come through for you today. And if people are interested in learning more about you, what is the best way to find you or if they wanna work 

[00:59:27] Panquetzani: with you? Yeah, you can go to indigemama.com.

[00:59:31] Panquetzani: Find me there. I am on Instagram as indigemama. And if you, anyone can learn if you want to, pre-order my book, Thriving Postpartum, indigemama.com/book. And if you wanna be in community with a bunch of amazing indigenous folks and be in community with a whole, two dozen list of a dozen, two dozen speakers on ancestral healing and postpartum, then go ahead and join my Summit indigemama.com/summit

[01:00:05] Iris Josephina: thank you. I'm definitely gonna check that out and I'm gonna check out your book. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. 

[01:00:13] Iris Josephina: Okay, this wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Want to know more about me? The best way to reach me is via @cycleseeds on Instagram. And if you heard something today and you think, oh my God, wow, I learned something new, feel free to share the podcast on your social media and tag me or leave a review of rating.

[01:00:35] Iris Josephina: In this way, you help me reach more people like you. Thank you so much. I.