We Are One With Nature
Ixoq Arte uses homemade recipes to create natural products like natural deodorants and medicinal salves with herbs from her garden. She believes in self-love & self-preservation as a way to resist cultural and social colonization of people’s tradition.
In June 2016 I had a magical realization. I had turned 30 years old and took myself to an all womxn of color herbal retreat in the Bay Area. It was my first ever herbal retreat. For the past four years I had been interested in herbal medicine, attending herbal freedom schools in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles and going to different hikes to learn more about the properties of native plants. I was not the only one, many people in my same generation were starting to question western medicine and becoming more interested in ancestral knowledge.
Raised in an urban city like Los Angeles, indigenous knowledge becomes a thing of the past, if it’s not for elders who preserve it and are teaching it to the new generations like myself. I am fortunate to find community where we can learn about different herbal medicina that brings healing. After leaving the retreat I felt motivated and began reading about different herbal products to make. I first made a natural deodorant cream. I had my friends and family tested and felt in love with it. Now, I have learned to make my own salves, natural lotions, grounding sprays, and lip balms. It has been a beautiful journey, teaching myself and others about these traditions that we all carry in our DNA.
Ixoq Arte natural body care project is an intentional space to self-preserve through a decolonizing approach. We have been programmed throughout western history to consume products for our bodies made with chemicals and many ingredients that make us ill. We spend too much money on these products and do not question it or do not even read the ingredients. It’s a systemic strategy to disconnect us from our natural environment. We are one with nature and if we do not connect with our mother earth it will stop giving, it will stop existing.
The project is also a DIY (Do It Yourself) space because anyone can do the medicine at home or a kitchen, even in the forest. It is also a survival training to have your own remedies that actually heal a cut or treat muscle pains. Hopefully, my story inspires you to start creating your medicine, however it looks, it’s magical because it will be made by you!
~Ova Love~ Pomada/Salve
Good to relieve menstrual pains, ovarian cysts.
Ingredients: infuse calendula, chamomile, comfrey herbs with grape seed oil, sage, frankincense, geranium essential oils, and bees wax.
