Animist family cultivating virtues in autumn
Saludos dear ones,
As we transition to winter, I wanted to offer some reflections on this autumn season. Every month, our son’s school community focuses on a virtue to cultivate with intention. In our family, we hold a circle during a weekly pancake breakfast where we talk about said virtue: where we witness this value in others, how we are developing it, and sometimes how it's working us. It generates a collaborative culture where we are also modeling for our kid that we, too, are becoming and unfolding. We also share our roses and thorns of the week, naming where we may need support or simply need to be heard and seen as we meet the world. Then we share what is on the horizon for the week so we can be aware of each other's needs.
In August, we focused on the virtue of openness. For some time, our family has held worry over work insecurity, as my husband was laid off in January of 2024 and the current economy has offered freelancing that is just enough to keep our heads above water. We have been accruing debt that starts to weigh on one's sleep. But in this, we have had the steady hand of the ancestors, assuring light and lightness. We also came to learn at the end of summer that our son’s beloved kindergarten teacher is facing a cancer recurrence and she would guide the class from afar as she started chemo, while the assistant teacher stepped up. My uncle, whose family includes my childhood best friend—my cousin—who lived just two blocks away from me growing up, suffered an unexpected stroke and died some days later from its impact. Once again, the ancestors reflected all his beauty, tenderness, and radiance behind what most of us perceived as a grouchy facade. Being asked to stay open through so much uncertainty, to show up and trust the mystery, was the foreground of this autumn.
In September, the virtue was courage. My son was preparing to become a golden knight, entering his second year of kindergarten. He was sanding and polishing a wooden sword for this ceremony with so much pride. We entered the eclipse season and Autumn Equinox, thinking of all our courageous friends in Gaza facing the unbearable and of a dear band of moms in my network who are working to bring mutual aid to them. We thought of our dear kindergarten teacher bravely attending her chemo appointments as the headscarf came on. I walked with my tía and primas as they courageously met the death rites for their beloved. I held my five-year-old niece's hand and shared with her about the rainbow bridge to heaven so she could always feel the love and connection to her abuelo. My brother courageously asked for reconciliation with all sincerity after 4+ years of estrangement that began when we stopped speaking during the pandemic. It was a good day for forgiveness, as they say. My abuelas in spirit had told me long ago to trust this day would come. Soon after, I held my first cacao ceremony with a beautiful gathering of mothers in my community, after months of my ancestral abuelas encouraging me to do so. My family also attended a beautiful regenerative food festival in town, dancing to The War on Drugs live. I had the courage to apply for a side gig at a local ketamine clinic and negotiate my terms well. By the end of the month, my husband was kicking off a new project and my son was knighted, surrounded by the Oaks near the schoolyard.
“It was a good day for forgiveness, as they say. My abuelas in spirit had told me long ago to trust this day would come.”
In October, the virtue of moderation found us seeking balance and shedding any lingering insecurities and doubts. I thought this meant I might get a long-overdue fitness practice going, but instead we found ourselves facing test after test. An innocuous trip to the famed pumpkin patch attraction park left us all stirred, as our little one got lost in a massive (GMO) corn maze. After a scary hour of searching, we reunited and worked through lessons on the importance of staying together. The consequence was taking away our son’s golden sword and having to earn it back with honorable actions, giving us all a chance to share our deepest fears. Then, the start of the new job at the ketamine clinic was quickly upended by red flag after red flag of overstep and out-of-scope directives that could jeopardize my license. The next day, my husband had his own corn maze moment, overstaying at a friend’s Halloween party into the morning hours without notice, breaching my felt sense of security. My nervous system shattered in a way I had not known for years. I compassionately worked to clear the energy leak with the support of my obsidian mirror, to see with truth and not with fear. Our work as a family became to turn the trickster maze into a labyrinth—to move through and out of it via honesty, accountability, vulnerability, and care.
In the midst of this, my husband and I were celebrating 22 years since a kismet meeting in Madrid, as our little one coached his dad in repair, earning back his sword. For me, the daily ritual of watering and caring for my Three Sisters milpa—corn, bean, and squash—as well as cempasúchil/marigold in our garden, was my mainstay to moderate amid the waves of emotion. I also completed all of my post-training hours and supervision requirements as a certified Ancestral Lineage Healing practitioner and began gifting sessions to leaders in my network who are being of service to our liberation movements and creating tremendous culture change work. By the end of the month, my son and I collaborated on a Día de Muertos offering for his class that brought so much magic and blessings. We baked homemade pan de muerto, gave our homegrown flowers to the children as an enchantment to welcome their ancestors, and offered a storytelling circle inspired by a story my grandmother told about a donkey with a magic wand in his mouth. Grace poured through as we awakened the village memory. We closed the month dressed in costume as the Bluey family, celebrating Halloween with trick-or-treating with friends, pizza, and homemade sugar skull cookies. We made our way to balance the trials and restore play and honor.
“Grace poured through as we awakened the village memory.”
And so this brings me to November and our virtue of thankfulness. This month, Imaginal Therapy proudly sponsored El Panteón, a Día de Muertos celebration here in Sacramento, on Nisenan land, at the Latino Center for Arts and Culture. With danza, music, and art installations—including graves honoring those affected by ICE and in support of Palestina, a chapel to Guadalupe, and various altares to loved ones—we experienced the full immersive magic of the thinning of the veil. Our family honored the ones that came before with our kid’s calavera face paint, our home altar, and a spirit plate stew with our homegrown corn. A week later, we celebrated our son’s 6th birthday with full hearts and five of our favorite local families. I also had the good fortune of organically hosting clients coming through for in-person sessions from SoCal. Tending to a devotional practice of lighting a sacred fire, as community care, brought so much awe and gratitude to my heart and warmth to the hearth of kinship.
I am excited to share that I am deepening my studies with Ancestral Medicine in earth ritual arts, with a generous scholarship, to train for 13 months starting in February and thereafter build a service project as guided by land spirits and ancestors with a rich and diverse community of ritualists representing 20 countries. My spirit, rooting in purposeful work, is thrilled by what will unfold and inform my offerings in service of the world soul, the anima mundi. Our son has been creatively on fire, drawing, painting, and engaging in so much imaginative play, with dad as his primary play pal. Our family ended the month low and slow, with generative time snuggling our dogs and cat, eating homemade mole and pozole, and holding ceremony with tobacco, copal, and drum to release our Three Sisters milpa for the winter with gratitude for what we learned. Our harvest this year was not the most abundant materially, but the soul cup is full.
Invitation to the virtue of reverence
Lastly, I will share that we recently learned that a nearby old-growth oak grove with vernal pools and a diverse, beautiful ecosystem named Coyote Creek is under threat to become a solar farm, a greenwashed plan voted for unanimously by our county supervisors. We joined a community action coalition to protect our other-than-human kin and are hoping to gain the support of our local Sierra Club to take legal action. I will keep sharing what unfolds in this process. But for now, our family walked to our sister, Kum Sayo, aka the American River, and offered fruit and squash to the land and deer, and gathered stones to build a stone altar with our prayers and a request for guidance on how to live into the repair of ongoing colonial projects that cause harm.
As we prepare ourselves to hold the light and sweetness within as the cold sets in, I invite you all to join me this month of December to root in the virtue of reverence, taking in how precious life is.
“When we practice reverence, we open ourselves to experience faith, love, and deep respect for the mysteries and wonders of life.”
Passing this email along and referrals for kinship are a blessing. My animist parenting ofrenda welcomes your consideration for collaboration and community care, including storytelling, coaching, and culture shaping engagements.
Your attention is a gift. Gracias, Tlazocamati, Thank you.
With love and lineage,
Cristy Benitez Allen, LMFT
