Carmen (n): song, poem, incantation
Honored to support those who wish to frame their experience as a deeper spiritual initiation.
Carmen’s Healing Story
Carmen was diagnosed with Stage II Breast Cancer in 2017, and underwent treatment (surgery, chemo, radiation, more surgery) through 2019. The cancer journey prepared her for this Covid-ian life: exercising caution with and building up her her suppressed immune system, decontamination protocols, self-isolation, facing mortality and uncertainty were all part of that journey. But what brought her through that journey was reconnecting to her ancestral, elemental and celestial allies, blessing her Medicines, and learning to co-regulate, calm and protect her nervous system through community and connection - all lessons that are useful to share now!
A second-gen Fil-Am born in San Francisco, Carmen was raised in a Baptist household, to a family whose need for assimilation/survival took precedence over connection to her ancestral lineage. She is an alumni of UC Santa Cruz, which is where she fell in love with the woods.
As a healer, she has certifications in Hypnotherapy, Neurolinguistic Programming, Timeline Therapy and has also pursued study in trauma repatterning, reclaiming body sovereignty and consent education. She uses her voice both for toning the vagus nerve, and to bring healing through song. Her most recent deep dive into the sacred realms has been as a practitioner of the rituals of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, a lineage into which she has being formally initiated.
She is a mother to her son, Phoenix, and partner to M. Rako Fabionar. They currently live on Coastal Miwok and Southern Pomo territory, in Sebastopol, California.
Cancer and illness can be a sacred portal into a deeper connection with your body, your Soul, your boundaries and purpose.
Healing in Groups
GRIEF AS ART
Grief As Art is a community of practice within the Practical Mystics Playground - an online community where Carmen facilitates a grieving practice through moderated conversation and a live monthly gathering via Zoom.
The world has no shortage of grief, but there is a need for sacred containers for grief to be expressed, witnessed, tended to, and integrated.
If you would like to join this community of practice, please find Carmen here at the Practical Mystics Playground.
““To make war is an inability with grief,” he said. “Shame and depression are an inability with grief. Grief is the source of art. The only source of art. Violence is an inability with grief.””
Akap: Embracing Uncertainty, Ourselves and Each Other
Akap means to “embrace” in Tagalog. This spacious container is designed to bring your grief, anger, exhaustion and fear, and transmute it into ease, even just for these 2 hours together. We’ll share practices to call in your unseen allies, to calm your nervous system on your own, to co-regulate your nervous system in community, to notice where you are holding anger, grief and fear, and to give you practical tools to embrace the uncertainty of the future with grace. Bringing calm to our nervous systems supports our immune systems, and also brings us back to resourceful states of mind, from which we can more easily access joy and pleasure, and rest, even in the throes of a pandemic.
Using ancestral invocation, relational exercises, voice/sound healing, breathing/mirroring, co-counseling and a guided hypnotherapeutic journey, we will create a space of respite and release amidst the chaos. And we’ll end with a sonic hug.
If you would like to join this community of practice, please contact Carmen for more information.
“Carmen is magic. She brings authenticity, strength, beauty, and dimension to the work. She faces difficulty directly and brings witness to the complexities of the deepest heartbreaks of these times, and through such transforms us. She aids the world in metabolizing grief, composting it, and making fertile ground upon which to sow seeds of our futures. Then, as if a beam of sunshine betwixt the branches, her gorgeous voice lifts and coaxes the next phase of growth in an amazing gift of song, both beautiful and haunting. Carmen is steady and listens to her instincts; she shows up for what is present and moves with the moment. I have grown to truly trust and rely upon her.”