We Carry Our Abuelas in Our Care

By Jacoba; a midwife and Santiguadora walking with the memory of many hands

There are moments in my work when I feel something bigger than myself move through the room—when a soft prayer rises to my tongue without effort, or my hands instinctively reach for an herb my grandmother once used. In those moments, I know: as healers, we carry our abuelas in our care.

We carry them in how we touch, in what we listen for, in how we feed, comfort, and hold people through birth, loss, pleasure, and return.
We carry them in our ability to show up tenderly at the edge of someone’s grief.
We carry them when we choose patience over urgency, connection over protocol, ritual over routine.

For many of us from Mesoamerican, Caribbean, Abya Yala, and other Indigenous diasporas, this kind of care didn’t begin in hospitals or clinics. It began in kitchens, backyards, hillsides, and small wooden houses where healing was whispered, not named. It began with women who never called themselves healers because they didn’t need to. They just knew.

Santiguadería is a prayer that moves through the body

The tradition of santiguadería—of blessing, clearing, and anointing—is one of the ways we have always cared for each other. It is a quiet lineage passed through the women in our families, sometimes openly, sometimes in secret.

We Santiguadoras use prayers, herbs, oils, smoke, and touch to bring balance to the body and spirit. We rub out mal de ojo, ease grief that has settled in the chest, and help the soul return to the body after trauma. We offer small rituals that say: you are not alone in this.

What I love about this practice is how ordinary and sacred it is at once. There is no performance. There is no rush. There is just presence. There is just love.

Cuarentena and the radical practice of stillness

In the aftermath of birth, our ancestors gave us Cuarentena: a period of rest and ritual that says, your body is sacred and deserves time to return to itself.

Not everyone today can take 40 days of rest. Many of us are far from the communities or structures that made this possible. But I’ve seen how even small gestures—a warming broth, a foot soak, a Sobada, a prayer at the closing of the bones—can transform the postpartum experience.

These are not luxuries. They are forms of remembering.
They are invitations to come home to the body after it has done something miraculous and terrifying all at once.

Whether someone is healing from a birth, an abortion, a miscarriage, or another major life transition, I return to these teachings. I let them guide me. I offer what I can with reverence and without urgency.

Modern needs, ancestral wisdom

Today, I serve many kinds of people: those seeking fertility support, sexual wellness, postpartum healing, different experiences and outcomes of pregnancy, and transitions or end-of-life companionship. I sit with grieving parents. I listen to folks navigating big life changes. I work with queer families, single parents, and elders whose stories echo the voices of my own.

And always, I carry my abuelas with me.

I might use a stethoscope—but I also burn herbs.
I might chart a cycle—but I also ask what the dreams have been saying.
I might talk about hormones—but I also talk about grief, about espanto, about what the soul might be needing.

There’s no separation in this kind of care. The clinical and the spiritual belong together, just as the past and the future do.

Living in the tn-between

I am both a midwife and a Santiguadora. I am a daughter of the diaspora. I live in the in-between.

Sometimes I wish I had more formal training in the old ways beyond inheriting my knowledge from a matriarchal lineage of healers. Sometimes I wish I had a full circle of elders behind me, laying hands on my back as I work. But more often, I feel them there anyway—in the quiet moments, in the way someone exhales after a blessing, in the unexpected tears that come during a bodywork session.

This is how I know the lineage is alive.
This is how I know we are doing it right.

For those of you who are remembering

To those reclaiming ancestral practices: go gently.
To those feeling unsure if they’re “doing it right”: trust that your body remembers.
To those offering care from a place of deep listening: thank you.

And to those of us who carry our Abuelas in our care—may we continue to walk with reverence. May we continue to blend herbs and science, ritual and reason. May we continue to bring warmth, sacredness, and slowness back into a world that too often forgets how powerful they are.

Because we are not starting something new.
We are continuing something ancient.
And we are doing it, beautifully, in their name.

Jacoba

(Published on June 25 at Heartwood Healing Center)