Over the summer, I stumbled upon a flyer for a community art exhibition at my local library. It was a call for artwork answering the question – what does Diosa mean to you? It pulsed at me like Jumanji and my imposter syndrome immediately grabbed the microphone: you’re not an artist…turns out I am. I submitted a piece and got selected!
The idea for the exhibition came from Lori Martinez, a Culture & Arts Coordinator at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center in Austin, Texas. The community conversation at the exhibitions’ closing ceremony sparked a book club that turned into a safe place for Latinas to share their own Diosa journey. We read I Am Diosa: A Journey to Healing Deep, Loving Yourself, and Coming Back Home to Soul by Christine Gutierrez and it confirmed that I was on the right path – and it reminded me how powerful I truly am.
I reached out to Christine to learn more about her process and how much the Diosa journey continues to empower others today.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: As a writer, I’m always fascinated by how the writing process breaks us open and helps us heal. What did the process of writing this book open up for you?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: For me, writing has always been my way to process emotions. As a little girl, I grew up in a home with a lot of love and also abuse. In order to make sense of my emotions, I wrote. I journaled and I wrote poems. This was a part of my healing journey and I continued to do so throughout the years. In my first book I Am Diosa, it was a big deal for me as a Latina woman. I didn’t see mainstream spiritual authors that looked like me and sounded like me at the time besides one or two that were much older and not exactly in the personal development spiritual field. So I became that which I most needed…
In making the book, I grappled with self-doubt, worrying for a bit about excluding white women born others by making it I Am Diosa, diosa being the Spanish word for goddess, and then I realized that this is my work, this is my brand – Diosa and who I serve is mostly women of color, so I named it I Am Diosa, to really claim, this is me. This is who I serve. I get to own my true soul essence. It was a powerful moment in cultural confidence and owning who I truly be.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: So much of this book feels like a gentle guide for self-love journeys. What do you feel Diosas are craving more of today when it comes to self-love?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: It’s a deep reclamation of all the parts of ourselves that we have lost due to trauma, lack of nurturance in our earlier years and even into adult years. Many of my clients are women that have gone through a lot of shit and worked their ass off to get out of the hood, go to school, graduate, become professional women doing big things in the world. They survived and they need a soft landing pad to be nurtured and held. That’s what me and our diosahood community does – provides that safe landing pad for women in ceremony, in women’s circles in sisterhood – to heal and remember their deep self-worth.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: As healers, it can be hard to forget about ourselves sometimes. What does Diosa mean to you right now in your journey?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: It is imperative for us to say we can’t give that which we don’t give to ourselves. Gone is the self-sacrificing archetype of the over-giving mother. And in is the nourished feminine mother. We must take time to tend to our inner well, or else we dry up. Diosa now means the evolution into the deep mature feminine; La Gran diosa. La madre. The great mother. It is here that we are held in the mature feminine and the healed archetype that goes from the shadow of over giving to in balance and nourished.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: I really loved your exercise of writing a poem to bring your wound to life in chapter two. Is there a collective wound you’ve noticed that might resonate with some Diosas today?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: The collective wound for me is the removal of the sacred feminine, the feminine face of God, aka the GODDESS, La Diosa. Religion and our overculture has systematically removed the worship of the feminine and the names of the feminine, and therefore if we can’t see representation of worship and reverence of the feminine then we won’t worship our own temple or the temple of Mother Earth. This wound is what my work seeks to shift one woman at a time. Remembering we are the sacred altar and that the Goddess, La Diosa, is here and worthy of naming and honoring.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: I’ve been having a lot of conversations with women about their desire to find themselves again. What would you say to someone who is afraid to begin that journey?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: Be more scared to not begin. Be scared to run away from yourself and lose yourself in the darkness. There are no gems there. Run with fear – that’s just called courage. So be courageous, cry as you run. Let your heart beat so fuckin’ fast but move your feet and go with a courageous beating heart towards that which your soul commands you to do. The reward is always a win-win when you dare to listen to your soul and highest self and come back home to the true you.
MONICA RODRIGUEZ: Thank you so much for sharing your Diosa power with us! Are there any final words of Diosa wisdom you’d like to share?
CHRISTINE GUTIERREZ: Dare to be who you really are. Our true purpose first and foremost is to remove the blocks and be our truest soul’s essence. So be you and allow yourself to keep dying to be reborn. Let yourself evolve. Ask the higher version of you: is this bringing me closer to my highest Diosa, worthy woman self or farther away? Choose the choices that bring you closer every day in small and big ways.
Order I Am Diosa and follow Christine on Instagram. Sign up for Christine’s free newsletter for a free 54 page diosa digital journal at www.christineg.tv.
