isét estela
Pronouns: she/they/ella/elle/we/us
We are the daughter of Renée López and Larry Vincent Jones; the sister to Maltise Jones, Brian Jones, and Gabriella López-Cross; and mother to Celestial Amaru Kaycie Williams. We come from a long lineage of ancestors whose wisdom, love, fear, sweat, tears, laughter, and joy are with me in every breath I take.
We live in this Queered Two-Spirit Indigenous Black Femme Multicultural and Biracial body. While we are socially assigned these—and many more—labels, we are also conditioned to internalize and perform them. As such, both intentionally and unintentionally, we participate in embodying and reproducing them. Our identity is multidimensional and shifts with context; each moment offers an opportunity to embody our authentic Self.
That said, we exist within a context. English is my first language. We hold a U.S. passport and were born and raised on unceded lands of the Lenapehoking, Diné, Pueblo peoples, Nūmūnūū, Apache, Ute, Kiowa, Duwamish, Suquamish, Multnomah, and Cherokee. My ancestors were both colonized and colonizer, enslaved and enslavers. We would not exist in this form without this fraught history and context.
Largely because of this, our work focuses on U.S. and Western histories and cultures; the Indigenous, Afro, and Euro diasporas; and the reintegration of land-honoring ceremonial wisdom, intentional ritual, and embodied practice.
We strive to facilitate spaces where individuals and groups can connect and share the wisdom of their lived experiences, while opening to new information, perspectives, and worldviews. Through this process, old habits can be unlearned and patterns rooted in scarcity and greed can be transformed into those grounded in abundance and love.
In partnership, we cultivate a sense of possibility—an openness to co-creating relational ways forward that recognize, acknowledge, honor, and activate the connections that already exist, supporting outcomes that are not only effective, but genuinely meaningful.
Our approach is grounded in the understanding that hierarchical, divisive, and prejudiced ways of being limit collective potential and create unnecessary barriers to connection and growth.
We have worked as an Intercultural Educator for the past 20 years and as an Educational Equity Facilitator, Consultant, and Coach for the past 11. This work began in education (Early Childhood, K–12, and Higher Education), with a focus on intercultural education and educational equity, as well as within the nonprofit sector. About 8 years ago, the work expanded to include organizational culture. We are also a Qualified Administrator with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI, LLC), as well as a certified facilitator of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy in the state of Oregon.
We are continuously engaged in ongoing education as a cultural somatics practitioner, focusing on racialized and systemic intergenerational and historical trauma healing and integration. This has included the Communal Consultations for Somatic Abolitionists program with Resmaa Menakem, the Embodied Social Justice certificate program through Transformative Change with Rev. angel Kyodo williams and team, and the Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy and Somatic Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy certificate programs through The Embody Lab.
Additionally, we hold a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Analysis: Human Behavior from Pomona College, and a Master of Arts in International Development and Service with a focus in Intercultural Communication and Intercultural Education through a collaborative program with Concordia University Portland, Siena Italian Studies, and the University of San Francisco of Quito and the Galapagos, Ecuador.
All that said, our greatest teacher is, has been, and will continue to be our lived experience.
We look forward to working together, holistically, wholeheartedly, and intentionally.
Con Gratitud,
Isét Estela