isét estela
Pronouns: she/they/ella/elle/we/us
I am the daughter of Renée López and Larry Vincent Jones; the sister of Maltise Jones, Brian Jones, and Gabriella López-Cross; and the mother of Celestial Amaru Kaycie Williams López Jones.
At the same time, I understand myself as part of something much larger. We come from a long lineage of ancestors whose wisdom, love, fear, sweat, tears, laughter, and joy are present in every breath. We are shaped by the relationships, communities, histories, cultures, and lands that have made us possible.
I move through the world in this Queered, Two-Spirit, Indigenous, Black, Femme, multicultural, and biracial body. While I have been socially assigned these—and many more—labels, we are all conditioned to internalize and perform the identities and stories available to us. Both intentionally and unintentionally, we participate in embodying and reproducing them. Our identities are multidimensional and contextual; each moment offers an opportunity to deepen our relationship with our authentic selves.
That said, we exist within a context. English is my first language. I hold a U.S. passport and was born and raised on the 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. I would not exist in this form without this fraught history and context.
Largely because of this, my 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.
I 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, we can begin to unlearn old habits and patterns, including those rooted in scarcity, separation, and domination, and cultivate ways of being grounded in abundance, connection, 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. Together, we support outcomes that are not only effective, but genuinely meaningful.
Our approach is grounded in the understanding that hierarchical, divisive, and prejudiced ways of being can limit collective potential and create unnecessary barriers to connection and growth.
I 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—including Early Childhood, K–12, and Higher Education—with a focus on intercultural education and educational equity, as well as within the nonprofit sector. About eight years ago, my work expanded to include organizational culture and embodied leadership development. I am 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.
I am continuously engaged in ongoing education and practice as a cultural somatics practitioner, exploring how lived experience, identity, culture, history, and systems are carried within the body and expressed through our relationships, communities, and institutions. This work includes engaging with the impacts of racialized, intergenerational, collective, and historical trauma, while also cultivating greater capacity for presence, connection, discernment, accountability, belonging, and embodied action.
This learning 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, I 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