What you loved as a child is creative medicine today

What did you love as a child? As a chiquita, I used to LOVE wearing this flamenco dancer Halloween dress. I would wear it throughout the year and even to sleep. My mom and I would dance to flamenco music and every cell of my body would come to life. Little did I know that what was moving through me was my beloved duende moving me. In beloved Dr. Estés words, “El duende is literally the goblin wind or force behind a person’s actions and creative life, including the way they walk, the sound of their voice, even the way they lift their little finger. It is a term used in flamenco dance, and is also used to describe the ability to “think” in poetic images.”

Among Latina curanderas who recollect story, it is understood as the ability to be filled with spirit that is more than one’s own spirit. Whether one is the artist or whether one is the watcher, listener, or reader, when el duende is present, one sees it, hears it, reads it, feels it underneath the dance, the music, the words, the art; one knows it is there.

To me duende is the source of my creativity. Throughout the years I’ve learned that for them to be alive with them, I must feed them. This is why I dance, rest, pray and gather in sacred circle with other women. Take your seat at our next Women’s Temple.