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Ana del Rocio
178 Plays6 years ago
First episode of the ‘Something (rather than nothing) podcast’ 2020 was such a joy to record with Ana del Rocio. Keep your ears and ojos open for this great conversation. We spoke about mothering, epistemology, philosophy, women of color, politics, writing, music and so much more.
ANA DEL ROCÍO (she/her/hers), is the Executive Director of Oregon Futures Lab. del Rocío is a first-generation Chicana/Peruana based in Portland, Oregon.
She is a mother of two young boys and the past policy director and chief of staff to Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson. Ana was elected to Director for Position 1 in the David Douglas School District in 2017, in a historic election that saw people of color on the ballot for the first time in the "majority-minority" school district. She also serves on the board of Family Forward Action, and in 2019 was appointed by Governor Kate Brown to a statewide task force on maternal health outcomes.
Ana is passionate about reproductive justice, grassroots organizing, and building political power for and with Black and Brown communities, Indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Dan Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. And here we are with episode 19 of Something Rather Than Nothing.
Guest Introduction: Ana del Rocio
00:00:24
Speaker
a great episode chatting with Ana del Rocio, who is the executive director of Oregon Futures Lab. Just lovely to talk to about philosophy, mothering, politics, language, music, the process of writing, the conditions of writing. It was a great pleasure to chat with Ana.
Exploring Big Questions: Art and Existence
00:00:54
Speaker
I think you'll really love her answers to some of the big questions what is art and especially the big question of why is there something rather than nothing. Without further ado, I hope you really enjoy episode 19 of something rather than nothing with Ana del Rocio.
00:01:27
Speaker
We're here on something rather than nothing podcast and we have the guest Anna Del Rocio. And she is the executive director of Oregon Futures Lab and we're recording here in Portland, Oregon.
Ana's Childhood and Bilingual Upbringing
00:01:45
Speaker
And Anna, I just want to invite you to the podcast. Hi, thank you.
00:01:51
Speaker
Anna has a background in philosophy from USC and some work at UC Berkeley. She's also been involved in politics and of course her work with the Oregon Futures Lab. But before we get into any of the bigger questions, Anna, what were you like as a young child?
00:02:12
Speaker
As a young child, for my remember, I was really shy. I was that small and reserved student that
00:02:23
Speaker
I had a lot of stuff going on internally. I was always thinking and observing, but I didn't speak very much. I think probably some of that had to do with the language, so I was in between English dominant and Spanish dominant worlds at home and at school.
00:02:43
Speaker
I think I remember wanting to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I was really close with my grandfather and I liked school but not as much as I liked being at home. I was a homebody as a child. And what else can I remember?
00:03:04
Speaker
Abuela and Abuelo are important. Yes. Yes, they are especially in my culture I had two little sisters I was the eldest and had some of that like extra responsibility piece where I was looking after them and I'm the eldest of all my cousins as well. So a lot of that that caretaking as a child Yeah, that's what I can remember
00:03:28
Speaker
So you've shown a lot of interest in art, and part of my connection in reaching out to you has to do with some of your very powerful writing that you've done. But in general, what types or styles of art attract you as an observer of art?
Music as a Lifelong Passion and Universal Language
00:03:52
Speaker
I've always been super connected with music. As a young girl, I remember I would just plop down and listen to my grandparents' records over and over and over. Music probably is the art form that I'm most drawn to and all styles of music. I'm a classically trained flautist. I picked up the flute in middle school. I actually started college as a music major and switched over.
00:04:17
Speaker
I really am drawn to music, to all instruments, all voice, the process of creating music independently and collaboratively, and performance music as well. In terms of visual art, I'm attracted to, I mean, I like sculpture a lot.
00:04:38
Speaker
I like art that makes me use a part of my mind that I don't use during the day. So things that are quote unquote useless that make you think about what is beauty, what is the concept of disruption that makes you think about something outside of the day to day. And I'm also really attracted to things that are created by people of color that can offer a different slant to traditional art.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I want to dig in a little bit on the processes. You mentioned that you're a flautist and also, as I mentioned,
00:05:17
Speaker
your writing attracted me to, but the power within that. For you, can you get into just the basics of what those processes did for you? And by process, I mean the process of producing music and your process of producing words on a page and connecting those as a piece of writing.
00:05:38
Speaker
Sure. The process of becoming a musician or someone who played music was really transformative for me. I picked it up in middle school and I mean right off top doing something that I wasn't immediately good at was awesome. It was great learning for me. I was the kind of student that was
00:05:56
Speaker
just really not challenged enough in a traditional public school setting. So picking up an instrument, I learned about what practice is, right? You have to practice to get better, you have to practice to be able to rehearse with a team or an orchestra, and I really benefited from having to learn to be good at something, first and foremost. After that, the expression piece around it. So I said earlier I was
00:06:21
Speaker
navigating worlds in two different languages. But by the time I was in high school, I added a third to that. I went to a French high school. So music was the universal language where I could find a way to express any emotion in a way that any human could understand it.
00:06:36
Speaker
So I really was gravitating to that. And then also the process of making music with other people, whether it was in a chorus or an orchestra or a jazz band, the coming together and the weaving of the different sounds and
00:06:51
Speaker
you know, solo music by itself is that interplay between silence and sound, but when you add that to other people's sounds, it's a really beautiful feeling of being in community in a unique way. And it taught me a lot about collaboration and communication with others, and I felt like I was a part that really mattered of a greater whole. Yeah, and there's a big huge piece I hear in what you're talking about is the connection in language. I mean, if you're talking Spanish, English, French,
00:07:20
Speaker
but also music as a way of communicating those emotions. Did you feel you had a lot of power in having those languages and having those ways to connect and speak overall?
Gaining Power and Confidence Through Music
00:07:35
Speaker
Yes and no. I mean, I think for me, as a young woman of color, I went to high school in San Francisco, which, you know, at that time was rapidly becoming a majority white city. I didn't feel like I had a lot of power in my day-to-day life. And in music, I wouldn't say that the feeling was so much power, but it was definitely an expression, right, a voice that laid the foundation for me then to later be able to build on that as personal power and also collective power.
00:08:02
Speaker
There's like practicing and becoming good at something and rehearsing with people and then the performance aspect of it too, right? So performing and that really brought me out of my shell, right? I was a really shy, intimate little girl. Being able to perform as a soloist was a totally different challenge for me and I had to fail multiple times before I actually felt comfortable doing it and it's at the stage for later on being able to take
00:08:28
Speaker
the stage metaphorically in different ways without having similar anxiety or panic around it. So it was therapeutic for me in a lot of ways. It was skill building but also very therapeutic on an emotional side as well. So what about your writing process? My writing process. My writing really came about I think as a necessary
00:08:50
Speaker
outlet. I'm a mother of two very small children and when you're a mother and a single mother especially, you have this experience where you're sometimes, I mean I live by myself, sometimes like captive in my own home, right? I can't really leave when my kids are sleeping, I can't really leave easily.
00:09:08
Speaker
especially when they were babies. So when I wanted to do art, I couldn't play music because I would wake them up or I had my neighbors in my apartment complex, I would wake them up. So what could I do that was artistic that was also silent and didn't require me to leave the house, right? It was writing. And I would write to journal out some of the things that was happening in my day and try to make sense around what is this life of mothering, but also
00:09:32
Speaker
analyzing and adding some understanding to what was a whole different world that no schooling or no formal education could have ever prepared before. Mothering has been the hardest thing I've ever done and writing has helped me put some sense to it, surface some deep problems in the way we treat mothers and mothering in our society and document. I'm going to be able to look back when my kids are older and
00:09:57
Speaker
and have a glimpse into what I was feeling and hopefully be able to offer some support and some camaraderie to other mothers in other parts of the world that are also going through what I'm going through and may not be able to leave their homes either to have a collective meetup. So it's a way to communicate with other people when you're kind of stuck in the place that you are.
00:10:19
Speaker
Your role as a mother is really important in just things that I've seen you communicate. My question is this, do you ever get frustrated? It seems so fundamental, a lot of things that mothers have to deal with and mothers have been around forever.
00:10:39
Speaker
It seems intuitive that we need to care for mothers and families. And that's a part of your politics. Do you ever get frustrated that you kind of have to keep saying that type of thing? Let's pay attention to moms and families. What's your experience in advocating in that way?
00:11:00
Speaker
I'm an advocate in my day-to-day life. I don't get tired of it or frustrated necessarily. I think I understand that the process through which you bring about change is by that constant repetition. That organizing requires some
Motherhood as Art: Raising Children with Values
00:11:14
Speaker
level of being comfortable with saying the same or similar things over and over to people wherever they are, meeting them where they are. But for me, mothering
00:11:25
Speaker
I mean in some ways it's the ultimate artwork, right? Like what do you create? You create life and you nurture life and you raise life and it's been a portal blown wide open and I can't think of any other experience in my life that has
00:11:40
Speaker
transformed me so deeply. So I talk about it a lot and I also, I had children at an interesting time. I have friends in two different groups. I have friends that are around my age but don't have kids yet or I have friends that are a lot older than me and have kids. So in some ways I'm either preparing my peers who don't have kids yet and helping them understand what it's going to be like and in other ways I'm helping the friends that are
00:12:08
Speaker
that have kids around my age that are older than me have a connection to younger lifestyles and having fun and not feeling like you have to retire because you have kids. So I'm in between these two worlds. But I definitely, I think it's important that I have a responsibility too because I'm raising two boys or children that currently identify as boys.
00:12:33
Speaker
I know that it's my job to raise them to be anti-patriarchal, to raise them to understand and practice feminism. And if I don't do that by showing them, they're not going to ever actually understand or absorb that. So I have to show them because they're going to learn to treat women and mothers and parents the way that I allow myself to be treated. So the more that I stand up for myself and call out oppressions and call out injustices, the more they'll grow up and be able to see that and name that for themselves.
00:13:04
Speaker
Thank you. Whether it's whatever you're creating, have you ever asked yourself the question, why you create? And if not, I'm going to ask you it now. Why do you create?
Writing for Expression and Documentation
00:13:20
Speaker
Is it a drive or a need?
00:13:26
Speaker
In some ways it's a need. I definitely feel like it's an outlet at some times where I can have an emotional peak and then I write it out and then I feel better afterwards. And also in other ways it's
00:13:39
Speaker
And I am here, sort of stamp, right? It's especially the written word, although the same can be said, I think, of many oral traditions and music. But me documenting something in writing is me saying I was here. And I was here at this time feeling this way, doing this thing, offering this analysis. And over time, that aggregates into a body of work that I think women and people of color have often been excluded from that sort of, quote unquote, legitimate documented experience.
00:14:11
Speaker
You've studied philosophy at the university level. I've studied philosophy at the university level. It's a great love of mine. What was that experience like for you? Most philosophers kind of just trip into it. They're like, I'm really interested in all these questions. What was your experience studying philosophy?
00:14:41
Speaker
So my degree is in philosophy with an emphasis in ethics, law, and value theory from USC. And really, I think I started college when I was 16 years old. In some ways, I was really not ready. And I was having a really hard time picking a major. I was just really indecisive and wanted to study everything and nothing at the same time.
00:14:59
Speaker
and I ended up picking philosophy because for me it was a way to study everything and you can apply philosophical thinking or you can apply philosophical analysis to everything and I could be in a classroom and think about music or physics or literature and apply philosophical lens to it so it really fed my need to
00:15:24
Speaker
to be multidisciplinary. But it was challenging, right? Like, I was at USC at the time, there was no person of color on the philosophy faculty. There was one woman whose, like, politically means were more conservative, so I didn't really connect with her. So I was isolated even more intensely. USC as a whole was
00:15:45
Speaker
Not very welcoming for a low-income young woman of color like me. It's known as the University of Spoiled Children, but then you go into the philosophy department and it's even more elitist and homogenous. But I really learned how to tackle a piece of really dense literature or dense writing and that's been one of the biggest payoffs for me is being able to then read pretty much anything and understand how to
00:16:11
Speaker
I had to navigate my way through it. And really being able to call out bullshit, like that's been one of the biggest things for me in philosophy is being able to look at an argument, look at an idea and say, well, that's false, that's a fallacy, that doesn't make any sense. And it's been so useful for me because I can meet people intellectually and offer something that's valid, that's reasonable. And I sometimes think about this idea or this stereotype, right, of Latinas especially as
00:16:39
Speaker
being quote-unquote hot-headed or being emotional and I can be that and that's valid and that's okay and I can also challenge any kind of argument you put before me. So in a lot of ways it was setting myself up to break stereotypes even though I didn't realize at the time.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of your points as far as the discipline of philosophy and how it applies, I've really looked at it the same way. I didn't follow an academic route per se, but it is a special weapon. It is. It definitely is.
Philosophy, Analysis, and Breaking Stereotypes
00:17:13
Speaker
It's a skill.
00:17:15
Speaker
And that's a huge attraction of it, you know, of it for me. And the applicability to, you know, realms of politics, interpersonal dealings, calling out bullshit. Maybe that's like the tagline for philosophy. I have a degree in the name of the college. That's my master's degree.
00:17:35
Speaker
And it did very much feel like this infiltration process, right? I was salting the philosophy department. I really was going in there and being like, well, you're racist and you're totally promoting views that are not inclusive.
00:17:52
Speaker
in many other spheres of my life that I've gone into where I've been the only, quote unquote, the only person in the room, whether it's the only woman or woman of color or both. I think that it's been setting me up to be comfortable with being the audible now.
00:18:08
Speaker
The in it that's a huge problem in academics of course and it's a particular problem that I found in philosophy itself and I think when I was chatting with you about the concepts of popular philosophy and bringing it to the people and discussing these larger questions I think
00:18:25
Speaker
many people kind of have false apprehension of what the discipline is and that the thinkers that are part of the canon actually don't correspond to large segments of people that impacts the, you know, the connection of the discipline and the misunderstandings that arise from that. I think there's a lot of
00:18:51
Speaker
fear that stems from just confusion and not really knowing what philosophy is as a discipline, or being able to name what philosophy exists outside of a department within a university. I find philosophy every day in my life in different art forms, in conversations. It exists everywhere and everyone has some kind of ability in them to be philosophical. But without having that language to go with it, people can feel like it's not for them.
00:19:18
Speaker
So while we're talking about theoretical philosophy, we got a big question. We started to talk about what art is. We're using that term. What is art? Do you have a definition of art? What is art?
00:19:38
Speaker
I don't have a definition per se. I, in some ways, think about art through a capitalistic lens or an economic analysis lens where art is something that's not productive, right? That doesn't actually fulfill productive or reproductive labor functions in society. So it's something that's expressive. Where does art fit in the system, right?
00:20:04
Speaker
what's the word I'm looking for subversive right because if you're creating and you're not it's not something that you're being you can be paid to do it but if you're creating and it's
00:20:17
Speaker
not adding quote-unquote productive value to society, then you're saying being human, being alive, having a thriving existence to me is more than just my paid labor that upholds the system. But I can also write a poem, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
the whole bread and roses thing really speaks to me that as humans we have a right to not just have our material needs met but also our spiritual and emotional needs met and right now the system of capitalism doesn't provide for both. So art is a way to reclaim power, reclaim space and say I get to say what I'm gonna do and it's not dictated by bosses or by the owning class.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I found that both philosophy itself and art, the major problem you brought up from the beginning of how does it fit in, right? What is its value? Can it be monetized? And I think that's a fundamental problem with philosophy and it should be a problem with it because it's questioning and those questions can be
Art's Subversive Role Beyond Economics
00:21:21
Speaker
threatening.
00:21:21
Speaker
art within the capitalist society I think has to take a role and I definitely see it in terms of where What you're talking about by its very nature can be subversive because if a piece of art doesn't have a value or hasn't been valued hasn't been marketed or shown to be able to be exchanged then what is it and I think both the discipline in art itself kind of seem to fit into that
00:21:51
Speaker
realm of like, you know, can this be monetized? What is its value? When you say what was your reaction, your particular reaction to when you told people you studied philosophy, right? My reaction to their reaction? Well, just how people reacted to you when you went to say, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you studying? You're like, I'm studying philosophy. Yeah, a lot of disbelief. Like, wait, what do you mean? Like, no, actually, my major is my degrees in philosophy. Like, people thought that I was
00:22:19
Speaker
I mean, I'll own also. I have some internalized elitism around it too because I would say, yeah, I didn't major in psych or poli sci. My degrees in philosophy, I had this kind of internalized view that having a hardcore humanities degree was somehow
00:22:35
Speaker
better or that I worked harder for it which was totally not like the case but I thought that because it was rare for people to have philosophy degrees and even now like universities are closing down their philosophy departments because it was rare it was more valuable and that's not necessarily true right anyone who makes it through college can add whatever value they want to that experience and that to that degree but I definitely felt people were questioning whether I was telling the truth
00:23:05
Speaker
and they were sometimes impressed and their being impressed was insulting, right? Because in one way, it was an admission that when they looked at me, when they had experiences interacting with me, that they didn't believe that I had credentials like that. So I don't often like talking about it very much because it also gives people a perception that
00:23:34
Speaker
Whether it's positive or negative, I'd rather them just judge me based on their interactions and experiences with me, based on what they think is on my resume or what they know is on my resume. But it's, you know, I don't regret it. It was hard, but I've gotten a lot of value from it and not just in terms of like bragging rights, if any, but just being able to defend myself in many forms.
00:23:57
Speaker
But I also think that like philosophy, it taught me some activism too, right? Like my student activism also had to do with representation and racial justice and curriculum and in faculty. But I think related to the question of art, right? Is it quote unquote necessary or marketable or valuable? My family didn't know what the heck to do with the philosophy. Like they wanted me to go and be a doctor or engineer or whatever. Like I was a first generation college kid at university on scholarship. Like they were,
00:24:28
Speaker
beside themselves wondering how I was going to get a job with a philosophy degree. And I totally understand that, right? Like for some people who are in that world of having to survive materially, it can seem like it's a waste or just nonsensical to have a degree like philosophy. And like art, I think it's a reclamation of space and time and power. But it also, it can and does serve a purpose in
00:24:51
Speaker
in our current capitalist system in that it boosts morale. If people have something to look forward to in their lives that's artistic, that's creative, it's a reason to stay alive. The therapeutic part of music for me, for example, when I was
00:25:06
Speaker
middle school and high school it definitely had a mental health benefit a really positive one where I felt like there was one thing in my life that I could do that I could practice by myself and with other people that I looked forward to and I didn't look forward to anything else in the rest of my day right so it was something that I could I could look for for my own sustainability and that is productive in our society
00:25:31
Speaker
I found that for music, it's always really intrigued me that a lot of people wouldn't say that they struggle with any mental health issues or stress or anxiety. We'll talk about the songs that save them or the albums that save them. And just talking about
00:25:54
Speaker
how folks would speak with strong statements around music or songs to help them get through those times that save them that power both listening to and participating in it that way and also producing to them that the
00:26:14
Speaker
The process itself had such a power of therapy. I've had a lot of discussions with different types of artists during the course of this podcast, and I remember even particularly early on with the early episodes,
00:26:32
Speaker
how prevalent that was in talking about trauma and talking about what this process was to help humans get through things in an arts place in that.
00:26:50
Speaker
I want to go back to just if you could say a little bit more about in your discussion about art within the capitalist system and you know where it stands and you know what its value is.
00:27:06
Speaker
I always find it very fascinating how the interconnection between art and politics is described. And I think in your answer, it sounds to me that there's an inherent political dynamic to art that's produced in our system. But the question's for you. What do you see as the interplay of
00:27:31
Speaker
an art piece in politics or the potential of that.
Art as a Tool for Organizing and Ancestral Connection
00:27:37
Speaker
I mean, art, artivism, there's so much potential and there's so much actual real benefit to it. In one sense, as an organizing tool, art can be used, any kind of cultural work can be used as a relationship building tool, as an organizing tool. It brings people together, it builds trust, it builds camaraderie, so it's practical in that way. In other ways, art can help with the agitation process. It can help people open their eyes and see
00:28:02
Speaker
injustice and oppressions and systems that are not fair in different ways. I also think that art is fundamentally reindictionizing because what we're doing is going back to very very ancient non-western practices around healing and sustaining life. I remember after I had my first kid I was in New York and one of my dear friends who was a doula of mine also
00:28:26
Speaker
was counseling me through like a particularly hard time postpartum and she told me that there's an indigenous teaching or offering around when someone is sad and when someone is having a hard time.
00:28:40
Speaker
you ask four critical questions and two of them were, when did you stop singing and when did you stop dancing? And that was, it hit me to my core because it was absolutely about art as something that you do to nurture life and sustain life, but also
00:28:57
Speaker
an expression that is in my DNA and my cells going back to the way my ancestors chose to exist individually and collectively and how we've survived all these years. So her sharing and offering that practice with me and helping me remember what's in my blood helped me see art in a different form as well.
00:29:20
Speaker
you talked about within writing in that process what it does for you, but also that it was essentially an adaptation to being a mom and the space that you needed to be able to create. If you took that away, I mean, do you see yourself, is there an ideal kind of like physical type of environment to create art that you would like or you think you would enjoy?
00:29:46
Speaker
Or do you just kind of not mind adapting to the circumstances that are around you? I mean the circumstances are part of the art, right? Like if it weren't for the fact that like everything is messy and my kids won't go to bed and you know blah blah blah I wouldn't be inspired. I wouldn't have the need to create the art.
00:30:02
Speaker
I wonder if I would even have the same thought process or the same writing product in a super sterile, formal, cozy environment. I'm not sure about that. I think that the right environment or the appropriate environment that's conducive to art is the space where the artist or the creator feels
00:30:25
Speaker
compelled and feels moved in some way. That could be on the street. That could be in a classroom. That could be on a spaceship. Like, you know, wherever the artist feels compelled to express and to create. And I don't think that there's
00:30:40
Speaker
I think that there is benefit to having a gallery or some space or a studio of some kind where people can go and have the dedicated time and space that they deserve to create their art if that's what they feel like they need. But for me,
00:30:57
Speaker
I think art can be created anywhere at any time. And it is an adaptation for me that it just so happens to be for me around my kids' schedules in my own home. But I was writing before I was a mother too. I think part of it came from just our formal schooling right now being very literary based and it being one of the tools that I was exposed to early on. So I was writing creative works long before, but it took a different direction after I became a mom for sure.
00:31:25
Speaker
I asked two bigger theoretical questions for the podcast. The first one was what is art. The other one is why is there something rather than nothing?
00:31:40
Speaker
Because of women. Tell me more. Yeah. I mean, I think those are false. It's a false binary. I think that, I mean, you can't create or destroy anything. There's only transformation. And who are the ultimate and fundamental transformers? People who create other people. So whether it's a woman or
00:32:00
Speaker
any person who can become pregnant right like that is the essential beginning of creation of life that is something rather than nothing but it also didn't come from nothing it's just a transformation of energy a transformation of food and water into a whole new person so for me i think
00:32:21
Speaker
connecting and validating women's work or the work of people who are choosing to engage in reproductive labor has been so undervalued and choosing to add value to it by saying that we are creating, we are artists, we are adding value and adding meaning to life in completely valid ways is a way also to be subversive and is a way to call out patriarchy in many spheres of life.
00:32:50
Speaker
You have actively worked and have been in the political sphere as a politician. When you're in that realm and you're operating in that realm, do you see art in that? Do you see art in as far as the campaign that you run or the visuals and presentation? Do you see a nexus
Interplay of Art and Political Activism
00:33:13
Speaker
there? I totally do. I think I just have a really broad definition of art where I think art
00:33:19
Speaker
I'm constantly weaving through my days. I'm creating coalitions. I'm creating campaign plans. I'm creating networks and cohorts of peers. I'm creating, right, in the work that I'm doing every day. And there is an artistic element to it that complements the scientific side of it, right? Because there's a science to the organizing too. There's a science to
00:33:42
Speaker
you know the data and the structure more or less that you're working with for organizing and for nonprofit administration, but there's also your own personal flair to it and what you're seeing that's for me is very intuitive-based, right? And that's what I'm saying. It's very fundamentally feminist to me and it's re-indigenizing in that way because I'm using my distinctively non-cognitive
00:34:07
Speaker
self in creating that I've been more closely connected to since I've become a mother or that quote unquote gut that I'm trusting that that intuition is not as easily
00:34:20
Speaker
described, but it's very valid. It's a way of knowing, right? You don't have to think about epistemology. It's a way of knowing that's very feminist, where I'm saying I'm feeling out the vibes. I'm feeling out what my intuition tells me is true about if this person met that person, that person could be a great campaign manager for them, or you know, this person should run for that office because my gut tells me that that's a good fit, and or I see that there's a problem that my intuition says, okay, don't work with that person, right? Or
00:34:50
Speaker
that funder is dangerous the way you know there's there's a lot of intuition that comes into play and that's my artistic flair to it where i'm kind of the i'm steering my way the way like a river runs its course right just kind of going with the flow that's a balance of the art and the science around it
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, when you mentioned about some of your experience and connection to a doula with the birthing process.
Creative and Spiritual Aspects of Birth
00:35:17
Speaker
I've had with my kids, two out of three were home births and having a doula, I was immediately thinking about making art.
00:35:26
Speaker
Like the spiritual creative aspect of the birth. One of the most beautiful descriptions that I have ever heard about giving birth is that it's like going to that threshold between life and death and crossing over and bringing back a life.
00:35:41
Speaker
And that, to me, connects to the question you asked earlier about what is art, what is something rather than nothing. And for me, that's something nothing creating, not creating is very much life and death co-related, right? What is and what is not. And the birthing process brought me super close to that in my body. The mothering process, nurturing,
00:36:01
Speaker
my children, cooking for them, building a home for them, that's all extremely creative. And it's about that decision to bring back life, to create life. It's very empowering.
00:36:16
Speaker
beautiful deeply difficult like beautiful things can be at times but In a beautiful description and see why I connect to that The last the last part here is kind of like open open for you like to it's like how can people connect with what you want what like what you're doing and
00:36:38
Speaker
So I have a, some of my writing is online, but it's pretty, I don't know how to describe it. I would say if people are interested in reading some of my random using, they can find it online. I have an Instagram, I have a Medium page that I do some random writing on as well, but I definitely don't make a commitment to like
00:36:58
Speaker
writing something every month or every week. I write as I'm inspired to and as I need to, so if people are interested in reading, they can, but I also don't write to be read necessarily before the following. I'd have been encouraged to share it because I think some people have found some value in it, but I also encourage people to write themselves, right? I think that
00:37:19
Speaker
I would be interested in reading people's writing or people's reflections on anything that I've talked about, especially around mothering, because I do think that writing should be the beginning of a collaboration and not just a dumping, but something to build community from.
00:37:33
Speaker
Ana del Rocio, it's been a great pleasure to have you on the podcast, something rather than nothing. Really appreciate your time and it's been a very stimulating conversation. I very much look forward to anything that you create and I'll certainly be looking for that. I appreciate that. Thanks for taking the time to interview. Thanks so much.
00:38:08
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.