PRACTITIONERS & FACILITATORS
At Liberation Pathwayss we are creating a community of healers, providers, and facilitators. If the guiding principles of this community resonate with you and/or your organization/offerings, we welcome you to contact us.
MARIBEL RAMIREZ, MS, LPC, LMT, Healer
she/her/ella
Maribel is a mixed-heritage, female-identifying, cisgender, bilingual (English/Spanish) mental health/substance use counselor, healer, body worker, and founder of Liberation Pathways. She currently resides in the ancestral lands of the Paiute, Wasco and Confederated Tribes of the people of Warm Springs in what is now called Prineville, Oregon in the Central region of the state. (Please click here for full land acknowledgement.) Her lineage includes ancestors from the African continent, China, Indigenous ancestors from what is now Colombia in the South American Continent, and Spain. Maribel’s conventional education includes a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling. However, most of her learning has come from time spent in Nature, a well-worn Plant and Earth Medicine path with lineage curanderos(as) and Abulas(os) from Latin America, as well as Tibetan and Zen Buddhist teachings, and Hindu/Vedic Spiritual philosophy explored through the path of Yoga. Maribel spent 15 years learning and nurturing the human body via her work as a body worker and yoga teacher.
She has spent the last 4 years working with adolescents, young adults and Spanish-speaking clients (all ages) and families through a mental health counseling, trauma-informed lens. These paths have converged in bringing a deeper understanding of the interconnectivity of the seen and unseen aspects of the individual as well as the interconnectivity of the human being and the seen and unseen systems of which we are all a part of. These perspectives inform both her individual counseling and group facilitation work, significantly diverting from conventional, Western-based, patriarchal models of healing and mental health and veering into a Liberation Psychology framework and indigenous ways of knowing and healing. She keeps only the useful aspects of the conventional approaches she has learned, particularly when working with historically oppressed and marginalized people.
Currently, Maribel is taking a deep dive into the mythologies of peoples and cultures throughout the world and connecting to the wisdom and medicine found in the archetypal energies that move through and connect us to story as a pathway for healing. She also continues to learn theories and methods for healing trauma from an individual and intergenerational perspective. Maribel is currently contemplating a doctoral degree path with an aim to contribute to decolonizing mental health and wellness, Indigenous ways of knowing, and Liberation Psychology. She is actively engaged in training with traditional ancestral medicine teachers in Master Plant Medicines and Fungi-assisted therapy.
JUDITH SADORA | TRIUNE HEALTH AND WELLNESS
MA, LMFT, Integrative-Focused Co-healer
she/her/li
My work values compassion, community, spirituality, creativity, and movement. The work is centered from the understanding that trauma exists and impacts who we are as individuals and communities. Taking a trauma-informed and systemic lens is the center of my work because it continues to be what liberates me in my own wellness and healing. Trauma is held in our body, minds and communities. I center these areas of focus to help move through the trauma we carry individually and collectively. As a systems therapist, I take a perspective and worldview that acknowledges that we are a part of communities that is centered around relational dynamics and a part of an ecosystem that centers Nature. Understanding our attachment styles in relationships and our sense of self is beneficial to how we heal in relationships. The systems we are a part of on a macro and micro level are important to healing in collective ways and acknowledging how trauma is maintained.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Oregon and Nevada. I completed my master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy and currently I am in a Doctoral program for Marriage and Family Therapy. I received further education at Portland State University to provide therapy for the foster care and adoption population. I am an active member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy and the National Association of Black Counselors. I have experience working with individuals, families, couples, and parent/child dynamics, and specialize in working with adoptive families, especially within transracial adoption. I offer consulting to organizations and programs seeking clinical training as it relates to Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. I also work as a university supervisor at Oregon State University, offering supervision and professional development to clinical interns in the Professional Counseling graduate program. As part of my values in collective community engagement and engaging in spaces where accountability, growth, continued education, embodiment practices and relationships are cultivated, I am a regular member of the Therapy that Liberates community, founded by Shawna Murray-Browne and a member of a collective body of BILAPOC wellness practitioners in Central Oregon. To read more about my own story click here.
LINKS:
Twitter: @sadorawellness
FÁTIMA CASTRO RODRÍGUEZ | FÁTIMA'S LUCECITA BIRTH SERVICES
Birth Keeper
she/her/ella
Fátima is a first-generation, queer daughter of Mexican parents. She was born and raised in Southside Chicago in a traditional Mexican household. Fast forward 26 years, she now resides on the ceded lands of the Northern Paiute, Wasco, and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, also known as Central Oregon, where she has built beautiful and genuine relationships with many people in her community. Fátima became passionate about birth keeping when she attended a close friend’s home birth, while still completing her doula training summer of 2021.
She second handedly experienced the great power, magic, and essentially the portals a mother/parent goes through when giving birth. While diving into her own ancestral healing, she also discovered that her great grandmother was a healer/birth keeper in her community as well. She took that not only as a sign from Spirit, but as guidance from her ancestors to help usher life into the New World. As a traditional birthkeeper, Fátima’s values are rooted in community support, decolonizing birth through reproductive and social justice, reclamation of ancestral traditions and wisdom of her
lineage [Mestiza], and the continual advocation and support for ALL historically oppressed humans in sustainable and nurturing healing.
In her own personal life, Fátima has worked towards understanding how trauma affects all individuals through embodiment practices such as yoga, breath work, and tending her own mental health. She works from a trauma-informed lens which centers on dismantling systems of oppression, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and white supremacy, not only in our public institutions, but the programming that has been embedded in every being.
Aside from working with mothers and parents in her community, Fátima holds space for many. In the past, she has held space through working with troubled youth in a therapeutic setting and has worked in the low-income public school system creating a safe space for youth to experience joy through recreation and art. In her spare time, she likes to play outside and connect with Mother Nature, spend quality time with her loved ones, snuggle with her cat and a book at hand, cook and share nourishing meals, and also tend to herself through self-care rituals.
AHLAY BLAKELY | HEALING AT THE ROOTS
Song Carrier, Grief Tender, Community Organizer
she/they
Healing at the Roots is a portal into the amalgamation of trauma-informed communal grief work, politicized healing, community singing, reclaiming witch identities as ancestral pathways & re-enchanting white culture as abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-oppressive practice. This is one of the ways Ahlay (Jewish/Scandinavian) stays accountable to their ongoing commitment to breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma both caused and endured by their ancestors, while also recognizing the compounded harm we have yet to collectively acknowledge so we can begin to transform it. Ahlay is a descendent of the uprooted and rootless ones and she is a commitment to re-rooting & re-sensitizing her people through culture building and re-viving her indigenous ancestor's cosmologies through re-membering what was meant to be forgotten.
One of the ways we do this is through Grieving Embodied White Supremacy.