Mandy Martini, Hudson, NY (2026)

03/15/2026

I once had a friend drag me with her to a meditation studio in Santa Monica. It cost us $39 each and the little room was packed full with people sitting on cushiony seats with backrests. In the front, on a platform, was the person leading the class.

As I sat there, I kept thinking of how odd it was for so many, including myself, to pay money to sit in a room for 30 minutes. Everything about Western culture seems to be a transfer from one room (and building) to another— including when we intend to connect with ourselves on a spiritual level.

In LA, I always had friends dragging me with them to places like this, to one spiritual leader after another. And I get it. I’ve spent years (almost two decades now), in the world of healing and wellness, and as an Indigenous woman, I should be into these things, right? Because these things always seem to get grouped like a family: wellness, healing, spirituality, New Age, pe**te, breathwork, Indigenous/Native spirituality etc.

But the truth is, there are distinct differences.

I would say that, as Indigenous people, at least from my teachings as a Mapuche (People of the Land), spirituality is about connection.

The way we meditate is not in isolation.
It’s not with a group of other people surrounded by four walls. It’s not through listening to a “leader” who often hides their own inner turmoil behind words that we’ve learned to recognize an enlightened person. It’s not by searching out the self-proclaimed healer/shaman/guru/medicine person, who seems to live in abundance in both LA and here in the Catskills/Hudson Valley, who seeks to dominate the people who come to them for help.

No.

Spirituality to us comes through connection and relationship with the land— with the diversity the living world has to offer us: water, earth, wind, trees, fungi, birds… and yes, other people as well.

Spirituality is a connection through energy.
So how can we connect to other energies behind walls? How can our spirit find calm in a room of people who are mostly in survival mode?

A sick tree doesn’t find support from another sick tree. It seeks support from the healthy trees that are living around it in balance.

03/03/2026

For almost a decade, I listened to the advice of people who had never healed themselves. They didn’t know how or if it was even possible, so they taught me how to cope and numb. We live in a culture that pushes survival over healing, and suffering over joy, so I want to make it clear that Indigenous Knowledge and wisdom hold more than just sweat lodges, vision quest, ayahuasca, pe**te, and whatever else people think about when they hear the words Indigenous and healing in the same sentence. For thousands of years, we’ve been in a close relationship with our bodies as nature, understanding how we respond to stress and survival, and also the responses the allows us to heal. Unfortunately, this is becoming lost and diluted in a world that prioritizes everything but nature. With that said, I hope this message reaches you, not only on your Instagram feed but in your heart and spirit. Your body holds its own medicine ❤️

02/27/2026

Can you imagine how many things we learn to think of as “normal” that, in reality, are far from it?

This is something I’ve been thinking about for years. Painful periods, postpartum anxiety, rage, and depression, chronic illnesses and pains... there’s so much!

I compare all these things we experience in Western culture with my own culture and people, and so many things are unheard of, or used to be unheard of for us, before we were forced to move into cities to survive.

Not until after I healed did I realize how much all this pain every month in my body, the migraines, the anxiety, depression— all of it— how much space, time, and energy it was taking from me.

Our bodies are capable of so much more. They are capable of leaving survival, of healing, and of living in balance. Our bodies are not our problem. The problem is what this culture has taught us to believe: to distrust it.

✨If you want to learn more, I have a free class you can watch. Just comment “CLASS” and I’ll DM you.

❤️ Both my wooden hair piece and the earrings (pine-needle with deer tail tuffs) were made by my partner . He’s an incredible Onondaga artist (his pieces are featured in museums!), and he has more if you’re interested in getting your own. Jus send him a message ☺️

P.S. If you’re thinking, “This woman has no idea how to do her makeup!” then you’re absolutely right! I’m just a mama who, right before this video, was wearing a t-shirt that was wet from p*e from her toddler, and wanted to glam herself up a bit while he naps 🥰

02/27/2026

I was recently asked about how we raise children as Indigenous parents, and I’ve been pondering this for a while. With the state of this country, world, and the overall trajectory of the future, my partner and I have been having a lot of conversations about how we show up through it all as parents and as members of our communities: Indigenous and where we live today. It’s been feeling like too big a topic to cover in a social media post, or even on Substack or my email newsletter, so yesterday I asked , “How about if we just go live?”

So here we are!

We’re planning on making this a bi-weekly thing (depending on how things go), covering different topics, especially as we move through the seasons: what we harvest, what we grow, and how the community work is going, including updates on how the Beaver Lodge Food Forest (BLFF), the non-profit land-back project we’re working on here in Catskills, NY.

🗓️ Click the calendar icon on my profile to set a reminder. 🫶🏽

Next live, March 15th, will be all about Maples. 🍁 How the maple is the leader of all trees for the Haudenosaunee. How it’s celebrated. Making syrup. And getting together with volunteers to get the maple evaporator that was donated last year to BLFF up and running. (If you’re in the area and want to join us for this, send me a DM!)

See you on Sunday? ❤️

02/22/2026

Keep it kind. No bashing. Just curious about your thoughts. A while back, a woman in a mom group I’m in on FB said that she’s a nurse in an emergency room and find that easier than when she was a stay at home mom. “At work, I clock in and then out. But as a sahm, I was always on.” she said.

I personally think this is one of the reasons that moms are pushed into survival. The overwhelm piling up with the dirty dishes. The anxiety of trying to do more and feeling like you never have enough time to catch up. Maybe it leads to snapping. Especially when you’ve been pushed too long without any support or time for yourself to be nurtured. Just always giving and giving— of your body, emotions, and energy, until there’s almost nothing left. Add to that, in your ears you not only have a society that’s telling you you’re not doing enough, but also a partner/husband saying the same. That’s tough.

If you’re a mama who’s feeling underappreciated right now, I see you. Sending you a big hug and so much love❤️

02/19/2026

took the stunning photo of the Snow Moon (Kvyen) on his way home earlier this month ❤️❄️🌕

02/08/2026

16 months today, our little Sun Hawk. I’m tempted to say we’re “still” breastfeeding, and “still” have contact naps, which we are… but the “still” implies it shouldn’t be that way. Or that it’s somehow against the norm. Which I guess it is, in this culture that’s driven by productivity, efficiency, and separation. It’s not easy to not get pulled in by it, especially with bills and climbing costs of everything we need to survive. But at the same time, I refuse to push my son to the side. I refuse to turn away from my own culture and my people’s wisdom that remind me how important it is to protect our children, our future generations, to keep our connection to each other, to teach them who we are as human beings, and not as products of a system. Every day I tell myself: there must be a way. A way to survive the world we live in without sacrificing our children, and our way of living as not only Indigenous people, but as human beings. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I do feel strongly that there must be a way.

01/27/2026

Today’s thoughts:

Many people believe the most challenging part of healing is the body’s ability to heal. But this is not true. We are made to heal. If we weren’t, life would end because nothing can grow or continue for eternity in survival.

Life depends on equilibrium— a state of balance. When we’re wounded or in survival, our life force, or energy, can only focus on that instead of growing, thriving, and creating. This is not just true for us as human beings, but the whole living world.

That’s why the biggest challenge isn’t who we are or what we’re capable of. The biggest challenge we all face is living in a society that is INVESTED in keeping us in survival, in every possible way: in how we live, in how we’re treated, in everything we’re exposed to (physically and emotionally). And every day we’re fed the idea that it’s normal. That living in balance, healed and thriving, isn’t possible.

Like an abusive husband, this society whispers, You need me. You can’t survive without me. And before we see it coming, we become the wife who has been manipulated for so long that she has forgotten who she is and what’s real anymore.

I’ve been that wife. I’ve been there, stuck in survival, held in paralysis by anxiety, depression, and PTSD, believing there’s no other way. And as someone who has escaped and healed from them both, can I give you some advice?

Never forget who you are and what you’re capable of. Never believe in a system or a person who is trying to break you down. ESPECIALLY not more than yourself. Refuse to believe that living in survival is the only way. Why? Because survival breaks us down. It keeps us compliant, defeated, and many times, too tired and numb to do anything about it.

Healing, on the other hand, gives us energy, opens our eyes, and connects us to the world we are all meant to live in.

01/22/2026

Living in this society comes with the consequence of forgetting who you are as a human being.

And I’m not just talking about the 9-to-5 rat race or the amount of time we spend in buildings instead of being outside, connected to the land and the living world.

I’m talking about how we live, constantly targeted and exposed to stress, trauma, violence, and suffering, collectively and individually. Especially as women. Especially as Indigenous, Black, or Brown people. All while trying to balance everything else in life.

I’m talking about how little we learn to understand our innate instincts and responses to the point that we start believing that living in a state of survival is normal. And that being chronically anxious and exhausted is part of who we are. (It’s not.)

Comment human and I’ll send you the 🔗 to read more.

01/14/2026

In this society, we learn to fear our body’s natural responses. Whether you’re shaking during birth, when you’re nervous, when you’re angry, after a fight or a confrontation, I want you to know your body is doing exactly what it was meant to do. ❤️ Our bodies were made to take care of us, to not only help us survive but to keep us thriving so that life can continue. My uncle, an award winning author, mentions in one of his books about the sickness of uniformity. The result of colonization, of destroying other cultures and way of living, of seeing diversity as a threat, has made the people of this society sick. Mothers are not meant to live postpartum, or the rest of their lives, in survival managing rage, anxiety, and depression. It’s not normal, and it’s affecting their children and future generations. Generational trauma is real. It becomes an imprint on our DNA. But you know what could change it? Healing. Just how survival can change our DNA, making our body fight itself, healing can change our DNA too. Healing can change the outcome for our children and their children. And I’m not talking about healing as in this vague fluffy meaning-nothing “lifelong journey” that we hear about here. But healing as in how your skin heals a wound. True healing that only your body is capable of.

✨ Don’t miss out on learning more about your responses and your body as nature. Join A Space To Be Human— a once-a-week newsletter that shares stories and teachings from an Indigenous perspective.

Comment “HUMAN” if you want me to message you the link ❤️ (just be patient with me, I don’t use bots and try to not be on my phone around my kid.)

01/03/2026

Been struggling coming back here after the holidays. Took some time to be with family, especially since my mom and stepdad was visiting and I only get to see them once or twice a year. We also went up to Onondaga to be with T’s family, and my mom got to see how much it looks like our own reserve.

In the middle of all of this, I also found out a woman who has taken my program has been taking my teachings, plagiarizing my writing and stories of my family, even memories I’ve used of my grandmother, using it to create an Indigenous identity to sell programs, retreats, and who knows what else. Adding to why it’s been so hard to come back here and share. Or write another newsletter. The last one I sent out, she copied and published on Substack the same day.

I wish I could say I let it slide off my back like nothing but that would be a lie. It definitely affected my peace of mind, and distracted me from my son and my family. Luckily, T helped nudge me back❤️

T ( ) surprised me on Christmas morning with these beautiful pine needle deer tail earrings. He made them late at night, sitting on the floor next to the bed while Namkú and I were asleep 🥹 What do you think? He should make more to sell right? 🥰

Mandy Martini

03/15/2026

03/03/2026

02/27/2026

02/27/2026

02/22/2026

02/19/2026

02/08/2026

01/27/2026

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01/14/2026

01/03/2026

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