Rocio Cordova > Recent Status Updates

The love of a father is an uncommon gem, to be hunted, burnished, and hoarded. The value goes up because of it scarcity.

To know love, men must let go the will to dominate.

While feminist, thinking, enabled me to reach beyond the boundaries set by patriarchy, it was the search for wholeness, for self recovery, that let me back to my dad.

My reconciliation with my father began with my recognition that I wanted, and needed his love, and that if I could not have his love, then at least I needed to heal the wound in my heart his violence had created.

Medicine has come to understand the emergence of disease through the metaphors of war and tolerance, because these were the liberal and neoliberal political metaphors a hand.

What happens then when we’re ready to see medicine in general, immune system in particular, not as a theater of war but as a composition with the rest of the web of life? What does that song actually sound like?

Immunology developed in tandem with the politics of its time.

…the body, like liberalism, called for a tolerance without parity, contingent of the recognition of a “self” and an “other”. People deemed “other” would not be killed but merely tolerated - immunes in a perpetual state of non belonging.

Social forces, precondition, for example, how bodies react to [illnesses]. The same infection is expressed differently in different groups of people because of how the immune system has been toned overtime, through lifetimes and ancestries of social oppression.

When our partner is unable to meet our basic attachment needs, we experience a chronic sense of disquiet and tension that leaves us more exposed to various ailments.

Not only is our emotional well-being sacrifices when we are in a romantic partnership with someone who doesn’t provide a secure base, so is our physical health.

In one of his studies, Dr. Baker found that if you have a mild form of high blood pressure, being in a satisfying marriage is good for you; spending time in the presence of your partner actually benefits you by lowering your blood pressure.
If on the other hand, you are not satisfied with your marriage, contact with your partner will actually raise your blood pressure…

For indigenous communities in North America, the act of connecting young people back to their ancestral lands is cutting suicide rates without the use of Western medicine or pharmaceuticals.

Having a sense of belonging improves health outcomes. Cultural continuity and dignity are in themselves determinants of health.

Decolonizing is not some thing that can be done alone. It is already happening and communities were land is being rematriated, where solidarity economies of mutual aid and support are being established, where communities are renewing their relationships with local ecologies and re-telling their stories, some of which have been silence for centuries.

People with secure attachment style know how to communicate their own expectations and respond to their partner’s needs without having to resort to protest behavior.

For the rest of us, understanding is only the beginning.

Colonial cosmology sees things where persons once were. What was once alive with personhood - a forest, river, a mountain - becomes inanimate, disconnected from ecologies, open to exploitation.

The ideologies of modern colonialism are alive and well - and they are making you sick. To be clear, [it] isn't simply the occupation of land. It is a process, an operation of power in which one cosmology is extinguished and replaced with another. Patterns of identity, language, culture, work, relationship, territory, time, community and care are transformed. Colonialism has fundamentally altered our relationships...

To understand what’s driving inflammation, we must account for the things our bodies have been exposed to, in the places where our lives have been circumscribed. And to offer a treatment, we must show how we can escape.

The root of a diagnosis is knowledge of antecedent parts that make sense of the present in order to change the future.

A story that fails to incorporate this history is one that can have no part in healing.

Despite our problems, despite the intensification of the imperialist blockade… I feel confident, I feel optimistic, and I am absolutely convinced that we will do everything we set our minds, too! We’ll do it with the people, with the masses; we’ll do it with the principles, pride, and honor of each and everyone of our party members, workers, youth, peasants, and intellectuals!

Che was radically opposed to using and developing capitalist economic laws and concepts in building Socialism. He advocated building Socialism and communism…not just as a matter of producing and distributing wealth, but also a matter of education and consciousness.

Our revolution is an example of what faith in human beings means, because I revolution started from scratch, from nothing… the revolution triumphed because we believed in humanity.

In 2012 a quarter of all human deaths were traceable to environmental factors in the air, water and soil.

The inflammation in your arteries and the inflammation of the planet are linked, and the causal connections are becoming increasingly clear; your physiological state is a reaction to social and environmental factors. Racial violence, economic precarity, industrial pollution, poor diet, and even the water you drink can inflame you.

Everything we’ve made, we’ve made from fossil fuels: energy, food, medicine, and consumer goods. The world has been organized to burn.

Your body is a part of a society inflamed.

“In all epochs and under all circumstances, there will always be an abundance of pretext for not fighting; but not fighting is the only way to never attain freedom.”

For Che’s life had the virtue of impressing even his worst ideological enemies, causing them to admire him. It is an almost unique example of how a person can gain the recognition and respect of their enemies, the very enemies they have faced… It is understandable that this should worry imperialism.

Lies are weapons that help no revolutionary, and no serious revolutionary ever needs to resort to a lie. Their weapon is reason, morality, truth, the ability to defend an idea, a proposal, a position.

Revolutionaries know how to wait; we know how to be patient; we never despair.

“You go through life for a long time thinking “no one has ever suffered the way I’ve suffered, my God, my God.” Then you realize - you read something or you hear something, and you realize that your suffering does not isolate you; your suffering is your bridge. Many people have suffered before you, many people are suffering around you and always will, and all you can do is bring, hopefully, a little light into that…”

Finding words where words were absent before and being able to share your deepest pain is one of the most profound experiences we can have...especially if people in our lives have ignored or silenced us.

Communicating fully is the opposite of being traumatized.

Discovering your Self in language is always an epiphany, even if finding the words to describe your inner reality can be an agonizing process.