Born in Kenya to an Azerbaijani mother and Belgian father and having lived across three continents, I’ve never felt tied to a single place or identity. To grow up this way is to belong everywhere and nowhere at all. I have always had a deep sense of our interconnectedness and a belief that our shared humanity transcends borders.

Though my branches are wide, my roots run deep. I am a granddaughter of Qakh, descended from women who worked together and with the Earth to survive empire.

My ancestral inheritance was scarred by patriarchy and suppressed by colonialism, its sacredness and power erased and devalued.

As an adult, I became a scholar of ecofeminism, tracing the links between the exploitation of women and the Earth, but I hadn’t yet seen what could take its place. Becoming a mother opened my eyes to matriarchy as a tangible social structure that could heal the biggest issues of our time.

My work is a reclamation of the matriarchal wisdom in my lineage, naming it as sacred and powerful, and inviting others to do the same.