Songs of the Plants: Daniela Rojas on Medicine, Lineage & Reclaiming Confidence
Matriarch Movement Podcast — Season 6: Indigenous Voices of This Generation
This episode, host Shayla Oulette Stonechild, sits down with Daniela Rojas — a medicine keeper, educator, musician, and artist whose roots stretch from the Coahuiltecan lands on the Texas-Mexico border to the Peruvian Amazon, where she trained under Shipibo and Ashaninka lineage holders and was initiated into ceremonial plant medicine work. Daniela is the founder of Indígena Medicina, creating sacred containers for healing rooted in Indigenous knowledge, plant medicine, and ceremony.
Daniela and Shayla trace her path from growing up "siphoned" between two identities on the border, to activism in San Antonio, to the grief and long search that led her to her teachers in Peru. She opens up about her mother's passing and the ancestral womb work that initiated her deeper into her medicine path, what a dieta actually involves, and how Icaros - the songs of the plants - become a living technology for healing in ceremony. The conversation also turns practical: how to responsibly vet a ceremony facilitator amid the current plant-medicine boom, how she stays grounded through physical discipline and nutrition, and her advice for anyone trying to reconnect with lineage, land, or spirit when the elders and acces s aren't there.
They close on matriarchy -Daniela's mother, her sisters, and the mentors who shaped how she leads with what she calls "heart-led advocacy."
01:11 — Guest introduction: Daniela Rojas, medicine keeper and founder of Indígena Medicina
02:31 — Daniela's roots: born in Eagle Pass, Texas, connected to the Coahuiltecan people
04:08 — Growing up "siphoned" between two identities on the Texas-Mexico border
05:31 — Activism in San Antonio and fighting for Indigenous voices in the story of the Alamo
07:00 — Shayla on fragmentation, residential schools, and reclaiming pride as a younger generation
08:00 — Daniela's advice for reconnecting to elders and spirit without direct access
12:39 — What a curandera is and how the term is used in her Peruvian lineage
15:21 — What a dieta actually involves — from 8 days to years-long processes
20:40 — Why she began dieting: her mother's passing and the womb work that followed
24:22 — Receiving the Icaros — the "songs of the plants" — as a form of coding technology
28:06 — How she holds the responsibility of space-holding without burning out
30:34 — Physical discipline and nutrition as grounding practices for ceremony work
34:19 — Navigating cultural appropriation and how to vet a ceremony facilitator
37:22 — Lateral violence and protocols for creating safety within community containers
41:47 — Daniela's mentorship for stepping into confidence, power, and self-expression
44:09 — Defining matriarchy: her mother, her sisters, and mentor Miriam Hosny
50:08 — Where to find Daniela: her website, Instagram, and upcoming European tour
Follow Daniela Riojas at Intikhana for details on her mentorship, retreats, and upcoming tours.
@danielariojas
https://linktr.ee/danielariojas
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