STAFF

Photo by Sylvia Eugenia Ruiz

SYLVIA EUGENIA RUIZ

FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

As a certified Mindfulness Teacher and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, I am passionate about disseminating strategies for fostering well-being in the face of stress, anxiety, immigration, and traumatic experiences. Rather than offering quick-fix solutions, I combine my insights, experiences, and science to present an expanded scenario that empowers people to promote their re-connection and healing.

Originally from Mexico City, I identify as queer, female, mestiza, and first-generation immigrant. For over 20 years, my spiritual journey has been intertwined with my professional life through mindfulness, theater, body-ritual movement, and performance. In 2020, I founded Primordial Multicultural Healing Community, an organization whose mission is to connect the Latine community with its own capacity to create well-being. I hold a position in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I also teach mindfulness meditation in both English and Spanish through UW Health Mindfulness Program, True North Trek, University of California San Diego, and Primordial.

Specialties: Project management, facilitation, trauma healing, movement and performance improvisation, natural motivator, creative writing, cross-cultural communication, contemplative practices, languages (Spanish, English, French).

I value: Solidarity, compassion in action, challenge, collaboration, kindness, sense of safety and belonging, integrity, long-term relationships and partnerships, healing processes, environmental awareness, and innovative thinking.

I founded Primordial motivated by a dream: Creating a space for healing processes that celebrates diversity, where we discuss difference openly, and are centered in the needs and capacities of non-dominant groups (mainly Latine).

Positions/Affiliations/Responsibilities/Passions: Primordial’s Multicultural Healing Community Executive  Director, outreach specialist at UW Madison’s Educational Psychology, Mindfulness facilitator at UW Health Mindfulness Program, healing trauma at Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, artist, traveler, LGBTQIA+ community member, wife, daughter, friend of the Earth and friend of my friends.

MICHELLE ESPARZA

COURSES AND SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR

Specialties: Teaching theatre for children, project coordination, writing of stories and plays for children (with the prehispanic theme), study and practice of Aztec-Mexica culture, temazcal ritual (traditional medicine), healing songs, the performance of huehuetl, chimalhuehuetl and teponaztli (Pre-Hispanic instruments). Languages: Spanish and I am a student of Nahuatl and English.   

I value: Teamwork, honesty, and loyalty.

I collaborate with Primordial because: I believe in community. I know that we are all part of the same fabric and that, despite distances, borders, culture, and language, we are still human. It is only in community, respecting the authenticity of each one, that we can fulfill our dreams and have a fuller life. For me, Primordial is a place of transformation that offers the necessary tools to modify your personal perceptions and allows you to live your life, whatever it may be, in a more present way.

Positions/Affiliations/Responsibilities/Passions:  Apprentice and practitioner of the Azteca-Mexica cultural legacy. Temazcal, healing songs, theatre for kids, dramaturgy, woman, wife, sister, daughter, friend, prehispanic musical instruments, coordinator of courses and special projects at Primordial.  

FANNY MOFFETTE

FINANCIAL ADVISOR

Specialties: Environmental economics, impact evaluation, quantitative research, writing, coding, financial planning, languages (French, Spanish, English, and Portuguese).

I value: Innovation, sustainability, healing processes, and collaboration.

I collaborate with Primordial because: I believe its innovative teaching method has a deep potential to foster well-being in non-dominant groups.  

Positions/Affiliations/Responsibilities/Passions: Primordial’s Financial Advisor, Postdoctoral Researcher at UW Madison’s Agricultural and Applied Economics, studying policies that are aimed to protect ecosystems, lifelong learning, gardener, yoga, and cross-cultural psychology.

BROOKS FUENTES

COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST

Specialties: Community building, design, marketing, writing, and events. I speak English and Spanish.

I value: Empathy, community, adventure, humor, creativity, and the perspective of a beginner’s mind.

I collaborate with Primordial because: I love to foster spaces for the BIPOC community to connect and heal. I value this opportunity to bring mindfulness practices to more people.

Positions/Affiliations/Responsibilities/Passions: Community weaver for breast cancer and AYA (adolescent and young adult) survivors, patient outreach specialist at Breast Friends, co-founder and facilitator of the young survivor social group Yew Club, wife, daughter, sister, friend, passionate about the healing power of nature, outdoor adventurer, newsletter curator and communication contractor at Primordial.