About Us
"Tutu'uli translates to 'beautiful'"
Tutu'uli Wellness was founded in the hopes of providing healing and guidance through a spiritual and educational lens. At the heart of Tutu'uli Wellness is the Shadow Work: Self-Reflection Journal which hopes to guide individuals through unpacking personal behaviors and issues. "Wellness" can be applied to a variety of areas that Tutu'uli Wellness strives to bring together holistically.
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"Tutu'uli" (tutu-ooh-lee) is an Indigenous word from the Yaqui/Yoeme People of the Southwest. "Tutu'uli" translates to "beautiful".
Our Story
My name is Jessica and I am an Indigenous American born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I grew up in West Phoenix surrounded by a community of hard-working people trying their best.
Spirituality and the idea of the supernatural was talked about pretty casually in my family. We have always shared experiences and stories of things that weren't quite easily explained away. I have always been fascinated by the spiritual side of the world. With the shutdown in 2020, I decided to start learning more about spiritual practices and philosophies. Since 2020, I have been providing guidance and counsel to friends and acquaintances via tarot/oracle card readings, analyzing astrological charts, and having platicas.
Why "Tutu'uli"?
The Origin
I am a Yaqui (Yoeme) Indigenous woman. Being an Indigenous woman comes with so many generational blessings, as well as generational struggles. Due to the impact of colonization, my family has not retained much of our Indigenous culture. My whole family knows we are Yaqui, but like so many Indigenous Americans, that knowledge can sometimes bring about more questions. Indigenous peoples all across the Americas have lost touch with their languages, traditions, and sometimes families. It is a constant fight for Indigenous peoples to protect their culture.
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Part of the generational struggles that comes with being Indigenous is the struggle of alcoholism. I lost my maternal grandfather (Tata) to alcoholism when I was a child, and he was buried on my fourth birthday.
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As someone who struggled with alcoholism, he was not always a good or reliable father and husband. He put his family in some tough positions and made some bad choices. Including ones that landed him in the hospital with a failing liver.
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Despite his flaws, he was a person. A person who was dealing with his own trauma, having been forcefully from his mother and his entire life following a disrupted course. He is a person who tried to love the best he could. Tried so hard, in fact, to love better that he gave me a nickname, "Tutu'uli".
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My family spent most of my life believing this was a word that he came up with in his imagination. It was not until later that I found it "tutu'uli" is a Yaqui word. but I was not sure of a translation. When I reported the news to my family, everyone was shocked. "I didn't know he spoke Yaqui!" We had no idea if he just knew a few words or knew the whole language. We didn't know what else my Tata knew. And we would never be able to ask.
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I spent a long time trying to track down translations. Now, I only knew what the word sounded like. I had to guess at the spelling. After trying to ask various people I knew who had contact with family on the reservation in the Tucson area, I could not track down the word. I finally decided to take a long shot and email the Pascua Yaqui Education department on their website. I shared my story about my Tata, gave my best guess at the spelling, and asked for any possible direction. On December 20, 2023, I got my answer.
Highlighted in green in the body of the email was, "I believe it is spelled like this 'Tutu'uli'. Which translates to 'beautiful.'" I broke down sobbing. At the time, I was 28 years old. 28 years old, searching for an answer to a childhood mystery. Now my 28 year old self felt the love that my Tata had for me. He used his native language that seemed to be a secret to him and used it to call his youngest granddaughter "beautiful". And I spent most of my life trying to figure out that name and identity.
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My Tata made choices. But a lot of them were influenced by the impact of colonization. He was a boy taken away from his mother and forced to work and assimilate to a new life as a child. Like us all, he tried. Not always successful, but we all have our challenges to overcome.
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When we lost him to alcohol poisoning, he was buried on my fourth birthday. I was not allowed to attend the funeral, people thought I was too young. After the burial, however, everyone came over to the family home. There was family, music, reminiscing, and laughter. At the time, we had a trellis in our backyard covered in roses climbing all the way up. The mourners also carried around single roses leftover from the burial with them.
Tutu'uli Wellness seeks to provide balance and reflection. There is so much of myself I am trying to learn about and sort out. If I am going to help others, I have to work on being balanced in myself. Decolonizing and self-reflection are key aspects to wellness.
"Tutu'uli" is a tribute to not just my Tata, but all of our ancestors who came before us. There is no us without them. It is also about the recognizing the beauty of being a human just trying to figure life out.
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