Meet Alison!
About Alison Reba
Blue Hummingbird Feather Cloak
Alison (they/them) is a healing justice practitioner who supports constellations of relationships transform together. Their practice interweaves creative expression through movement, storytelling, and ritual; guided by lineages that center kinship with nature, the elements, and dreams.
Alison’s practice caters towards constellations engaged in community worldbuilding, especially QTBIPOC folks and young people. They bring with them experiences as a dancer, community organizer, memory holder, and youth worker.
How would you describe your approach?
Healing justice is the framework that grounds my practice. This work is both political and spiritual. Transforming our world requires deep soul transformation individually, interpersonally, intergenerationally, and collectively. Kinship with flowers invites us into that revolutionary process. These ancestors have experienced, witnessed, and survived thousands of years of global upheaval beyond and alongside our people.
My practice focuses on constellations of relationship—movement building and organizing collectives, creative partners, besties, chosen fam—who are longing to transform together. Flowers have so much to teach us about what forms of embodiment are required to invite and sustain change.They remind us that we need each other. We don’t transform in isolation, we do so in relationship.
What wisdom lineages inform your practice?
I come from Archivists. Storytellers. Earthworkers. People who love flowers. As a child I remember picking red clover with my Nana in the railyard and talkin’ yellow tulips with my Gramma (her daddy’s favorite flower).
I am a child of two migrations. The Great Migration of Black folks from Kentucky headed North and first generation white Austrian and Slovakian folks headed west from Pennsylvania. These lineages are forged together through fire in the city of steel: Gary, Indiana. Here I was raised in community spaces. The dance studio was my home. We would sit in circle together to talk, receive a word, and then let spirit carry our bodies in movement.
As an adult I found spaces that remind me of the childhood sites that built me. Black Queer Feminist organizing formations. Community healing centers. QTPOC disability justice spaces. Within them I bring my love for flowers as a form of abolitionist worldbuilding.
Blue Hummingbird Feather Cloak is the medicine name given to me by my teacher Irma StarSpirit Turtlewoman from my initiation into the MedicineWay. This name is a guidepost for who I am (becoming) and the medicine I am (living into). I’m so grateful to my mentors Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin Jewel Moon Medicine Woman who first introduced me to flower essences and Lindsay Fauntleroy who has guided, supported, and shaped my practice here at the Spirit Seed.
How did you find flower essences?
I first experienced flower essence therapy in 2017 while a part of the work exchange team at MINKA Brooklyn. I had never heard of flower essences before—but I was curious—and monthly sessions with Aki were part of the exchange for my space tending.
I was going THRU IT at the time. Whew. I had…So. Much. Anxiety. It was hard for me to function. I was in talk therapy and on psych meds, but I was feeling really disillusioned and frustrated with how incomplete the care I received felt. When I started flower essence therapy something just clicked. The flowers invited me to build relationships with parts of myself that felt like they were “too much” or needed to be “fixed”. This kinship with flower essences continues to support me through moments of immense challenge, alongside the ebbs and flows of my daily life.
Those early flower essence therapy sessions, and being a part of MINKA Brooklyn opened so many doors for me. I had access to workshops and trainings where I explored different healing modalities. I met so many friends, teachers, and mentors. Folks would come for sessions and workshops, and we’d stay for hours gathered round the center table talking. It reminded me of sitting in circle the way we did growin’ up.
What flower essence has been an ally for you?
Iris! This flower has come up so much for me lately—front lawns during long walks, murals, photographs, my Mama’s magazine cutouts. In turn, Iris has been central to multiple formulas I’ve been making for community, and is also encouraging me to return to my own creative practice.