Nazbah Tom (Diné), (they/them) – Somatic Practitioner and Writer
Nazbah is from the Navajo Nation on their ancestral homelands, currently known as Arizona. Their original training is in drama therapy which offered an experiential form of psychotherapy with individuals and groups. As a somatic practitioner they use a combination of conversation, breath work, gestural work, bodywork, and incorporating new somatic skills to support and guide individuals and groups through a process of embodied transformation. They have been published in several anthologies including the Lambda Literary Award winner Love After The End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction.
Speaking Topics
The Power of Storytelling
By sharing their story of how their parents came to accept their sexuality/gender in college as well as their process of relearning the Navajo creation story of the Hero Twins, Nazbah inspires others to examine the stories we have grown up with, and to be curious about what might have interrupted or shaped those stories. Audiences will be inspired to learn more, innovate, or shift the way stories are formed in their lives, while empowering themselves to increase their sense of safety and belonging, and to live with more dignity.
Reclaiming Queer Identity and Practices in Indigenous Communities
The impact of colonization is evident in the harm and trauma created within Indigenous communities. One community that has been devastated is the 2SLGBT+ community. Out of the ruins of near apocalypse, Indigiqueer community is reclaiming, relearning, and innovating community practices that offer inclusion, safety, belonging, dignity, respect, and joy! Through the telling of three community practices reclaimed and innovated by Indigiqueer community in the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area and Navajo Nation, the resilience, determination, joy, love, and fight for community is demonstrated. Each community shows how we can bend the arc of the river of humanity towards love and empowerment.
Landing Back in Our Somas
How does the land speak through you? How has land shaped you? Are you as resilient, adaptive, and sensitive as the land that made you? How are the things we practice in connection or disconnection with land? Land has so much to teach us about compassion, listening, resilience and community building. Through storytelling and interaction, Nazbah guides audiences through a process of reconnection with the land, themselves, and each other.
To book Nazbah Tom, contact Rob Firing at speakers@transatlanticagency.com.