We recently connected with Áurea María Altamirano Cuaresma and have shared our conversation below.

Áurea María, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

My first book of poetry, Mariposa de Fuego: A Journey to Empowerment.

After some writing on my own, I looked for a circle for writers as I did at Community College in the past, I  joined the CLI ( Community Literature Initiative), a program that supports minority writers, where I could share my passion for writing, and learn from others, from their experiences with writing and life. They also listened, respected, and appreciated the ideas behind my poems. I could express myself, my pains, and my dreams through my writing and slowly found my voice and confirmed my purpose.

I wanted to thank CLI, because finding a community of writers, and an option online helped me to surpass my issues with my tight schedule, and gave me the tools I needed to work on it more decidedly; with a strong routine of writing, if not daily in the mornings, at least weekly on the weekends. Also, getting an accountability partner, who checks on you to see your advancements in writing, and encourages you to break your barriers of shyness, has been so valuable.

I found my editor in my accountability partner. Erica Lopez has encouraged me to continue against the daily life monster and its minion tasks because you need a lot of discipline to not only finish your book, and edit it,  but also to advertise it. Connecting with reading groups, libraries, fairs, and cultural events takes time and a lot of courage. I decided to do the release of my book together with a cultural event; involving an art exhibition, and reading, as a commemoration of The Peruvian Independence Day. I targeted to start at my local library, West Berkeley Library. I wasn’t sure if they would accept my proposal so I also planned a self-organized event at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley. Both happened, at La Peña on July 25th, and at West Berkeley Library on August 24th, 2024, both were unique in their own way. I wouldn’t change a thing from them. I teach Spanish to all ages so I invited all of my students.

My first book, Mariposa de Fuego, was originally written 60% in Spanish and 40% in English. Some poems started in English and included Spanish, while others began in Spanish and were translated into English. I did all the translations myself. Inspiration comes to me in both languages, so I decided to let my poems be themselves in all their bilingual richness. I also hope to inspire more writers, especially women, to write bilingual poems, so that they too can free themselves from the burden of their own lives and feel empowered.

A few days ago, I just finished the new version of Mariposa de Fuego, 95% in Spanish. With it, I hope to do more honor to my mother tongue, Spanish. It also contains a few sparks of English and a couple of full translations. Likewise, I also wanted to represent my highland roots, with some Quechua, the mother tongue of my parents and grandparents. I include it to show the respect it deserves in my literary life. So that my fellow countrymen and my Latin community could feel this book closer to them. Thus, I think I wrote the most authentic version that my immigrant soul could give birth to.

I hope you can also enjoy all of the paintings, photographs and sculptures that accompany my writing, they are my other passion.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Mariposa de Fuego, was born from my battle with grief for my father’s death. I was left with a fractured relationship father-daughter, an enormous wound to heal, which opened the pandora box of my past traumas. At first, I tried to avoid the exploding but in the end, I realized it was time for homework. I could continue the route just suffering, in an unhealthy way, or pain but healing. Many people are afraid of opening that door because it is like reopening the wound after it becomes a scar. But was it really healed? Many of us know the answer deep inside. They believe they will not survive, so they postpone or avoid taking the deep healing route. I can understand that paralyzing fear because I have been there too. Having to still face the world, at work, and the daily tasks of family life, while being in such a vulnerable and painful period of your life, is not easy at all. You need to, have to, must have some tools on your side, like therapy, journaling, meditation, yoga, etc, any that you can get. I have asked myself why there were no more sincere books or audiobooks written by women battling their processes in real time. A guide could be helpful, but a window to a sincere process is what I needed at that moment because each process is different according to the person’s idiosyncrasy. I was looking for understanding through the experience of another woman, to learn from their mistakes, struggles, decisions, and reflections, to be able to relate to them, and not feel so alone.

For this reason, even though I wrote this book for myself, I decided to share it with other women and others who need it. Sharing it has also been a process, after some therapy and some education about childhood trauma, I decided to learn to lower my fences to connect with others. This is the outcome, my purpose, my service, my contribution to the world. I am still walking the path of self-empowerment. There is so much to work on. But, now I can allow myself to feel proud of my gifts for introspection, art, and writing. I am proud I was able to come out from my cocoon and spread my wings to start the flight of my life, as my father would have liked it for me. His last act of love was to inspire me to chase my dreams, that it was not too late.

My father told me to always be original in my work. I have dealt with perfectionism for a long time, which just does not allow me to finish so many projects. I have now corrected my understanding of this teaching. Original does not mean to be perfect, but beautifully imperfect, and unique. Each person can be unique if they work on themselves and allow themselves to be.
With a sincere perspective of self-reflection, my book pretends to take you from the hand through perhaps the uncomfortable but profound emotional processes of Mariposa in her journey to self-empowerment. An accompaniment in your process, so you know you are not by yourself but find encouragement in the words I told myself. My book is directed at women and girls, but I hope it can be used as a tool for anybody. I only hope to inspire other women, and also men, to start and continue their journey of self-discovery or rediscovery despite the rocky road, and inspire them to write their own stories. We need to listen to real stories, especially of women from the minority, sharing their experiences and wisdom, speaking up to break the tabu and the vicious circle of self-doubt, sabotage, and domestic dysfunctionality.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Mariposa de Fuego: A Journey to Empowerment, was born from my urgent need to heal after my father’s passing in 2020 in Peru. My father died at only sixty-five. He has been affected by Parkinson’s disease for a decade already. My family and the doctors had found a balance in the treatment for his body, but emotionally, depression was still eating him up slowly. When the COVID pandemic emergency came, it put him in a more vulnerable situation and perhaps it speeded up the advance of his illness. He did not receive the medical attention he needed on time and died not because of COVID but as a consequence of Parkinson’s, supported by the deficient health care system. Witnessing the fragility of life so closely, left me with a feeling of injustice and helplessness. My father’s death put me against the wall to start self-care, and therapy, and to write ferociously again, to overcome my grief.

The depression of those dark moments was enhanced because my mother and sister were in Peru and I was here in the U.S., trapped by the lockdown measure situation. I felt like I was dying also. I could not even breathe properly. I was already in a dysfunctional marital situation for years so I did not get much support at home, but perhaps even more pressure to come back to my daily tasks. Expressing my feelings to my friends was frustrating. Everyone wanted me to forget and start to live normally again, pero ya, fast. Even for my mother and sister, listening to my what-ifs was just too overwhelming. It passed already three or four months but I could not just forget. I had to go through revisit my childhood wounds to reconstruct my relationship with my father. I could not avoid it anymore.

There were two puntos parteaguas, o un antes y un después. First, take action for your own person, physically and emotionally. I listened to my body and nervous system. I had this urgente necesidad, urgent need in my body to run away, the physiological trauma response of fight or flight. Where I had to physically run away and I did it. It slowly allowed me to walk away, then walk. Emotionally, I started therapy again. Secondly, it was taking action socially, slowly going from my close circle to coming out to the world again, through writing.

I can see the difference in my life scenario from 2020, when I just barely survived and had many of my dreams crushed, and how different it felt in 2023, working towards my dream of publishing my first book, and now 2024, working on strengthening my social in-person and media presence to share my voice.

My writing has blessed me with not only healing but also giving me back my voice, organizing and delivering the readings and cultural events have given back, my strength and the expression of my passions, sharing it with other women and everyone in English and now in Spanish has connected me to the world, with service and life purpose.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In therapy, I wrote a letter to my father, as a technique to calm my grief, and soon I realized I was in the middle of shedding many of my childhood traumas. I needed to revisit each of my undernourished needs, to understand the circumstances, to see my father as he really was, a loving father in his own way, and to stop being mad at him. To progress in my grief process I needed to learn to forgive him but mostly forgive myself.

I needed to honor the dreams of my inner child, that ten-year-old girl who had clear dreams, including writing, and more realistic and mature expectations than my adult self. That child used to understand without pain that her parents did their best with the tools and knowledge they had at the moment. That girl who felt more than enough felt empowered. What had happened to her? What had happened to me?

My father told me to always be original in my work when growing up but did not take the time to follow up with me. This perhaps played a role in my poor dealing with perfectionism, for which, I did not allow myself to finish many of my projects and enjoy success. I have now corrected my understanding of his teaching. Original does not mean to be perfect, but beautifully imperfect, and unique.

One of my goals was to come back to see me with caring eyes, not only to self-criticize me. Simply, because I deserve better from myself. I had to work on leaving my limitations and baggage behind; and unlearn the toxic defensive mechanisms of sabotage and perfectionism that just caused me self-doubt that did not allow me to appreciate my gifts and abilities, hard work, and small successes, getting me into this trap of low self-esteem, and feeling inadequate. Ironically, by not giving recognition to myself, I was also failing myself.

I had to accept to unlearn my expectations for my parents, my son, and most importantly myself, and learn to see people and the world through new lenses, with a perspective of compassion and gratitude, so I could trust life again.

With more awareness of my emotional issues and working on them, I also realized this was not just me. I needed to pay attention to the intergenerational cycle of emotional violence, castrating family loyalties, and victimhood that ran in the women of my family tree. Taking action and responsibility for my present and future gave me back a sense of stability and self-empowerment started to take root in me. Working on my own transformation is the only way to break the vicious intergenerational trap. So, I take my part and my children will hopefully carry only with their own baggage, and not with mine.

Contact Info:

• Website: Aureamaria.com
• Instagram: Aurea484
• Linkedin: Aurea Altamirano