Born in Kenya to Azerbaijani and Belgian parents and having lived in London, Norway, NYC, and Albania, I’ve never felt tied to a single place or identity. To grow up this way is to belong everywhere and nowhere at all. This nomadic upbringing instilled in me a profound sense of interconnectedness and a belief that our shared humanity transcends borders.

But my roots run deep. I grew up in the West but with the Azerbaijani cultural values of my mothers, from whom I inherited ancestral matriarchal knowledge:the quiet, life-sustaining labor of tending land, preserving food, and nurturing community.

This lineage was scarred by patriarchy and suppressed by colonialism, its sacredness and power erased and devalued.

In studying ecofeminism, I traced the links between the exploitation of women and the Earth, but I hadn’t yet seen what could take its place. Becoming a mother opened my eyes to matriarchy not just as personal history, but as a tangible social structure that could heal our societies.

My work is a reclamation of the matriarchal wisdom in my lineage, naming it as sacred and powerful, and inviting others to do the same.

When I was 9 years old, I attended my first protest against the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan. I shouted, “No to corruption!” and “Yes to democracy” among the bravest people I’ve ever known. Some of those people paid the price of speaking out with their lives.

This experience planted the seed for my lifelong commitment to justice and a healed future.