“It’s time to move home to help the black girls in the community…”
The words, the instructions, the images—they were so vivid, so precise, it didn’t feel like a dream. And maybe it wasn’t.
Whether it came through a dream or divine visitation, I knew the message was real the moment I opened my eyes in the middle of the night, in my El Cerrito, California apartment, back in September 2019. My Ancestor had spoken, and I felt it deep in my bones.
The message was clear: “Go back home.”
Without knowing exactly what “home” would look like, I began preparing to return to Thibodaux, Louisiana. All I had were the instructions—and the unshakable knowing that I was being called back to the land of my roots.
So I followed the call. From Northern California’s Bay Area to the heart of southern Louisiana, I made my way.
I arrived in Thibodaux just one month before the world shut down with the 2020 pandemic.
My story, Simone Boveland Harris
The Emotional Recovery Covenant honors and weaves together the ancestral wisdom passed down through generations of Storytellers, Pattern Seers, Circle Keepers, Culture Bearers, and Tribal Counsel members.
We pay tribute to all those who have paved the way before us, creating space for our voices to be heard in this moment. This includes researchers, sacred scientists, ancestors, and all beings, seen and unseen, whose contributions have shaped the wisdom we now carry forward.
Our approach centers ecological, sustainable, and inclusive paths to well-being, promoting health equity through a trauma-informed lens. We recognize that we are all on a lifelong healing journey—one that requires understanding the individual and societal traumas we’ve inherited, as well as the biases and behaviors that have emerged as a result.
We acknowledge the impact of racial identities on all of us in America, and we are committed to using our collective knowledge and skills to dismantle harmful systems of racism. The Emotional Recovery Covenant is a continued dedication to ancestral healing, focused on learning and unlearning how racial trauma affects us all.
Together, we are intentionally working to create more balanced, trauma-informed systems that foster shared understanding, belonging, and healing for everyone.