About Ryanne

Ryanne is a Chicana from Los Angeles, a lifelong student, teacher, and practitioner of traditional Mexican and Indigenous ways of knowing, as well as an advocate, activist, and community organizer.

Her work is deeply rooted in ancestry, relationship, and the preservation of knowledge passed between generations. Raised alongside her great-grandparents, Ryanne was fortunate to experience intergenerational connection firsthand and to grow up surrounded by family stories, traditions, and teachings. Her own journey into genealogy and family history has become an important part of understanding where she comes from, preserving the stories of those who came before her, and making sure those stories continue forward.

Through Desert Medicine, Ryanne works with traditional bodywork, ceremony, and ancestral practices. Her path has been shaped by her own elders, as well as through apprenticeship with elders she continues to learn from and work alongside. Her approach is grounded in respect for the traditions she is learning from, reciprocity, community, and a commitment to carrying knowledge forward without separating it from the people, places, and relationships that give it meaning.

Her community work and activism center Indigenous rights, cultural preservation, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and relatives, and the broader work of decolonization and community care. For Ryanne, this work is inseparable from ancestry: knowing where we come from, remembering the people who came before us, and taking responsibility for what we carry into the future.

Ryanne wears many hats—as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, teacher, student, and soon-to-be grandmother. Becoming a grandmother is a new chapter she is especially excited to step into, and one she sees as another thread in the ongoing story of family, ancestry, and what we pass down.

Outside of her work, Ryanne is a Pisces Sun and Scorpio Moon who loves her morning cafecito, cooking, good music, and a good book—usually written by a BIPOC author. She is happiest when she is learning something new, surrounded by her people, or digging into another branch of her family tree.