Meet Candice D’meza

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Candice D’meza. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Candice, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

I’ve been quite an anomoly in the arts spaces I’ve been apart of: not only am I a Black woman of African-American and Haitian heritage, but I’m a solo parent who has made it apart of her ethos that I will not compartmentalize what it means to be an artist who mothers.

There have been many battles and quite a bit of bias when it comes to seeing women as capable while their children are in the space. However, it has been worth it because I always consider “what other person after me will need the access I’m building right now”. I’ve written shows and performed commissioned work while pregnant, while breastfeeding, and at all stages of child-rearing. I am so grateful that the early years of struggling to balance child-care without a village of support and pursuing a career in the arts yielded such bountiful results and powerful activism. I’ve help shift the culture of spaces, who prior could not have imagined what it was like to have children in the space, to now those spaces asking themselves: what type of support can we help provide to artists we contract who are parenting or caregiving?

These types of barriers have kept so many caregivers out of sharing their much needed medicine to the world, and it’s a needless loss that effects us all. When we open up to explore options, we see that much of the exclusions can give way to radical new ideation and inclusion. I am grateful to have come full-circle in my career now, that when people hire me they are excited to know that my daughter will be in the space (and perhaps the teens will make a cameo). I’m humbled to be a waysharer for others that there is indeed so many other models for creating harmony between work and family.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

As a multidisciplinary artist and spiritual coach, all of my work is centered on activating the human consciousness (through ritual, through joy, through play, through experience) to decolonize, to alchemize, and to dream of new and freer worlds. As an artist I have always known it is my duty to show audiences the possibilities of our humanity and to make the idea of a free world so delicious that the residue of it creates in them a stronger and stronger desire to work towards building it alongside each other. I’m grateful to have been successful in this regard as my body of work shows. I’m grateful for arts organizations for continuing to commission new work and spur my own explorations of freedom and possibility.

It was in my study with Dagara Shaman Dr. Malidoma Patrice Some that I realized the spiritual calling of art. Within many indigenous African cultures, there is no separate word for art. Art is considered sacred and artists are considered healers, and it is in my over 250 hours of study that I understood the position I am in as artist and spiritist. I am huge believer in the power of Radical Imagination as a critical component of World-Building. Ironically, imagination is mostly relegated to children, yet it is imagination where our creative potentials as humans are most powerfully and clearly expressed. Imagination concentrates the spiritual into the body–where it can become physical. It is alchemy; it is creation. It is spiritual connection.

My upcoming play commission with The Catastrophic Theatre, called “Miss LaRaj’s House of Dystopian Futures” is another place for public activation around what it means to belong to the Earth. How powerful it would be for our societies if we could experience the natural world as sentient, in the same ways indigenous societies do. All the joy and confusion and healing that can come from such an experiment. I can’t wait! It debuts February 2025 in Houston, TX.

The most powerful aspect of my work involves how I combine interdisciplinary art practices with indigenous and Diasporic African cosmologies and place these in conversations with the systemic experience of race, gender, class, sex. So much of the spiritual texts and workshops fail to center the experiences of those who live in a marginalized experience due to race, class, sex, ability, neurodivergence, and gender. These systemic barriers are REAL, even if the root of them is grounded upon biological and spiritual untruths. To unearth the effect of these systems requires a spiritual approach that is grounded, powerful, and direct. It involves a vulnerability, the ability to tackle grief while also never losing joy. I am proud to exist in this niche for those who so often are underserved by the art and spiritual worlds.

For those who need spiritual tools that center the spiritual AND physical journeys, for those looking for culturally responsive tools that allow for empowerment within oppressive systemic structures, I have many products designed just for that community, of which I am apart. Women, People of Color, Queer Folx: we deserve tools that center our experiences.

Currently, I am most passionate about positioning Harriet Tubman as a Master Teacher! How would it change the way we view Manifestation if we studied how an enslaved, disabled, dark-skinned Black woman was able to create a new local reality for, not just herself, but for at least 1,000 others during her lifetime and countless others of us beyond her immediate lifetime. It is one thing to get to freedom durnig enslavement once. Even that was statistically improbable. But to do it over and over and over again and never be caught is a spiritual power we should study alongside Siddhartha. What did she know and how did her connection to the spiritual realm enable her to create miracles over and over again and how can we adapt this method at this critical time in our global evolution?

Listen, I am obsessed with her as a spiritual model and know how much wisdom and methodology we are losing to racism, sexism, and ableism. I am so excited to be apart of changing this! My two e-books, “Quantum Physics and World-Building Liberated Futures” and “Yeet To The Future: The Harriet Method of World-Building” place Harriet Tubman’s life alongside esoteric and metaphysical wisdoms to excavate methods we can adapt for ourselves. It is POWERFUL. I am finalizing an 8 week workshop around this that uses experiential methods to determine our best methods for moving from limitation to liberation.. It launches in October, and to get information about it email [email protected]

I also offer 1-1 spiritual coaching centered on being a resource for those on a journey of self-healing, self-initiation into liberation, and transformation and a guided writing meditation called “Writing As Ancestral Connection” as a self-paced experience. These offerings can be found at my website www.candicedmeza.com under Offerings.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The most important knowledge anyone can acquire is the knowledge of self. I don’t mean your favorite color. I mean, learning to HEAR your soul beyond the social programming. Beyond the trauma. Beyond the familial expectations.
Hearing the dissonance that exists within you between your desire and what you think you should want. Seeing the contradictions that arise in your responses to the world and people around you. And then being CURIOUS about what you see. Let that curiosity guide you on a path to self-discovery. Inadvertently you will come to recognize your soul and the ways it communicates with you, how it responds and acts alongside the body and the personality. Where they overlap, where the soul is silenced by louder noise.

What you see may shock, disappoint, even horrify you. At times it will surprise and delight you. But having GRACE and COMPASSION is key to witnessing. Learn to view yourself as a growing organism, just as you would view a young child or a Monsterra plant.

This is the knowledge that really makes the difference for any journey. Pursue your Soul like you would pursue a Lover.

And Laughter. Laugh often.

How would you describe your ideal client?

My ideal clients are Curious. Curiosity can go a long way. I also love to be in community with people are able to be honest in their self-awareness. I love working with people of all experiences and backgrounds, exchanging information and learning through this exchange. We can learn so much from each other; each of us has a piece of wisdom to add to this expansive experience of humanity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.candicedmeza.com
• Instagram: @candicedmeza

Image Credits

Marla Cardenas
Anthony Rathbun