Glorianna (Light) Ferreira

The world lost a bright star this year when Glorianna Ferreira died on August 13, 2020. Glorianna was raised in the San Joaquin Valley by parents of Portuguese heritage, and spent her childhood with freedom, in the arms of nature. She left home at 17 after graduating high school co-valedictorian, with a 4-year Regents scholarship to UC Santa Cruz. She graduated from UCSC with honors in an experimental major of her own design, Philosophy of Movement and Expression. She spent three years teaching Creative Movement and Expression in the Santa Cruz County School District where she worked with autistic and disadvantaged children, incorporating music, dance, nature walks and social skills into the curriculum. Her thesis proposed that daily physical movement, creative expression and connection with Nature are essential for human health and wholeness.

After graduating from UCSC, she was employed by the Department of Social Services for three years, working in the Food Stamp and MediCal programs. Glorianna moved to Santa Barbara after a short visit to a friend in Summerland. “I felt an electrifying affinity for Santa Barbara, with a feeling that I was ‘home’ and that I belonged here. I returned to Santa Cruz, gave a month’s notice, and made a bee line for this jewel by the sea.”

This move led to a forty year career in the legal profession. She started as a legal secretary then earned a paralegal degree, eventually retiring as a judicial assistant for the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

Glorianna was an avid writer, devoting four to six hours each day on poetry, essays examining social, environmental and political issues of the day, and journaling. Her connection to nature and her love of humanity defined her life and she lived it true to herself always, to the very end.

She is preceded in death by both her parents and by her younger brother David Ferreira. She is survived by her older brother Carlos Ferreira of San Francisco.