HOPE IS A RADICAL ACT
These news letters have become a place where I sorta pour everything that has landed in my brain since the last share on this screen. Which, truthfully, is my own therapy. I keeps me interested in expressing the patterns and poetry of life and makes me feel connected to hope. Thank you for witnessing. Attuned to the pace of a retired grandmother, a child on summer break, and an acre and a half of nature. It feels like the first time I am truly able to fully pause without worry about my circumstances or covid and be with life, catch up a little bit. Tending to my family, then tending to the me that’s more than just a mother or a daughter. Back and forth forever. ))<>((
I am slowing down enough past hypervigilant survival. I’m trying to be with my body and my breath more. To stay connected to the gratitude I have to be here with my mother and my child. Limited time with both. I’m slowing enough to reconnect to a former life. Taking inventory of the people who wrote me love letters or flew to be with me or sent me flowers every year after my son died 16 years ago, a loss that really broke me. Compounded by so many things that would happen between then and now that would have me continuing to prove the resiliance of my spirit to myself. Only because of the stablity I found in relationships in Portland—the ones who gave us a roof or a secure attachment or random weird thoughtful generous gifts in service to LOVE—in this grief of being so far from so many loved ones was I able to connect to the wider web of connection and remember previous threads that got me to here. The people who loved with no expectation just because they either had it or cultivated enough of it to give. Joy of my life.
This last week I had the opportunity to catch up with a childhood friend I hadn’t really touched base with much past high school graduation. He works as a mental health professional in a rehabilitation pilot program within the prison system. I imagine people who end up in prison made poor choices simply because they only had poor choices accessible to them. I consider how all addiction is rooted in unprocessed trauma. I am frustrated with a justice system that seldomly delivers justice. And I’m on the outside. Here is my friend, taking it all into account, listening to the wounds that got someone to there. And he asks them to talk about what they live for, what they’re passionate about, who they love. He then asks them, “well, is there hope there?”
This has been the great reframe of my last two weeks. Is there hope there? How do we cultivate hope? Because it’s apparent we must, in order to temper this ache & hold all this pain. The work of this moment between old ways and new ways means we must be paying attention to the things that break our hearts AND then transmute that sadness into solutions. In the contrast of the difficult, the unjust, the harm is a springboard to dream, envisioning new realities of ease, justice, and a love ethic. Making is a type of hope. So is planting and watering a garden. Spending time with a child. Creativity is birthed out of limitations. Our capacity for joy is equal to our capacity for sorrow. And those moments where you find yourself deeply breathing, closed eyes in the sunshine, could only be appreciated by all the moments our breath was shallow and our spirits suffering.
Life is fucking wild and a full time balancing act. It’s past time we share our information and resources. I’m sure I’ve typed this out on almost every newsletter but it’s been my mantra for the last 16 years. “Let everything happen to you—beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” We are in the pivot. Every bit is information to help us create more of what we want. The revolution of every day life. I’m still here. Let me know you are, too. M A N Y B L E S S I N G S ! ! !
f i n d w i l l i n g n e s s t o s u r r e n d e r y o u r d o m i n a n c e
// FIELD NOTES
my pal sam with this wisdom that was a portal to self love for me.
finished hulu’s teal swan docuseries AND the podcast The Gateway. I don’t believe in healers, I believe there are people who hold space for people healing themselves. You are your own guru. Check in with the lord of your heart.
More importantly, this episode of Prentis Hemphill’s podcast on navigating conflict that was beautiful and encouraging.
current theme in entertainment in recent years is 1) multiverses / time travel and 2) a main character in relationship with themselves. Mae and I watched “the adam project” on netflix where adult ryan reynolds needs the help of his child self. you know im down for a good metaphor for reflection, so there’s some free tenderness there if you want it. Also I watched “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and it was wild and so absurd and confusing until it wasn’t at all and I was thankful for the whole journey. My mother was not.
the hardest part of having a nonbinary kid is other people- nytimes
lord cowboy’s last newsletter talking about how we are all traumatized and trying to interact. “Meeting someone where they are means meeting someone where they’ve been, and right now it feels like we’ve all been through too much, too fast. If we wait until it is safe, secure, and cushy to give, the world will continue to dry up.”
Lizzo was told a word used in her song was ableist slur. She trusted the new information given to her by people with disablities. She thanked the people who let her know. She apologized and changed the lyric, reissuing the song. and everyone moved forward. This is accountablity. The term “cancel culture” I had originally only seen referenced by people bypassing accountablity, but now I’ve come to understand it also includes people who feel sensitive to the damage of excommunication and the risk in creating more harm. It also makes me think how quickly we have been to police each other.
systems of equity bb
another article my friend pat shared on the wildfires near the mckenzie river in oregon. . . “The wildfire approaching that night would become a shared experience for people- both a nightmare and a beacon of hope- a reminder that despite the times, we are most certainly connected.. . . ‘Hope’ is the common thread in all these various accounts. Hope seems appropriate , as faith in the river’s recovery is actually supported by science. . .Kauffman said he experienced a certain ray of hope, as well, when he was allowed to photograph a section of the river near the small town of Finn Rock. “With help from the McKenzie River Trust, I was able to get down and see Chinook salmon spawning there, just a week after the fire began. It was an iconic moment,” he said, “because despite the fire, the heart of the river was still flowing and the fish were doing well.”
this issue of ALICE is dedicated to Lama Rod Owens. Buddhist minister, activist, yogi, and author. I love his calming videos on instagram talking into acceptance of what is & naming inherent worth. He wrote the books “Love & Rage” and “Radical Dharma”, putting both on my reading list.
Thank you for reading and engaging with me. Big Love. c