share your poetry
I am in the City of Roses. I have had hardly a moment to my severely introverted self and it’s a true life miracle I’m still standing. The long, snowy Michigan winter on my horizon is pushing me through. Thankfully, one of my special interests is people. In part, because of my experience with loss and in part, because of my absolute marvel for what is the elasticity of the human brain. I truly do love knowing all different types of people. How they found their freedoms and passions. What or who they love. What daily living looks like for them. Impermanence has taught me to celebrate who people are while we have them here. And if everything is grist for the awakening mill, I find the information people share is an opportunity to learn what I can from them.
Every sunshine face being that I have had the pleasure of spending time with here has reflected back a unique perspective made up of intentional practices of hope: curiosity, creativity, kindness, goodness. Movement, vision, communion, well being. A willingness to exchange information and resources and understanding with me in devotion to LOVE and FREEDOM. It’s through relationships I have found the softest, pillowy path to expansion. I am blessed by our differences and hope to bless other’s with mine. I truly believe every person has a role to be their absolute truest self, there is A SEAT FOR EVERY BUTT. We are in collaboration with everything. What is possible when we see others and are seen by others??
20 THINGS I’VE FOUND SO FAR:
NATURE IS THE CURE. Went to both the Salish Sea and the Oregon Coast and praise the OCEAN. Walked, hiked, and biked all the gardens, parks, and neighborhoods, ate delicious foods under trees and in backyards all via the generosity of the sweetest friends on the planet earth.
Alok on Podcrushed: “How dare I witness my own transformation and then say I don’t believe in other people’s?!”
In WW2, my Grandfather’s plane was shot down and he would speak of a profound spiritual experience with his dead mother. He was held in a German camp for over a year and took up drawing as a means of documentation and of hope. This has really been sitting with me the last month.
My child M has been in so much personal growth this summer, which included their 14th birthday, their renewed desire for in person education, and learning to skateboard. When I suggested they start with using youtube to research, they told me “nothing lifts you more than the comments on a skateboard video.” and proceeded to read them all to me.
Happy, healthy, loving partnerships that ripple love out are possible. And they don’t have to all be sexual or romantic.
I am convinced more than ever that art is a tool for connection/community building and learning/unlearning.
Greta Gerwig’s BARBIE movie was a pink fantasy with so much joy and a playfully clear message via contrast on our obvious need for feminism.
“When you’re used to an imbalance of power and control in relationships, being asked to be respectful feels like walking on eggshells” Franklin Leonard
making paint out of rocks with Deb, dyeing fabrics in indigo with Katie, and making cyanotype sunprinting with Natty !!!
The greatest week of toddler camp has me looking forward to our August TEEN COSPLAY CAMP with my people at The Reframe Collective
YOU CANNOT BECOME WHAT YOU CANNOT SEE
Jen made me lunch last week and I’m recreating it this week because i love easy, inexpensive, nutritious, delicious food: black sesame seeds, spinach hummus, tofu with chili crisp, vegenaise, cucumber, salted avocado, lettuce on tortilla.
IF YOU HAVE ANY EASY,INEXPENSIVE,NUTRITIOUS, DELICIOUS FOOD SUGGESTIONS, pls share the info as I am working on a collaboration of some sort of food chart recipe book to take all the decision fatigue out of cooking!
“observe, don’t absorb” via Sarah
Gabi & Michael at Mixed Needs have made a free printable pdf of 198 forms of nonviolent protest to inspire you
Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work is also a valuable resource available on a free pdf! via Jaron’s tuesday dinner via Della
“The motives that drive this kind of work are broad, ranging from
desire to survival, or even a combination of the two, from the joy
that may emerge from working with others to fostering a sense of
belonging for our own self-preservation. In doing this work that is
so counter to the ideologies and frameworks we encounter in our
day-to-day lives, we insist on the need to embrace our fundamental
interconnectivity and interdependence as human beings. We do
this by honoring multiple perspectives, picking up the slack when
others can’t, understanding that individual wellness is a collective
responsibility, challenging one another, sharing our power, and more…This toolkit is designed by and for cultural practitioners whose
work is grounded in the values of equity, liberation, integrity, and
difference.”
PEOPLE PLEASING IS NOT LOVE, IT’S FEAR
I heard Barbara Brown Taylor on ON BEING talking about being a nonreligous chaplain, which is my dream (if anyone has any suggestions on an accessible way) and she described her job as “improvisational holy person” and my 7 year old friend made my business card:
sympathetic nervous system responses: fight, flight, freeze, submit (fawn)
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” Wendell Berry
This issue of ALICE is dedicated to ALL THE HANDS THAT HOLD ME.
LIFE IS MAGIC AND LOVE IS REAL. LETS KEEP GOING. xo c