may i have your precious and prized attention?
Hello you, in your animal body, in these wild times. Congratulations, we made it to here. We are absorbing so much and changing everyday. Transparently, I didn’t want to write to you. Mostly because the world feels sad and I’m feeling vulnerable and I don’t have a lot of encouragement to offer but maybe there will be some here as we excavate together. Or maybe at least fodder for the awakening mill. I can’t tell if this work means anything to anyone reading or who is willing to talk to me like there are bombs still being dropped and guns still being shot on starving and displaced people. And I feel selfish when I take up space in this way but also selfish when I don’t, like I’m not doing enough. Just don’t really know how to be here right now. But I am still here. I’m pissed and I am trying. Here is the fire of my heart I’ve been struggling to get out for the last six weeks. ALICE.
First, an update: I will walk in the sunshine today until the outside air on my face changes my mindset and this is the 162nd day of Palestinian genocide. We have enough food to eat and this last month my 14 year old’s school had two lockdowns because of student violence. It took a full 24 hours before M was regulated enough to go back. We are all breathing in and out and on Monday I had to pick up my 75 year old mother from the floor after a hard fall. She is okay now but spent the rest of the week icing herself and trying to get a reasonable price on a month’s supply of a $562 drug she needs for her diabetes (her walmart insurance only covers $100). We are all miraculously held by love and I have a benign fibroid tumor the size of grapefruit getting removed with my uterus not soon enough. I am writing to you days from bleeding, in my bed with a lot of pain, learning how to get comfortable with my discomfort rather than drowning in it.
I like to think about the people reading this. Thank you for reading these. It has been an intentional practice to let myself be known and there is a small, terrifying thrill every time I hit publish. This is also helping me practice getting comfortable with the discomfort as I look at pieces of my life and share them openly with you for us to look at together. It hurts my spirit that telling the truth out loud is a radical act. Every freaking time I have to accept the possibility of being either misunderstood or unclear or wrong. I guess it’s a type of exposure therapy for wasting so much time codependently people pleasing. I think this is part of what it means to practice abolition, to practice art, to practice love—to show up anyway for the practice of returning to our true nature. Also I am convinced at this time that reading the personal narratives of people socialized into margins and after thoughts feels like a necessary piece of the undoing work, as well as writing it. So I’m showing up for that commitment with myself and hope it reaches you here and now as we are learning together.
Last month, the CEO of kelloggs bragged on national television about raising prices for no reason other than record profits while insensitively encouraging those of us economically struggling to eat cereal for dinner. Even going so far to create ads encouraging a new trend of eating cereal dinner. One tiktok user shared this and organized a boycott. This was reposted by many who committed to refrain from purchasing any kellogg’s products to fuck with their profits. Then everyday people started sharing cooking videos and recipes freely so you could make your own cereals at home. I do see the pros of this app as global scale education and organizing. It’s the people of the earth sharing and spreading information you could critically and sincerely consider. The potential is strong enough to make the government uncomfortable, while it pretends the fears of tik tok aren’t already happening with other platforms that our government officials and its elections benefit from. (Here is a list of congress members who voted yes to ban tiktok and another list of many of the same congress members who have stock in competing company meta so you can compare the two-Are they just playing a game of monopoly with our lives? )
Most of you already know I am a solo parent who comes from a solo parent home. I grew up in the midwest in a small town where my mother worked two, sometimes three jobs just to stay alive and most of my childhood I ate fruity pebbles cereal as a complete meal. I’m not sharing to normalize that, I’m saying it shouldn’t be okay. Every person who lives on the planet is deserving of healthy food. Now I live with my mother again and am learning more about the burden of aging and chronic health conditions that are impacted by poor nutrition. There are no cures outside of eating real food. (Please respond to this email with any anti inflammatory meal suggestions.) We might also consider in this moment the social and psychological impacts many of us have around food. Think about the lack of education around how to feed yourself or eat like you love yourself. A few weeks ago, I was two hours south of here where a box of my favorite hemp granola was $2.99. The market down the street sells it for $8.99. There is a shadow I’m contending with here. In integrating my own shadows, I’m starting to understand the collective shadows permeating our living, too and I can’t help but talk about it.
I’m going to say something that may be controversial and your cognitive dissonance will deactivate your critical thinking the moment that you feel triggered. I am not trying to offend you but if you find yourself upset, then self reflect. - Jasmine,
I believe somatic abolition practices are really just about reclaiming our true nature which isn’t in alignment with how we are told to exist in this society and I need to say it aloud. I would like to know we are all in some agreement of a shared reality here. For those of us with white skin, we must look even deeper at our collective history of harm either directly through violence or indirectly through silence and looking away. How the responsibility of privilege is to be a complete menace to the status quo begging to be disrupted. 162 days of continuous terror and killing of over 30,000 innocent civilians (mostly children) should be enough to radicalize you into understanding that we either dismantle “empire” altogether or we anticipate that what they do to to them, they are willing to do to any of us. In that spirit, I want us all to consider the increasing police state we are living under and how you can be arrested for a miscarriage. (MEN, make women’s rights your battle, too.)
We are waking up to the illusion fed to each of us through a culture of worshiping wealth and consumerism and 401ks paired with the trappings of marriage and kids and houses and cars. Working to make some guy richer so we can get all the latest tech and keep all our toys and work through the checklist of things they told us to acquire to be a worthy adult citizen that only enslaved us to labor. Somehow calling that adulthood, calling that living a life in the land of the free. Whiteness prioritizes the optics of being a good person over authentically being one. What other choices could we make with our lives outside of MORE and NEWER and BIGGER?
We need to critically think about the media bias in the US aka corporate propaganda and learning how to navigate different political talking heads to maintain connection of shared values with people we love. My mother and I sat and read each candidate's website while we looked through our ballots to choose who aligned with our values and which policies served us and people with less than us. That was the first time she did that in her life and she voted differently than she ever has before. Let’s just name the construct of divisive binaries like the two party system fandom that fear drive elections and separate families, no politicians are saving us. At this point I’m convinced they’re all fascists.
Let’s consider another binary—the gendered indoctrination we were raised in, having us speaking different languages with disappointing expectations by default and calling that a long term (heterosexual) partnership. Why is it so many boys shooting schools or murdering women? Or why so many boys willing to put their lives on the line for this country’s corrupt agendas, what’s the gendered indoctrination leading us to here? I keep thinking about Aaron Bushnell, the soldier with integrity, who regretted joining the military and set himself on fire. An act of desperation, in protest of complicity. And how many more will it take?
When we are not normalizing our self righteous anger into violent domination, we tend to flinch at conflict and avoid accountability to actually FEELING and GROWING. How can we send billions of dollars to other countries to provide weapons or militarized presence? Or how are we paying corrupt “public servants” six figure incomes with pensions while they legally and unethically collect money from political action committees to influence decision making ? Why can’t we seem to ever get funding for affordable foods or accessible healthcare or equitable housing for the people? Bipartisan issues with bipartisan neglect but somehow all our reps agree to ban tiktok. wtf. Mutual aid in action is considering how we might create solidarity with differently resourced people. What does that look like?
What if each of us is exactly who and where we were meant to be? What if every person was an archetype you were meant to meet? To resonate with? To be challenged by? To bring out the joy and delight in you? To bring to light your past wounds that are yours to tend to? What if we don’t have to make each other wrong to be right? What if we don’t bypass our emotional reactions AND still arrive to understanding for another’s perspective? What if we understood, in ways generations before us could not, the importance of serving the collective good? What if learning how to communicate about our feelings and needs could heal our codependent dysfunction and reduce the harm in this world? What if the conflict and repair cycle in our relationships was the beginning of abolition work? Of freedom?
WHO IS YOUR COMMUNITY? HOW ARE YOU COMMUNING?
WHO HELPS YOU SCRUTINIZE THE ESSENTIALS OF YOUR LIVING?
WILL YOU HELP ME AWAKEN BY SHARING YOUR TRUTH WITH ME AND I WITH YOU AND IF IT IS HARD FOR US, WE WILL EACH WORK ON OUR PART AND WE CAN EXAMINE IT TOGETHER IN GOOD FAITH?
The beginning of all learning and discovery and innovation and creating is an open mind, a willingness. None of us are experts on anyone’s lives but our own. But all of us are in this place together sort of being forced into our evolution by life itself. WE NEED EACH OTHER IN ORDER TO GROW AND EXPAND INTO THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HOLD ALL OF THIS. I can see every single person who opens this email and when I read your name, I send you love. Truly. I know you read this because we have shared at least one moment of connection. Thank you especially to those who respond, who see the asks I am making for engagement, who want to take these words beyond a quick consumption of this email. The art I am looking to create is collaborative and thrives on each person being their whole self. What can we build together?
My therapist had the audacity to remind me that none of us can pour from an empty cup and the importance of not just reactive but proactive selfcare. Self care like actually finding ways to listen to the Self. I usually find that in motion, outside. The other day I saw a group of cedar waxwings fly overhead. A few days after that I saw a robin on the fence. I saw the crocus and the snowdrops pushing through the thawed earth. The birds and the flowers are promises and if I can’t see the sacred in nature, I can’t see the sacred. One night when the moon was big, I went outside at the precise moment my neighbor friend had also stepped out of her house. I didn’t notice her or the moon until I heard a familiar voice yelling from the dark, reminding me to see the light that is here, too.
And maybe that’s what these letters to you are, me yelling from the dark. So here is some light for you: Every morning, I am welcomed into the day by a cup of coffee and our kitten-turned-cat, Miss America. When I let our dog Mother outside, America tries to escape into a wilderness she knows in her body, having come from a lineage of feral barn cats. In her curiosity and discovery, she remembers her untamed self who lights up at birdsong and smells the air through the tiny crack in the door. In our truest nature beyond this capitalistic hellscape, we hold the vision of this life we love. We insist on the richness of beauty and joy, made more necessarily intentional in all this grief and rage. The miracle of sweet gestures we catch ourselves and each other doing in the compulsion of love, even with all that’s working against us, is something to behold. There are many forms of god and they all love you. We are all looking for love, seeking signs of love and they are here. Keep paying attention and keep going.
// OFFERINGS // ONLINE GATHERINGS TO YOU WHO READ THIS:
MENDING TOGETHER // SUNDAY APRIL 7TH 3-6PM PST/ 6-9PM EST I sense many of us grieving and lacking supportive rituals around it. As I understand grief, it is meant to expand us into more wholeness. This is an online “come as you are” gathering. I will be mending some clothing and sharing from the heart. Stay for an hour+ or leave after fifteen minutes. Bring your mending or don’t. It’s just a space to feel the presence of others honoring our losses. Might just be the two of us, who knows. Let’s see. // FREE
MEN’S BOOK CLUB // SATURDAYS START APRIL 6TH 9AM PST/ 12PM EST Seeking men who love, to partner in true solidarity. Maybe you want more insight and ease on your part in relating to the womxn in your life or participating in deconstruction work. We will be reading “All About Love” by bell hooks two chapters a week and learning about radical ways to think about loving beyond the realm of romance. Guided by my tender spirit and all the information I have on patriarchal conditioning, I am here for you! If you are unsure if this is for you, ask an important womxn in your life if they would advise it and then listen to them. // SUGGESTED DONATION $11 + generous tipping
QUEER & FEM BOOK CLUB // SATURDAYS START APRIL 6TH 11A PST/2PM EST This will be a space for queer huemxns & female identifying allies. I am open to reading “All About Love” by bell hooks in this shared space or voting on other possible suggestions from the group. Hoping to create an intentional container to explore abolition and deconstruction kind of heart work together, in communion. Would love to have you. //SUGGESTED DONATION $7
RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE LINK. PLEASE SPECIFY “MENDING” or “BOOK CLUB” AS YOUR INTEREST! <3
// Donations will be going to the online classroom cost, extras will go to The Learning Garden, a resource around food sovereignty I am creating with some special collaborators that will bring food to my local community as well as shared research/open resource on gardening and cooking to my global community. MWAH.
SHIRA ERLICHMAN from Commit to being haunted via Cody
“So many images arrive moment by moment out of Palestine. They are so brutal they have caused me to flinch, gag, cover my phone with my hand. So many heartbreaking words arrive from citizens, poets, & journalists on the ground. The onslaught is nearly impossible to alchemize for its sheer ferocity & incessance. But it is because of the impossibility of digesting this brutality that I must sit with it longer.
If it is impossible to fully process this magnitude of trauma – & it is – I must at least commit to being haunted by it. Only if I am haunted by it can I be moved. We need a world of emotionally & psychologically moved human beings. We need feelers who become doers. It is the dissociated & dehumanizing who currently run our world. We desperately need the actions of the haunted.”
our grief is our love is our evidence of interconnectedness. stay haunted. <3