Offering My Sword

doubling down on tender loving care

This week’s mantra: I have a body. I let it be a body.

I sit with this mantra and on the word body, I make sure that I am actually aware and feeling my body. I actively allow and permit my body to exist. As it is. No notes.

I am approaching my second year of more formal meditation-mindfulness practice. My second Buddhist Studies course started last week. It’s called, “Mindfulness of the Body.” When I signed up for it in November, I knew there could be no better time for this course as January and February. Those months are typically the toughest for my mental health. And now, as I start this course, we are in the depths of federal occupation in Minneapolis. This course does indeed come at the perfect time.

Do not do anything that takes you out of your body. -Buddhist teachings

***Clarification: When using the word “okay” I’m referring to being stable, grounded, and tethered to something internally. I go on here to describe that I am still moving through many strong emotions and facing horrific times that are not okay. I don’t want my usage of “okay” to be confused with normalcy or complacency or passivity or numbness, etc.***

I find myself feeling okay during these times. That is the truth. For probably a couple decades, I have not felt okay, and I have not felt fully present and feeling in my body. But today, I feel okay and I am deeply aware of the existence of my body and it is okay. This change is from spending the last few years dedicated to connecting to my body, allowing myself to exist as I am, to experience joy and desire and pleasure and love (aka aliveness), put my own needs first, and to grieve and grieve some more.

There might be a bit of guilt for feeling okay during this time. Being okay doesn’t mean I am not upset, doesn’t mean that I do not mourn and grieve for my city and the murder of Renee Good and for her family and friends and anyone who has experienced her death intimately, it doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t break for the people who have to literally hide right now and are living in constant fear, it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel fear for myself as a brown person regardless of my “citizenship” (NO ONE IS ILLEGAL ON STOLEN LAND), it doesn’t mean that I don’t cry seeing the masked men hunting people in our streets and taking them to god knows where and doing god knows what to them, and it also doesn’t mean that I don’t cry at the beautiful kindness/community coming together/resistance to bullies who clearly don’t have connection to body/on-the-ground change happening right before my eyes.

I feel okay, because I have been working relentlessly the last few years to prepare my body and my mind for facing these times and to create change within and outside of crisis. It turns out in my experience, the (relationship with) body is key and foundational to everything. Last year around this time, during the inauguration, I felt tremendous heaviness although the election result didn’t surprise me at all. I felt a relentless calling to “stay healthy and well” and doubled down on that guidance all year. Chop wood, carry water. I felt that the work on my body and my mind was the number one priority, and I couldn’t quite explain why, but I knew it was important.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”

― Archilochus

The other week as I stood in the kitchen digesting the news that thousands of agents were coming to Minnesota and our governor was not running for re-election, and then days later when Renee Good was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross… I felt the same swell of emotions that rose in my body in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered, emotions that I held there stagnant until 2023 when I finally had enough… I was now able to let the similar emotions surge up from my gut and move. I did not need to jump into the swell of chaos, disoriented, blinded and numbed by rage. I did not need to sacrifice my body to the loud crash of terror and injustice that has been an undercurrent my whole life. I’ve learned to wield better tools; some of the very ones my ancestors already set before me. The emotions and experiences that had once consumed and overwhelmed and exhausted me, are now met with awareness and feeling and movement, anchored in daily practice of my values and my wellness. My hindsight from 2020 is that I was doing way too fucking much and going too fast. I should’ve stepped back more and let (or told?) my white folks to step in more. Now, I know that going slow and staying present in my body is more sustainable and can actually move things along and create change more quickly in the long run. And with this particular crisis we face, it is white folks who need to step in and be more visible and louder against these crimes. It is white folks who need to get angrier. Not me. Not right now.

I stood in the kitchen, letting my emotions swell and nauseate me, but to myself I said, “here we go,” which meant, here is a thing that I was meant to be prepared for, here I go doubling down on the practices and foundation I’ve built (aka organizing) in order to be well during this time and create change, here I go reaching my hand to those around me and offering a light and holding space for those who need it, because I am strong enough to do so now without overextending or self-sacrificing. I carry a practice of softness, and a feeling body, and a detachment to colonialism that gives me this strength now. I carry a sense of self-worth and permission to exist that I didn’t have before and now acts as my biggest weapon. My body, the importance and value of just existing, and my wellness change the world. This is my sword that I now offer.

Amidst chaos, the potential for creation is strong. My focus is care and tenderness towards myself and others, offering my whole well body, holding space for vulnerability, love, truth, courage, aliveness, and accepting you as you are, as best I can. I sit on the metaphorical bare earth, lovingly watering and humming to the seeds deep beneath rich soil. The space is created, the ideas/dreams/aliveness/sparkle/values are planted, and I continue to tend to them.

¡CHINGA LA MIGRA!