Weekly Practice No. 2
resistance is deep and ongoing, together
Oh boy.
Last week feels like a century ago. It’s February!?
Ongoing occupation in Minnesota but digging Deep in resistance. Who knows where we are in the timeline to freedom from oppression. I don’t think we will ever know, until we live and breathe it - and sometimes we already do.
This week had a deeper emotional, personal/internal vibe for me. Not surprising for where I’m at in my cycle. Drilling down and feeling prickly things as a result of more and more structures crumbling, more truth revealed, and more brave action. It felt messy and swimming in darker depths. I cried more. And I leaned into my relationships more. It felt a bit like an emotional detox - digging, feeling, purging, releasing some shit. And clarity and purpose arrived over and over again. I never felt lost, just deepened into where and who I am. Bring it on, because this is the good stuff of liberation. A few-seven-things from the last week:
I reflected back on my post from the end of September. It was a sort of warning or reminder to prepare… for winter. I used the “Winter is Coming” graphic, a line from Game of Thrones, which speaks more metaphorically and apparently, we needed to prepare for both. I wrote about doubling down on (or identifying) what you need in order to take care of yourself, especially during “dark days.”
A reminder to take care and be gentle with yourself. As we resist through the last moments of winter now, still dark and slow, things start to crack - surface, facade, delusion, systems, lies - and open us up to our most soft and vulnerable selves, if we let it. And there lie all the answers.
I felt heartbroken for and protective of my people. I love to see my people - family, friends, Black and brown folks, Minnesotans - fight for liberation and protect each other. And my heart also breaks that we have to. That those of us pushing and doing the hard brave things, creating spaces of care and joy and love, leading and being the undefended heart warriors protecting and loving…. that we have to do this. It breaks my heart sometimes because I feel protective of all of us and I grieve that we have to spend our short lives doing this. There is beauty and joy in it, but there is also tremendous trauma and heaviness to constantly carry and process and transmute. I see Black and brown leaders consistently standing up and putting their lives on the line very publicly and courageously, being vulnerable in the name of liberation. And while it is amazing, it is also heartbreaking and it ignites a fire in me so fierce and protective. For the ones who have no choice but to be in the forefront… I can’t stop thinking about Liam. Although he and his father have been freed, I can’t stop thinking about the trauma and all the healing to be done.
I turned to my people for support in doing hard things. It’s not always easy for me to turn for help or receive care, no matter how much I need or desire it. But it is so important to have people in my life who hold space for me to be emotional and learn and grow and don’t have to be put together or independent or in control all the time. It’s important to have relationships where I can vent and be ridiculous and process my emotions in a safe space, so that I can better face what is out there. And they don’t judge me for it or think less of me (that I know of haha). There is a LOT of trust in these relationships, the people I’m being vulnerable with. So, if you’re someone who I turned to this week, while I was working through some personal and public things in the name of change, and if you listened and/or fought alongside me, thank you so much for that. In a time and culture where isolation is easy to slip into, thank you for coming in to give me a big warm hug when I reached out.
I felt my body. Over and over and over again. Especially when things got too serious or there was too much drama pulling me out of my body and too much in my mind. One day this week I was driving home from the grocery store, high alert, deep breathing, listening to music to help soothe my nerves, and went over a pothole. The pothole jostled my boobs [immature giggle] and in this silly little movement of my body, I was like “Oh, fuck, yeah I’m alive, my body moves, and it’s sensual and it’s real.” It zapped me out of my mind and back into my body. Time and time again this week I stopped and refocused to my physical body. Looking in the mirror, touching my face, dancing, hugging, laughing and smiling, crying, and oh yes moon time cramping. Like “touching grass.” I am the grass. I am the land. And that is REAL. I am a whole real person. With physical and emotional feelings. And any disconnection from that, disconnects us from each other and our humanity - it’s how we got to this place where we find ourselves now. From time-to-time I need to step away from the screen, step away from the clickity clackity online, step away from the running around, step away from input and output with the external world, and just be with myself, my family, and my friends. And hold each other. I am real, I have a body that feels things and needs things. Out of the mind and into the body. Where joy and love truly live.
I continued to grieve (always). I remember how I used to push past grief because there was too much to do and there wasn’t time for that. Grief comes in many forms and at any moment. My favorite is crying. Freely and often. Not questioning it, not justifying it. Just doing it. I now refuse to hold these emotions hostage in my body when they need to be felt and released. The feeling and releasing are the healing. The heavy sigh, the chanting, the laugh, the shout, the orgasm, the stomp, the hug, the movement is all healing.
I spent too much time on my phone. Between keeping up with neighborhood communications, checking in with people, scrolling social media trying to stay informed and spread the word… it was too much. It didn’t actually feel like too much, but I can tell I am having a harder time connecting with stillness and focusing on a single task for a long period of time and the phone is a distraction. I know we are in a time of crisis and the phone connection feels important, but it’s also critical for me to stick to the care/ritual/routines I know I need which includes less screen time and more attention to other things.
I wished I had more available capacity to hold space for everything that everyone is going through. I gathered and connected with more people this week. I had so many conversations with people just talking about regular life shit not even what’s going on with ICE in Minnesota necessarily, and it just really highlighted (not for the first time by any means) the depth of our needs and what we are collectively lacking- connection and love and care and emotional intelligence and slowness and listening. It was a reminder of why two years ago I stepped back from “the way things are” for a minute (or forever) and began to study how I could be of better service to “how things could be.” I know that in order to hold more space for others and also create something different, I need to care even deeper for myself. I need to be ruthless in my own self-love and care and boundaries. Then slow down and connect.
This next week I hope to stop and breathe more down to my toes and celebrate a moment of growth and clarity. Celebrate how far I’ve come and what has been achieved. There’s a wide opening, potential for so much more - softness, love, joy, interdependence, deepening, and growth. It’s juicy shit. Spring is around the corner and things are cooking. But rest and reflection and deep slow breath is critical to the process. Care and togetherness is critical to our survival. And it is still very much winter.