This. Right. Here?! So on time for this season of transitions and ascensions. Trust the process and who you’ll be and what you’ll see on the other side of it.
“whatever you are struggling with, whatever feels heavy and hard to hold,
remind yourself that there is something sacred about the way
you are learning to hold it.
you don’t have to do it well yet.
you are allowed to learn along the way.
you are allowed to make a mess.
just do so with a lot of compassion for yourself.”
This world has tried to convince us to mark our days by the standards of industry, technology, and empire — productivity, performance and pursuit — and to measure and define our lives by the tempo of striving.
Yet the rhythms thrumming in our veins remind us that we are guided by forces more powerful than the promptings of a civil calendar.
Those drawn toward the earth will feel the pull of nature in the change of seasons, calling us to burrow, germinate, root, sprout, blossom, harvest, release what has gone to seed, compost…then (re)cycle through this organic unfolding again and again.
Those drawn toward the sky will feel “the full and change of the moon” summoning us to align with its peaks and plummets in order to discern from its energetic flow when to build, create, amplify, illuminate, pause, contemplate, rest, release, dismantle, renovate.
Whether we are drawn to one source or both, the call is the same:
I was blessed to be introduced to the we’moon calendar almost 16 years ago and have found freedom in reclaiming my connection to moon wisdom.
I’ve learned to attune my teaching and practice schedules with the seasons, encouraging those who study/practice with me to do the same.
Listening deeply to these guiding rhythms has helped me live a life more sacred.
Through our collective musing last Sunday, it became clear to me that “Transformative Love” is the energy that changes the shape of our hearts and minds.
As I become more and more of who I am — and something new — I am contemplating the question:
What does this look, sound, feel and act like in practice as we cultivate, celebrate, nourish, sustain and dissolve relationships?
Larry Yang’s aspirational prayer reminds us to lead with love girded with the honest and discerning awareness that — where love is not possible or present — we can at least commit to minimizing the harm.
First of all: Y’all already know that every breath is a new chance to begin anew so today is no more special than yesterday for aligning your clear intentions with skillful actions!
For those who are already clear about what you’ve been called to manifest — the energies to conjure up and call toward you, the aspirations to crystallize into visions that contribute to your legacy — then it’s a beautiful day to draw on the full moon’s power and level up!
If your vision is not yet apparent, then invite the luminosity of the full moon to reveal your divine order, timing, purpose and placement.
I’m calling in clear vision to cultivate lasting legacies rooted in transformative love and elder wisdom.
done and been done
still they appear in dreams
unsummoned
cords cut
but roots regrow
when memory whispers my name
new work to be done and done again
unhook and untether
call back my energy
reclaim my soul
i am not yours
to harbor in distorted reverie
no longer known to you
no longer held by you
no longer the light
by which you warm hands and heart
or take shelter from your own shadow
in my place, i seed
grace, gratitude
and the tenderness of mercy
then raze the tomb where you encased me
and seal the crack you slipped into.
15 sept 2017
the blessing of breath + loving awareness has centered + restored me in body, heart + mind.
the blessing of acknowledgement + appreciation for all parts of my journey — shadow + sunshine — has enabled me to celebrate both my progress + the possibilities for continued evolution.
the blessing of honoring the lessons, opportunities + encounters, be it with the admirable or the adversarial, has strengthened my capacity to filter out poignant information + insights from any energy that doesn’t serve me.
i bless it all. leaving no part neglected. gleaning the magic within the mundane.
Today I honor the memory of my great-great grandmother, Mary Roth Rhodes, who was born on this day in 1863 in Würtemberg, Germany, the daughter of Dora + Gottlieb Roth.
▪▪▪
14 years ago, in July 2003, she became a beacon, a catalyst and a guide for me on a pathway of reclamation, transformation and healing. Not only from the trauma of living in Brooklyn through 9/11 and numbing out in the aftermath. But for examining, understanding, compiling, and righting/re-writing a family’s history where men don’t survive and women carry on, in spite of profound loss and because of profound love for those left behind. For seeing clearly generational patterns that created heart aches and breaks, too many what-ifs and if-onlys. For parsing hope, bravery, fortitude and tenderness from this seemingly meager inheritance. For committing to build a new legacy upon her foundation of mother-wisdom.
With help from my sister Tamara, who followed the leads I’d dug up in NYC libraries and picked up those threads in the National Archives in D.C., we learned of her journey from her native country to NYC, with a friend, at the age of 17 and eventually on to Hamilton, Ontario where she would marry my great-great grandfather Wesley, a former slave and Civil War veteran.
Because of her, I decided to leave New York after 9 years. My only vision: to begin anew as she had the courage to do, to live simply and to be engaged in community. Because of her, I returned home. Because of her, I eventually decided to stay. (Not necessarily an easy or simple choice after living away from home since the age of 14.) Because of her, I recognized that the true gift and power of researching our past was in the opportunity to rebuild and nurture connections bolstered by this new understanding of all the stuff we were made of — in blood and spirit.
25 july 2017
On Sunday, Sangha came full circle by closing our 7+ months of wholy happy hour in the same way that we opened our practice last fall — exploring the lessons of beginning anew as we shift from one season to the next.
Whether we experience this transition as tumultuous, glorious, or equal parts of both, we recognized that our changing selves require some fresh contents in our “medicine bags” to support who we are becoming on this stretch of the path.
So I returned to the query I put forth during our spring series on justice, liberation + healing and encouraged us to discern “What is your prayer, practice or process?” of releasing what no longer serves us and for calling in sacred strategies that honor who we are growing into.
For me, it’s a continuous process of self-reflection in which I root into my practice of the 4 Foundations of Mindfulness to assess what is arising, enduring, changing, releasing in body, heart and mind. One poignant question that popped up in my meditation — what are my unmet needs physically, mentally, spiritually, creatively? — was a reminder of how crucial it is for me to take long walks three to four times a week to brighten and declutter my mind. Along with the benefits of movement, the silence, solitude, and moments of stillness I enjoy when I spread out a blanket to lay out in the sun or read (as in the photo below) help me catch up with myself to discern clear decision-making and sort out the tangle of creative ideas.
In the Satipatthana Sutta (and similarly in the eight limbs of yoga), honoring and tending to the body precedes emotions and mental formations. In these and other spiritual practices and healing modalities, the body is the gateway to illuminating, transforming and reconciling the other aspects of our being (feelings, thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes). Of course, it’s not a fixed sequence but an interdependent relationship so whatever is most compelling, what shows up first or makes itself known most powerfully, may be the access point for looking deeply at how it is impacting each domain.
So I come back to my body. Once established in the full awareness of sensations, I am able to renew the process of seeing clearly and responding skillfully to what needs tending. Grounded and aligned, I can embody the prayer that this transition and new season are calling in.
“Part of being more authentic means being willing to be seen as we pray and live in a spirit that seeks inspiration though is humanly imperfect…
Remember that prayer is a process that changes the pray-er.”
~ Jennie Isbell + J. Brent Bill, Finding God In The Verbs
Each year I launch this campaign to uplift wisdom, values, teachings and affirmations that nourish our capacity for compassion, skillful understanding, and authentic connection.
Aligned with Sangha’s monthly contemplation and culminating with my upcoming workshop, When + Where We Enter, we’ll shine the light on and look deeply into practices of Justice, Liberation + Healing.
March Practice Schedule
Behold the radiance that filled up “Our Space” at All of the Above in REO Town on Wednesday!
It was a beautiful night to share an embodied meditation for restoration and self-compassion with beautiful souls who are invested in self-care, equity, and healing justice. Afterward, the space was blessed with laughter, connection, dance and poetry during the open mic/open floor segment.
I was honored to be invited to help plant and water the seeds of this inaugural community healing event, which was dreamed up by a small group of friends who felt bereft at the lack of safe space to unpack and process the brutalities against Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Muslim and LGBTQ communities that wrenched our hearts, ratcheting vice grip-tight in quick succession without pause after every vicious assault this summer. Charged with the call to fill this void, they recognized the power that sharing our arts — the multitude of creative and embodied expressions — has to burn off rage and despair, to soothe aching hearts and wounded minds, to inspire new ways of hearing-seeing-understanding, to illuminate the unfathomable, and to transform all manner of things.
How do we heal? We make space for sorrows to be shared not silenced. We make space for joy to move through our bodies and be released in song, smiles, word, embraces, applause, call, response, dance, muscles melting into the earth and a deep-slow sigh of relief.
I’m excited to keep planting, watering, and nourishing this community with (my three jewels) the energy of compassion, skillful understanding and connection so that we can harvest love.
tscottmiller 