Tag Archives: resilience

embodying radical self-expression


i am fierce, flawed,
fragile, fear-facing
and, above all, free.

a decolonized mind,
tearing down false refuges + unhooking from the iron yoke of twisted mores that decree how to love, learn, worship, succeed.

a liberated soul,
living into the sacred —
on spirit’s clock, wisdom’s rhythm + body’s intuition.

a rebel heart,
pumping joy through blue veins,
blood rich with resistance.

i am a miracle of my ancestors.

my breath is their legacy,
a continuation of their resilience,
a commitment to brave on
in any + every way
i magic.

embodying resilience

i am lungs springing back oxgenated, fueled and aflamed to burn off toxins and tensions.

the softening fist, fingers extending in a mudra of receptivity.

emerging grace, wobbly-kneed and raw-skinned soles finding its footing, rebounding from stumbles, rising from falls.

the heart willing (sometimes wavering), nevertheless ready to face the tenderness of being alive.

embodying resistance

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i am an open heart —
strong, free, full and clear as the bell itself.

i am soft-flexed knees,
gravity centered and recaliberated,
surfboard-steady and supple
to ride the waves of challenge and change.

turning away from that which seeks
to diminish, defeat or undo me —
i protect my borders,
restore breaches,
preserve the sanctity of
wisdom well earned
and compassion long cultivated.

turning toward that which fuels and fortifies me,
i am a commitment to liberation —
transmuting hurts,
cutting through artifice,
toppling the false idols of oppression,
and living (w)holy unperturbed
in the unalterable truth of my divinity.

 

more contemplations:

embodying refuge
refuge, resistance, resilience + radical self-expression

 

 

 

refuge, resistance, resilience + radical self-expression

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“The Sangha is an island of peace. The Sangha is a community of resistance against violence, hate and despair.” 

— Thich Nhat Hanh

These words of my root teacher Thây live at the core of our sangha’s suchness. They have shaped our evolution into a community of spiritual friends who find sanctuary in journeying together through challenge and change; being stretched and sharpened by wisdom teachings, shared insights and loving (re)assurances; shedding skin, healing, transforming, blooming wholy into our radiant bodhisattva-ness!

We are called together to revive, reclaim and fortify ourselves with liberating contemplative spiritual practices. We take refuge in the full embrace of sangha to “remember to remember” that we have all we need — breath, willingness, enough time, connection to wise companions with gifts, skills and rich life experiences — to (re)connect with our true selves and nourish our wholeness.

“Retreating” from the madness of the world around us is not a viable option for everyone. For me, access to organized retreats set in bucolic off-the-grid environs invites us to interrogate spiritual elitism and the socioeconomic realities and other disparities and inequities among practitioners in all spiritual traditions. It points us back to the question of how we practice and cultivate justice, liberation and healing as people of faith and wonder.

So we take refuge in “the wisdom of no escape” each time we come back to ourselves wherever we are in a given moment, when conditions are not optimal, when our lives aren’t set up for leaving.

Each time we spring back from our worst moments, we strengthen our resilience, self-trust and capacity to resist being swept away by the toxicity of systemic degradation, violence and oppression that spreads like contagion.

It is my deepest hope and prayer that we know the freedom of trusting ourselves, of embodying the spirit of refuge that feeds our radical being-ness.

Who are we when we cultivate and embody refuge?

Who are we when we cultivate and embody resistance?

Who are we when we cultivate and embody resilience?

Who are we when we cultivate, embody and celebrate radical self-expression?

woman horizontal | tonglen in four parts

today, the exhale was the hardest.

a trust fall in giving and taking —precious tears and shadowed fears, irrupted hopes and radical imaginings — into a world that cannot hold them gently.

where supple lungs now resist the inhale, constricting to protect me from inviting in a swirl of noxious fumes (engineered to smother epiphanous dreams and embolden all manner of delusion).

i can only manage a sip of air: a shallow 4-count laced with doubt that queries for fulfillment.

then comes the subtle pause. a fleeting moment to contemplate beginning again.

i tentatively measure my next release: 6 counts, loosening and softening toward relief.

the next pause, extended, to steady my racing heart and test the limits of suspension.

but i cannot sustain emptiness for long and concede to the will of change.

quaking. inevitable. relentless. burning and swelling into an elastic 8 beats of oxygen.

palm pressed to heart, i yield to the sending, taking, giving, getting, sharing, receiving, filtering and transmuting of sorrow and despair into joy and wonder  —

a persistent rally for life-love-light.

 

woman horizontal | elder song

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i hear the mothers whisper-chant: do not abandon yourself, dear one.

blending with the harmonies of grandmothers singing: seek refuge in the dance between heartbeat and breath.

buoyed by the infinite canon of their prayer-magic, i have trusted myself into love,

loved myself into healing,

healed myself into death and rebirth,

becoming more and more of myself, and still something new.

woman horizontal | cardinal points

energy. essence. force. flow. source. light. manifold. immanent. continuous. creative. destructive. indestructible. enveloping. inculcating. infinite. unknowable. intuitive. interdependent. heart. guide. compass. core. all that is.   

 

 

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woman horizontal | done + been done

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

woman horizontal | ich bin mary

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.


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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