my life is overflowing with blessings right now. i am learning that it takes work to prepare for blessings, and to put them to good use.
in the past month i finished two books, did two big journeys for emergent strategy (madison and nashville, very rare trips in this year of homing), and hosted the first emergent strategy immersion in detroit.
the books reshape everything, the characters and ideas show up in between my mind and the world as new lenses, combining grief and pleasure in each day, in each interaction. i am shocked by how often people are sharing secrets and love and longings with me these days. these are stories i am open to in new ways. do they know this is all i want to hear, the truth this raw?
and…i want to be home, quiet, hermiting. having to leave feels like tugging myself away from a comfortable womb. i am healing each day i am home, talking to my plants, sitting in my tub, swimming with all my elder homies, making small offers to my community, cooking.
and i want people to come here, gather here.
immersion is a way of being in water, completely. the event i hosted is the first of several experiments this year. i am seeking the best ways to invite emergent strategy to the front of peoples’ consciousness and practice, ways that don’t rely on me being the sole one to teach/spread it. this first one was thrilling for me, it was a group of people surrendering to the flow of being with each other, taking risks together, being whole together, steps and missteps that became a dance, learning with each other.
we were in detroit because it’s a teacher, a cauldron of transformation, and because i want the city to feel the abundance that comes from emergent strategy, the love that can open inside the theory.
eh, this all feels vague, and that is probably on purpose too, as i want to learn a lot more before i say more.
i was immediately able to test some small pieces out in nashville, and am in a large experiment with solidaire in may, as well as ongoing facilitation with Movement for Black Lives and BYP100. i am giving myself permission for this to be a learning year, i want to be generous with my student self in every space i get to be in or hold.
but conversations continue…some places to check me out:
Sex, Power and Leadership Conference
Longreads: a beautiful distillation of everything i care about in interview form.
and being very high for 4/20 special episode of How to Survive the End of the World podcast (we also dropped an episode on Reshaping Apocalypse that is fire).
blessings also come as needed lessons. saturn is retrograde from now until my birthday. this means caution with my words, discernment in what i listen to, and…karma is coming, learn from it. i want to learn, and to smile, to laugh in the lessons. everything is still hard, and we all die. i take that seriously. but until then, i am focused on the blessings.