adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

as promised, the pledge we shouted at the top of our lungs at the beginning of 2012. diana nucera drafted it with a bunch of magical unicorns.

I will live this year like it is the last year on earth!

I will not let fear of being sucked in a black hole stop me from achieving my dreams in 2012.

I will treat my friends, family, and any aliens that visit this planet with love and respect.

I Commit myself to my community and the survival of the planet earth.

If robots develop artificial intelligence, I will make them my friend

I will live this year like it is the last year on earth!

I will make it the most radical and awesome year in the history of the universe.

So say we all!
So. Say. We All!!!

this is brilliant and timely piece from my sister Autumn Brown, reposted from her newsletter!

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a radio program about the current Republican primary candidates. At one point a woman called in complaining that the candidates are not talking enough about welfare reform. She went on to say that she is a single mom working 60 hours a week to pay for a lifestyle her son’s friends get for free, because in their households one or more parents aren’t working, in some cases by choice. When I told my husband about this later, we had a good laugh about the idea that public assistance and welfare benefits pay for “lifestyle”: as a family who has been on multiple kinds of welfare over the last 5 years, from Medicaid to Food Stamps to WIC, we couldn’t help but wonder what we were missing out on…where were our IKEA benefits?

When I hear an average citizen make the mistake of conflating public benefits with “lifestyle” benefits, I recognize it as a dangerous ignorance arising out of having little or no contact with the welfare system or anyone who is in it. When a current or formerly elected official with experience working for the government says something like this, as Newt Gingrich did when he publicly claimed that some people were taking their food stamp money and going on vacation to Hawaii, I recognize this as a dangerous lie.

The political discourse in our media about welfare has skewed the national conversation such that many citizens actually believe that it is both easy to get benefits, and that you can use benefits any which way you want. The reality could not be more different. Getting into the welfare system requires intense levels of documentation (including but not limited to: social security cards for all adults applying, birth certificates for all children in the family, marriage licenses, utility bills, lease agreements, vehicle titles, proofs of income, bank statements for any accounts you hold, documentation of any daycare expenses, documentation of any school expenses, etc). Most public benefits offices are set up to screen people out of the system, rather than in, which means that any applicant must jump through a variety of hoops (including having their application and documentation “lost” and having to start the whole process over again), miss work or school to attend multiple appointments, and then wait a month or more from their application date for their benefits to kick in.

Once benefits are in hand, they can only be used in a specific way. For example, Food Stamp benefits (also known as food assistance, or SNAP) come in the form of an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card. It looks like a State ID card, and works like a debit card. The benefits on the card can only be used to buy food. An attempt to buy anything other than food – i.e., beer, cigarettes, or a plane ticket to Hawaii – will be rejected by the card. WIC (Women, Infants, and Children food assistance) is even more specific, because it comes in the form of a series of checks that are handed directly to the cashier. Each check outlines which items can be bought with it, and they come with an accompanying guide that outlines which brands of these items are approved and which are not. A Grocery shop with WIC checks can actually take twice as long as a normal shop because the items are so intensely regulated.

So, are frauds perpetrated within this system? Certainly. But in my experience of helping people negotiate these systems, the most frequent fraud perpetrated is this: NOT reporting all of the income a family earns. For example, people who are self-employed may choose to not report all of their income because they know that if they do, the result is being kicked out of the system. The reason these kinds of frauds are committed is very simple: Survival. The public benefits system is set up to take into account ONLY the most basic expenses a family will have – rent, utilities, school, and child care – in its evaluation of whether or not a family qualifies to receive benefits. The system does not take into account cost of living variations around the country, or a host of other expenses that the average family either requires or incurs: transportation to/from work/school/daycare; clothes and diapers; student loans and other kinds of debt repayment; phone and internet bills…these are all things that most citizens would agree are necessary for the average family to function in this country, and yet these expenses are not included in an evaluation of whether or not a family needs health or food support.

So if we can recognize that the kind of fraud that usually takes place is under-reporting of money earned, rather than the myth of using food stamps to pay for vacations, then we begin to paint a different story than the one repeated in the national media. This alternative story is that people ARE working, but are unable to report their income for fear of losing their benefits. And fear they should, for we live in an economy where people are penalized and made homeless for not being able to pay back their loans on time, and yet this aspect of our collective financial duress is left out of the process of evaluating whether or not people can afford food and health care. The notion that this system needs reforming in the direction of screening MORE people out of the system is just plain false. And dangerous.

However, I also do not want to come across as defending the notion that all adults should be working for an income and that there is something wrong with people “choosing not to work.” I have noticed a transition in the national discourse about this question from when I was a kid. It used to be that we lamented the fact that in most two-parent households, both parents have to work. In the last decade, among conservatives and progressives, this has shifted to an expectation that both parents should work, and a criticism of those who “choose” not to work. There is an underlying assumption here that goes unquestioned and unexplored: that all of the other things we do in our homes and lives – things like cooking, cleaning, raising children, volunteering – are not work, and therefore have no value within our economy. We no longer recognize the value in a parent choosing to stay home with their children, because this is not considered “work.” How bizarre. And this notion that both parents MUST work comes with an additional accompanying assumption that goes unquestioned and unexplored: that both parents are working for themselves and their children to have a particular lifestyle – a middle class lifestyle replete with multiple cars, phones, and other gadgets – which is inherently more valuable than the lifestyle they might otherwise have. 

As a full-time mother who must also work somewhere in the range of part-time to full-time doing contract work in order to make ends meet, I recognize that public benefits have been critical to my family’s ability to survive. I expect the government to take responsibility for citizens by redirecting resources in this way and I think it is one of the few things our government could do quite well if it had the right resources. I find it painful to realize that many political figures, when faced with a choice between providing these necessary benefits and allowing children to starve because their parents are not able to afford food, would choose to allow children to starve – even if their position is only rhetorical. The politicians who espouse these dangerous ideas are the same people who claim to uphold Christian values and to defend the family. The hypocrisy is painful to witness, especially because it allows non-elected citizens to feel comfortable and confident sitting in judgment of those who have less than them, from a place of unacknowledged privilege and unabashed indifference.

When we allow this dialectic to go unchallenged, we reinforce the stigma attached to receiving assistance that results in our country’s public benefits being underutilized (in point of fact, close to half of all citizens who are eligible to receive food assistance never do).  We also reinforce the notion that the only appropriate way for individuals and families to receive assistance is through religious charity, which is hugely problematic because these forms of assistance play out primarily within private institutions with few accountability protocols that protect those in need from being abused by those in the position to help them. We reinforce the idea that people in need are only deserving of what those in power are willing to give.

I would much rather put in place systems that reinforce the alternative idea: from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need. Systems where we all have enough to eat, and the health care we need, and a warm house to make a home. We can have fullness, wholeness, and wellness. And maybe go on vacation to Hawaii, too.

i know how Cinderella felt, the day after.

last night I got the honor of singing, publicly, for my first moments of 2012!

not just singing, but singing dressed as an ice queen, with Tunde Olaniran, one of my favorite performing artists. we sang ‘like a virgin’, as the first song of 2012, on a set with LED-lit trees as the wilderness I was making it through.

it’s a deep and gorgeous song, and I belted my heart out through the cold. it felt incredible! Tunde and his dancers are dreamy to work with.

costumer-for-the-future Christine sprinkled fairy dust all over my face, at tunde’s instruction: ‘give me tilda swinton, narnia.’

before I went up, dj/amp family Diana (aka mother cyborg) led us all in a gorgeous pledge. excerpt: ‘I will live this year as if it is the last on earth. I will treat family, friends, aliens and robots with love and compassion. so say we all!’ there was much more brilliance, I will try and get the full text.

and then afterwards I was swept away by my own very dashing prince charming.

now it’s morning, I’m on my way to see my parents, my cold is back after an adrenalin-induced recession, and yeah, I may have left a shoe somewhere.

its a gorgeous clear morning, there’s glitter all over and I can’t stop smiling.

hi 2012. I’m ready.

the end of the year is here, just like that.

my rituals tend to be in relationship to the people around me. in my little circle in detroit, we make predictions for the next year, read our predictions from the year before, and dance all night.

the one thing i do, which just feels right to me, is to clean. we clean the kitchen, the bathroom, sweep the floors, take out the compost and the garbage, dust. i have been dreadfully ill for the past few days so the cleaning is even more needed. the idea is: let’s get things in order, a new year is coming.

2011 was, for me, an incredibly messy year. i was more aware of how messy i am as a person than i have ever been before. i made messes, spilled things, broke things, double- and tripled-booked my life, hurt people, lost people, wasn’t at my best. i reached my limit, over and over again, disappointed and relieved to find that i just had no more to give.

and…it was an amazing year.

i learned SO much.

the whole world seemed to be in parallel upheavals, learning new ways of being, not avoiding the hurt or tender places, bursting like cosmic hulks out of the too-tight clothes of small thinking, seeming to fail, seeming faster and closer and more frantic. a hot mess, a dramatic crescendo.

for me, the lesson from this year (as much from watching my 3-year-old nephew and 1-year-old niece learn to clean up as from watching the whole world seek clarity about what it means to be human at this point in history) is this: clean is not a destination, it’s a process.

we clean things up so that we can take stock of what is really there, revel in the temporary and lovely order. and so that we have space to begin the next mess. the mess comes from living – playing, cooking, eating, creating, loving, fighting, dancing, drinking – learning.

perhaps some of you, like me, hold an ideal, visceral in our senses. i can feel in my bones when i am approaching it – in my space, in my emotions, in my relationships. i create some order and systems in my life to reach that personal ideal, which gives me a sense of calm and control, however mythical.

when i walk in my house and everything is in it’s place, i feel a vibrational calm that makes me more creative, more curious, more spacious in my life. when i am fully honest and present with my loved ones, i feel that same calm.

then i can get on with messing it all up.

in a couple of weeks, i will begin a journey which i expect will be equal parts cleaning up and messing up my life. my partner gifted me with a community supported sabbatical (which you can still contribute to if you like the idea of me resting, writing and rebooting – just look up adriennemaree at gmail on paypal and give).

i am going all out with it – traveling to places that feel important to go to. that includes morocco because my sister had a dream that that’s where our people are from, and because i have never touched my foot to africa and it’s past time. mexico because i want to be on mayan soil in 2012. hawaii, because i want to invite the energy of the volcano into my life right now – whatever it is that is inside boiling up and contained, i want to invite it to come forth and reshape everything.

preparing to be away is a cleaning up – tying up of loose ends, setting boundaries on my time and availability, clearing my calendar of engagements and my heart of guilt about not being here with my loved ones and my many jobs. reducing the amount of things i need to what can easily be carried without having to check bags.

cleaning up by directly facing and challenging the part of my ego that survives by feeling needed in the work i do, feeling irreplaceable. facing and listening to the part of my heart that is longing for even deeper transformational work than what i currently get to do, and not yet sure what that means about who i am now.

this trip is a cocoon. i am going all the way in and not sure what will come out on the other side. cocoons only look neat on the outside.

it’s invigorating and daunting and terrifying.

there is only one thing of which i am absolutely sure:
i have new messes to make.

am home from a week with the family.

my main reflection is that family, blood or chosen, is no simple endeavor. my family works hard for the love we bestow on each other…to cultivate it, hone it, give it, receive it. these things are not easy.

except if you are a child, in which case it is the first response.

my nephew is the kind of imaginative, vulnerable, aggressive, insightful human being I want to be. he feels all his feelings, and is not ashamed of his thoughts, feelings, or actions. he is quick to apologize when he is wrong, and move on. he loves to play out the favorite scenes of his life, real, imagined or from a movie, on repeat. because you repeat the good.

my niece is the kind of bold, hilarious, curious and forceful human being I want to be. she watches everything, with curiosity and wonder…what is it? can I eat it? can I deconstruct it? she will do the right, safe thing if it is explained to her and she is given agency to choose. she wants to explode her boundaries. she hasn’t yet learned to lie, so her rejections cannot be taken personally. she is simply, deeply, in touch with the present.

I spent the week creating worlds with these two, including dinosaurs, space, cowgirls, train rides, flying and making new faces. every moment was squeezed empty of its potential for living – crying, pouting, screaming to see what the lungs could do, singing, dancing, laughing, holding and being held.

there are so many ways to profess love. it heals my heart to see how love is everywhere in the words and actions of these babies, who make me see myself anew. love, without ownership, dependence, burden, obligation, jealousy, anger, or competition.

they love me because i show up.

as I ruminate on whether to do any resolutions this year (seems silly to make too many promises before i go on this life changing sabbatical – which I will write about soon), I see their faces.

I only want to love myself as thoroughly, and unabashedly, as they do.

yesterday I was laying on a couch in my baby sister’s living room while her two outstanding children crawled, walked and jumped all over me. in front of me was their Christmas tree, covered in lights and ornaments, some handmade by the children.

I had the thought, as I often do: how would I explain this to an offworlder? to another species, if I was the one who had to explain a ritual in which I participated, to someone not from here, not familiar with humans.

I have this thought in part because I want to be prepared to interact with aliens if and when the chance comes. of course.

and also because I sometimes feel so far removed from these rituals that it is hard to reroot myself in the purpose and beauty of them.

not to be misleading…I love presents, anticipation, decadent home cooked meals. but every year I also find myself disgusted by the mass produced capitalistic orgy of holidays, which seems to swallow the joyful intentions up whole. this makes me grinch out inside for a while.

but on the couch, for a moment, it was so clear. the kids were giggling, burrowing and pushing, making my body a bridge, a fort, a tightrope, a trampoline. and the moment got still and quiet.

all ritual can be sacred, if we tune in to the aspect which is about connecting.

the ritual of taking time to give to each other, to be with each other, feed each other, play with the children and reflect on what we have in our lives…this is the most common ritual. it spans belief systems.

we live in a capitalist world, so it is imperative to root down deeper into an experience than what socialized capitalism generally encourages…under the hunting/gathering flush of shopping, to the part of these rituals which is the moment of being in love.

the babies were already deeply immersed in the ritual, and if no gifts come they will still be fine, because they get it. it’s about being happy, being loved, being with. they are experts at being present and pulling others into their worlds of fantasy and laughter.

the perfection they gift to others is their whole selves, their presence.

they are at an age where they are not ashamed to be loving, to run across the house, jump up and fall down with joy to see someone they love. I want to be that free with my love.

I don’t want to be a grinch this year, though my analysis of capitalism is intact. I don’t want to be too good for rituals of love.

i know what I would tell the aliens…all of these lights, and boxes, this flurry of activity – its supposed to be about expressing love to each other. many of us have forgotten that, have only been able to hold onto the materialism.

but this is how the generations in my family have said they loved each other through the boundaries of a repressed society. when we had nothing, we created things for each other. the gifts are supposed to show we are thinking of each other, we cherish each other.

what I see with the kids is that the action of being with each other is so much more important than the things.

so my practice this holiday is simple: being present. i can leave the materialism aside, for the most part. the true gift, which the children know, is leaving work at the door and being present with each other.

and the beautiful, selfish little miracle is: presence gives in all directions.

this past weekend was reimagining organizing, movements and leadership in detroit. once we heard that author and thinker margaret wheatley was going to be in kalamazoo and was willing to come to detroit, we built the event as a way to immerse her in our work here in detroit, and immerse detroit in the ideas wheatley has been speaking to for the past 20 years.

wheatley’s book leadership in the new science was written 20 years ago, the same year detroit summer was founded. grace lee boggs read the work a few years ago and started incorporating some of the key ideas into her speeches and writing. hip-hop artist invincible got inspired by these speeches and began crafting a multi-media music project to connect complex science, social justice and hip-hop.

some of the key ideas uplifted were:

- how do we transition from a newtonian way of understanding the world (that things happen in a linear way, that it’s all about getting mass, getting as many people as possible to do one thing) to a quantum leap, or a complex, way of understanding things (that lots of small, seemingly disconnected actions can spark or emerge a transformation)?

- critical connections, deep trusting connections between points in a system, are more crucial to social change than critical mass. my friend gibran talks about the integrity of the connection between the nodes of a network being as important as the strength (or brilliance, or charisma) of the nodes themselves.

- thinking of change in the sense of fractals…fractals show us that the same patterns that exist on the smallest scale exist on the largest scale. in terms of the social changes we are working for, how can we try to create massive systems which we do not have an experience of at any scale? another way of thinking of this is that the pattern at the largest level can only be what it is at the smallest level. if we are chaotic within ourselves, our society will be chaotic. if we are fearful, gossiping, angry, dysfunctional, wounded at the small scale, then that is the society we will inhabit. this is a scientific impetus to transform ourselves to transform the world.

- emergence and feedback loops. for years i have raged against plans, because it feels like we spend a lot of time making plans that don’t adapt for, or account for, the constantly changing landscape. emergence felt like a balm to my brain when i learned about it – it’s the process in nature that explains the beautiful movements of flocks of birds and schools of fish.

a few days before the event, we got news that wheatley had come down with pneumonia and wasn’t going to make it. while we sent her healing energy, we had to reflect that just a month ago, we had supported another gathering that the boggs center organized, where the special guest, vandana shiva, had also gotten ill just before the gathering and was unable to come.

our local conclusion from this was that we must have all we need to have these conversations in detroit already. but luckily we had structured the events to mostly focus on detroiters getting to interact with each other.

we had an initial intimate dinner for members of various networks in detroit to come in contact with each other and see what questions they share. the questions focused on transitions of leadership, how to face urgency with integrity, how we heal – moving from fragmentation to wholeness – in the process of the doing the work, bridging the gaps (real or perceived) between new and old paradigms, and how to make organizing a “path of least resistance” the most natural thing a community can do?

yesterday we had a large public event that opened with beth james blessing the space as an indigenous and african-american professor and healer from detroit.

grace lee boggs and invincible grounded us in the ideas above before a three-part fishbowl conversation where detroit-based organizers discussed the relevance of these ideas for our work here.

then we jumped into an assessment process where folks looked at the organizations and networks they are part of, and then at their own personal lives, to see how visionary they are now, and what the next step in transformation might be.

the assessment process yielded powerful conversations in small groups and pairs – it is always beautiful to me to watch folks open up, listen deeply, come into self-awareness and see the possibility of their lives and their work.

afterwards there was a youth-only event, a collaboration with the monthly detroit future youth network. the youth event, which included an exercise where the youth got to feel what it was like to be in a flock, was a space for young people working in networks across detroit to talk about their visions for leadership. they talked about how their work in movement could be focused on building each other up, rather than tearing each other down.

finally there was a series of performances, started off with invincible’s complex movements (where i got to wear a projection dress!!). then there was an open mic with a magnificent competition between the youth and adults. one of the highlights was a young woman named talitha who did a song about how fly she was. the chorus was “duh-duh-duh-duh-duh – it’s me!!”…and it’s been in my head the whole day.

watching young people in detroit burst with love and excitement about the community they are in, watching them build confidence on the stage, seeing the incredible life in them – it is restorative in and of itself.

with all of the adaptation and emergence in creating a wholeness out of wheatley’s absence, there were definitely moments where we had to release expectations and be present to a new situation. a few times i found myself frustrated that i wasn’t able to communicate clearly enough these ideas which excite me so, and which i feel i see in practice in detroit every day.

but the beauty was how open and raw people were about the fact that we all have limitations. we kept coming back to a quote from the late jimmy boggs – “you’re nobody until you are in relationship with a bunch of somebodies.” and ultimately that’s what we were doing – modeling relational intelligence, creating safe space, and all doing our best.

it was leaderful, and it was beautiful.

this came to me this morning in one fell swoop.

so here goes:

we have been thinking of our revolutions as us vs them, winning power in a way that means others lose. always leaving a percentage, as small as possible, but there…the 1% whom we can blame for the mess we are in.

what would it look like to posit ourselves instead as wholeness, evolving from a society driven by division?…if our practice was to decompartmentalize ourselves, to integrate our parts, our communities, our movements, our world?

what we call the 1% is a set of ideas ravaging our world. individualism, selfishness, darwinism. these ideas continue to consume us and all our resources, though only the tiniest sliver truly benefit, because we all participate.

we actively participate: we fund war with much of our taxes, we call the police, we continuously hand over our power, we vote without holding elected officials accountable, we create an earth’s worth of garbage in our short lifetimes.

we passively participate: not intervening against hate, looking the other way from violence and conflict, silent with fear, stepping quietly away from truth tellers, collecting paychecks for work we do not love which does not benefit our communities.

i am not speaking just of ‘the masses’ here – within movement spaces we cultivate competition by continuing to participate in the foundation games, watching activist stars emerge full of words while nothing changes, while hunger and homelessness grow, tearing each other apart in a fit of righteousness.

it is painful to write this.

but it is true.

james baldwin told us, “not everything that is faced can be changed. but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

so busy looking outside ourselves for the evil, for the problem…when we are the problem. everyday we build up our dreams and with a million small cuts we destroy them.

we must become the solution. whole people…not perfect, but whole. whole communities. whole systems.

anyone we leave out of “us” will become a poison to us eventually. the human organism is the same at its smallest and largest scale. just as the parts of ourselves we don’t claim creep into our lives, keeping us from fully realizing our personal potential (the jealous side, the self-doubter, the depressed, the over eater…those are just some of my unclaimed parts, and they wreak havoc), at a societal level: those we leave out of our vision, we give no option but to fight us.

if we give them no future with us, what else can they do?

this is how we have become slaves over and over and over again, shackles or credit cards, given no real choice, no humanity.

look what it has made us.

as tempting as it is to hurt those who have taken so much from us, who have hurt us deeply – we cannot recreate that, we cannot continue in this back and forth of oppression and victimization and self-loathing and division.

because it is ourselves we hurt.

the 1% is our responsibility. our conservative family members, our passive family members, our secret selves. it’s our responsibility.

this is beyond the symbolism of flowers in guns – it strikes at the root of how we are living.

can we see all people as victims of our worst collective thinking with this current global economy, even those who appear to benefit (until you look at rates of suicide, addiction, and other signs of societal illness)?

if we are movement leaders who want the ultimate victory, we must claim the 100%, the whole ecosystem from heart to universe.

it seems daunting only if we remain parts of ourselves. if we see ourselves whole, then suddenly there is time and there is space…to heal, to move beyond judgment, to be just, to be visionary.

i say this in the context of egypt, in the context of the 99% movement – as we watch the cycles of revolution move from stunning inspiration to shocking terror, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by fear, to feel like we must urgently do things we know are not enough.

it is love, the emotion of wholeness, which we must cultivate. love is that interconnectedness, that tenderness, that compassion and forgiveness and laughter – and it is the only thing i have experienced which is greater than fear.

for what small part can ever conquer the whole? we must embody our fullness.

let us shirk off the limiting skin of a victimized 99%. i claim the whole, my own wholeness, my responsibility for what is, and what will be.

i claim it with myself, that i will forgive my shortcomings and indulge in caring for myself and taking the time for the healing i need…and that i will live each day in closer alignment with my values, however impossible it seems in this society.

i claim it with my loved ones, that i will love them with fierce and unrelenting honesty, non-judgment and compassion. i will give my family the attention that i have given my politics.

and i claim it with those who would be my enemy. i know you are hurting. i am grateful you live, when i live, so we can learn about love together.

only whole can we get free.

liberate the 100%!

the bulk of being a doula is waiting.

for two weeks before and two weeks after a baby’s due date, i commit to being available. my main work during that period is making sure the mama feels amazing and informed and is eating right and taking good care of her body, mind, heart.

and then it’s time. the window for birth opens. there is the long period where the mama is cramping, then having contractions, sometimes blood, sometimes exhaustion. the contractions are a sure sign, and maybe they build, but maybe they go away.

what i have noticed so far is that the mama generally feels ready, past ready, like her body is tired from carrying around this miracle for so long. she wants to have given birth. she may also be scared, scared of how birth will go, or scared because her life is not fully perfect and stable for the new one, or scared because of the change her life is about to go through.

either way, we wait. and either way, something is about to happen which will majorly transform everything. it is inevitable.

right now i am waiting on two babies.

for one, i am a back-up doula, on call to get the mama to the hospital when the time comes, and stay with her until her primary doula, who is further away, can get to her.

for the other, i have been with her for a while now, falling in love with her and her baby, seeing the ultrasounds, hearing the heartbeat, shifting the nutrition and watching the gorgeous unfolding of a mama in the same space where was a girl only a moment ago.

i feel acutely aware of the miraculous nature of this waiting. it is mundane. humans, in times of great transition such as birth and death, we do mundane things – check our phones, listen to music, notice the weather, take baths, try to get comfortable.

the truth that i know for sure is: nothing i do or don’t do will change the inevitable – a miracle is coming. soon mama and baby will walk up to the precipice of life and death, and make choices. the safety of darkness will press by, the light will overwhelm, air will rush into lungs and all over the body.

this is the every day miracle, our first and most common experience, arriving.

and the practice, the activity which makes the difference in how the miracle is experienced, is being patient. not a plodding reluctant patience, or a bitter martyr patience, but a quiet indulgent luscious patience – a reveling in the current moment as crucial and delightful. the patience of not driving or pushing ahead, obsessed with outcomes – but BEING with the exact experience, as it is. trusting the body, the baby, and the mama to know what to do, and when.

i am a beginner doula still, just learning. i am fascinated by all of this. it amazes me how much we know, if we can just listen to our whole selves.

i share the fascination and observations here because each aspect of it, the mundane, the miraculous, the slow inevitable changes, and most of all, the patience, feels immensely relevant to all the other aspects of my life right now – health, love, politics, family.

i am working on patience, becoming still enough to let the miracles come.
i know they are coming, i know it.

last week, the burned torso of a young transgendered woman named shelley hilliard, who had been missing for two weeks, showed up under a mattress off a highway in detroit.

shelley was one of the youth who participated in the amazing ruth ellis center, which provides a safe space for LGBT youth to be, learn, dance, and live in spite of the violent conditions most of them face outside the ruth ellis doors.

i do some volunteer work with the ruth ellis youth, and they are these incredible, beautiful, vulnerable children, pushed into surviving in any number of ways that expose them to violence every day – violence from their families, from bullies, from each other, or from those they turn to for basic needs.

and last night i couldn’t get away from what had happened – last night i cried for shelley.

i cried because i couldn’t find any peace in myself around it, i couldn’t find compassion for her killers.

lately i have been actively practicing compassion in all situations, experimenting with radical non-reaction. but last night I couldn’t get there…i was awash with fear and grief, just sitting with the way she died.

i experienced my fear in retrograde, going back through her last living moments, trying to find the instant where she knew there was danger, wanting to rescue her at that moment, even though i know better.

the survivor part of me always wants to be in some gallant army that always shows up to rescue young people from being molested, raped, murdered – sexually hurt in any way.

going back further, i want to find the moment where shelley needed to make the series of choices that put her body in someone else’s power, to destroy.

shelley was destroyed. by other humans.

and I know there is no rescue scenario that truly works to change power…but this murder really raises the question of what is that power, anyway. i believe in claiming power – how can these girls save themselves?

i want to see the solutions, but i can only concentrate on the pain sometimes. i just want to heal the pain, in myself, and heal the wounded people – individual to governmental – who only understand power as the capacity to hurt or kill another.

we have to change the pain, transform it.
we have to practice love wherever pain is, even when it seems impossible.
loved people don’t dismember, burn and discard other people.
i have to believe that.

it’s overwhelming what happened to shelley. and it is only possible because we hold as value-less the lives of transgender women, and sex working, sex-trading people.

if you have never experienced knowing yourself to be something your body does not express, it may be hard to understand the transgendered path. right now it’s an all out war on trans people. the average lifespan of a transgendered person is 23 years old.

even if you don’t get it, if it scares you…how can we cultivate the capacity to love people we can’t comprehend?

similarly, if you have never experienced true hunger or financial need, it may be hard to grasp what leads a young person to see their body as a valuable resource to trade for money, shelter, food…love.

along my path as a facilitator, i learned a powerful lesson from chicago’s young women’s empowerment project: prostitution is as old as capitalism. instead of asking why people sell and trade their bodies, we need to look critically, and eventually evolve beyond, this system which puts value on flesh and makes people compete to live.

people in the sex trade are survivors in this system, not creators of it.
if they survive.

i am so scared for the other girls, here in detroit and around the world – these beautiful transgender girls who are so brave, just being themselves in a world that still denies their existence on most official forms, in most bathrooms, in most spaces of real or perceived power.

why can’t they live?

why can’t we let them live, be on this earth with us?

why can’t we let them be women, or womyn, or wombyn with us? even in otherwise radically inclusive spaces, even in spaces created out of a need for safety, I have seen hate and exclusion boil up against trans people.

the most vulnerable living beings teach us what it means to be human.

it is devastating for me to hear shelley’s story, and to integrate the reality that part of what it means to be human right now is to be consumed by hatred, to be completely numb to the pain of another person, to have no love, to be able to turn off the heart, to cause harm to flesh, to see another being as parts.

all I can do is open myself up to it, which I do rarely these days. like many who are emotionally awake, i can be overwhelmed when it seems there is too much to feel.

when I do open myself up, when it blasts through my protective layers, like shelley’s death did last night, i find myself weeping uncontrollably.

crying for all of us who uphold a trans-phobic society where shelley, and other girls like her, can be murdered. crying because of the economic conditions that pit us against each other, make us oppositional, make us value sameness over difference.

crying for the healing needed in this region, where trans girls are disappearing regularly.

crying for girls who feel they can’t say no, who feel pressed to put themselves on the line between life and death every day, hoping to walk away with one more day to live, create, dance, exist.

i hope it’s safe wherever shelley is now.