gratitude day 2:
I’m grateful for the active practice of family. choosing when to lean in, when to let go. learning to be honest with people even when you know everything they are holding – the respect of honesty, the compassion of not asking for more than I need. the love in small moments. my current practice is to meet exhaustion, frustration, and rope-ends vibes with as much of a sense of preciousness, of this-moment-is-the-only-THIS-moment-ever energy, as I can muster.
I’m grateful for how much this decade taught me about moving outside of my thoughts and being able to observe my state with curiosity and generosity.
I’m grateful for how this decade taught me the value of an hour alone, of quiet time with others, of how much energy gets saved when you drop pretense.
I’m grateful I haven’t forgotten how to play, and how to surrender to the pace of children.
tagging in @shonalihollyhottamale
#sixdaysofgratitude
day 3 of gratitude
today I showed my nibbling the @deemjournal magazine cover. she said, “you’re famous?” I responded: mostly no, but in some small circles, a little bit.
in reflection, I’m grateful that I got to know enough about myself to have some sense of what I wanted to grow in this lifetime before I reached this level of exposure.
nibbling asked to do my makeup. they asked if I liked it as much as the magazine photos and of course i do – see that afrofuture across my brow?
they’d heard me talk about how @anjalipinto and the team made me feel my beauty. they said in the future they’d be honored to do my makeup for magazines and make me feel beautiful.
i’m grateful to have done this spread with only outfits that showed my arms. and to have done so many interviews this year where i only told my truth.
i’m grateful that the people who love me and know me are all mostly bemused by the increase of exposure in my life and still treat me like a person.
i’m grateful to be in this magazine with @maisonlafleur and @leahpenniman and @naimainfinity and so many other amazing humans.
i’m grateful for this year of being part of ideas that are spreading like wildflowers.
#sixdaysofgratitude
day 4 of gratitude / 10 of cups
I began this decade in love, and I end it in love.
I am grateful to look back at how I have loved – i have been brave, foolish, selfish, honest, hungry, concerned with what others perceived, sex starved and sex crazed, emotionally endangered…i have so often been a contortionist in the name of love. I have shamed my learning self, and forgiven, embraced, and learned to feel so much compassion for myself and everyone else.
I have leapt into romance, written so much poetry. my text threads could be novels and movies of love.
I have experienced such interesting lovers, dynamic comet lovers, stable, steady lovers, lovers who have tried to contain me and lovers who have encouraged my freedom. lovers who turned me out and others who never truly touched me but changed me nonetheless. this decade has taught me an immense amount about what actually matters to me in love, in connection…and I’m learning about the boundaries that liberate me.
I am grateful for each lesson.
I’m grateful to have learned how deeply the well of love is within me, that ‘alone’ is a myth or commitment that isn’t true in me. I don’t need anyone else to fill this well – in the sweetest way, I learned this decade that I can be incredibly happy in a life of self love, deep friendships and intentional family-ing. I want to shout this feeling from the mountaintop – this satisfaction in my existence that I have tasted and cultivated with solitude and changing my behaviors.
it means the love I feel now, am in now, is driven by delight and curiosity, wonder and fun, unveiling. cocreation. magic.
today I pull the ten of cups, next to my love. “the journey to completion looks different for each of us. what we are fulfilled by looks different as well. a sense of wholeness is present. all encompassing love and oneness preside, and we may feel generous in our happiness. this is the kind of deep joy that makes us want to hug strangers and light candles on altars of abundance. mantra: my wholeness is shared by many.” axé
#sixdaysofgratitude but I think it’s going to somehow be eight? of course in gratitude time is expanding.
#movementtarot from #shewolfetarot
day 5 of gratitude / six of wands
today my gratitude is for practice. in this past decade I have learned that transformation comes from practice. I have learned that I can maintain practices I love, practices that nourish me. my core practices are tarot (for myself and movement), somatics, writing, meditation, swimming, yoga and relationship. and therapy.
when I’m in practice, the foundation of my life is solid and the rest of my mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health is easier to feel and navigate.
when others ask me for guidance, more and more often I respond with some variation of: what are you practicing? as all of my somatics teachers say, we are what we practice. intentionally or unintentionally. practice is how we direct our attention and focus the miraculous force of our lives.
today I asked about the impacts of practice and got six of wands: “triumph, good news, advancement, desires realized.”
word! #movementtarot from #fridakahlotarot deck
day 6 of gratitude
I am so grateful to the movements that have coalesced and shaped this last decade, particularly for the radical work I have been able to serve.
when I look back at this decade, I see that I have poured myself towards black liberation by following leaders and allies I trust to ask the right questions, take the right risks, make the right mistakes.
I am grateful for the work of leaders like @charlenecarruthers, @sunshinekarissa, @thenjiwetameika, @problematicpapi, @chasinggarza, @osopepatrisse, @markanthoneee, @marbrecaryn, @_ashdashlee_, @maryhooks, @chinyere, celeste faison, @mauricewfp, @cindywiesner, n’tanya lee, barbara ransby, @mamamchll, gopal dayaneni, @worshipmyankle, @hgchange, @taranajaneen, @culturejedi, @gritsandpolitics, shira hassan, mariame kaba, @adela_noblesnow, @invincibledet, @dreamhampton313, @howell.shea, @denise.perry.0521, @insurgente_lola, @jtrising, @spentawalla, @jennylx, @earthseeddetroit @leahlakshmiwrites, @walidahimarisha, @sagesense, @dani_mcclain, @asharaekundayogallery, @instatonita, @kellymcgnyc, @spirithouse_inc, @dallasgoldtooth, @jihangearon, @nainadevi77, @ashindi, grace lee boggs, @ultimate_paygee, mama lila, charity hicks and so so many others, many more than I could ever name.
facilitation and mediation is sacred work, and to get to serve Black life and the planet through so many experiments and projects, directly and indirectly, has been a great gift and a great teacher to me. to be part of a decade of humans so willing to move into action, to try, to embody possibility, to wrestle with terror, trolls, philanthropy, philosophy, narrative and the humbling work of real change…i am grateful.
to be part of movements that are learning to know each other, risk loving each other, dreaming together, creating culture together, practicing sci fi and witchcraft and pleasure and nature together…it’s been an incredible decade. we feel different now than we did ten years ago, more inviting, longer term, humbler, more complex.
movement is what we make of it. to become the ocean we don’t say the river is small, we become the great water that changes the landscape.
#sixdaysofgratitude
day 7 of gratitude
oh body!
i am so grateful for this decade of living into my body. it’s been a decade of somatics and self observation / love / documentation / wrestling / worship. my body has changed so much – I’ve gone thru an ectopic pregnancy, developed arthritis, discovered allergies and relinquished extremist dieting. I’ve been learning to listen inside myself, finding the rhythms of my hunger, my own dances, my mermaid magic…increasing the kindness and liberation i offer myself.
after years of thinking I had a bad memory, I’ve learned that my memory is incredible and deep, it’s just in my tissues, joints, muscles, in my psoas, my calves, my jaw.
my teacher-friend liu hoiman says, “a relaxed body is a powerful body,” and I’ve been reveling in what becomes possible when I can notice a tension forming in my flesh and release there, just there. what becomes possible with a breath!
this year a new system of feeling awakened in me and I am excited to spend the next decade learning how to wield what I can now feel, what I know beyond words, what I thrill to surrender to… thank you body for being miraculous this whole time it took me to truly see you.
#sixdaysofgratitude #icantcount #buticanpraise
day 8 of gratitude is for beauty
precisely, for my ability to experience a multitude of beauties, even under conditions that try to steal away from me that which is beautiful in my life, and in this period of human history.
the beauty of the living world has enraptured me – this decade has been a great turning of my attention and fascination from outer space (still cool but more daunting) to grass, ants, turtles, murmuration, cloud patterns and sun rhythms (super wow). I am so intoxicated by the particular beauty in the design of this place.
I still dream of aliens, but now I see them in octopus and squid forms, in thrills up my spine, in the stardust of my lover’s skin. I am obsessed with the beauty in humans – in the tensions between us, in the truth that there are many truths, in the small sacred work of finding those true, whole connections.
when the struggles of this time threaten my desire to be alive, or my revolutionary hope, or even the peace available in a moment, I know the medicine is to seek the beauty, the signs of life and miracle, of divine intention, which, when I look, are flooding my senses, humbling my comprehension, inviting me back to awe.
join me here – what is a beautiful moment we shared, physically or virtually, this past decade? remind me how beautiful it’s been.
#sixdaysofgratitude #oreight