Song of the Week

Listen to this song as you read to help open you up.

Updates!

I read Raffo’s piece, So Now What Beloveds? This is the piece I want to uplift this week in addition to plugging the Embodied Support group Aziz and I will be leading next week Wednesday at New City Center. Raffo talks about the need to end the violence, come into the present moment, and to create the conditions to shift histories. This piece made me think about catalysts, specifically catalysts as tinder.

A catalyst being a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without being consumed or permanently changed in the process. Catalysts work by lowering the activation energy needed for the reaction to occur, making the reaction happen faster or under different conditions. If we share our catalysts with each other, imagine what we can do and change together. Please take a moment now and sift through what you have learned from living under, or watching Minnesotans living under, occupation. What have you seen be a catalyst for what has happened here that can be medicine elsewhere?

• If you were to take 1-3 things that you learned from these last three months, that would help others prepare, what would you tell them?

• If they lived in a city versus in a rural area? What do you want them to know?

I’m going to journal on and think more about my answer. In the meantime, what comes to me is that it is critical to create/maintain the conditions we need to gather and connect often, under intense fear, by any means. By creating underground railroads, reducing paranoia within large groups, by leaving the door open for folks to change their minds and come over to our side, by vetting people in spaces that need to be vetted. The mechanism varies depending on the space and purpose you are creating, AND gathering is key to sustain the work, process the stress, learn together, stay grounded, stay mobilized, keep feeling human under conditions that are contrived to make us feel non-human.

While you and I think about our answers more, I want to uplift the book by Norma Wong who I adore, and worked with briefly when was at The People’s Movement Center. Her book is Who We Are Becoming Matters. I ran into Norma on accident at a restaurant in Honolulu when I was visiting my family a few years ago, and it felt like a huge ancestral nudge to keep up with her work. When I met her, I seriously thought about moving to Hawaii because I was so impacted by our time together. She was recently interviewed on the podcast How to Survive The End of the World with Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown if you like audio learning. Rest up beloveds and hopefully see some of you at the event next week.

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I offer individuals and couples trauma informed somatic therapy/coaching, craniosacral therapy, Swedish massage, Thai bodywork, myofascial release, group workshops, and healing through art, play, and connecting to nature. Free 15 minute consultations can be booked on my website if you’re intrigued or have questions.

For Fun! Why Queer People Are More Fun (Hairflick)

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xoxo Eiko