Song of the Week

Listen to this song as you read to help open you up. It’s a great song! I sang it this weekend at a wonderful retreat in Bemidji, at Concordia Language Village last weekend where I led a self-massage and partnered-massage workshop for building individual and communal resilience. I met some beautiful souls there. This retreat will happen again, I’ll let you all know when it does.

Updates!

A far right news organization accused some folks leading a training on how to become a legal observer, “architects of chaos”. The folks who were leading this training are of course some of the sweetest, kindest, most trustworthy people you’d ever meet. In some ways though, this is an accurate description, if your mission is to create a dictatorship. Folks who are leading with love, integrity, humanity, teaching us our legal rights, are indeed throwing a wrench in the far-right’s plan to take away our rights.

A note on fear, since this is what I see us primarily grappling with. The goal of ICE is to make us afraid, feel alone, their systems are structured this way because fear is a great way to control people. It’s easier to feel fear when we are exhausted, so keep your eye on that. The irony of ICE’s attempts to increase fear with their escalating violence, is that the more ruthless they become, the more people are waking up to what is actually happening. Community isn’t backing down. We are growing. More people are speaking up, more support for the Minnesotan resistance is coming in. As people nationally and around the world recognize that something really important is happening here, that what happens here will impact everything else that happens elsewhere. Lawyers who provide counsel for the military have had their calls double, primarily fielding questions from folks who are anxious about the legal repercussions for not following orders. ICE agents are starting to understand that there is no such thing as complete immunity, for anyone, which means they can and will be persecuted when the time comes. Brilliant songs like this one, I can’t get it out of my head, are creating avenues for defectors and weakening already weak morale within ICE’s ranks.

“It’s not too late to change your mind, show us the courage, leave this behind. It’s not too late to change your mind, you can join us, join us anytime.”

If you’re reading this and still feeling incredibly overwhelmed, I get it. When we are outside of our zone of tolerance, we get brain fog, can’t focus on important tasks, feel more despair than hope. That is exactly how the people trying to scare us, want us to feel, overwhelmed and helpless. What is often happening here is an overcoupling. It could be an overcoupling of feeling that if we aren’t constantly in the know— that we are unsafe. If we are not constantly helping— we will die or someone we love will get hurt. These fears are valid, and it is so important to stay present right now and remember— you are not alone. Staying present is about seeing the whole of it, not just our fears, or the worst of the worst of what is also happening at the same time. This is likely the largest military occupation of our cities and lands, since the colonization of this land. Marcie Rendon said in her article, “Minnesota folks have a long history of organizing. The Dakota and Anishinaabe organized against the settlers. Then organized to survive them. A tactic still practiced.” Marcie goes on to say, “We are a people born and bred of organizers. We are the descendants of visionary leaders who have shaped history beyond our state. It isn’t about heroism or courage. It is about doing the right thing, in the right time, because that is what is required of us to remain human.”

This week, if you feel yourself moving into overwhelm and brain fog from the weight of it all:

• Set timers for watching the news, 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening, together we can stay informed.

• Spend time with friends and family who help you feel happy, loved, and supported. This isn’t avoidance when it’s paired with taking action on other days, at other times.

• Sleep, rest, get bodywork, and notice the truth of the whole that is going on all around you.

The good thing is, whether you notice it or not, the truth of the whole is always still happening.

Schedule With Me! Yes, It Will Help.

OTR/L, BA, MHP, LMT,
she/they) Integrative Therapies

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.

Community Events

This event is for everyone.

Hello all Observers and Responders, please notice Wokiksuye – In Remembrance & Witness being planned for the afternoon of February 7. This is a note specifically for those of you holding and participating in your local neighborhood mutual aid and rapid response networks, you who live in the north and south and east and west, in the centers and in the far reaches.

Please consider coming as part of your hyperlocal group. We know that there is witness and grief that we share together as people who are living on this land. We know that there is witness and grief that many of you have experienced as specific people. And we also know that there is witness and grief that we share with those living next door and across the street from us.

We wanted to invite you to consider reaching out to those in your close up networks. Come to be together, to care for and watch out for each other. There will be snacks and drinks in the park in the afternoon but if it feels good, bring snacks and drinks that you can share with each other as well. How do we honor each other’s witness? Show care for each other’s grief? It is these deeply local formations, neighbor with neighbor, that has created what is happening in these cities right now, along with generations of organizing. Help us to honor both.

Thanks for READING! Share my newsletter with a beloved if you think they might like it!

xoxo Eiko