Seasoning for a softer tongue: paprika, garlic, onion, summer savoury, thyme, vegeta©, salt
In the spirit of openness, cultivating community, choosing love, feelings, deprogramming, body odour, deceleration, vulnerability, chaos, oil (in general), healing, regressing, healing again, dandruff, joy, missing tooth, developmental theory, really nice shoes, transformation, folk art, farmer’s cheese, AnCeStRaL tRAuMa, medicinal plants, eBay, literal spirits, tip envelope, believing in miracles, fluidity, flaw and pure love:
A space for sharing and connecting, not a stage for me but a table for you, and sometimes i won’t sit down because i’m preparing food and want you to like me, or i’m showing you something beautiful and i’ve relaxed into our love,
but eventually we have a moment to look into each others’ eyes and commit to be in accurate relationship together.
We are not two, yet you look for me outside
-Yeshe Tsogyel
It’s important for me to engage with things that people share with me. Sometimes it tells me so much about their inner dialogue, and mostly it keeps me connected, curious, and open to new things. I am trying to survive taking myself/ this life too seriously. I am trying to play. This first letter is dedicated to a co-conspirator of loving kindness and deep well of wisdom: Sebene Selassie. Thank you Sebene for the graceful nudge and for blowing my mind when you said “sometimes we perform vulnerability.”
Ocean Vuong once said “It’s interesting that wisdom often arrives as a warning.”
anyway, still chewing on that!!!!
here’s to the cliché and actually earnest effort to move closer towards myself in my last month of being 29, and with that, a humble attempt at peeling off a crunchy layer of concern (read: fuck-giving).
I am just walking fascia now. Every week is fascia week.
i am sharing this newsletter with the intention to embrace the small few that know me, who love me unconditionally, who witness how much i care deeply about facilitating connection, togetherness, radical honesty, empathy, transformative and healing justice, emotional regulation, play, communication, vulnerability… because words and images will always fall short. I am also sharing this newsletter to whoever else resonates and wants to be in community together.
I don’t even know what this will look like or how often it will be sent, and to me, that’s perfect.
if nervous system massage sounds nice to you, i’ll offer this introduction to activating basic neurocellular patterns by legendary somatic teacher Bonny Bainbridge Cohen. I am moved by how she closes the introduction:
this is a map only. derived from the past experiences of others. the concepts and ideas expressed are not given as absolutes but as reference points. for it to have meaning for you, you must explore them experientially yourself, and gain your own insights.
i love this shit!! i have been trying to deprogram from headless, overwhelmed and external into embodied, whole, intentional, capable and resourceful. The trauma informed filter is everything. This will not be accessible to every body, so let me know if you would like another resource and i will try my best to deliver. Fyi, my mom introduced me to everything i know about somatics. She is iconic, more about her one day. If being a reptile or crawling baby means i might get relief from baseline alarm mode nerves, i’ll try it?
anyway, This conversation with Dr. Rupa Marya and Raj Patel might be calling your name
and lastly, a poem by Yeshe Tsogyel, written somewhere between 750-820.
It is neccessary for me to acknowledge that i am exploring all these things on stolen xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) & Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) ancestral lands. I am a first generation immigrant settler of conflict generated diaspora, born in Cetinje, Montenegro, former Yugoslavia. I am committed to my responsibilities to the rightful stewards of this place, human and more than human. I do this by means of financial redistribution, solidarity actions, decolonial intentions in my relationships and my creative practice, interrogating my privileged positionality, and by efforts to move beyond inoperative acknowledgment and into sincere practice.
Thank you for landing here today, and feel free to opt out anytime!
love,
sara