In this week of Valentine’s Day—a week when I’ve been teaching bell hooks’s Feminism Is for Everybody; sharing love notes that amplify hooks's words; and meditating with students about love as action, commitment, and a call to authenticity—I’m sitting with heartache. Heartache that gun violence continues unchecked and that proclamations of love are flooded by the pain and fear of regular, normalized, and numbing violence. Heartache that a series of online and phone ... Read more ...
Emotional Literacies
What emotional literacies—embodied awarenesses, knowledges, intelligences, and response-abilities—are needed when striving toward justice? These posts offer emotional insights through storytelling, contemplative practices, and investigation into daily life.
My Journey with Back Pain
Back pain. It’s a friend who’s accompanied me through most of my life, beginning in my early teens and really intensifying during graduate school when I had an “emergency surgery” after losing muscular control of my right foot. In 2006, when I had this surgery, I experienced intense pain: burning sensations that radiated from my low back down my right leg and into the toes that I couldn’t lift. It was a scary experience. The last decade has taken me on an unexpected ... Read more ...
Do Vegans Kill Spiders? Recognizing Fears and Others’ Right to Exist
During the holidays, I visited family in Tennessee and Florida, where we encountered multiple spiders. They were doing what spiders do in houses: walking along baseboards, in and out of shadows, with seemingly little or no interest in human co-habitants. From growing up in the Tennessee mountains, I’m familiar with spiders. I’ve studied which spiders’ venom is likely to impact humans. I’ve encountered black widows, watched for brown recluses, and investigated spider ... Read more ...
Spell-Casting and Other Contemplative Practices for Reflection and Recovery
In the past two weeks, I’ve been listening to a LOT of guided meditations, as a concussion has me grounded. I’m grounded in the sense of a child who’s misbehaved: sent to my room, with limited activities, and in reflection on what’s gotten me here. And I’m grounded in the sense of rooting down and deep, strengthening the base/foundation from which I can grow. Truly, I’m grateful for “the grounding,” and I’m grateful for the contemplative practices that are helping me ... Read more ...
Caterpillars and the Butterfly Effect: Noticing Small Signs and Taking Small Actions
2018. New Year’s Day. I am with family in Florida and noticing many interesting insects, including these caterpillars and moths: Curiosity leads us to watch, take photographs, and later look up the species, learning that these are oleander caterpillars transformed into oleander moths. I keep seeing caterpillars and moths, so I begin researching their symbolic significance. Suddenly I realize this is another example of everyday divination and miraculous timing, as ... Read more ...
Breaking Commitments and Recommitting through Mindful Reflection
A little more than a year ago, I wrote the following statement to describe this blog project: “Embodied knowledge matters. So do commitments. And especially acting on commitments as part of everyday life, BIG and small. This blog shares ongoing efforts of feeling, thinking, and doing for justice. Posts include reflections, recipes, research, and resources: all seek to make sense of what it means to live a life for justice.” This language signals that, at best, I’m ... Read more ...
Everyday Divination
For Halloween, I dressed as Professor Sybill Trelawney, a professor of divination at Hogwarts (within the world of Harry Potter). This has been a favorite costume of mine in past years, because I like to fashion myself the absent-minded professor. This year I’m thinking about how I’m drawn to Trelawney because she fits the archetype of the dreamer, seer, and intuitive. Why Study and Embrace Archetypes? Archetypes are helpful for seeing qualities and narratives that ... Read more ...
Speaking Up by Speaking Aloud Embodied Responses
Several times in recent weeks I’ve found myself in conversations in which things were going wrong. White folks were talking over folks of color. Men were taking up far too much space. White, cis-gender, able-bodied women were sharing their experiences as though they were universal truths. In each of these occasions, I found my stomach churning, my heart hurting, my chest tight, and my mouth dry. And in each of these occasions, I found myself entering conversation simply ... Read more ...
Holding Space and Being Present: Two Resolutions Following the Las Vegas Shooting
I woke yesterday morning to news of the Las Vegas shooting, continued calls for aid needed in Puerto Rico, and boos for kneeling NFL players at Sunday’s games. Though seemingly unrelated, these news stories relayed a larger message about the presence of everyday violence in our lives. My social media feeds were naming and critiquing this violence. People were already calling for action, for donations, and for prayers—for linking individual narratives with larger social ... Read more ...
Reclaiming Childhood Power with Coloring Books
There’s a story that I’ve told for years, a story that represents my early disappointment and dislike of school. In kindergarten, I was assigned to color a bird brown, but I thought brown was too typical. I’d been reading Zoo Books and learning about parakeets, toucans, and other birds at home. I knew birds could be practically any color or any combination of colors. I decided, therefore, to use my creativity, knowledge, and the tools (crayons) available to me to create ... Read more ...
