This week I overfilled my hot cocoa, knocked the mug, and spilled sticky-sweet almond milk on the kitchen counter. Before thinking, I was already saying aloud: “Ahhhh, Bethhhh …” I could hear a parent scolding a child, over-reacting about spilled milk. And I was shaken—stopped in my tracks—because I would not like to respond in such a way to any person, let alone myself. Spilled cocoa. Sticky surfaces. Mess. Mess characterizes life, and I like to think that I’m ... 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.
Mucking around in the Mess of Inauguration Day
This post wasn’t planned. It wasn’t the “next up” in my drafting schedule to write a new piece weekly in 2017 (#52essays2017). Yet, it’s flowing forth this morning, as I try to make sense of this day before me. An inauguration day? A general strike? A media black-out? A ramp-up to coordinated global demonstrations? What I worry about—and why I feel the need to write—is that I’m experiencing the day as a day like any other. A day that makes complicity possible. A day of ... Read more ...
Welcoming Winter by Looking Within
I haven’t always loved caves. I remember years of summer camp when I was so afraid of entering “the bat cave” that I worried about this outing for days ahead of time and even sat out a year or two. Yet, growing up in Tennessee and spending summers in Kentucky (the land of limestone, sink holes, and caverns), I learned to love—truly enjoy, crave, and seek time visiting—caves. Today, when I ask myself why I love caves, I realize that entering the earth feels like ... Read more ...
Heart, Head, and Hands: Explaining the Blog’s Name
For months, I kept a list of keywords and imagined titles for this blog. For months, I ran possible names by friends and family, who responded with “nope,” “eugh,” and “huh?” Then, casually and unsurprisingly, my friend and frequent co-author Rasha Diab said, “Beth, your blog is heart-head-hands. That’s your thing.” I guess this exercise—this linking of feeling with thinking with acting—is “my thing.” Often in classes and workshops, I use the contemplative writing ... Read more ...
The Call to Write
In the aftermath of Trump’s election, I’ve decided it’s time to move forward with this project focused on feeling-thinking-doing for JUSTICE. I’ve been tinkering toward a blog for months, but holding myself back. Now my heart, my head, and my hands are insistent: the time to write is NOW. So, I sit at the screen, hands poised over keys. Yet, the only word-like expression coming forth is “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!” I often joke that I study language (composition, rhetoric, ... Read more ...
