I am excited to introduce Sarah Gettel, a good friend and accountability partner who’s been working behind the scenes with Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice. Sarah and I met in 2019, soon after I’d left my faculty career, through mutual contacts engaged in racial justice organizing in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We deepened our relationship in the early days of the pandemic, forming an accountability pod and meeting regularly with Rasha Diab ... Read more ...
intentions
Befriending Fear and Cultivating Courage
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Maya Angelou's often-circulated quote about courage being the most important virtue: "Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency." This quote's been coming to mind (again and again) as I find myself experiencing fear or saying "so much is scary." And so much is! There's so much injustice. What and who we care about are being attacked, fired, dismantled, criminalized, disappeared, hidden, abducted, ... Read more ...
New Article: “Because We’re Going to Mess Up”: Practices for Accountability—Not a Piecemeal Approach
With gratitude, I write to share a new article: “‘Because We’re Going to Mess Up’: Practices for Accountability—Not a Piecemeal Approach” co-authored with good friend and frequent co-author Rasha Diab and published in College Composition & Communication (CCC). This piece has been a long time coming. We started drafting in 2019; first submitted in 2020; and have been revising, reshaping, and attempting to bring it to life these past 5+ years. The article arises, as ... Read more ...
Love in Action: Sharing Protests and Prayers for These Times
This Valentine’s Day, let’s come together and share some of the protests and prayers we are writing for these times. We’re in times when what we love—people, the earth, and justice itself—are attacked with great force. The first weeks of the new administration have brought intense cruelty and terrorizing assertions of dominance. We respond in many ways, including with efforts to block harm, to build liberatory futures, and to be present with and for each ... Read more ...
Reflection Questions for Sabbaticals (and Transitional Seasons of Life)
My coaching practice often involves questions about sabbaticals and how to move through these transitional times in intentional, reflective ways. Questions include: How do I find a different pace, a pace that’s more my own? How do I mark this new season of life or new season of career? How do I set boundaries with colleagues, family, and friends? What if I want to consider a career change? How do I make writing a priority when it’s been deprioritized for so long? What if ... Read more ...
Mid-Day Meditations: Pausing to Reflect and Reset
Guided meditations are part of the one-day writing retreats that I offer on a rotating and recurring basis. As a writer, I know the importance of getting grounded, setting intentions, and remembering what and why I am called to write before I begin. Similarly, as a facilitator, I find that contemplative practices—whether meditations or freewriting or other grounding practices—can slow down the tendency to jump into action, interrupting autopilot and urgency ... Read more ...
Commitment Statements: Questions and Answers Pointing Toward Action
Commitment statements are living documents: a way to clarify deep dedications and priorities and to make them actionable both in everyday life and for the long haul. For several years now, I’ve been working with commitment statements as a way to better understand my own commitments and where I’m out of alignment with them—and, importantly, to realign and strive toward justice. This work has grown out of my collaborative research on “Making Commitments to Racial Justice ... Read more ...
New Year Reflections: Hanging by a Thread Is Better Than No Thread at All
In these weeks leading up to the new year—during the holidays and covid surge—I’ve found myself saying, “I’m hanging by a thread.” And friends have reminded me that one thread is better than no threads at all. It’s true. I’ve witnessed spiders suspended in air by a single thread. I’ve seen them descend to the ground gracefully with that same thread and use it as a first step to rebuilding webs. (Spiders teach me a lot!) As we welcome the new year, I’m reminding myself ... Read more ...
What Is Contemplative Writing? A Definition and Guided Meditation for Writers
What is contemplative writing?What is not contemplative writing?And why do I want to prioritize contemplative writing in my life? While teaching the “Contemplative Writing” workshop series this October, the importance of definitions has become increasingly clear. “Contemplative writing” invokes a range of interpretations, so this blog post defines the term and shares questions for exploring your relationship with writing. From there, I offer a guided meditation for ... Read more ...
Reflections on Silence, Fear, Courage, and Writing: Always Come Back to Writing
This past month I’ve read Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals: one of the books I’ve heard and thought and talked about long enough that I’ve felt a knowing of it, yet never read it. And the timing of reading it now—during a global pandemic, in the midst of winter, and at a time when I’m trying to figure out my relationship with worsening asthma—has felt miraculously timed. It’s felt particularly significant to read Lorde’s oft-cited quote “your silence will not protect ... Read more ...
