Breathing and Opening, Softening and Reaching

I’ve been wanting to curl up in a ball and cover my heart lately. The world feels especially cruel right now, and particularly hard on black folks.

I know that pulling in and shutting down is not the way we’re going to get through hard times. The world is not well served when I close my heart.

So I’m breathing – remembering that I’m promised breath until the very last moment of my life. That’s a gift. And I’m opening – remembering the many fine leaders who are working, nudging, cajoling, pushing and pulling us as we collectively lurch and glide toward liberation. This is also a gift.

I’m softening – remembering that I’m intimately and inextricably embedded in a web of mycelia, clouds, newts, limestone, bison and fire. All gifts. And I’m reaching – to you, my partners – remembering that I’m never alone, even when it feels that way.

Transformation isn’t linear, and is rarely calm. The paths toward it bend and loop, and the way forward is often obscured, sometimes even by our tears.

Nonetheless, we travel on. We lead into spaces and places that have not been explored, where the rules we were sure of may not apply. We risk and leap and sometimes fall. And if we pay sufficient attention, we learn.

In this turbulent time of spring moving into summer, I remind you to breathe. To open and soften and reach. And to remember that we are surrounded by gifts, not the least of which are each other.

From my heart to yours.
Akaya

PS. We here at Rockwood are deeply grieving the loss of lives at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston SC. We commit our hearts, our resources, and our lives to creating a world in which these kinds of events are unthinkable.

June 2015