I've been frozen since news of the rape academy broke

And of course, that news was on top of other news that was on top of other news and on and on. And I’m just talking about news about violence against women right there; my god, if we add all of the other news that is constantly hitting us, it’s no wonder we can even still breathe and move about some days.

But the rape academy news was what broke me. Last week, I could barely write even small posts, much less the longer writing I’ve been loving doing over at Substack.

After a bunch of conversations with smart and loving friends and a bunch more in my own head, I finally came to some conclusions about what was happening to me, the larger picture in terms of shared trauma, and a way out of freeze and into a more functional state.

My way out included a novel, which makes 100% sense when you know what a reader I was when I was younger and how much I hid away in books when things were scary and how much book after book saved me.

Books didn’t just give me a safe place but taught me that there were other ways of being and living in this world. They gave me a template that was worth surviving for.

And they are doing it again for me, at the age of 57.

Go here to read the piece shown in that photo. And hey! If you have a minute to spare, could you go to my page over there and maybe respond/react to some of those smaller bits of posts? I would be super grateful!

Dancing through the crazy

In case your only view of the stuff I’m up to is right here, I thought I would share a couple of things from elsewhere.

First, my Monday Movement Mantras are all over the place, like Facebook and Substack, but here was one of my favorite recent ones and the text that went with it:

This is complicated, right? It's true that trauma and grief don't "get stuck" in your body like some bit of freaking taffy in your teeth, but trauma and grief can make us (not) move in ways that shape our alignment and thus our experience of these bodies. Trauma and grief can make it extra difficult to move at all and create tightness and pain and decrease mobility and functionality.

And above all, trauma and grief, when they keep us from moving, grow into longer term mental health issues as we aren't getting the multitude of brain chemical benefits that come with joyful movement, like somatic dance, done in joyful community to music that moves us.

And second, speaking of Substack, I LOVE writing over there and would really really really love if you’d subscribe to Gladiola.

Reminder: it’s FREE and you can control how and how much you hear from me via email, etc.

If you’re looking for a non toxic space, this one is as close as it gets. I share more than articles and would love to see you there.

My most recent article is about knowing of the orange clown since my college days and an internship in Atlantic City and it dives into some recent decisions I’ve made about boundaries and abusers like him.

Here’s that specific article.

And an article I’m really proud of from a few weeks ago is about the time Bessel von der Kolk laughed at me and the Shepstein Files and how it’s all related.

Finally, I hope you’re doing everything possible to stay sane and soft in this world right now. Sending you love.

April Session & Some Other Stuff

First, a reminder that I’m writing deeper pieces over at my Substack, Gladiola. Subscription is free and will remain so. Once in a while a piece will be published in both spaces but rarely.

Second, if you’re less and less on the book of faces, I am trying to get more active over on Threads, Instagram, and Bluesky (though Bluesky feels too focused on politics, I’m trying to believe that there is space for the arts but I’m not sure).

Third, I’m thinking about offering a 75 minute Kundalini yoga class one Monday evening a month, if anyone is interested, I’d love to hear.

And finally, April’s four week session starts next week, the week of the 6th. Go here for registration.

Classes available this session, include:

Tuesday and Thursday, Quickie Kundalini (30 minutes) This session we’ll be focusing on the chakras, one each class.

Wednesday, Peony Somatic Dance (45 minutes). This is a morning session, though of course you can just use the videos.

Thursday, Peony Somatic Dance (60 minutes). This is the evening session but again… video.

The power of yes in a dark world

Henry Ossawa Taylor, The Annunciation, 1898

In a strange (or not) turn of events that I didn’t see coming even six months ago, I’ve been doing some actual practices for Lent this year. It’s definitely been a bumpy road.

And I wonder if Lent without serious bumps in the road is actually Lent? (If a tree falls in the forest sort of question.)

Regardless, I have had a good many days when I have wondered why I was doing any of the reading or Lent journaling that I was doing. I wondered if there was a point. I wondered if I even believed anything anymore (I mean, I have gone through a long cycle of pessimism and atheism recently. Longer than ever before in my life). And I certainly keep wondering about the role of a religion that centers a man and makes very little space for women at all.

Darkness

I’ve been wondering that, though, since I was about 11 and went to the city library’s religions of the world section and kept pulling books off the shelves, desperate to find a religious system that didn’t center any kind of human figure or that did not anthropomorphize their god head. Alas, this seems to be something humans are incapable of, and the best we can hope for is that the gods/goddesses are built around the best of our own inclinations.

Too often, of course, this is not the case. A minister I follow on Bluesky said it best, “A god that needs violent men in order to succeed is a god invented by violent men.”

So yeah, I have been working through some dark night of the soul shit, for sure, but what’s new? As often in my life that I’ve felt deep devotion and connection to faith, there’s been just as much time when I’ve felt the opposite.

For me, currently, I keep coming back to Pope Leo and his strong and direct calls for a stop to all things that maga believes in and is putting out into the world. I go back to Oscar Romero and all of the Latin Americans who developed the ideas of liberation theology.

And I go back to Mary, Guadalupe in particular. (Did you know she’s the only one who is represented as pregnant? She’s wearing a Aztec pregnancy belt.)

I go back to this idea that she was asked to do this incredibly dangerous and risky thing so that we might know a different kind of world … or that we might be given a vision of a different world: one that’s not built on violence and power but on compassion and inclusivity. (I have a lot to say about that but I want to get closer to my point here and you know my heart.)

So I am, for the moment, not in that dark space — or I should say, not in a totally dark space. There is a window that is open and there is some light coming in. I am also actively lighting candles.

I am, for the moment, focused on the best parts of this thing that somehow is a piece of the puzzle of my mental well being and has been since I was small.

Light

I keep thinking about why I can’t get that same thing from, for example, personal development and self help sorts of writing. Why can’t I get it from all of the art and literature I love? What is it about theological discourse in particular that brings me solace and hope?

For me, I do not deny the dark parts, but the light… when I’m willing to engage with the mystical voices from the past (those well developed voices like Merton, Day, Francis and on and on the list could go)… when I am willing to release the hold that current day dark versions can impose, I can get to the core that is beauty and is the best of us.

When I’m reading Merton, there are times when I think he could see into the future, but it’s actually that he could so clearly see the present and the past that he could see the patterns, and the patterns, when it comes to humans, are always the same.

Not only could he see those patterns and clearly articulate them, he could articulate the type of candle we would need to light in ourselves to banish the dark and to go on with our work.

There was no naivete left in Merton when it came to this intertwining of dark and light in all humans. He just carried hope more stubbornly than I am sometimes capable.

He speaks directly to some part of me that is lacking (as we are all lacking in some way) and he doesn’t make me feel shame or even that I have to “fix” it. He shows me my weaknesses and convinces me time and again that I can be stronger in other ways. He believes our weaknesses are part of who we are and those parts are actually usable if we embrace them.

Newness

One of the things that has thrown me out of the dark and has me headed toward my own inner light again is a passage from my daily Merton readings.

He’s talking about how some people, regardless of chronological age, are living as if they are “old.” They live with old ideas, old memories, always looking backward, and are convinced nothing new is possible.

Then he says this:

“The new (human) lives in a world that is always being created and renewed. S/He lives in this realm of renewal and creation. S/He lives in LIFE. The old (human) lives without life. S/He lives in death.”

— Thomas Merton, March 18, 1959

And it hit me like a rock between my eyes: that in my despair, I live in death.

YES

Which brings me back to Mary.

Many many years ago... early in the heyday of blogging... I decided to do the word of the year that had just become a thing and I chose the word YES because of my Guadalupe devotion.

I ended up sticking to that word for many years because of what it was doing to my life. It changed my life in ways I can’t begin to list. My devotion to that word, to the idea of Mary, pushed me out of my comfort zone, made me choose the new over the old, and made me see that vitality and abundance of my own creativity.

The word is part of how I ended up dancing again, how I got my ass on a buss and went far away for trainings, and how I eventually opened my own bricks and mortar studio (which a lot of you might remember was called Girl on Fire… for Guadalupe).

I kept thinking about getting YES as a tattoo, but I eventually got the Dickinson quote on my wrist: “I dwell in possibility.” When I first got that, it felt like a yes.

But it’s not totally. It doesn’t have the powerful momentum, the PUSH, of YES. It does not have the birthing power of yes.

I need to add yes back into that equation. I can get stuck in possibility. The dwelling aspect can become so comfortable that it, too, becomes old.

So I’ve decided to re-devote myself to YES. Maybe you need to do something similar.

What is calling to you? What do you need to say yes to in your life right now?

This writing feels somewhat incomplete to me, but then we’re not at the end of Lent yet, and each day (even today as I edit), I can sense that the journaling I’m doing is leading me somewhere important — not any kind of end destination but perhaps a well lit place in which I can feel my devoted self again. That would be enough. For now.

"Toxic empathy" and the need for spiritual practices

We are just over the halfway mark in the 40 days of Lent, and so it seems about right that I feel lost in the dark right now. Things feel like … sludge.

Luckily I understand that now is the time to push. Not to quit. To keep going. Regardless of how it’s feeling.

Our feelings cannot be our motivations or we’ll never do anything challenging enough to really evolve in any important way.

(Talking to myself there because oy…)

So I keep doing the things: I keep reading the books and I keep filling out the journals.

In the meantime, as I struggle, the grass is greening and the lilacs have tiny, tight, purple bud clusters and baby leaves. The hyacinths in our front bed have tight buds also and you can tell their colors already.

Things are happening. The earth is awakening whether I am lost in the dark or not.

I will catch up. Eventually.

A moment of wakefulness

I was feeling all of this as extra heavy weight the other day, and I went outside to sit on the stoop and do some midday reading. It was quite warm and the sun was out.

People in just t-shirts were happily walking their dogs The birds were singing.

And when I tilted my face to the sun filled sky, I could feel the warmth in my bones. Something I crave all winter.

I started to read and felt that familiar, “What’s the damn point?” nagging at me from the part of me that too easily gives into despair and apathy. (The part of me that I wrote about over on Substack as my inner Frodo.)

From down the block, I could hear a bike coming and I could tell it was pulling something because it sounded so rickety.

I looked up as a man rode by. Things looked rough for him. And I just about burst into tears.

I went back to my book and immediately read this line:

“Bonaventure reminds us that the human person is the temple of God where the spirit dwells.”

— From Franciscan Prayer, Ilia Delio, OSF

And that just floored me: to read that just as that man rode past me… a man whom this ugly administration would gladly allow to disappear. A man this administration does not see any reason to help. (And so many like him or near to like him whom they see as undeserving.)

In the ugliness of evangelical Christianity, this man must be doing something wrong and his life is a sign of some sort of judgement. My feelings for his dignity, my conviction that he is as deserving of all good things as anyone else would be seen by them as “toxic empathy.”

Fuck that.

Our current culture is demented.

That man on that bike (and all humans who suffer or struggle) are the responsibility of all of us.

My point

To most of you, my point is obvious.

The work I’m doing for Lent is important because it is the necessary work of allowing our hearts to be broken by this broken world.

Because every time we allow that brokenness, the heart expands in its capacity to sit with and witness the pain of the world.

And one thing we need more of: People who can sit with the pain of others and not be overwhelmed by it or, like for too many, to be repulsed by it.

War, Snicker Bites, and Joy

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that, for the first time in a long time, I was going to do some things for Lent. When I was more of a practicing sort of Catholic (though in my own wonky ways, as you all know), Lent was actually one of my favorite times of the year.

Which sounds like a weird thing to say but I loved the 40 days set aside for deep diving into our own inner dark caves (as a priest in Erie put it one time). This was a time for me to seriously up my daily spiritual practices and to explore the shadow sides of me that had maybe taken over a bit too much.

Over the last few years, I’ve been drowning in a sort of existential despair that has dragged me into total and complete atheism — a place that is really dangerous for my mental health. I know some people create a really happy and meaningful life as atheists. There are many paths in this life. So I’m not knocking atheism but admitting that it is harmful to my own particular psyche.

The world is too dark for me to not believe in anything. My own brain is too dark, actually. I need a place outside of myself to place and practice devotion. For me, that’s usually Our Lady of Guadalupe and other forms of Mary, but it’s also the writings of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and writings about Saints Francis and Claire and Hildegarde and Teresa, to name a few.

For this Lent, my first really in many years, I am doing daily morning reading and writing that is focused on this time. I’m trying to be more mindful about my own inner world.

And though I’ve not succeeded, I am, as I wrote, attempting to let go of apathy and lethargy.

Then there’s…

Sugar

This one seems silly and trite, right? Like when we were little and we would give up something we loved. Or how some people see Lent as this weird time to backdoor some toxic eating habits and maybe lose some weight.

I wanted to give up added sugar and chocolate because I was feeling like it was too much in my life. Like I was no longer in charge of it. Like it was no longer a treat.

Also, my family has a lot of diabetes so this was, for me, a reset for my health. Again, a pretty self centered Lenten practice but I felt like I needed that added motivation.

Then Craig said something to me the other day that made me stop and think. He was teasing but it hit me deeper: “What’s gonna happen at the end of Lent? Will you just eat ALL the chocolate?”

If I’m really wanting or needing a reset for my health, then this all or nothing thinking is not helpful, because eventually, I will just land back at ALL.

War and Joy

I had already reevaluated my lenten practice at about day 12, and then this vile and stupid administration decided to put the entire world at an elevated level of danger by starting a war in Western Asia (a more proper way of referring to the Middle East, which is a colonizer term).

There are a lot of reasons to be extra afraid about this war. I won’t go into that all here because that’s not what this space is for. But suffice it to say that this is way worse than is being talked about in mainstream media.

I’m paying attention but I’m also trying not to get too lost in the dark maze of frightening details about what is happening or what could happen.

Because there’s a point that that will just flatten me.

A little bit of compartmentalization can go a long way right now.

Back to sugar…

It struck me that I am living in this state of denying myself joy when we have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

That is always the case, of course, but right now, it feels more … real… more noticeable.

So here’s the conclusion I came to:

We must find bits of joy where we can right now.

For me, that’s a Snickers bite with my second small coffee after lunch. And maybe a second.

We owe ourselves good care. We owe those around us a certain level of care for ourselves too.

Most often that care looks like making sure you’re doing movement practices and spiritual practices and studying that supports your mental and emotional and physical health.

And sometimes that care looks like chocolate.

(Speaking of practices, a new session of Peony Somatic Dance and Quickie Yoga online starts next week so go here to see what’s up and to register.)

And check out my most recent Substack about my migraine journey, neurodivergence, and disability.

I never said this was easy...

And I’m talking to myself there as much as I’m talking to anyone reading this.

Even in the best of times (and I would say we weren’t aware how good the times were before the whole Drumpf era began)… even in the best of times, I’ve never said any of this was easy.

I have tried to be clear: even doing this thing I love more than any other thing I do, even getting my ass into my tights and putting on music and breathing and waiting and allowing for movement to arise, even that is not always easy.

There are days when it is easier, for sure, but most days it is anything but.

And living in this political hellscape has brought depression down upon my head again in ways I never thought would be possible.

So here I am, as if I am at the beginning again, except I don’t have the beginner excitement and curiosity I had the first time around, because, well, that’s just not possible.

I’ve been exploring and creating and teaching this stuff for over 17 years now. I’m not a novice anymore, and though I try to reenter beginner mind, it’s difficult, and it’s especially difficult as we are triggered every day, multiple times a day, by the evil of this administration.

But I’m trying. I’m failing but I keep trying.

I’m trying to find that enthusiasm again. I’m trying to find the joy and the awe and the whimsy.

I fail and I try; I fail and I try; and right now, that’s the best I have.

Recently I made a discovery about a shadow part of myself that I’m not totally proud of and I’m hoping that now that I know it’s there, I can stop failing quite so much. Seeing it is the first step, so go check out my most recent Substack post. And if you haven’t, subscribe because that would be awesome.

40 Days

This week’s movement mantra.

This was first shared in my private Facebook group, Circle of Trees, but I felt like it might help others outside that group.

I go back and forth reading from A Year with Thomas Merton daily and right now I’m back at it. Today he was writing to me from 1964.

The Vietnam "war" was escalating and there were all kinds of other terrible things going on all over the world (he lists a bunch of them).

And he is exhausted and overwhelmed by all the things he feels he should be reading because "in good conscious" he wants to stay informed.

And he will read... but he decides he can't possibly read deeply about every single thing.

Then he says that Lent is about to start and he's so thankful for that and I GET IT.

Lent starts next Wednesday, and for the first time in a long time, I'm diving in deep.

Thanks to some important discussions with a good friend about folk Catholicism and my remembering of what I love about my devotion to Guadalupe and more, I feel really ready to integrate this more into my life again.

Lent is 40 days where we can kinda step out of human time (not completely of course) and into focused spiritual time.

I am going to give up some things...

I will be giving up added sugar and that might seem like the old "giving up chocolate" crap but this is really important to my health and I need this sort of commitment (lent) to make myself do it.

Even more importantly, I'm going to be working on giving up lethargy and apathy and I have a bunch of rituals/routines that I'll start playing with to do that.

Anyway... my larger point here (for me anyway) was that even a mind like Merton's often found the world just to be too much, but he stayed committed to witnessing regardless AND he took care of his spiritual needs.

Something to think about...

Because even if you don't "do Lent," 40 days is the traditional "sadhana" in Kundalini yoga too... the 40 day thing is everywhere and I think that it's a key timeline to creating change in human minds and bodies.