I refuse to cling to anybody
who doesn’t make the sun come out of my eyes
who doesn’t come to me like moonlight to the forest on dead winter’s night
who doesn’t take me in like shore lapping up the sea
and let it out like a home-come sailor meets the earth with his knees;
No,
this fragrant, raging, mountainous love of mine
will be returned in kind
will be returned in kind.
For those of us who are new to meditation, I want to just center us a little bit.
Meditation is about taking the deepest possible rest - for your mind and your body.
It’s about acceptance - to me, that means looking at what’s going on in my body and my mind, and just accepting it. Looking at it, letting it pass. Looking at it, waving it hello and goodbye. Not trying to change anything. Just getting right up close to whatever’s happening and observing.
Find comfortable place. Chair, floor, lay on couch or bed. I like to lay in my bed because it helps my whole body relax. If you’d like to leave your video on, that’s fine, but if it makes you feel more comfortable and safe to turn it off, then turn it off. (3 min)
Now, I recommend closing your eyes so you can focus on your experience. Settle in, feel your body against the surface of your chair or bed. Notice each point of connection. (30 sec)
Start with taking some deep breaths. Notice how your lungs feel and what happens in your body as you breathe in and out (1 min)
And as we settle in we’ll start to breathe a little deeper. And we’ll invite our exhales to become longer than our inhales. So in……. And then out just a little longer (1 min)
Now one of the wonderful things about meditation is that it’s a practice of clearing our minds, and clearing out the clutter of constant thoughts. Our goal is to have just a quiet, empty mind, that’s open to exactly what’s happening in the present moment. But this is pretty difficult to do, just because most of us aren’t used to it. And that’s okay. It’s a practice, and you’ll get better at it with time.
One way I’ve found to quiet my mind is by focusing in on the feelings in my body. So we’re going to practice that right now with a body scan.
As we go throughout our bodies, starting with our heads, down to our feet, I want you to pay very close attention to what’s happening in each part of your body. Don’t try to change it, just look at it, and practice accepting exactly whatever is happening. What are the sensations? Does it feel warm? Cold? Tingly? Empty? Just look, listen, feel.
Let’s start with focusing on our head. (30 sec)
Now move to focus on the face. (5 sec)
Continue breathing deeply. (25 sec)
Now focus on your neck. (30 sec)
Now move down to the shoulders. (30 sec…. Continue like this.)
So I wanted to have the event because of how stressful a time this has been for all of us. With that in mind, I want to teach you a kind of meditation I learned from a favorite teacher of mine, Thich Naht Hahn, called Tonglen meditation. It’s for working with pain or any kind of difficult emotion.
First, I’m going to read a section of his writing from my favorite book, True Love. Please enjoy.
*section from True Love by Thich Naht Hahn, "The Energy of Mindfulness."*
So for Tonglen, you take whatever painful or uncomfortable feeling is happening in your body - whether it’s an emotional or physical feeling - and you visualize it as dark, heavy, sticky, weighing you down.
Then you identify some feeling or sensation that would be soothing and relieving for that emotion - whether that’s a blanket, a warm cup of tea, a hug, a listener - and you visualize that emotion as blue, expansive, bright, like the sky.
So you have your dark feeling and your light feeling to work with.
When you breathe in, you visualize the negative feeling - you feel the dark, heavy, sticky, weighted feeling filling your whole body.
And when you breathe out, you visualize the relieving feeling - you feel the blue, expansive, bright feeling coming out of your body and filling up your surroundings.
Think of this as generating inward care for whatever you are going through. Using your inner creative energy to relieve yourself.
The coolest thing about this meditation, though, is we can use it as a way to not only connect to yourself, but to everybody else. Because at any given time that you’re experiencing a difficult emotion, there are millions or hundreds of millions of people around the world who are feeling just the same way. So what we do, is when we breath in the pain - the darkness, heaviness, stickiness - we breathe it in for everyone in the world who is feeling that pain. And when we breathe out the relief, we breathe it out for everyone in the world who is feeling that pain. In this way, we can soothe ourselves while also generating compassion for others.
So, let’s practice this for just a few minutes.
You can use an uncomfortable feeling you’re having right now, or recall one that you’ve experienced in the past few days, and practice with it.
becoming sexually liberated is, for me, about so much more than sex- or even pleasure. it's about embracing my desire to give and receive love. about experiencing vulnerability as a form of strength with limitless potentiality. about realizing that the lines between "want" and "need" are not clear cut. about realizing that honoring myself does not inherently betray anyone else, but betraying myself betrays others also. about using every resource available to me. about overcoming depression.
I've been socialized to view my body as an object of duty, productive capacity, and ultimately, as a failure to live up to the standards imposed on it. reclaiming my sexual self helps me restore a relationship to my body in which I view it as my very self, a flowing, beautiful, powerful recepticle for love, pleasure, creation, and essential being.
FIRST AND FOREMOST- this is an excellent resource guide for learning how to be an effective anti-racist.
Featured Articles:
How to Talk About the Truth and Trump at Thanksgiving - Ibram X. Kendi
An Anti-Racist Reading List - Ibram X. Kendi
Featured Poetry:
Selections from Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou
On Working White Liberals by Maya Angelou
A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay
show archive coming
DONATE NOW: bit.ly/blacklivesconcert
From Day 8 of #TwentyOneDaysofHope
1. sign a petition
Here are some meaningful ones you can sign & then share with 5 friends:
Suspend rent, mortgage, & utility payment during the CV crisis: https://bit.ly/3a6HUVX
This Pandemic Demands A Systemic Response Poor People's Campaign Petition
Healthcare Workers Need Protective Equipment!
More information about this: Frontline NY Nurses Lack Protective Masks & Ventilators, Say Worst Yet to Come as COVID-19 Spreads
2. check in on a friend
You never know who is struggling or how until you ask.
3. learn about someone’s struggles that you didn’t know about
Someone who is in a different demographic than you.
4. watch an enlightening documentary
Recommendations
netflix:
amazon prime:
Drop your recommendations in the comments!
*I wrote this in the bathtub by red candlelight while he fell asleep*
There's something that feels supernatural about the love that I've fallen into. First there was how we met, how I felt at home with him; how I knew that I loved him within just a couple of days. How my walls came down around him - the courage I took to express by vulnerabilities - the way I felt so confident and safe in sharing them. The way our personalities and external lives are so different, and yet we seem to share the same heart, each having pieces of the same heart. A slow-won yet innate understanding of each other. As though the love were there before we were. I'm not religious, but this love is supernatural to me.
Hannah Rooth, February 1, 2020
On the internal dictator
Tells you what you can’t do...
what you’re not good *enough* at...
that people will think you’re weird...
your friends won’t understand...
your family won’t approve...
your childhood god would disapprove...
you’ll probably fail...
it’s stupid...
that’s not what girls do...
that’s not what boys do...
it’s too scary...
*insert your own version here*...
On the external dictator
Defines what people are “bad” or “wrong” or need to be exterminated...
decides on what is socially allowed...
punishes, imprisons, represses for “otherness”...
represses creativity and creative action...
defines roles for all in society...
uses brainwashing and violence to maintain control...
defines the good or acceptable based on a social norm...
If you cannot stand up to your internal dictator, how will you stand up to an external one?
More resources on the idea of the internal dictator:
Regime Change
Your Little Internal Dictator
Resources on external dictators:
How Do Democracies Become Dictatorships?
~Hannah Rooth
