• Living reminders for every tomorrow coming: 1. There is tremendousness in being here at this time in this world. Do not “send 2020 back” or fast forwards toward the future. Those memes are making me feel bananas! This, my friends, is one of the most important, potent times to be alive and to change the narrative and to NOT turn away. 2. Trickle attention down to your heart. A deep breath (and maybe another and another), here. 3. Spirit and Art practices are not selfish modes of opportunity. They are here to make us more sensitive and stable, more buoyant and badass. They are technologies to step up to the plate when shit hits the fan, and to offer ourselves up to each other. 4. Meditation and mindfulness as practice of holding new perspective, to create new neural pathways, to seek tenderness inside the things we don’t have an understanding of yet. To watch before the reaction and to know that there is so much to learn, yet (and always, forever). May we perhaps not seek enlightenment but bravery and humility and see the web of systems we have been asked to not look into for far too long. 5. Deep listening - to each other, to voices who have waited too fucking long to be heard and amplified, to your inner song, that low-slow-steady melody of humxn being being humxn, to the hum of forest, the beating of nature. When we are listening deeply we are not thinking of our next response, we are offering presence. 6. Movement as a means to clear and craft and release to hold so much more. Stronger arms for those we love, to carry groceries for our neighbours, to build strong statures to protect and serve one another. Not just people who look like us or speak our languages. May our strong bodies be barriers and barricades against the racist / the homophobic / the xenophobic/ the transphobic / the unjust / the “can we just go back to normal?”. 7. We are here to hold 2020 close as one of the biggest initiations our generation(s) have seen. May we let the practices that keep us well also keep EACH OTHER well, too. 8. Another deep breath, for you and me and all in between.
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    Living reminders for every tomorrow coming: 1. There is tremendousness in being here at this time in this world. Do not “send 2020 back” or fast forwards toward the future. Those memes are making me feel bananas! This, my friends, is one of the most important, potent times to be alive and to change the narrative and to NOT turn away. 2. Trickle attention down to your heart. A deep breath (and maybe another and another), here. 3. Spirit and Art practices are not selfish modes of opportunity. They are here to make us more sensitive and stable, more buoyant and badass. They are technologies to step up to the plate when shit hits the fan, and to offer ourselves up to each other. 4. Meditation and mindfulness as practice of holding new perspective, to create new neural pathways, to seek tenderness inside the things we don’t have an understanding of yet. To watch before the reaction and to know that there is so much to learn, yet (and always, forever). May we perhaps not seek enlightenment but bravery and humility and see the web of systems we have been asked to not look into for far too long. 5. Deep listening - to each other, to voices who have waited too fucking long to be heard and amplified, to your inner song, that low-slow-steady melody of humxn being being humxn, to the hum of forest, the beating of nature. When we are listening deeply we are not thinking of our next response, we are offering presence. 6. Movement as a means to clear and craft and release to hold so much more. Stronger arms for those we love, to carry groceries for our neighbours, to build strong statures to protect and serve one another. Not just people who look like us or speak our languages. May our strong bodies be barriers and barricades against the racist / the homophobic / the xenophobic/ the transphobic / the unjust / the “can we just go back to normal?”. 7. We are here to hold 2020 close as one of the biggest initiations our generation(s) have seen. May we let the practices that keep us well also keep EACH OTHER well, too. 8. Another deep breath, for you and me and all in between.
  • I am a proud queer, gender-expansive humxn. And the only reasons I am able to be proud of who I am and step into it fully is because of the Black and Latina trans womxn (Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera 🌈) who lit the way and lost their lives for equality. Equality that still has not come for Black, Trans folks. So, instead of being on the streets of Toronto dancing my heart out in celebration with all my queer family, this year has been a deep dive and an education into the history of WHAT Pride truly is and WHO we have to thank for the freedoms SOME of us have. Pride has been deeply white washed in ways that I, sadly and with big time embarrassment, am just beginning to understand over the last couple years and my ceremony of being a white queer this year is reading the history, listening to stories, witnessing how completely different it is to be a white queer than a queer Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour. Our Pride and freedoms mean nothing until #blacktranslivesmatter - and our work is being a part of the end of this hatred within our community, systems and in this world. @blm_van is a cause that centres voices of Black folks as well as other folks of colour and hope to lift up those who are queer, women, trans, differently abled, poor or otherwise marginalized. One of my action steps is monthly investing in this organization to support QBIPOC within BC. Maybe this is something you can do, too? I love you all my queer babies. I am proud to be with you here, there, and everywhere. 🌈🌹 Image by @ilana
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    I am a proud queer, gender-expansive humxn. And the only reasons I am able to be proud of who I am and step into it fully is because of the Black and Latina trans womxn (Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera 🌈) who lit the way and lost their lives for equality. Equality that still has not come for Black, Trans folks. So, instead of being on the streets of Toronto dancing my heart out in celebration with all my queer family, this year has been a deep dive and an education into the history of WHAT Pride truly is and WHO we have to thank for the freedoms SOME of us have. Pride has been deeply white washed in ways that I, sadly and with big time embarrassment, am just beginning to understand over the last couple years and my ceremony of being a white queer this year is reading the history, listening to stories, witnessing how completely different it is to be a white queer than a queer Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour. Our Pride and freedoms mean nothing until #blacktranslivesmatter - and our work is being a part of the end of this hatred within our community, systems and in this world. @blm_van is a cause that centres voices of Black folks as well as other folks of colour and hope to lift up those who are queer, women, trans, differently abled, poor or otherwise marginalized. One of my action steps is monthly investing in this organization to support QBIPOC within BC. Maybe this is something you can do, too? I love you all my queer babies. I am proud to be with you here, there, and everywhere. 🌈🌹 Image by @ilana
  • plantsongsongforplantsplantsongforusandyouandmeandalltheinbetweensandspacesforthesemessyheartsandtatteredtimes a slow roll piece of centering for me. . . . (useyourvoiceuseyourvoice thru song and protest and uplifting and singing please continue to use your voice) 🌱
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    plantsongsongforplantsplantsongforusandyouandmeandalltheinbetweensandspacesforthesemessyheartsandtatteredtimes a slow roll piece of centering for me. . . . (useyourvoiceuseyourvoice thru song and protest and uplifting and singing please continue to use your voice) 🌱
  • A deep breath. This is no casual restart. The invitation to shut up and listen is a long-term practice, and I am clumsily learning how to balance taking in information through screens and taking time to step off to process to make sure this stays a marathon and not a sprint. This is a long-term commitment. It matters TREMENDOUSLY to me that I am doing the least amount of harm to BIPOC with my work, art and existence as a queer, white womxn, and I am committed to continue educating myself and listen so this happens less and less. I hope that every person who owns a wellness space, has an energy / movement / meditative based practice, anyone who is a practitioner in the healing arts has taken a step back and continues to look at how whiteness is pervasive in the wellness world, and how much work needs to be done to remedy that. I'm sitting with this everyday. NO ONE heals when the world is burning and innocent Black people are being murdered everyday. We are not a brotherhood when the genocide of Indigenous peoples is rampant and swept under the rug. There is no love and light when only white people can access / afford / feel SAFE in "healing" spaces. We needed to do better centuries ago, so we got a lot to catch up on and work has to be done! I know in my bones that we can make this world way fucking better, together. To the BIPOC and specifically Black folx who are, despite complete exhaustion and experiencing more depletion than I will ever be able to understand, still managing to offer information and guidance to us white folks, I SEE YOU AND I THANK YOU FROM THE DEEPEST WELLS OF MY BEING. I vow to continue to stand up and support and engage in the challenging conversations and donate money and continue to open up these blind eyes to where I have been taught to keep them closed. I love you. I thank you. A deep breath for you. Foto by @wes.shelley
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    A deep breath. This is no casual restart. The invitation to shut up and listen is a long-term practice, and I am clumsily learning how to balance taking in information through screens and taking time to step off to process to make sure this stays a marathon and not a sprint. This is a long-term commitment. It matters TREMENDOUSLY to me that I am doing the least amount of harm to BIPOC with my work, art and existence as a queer, white womxn, and I am committed to continue educating myself and listen so this happens less and less. I hope that every person who owns a wellness space, has an energy / movement / meditative based practice, anyone who is a practitioner in the healing arts has taken a step back and continues to look at how whiteness is pervasive in the wellness world, and how much work needs to be done to remedy that. I'm sitting with this everyday. NO ONE heals when the world is burning and innocent Black people are being murdered everyday. We are not a brotherhood when the genocide of Indigenous peoples is rampant and swept under the rug. There is no love and light when only white people can access / afford / feel SAFE in "healing" spaces. We needed to do better centuries ago, so we got a lot to catch up on and work has to be done! I know in my bones that we can make this world way fucking better, together. To the BIPOC and specifically Black folx who are, despite complete exhaustion and experiencing more depletion than I will ever be able to understand, still managing to offer information and guidance to us white folks, I SEE YOU AND I THANK YOU FROM THE DEEPEST WELLS OF MY BEING. I vow to continue to stand up and support and engage in the challenging conversations and donate money and continue to open up these blind eyes to where I have been taught to keep them closed. I love you. I thank you. A deep breath for you. Foto by @wes.shelley
  • There is so much important information circling right now (if you are looking for it, and I hope and pray that you are). Us white folks/folx are lifetimes late to being a part of the dismantling of white supremacy. We are born into this knowing no better because the system is built to work for us, and this can’t ever be an excuse anymore (nor could it to begin with). It’s taken hundreds and thousands of deaths of beautiful, innocent people to get us here, and the only way these disgusting acts of racist violence will stop is when our apathy and silence stop. My silence stops here. To the healing arts + New Age community: There no "Love and Light” and "Peace and Freedom" and "We are all One" until that includes the active breakdown and deconstruction and death of racism. Period. BIPOC are folks who often need the most support and are the least served, and black folks specifically. How can we declare everyone is in it together when it is so clear that this hasn’t been true? To my BIPOC friends, I see you. I hear you. I am vowing to keep doing better. And I am so sorry for what my silence has done. There are a lot of spaces and places to support right now, many of them are in the US. My fellow Canadians, I invite us to find spaces and places locally to donate to and support as well, as racism is alive and well inside our politeness and pointed fingers. Communities (healing arts and yoga big time included here) in Canada who are doing amazing work that you can support: @onepeopleto blacklivesmatter.ca @blacklegalactioncentre @thevillij @blackwomeninmotion @thisistabletalk Please share others you know in the comment section below! Lend your voice. Speak to your friends and family. Get uncomfortable, comfort is apathy. Do your research and read. We cannot ask BIPOC to do the work for us, AND if you are getting educated from their accounts online, pay them. I believe that we have a shit ton of work to do to dismantle our own racism and be actively anti-racist. And I really do believe in humxnity and our collective ability to change. This change happens now. I love you. A deep deep breath for you. image via @glorianoto Quote by Desmond Tutu
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    There is so much important information circling right now (if you are looking for it, and I hope and pray that you are). Us white folks/folx are lifetimes late to being a part of the dismantling of white supremacy. We are born into this knowing no better because the system is built to work for us, and this can’t ever be an excuse anymore (nor could it to begin with). It’s taken hundreds and thousands of deaths of beautiful, innocent people to get us here, and the only way these disgusting acts of racist violence will stop is when our apathy and silence stop. My silence stops here. To the healing arts + New Age community: There no "Love and Light” and "Peace and Freedom" and "We are all One" until that includes the active breakdown and deconstruction and death of racism. Period. BIPOC are folks who often need the most support and are the least served, and black folks specifically. How can we declare everyone is in it together when it is so clear that this hasn’t been true? To my BIPOC friends, I see you. I hear you. I am vowing to keep doing better. And I am so sorry for what my silence has done. There are a lot of spaces and places to support right now, many of them are in the US. My fellow Canadians, I invite us to find spaces and places locally to donate to and support as well, as racism is alive and well inside our politeness and pointed fingers. Communities (healing arts and yoga big time included here) in Canada who are doing amazing work that you can support: @onepeopleto blacklivesmatter.ca @blacklegalactioncentre @thevillij @blackwomeninmotion @thisistabletalk Please share others you know in the comment section below! Lend your voice. Speak to your friends and family. Get uncomfortable, comfort is apathy. Do your research and read. We cannot ask BIPOC to do the work for us, AND if you are getting educated from their accounts online, pay them. I believe that we have a shit ton of work to do to dismantle our own racism and be actively anti-racist. And I really do believe in humxnity and our collective ability to change. This change happens now. I love you. A deep deep breath for you. image via @glorianoto Quote by Desmond Tutu
  • tonight, the first online immersion of SOUND/WORK begins with 12 miracles / listeners / song birds joining from all over the world. i have been running these immersions in person for 2 years now and am dancing (maybe more like flailing...) through all the feelings of anxietyexcitementdelightterrornervousnessjoy bringing it into the virtual world with all it's ins and outs, all timezones and internet connections and things beyond my control. . . . and yet, this gives us the chance to connect together from 5+ different countries to share and explore the beauty of sonic meditation and revelry. HOW AMAZING IS THAT? this work means everything to me and the privilege to share what i love is not something i take lightly, as sound has been the guiding, gilded light of my life for the last 5 years. i am over the moon honoured to share it. to those fellow embodiment / healing / creative artists out there who are putting the time and energy into creating online content and connection: a fucking see you and honour the trials and tribulations and beauty it is to keep the magic flowing, even in these strange times. see you on the flip side, sweet things.
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    tonight, the first online immersion of SOUND/WORK begins with 12 miracles / listeners / song birds joining from all over the world. i have been running these immersions in person for 2 years now and am dancing (maybe more like flailing...) through all the feelings of anxietyexcitementdelightterrornervousnessjoy bringing it into the virtual world with all it's ins and outs, all timezones and internet connections and things beyond my control. . . . and yet, this gives us the chance to connect together from 5+ different countries to share and explore the beauty of sonic meditation and revelry. HOW AMAZING IS THAT? this work means everything to me and the privilege to share what i love is not something i take lightly, as sound has been the guiding, gilded light of my life for the last 5 years. i am over the moon honoured to share it. to those fellow embodiment / healing / creative artists out there who are putting the time and energy into creating online content and connection: a fucking see you and honour the trials and tribulations and beauty it is to keep the magic flowing, even in these strange times. see you on the flip side, sweet things.
  • gentle magick afoot. grateful for the spell this place puts on me, the widening of my heart, the slow roll into another day. i wish you a happy / strange / achy New Moon today, and no matter how it lands in your bones i wish you any kind of moments pause. a listening, a reclaiming of your rightful sensitivity to the pull and push of the cosmos. a remembering that you are in fact one of those oceans she moves.
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    gentle magick afoot. grateful for the spell this place puts on me, the widening of my heart, the slow roll into another day. i wish you a happy / strange / achy New Moon today, and no matter how it lands in your bones i wish you any kind of moments pause. a listening, a reclaiming of your rightful sensitivity to the pull and push of the cosmos. a remembering that you are in fact one of those oceans she moves.
  • experiences in gentle light and humble life. general curiosities about next steps and great big turnings, great big breaths. the way i imagine a future changing moment to moment. a portal, widening. a ripple, a fractal. long yawn from tired earth. new form, rebirth. i wonder how these last months have shifted you, changed you, rearranged you. in sickness and in health, in great mourning and yearning and burning and turning and relearning. i wonder how we will all remember this time a few years from now, and what poetry will have been spun, what art will have been hung, what stories were conjured, what was created in this state and what form you took when you were suddenly invited to shapeshift.
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    experiences in gentle light and humble life. general curiosities about next steps and great big turnings, great big breaths. the way i imagine a future changing moment to moment. a portal, widening. a ripple, a fractal. long yawn from tired earth. new form, rebirth. i wonder how these last months have shifted you, changed you, rearranged you. in sickness and in health, in great mourning and yearning and burning and turning and relearning. i wonder how we will all remember this time a few years from now, and what poetry will have been spun, what art will have been hung, what stories were conjured, what was created in this state and what form you took when you were suddenly invited to shapeshift.
  • SOUND MEDITATIONS this coming week: Tuesday - Bedtime Lullabies 10:00-10:45pm EST 7:00-7:45pm PDT . . . Friday - Evening Sound Meditation 8:30-9:30pm EST 5:30-6:30pm PDT Tuesday - a bit of guided journeying through liminal space and the gateway to sound sleep. i highly recommend getting into bed for this one!! . . . Friday - wide open space to travel and breathe and experience however you wish (move, song, meditate, lay down, have a bath, lay in the grass, etc.) . . . if you have found some sweetness and regeneration in these offerings, please spread the word and let folks know when and where to find them. with the world slowly re-opening there is a different kind of stress and intensity presenting itself, and I hope so so so so so much that these sound offerings can provide a little bit of softening and reminder of magic through such strange times. i love you (near, far, wherever you are) 🌿
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    SOUND MEDITATIONS this coming week: Tuesday - Bedtime Lullabies 10:00-10:45pm EST 7:00-7:45pm PDT . . . Friday - Evening Sound Meditation 8:30-9:30pm EST 5:30-6:30pm PDT Tuesday - a bit of guided journeying through liminal space and the gateway to sound sleep. i highly recommend getting into bed for this one!! . . . Friday - wide open space to travel and breathe and experience however you wish (move, song, meditate, lay down, have a bath, lay in the grass, etc.) . . . if you have found some sweetness and regeneration in these offerings, please spread the word and let folks know when and where to find them. with the world slowly re-opening there is a different kind of stress and intensity presenting itself, and I hope so so so so so much that these sound offerings can provide a little bit of softening and reminder of magic through such strange times. i love you (near, far, wherever you are) 🌿