Soulful Cycles: Creating Sacred Rituals for Life Changes starts Tuesday! Life is a continuous cycle of changes. Rituals help us to create a sacred relationship to change. And studies consistently show that rituals actually work! In this series, we will spend 3 weeks soulfully exploring change through rituals. Tuesdays July 2, 9, & 16th :: 6โ8pm ET :: On Zoom :: Space is limited!
๐ Registration and more info here ๐
Hi friends
In a few days, we meet the half way point of 2024 and my life is reaching month nine of very little drama. [As my mom would have said in her adorably-always-getting-idioms-wrong, heavily-accented English: Quick, find a piece of wood and touch it! ] I also acknowledge it seems like weโre playing planetary tag-team-tumult. Because, of course, our world is rife with various turmoils created by our species. Plus, I know quite a few people going through swells of personal crises right now.
Iโm trusting my felt sense โ grateful for my (relative and sure to change) good times while conscious of the experiences of others. Do my test results still stink? Yes, they continue to be alarmingly terrible. Does my lived experience reflect that in any way? No, I feel great. Things are not always how they appear from one vantage point and Iโm committed to understanding the ongoing full picture โ cosmos and planet, forest and trees, ocean and waves.
Iโve always appreciated the saying (no one agrees where it originated), You canโt stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. [My guess at my momโs version: The ocean is very strong, maybe you can stand up on the surfing board (but please be careful, Sebene).] Iโm all for feeling feelings and not bypassing the pain or grief that comes with personal or collective challenges. Also, standing up on the surfing board. I just got a new bike. Iโve already whizzed around Brooklyn a bit on it. I had my old bike for over 12 years and this one is so much lighter. It feels like flying on asphalt.
I recently read this article inside one of the many The New Yorkers laying in a menacing pile on my coffee table. In it, the legendary Jock Sutherland, now in his seventies and still a master on the surfing board, spies a set of waves coming that no one else in the water sees. He makes a counterintuitive turn and sails over a peak, surprising the writer whom he later tells, โYou gotta keep your eyes open, Bill.โ [Sebene, open your eyes and always look around yourself, especially on your bicycle.]
This week, I was reflecting on my multiple hospitalizations last year and how each one provided an unexpected opportunity (starting this Substack, preventing heedless action, drawing difficult boundaries). I did not see those waves coming at the time. Still, I wobbled on the board to shore.
I hope whatever swells currently surround you that youโre keepinโ your head above water, making a wave when you can. ๐๐พ๐ค๐พ
This monthโs links are below.
With love,
Sebene
P.S. 10% of June paid subscriptions will go to Gaza Mutual Aid Support Network. Thank you for your support.
๐ Last Quarter List ๐
How the north ended up on top of the map.
โThere is nothing inevitable or intrinsically correct โ not in geographic, cartographic or even philosophical terms โ about the north being represented as up, because up on a map is a human construction, not a natural one.ย Some of the very earliest Egyptian maps show the south as up, presumably equating the Nileโs northward flow with the force of gravity. And there was a long stretch in the medieval era when most European maps were drawn with the east on the top.โ
Thereโs still time to register for Fat Dharma: Liberation for Our Hearts and Bodies, a weekly virtual offering running July 9 โ July 30 led by the wonderful duo of Dawn Haney and Nina Herzog.
โSo, let's be clear about the lineage here. It's not that fatness was first derogated and then fatness began to be associated with blackness. It went the other way. There was this incipient association of blackness and fatness, and then fatness came to be derogated shortly afterward in this very opportunistic way that was meant to justify brutal enslavement. And so that led to a development of this lionization of leanness, especially for white American Protestant women. So Strings traces all of this to show that by the turn of the 19th century, slimness was becoming a mandate for white American women in order to be considered refined and beautiful. And this only increased as the gradual medicalization of fatness came to be a thing basically due to the insurance industry getting off the ground in the early 20th century and the medical Industry getting in on the racket of derogating fatness very late in the piece, really just in the early 20th century and onward.โ โ Kate Manne, Where Does Fatphobia Come From?
I wonder how true this is: โContemporary Afro-pessimist intellectuals see no shared identity that can serve as the basis for solidarity between Africans and African Americans.โ
Moved by this post and poem.
Next up in my creative journey: doing this with a group of old friends.
A desk pad is my new favorite creativity tool.
This conversation with filmmaker Ira Sachs and writer Rachel Cusk is filled with insights. It makes me want to rewatch his films Iโve seen and find the ones I havenโt. If I made merch it woyld include a tshirt with โIโm only interested in the realโ on it.
โFor me, one of the things that death allows is the encouragement to take risks because it allows me to be certain what is there to lose. I think, in order to continue, I have to ask myself, What is there to lose?โ โ
A comedy actress roundtable and a master class on creative sisterhood.
Clearing out old notebooks and came across this quote from my first Zen teacher:
โIt is perhaps a parody of meditation to imagine we practice in order to become calm , peaceful or even blissful. Though these states may occur, the deeply transformative power of sitting emerges when we are forced to confront all those aspects of our self, our fear, our anger, our vulnerability that we probably came to meditation to escape in the first place.โ โ Barry Magid
Soulful Cycles: Creating Sacred Rituals for Life Changes
Tuesdays July 2, 9, & 16th :: 6โ8pm EST :: On Zoom :: Space is limited! Registration and more info here.
Life is a continuous cycle of changes. Change is both happening and needed in our world now more than ever.ย When we resist change, suffering happens. When we soulfully flow with the cycles of change, we help shape the change we desire.
Rituals help us in creating a sacred relationship to change.
Rituals are a fundamental part of the human experience. All people engage rituals: small children and top athletes, spiritually inclined and not. And rituals work! Studies consistently show that rituals improve outcomes. They increase confidence and decrease anxiety. They help us savor experience and promote interconnection.
And like, placebos (which originate in and are full of rituals), rituals involve mystery. In this series, we will spend 3 weeks exploring change through intention, ritual & ceremony. Come connect to all change as sacred!
SPACE IS LIMITED. SLIDING SCALE AVAILABLE.
I now cap the size of my three and four-week courses to 30 people max. I have set a sliding scale so those who are able to pay more can help balance the lower end. See here for payment options and to learn more about the course.
There are a few pay-what-you-can scholarships spots available. Please email connect@sebeneselassie.com โ first come basis.
You know, there's a lot of gifts here, but your mother's voice is the loveliest one! She's loud & clear! ๐ซก
I love the sense of balance as it connects to riding a bicycle - an image that resonates and encourages me to remember that we improve balancing skills with working through a lot of wobbling.
I wanted to sign up for the ritual course, I have an appointment that is a conflict for the first meeting. Is it still okay to sign up?