Why, yes, those are two separate audio links – one below, one above. My reading of the essay is right before the opening “Hi friends”👇🏾. And that’s a guided meditation at the very top of the email 👆🏾 (here’s an archive of meditations).
💫 ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS * sample session * 💫
REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS!! I’ve basically put everything I know into this course and you can read about it below. If you’re curious but want to learn even more, I’m holding a free one-hour mini session this Sunday 9/22 at 4pm ET. The session will be recorded for all who sign up. Register for the free sample session here.
🌙 MAKE SACRED SPACE 🌙
You can sign up for October and November sessions of Make Sacred Space, a Sunday evening co-creative gathering where we attune to the Moon through guided meditation, journaling prompts, and open space — all for a soulful start to the week. Sign up for October AND Sign up for November
Listen to me read this essay:
Hi friends
How’s everyone feeling? Many people are going. through. it. — in every which way: career, health, relationships, the environmental/political/social collapse surrounding us all. Also, there’s an eclipse tonight! Please hydrate & rest.
I hope you’re finding ways to stay aligned to what feels most important and true. And if/when you maybe, possibly get off center by, oh, I don’t know: fretting about the future, regretting the past, spending too much time online, skipping Morning Pages, consuming to stimulate, losing focus, skipping workouts, biting your nails, consuming to numb, losing focus again, lamenting about things said or not said, worrying about what the hell is happening and where we are all headed and if anything at all can right this human-created existential derailment… When any or all of this happens, instead of beating yourself up, I hope you can rediscover tiny ways to ground, breathe, recognize your achingly sincere longing to wake up, and start again.
Here’s what’s often helpful for me:
Daily-ISH rituals for sleep, meditation, creativity, exercise, and whole foods. [Embrace the ISH!!]
Centering divinity, the more-than-human, and the great mystery. [Or what I heard someone call, gus – god, universe, source — time in nature reminds me I too am gus.]
Work I love. [How is it work to devote a full day with my friend Lin and fifteen other women of color (old friends and new!) to a meditative hike in the Hudson Valley where every single damn day for ten days before and after featured sunny blue skies whereas that Saturday it poured yet those bright beautiful beings expressed only wonder and gratitude and joy?]
When it comes to any challenge (especially my health): feeling my feelings (currently about my worsening lymphedema) and dropping the stories. [AND visiting all my healers in a rotation that supports my well-being without busting my budget.]
Being off social media!! [Almost one year off Instagram 🥳 (and I just deleted X, even though I was only there for #AtsroTwitter)—please clap.]
All art, all the time. [This sunny Saturday, my friend Efua and I went to the Brooklyn Museum to attend the opening celebration for the inspiring Elizabeth Catlett show—such revolutionary beauty.]
Beginner’s mind. [Clown class is fun. I am no good at clown.]
Doing my part. [Learning, conversing, changing my mind, donating, making calls, text banking, changing my mind again, and generally trying my best to be a good-ish person on this Earth… embrace the ISH!]
Never-ending gratitude for my friends. [Particularly all the wise women in my life… which is the entire vibe of this email.]
Welcome to all the new subscribers! You’ve shown up just in time for In My Experience…, the quarterly so-called advice column wherein I do NOT give advice. [Which is the vibe of this entire newsletter.] If you’re new here, please know that I aspire for this space to be authentically wise. This means you’re hearing from an imperfect human who mostly writes in the first person—not someone who’s fault-free and figured-out, rather someone who’s trying to get free and writing it out.
Thank you to everyone for being here. It means a lot to know that what I share reaches you.
With love,
Sebene
In My Experience…
After working diligently to complete a PhD - I feel directionless and useless at age 60. How do I align my next steps with meaning and purpose - and find hope in this liminal state?
Dear Ageful,
Thank you for this potent question. As you may know, I began this column a while back after noticing a smattering (quickly becoming a plethora) of Millennial advice columns. I found them sweet. And silly. The older I get, the more I understand how incredibly unique we each are and how much more I have yet to comprehend (i.e. a lot more!). However, you may notice as well that I am a recovering know-it-all, and I would totes be the Millennial with an advice column. [Also, I love me my Millennials and regularly engage in reverse mentoring with some wise ones in my life, including, a current voice-messaging/practically-podcasting exchange with a younger friend about activism and heartache and healing.] Regardless, I am now an elder-in-training making wisdom offerings—that’s because, over decades, I’ve learned from wise elders who also humbly teach from their own experience.
Still, it’s sometimes hard to respond to these submissions when I haven’t a clue about who’s on the other side. For example, Ageful, I don’t know your gender or nationality or ethnicity or the discipline of your PhD—not to mention a gazillion other details that might inform an “answer.” I take a lot of liberties in replying to questions here. And I am honored to share myself with you. I hope my specificity is helpful, even if it differs from your exact realities.
In my experience… although we live in a society ill-designed for the flourishing of elders (especially older women), as a middle-aged, child-free, Black lady living in dystopian times which require as many of us as possible join the sacred revolution (especially older women), I am even more committed to ignoring the bullshit distractions designed to trip me up, and instead cultivate and contribute my most vital and greatest expressions.
I recently heard a WNYC episode about the loss, during a strong summer storm, of one of the oldest trees in the New York Botanical Gardens. This tree was likely alive for almost 200 years, older than the gardens themselves. Of course, we have very few old growth areas on the East Coast. There are patches left, but between the 17th and 20th centuries, European colonizers cleared more than 99 percent of the forests in New England and New York. The guest on the show, a NYBG conservationist, talked about how we may think we plant trees in the city, but, from nature’s perspective, people planted a city inside a forest. Just as we do not appreciate the old trees within this dwindling ancient woodland, we discount our human elders within this crumbling society, .
Old trees are crucial for our ecosystem. This tree that fell was a white oak, which take around fifty years to produce their first acorns. Then they produce thousands and thousands of these fruits, over and over. I was delighted that the conservationist called the fecundity of old trees their “expression.” He said trees have their greatest expression when they're old and big, like this one was. Old trees help sustain the entire ecosystem around them counting insect, bird, mammal, and plant life as well as the underground mycellial network guiding the sharing of resources and serving as a mode of communication. Old oaks are not directionless and useless. They are expressive and vital, planting seeds for future life. We humans make it hard for them. Also for ourselves.
In a dharma talk long ago, I first heard the following quote by Albert Einstein:
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”
Yes, this points powerfully to our fundamental delusion: thinking of ourselves as separate—as you know, my favorite teaching/schtick. But what actually struck me back then and now is Einstein’s use of the phrase “optical delusion.” Why optical?
I’ve been having conversations with many of my women friends about the signs of aging. About dyeing hair and sagging skin. About losing the male gaze and gaining menopausal pounds. My unique experiences of being a weirdo, queer adjacent, immigrant, writer/meditation teacher, almost 20 years living with cancer (and its accompanying body deformations), and resident in one the most amazingly nutty cities in the world certainly place me outside any American mainstream. That doesn’t mean I’m not also deluged by the toxic flood waters of dominant culture. I can intellectually acknowledge how ridiculous it is to waste any amount of my precious neural space on obsessions about socially determined “good optics.” Yet, that’s how I’ve been conditioned by this society of spectacle — including to crave attention for whatever is deemed “youthful.”
Lately, I’ve been noticing how often people use youthful (or some variation) as a compliment and noticing my response to this supposed flattery. I will not lie, it often feels good to be thought of as appearing younger. Because that’s what we usually mean when we say this. That I don’t “look” my age. That aging, or the appearance of it (because, again, we’re really talking about optics) is considered a detriment. No, every woman’s experience of this is not the same (and certainly not every person’s). For example, I live my version of aging as someone who’s never considered dyeing her hair. And, again, I am not NOT affected by this culture’s messages that my aging body signals some kind of deficit. That I can’t be both old and vital.
Here’s the thing: I would not describe an old tree as youthful. Me too, I am definitely no longer youthful. And that is not a lament. But how do I release these optical delusions? I was texting with a friend the other day and she said this: “I can’t tell what is reactionary and where I am in it, I just know I feel bad about it most of the time… maybe it distracts me so I don’t put myself out there. Like can’t put myself out there unless I’m perfect first.” I responded: “Can you imagine if women weren’t distracted by that bullshit? The whole entire planet would be different.”
I was speaking with a friend about finding one’s inner clown and she said it sounded like connecting to the inner child. I said: “Yeah, maybe. And I’m pretty sure my inner clown is an exhausted, yet vibrant, old Black lady.”
The other day, while catching up on the always growing pile of The New Yorker magazine (that taunts me relentlessly), I jotted down lines from two different articles. One was in a low-key-scathing profile of a longevity guru—a researcher critical of this figure said: “Longevity doesn’t matter if your life sucks.” The other was a line from the Janis Joplin song Me and Bobby McGee: “Freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose.” I later went to YouTube looking for a video of her singing it. I couldn’t find one. A short search revealed that’s because she died of a heroin overdose at 27 only a few days after recording it.
I hereby officially quit the competition to stay forever youthful. The only other option to not getting old is getting dead. Even if I resist or forget the truth that I’m not separate from anyone or anything, I will (we will) eventually be welcomed back into wholeness, nothing left to lose. Like the tree that finally falls, returning to the ground from which it sprung centuries before. What I surely have in common with you, Ageful (and with every single one of you) is death. Besides breathing our first breath, dying is the only thing that connects everyone born. The time in between is from a second to a century or so. Some of us are late bloomers and I am surely particularly slow on this uptake, but, like the mighty white oak, it’s simply taken me time to move toward my greatest expressions.
The other week, I was coming home from working a shift at the food coop. I was talking to a friend on the phone while carrying groceries, boarding the B65 at Dean and Flatbush. For those who don’t know, that stop is an abomination. Parked cars fill the bus lane because the Barclay’s Center has been about making local people’s lives hell since its inception. So, there we were, a glorious mix of central Brooklynites, all ages and races and levels of ability trying to make our way to the bus through the multiple vehicles in our way. It happened to be the first day of school and a bunch of young teens were piling towards the front, as teens do. Except, there was an old lady (not me… much older) with a cane shuffling through and these little knuckleheads cut her off. I was mid-sentence with my friend (I’m not making this up: talking about aging!), and without missing a beat I stuck my arm in front of these youngsters like a mycellial crossing guard and declared loudly, “Uh UH! No, LET her go first!” The teens rolled their eyes but stopped. As the other adults in line nodded their heads, I returned to my conversation saying to my friend, “Ah, the youths.”
May we all, young and old, discover our most wise, vibrant, and greatest expressions to serve this beautiful web of interconnection.
Registration is open!
Created for these challenging times, ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS is a creative & soulful 6-week course designed to help you embody the sacred paradox of belonging: we are not separate AND we are not the same. The delusions of separation and domination are the roots of our current polycrises. These delusions live within us as much as around us — essential to any solutions is recognizing that we belong to a sacred and great mystery of interdependence.
We may intellectually understand the paradox of belonging, but do we embody this truth? We all belong to each other & absolutely everything everywhere all at once, even while existing as distinct beings with biological relatives. Each of us is shaped by our specific ancestral histories, even while embedded within a larger matrix of elements. Although indigenous wisdom and modern science both affirm the truth that all is interconnected throughout time and space, most of us were not taught how to experience being part of this sacred whole — the great mystery. Our society makes it challenging to learn, remember and practice the truth that absolutely everything is sacred — and that everything includes you. All of our ancestors, at some point, lived this truth. Imperialism, colonization, enslavement, persecution, migration, assimilation, plus individual trauma, shame & fear have stripped us of processes and rituals that connect us to nature, mystery, and joy.
ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS creatively engages these two frameworks — elements and ancestors — as ancient & expansive metaphors for exploring how existence rests on a key paradox: you are absolutely interconnected with everything and you are also a uniquely independent being.
Main sessions run on Zoom every Wednesday October 9 — November 13 from 6–8pm ET. There is an optional 1-hour practice/Q&A sessions on the following Sundays from 5–6pm ET). All sessions will be recorded.
There are three sliding scale payment options.
Pay-It-Forward Price: $480 (works out to $80/week) [This option is for those who easily meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure... and then some.]
Full Price: $380 (works out to $63/week) CLICK HERE OR USE COUPON CODE: FULL-PRICE [This option is for those who regularly meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure.]
Need-Based Price: $240 (works out to $40/week) CLICK HERE OR USE COUPON CODE: NEED-BASED [This option is for those who mostly meet their basic needs of food, housing, transport & leisure.]
If the Need-Based Price is a hardship, there are a limited number of pay-what-you-can scholarships available on a rolling basis. Please see the registration page for more info about scholarships (please do NOT reply to this email to request a scholarship).
What people say about ANCESTORS TO ELEMENTS:
"Sebene, You are a bright light of love and inspiration! I loved: you showing up on the computer screen, moving to the music, giving us music to guide our practice; caring feedback to each and everyone; the notions page for easy access to resources; the repetition of the honorings and blessings; summary, recap of the essence of the teachings between lessons, to help connect the threads."
"I loved this course, Sebene! It felt really soulful, aesthetaically pleasing (both the music and slides), and full of brilliance."
"I loved the spaciousness with which you hold space... I love how much YOU are in it. It's definitely not a pass through of generic teaching transmission. It is SO YOU and, at the same time, so expansively welcoming for everyone to show up as their own self."
Make Sacred Space is a Sunday evening co-creative gathering where we attune to the Moon through guided meditation, journaling prompts, and open space — all for a soulful start to the week.
The current session has been a sweet opportunity for me to reflect and reconnect with my deepest intentions. And I love curating the playlist! You can sign up for October or November (or both).
🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑
What people say about Make Sacred Space:
I really love this Sunday evening time for nourishment and expression. I look forward to continuing!
I really love Make Sacred Space. The work you put into the music, themes, quotes and prompts is very much appreciated. I treasure the full half hour of mostly silent meditation and your well-placed skillful guidance. It’s nice to set aside some time at the start of each week in the company of spiritual friends.
This offering is very meaningful to me as it has given me time to hold sacredly for myself as I prepare to enter a new week.
I don’t know what to say. You are uncannily tapped into where I’m at every dang time!! Why are you such a genius? Your meditations are amazing/insightful. Your journaling prompts hit the nail on the head and get me thinking about things like “duh, of course I need to be thinking about this!” But I wouldn’t have myself. Your musical curation is on point. I love you. Your talent is beyond. Do more of these!
I really loved this space and am looking forward to more!
Thank you for this offering, Sebene, truly. The 7pm start time on a Sunday night was just right and I loved the combination of sitting, reflecting, and creating in a music-filled space with other quiet humans. I have to say the playlist is an unexpected bit of generosity.
🌕 In My Experience… Ageful (Not Youthful)