🌗 August Last Quarter Links

“Whatever the ways of the world, what fruits do you bring?” — Rumi (trans. Haleh Liza Gafori) 🌗

Aug 26, 2024

Image ID: *Pandora's Cluster of Galaxies*, Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA. Dominated by dark matter, the mega-cluster warps and distorts the fabric of spacetime.

Lin Wang Gordon and I are leading a BIPOC Meditative Hike in the Hudson Valley on Saturday, Sepetmber 7. REGISTER HERE – sliding scale available.

Make Sacred Space is back for twelve Sunday evenings this fall. REGISTRATION IS OPEN – sign up for all three months for a discount.

Hi friends

How are you feeling where you are?

I’m feeling a little liminal over here. As summer days diminish, wars continue, and we countdown only 70 days until U.S. election day, I’m also feeling a bit tender. And being gentle with myself in response.

Sometimes, when I teach, I reference Kristen Neff’s work. If you don’t know her, Neff has studied self-compassion for over twenty years and written numerous articles and books about the concept. She’s researched and demonstrated the power of self-compassion for instilling well-being — particularly in this culture where judgement, criticism, and even denigration of self are often our go-tos. Her website provides tools and resources for approaching self-compassion not only as an idea, but also engaging it as a practice. Neff identifies three elements of self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. She provides reflections and meditations to develop these elements.

When I taught my Love Club course in February, I (boldly) added a fourth element to self-compassion: the systems stink. I believe the systems stink is a necessary concept for understanding the world and myself within it. The systems stink provides context for why it can feel like I can’t even effect change in my own little life let alone across the country and around the globe. The systems stink reminds me why things are so harsh and everything seems impossible. The systems stink helps me understand there are barely any options in this reality that aren’t fraught with contradictions and compromise (especially those involving politicians). The systems stink allows me to re-engage realistically and strategically.

The systems stink, systems are made of people, and we are people.

Image ID: The late Zen teacher Robert Aitken Roshi holding a sign reading: THE SYSTEM STINKS

I’ll be text banking on various dates with the Working Families Party and using time in Make Sacred Space to write letters and postcards. I hope you’ll join me in doing even a tiny part now and always (but especially now).

The Last Quarter List is below.

With love,

Sebene

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.

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!

🌗 Last Quarter List 🌗

I have a lovely new website design, as well as new branding (including for this newsletter and my offerings), and I have the brilliant and delightful Kening Zhu to thank for all of it. I’ve been following Kening’s weekly newsletter for a while now – it’s always filled with beauty and insights. It was an absolute dream to work together. Kening has a website creation course launching next week for anyone who wants to be guided to build their own website. Or you can peruse other offerings here.
Make Space for Palestinian Happiness.
There’s a Black-owned shop in my neighborhood that sells “We Need More Black Billionaires” merch and I’ve been meaning to go in there and tell those young men that, nope, we most certainly do not. So, as promised, here is your regularly scheduled announcement that billionaires should not exist. I am not attacking wealth or rich people. I am pointing to our inability to easily comprehend the difference between one million and one billion, let alone the absurdity that is the multibillionaire. If you’re never clicked when I’ve shared this link, I encourage you to DO SO NOW. This is a point I am willing to make everywhere, on the regular, forever, stay tuned.
My friend Jeff gifted me another great book. I’m only a quarter through, but Unmasking Autism is already an incredibly illuminating exploration of neurodiversity, the incorrect ways it’s been framed, and the damage that does to all of us. I’m sure to be back to report on this again.
My friend Maud Newton has written an incredible essay about evangelicals (including her own mother) hypocritically taking hormones while villifying trans people for doing the same. I admire Maud’s clear and unflinching look at her own family in this essay as well as her brilliant memoir Ancestor Trouble. She writes beautiful prose with many touches of humor.
This brilliant post from Bo Forbes about the heart’s memory blew my mind.
This ancestral healing retreat for white people looks like an incredible opportunity for those committed to racial justice. Stellar team.
I just finsihed a three week virtual workshop with Haleh Liza Gafori on her translation of Rumi and she is an absolute genius and everyone should own a copy of Gold.