🌗 October Last Quarter Links

“Your friends will be there for you, your work won’t.” — Simon Sinek 🌗

Image ID: Illustrated excerpt from “Changing of the Gods” depicting the trajectory of our Sun moving through the cosmos with the planets spiraling around it

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💥 POWER AND SHADOW IN SPIRITUAL TEACHING 💥

My final offering for 2024 will be on December 18 when I’ll be joining my dear friend Sara Shapouri for the final session of her three-week series on Power and Shadow in Spiritual Teaching. I’m very excited about Noah and Morgan’s sessions as well. Hope you can join us.

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🌙 MAKE SACRED SPACE 🌙

There’s one more round of Make Sacred Space in 2024! This 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. Sign up for the November sessions here.

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Hi friends,

Welcome to Scorpio Season! The moodiest, spookiest, staunchest, dopest (dopiest?) sign of the zodiac. My birthday is Sunday, and I’ve chosen possibly the most perfectly on-brand gift I could give myself.

Not to brag, but I have a whopping five planets in Scorpio. In my twelfth house. If you don’t know what that means, imagine Beyonce singing this… at the bottom of a deep lake: I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it, I will survive, Keep on survivin’

And like many of us who barely made it through last week, I most recently survived that October 17th, fiery, full-on-Full-Moon in Aries which marked one year since my last hospitalization. 🥳 Even though my body still reels with cancer (in my lungs, lymph nodes, and many, many bones), I continue to feel better than I have in years. No one can explain this paradox to me. And I cannot adequately describe the gratitude I feel for this mysterious thing I call my life. The universe seems to enjoy showing me (over and over) just how very little I understand. About anything. Including myself…

Last week delivered multiple new glimpses of personal patterns (careful what you write about!) as well as new understanding of how far I’ve come in this process of getting free. It’s taken me years of commitment to various practices to determine what’s simply a passing mood or hot flash (or both) and what’s a true persistent pattern—a way of behaving (in thoughts, emotions, speech, or actions) rooted in various tenacious tendencies. What’s internal versus external (or both). What’s my mess, what’s others’ (or both). Recently, my bestie Peter told me a story about two miners who come up from the mines: one has a clean face and the other a dirty one. The one with the clean face assumes their face is dirty because that’s what they observe of the other. The one with the dirty face assumes their face is clean because that’s what they observe of the other. Of course, we’re always flip flopping: dirty, clean, dirty, clean… (or both).

One example of a persistent ping-pong pattern: my longing to belong (once again, SO on brand) versus my fear of being seen. This was pushed to the limit in my recent clown class. Seven weeks of naked (not literally) expression without the use of discernible language—though I am getting more fluent in gibberish. It felt like a good stretch until it felt like way too much. I spent the night after our final session sleepless and puking which might have been the jerk chicken. Also, not only. With the council of my incredibly wise personal trainer (who is so much more than that title), I decided to skip the final performance mostly because I realized I don’t have to do every damn hard thing that shows up, especially if it means demolishing my anniversary of zero ER visits.

I plan to enter the remedial track of clown college and and take level one again, where I’m sure to meet some of the same patterns. And they will feel different. Facing old patterns with new perspective reminds me of this spiral image which I’ve shared here before. When witnessed from above (image on the left), it looks like the clockwise revolution is repeating over the same segments or areas. That’s like me processing familiar feelings of fear or hurt over and over, beating myself up, asking “Why am I here? Again? Dealing with this same old problem?” But view it from the side (image on the right), and the true process becomes clear. Yes, I may be traveling over a familiar area. But, look! I’m actually moving to a different level of awareness of what only seemed to be the same issue. It’s not the same place, it’s just a similar theme.

Image ID: Illustration of two perspectives of the same spiral staircase: on the left, from above, it appears to look like a circle with segments; on the right from the front, the spiral staircase is revealed

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I could not process any of this without great friends who know me well. They watch me ascend and descend and ascend again, often witnessing progress I cannot yet perceive, sometimes allowing me to dizzy myself going round and round my staircase, like a small spinning child sure to tip over and perhaps vomit. As one friend said to me last week when I recognized a different pattern, as if for the first time: “This is what your friends have known for two years.” Oh. Right. Thank you friends! I truly could not manage in these harrowing times without you.

Image ID: GIF of a little girl in a store aisle adorably and completely failing at the hula hoop

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And, thank YOU for being here and connecting with me. It does mean a lot to know we’re all in this together. I hope you too find friends and practices and processes to support you through the coming weeks. I leave you with the below image of these beautiful patterns of the planets to match the above one of of our solar system (from the documentary Changing of the Gods).

Yes, we are all spinning, spiraling, moving together—hopefully in ever-increasing harmony.

This month’s Last Quarter List is below.

With love,

Sebene

P.S. 10% of October paid subscriptions will be going to help the Al-Areer family in their time of grief. Thank you for your support.

Image ID: Illustrated image showing patterns made by planets when their orbits are charted - as seen from Earth—includes Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn

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🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

November is the final Make Sacred Space for 2024!

In this Sunday evening co-creative gathering, we attune to the Moon through guided meditation, journaling prompts, and open space — all for a soulful start to the week. Sign up for November sessions here.

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

What people say about Make Sacred Space:

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!

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🌗 Last Quarter List 🌗

• Friends, we have less than two weeks until the election. Believe me, as a longtime meditator/hermit/sometimes-bypasser, I prefer to go into complete radio silence until this (part) is all over. Instead, I hope to use the little free time I have before November 5th to do my part to stay engaged. I hope you join me!

• This tribute to Refaat Alareer by his friend Mohammed Mhawish is heart-breakingly beautiful.

  “Even in his absence now, I find myself still clinging to his voice, his words echoing in my mind—‘There will come a day when words need us, not the opposite, Mohammed.’ But, since we lost Refaat, they have come with a weight, a gravity that I never anticipated. And though I wish I could share them with him, I know that somewhere, he’s still listening.

  Refaat taught me that our struggle for liberation and the imperative need for writing do not only arise in times when ‘Free Palestine’ is trending. Instead, there is a Palestine that dwells inside all of us, a Palestine that ‘needs to be rescued,’ as he once said. He believed and lived to say that a free Palestine must indeed exist, where all people, regardless of color, religion, or ethnicity, live in freedom and justice.”

• In case you missed it above: My final offering for 2024 will be on December 18th—I leave the next day for a two-week silent retreat. I’m honored to be spending that retreat eve in conversation with my dear friend Sara Shapouri for the final session of her three-week series on 💥 Power and Shadow in Spiritual Teaching.💥 I’m already a super fan of the philosopher, writer, yogi, tarot explorer (and friend) Noah Lopez. And, though I’ve never met him, I’ve heard a lot about Morgan over the years, and I’m excited to attend his session as well. Please join us!

• My friend Lin is once again leading her 5-month Soulcentric Midlife course. Lin is a wise, caring and powerful teacher. If you’re in your 40s or 50s and in the NYC area, this is a great opportunity to explore these powerful years through meditation, inquiry, and conversation. More info here.

• I’ve posted the final session of last year’s Cosmic Collage workshops on YouTube— all sessions are available for free. Cosmic Collage! All Souls is an opportunity to explore the energies of this time of year when the veil between the realms is thin.... and magical. Explore sacred thresholds through meditation, contemplation and creativity.

• I loved this conversation between Simon Sinek & my boyfriend Trevor Noah where I heard the above opening quote: “Your friends will be there for you, your work won’t.” Another good one: “We don’t build trust by offering help, we build it by asking for it.” It’s worth the entire listen.

• I’ve been slow on my fiction reading which I’d like to shift. I’m looking for recommendations— especially for stories that deftly use humor. Though I did just finish Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline, an Indigenous writer who frames this powerful and often funny contemporary story around the Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou--a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of native people's communities. Definitely want to explore more by her.

• I mentioned before that my friend Dan told me about Ellen Langer, the “mother of positive psychology,” knowing her message might resonate for me. But I did not anticipate how powerful this interview would feel. Wow. So much wisdom! I actually want to give it another listen to better take it all in...

• Many people tell me they like the way I smell. The entire reason why: this body oil from Everyday Oil (I use the Mainstay Blend). They’re a very lovely small business based in Black Mountain, NC and were greatly impacted by the hurricane. Just know, they’re just getting back to operations and a little slow on fulfillment at the moment, but very worth it.

• Finally, as I mentioned last time, I don’t usually do online summits, but my friends at Omega are co-hosting Bouncing Back from a Broken Heart—that, and I felt called to share about my recent divorce and subsequent revelations around coupling vs couple-DOM. Lynne and I explored everything from childhood patterns to astrology to healthy boundaries. It was a great conversation! You can learn more and register for free here.

  

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