hope as a community practice. come wander with me/us today 🌺
join our interactive nature walk free from wherever you are in the world 🌍
a time-sensitive update before we jump in (or feel welcome to scroll down to details), you can book your free ticket to join today’s gathering from wherever you are, here. Tickets will be available for the next two hours 🎟
Greetings 💜 hope you’re taking good care as best you can these daze. Some offerings of resources in the last space to land here.
i’m showing up, despite resistance, fear, trembles, also brain fog HELLO. i’m also doing my best to offer tenderness to these parts. the magnitude of grief and overwhelm for the harm and pain so many are moving through renders me between frenzied action and collapse. i know many are experiencing something similar.
despair shows up frequently. the feeling that no matter how much i do, it can never be enough, nor reverse what has been happening. my contributions seem tiny and insignificant in the magnitude of so many things. then i sit here, showing up for days writing to you, deleting, making things, then scrapping, asking myself, “what’s the point?”, but at the same time, compelled to want to connect. to wave, hold out a hand, offer a biscuit or pat the earth to encourage a moment to meet, check in, exchange, Be.
perhaps this is selfish, knowing these meeting with Others, however small, make me feel less alone. provide a lens i’m interested in experiencing. offer an opportunity for expanding my own horizons. learning from and with each other. perhaps ‘learning’ feels too tight a definition. i suppose i’m thinking about relational care, the seemingly small stuff which feels profound.
~
i catch myself in those thought-spirals of not-enoughness (which i’m certain will be a lifelong practice). Tara Brach refers to this as ‘the trance of unworthiness’ and i dwell here a moment as i see it showing up as i write to you, on the brink of throwing this letter in the bin but at the same time, stressing myself out because i want to make you this thing laden with care, curiosities, offerings and something which i hope can make the tiniest of difference to someone. leave them feeling a little more space/ease/pleasure than how we met. i don’t know…i’m schmaltzy. i’m a pisces, yes yes. a feeler. too ‘naïve’ in their hope perhaps? and ‘care too much’ (hands up anyone else whose been told this)
it’s very me to push through my limitations, to feel a sense of duty and obligation which is often, a pressure i’ve created for myself but not only (shoutout to systems of oppression which harm all of us). so i’ve (unusually) taken comfort breaks in between the seemingly-small steps it takes to put together a multimedia zine like this, but it can take me days. weeks, sometimes years! (looking at the Paris stuff i’ve made 4u in my drafts folder!)
instead, i’ve been entertaining the practice of trusting the process of creating intentional space.
that looked and felt like: using the bathroom when i actually needed to go rather than as a ‘reward’ for finishing (neurospicy-emergent fam do you feel me?!).
it looked/felt like, going to a window to take in a tree/bird/cat (if i’m lucky)/vehicles (if i’m not) and gaze and take a few breaths.
it looked/felt like touching my belly and noticing the clench, the hardness of it all. the wrenching anxiety. understandable when we consider what we are holding…and we hold many multiple things at once.
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hope i can be clear that this isn’t (ever) a tell you what to do mail. nor a ‘fix it’ message. just an honest noticing and contemplation on how we might create more freedom and ease. how i want that for us all…i’m interested in how we can Be with the horrors and hard stuff, as well as the glimmers of hope.
and for me that hope was re-listening to a community gathering (it’s now a new i feel for you podcast episode you can find below). had a little weep. and also a few deep sighs.
i was reminded of the power in our gathering, however, wherever. like now, you, reading this, perhaps even hitting reply, or leaving a comment below. the resonance there is in the energy of connection. the possibilities we are able to cultivate collectively. the movements and transformation and impact we can have on this world, despite the horror, yes, the hopelessness we might feel at times… i know and feel and believe in hope as a practice. hope as an action.
i feel this hope when i’m ‘outside’, even at a distance (including online, i know!)
i feel the hearty rumbles of movement. solidarity.
in the quiet shy smiles exchanged at strangers.
in the patient collective pause as someone is typing.
in the soft ‘hello’s’ in passing a stranger on the street.
or sometimes a full-blown contemplation of life with another stranger in a public park, caught in the wonder and/despair of things.
in a deluxe meme shared right on time, despite you being without words or energy for much else.
there’s a comfort here, an encouragement, a sensation of fizz, possibility…hope?
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i am also lucky enough to hold containers of care (when i’m brave enough to send a mail and tell you about them!). this practice of holding space, for decades now, honestly, truly, has always been the place where i find most hope come alive for me. there is something about witnessing and participating in a gathering. the sharing. co-creating. showing up as you are with what you have. connecting. which moves me every time i’m lucky enough to do it.
no matter the size, in rooms with hundreds or one-to-one, outdoors with thousands or in a nook with another species, i’ve been stirred in the same way. this possibility of meeting eachOther beyond a smalltalk (you know i’m no good at that, sos). honestly it’s beyond words. it’s an energy, yes, that’s what i feel, believe and know. it’s alive and powerful. is generative and magical.
and also want to honour the reality that for some, being on the ‘front lines’ of protest looks different to hegemonic model of activism. it’s not possible to be on the physical street for some all kinds of reasons. i’m not just thinking of those living with limitations, and/or disabilities and/or access and/or safety.
i’m honouring the collective movements which have been building in communities for generations long before our own (hope and inspiration to persist). i’m also thinking about the long-haul hope as a practice which activism requires. and heeding the sometimes-burnout, which i wrote about here.
for those who are still figuring out how to give but not burn out
for those looking for a space to land
may we implement more care, more softness into this hard world
may we remember our interconnectedness and interdependence to and with the earth, our belonging because we are. and because we are here.
Gaza. Sudan. Haiti. The Congo.
all spaces and peoples trying to Be and get free.
solidarity, love and liberation for us all 💜
there are possibilities for us to contribute to change in many ways. i wrote more about honouring our interdependent and interconnected worlds here.
~
i guess this text is a wandering in itself. autofiction perhaps. a rally-call of encouragement and ferocious care. and an invitation to connect. meet someplace or other in our meanderings, alone but together.
💜
Come wander with me/us today!
experimental sound walk in nature - join from anywhere!
I’m honoured to be hosting an accessible interactive and immersive event as part of the Jane’s Walk London Festival 2024 where you can participate from wherever you are in the world.
It’s a short but sweet invitation to go deeper in community together today (Sunday) via an experimental interactive nature walk’s at 4pm BST (time converter here). Join me and special guests from wherever you are - home - outside - elsewhere!
Places are free but limited so require booking here (this is how i can give you access to our portal)
Hope you can join for wandering and experimenting showing up together from wherever you are….I think we've even got a special four legged friend joining us from across the ocean. So i'm very excited about that (bring your own along of course!)
New podcast episode
if you’re curious about this experimental embodiment - ecology - community playspace today, you might fancy dipping into an episode which just came out the oven!
it’s a recording of our last interactive sound walk, connecting internet frens in the US, Norway, Nevis, UK and beyond! Shoutout to dear spacemaking co-creators and vital voices in this event and episode! (also let me know if you’re on substack so i can tag u!)
excuse my emo intro to the podcast…been gathering courage to return after going thru quite a time! showing up despite my trembles, yes!
let me know what you think of the show, i love to hear from you.
Find the shownotes, ways to listen and my voicenotes here.
Thank you to all who joined Earthing for Earthlings 🌱
it was an honour to be in practice and in your company. here’s a word/song and bts:
the magnitude of our cosmos. did you know the Sámi word for ‘borealis’ is ‘guovssahas’ and translates to ‘audible light’? that’s pretty cool isn’t it?
anyway. i know many are bored of these images, not me tho, tag me in yours, always, i LOVE to see/sense/feel it!
ok here’s my hasty upload, more of a public service in case anyone was like me, up way beyond their bedtime on Thursday night-Friday morning, gazing skyward ✨
the way my spirit when i relisten to this song and how i felt when i first heard it all those years ago and how i feel these days as i listen and remember and feel.
i’ve been paying close attention to Pappy Orion’s tiktoks for stories of Congo- feel welcome to add resources below which offer lenses to our learning/hope as an action-practice.also want to add one of my fave tiktok tonic’s from this week from Johnny Laveie, “it’s ok to have hope, it’s ok to have faith and believe that a brighter day will come…” 💜
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lots to catch up on. i’m looking forward to the event today. Here’s a reminder of where to book a ticket to today’s event.
(if you got this far, please put some kind of animal or 🐾 emoji below!)
please take good care.
dionne 💜
The vulnerability involved in taking up hope is no easy task to overcome, however you dare to hope and the way you’ve framed this feeling in the humbleness of the everyday was beautiful and inspiring!
🙏🏾🙇🏾🖤