Writing a poem helped a little

+ A playlist for shifting despair, and some other things I've been up to.

It’s a cool, cloudy November morning here in Tucson and I’m in a puffer on the back patio sipping coffee as I write today’s letter. Thanks for being here and giving me this space to connect. 💛

The first thing I wanted to share with you today is that my upcoming New Year’s retreat (December 29-January 1) has three more spots left. I wonder if you might enjoy joining us? The other day a woman reached out with an incredible question, sharing that in the past she’d been on a retreat where all of the participants were yoga friends and during breaks they tended to buddy up, leaving her alone. She wanted to know if a lot of the attendees would already be friends. (Side note: this fear has kept me from attending retreats as well.) Here was our response:

“Typically most women who attend do not know each other aside from our brief virtual gathering that takes place in the weeks before. We do have a couple of folks who are attending who have attended in years past on different retreats, so it may be that a couple people know each other that way but generally speaking it is not cliquey really at all. (Which we honestly love!)”

So…if fear of being left out is a concern for you, I just wanted to mention that.

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Here are a couple of other things I’ve done in the last couple of weeks that felt especially meaningful:

• I volunteered as a scribe at a Teen Town Hall for an organization called The Center for Community Mediation and Facilitation, which works to create spaces for respectful and civil conversations - transforming conflict into connection and partnership. I wasn’t sure what this would be like, would I go in with these grand ideas but then the high schoolers would be on their phones the whole time, just trying to get out of school? Actually, no, not at all. The students were engaged and respectful, and I was so impressed and energized by the students in the circle we facilitated which was on education access and equity. They each brought up important challenges and innovative solutions with an awareness (and self awareness) that our country’s leadership should aspire toward. Other groups tackled mental health, climate change and substance misuse. (Mental health was by far the most-attended circle, a telling data point in itself.) So, if I may offer one gentle piece of advice if you are feeling de-motivated, it’s to go local, and maybe hang out with some young people IRL.

• We built out a garden in the front yard (OK, Ben did most of the hard work), so now we have a side garden and a front garden and there may also be another little secret bonus garden in the works but we might try to make that one a xeriscape deal. Honestly, gardening is a great way to take out existential political/climate angst.

• I made you this playlist for shifting the despair, and then I listened to it this morning while dancing around the house, the dogs mildly intrigued.

• Lastly, I wrote a poem. I’m sharing it because I’m pretty sure most of you subscribe here because you like hearing about my personal experiences, given that’s pretty much all I talk about. Whenever something feels very tender, as I know many of us are feeling right now for a variety of reasons, I try to notice my inclination to dance around the truth by reverting to other people’s opinions. Believe me, I’ve consumed mountains of political hot takes lately. So, instead of doing that, I decided to write a poem because I think poetry is one of our best tools for truth-telling. At a minimum, I find that the composition is healing for me. Best case scenario, by sharing a poem, the fractures that we perceive among one another get even the slightest bit of repair. So that’s why I write poems.

Thank you for reading, thanks for being here, and have a beautiful rest of your weekend, friends!

I’m not sure I believe in chakras

When I was ten,
I overheard my sister and her friends calling those white tank tops
you wear on a hot day,
manbeaters
and it would be years before I learned
that was a word they took back.
But by then it had stuck.
Now, a stranger is wearing one, opening the door of a house
on a list of people who Ben and I are reminding to vote.
When we ask if the woman on our list is home,
the man tells us no and,
“I would never let her vote for her.”
I believe him, but
I’m not sure I believe in chakras.
Every six months or so I go down an internet rabbit hole
trying to find out if there’s a better study out yet.
Until then, I’m stuck with the ancient empirical evidence
of my body,
of which I’m doing my best to control the variables,
because every good scientist knows if you control the variables,
you can better trust the data.

And so before the election returns,
I’m doing my practices. 
I’m laying my body down
on the grass in Himmel park
absorbing negative ions as votes are counted,
when a SWAT team pulls up a few feet away. 
My go-to response is “flight,”
so it would be days before I learned from a friend,
who read about it in the news,
that the gunshots were from a murder-suicide.

I heard once that people who go to church
live longer and more vital lives
not because of their belief in God,
but because they go to church.
I go to church
on the carpeted floor of my yoga studio,
to learn about parts work with a therapist.
She asks us to imagine a moment
that activated our sympathetic nervous system
Go for a 3 or a 4 out of 10.
I settle on waking up on November 6, 2024
to the text message:
“Stock market is soaring!”

What did you notice in your body?

(One afternoon in August of 2016, 
while in a sweat lodge in the Sacred Valley,
a group of us pray
for the potential future leaders of our home country. 
But my prayer feels empty and forced,
so instead I try to imagine them as babies.)

A week before door-knocking,
a friend told us that she was stalked by a man
the last time she volunteered to get out the vote.
Ben says that’s what he was thinking about when the manbeater asked us to leave.
Ben (who doesn’t believe in chakras)
was up in his third-eye,
while I was down in my root.

And I guess that’s a good description of the patriarchy,
which I first learned about as a kid listening to Ani DiFranco.
And I ain't no damsel in distress,
but later on when I’m safe enough to access my crown,
I thank the God I don’t believe in
that I wasn’t alone volunteering that day,
and for the woman who didn’t answer the door,
and the manbeater tiny baby,
and the woman who lost her infant son and his father,
by asking myself,
other than bombs and guns and rage,
what else we could chase each other down with
on the worst days of our lives?