Sycamore and Oak, Santa Barbara backcountry
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Greetings dear people,
It is difficult to find words that do justice to the profundity of this time. A time of heartbreak, grappling, pain, overwhelm, action, change, possibility, healing, disbelief, inspiration, opportunity, awakening, chaos, breaking apart, breaking open, brokenness and beauty. Business as usual has been disrupted. First the pandemic, and then the brutal and callous murder of George Floyd (the most recent of devastating murders of black bodied people by police), which elicited an incredible and ongoing uprising around the world. People demanding justice and protesting the institutionalized, systemic racism and brutality, oppression and violence that has been inflicted on black bodies for centuries. Loud and clear around the planet. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. A call to wake up, a call for justice, for reparations, and for systems change. The USA was built with stolen people on stolen ground. We all live with that truth in our bodies in different ways. Whether we like it or not, whether we feel it or not, whether we understand our complicity or not. We are in the rumble and tumble of reckoning with the way our history lives out in our present. We are each called to do better, as Maya Angelou so graciously states: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
As a white woman, I am grappling with my place and response. I am simultaneously outraged by the racialized violence and humbled by the layers of denial and shame in myself and others that contribute to my complicity in systems of oppression. I am also grateful for the centering of black lives matter and the conversation around structural racism, and inspired by the powerful transformations and stories of change underway throughout the country. This week in Santa Barbara, our local Sambo's finally dropped its name, and our mayor approved changing the name of a local street, Indio Muerto (Dead Indian), to Hutash, the Chumash word for Earth Mother, which native people and activists have been lobbying to change for twenty five years. I share this, because although words might seem insignificant, they matter. The stories we tell matter. Dehumanization begins with language, as in so many creation stories, in the beginning was the word.
And, we are facing and engaging intertwining threads. Our collective health and well being, our social body, is intimately connected to the health and well-being of our ecological body. The systems of power and privilege that oppress and destroy black and brown lives, have the same roots as systems that are destroying our living earth. Our earth is ailing because of humans - human activity and human consciousness, in a story of domination. This sounds like a crisis. In the Chinese language, crisis is the same character as opportunity. We have the choice to meet this moment in fear or in courage and love. This opportunity lives in each of us, and requires devotion, practice and community. One breath at a time.
The future is not written. We have the possibility to tell a new story. One breath at a time. A story of restoration, honoring all life. A story of beauty, reciprocity, and love in action, unity in diversity. This future is born of our present, our presence moment to moment. We are planting the seeds of this new story. It is already here, in the seeds, in us. To live into a future worth living for all of humanity, and non human beings as well, we are each called to take responsibility and do our part. What each of us is called to do, when and how we are called to it, and what this looks like for each of us will of course vary according to our natures, proclivities, positionalities, identities, and so on. We are magnificent and beautiful beings, our bodies, all bodies, made of the elements of the cosmos - fire, water, air and earth, worthy of care and celebration. We each have a part to play and a responsibility to the whole. We are obliged to do better. Much obliged - indebted and grateful.
Right now, I am in a time of listening, and engaging, and practicing radical compassion, trust and emergence to inform how I respond, what I will do next, where and how I will show up. I am breathing in compassion for myself and breathing out compassion for the world. I am committed to deepen my awareness around my internalized racism, take responsibility for my unearned privilege, grow my relationships cross culture and color, have conversations with other white people around race, power, privilege and make nature connection more inclusive and welcoming of black and brown people. I acknowledge my limitations and am committed to learning and unlearning. I am doing my best and committed to doing better, with compassion and mercy. I know that I cannot take the next steps from the same consciousness I had before this time. I ask myself: How can I let myself be transformed? How can I allow the relationality of the world, all my relationships, inform how I respond as part of an interconnected whole, so my responses are not for myself alone? How can I open to the wild, the weird, the dreamtime, the unsung songs, the mysterious possibilities that live at the edge of the village, the depths of my heart, which is the heart of the world?
As communities and businesses open up more and more, let us not to be too eager to put it all together again too quickly, with the same mindset and tools that caused this catastrophe in the first place. This cycle of transformation is trustworthy -- the breakdown and dying of the old; the liminal place of chaos, seeming disorder and unknown as we let go of what is familiar; and the emergence of something new and never before seen. This is natural law. The eternal cycles of change and transformation. There is beauty in it all.
This week marks the celebration of Juneteenth, honoring the end of slavery in the US in 1865, and Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in this hemisphere, honoring light. It is a good time to celebrate what is good and beautiful, honor what has come to pass, say no to what is intolerable, and hold the light of our co-liberation as central.
With wild blessings, big love, and mercy, mercy, mercy.
Alexis
Upcoming Events
Thank you for your support and interest. During this time, I am taking a pause to listen more deeply to what I am called to offer moving forward. I am grateful to have been collaborating and partnering with Mindful Heart Programs, Insight LA, Pacifica Graduate Institute and Emergent Resilience in the last few months. Please stay tuned for upcoming events coming soon.
Tending Grief, Uncertainty and Loss
How Compassion, Mindfulness, Nature Connection and
Community Ritual Help us Soften Around our Pain
with Alexis Slutzky and Radhule Weininger
Sunday, July 5, 2020
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM PST
Online
We are in a time of a tremendous amount of change, loss and uncertainty. This may bring up overwhelm and anxiety and a sense of lostness. Underneath this array of feelings is often a very deep sadness and our personal grief gets intertwined with and intensified by communal grief. Throughout time, people have come together to honor and integrate grief as a way to stay connected and engaged. Experiencing our grief opens us to our love and gratitude and can deepen us if we allow it. As we connect with our deep sadness, we can slowly find traces of a path that leads us forward.
In this 3 hour on-line retreat we will tend our individual and collective grief and offer personal and community practices that can help us to find freedom in our suffering. This approach, based on mindfulness, self-compassion, community and nature connection, will help us find a way of being with our pain. As we experience more compassion, a greater sense of meaning, and deep, heart-felt connection can emerge.
Solidarity and Compassion Project
Meets second Wednesday of each month
July 8, 2020 - The Wellness of We: Caring for us All
7PM - 8:30PM PST
Online
For the last several months I have been honored to accompany Radhule Weininger and Michael Kearney in hosting the “Solidarity and Compassion Project” a monthly gathering of guest speakers from the community joining together to discuss ways of community healing during difficult times bringing together members of the leading faith traditions, as well as a variety of thinkers, visionaries and activists to share how their individual traditions and practices such as prayers, meditation, music, poetry, and philosophies help us deal with uncertainty, anxiety, and fear during this challenging time in our country and our world.
In June we were blessed by the following speakers:
Julie Tumamait Stenslie was raised in the Ojai Valley. On the death of her father in 1992, she assumed the role of Chumash Elder. Currently, Julie acts as a Commissioner on the Native American Heritage Commission and a board member of the Santa Clara River Conservancy. She is the Tribal Chair of the Barbareno/Ventureno Band of Mission Indians (Chumash).
The Rev. Dr. David N. Moore, Jr. is an ecumenical teacher and author. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from the University of South Africa. His new book is titled, Making America Great Again: Fairy Tale? Horror Story? A Challenge to the Christian Community.
Ralph Armbruster Sandoval is chair of UCSB’s Chicano Studies Department. He has been very active in social movements for more than 20 years and has served on the Board of Directors for La Casa de la Raza, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and Witness for Peace. His newest book is titled, “Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity."
Fr. Tom Carey is a Franciscan friar. He is a member of the Episcopal Sanctuary Taskforce of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and works with The Wall Las Memorias Project, an LGBTQ community organization as a faith-based organizer. In his previous life he was a TV and "lm actor and holds a degree in Spanish from Columbia University.
Radhule Weininger, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, and teacher of Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology. She is mentored by Jack Kornfield in her teaching and by Joanna Macy in her interest in Engaged Buddhism. Her book "Heartwork: The Path of Self-Compassion", with a foreword by Jack Kornfield published by Shambala Publications.
Michael Kearney, MD, is a physician with over 35 years’ experience in palliative care. He works at Cottage Hospital and at Serenity House in Santa Barbara. His latest book entitled "The Nest in The Stream: Lessons From Nature on Being with Pain," offers an ecological model of self-care and resilience that awakens the desire to act for the welfare of all beings.
RESOURCES FOR WHITE FRIENDS
There are so many great resources available, here are a few I have found helpful:
White Fragility - short article linked here, and of course full book by Robin Di Angelo
SURJ - Showing Up for Racial Justice national organization with local chapters
Me and White Supremacy - book and workbook by Layla F Saad
My Grandmothers Hands - Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
Seeing White podcast
POEM
For the Interim Time by John O'Donohue
When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.
You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
"The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born."
You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here in your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
from: "To Bless the Space Between Us" by John O'Donohue. Pub in 2008 by Doubleday.