welcome to the full moon! People keep talking about what a weird winter it is, with so many signs of spring happening when we should be freezing and bemoaning the long winter and wondering when spring will come. This spring-ish energy is certainly moving through me like the bright moon on the snow.
Below is a list of some upcoming things I am excited about, including an intensive in community healing and magic, which has been in the ground like a tiny ancient seed for a loooooooooong time. Here it is, popping it's bright green head out of the earth to be macked on and relished by you birds/people/magical creatures! This intensive begins on the full moon in May and meets one weekend a month for three months. We will be deepening into magical places of collective and personal healing and explore things like daily practices for grounding and protection, working with stone, plant, and animal allies, creating rituals, ancestral healing, dream work, and skills for community healing. I can't wait. more information below.
I'm doing a workshop on community wellness for radiation exposure as a benefit for the Safe and Green Campaign to shut down Vermont Yankee in Brattleboro, VT this coming weekend, if you're around these parts.
And please consider joining me, Fearn Lickfield, and Pam Montgomery in May/June for an incredible intensive on Earth Healing, including geomancy, earth acupuncture, council of all beings, and more at Pam's beautiful sanctuary in Vermont. More information on Pam's website, here: http://www.partnereartheducationcenter.com/earthspirithealing.html
Also, many people have been asking about the transnatural listserve, which is a great community resource that fellow herbalist Jacoby Ballard and I (very lightly) moderate. It's open to people who are interested in herbs and holistic support for trans folks- practitioners and non-practitioners alike. If you're interested in joining, you can subscribe by sending an email to transnatural-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Such good discussion and information sharing!
Please pass this along to people who might enjoy any of this. I love to expand our beautiful web of people I love who you love who they love. If you know what I mean.
I hope whatever weird weather is moving around you and through you fills you with some gladness for life and moves you to the places you want to be.
with love,
Dori
PS! I thought I'd join facebook for Brigid/groundhog's day, but I am just too overwhelmed by it. Can people who are fb savvy post this info somehow? Or would someone like to help me join the future already? I'm serious, I'd love some help making a page to be liked. Let me know if you are that person.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Radiate Wellness: Holistic support for community health in radioactive times
Saturday, February 11, 2012
2-4pm
Brattleboro Holistic Health
62 Elliot St.
Suggested donation: $5-20
All proceeds benefit the Safe and Green Campaign to shut down Vermont Yankee
Come and learn powerful, simple skills for surviving and thriving in these times of environmental uncertainty in which we are all exposed to varying levels of radiation. We’ll explore herbal and nutritional remedies for daily wellness, practices for boosting your immunity and vitality, as well as holistic support for acute radiation exposure. You will leave with easy, affordable recipes and skills to share with your family and friends and a greater sense of courage and calm.
To register contact Leah Mutz:
leah@brattleboroholistichealth.com or (802)251-0888
COMMUNITY CAULDRON: an intensive in practical magic and healing
explore and deepen into personal, community, and planetary magic and healing grounded in collective liberation and self-determinism
intuitive arts
grounding & protection practices
ritual & ceremony
ancestral healing
plant, stone, and animal magic
dream work
& more.
one weekend a month for three months
DATES:
May 5 & 6
June 16 & 17
July 7 & 8
COST:
sliding scale $540- $650 for the entire intensive
early bird discount: $500 by March 1, 2012
*I am committed to making this financially accessible. work/trade and partial scholarship is available, please contact me for further information.
LOCATION:
Williamsburg, MA (15 minutes from Northampton, 2 hours from Boston, 3 hours from NYC)
space is limited
To register or request more info about the intensive, please contact me.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
FULL MOON: the revolution will not be fairyless
It's the first full moon of the year, and as usual, the moon wakes me up in the middle of the night. It's like all of a sudden everything is clear and my mind is quiet enough to write an entire book or solve the riddle of my schedule or understand the limits of the law or have a crystal vision about a person I am working with. It's dark and quiet and I can feel my ancestors speaking through me. But then it's 2am and I'm like, why can't my ancestors talk to me around 4pm, for tea or something? Not to complain, but I just want to sleep through the night, "like a normal person" as I have been known to say.
I don't know if it's the jew in me, but I am quick to leap into the rapids of the river of torturous inner dialogue of trying to figure out what is wrong with me. As anyone who has read an article about insomnia in their therapist's waiting room can tell you, freaking out about not sleeping is just about the worst thing you can do. I've been reading a book called Healing Night, which re-frames the modern epidemic of sleep disorders as a serious lack of dreaming, mostly due to our excessively lit up lives and guess what? There is nothing wrong with me!!! I recently read that after researching pre-industrial peoples' sleep patterns, and re-creating them in some studies, sleep researchers found that before modern "light at night" times, most people actually slept in two distinct sleeping chunks, with a little hour or so of wakefulness in the middle. This middle of the night waking, sometimes called The Night Watch, was often used for meditation, prayer, creativity, making out, and staring into the darkness, and wasn't pathologized as insomnia! WHAT??? I love the Night Watch! (My sweetheart might not love it as much as me though.) The book explores our malnourished relationship with the dark and our excessively lit up evenings and how that has affected our dreamlife, which is at the root of fatigue and insomnia.
But this is just a little aside. What I want to tell you is what I was thinking about when the moon woke me up, which I welcomed and curled into like a cat.
So, many months ago, I began a long post on community wellbeing and first aid for the occupy movements. I was so excited! I was so moved! I was so inspired! And then I didn't ever finish it because during the exquisite murmurations of this movement, I was suddenly displaced from my tiny gnome house in the woods by a fungal occupation of a severe sort. The mold inspector literally said, "It's as if you moved all your beautiful wood furniture into the forest and it's trying to decompose it." I was witnessing time and death and de-materialization in fast forward...of my stuff. It was gross, even though as you all know, I really try to not to hate on any living organism. Hey, we all got to eat. ANYWAY, I never finished the post.
So in the middle of the night, the moon was like, "Dori! You need to finish that thing you started about community well being for the Great Turning!" Then it went on to tell me that actually, I wasn't supposed to write about an actual first aid kit, but an invisible one. I was like, "Oh moon, you so crazy!" But I know the moon is not crazy and I knew just what ze meant. We need to shift out of the idea that things are going to save our lives all together. Even in, and maybe especially in, our liberation movements, it's time to sharpen our skills for connecting with the invisible and surrender to what might be moving through us right now. The Occupy Movement, and all of it's inspired tributaries, is supporting new possibilities of community and a new kind of interconnectivity, and I think that calls for a new kind of healing. I am not advocating not bringing your first aid kits to actions, but I am suggesting we begin to cultivate a stronger and deeper commitment to practicing magic. Or whatever you want to call it.
It reminds me of a dream I had last spring in which I was a small child with a bossy older sister who trapped fairies in bubbles and kept them under her bed in a trunk. One day, I snuck into the trunk, broke open all the bubbles and freed the incarcerated little people. They danced around me in a circle and sang, "we're free! We're free!" Then suddenly, I was my age now and I was giving a tour through a cityish town. I said, "This mound would've made an excellent home for the fairies, but they don't live here anymore." Someone on my tour asked why not, to which I answered, "They are afraid humans don't know how to like things without keeping them, they are worried they'll be enslaved, but they want us to know, the revolution can't happen without them." Then my dog showed up wearing a fancy suit and stole my keys and I woke up. What a revelation!, I thought. I have to write this down and tell everyone that the revolution can't happen without fairies! This is Very Important Information.
Now, as you can see, I didn't tell everyone right away, because it sounded a little weird. I mean, I realize that this is not something I need to worry about at this point; let's face it, I work as a witch and my hair is really impractically long and most importantly, I am learning so much about the impact of shame on our wellbeing and how essential it is for all of us to encourage each other to release shame, by saying and being in our truths. So here I am, telling you all that the fairies want to take part in the revolution. I am still unraveling what this means. I think part of it is that we need to open up to collaborating with everything and everyone and not give precedent or privilege to the obvious and what can be seen and what we consider "real". (more on this in my queer magic/queer healing workshops) Our work is not just to resist and dismantle the dominant structures, we also need to revive our imaginations and reconnect with what is real power, not the toxic mimics.
I'm not a luddite or self- righteous about it, but I'm still not on facebook or twitter or cell phones. Last year was the first year that I started to waiver- Arab Spring! Occupy Wall Street! My friends' photos of dogs and outfits and babies! We're witnessing how uprisings are being fomented with all this technology and how exciting! but I still think social media and networks are our training wheels for something else. We're weaving a web that is strong and vibrant, we're connecting across borders, we're remembering how to be part of a whole. It's as if the planet is knitting itself more tightly together, faster and faster- we're moved and changed by learning of somebody somewhere else moving and changing. I see how these tweets and posts are training us to dream together and move in some kind of graceful resonant current. I see the glimmerings of the days to come in which actions are planned in dream circles and we have meetings on the astral plane and artists are healers and healers are activists and activists are healers and we all dream together new dreams of a just, beautiful, life-sustaining world, where the invisible, the "unreal" and the imaginary are all loved and honored.
NEXT: Part 2 , the practical and the magical: First Aid for Witches.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
winter charms
Dear everybody,
It's almost winter. Where I live, the ground is frozen and covered in tiny frosty crystals that break under the boot with a satisfying crunch. I have recently moved farther into the hills of Western Massachusetts to a beautiful old restored barn just up the road from the rushing Mill River, which I can hear from my window. It's also a short walk to my favorite library, in which the librarian (the mom of a friend of mine) brings her short legged dog, Julie Christie, to work everyday and there is stuff everywhere like some children's book about a magical library that turns into a circus at night. My work space here is totally enchanted- for those of you who visited me in San Francisco and know the magic of that place, this too has got some serious charms. I'm excited to see you all here.
As I move farther out onto the land, I notice that I want to tend to my ribbons and heart strings that connect me to the rest of the world even more. I listen to the songs and shouts of the people in the cities and watch the occupiers, decolonizers, poets, climate change changers, hoarders, guardians of wealth and guardians of Earth, visionaries, artists, and edge walkers with a kind of wonder and new kind of distance. Something I've been thinking is, "what an amazing time to be alive on earth." And I wonder how, as a community healer and lover of life, I can continue to have my life and my work be in service to the liberation of all beings.
My work is just a simple attempt at that, and during this season of darkness, I feel a really deep gratitude for it. I feel so lucky that my work is to sit in the presence of so many committed, brilliant, loving, creative humans for an hour and see their light just shine forth completely, to hold them with immense love and gentleness and witness their wounds and vulnerabilities, to see all the ways they are growing and changing so they can bring their gifts to the world. YOUR gifts to the world, that is. I feel humbled that I get to support all of you on your paths and thank you for allowing me to be to be a part of your lives in this way. T H A N K Y O U.
After two years of taking some much needed rest (totally under-rated and necessary for the revolution) I am also excited to say that I am looking forward to a new year of being alive, being engaged, and doing some teaching. I am crafting an exciting workshop series on Community Healing for the Great Turning, as well as a Queer Healing & Queer Magic workshop for 2012, so please stay in touch for that! I'll also be co-teaching an Earth Healing workshop in Vermont in June with Fearn Lickfield and Pam Montgomery. Right now I am also delighted to be collaborating with the wonderful Jacoby Ballard from Third Root clinic in Brooklyn on a piece on Trans Holistic Health! Much is brewing in the cauldron!
Finally, as it is the season of solstice and giving things, I'd like to offer these bits for gifting your loved ones. Perhaps someone you know and adore would enjoy:
the favorite eau de fierceness, BOUNDARIES in a BOTTLE spray for protection and purification!
the deliciously potent, WITCHES, BITCHES, & HOS elixir for guidance and healing for all of us weeyotches, beeyotches, and you know whats.
a gift certificate for a SESSION or custom blended ELIXIR!
a jar of CHARMED HONEY for fertility, hot sex, love, or abundance!
If you like, please visit the apothecary on my website!
And here are some other things made by people I love that you might like too!
Narrow Bridge candles, handmade with love and justice in Oakland by Jonah Daniel, with proceeds going to Stop the JNF campaign
Vanessa Huang's ridiculously amazing letterpressed poetry and community supported poetry project
Jen Lorang's bewitching We are Bleeding and 2012 calendars
Dean Spade's mind-blowing and important book, Normal Life, out from South End Press
And so, my most gorgeous beings, I wish you all a sweet season of darkness, that you all may deepen into what calls to you, that you find the shine in what seems impossibly bleak, that you are gentle with yourselves and the ones you love, that you sink roots into rich source and feel yourself full, and that you know enoughness, freedom, and so much love in the coming year.
With all my heart,
Dori
It's almost winter. Where I live, the ground is frozen and covered in tiny frosty crystals that break under the boot with a satisfying crunch. I have recently moved farther into the hills of Western Massachusetts to a beautiful old restored barn just up the road from the rushing Mill River, which I can hear from my window. It's also a short walk to my favorite library, in which the librarian (the mom of a friend of mine) brings her short legged dog, Julie Christie, to work everyday and there is stuff everywhere like some children's book about a magical library that turns into a circus at night. My work space here is totally enchanted- for those of you who visited me in San Francisco and know the magic of that place, this too has got some serious charms. I'm excited to see you all here.
As I move farther out onto the land, I notice that I want to tend to my ribbons and heart strings that connect me to the rest of the world even more. I listen to the songs and shouts of the people in the cities and watch the occupiers, decolonizers, poets, climate change changers, hoarders, guardians of wealth and guardians of Earth, visionaries, artists, and edge walkers with a kind of wonder and new kind of distance. Something I've been thinking is, "what an amazing time to be alive on earth." And I wonder how, as a community healer and lover of life, I can continue to have my life and my work be in service to the liberation of all beings.
My work is just a simple attempt at that, and during this season of darkness, I feel a really deep gratitude for it. I feel so lucky that my work is to sit in the presence of so many committed, brilliant, loving, creative humans for an hour and see their light just shine forth completely, to hold them with immense love and gentleness and witness their wounds and vulnerabilities, to see all the ways they are growing and changing so they can bring their gifts to the world. YOUR gifts to the world, that is. I feel humbled that I get to support all of you on your paths and thank you for allowing me to be to be a part of your lives in this way. T H A N K Y O U.
After two years of taking some much needed rest (totally under-rated and necessary for the revolution) I am also excited to say that I am looking forward to a new year of being alive, being engaged, and doing some teaching. I am crafting an exciting workshop series on Community Healing for the Great Turning, as well as a Queer Healing & Queer Magic workshop for 2012, so please stay in touch for that! I'll also be co-teaching an Earth Healing workshop in Vermont in June with Fearn Lickfield and Pam Montgomery. Right now I am also delighted to be collaborating with the wonderful Jacoby Ballard from Third Root clinic in Brooklyn on a piece on Trans Holistic Health! Much is brewing in the cauldron!
Finally, as it is the season of solstice and giving things, I'd like to offer these bits for gifting your loved ones. Perhaps someone you know and adore would enjoy:
the favorite eau de fierceness, BOUNDARIES in a BOTTLE spray for protection and purification!
the deliciously potent, WITCHES, BITCHES, & HOS elixir for guidance and healing for all of us weeyotches, beeyotches, and you know whats.
a gift certificate for a SESSION or custom blended ELIXIR!
a jar of CHARMED HONEY for fertility, hot sex, love, or abundance!
If you like, please visit the apothecary on my website!
And here are some other things made by people I love that you might like too!
Narrow Bridge candles, handmade with love and justice in Oakland by Jonah Daniel, with proceeds going to Stop the JNF campaign
Vanessa Huang's ridiculously amazing letterpressed poetry and community supported poetry project
Jen Lorang's bewitching We are Bleeding and 2012 calendars
Dean Spade's mind-blowing and important book, Normal Life, out from South End Press
And so, my most gorgeous beings, I wish you all a sweet season of darkness, that you all may deepen into what calls to you, that you find the shine in what seems impossibly bleak, that you are gentle with yourselves and the ones you love, that you sink roots into rich source and feel yourself full, and that you know enoughness, freedom, and so much love in the coming year.
With all my heart,
Dori
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Can I get what what? it's the waning moon.
I know, I know, it's totally not a full moon, and I had a real (kind of) dilemma about if I should just wait until the new moon to write this, but I am such an anti-perfectionist, that I thought I'd shake things up a bit and surprise! write on this waning moon in aries. It's sort of nice to honor this moon; it's like the full moon gets all the girls and the new moon gets all the jews, so here's to you, three quarter-ish moon, you get a blog post. A short blog post, because I have an 8:30 no -computer curfew. And I'm drinking a tea full of herbal sedatives. So here we go.
One, is this interview I did which is now out in the Canadian journal, No More Potlucks. Gina Badger, artist, writer, herbalist genius, found me somehow, came and drank tea with me, and we talked about magic, plants, colonialism, and social justice. Enjoy.
http://nomorepotlucks.org/article/magie-no17/out-time-interview-dori-midnight
Two, for those of you in the Northeast, I will be teaching a workshop this Sunday at Montview neighborhood farm called Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves. My workshop will be followed by an herbs for community resilience workshop with the brilliant Jade Alicandro- Mace.
In this experiential workshop, we'll explore our interconnectedness with each other and the earth, at a time in which our very survival, as a species and as a planet, seems to hang in the balance. If we are paying attention, our responses can range from numbness, grief, anger, or fear, which manifest differently in our daily lives (like environmental illness, cancer, ADHD, stress, addiction etc). How can we, as individuals and as communities, honor and move through these emotions and also connect to our gifts, vitality, creativity, and sense of connectedness to root ourselves in joy and be of service at this very time on the planet? We'll talk about land history- from genocide to toxic exposure- and learn rituals, remedies, and practices that support healing for ourselves, our communities, and the earth, herself.
They are trying to fundraise $100,000 to help the farmers recoup their losses and rebuild the farm.
You can make a tax deductible donation to:
So much has happened since I was here last. I actually did write on the new moon last month, which as you may remember was the day of the storm out here. It was all about community resilience and climate chaos. Sounds good, right? AND I was somewhat delirious because I was up all night long taking care of my sweet dog who has PTSD and paces and scratches and has to wear an anxiety outfit for dogs during storms, so what I wrote made very little sense and will remain a draft. forever. I will write about those things again, including thoughts on Rough Weather Networks and holistic disaster response.
Some things to share with you:
One, is this interview I did which is now out in the Canadian journal, No More Potlucks. Gina Badger, artist, writer, herbalist genius, found me somehow, came and drank tea with me, and we talked about magic, plants, colonialism, and social justice. Enjoy.
http://nomorepotlucks.org/article/magie-no17/out-time-interview-dori-midnight
Two, for those of you in the Northeast, I will be teaching a workshop this Sunday at Montview neighborhood farm called Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves. My workshop will be followed by an herbs for community resilience workshop with the brilliant Jade Alicandro- Mace.
In this experiential workshop, we'll explore our interconnectedness with each other and the earth, at a time in which our very survival, as a species and as a planet, seems to hang in the balance. If we are paying attention, our responses can range from numbness, grief, anger, or fear, which manifest differently in our daily lives (like environmental illness, cancer, ADHD, stress, addiction etc). How can we, as individuals and as communities, honor and move through these emotions and also connect to our gifts, vitality, creativity, and sense of connectedness to root ourselves in joy and be of service at this very time on the planet? We'll talk about land history- from genocide to toxic exposure- and learn rituals, remedies, and practices that support healing for ourselves, our communities, and the earth, herself.
$25-$60 sliding scale, no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. Please register in advance by emailing montview AT pedalpeople.COM or call 413-825-6795 x306
Three, I want to direct your attention to a couple of places dear to my heart that suffered great losses from the storm and could use your support.
Nuestras Raices is is a grass-roots organization that promotes economic, human and community development in Holyoke, Massachusetts through projects relating to food, agriculture, and the environment. They lost 95% of their produce, their farmer incubator site, and youth garden. They host 13 migrant and refugee farmers that cultivate specialty crops from the Caribbean and many of their plants used for seed saving were destroyed as well.
They are trying to fundraise $100,000 to help the farmers recoup their losses and rebuild the farm.
You can make a tax deductible donation to:
Nuestras Raices attn: Farm Relief
329 Main St
Holyoke MA 01040
Also, Partner Earth Education Center is a sweet sanctuary land where my dear friend and teacher Pam Montgomery lives and hosts workshops. The gardens were flooded with silt and boulders and there is much work to do to recover this beautiful land. You can learn more and make a donation
Four, check out the book, Urban Homesteading!
For one, it's got information on fermenting, rabbit raising, beekeeping, goat farming, cheesemaking, rain water catchment, and permaculture in the city. and more!
For two, it's by two stellar human beings, Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume, who I love.
For three, there are pictures of baby rabbits in it.
For four, I have a little bitty essay in it about community healing as homesteading! This book is an excellent resource, SO well written, and fabulous for both beginners to seasoned dirty city farmers, so please go to your local bookshop and buy it or ask them to order it, or ask your library to carry at least one copy of it.
with lots of love,
in solidarity and gratitude,
yours in the living earth,
K.I.T. and b.f.f., and love you,
Dori
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
are you there full moon eclipse? it's me, Dori
Hi everybody!
Today is the full moon in sagittarius with a total eclipse this afternoon, in case you were wondering why you feel so weird.
My plan is to lay in the sun until I'm hot, then jump into the gorge, then lay in the sun until I get really, really hot and repeat this cycle until I'm hungry and have to eat something delicious and sip on the young lilac mead Luke made last week. What??? I know. It honestly tastes like the nectar of the goddess. I know, cause I've sipped on that too.
I am also going to think on what intentions I made on the last full moon eclipse on winter solstice and see how it's going, like two full moon parentheses six months apart. Someone sent me an email that said something like, "do not try to resist this moon, it will only make it worse." Okay, Yoda, I'm just going to lay down and let that moon realign me like only a full moon eclipse can.
I'm pretty sure I need to be off the computer for that to happen, so I'm going to tell you about a few events and then turn this thing off and start being cosmically re-arranged and let the moon fill me up 'til my fingernails are silver slivers of light. (going to the witch spa, people, to get me a moon-i/pedi. hello, can we please open a witch spa?)
FIRST of all, for those of you in western mass, I am facilitating a workshop this weekend! Come!
HEALING THE EARTH, HEALING OURESELVES
Saturday, June 18th, 1-4 pm
Montview Neighborhood Farm
Northampton, MA
n this experiential workshop, we’ll explore our interconnectedness with each other and the earth, at a time in which our very survival, as a species and as a planet, seems to hang in the balance. Come and learn powerful skills, processes, and tools for healing the land and ourselves, that address issues such as histories of stolen land and toxic exposure. We will participate in exercises that help us to experience our responses to our present situation and empower us to move forward in healing and restoring our world. This workshop is $25-60 sliding scale.
Space is limited. Please register in advance by emailing montview AT pedalpeople.COM or calling 413-825-6795 x306. You can also pay and register via PayPal at www.montviewfarm.org
I will also be part of a BOOK CHAT (kind of like a talk show about books) with Michelle Tea at Food for Thought Books in Amherst on Tuesday, June 28th at 7pm. We were each asked to talk about a classic book that changed our life and something contemporary that we love. I'm going to talk about the post-apocalyptic, magically gay, bee priestess-y, mind-blowing novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, by Starhawk and Urban Homesteading, a new book by Rachel Kaplan and K Ruby Blume, which I have a little piece in about healing and homesteading. This book is so brilliant and awesome and I highly recommend checking it out! I will be bringing some herbal elixirs to try and Michelle is always a charming, hilarious host, so it should be a gay old time.
(by the end of this post, I expect at least a few of you to have moved to western mass for the swimming holes, fermented beverages, and events. see you soon?)
Sending so much love on this bright, potent day,
Dori
Saturday, March 19, 2011
FULL MOON: hearts breaking open
My heart, like so many of yours, is breaking for our world. While I feel full what sometimes feels like never-ending grief, I am also keenly aware of the beauty and resiliency in communities coming together, mobilizing actions, and taking care of one another. It's so vital that we stay grounded right now. Grounded in the reality of the crisis and grounded in the reality of what opportunities arise for healing and transformation during a time of such uncertainty. The day is just dawning here and I woke up before light to write what’s on my heart. I’ll tell you a true story and then offer some practices to help support us during these times. (I've also added some new recipes to the previous post)
As the radioactive fallout moves across the pacific, it falls into the beautiful sea, where life began from magical teeny tiny stuff. We’re watching our great mother be poisoned and nuclear is forever. My little human mind can hardly even comprehend the scale of time of nuclear toxicity, though my body knows it well. My own knowledge of how to care for the body and spirit in the face of radiation comes from a profoundly personal place. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 21 years old. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare and has a fairly high survival rate; it also is most common in people with radiation exposure, with spikes in children post- Chernobyl. The year after I was diagnosed, a class action suit was filed from very sick residents of the San Fernando Valley (it’s true, I’m a valley girl, for sure.) against Rocketdyne, a nuclear lab which has had leakages since the 50s. After two hellacious surgeries, I had what is the common treatment for thyroid cancer: Radioactive Iodine 131. I took this tiny pill, had a Geiger counter pointed at me, and was quarantined for a three days, because I myself was radioactive.
14 years later, I am still dealing with the toxic fallout from the treatment for cancer. I bow to cancer and I bow to the spirit of radiation, both big teachers for me in my path as a healer. I know that touching what felt like the bottom of the ocean of my own mortality at such a young age deepened my capacity for compassion and holding the suffering of all beings, grew my fiery passion for justice, and broke open my heart even further to connect with the earth herself, who like me, is a body capable of receiving both love and toxins. Someone recently sent me an email, which said, “Toxic is the new normal.” Yes, we’re exposed to junk all the time- EMF, heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides and even more so if you’re poor or a person of color or someone living in the global south.
It can be hard to not get mired or paralyzed in fear or freak out. It can feel like you are going crazy, living in this world, in which the dominant culture invalidates our experiences and instead offers empty options to numb ourselves with or buy our way out of fear. I just want to say, and maybe I am just talking to myself, that it is normal and so human to be scared, sad, uncertain, shut down, angry, and overwhelmed right now.
I invite you to ask yourself if your feelings of fear or grief can allow you to feel even more connected to everyone and everything, to the whole sparkling web of life? Can you extend your compassion as far as it can reach and also extend it to yourself, at this moment, living in this time of great anguish and uncertainty? And can you let it break your heart right open, so as you feel your pain for the world, you can sense that it is rooted in your love for the world and your love for life?
Last post I listed some nutritional and herbal remedies for these times and so now I want to offer some practices to help us keep on keeping on.
1. Get Present: easy to say, harder to do. A way to come into presence when it's hard is to slow down and take notice of what's inside and outside of you, without judgment or the need to fix or do anything. Be mindful of your consumption of media and how it makes you feel. Breathe.
2. Gratitude: When big waves of fear arise, or any emotions that feel overwhelming, inviting yourself to make a list of things you're thankful for can set your heart right again. This morning I am so grateful for my most precious magical dog curled up at my feet, a cup of nettles, contra dancing, running water, the sounds of the crows in the pine tree out my window. A good way to begin this practice is just to notice the things immediately around you and make yourself count 10-20 things. Place your hand on your heart and feel that pumping muscle and just how much you actually love this intense planet and all the beings here.
3. Gather: be with people. Make soup or a potluck with people and rather than get worked up in a collective freak out, create space to cry, laugh, or make rituals. Make plans for emergencies with your neighbors. Reach out to elders, marginally housed folks, people with disabilities in your buildings or neighborhoods to assess needs in case of emergency. Make a list of all the amazing skills all the people you know have, and then find new friends who have skills that might be missing. Find out about vigils, protests, rituals, or workshops in your area. (see below for some in the bay area and New England)
4. Grieve: I mentioned in the last post the importance of letting the rivers flow. I invite you to create a container with some people, perhaps around a bowl of water, and take turns going in the center of the circle to let tears, fears, or whatever comes come. Also, I love the buddhist practice of tonglen, which is to breathe in suffering and breathe out love, healing, or gratitude. Rather than turn away from the pain, we can experience our own capacities to transform suffering into love.
5. Give: make food for people. give yourself extra love and nourishment with baths or walks or a day off. if you have some extra, give money to doctors without borders or social justice organizations. Make offerings of your tears or songs or prayers to the earth, the sea, the creatures, the people. Give yourself respite from taking in news or images from time to time. Give your time to what's important.
6. Grow: allow your heart to get bigger from being stretched. Grow out of some old patterns. Maybe now's the time to stop eating sugar or stop using your microwave or spend less time on the computer or get involved more or rest more. Grow roots and tendrils, letting yourself grow towards others in solidarity.
7. Gentle: be kind and easy with your self. these are tough times and there's no need to go at anyone else's pace or be in anyone else's process. take a little time each day to tend to the tenderest part of you as if it's a baby. or a toddler. or a kitten. whatever works for you to bring out your kind, nurturing self.
7. keep Going. we're all in this together.
Happy full moon!
May this serious moonlight bathe the planet and all beings in healing, love, and balance and may our fears and grief connect us with everything, everyone and most of all with our love and reverence for life.
with much love,
Dori
Resources
EVENTS:
San Francisco: Elm Dance
Sunday 3/20 5-7pm Justin Hermann Plaza (canceled in the event of rain)
New England : Vigil at Vermont Yankee
Sunday, 3/20 1pm
HEALTH:
The Herbal Highway with Sarah Holmes
3/17 show all about herbal and nutritional support for radiation
see below- Joanna Macy's site has links to other health information. Take care not to get too overwhelmed in all the things you should be doing. Keep it simple and remember that we all need seaweed, miso, etc...let's share.
ACTIONS:
Information on stopping US Government subsidies and loan guarantees to nuclear industries, including bills that are before Congress now.
http://www.joannamacy.net/nuclearguardianship/fukushima-dai-ichi-2011.html
Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net
information on workshops in the Work that Reconnects
As the radioactive fallout moves across the pacific, it falls into the beautiful sea, where life began from magical teeny tiny stuff. We’re watching our great mother be poisoned and nuclear is forever. My little human mind can hardly even comprehend the scale of time of nuclear toxicity, though my body knows it well. My own knowledge of how to care for the body and spirit in the face of radiation comes from a profoundly personal place. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 21 years old. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare and has a fairly high survival rate; it also is most common in people with radiation exposure, with spikes in children post- Chernobyl. The year after I was diagnosed, a class action suit was filed from very sick residents of the San Fernando Valley (it’s true, I’m a valley girl, for sure.) against Rocketdyne, a nuclear lab which has had leakages since the 50s. After two hellacious surgeries, I had what is the common treatment for thyroid cancer: Radioactive Iodine 131. I took this tiny pill, had a Geiger counter pointed at me, and was quarantined for a three days, because I myself was radioactive.
14 years later, I am still dealing with the toxic fallout from the treatment for cancer. I bow to cancer and I bow to the spirit of radiation, both big teachers for me in my path as a healer. I know that touching what felt like the bottom of the ocean of my own mortality at such a young age deepened my capacity for compassion and holding the suffering of all beings, grew my fiery passion for justice, and broke open my heart even further to connect with the earth herself, who like me, is a body capable of receiving both love and toxins. Someone recently sent me an email, which said, “Toxic is the new normal.” Yes, we’re exposed to junk all the time- EMF, heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides and even more so if you’re poor or a person of color or someone living in the global south.
It can be hard to not get mired or paralyzed in fear or freak out. It can feel like you are going crazy, living in this world, in which the dominant culture invalidates our experiences and instead offers empty options to numb ourselves with or buy our way out of fear. I just want to say, and maybe I am just talking to myself, that it is normal and so human to be scared, sad, uncertain, shut down, angry, and overwhelmed right now.
I invite you to ask yourself if your feelings of fear or grief can allow you to feel even more connected to everyone and everything, to the whole sparkling web of life? Can you extend your compassion as far as it can reach and also extend it to yourself, at this moment, living in this time of great anguish and uncertainty? And can you let it break your heart right open, so as you feel your pain for the world, you can sense that it is rooted in your love for the world and your love for life?
Last post I listed some nutritional and herbal remedies for these times and so now I want to offer some practices to help us keep on keeping on.
1. Get Present: easy to say, harder to do. A way to come into presence when it's hard is to slow down and take notice of what's inside and outside of you, without judgment or the need to fix or do anything. Be mindful of your consumption of media and how it makes you feel. Breathe.
2. Gratitude: When big waves of fear arise, or any emotions that feel overwhelming, inviting yourself to make a list of things you're thankful for can set your heart right again. This morning I am so grateful for my most precious magical dog curled up at my feet, a cup of nettles, contra dancing, running water, the sounds of the crows in the pine tree out my window. A good way to begin this practice is just to notice the things immediately around you and make yourself count 10-20 things. Place your hand on your heart and feel that pumping muscle and just how much you actually love this intense planet and all the beings here.
3. Gather: be with people. Make soup or a potluck with people and rather than get worked up in a collective freak out, create space to cry, laugh, or make rituals. Make plans for emergencies with your neighbors. Reach out to elders, marginally housed folks, people with disabilities in your buildings or neighborhoods to assess needs in case of emergency. Make a list of all the amazing skills all the people you know have, and then find new friends who have skills that might be missing. Find out about vigils, protests, rituals, or workshops in your area. (see below for some in the bay area and New England)
4. Grieve: I mentioned in the last post the importance of letting the rivers flow. I invite you to create a container with some people, perhaps around a bowl of water, and take turns going in the center of the circle to let tears, fears, or whatever comes come. Also, I love the buddhist practice of tonglen, which is to breathe in suffering and breathe out love, healing, or gratitude. Rather than turn away from the pain, we can experience our own capacities to transform suffering into love.
5. Give: make food for people. give yourself extra love and nourishment with baths or walks or a day off. if you have some extra, give money to doctors without borders or social justice organizations. Make offerings of your tears or songs or prayers to the earth, the sea, the creatures, the people. Give yourself respite from taking in news or images from time to time. Give your time to what's important.
6. Grow: allow your heart to get bigger from being stretched. Grow out of some old patterns. Maybe now's the time to stop eating sugar or stop using your microwave or spend less time on the computer or get involved more or rest more. Grow roots and tendrils, letting yourself grow towards others in solidarity.
7. Gentle: be kind and easy with your self. these are tough times and there's no need to go at anyone else's pace or be in anyone else's process. take a little time each day to tend to the tenderest part of you as if it's a baby. or a toddler. or a kitten. whatever works for you to bring out your kind, nurturing self.
7. keep Going. we're all in this together.
Happy full moon!
May this serious moonlight bathe the planet and all beings in healing, love, and balance and may our fears and grief connect us with everything, everyone and most of all with our love and reverence for life.
with much love,
Dori
Resources
EVENTS:
San Francisco: Elm Dance
Sunday 3/20 5-7pm Justin Hermann Plaza (canceled in the event of rain)
New England : Vigil at Vermont Yankee
Sunday, 3/20 1pm
HEALTH:
The Herbal Highway with Sarah Holmes
3/17 show all about herbal and nutritional support for radiation
see below- Joanna Macy's site has links to other health information. Take care not to get too overwhelmed in all the things you should be doing. Keep it simple and remember that we all need seaweed, miso, etc...let's share.
ACTIONS:
Information on stopping US Government subsidies and loan guarantees to nuclear industries, including bills that are before Congress now.
http://www.joannamacy.net/nuclearguardianship/fukushima-dai-ichi-2011.html
Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net
information on workshops in the Work that Reconnects
Monday, March 14, 2011
Recipes for the Great Turning
It's not the full moon, but I wanted to write to tell you all some things. As the day begins to dawn here in the still snowy woods, I wake up with both a heavy heart and the feeling of the sap rising. I don't know quite how to comprehend the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan and the nuclear fallout (on top of the sad, but sadly unsurprising turn of events in Wisconsin. )
It's so easy to shut down with all that's afoot, but we gotta keep going. I'm writing this morning with some recipes, as I hear the radiation is traveling across the Pacific and we've got plant allies who can help support us in these times.
To bring us courage and nourishment, as well as support our bodies in times of nuclear exposure, we can turn to our plant friends, our human friends, the kitchen, and our own inner resources. The ingredients and recipes below contain powerful medicine to help our immune systems cope with the toxins we ingest and breathe daily, and specifically with radiation. They are simple, relatively affordable, and effective ways we can feed ourselves and our loved ones in belly, heart, and spirit.
YOUR FRIENDS in TIMES OF NEED:
1. SEAWEED*: eat nori, put wakame, kombu, and hijiki in your soups and stews, make crunchy kelp brittle with it. The iodine in kelp helps protect your thyroid and other glands from radioactive uptake and in general is one of the most magical, medicinal foods on earth, grown by the O.F. (that's the Original Farmer also known as the Sea!) (see where to get seaweed at bottom of post)
2. MISO: good medicine full of live cultures, amino acids, minerals, and protein. I'd recommend making a big pot this week, having a bowl everyday and feeding it to all your friends, neighbors, and weirded-out co-workers (like one time when I brought my lunch to work and someone said it looked like a terrarium). recipe follows below.
3. MUSHROOMS: strengthen your immune system with some shitake mushrooms, sauteed or in soups. Mushrooms are the genius healers of the forest- they know how to bring everything (on earth and in the tiny microcosm of your body) back into balance.
4. Eat vegetables, especially DAIKON radishes and BURDOCK root- stick them in your soup too or make a shredded salad (recipe below). Daikon has been used for drawing out radiation, post nuclear fall out- it's cooling and detoxifying. These will make your liver fall madly in love with you.
5. WATER: DRINK it. lots of it. take BATHS in epsom salt and baking soda (1 lb of salt, with a bit of baking soda 2x week). Cry. (see #8)
7. FERMENT (thank you Shoshi!): buy or make homemade sauerkrauts & kim chi or trade with someone who does. This weekend some friends and I had a fermenting party and made buckets of crunchy apple, juniper berry and cabbage kraut, pickled ginger beets, and spicy kim chi. it's fun to massage vegetables in community. These lively foods have the probiotics your gut needs and wants and are deeply nourishing and restorative. my favorite (and very roughly used) cookbook on this subject: Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz
8. LOVE: send prayers, love, healing thoughts for those who need it most. Instead of freaking out or shutting down, let your anger, fear, and grief flow- it's what makes us human and feel connected to what's going on in the world right now. Crying is a potent way to detox, friends.
9. HERBS: if you want to get herbal, some great allies are nettle tea, cilantro (eat a lot of it or take a tincture- it helps draw heavy metals out ), and milk thistle (helps your liver process toxins). Also Yarrow Environmental Essence from FES is a beautiful formula to support the body in environmental disasters.
Magical Medicinal Miso* Soup
Saute one onion, sliced thin til translucent. Add water, seaweed of choice (I like Kombu and Wakame), shitake mushrooms (dried or fresh), burdock root, carrots, and any other hearty roots you like. Simmer for 25 minutes.
I like to add shredded or sliced ginger near the end, so it's strong, and some garlic. You can also add greens, like kale or spinach.
Because you don't want to boil your miso, I usually put a large dollop of miso paste in my bowl and then pour the broth on top to dissolve it.
Drink bowls and offer bowls to all your loved ones and neighbors, kiddos and pets, family and friends.
*I live about 20 minutes from the best miso factory ever, South River Miso, which is made in barrels with lots of love and magic.
Get your Daikon
Easy Shredded Salad
Shred 1 carrot and 1 daikon radish
Mix with sesame oil and a little umeboshi vinegar (also a great medicine!), sesame seeds, whatever fresh herbs you've got on hand (I love mint or cilantro), and a little tamari. Eat and feel alive and well thanks to the plants, the sun, the water and the farmers.
Sesame Kelp Brittle
Another seaweed recipe courtesy of the folks at She Sells Seaweed, given to me by my friend Angie.
http://www.shesellsseaweed.com/
~1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
~1/4 Cup Olive Oil
~Dash of shoyu soy sauce
~1 cup sesame seeds
~1/2 Cup crushed Almonds
~1/4-3/4 cup or to your liking of finely crushed kelp (set oven on low heat and bake kelp for 10 min or until crisp and grind in food processor)
~2-3 tsp of fresh finely chopped ginger root
Heat syrup, oil and soy sauce in small sauce pan. When mixture begins to foam up add seeds, nuts, kelp, and ginger, and stir thoroughly.
Line a large cookie sheet w/parchment.
Spread mixture onto parchment and then cover with another piece of parchment and roll out flat w/rolling pin (or glass or jar!). Remove top parchment.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes-- and then for the last few minutes check every minute until golden. Remove from oven and rip away parchment after 5-10 minutes. Break into pieces and enjoy!!
Finally, in times like this, we tend to wildly swing from a state of overwhelm to shutting down, as we try to make sense of something incomprehensible. While the larger consumer culture encourages us to carry on, business as usual, and sometimes that can feel so necessary when the grief and suffering is so immense, it seems to me that that allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable is good medicine. I'm again so grateful for the work I've done with Joanna Macy, who outlines these principles in the Work that Reconnects:
- This world, in which we are born and take our being, is alive.
It is not our supply house and sewer; it is our larger body. The intelligence that evolved us from star dust and interconnects us with all beings is sufficient for the healing of our Earth community, if we but align with that purpose.
- Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self defined by habit and society.
We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind. Having evolved us into self-reflexive consciousness, the world can now know itself through us, behold its own majesty, tell its own stories--and also respond to its own suffering.
- Our experience of pain for the world springs from our inter-connectedness with all beings, from which also arises our powers to act on their behalf.
When we deny or repress our pain for the world, or treat it as a private pathology, our power to take part in the healing of our world is diminished. This apatheia need not become a terminal condition. Our capacity to respond to our own and others' suffering--that is, the feedback loops that weave us into life--can be unblocked.
- Unblocking occurs when our pain for the world is not only intellectually validated, but experienced.
Cognitive information about the crises we face, or even about our psychological responses to them, is insufficient. We can only free ourselves from our fears of the pain--including the fear of getting permanently mired in despair or shattered by grief--when we allow ourselves to experience these feelings. Only then can we discover their fluid, dynamic character. Only then can they reveal on a visceral level our mutual belonging to the web of life.
- When we reconnect with life, by willingly enduring our pain for it, the mind retrieves its natural clarity.
Not only do we experience our interconnectedness in the community of Earth, but also mental eagerness arises to match this experience with new paradigm thinking. Concepts which bring relatedness into focus become vivid. Significant learnings occur, for the individual system is reorganizing and reorienting, grounding itself in wider reaches of identity and self-interest.
- The experience of reconnection with the Earth community arouses desire to act on its behalf.
As Earth's self-healing powers take hold within us, we feel called to participate in the Great Turning. For these self-healing powers to operate effectively, they must be trusted and acted on. The steps we take can be modest undertakings, but they should involve some risk to our mental comfort, lest we remain caught in old, "safe" limits. Courage is a great teacher and bringer of joy.
What are your favorite recipes for resiliency and courage?
Take care everyone.
Love,
Dori
SEAWEED:
East Coast:
http://www.shesellsseaweed.com/
www.Ironboundisland.com
West Coast:
Rainbow Grocery
http://www.seaweed.net/
http://www.loveseaweed.com/
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