Back to the Future

Last fall, when my parents were moving, I went out to L.A. and retrieved boxes of letters, old clothes, and a ton of weird junk I was still keeping in the closet there, including my "nature collection" which is what I called the one million tons of rocks, old branches, dried mosses and lichen and things rotten beyond the point of recognition. I also found a giant folder of my childhood and teenage writing, mostly written by hand or on my dad's electric typewriter- remember when we didn't have computers?

Among these pages of poems about dripping candles and mortality, treatises of feminist rage, and a story about what basically seems like a magical lesbian island where everyone wears roller skates, I found a draft of a "fake journal entry" I had submitted to a contest in 1990, when I was 14 years old. The assignment was to imagine you had found a page of your diary or a letter written from 2015, which by the way, is next year even though it still sounds like futuristic space alien time to me.

I did not win this contest, perhaps because, as you will soon see, my vision of the future is terribly bleak and it probably freaked the editors out so much and maybe is one of the reasons I was referred to talk to the school therapist who actually turned out to be an awesome lady named Leni Wildflower who let me beat up her couch with a tennis racket. Anyway, my entry was pretty intense and so wild to read 24 years later. I'm so curious about how other 13 year olds envisioned the future then! I certainly did not have high hopes and also, whoa, was I onto something about the future water and oil crisis! How scared I must have been at this time to write something so desolate. It makes me think about kids coming up in this time, when climate change is even more of a reality, and how I can support them. On this full moon, I'm holding the uncertain predicament of our planet and thinking about how vulnerable it is to be alive.
Here it is in all it's glory...an imagined diary entry from the future written by me at the tender age of 13 or 14.

With love,
Dori

April 8, 2015

Dear Diary, 

I can't believe I have been keeping a journal since the 7th grade! So much has changed. I used to actually write in my journals with a pen on paper, and now I speak into a microphone I wear around my head and it prints out on a screen. A carpool driver used to take me to school, but now we travel through air-tight tunnels. Oh, that's right, we used to be able to breathe the air then. Now we just look at it outside the bubble of our Vitoppidum- that is latin for LifeTown. Each Vit- that's what we call them- is a little see-through bubble with tubes connecting the other Vits. We live in a smaller one, near where Malibu used to be. Malibu was a beach when I grew up, but they closed it because the pollution was so bad. The only water my children know is the one bottle we get each week. That's all we get for drinking and cooking. Instead of taking showers, we clean ourselves with a method kind of like dry cleaning with a powder made from ground up seashells and we brush our teeth with that too. 

I haven't seen a plant, well a real one, since I was 17, in 1994, when I graduated from high school. That was our cut off date. See, the Vits were built not only because the smog and pollution was so bad, but because there were hardly any trees left to create oxygen. All of the trees were burnt down in wars. Now, there aren't wars like before because there aren't planes or things to make bombs with. 

There's a "park" about 10 minutes walk away from here. I take the kids there once a week, but it's not the same. There are no more birds- all the animals have been killed off, except for dogs and cats, who survived because at first they were being used for experiments for testing air quality and cosmetics, so there are all the descendants of the survivors. We have one dog and two cats and I love them so much. 

The government is made of regular people who get together in a circle and ask the needs of everyone. No one is homeless. There isn't a very great difference in class between people because there's not much to own. There aren't any prisons. There are no wars. Finally they realized there was nothing to fight over, and the state of the environment was so dire that they couldn't waste their time on wars. But by then, it was too late, so we had to start working on making new ways of living. 

My dream of becoming a marine biologist couldn't come true because the animals in the oceans are all dead. I became a doctor, but I use my mind and hands to help people rather than drugs. We found new ways to cure AIDS and cancer, and because people are living better in some ways, people are healthier. People still get colds though! 

Kids still go to school, but they learn real things, like how to make bowls, start fires, and tell stories. In my daughter's history class, they are learning about the Desert Storm War in 1990. That was when we began converting to electric cars and trolleys because there wasn't very much gasoline left. That cut down on the pollution a little. Our waste goes through a hole in the Vit, but I don't know what happens to it after that. Maybe the same thing they used to do- just put it in the ground and bury it or throw it in the ocean. 

Even though things are different, I try to stay positive. I'm glad to be alive and try to enjoy little things, my work, helping heal people, and making a difference in the world. 

Well, I need to charge my journal, so I'll sign off for now. 

Love,
Dori

full moon 

snow day

full flower moon

Dear ones,

As we approach this full moon and her eclipse, it seems to me more and more people are asking for more trust and deeper support in facing the unknown. The mystery makes us all want to hold a little tighter to something and yet what it wants the most is for us to completely let go. I notice that sometimes when I tell myself to let go, I still hold a secret hope that if I let go, I'll get the thing I want. Ha! Who am I fooling? I know that's just a silly dance performance. The song I keep finding myself whispering is "I don't know." Somehow it feels like a prayer: Please something, please universe, goddess, great mystery, please give me grace in the not knowing, please let me be wise like my grandma self and not do harm by trying to know things. In a world in which power is spellcrafted by people pretending to know things, not knowing feels like a sacred and powerful breaking of the spell. 

A FULL FLOWER MOON. and an eclipse to boot! what kind of magic can we make under that? Seems to me like that fullness and flowering time is the moment that is most clutchy- don't we want things to stay in that fat, blossoming, delicious place forever? Looking at the little pink petals all over the ground and the swollen, tight buds of the peony being gnawed at by the midwiving ants, I can't help but feel the letting go that lives in the blossoming. Someone recently told me about how every time something is hard and doesn't go her way, she says to herself, "it's practice for the Great Letting Go." And the full moon, herself, is a flower in full bloom about to experience loss. Every month she grows in shininess until she is full and then lets go of that light. Does the moon trust that the light will return? Has millions of years of these 28 day cycles taught her something? 

Life has probably always been uncertain for most beings for most times, but we're in a time of such immense environmental catastrophe, economic inequality, and despair for so many beings it's hard to keep trusting that our work will bring transformation and healing. How to do we keep on keeping on not knowing what might unfold?  I think about Assata, her freedom work, her life and here we are in 2013 with a new call out from the FBI for her capture. I think about all of us working towards freedom and more prisons being built. I think about the fight for marriage equality while queer homeless youth struggle daily, trying to get basic needs met. When these things pile up and we move into so much overwhelm, despair, and anger, what else can we do but cry, "I don't know."

 I don't know, but I sense that the breath of "I don't know" can be full of possibility. Maybe that exhale and drop of the petals lets the fruit take shape, and maybe we just keep moving, writing, making, dancing, talking, loving, crying, singing, breathing, living even in the ocean of uncertainty.

Here are some things I know:

We're making Queer Magic. I'm excited to be doing two workshops at the Trans* Health Conference, June 13- 15 in Philadelphia. On Friday June 14th at 4:05- 5:35 Jacoby Ballard and I will be teaching a TRANSNATURAL: holistic support for trans* folks and on Saturday, June 15th at 8:45- 10:05 I'll be teaching BETWEEN THE WORLDS: queer and trans* magic! For more info: http://www.trans-health.org/

We will gather at The Witch Barn. I will be moving at the end of June to a tiny fairy cottage in Amherst, only 6 blocks from Emily Dickinson's homestead. I will be settling in and nesting from June 25- July 13th and back in the office Monday July 15th! Behind the tiny fairy cottage is big sunny barn which will be my office and also have classroom space. Beginning in August, I will start offering workshops, rituals, and retreats. more to come...but for now, the working name of the space is The Witch Barn. What do you think?

Beauty is everywhere. Since I am focusing more on my healing practice and teaching, I am thrilled to be hawking my wares at some special shops, run by people I love. If you want to get some Witches, Bitches and Hos or some charmed honey, please visit, in your body or astrally: Otherwild in Los Angeles (the town that raised me) or Homestead Apothecary in Oakland (the town that feels like home).

Welcome to the future, Dori Midnight. I am now scheduling online! http://dorimidnight.fullslate.com/ makes it easy. Also, I have joined facebook. You can find me here:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dori-Midnight-Healing-Arts/287842551276895?fref=ts

We cast a spell for Assata Artist, poet, and incredible being, Vanessa Huang has channeled a gorgeous linocut poem for Assata, who was added to the FBI's most wanted terrorists lists on May 2nd. Show some love and support for Assata and Vanessa by visiting her indiegogo page and donating or getting yourself a copy of this magical text. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/burn-us-shadow-home-a-new-linocut-poem-for-assata/x/124277

My wish for you is that this full moon fills you up with so much brightness that every cell in your body remembers it's light, like millions of tiny moons inside of you.

with love,
Dori

SPRING!

NEWS!
Spring! Sap! Crocuses! 
Upcoming Exciting Things!

Listen to the radio: Dori Midnight and Jacoby Ballard on The Herbal Highway with Karyn Sanders talking about herbal support for trans* health on Thursday April 4th 1pm PST on KPFA 94.1 or listen to the archives the next day at www.kpfa.org

Welcome to the 21st century, Dori Midnight. I am on facebook: Dori Midnight Healing Arts
AND I am now scheduling online: http://dorimidnight.fullslate.com/ so if you want to book a session, go there and pick a time!

Spring and Summer workshops! details to come.
May 11: Third Root, Brooklyn
June 13- 15: Trans Health Conference, Philadelphia
July 21: Farmacy Herbs, Providence
August: classes in Northampton!

More healing, more of the time

I am thinking a lot about B. Loewe’s article “An End to Self- Care” right now. I'm trying to figure out if he's saying what I think he's saying, what I hope he's trying to say, or what I'm afraid he's saying.  No matter what it is, I am having some feelings and reactions, like many others.  I, too, am yearning for more community healing and transforming our relationship to healing, specifically the way capitalism has taken healing out of our hands and made it expensive and something we see as a “luxury” and something kind of precious, but without muscle. Sometimes the prescription of self- care can be problematic: the inherent classism in some of the ethics of self-care, the illusion that our struggles and our healing are individual and separate from each other, the shitty cycle we can get into judging each other and ourselves for not meditating or eating well or resting. But these kind of declarations to end self - care and that there is no time for self -care hurts all of us, especially disabled people and chronically ill folks.

I’m a community- based healer who sees people individually for healing work, as well as teaching and offering healing in community contexts. My work is rooted in collective liberation and self-determinism. It’s nothing new to invite people into your home, give them some tea, listen to their grief, hold space for their pain, lay them down on cushions on the floor and pray with them or touch them or move energy, and offer them remedies made from plants and stones. This is ancient. This is deep healing. And this is radical. Our healing traditions are so massively co-opted, then mangled in the maw of capitalism, we think we’re being radical by eschewing taking care of ourselves? People need self- determined, bone-deep, individual care and support in a community healing framework because we are still healing from isolation from each other, we are still healing from racism and poverty and oppression and trauma and we need healers who get that to offer us their time and skills to help us heal on an individual and collective level.

One of my teachers, Karyn Sanders, an herbalist and healer of Choctaw descent, was trained by a traditional curandera in L.A. This woman would just take on whoever came to her door and doctor them and Karyn does the same. She doesn’t have office hours, she doesn’t have “rates”; she does the work that needs to be done and the people make an offering. I have a feeling that if you asked most older traditional healers, they would certainly see their work with individuals as tending to the whole, because we are taught that people’s individual pain, as well as our well-being, are also part of the whole. I would say that most of the people I see for things like depression, addiction, chronic pain, chemical sensitivities, digestive complaints, heartache, fatigue, grief, anxiety (just to name a few) are connected because most of their suffering is rooted in generational and collective trauma and oppression. Their pain is not going to be relieved by committing more to the struggle. Usually their healing is a long and non-linear path, supported by some awesome healing practitioners, leaning into their connections to their communities, creating rituals and new habits around food, movement, and rest, and having their pain acknowledged and held with compassion and tenderness. And when we heal, we have to remember we are not just healing for us, we are healing through time, healing patterns woven through us, healing our ancestors and our lineage. (*see interview with me in No More Potlucks for more on this idea.)

What we need to end- and by end, I mean transform- is the privatization of healing, the illusion that our struggles are also private and separate, the marginalization of disabled and chronically ill people and people who struggle with mental illness, disassociation from our bodies, and the pervasive disconnection from all of our indigenous healing traditions and ancestral wisdom (and we all come from people who have healing traditions). Also, I might add, we also need to transform the way we talk about self- care as another obligation, something on our infinite and overwhelming to do lists as organizers and activists, another thing we can feel guilty for not doing enough of. I agree with B. Loewe that we need to transform the way we see our work too; our activism is healing work, and vice versa, and it is vitally important that we source it from somewhere deep- our spiritual practices, our connections with each other, our heart’s desires for justice and liberation for all beings, and the visions our ancestors have rolled out before us. YES. When we are connected to our purpose, we have something deep to draw upon and we won’t burn out, rather than trying to manufacture empty energy from our very depleted kidneys, or caffeine, or other stimulants. And YES to the end of guilt and shame about not taking care of ourselves or doing it right all of the time.  Most of us have grown up inside the medical industrial complex in which we are taught to be disassociated from our bodies, to pathologize and diagnose, and to suppress our symptoms. Creating more shoulds and judging folks for not seeking help, or for not taking care of their chronic cold, chronic fatigue, or chronic pain in the ways we think they should is not the path of healing, and throwing out a call to end self-care doesn’t seem like a wise remedy either.

If we’re wanting to encourage more collective care, we also need to help support people in taking care of themselves; if we judge and minimize the importance of self- care (bodywork, resting, and yes, even knitting), how are people going to feel safe asking for help? Collective care looks like a lot of things: healers having sliding scales or seeing people for free sometimes, creating a meal plan for a friend dealing with chronic illness, babysitting kids while their parents nap, so they can be well rested for their work in the world, and their work raising kids… but collective care doesn’t have to be instead of self-care.

There are so many people I work with who are just beginning to integrate self-care practices, practices that nourish them individually, and connect them to the whole. People who are reclaiming rituals and practices lost in the last generation or two, for whom self- care is radical and essential: young queer activists of color remembering their grandma’s recipes and cooking them up for friends, laying altars for our beloved dead, laying our bodies on the earth, taking a break from sugar (self-care and disinvestment from a fucked up industry), going to the community acupuncture clinic once a week, finding a special stone to hold in a pocket for grounding, putting ourselves to bed a little earlier. I would hate to see us abandon these beautiful practices. I’m reminded of something my friend Dean Spade said, “We need to be gentle with ourselves and each other and fierce as we fight oppression.” 

In my dream, our bodies are part of our collective body and our collective body is not just us, but our whole planet, our earth body. My body is made of stars and dirt and the blood of my ancestors and the breaths of all the people who have been here before me and the green exhale of the trees. How can I possibly think my pain and my joy is mine alone? So I imagine, I envision, and I invoke that we need more care, more of the time and that self- care is just one part of our collective movement towards healing.  We can gently and fiercely take care of the little baby bodies, the disabled bodies, the aging and dying bodies, the green bodies, the blue bodies of water, the four legged bodies, each other’s bodies and the one body you were born into, this time around.

Many thanks to Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha for her response to B. Loewe’s article and for her fierceness and gentleness.

stretching out into the longest day

daylily summer solstice essence

 dandy lion gathering

summer blessings, people!

Love,

Dori

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.

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 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.

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

at http://www.partnereartheducationcenter.com/

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,

Dori

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

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)

6. IMMUNE support: do the things you know boost your immune system- sleep well, eat garlic and Vitamin C rich foods, and go easy on the sugar, please.

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:

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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.
   
   
5. 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.
   
   
6. 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.

May all beings everywhere find nourishment, healing, well-being and resiliency and may we find new, sustainable ways to be here on earth.

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/

Winter Magic

Winter Magic
Open House
Sunday, December 12, 2010
1-5pm
Northampton, MA

join Dori Midnight and Brittany Wood Nickerson for a winter open house

Warm yourself by the fire, gather together in community, sip magical teas and snack on delicious treats, and a chance to see what we've been brewing in out herbal apothecaries: elixirs, cordials, Charmed Honey, salves and creams, teas and tinctures, and more...

XO

for more info, please contact dori@dorilandia.com

taking heart in uncertain times

Hello everyone!
there is still some space in this workshop I am co-facilitating on Saturday. It's a great opportunity to be in community - especially if you find yourself carrying around a lot of grief, despair, anger, fear, and overwhelm about the state of things here on earth. It is based on Joanna Macy's The Work that Reconnects.

I am really excited about it and just wanted to pass the info along as a reminder... also if you know of anyone who might be interested, please share with your people!

Thank you!
much love,
Dori


TAKING HEART IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
An experiential healing and empowerment
gathering for those who care passionately
about our Earth and future generations.

Saturday, October 2nd
9:30am – 5:30pm

Through this healing gathering, together we will explore our deeply
felt responses to living at this moment in history, experience the
power of our intimate connection with the vast web of life, and learn
to support one another in creating life-sustaining cultures.

led by Paula Hendrick, Dori Midnight, and Luke Woodward
Paula Hendrick is a member of the Interhelp Council (www.interhelpnetwork.org) and a long-time student
and facilitator of Joanna Macy’s “The Work That Reconnects” - which is the foundation of this workshop.
Dori Midnight is a community educator, interfaith minister, and herbalist. She teaches workshops, leads rituals, and has a private counseling practice in Northampton, Ma and San Francisco.
Luke Woodward is a community organizer who works at the intersection of economic and racial justice issues in queer and transgender communities. He is currently studying at the Smith School for Social Work.


$40 – Pre-registration required - no one turned away for lack of funds
All are welcome!
The Sacred Living Center
140 Pine Street, Suite 11, Florence, MA
www.SacredLivingCenter.com
888-828-2620

FULL MOON: magical arts!

a little movie the wonderful Loren R. Robertson made about the classes I teach...

Magical Arts with Dori Midnight from Dori Midnight on Vimeo.

Lady's Mantle

August New Moon
drinking the dew from the mantle of the lady
Alchemilla vulgaris

love lies bleeding

JULY new moon: Love Lies Bleeding in the garden

Magical Arts: stone stories

"Fennel is for Farting!"

Amaranta and Malcolm, two graduates of Magical Arts, teach the younger students about the magic of Fennel- a beautiful and very useful plant that grows all over wild near parking lots and abandoned hillsides by the school. A tea of fennel will really help when you are a wee bit gassy.

After our herb walk, I did a class on Crystal Magic. I brought in all my most magical stones and introduced the kinder- 4th graders to Lapis, Amethyst, Malachite, Rose Quartz, and more. I led the class on a guided journey inside the stone to meet the spirit and ask for it's story or any healing it wanted to share. Here are some of the tales:

Diego, 10 yrs old, with Labradorite: "His real name is Luma. He is of the stars. He fills you with starlights and gives you magic."

Ruby, 7 yrs old, with Rose Quartz: "She told me a story how one day there was a clear crystal and it fell in love with a rose. They loved each other and wanted to be with each other forever and so they became this stone. It is for love. It is for your heart."

Lorelei, 7 yrs old, with Obsidian: "This stone took me on a ride through a volcano, into the earth to show me where he or she or whatever where they came from. I saw all the way into the past and under everything. Then it rolled me back into my heart."

Lucy, 9 yrs old, with Smoky Quartz: "This stone protects you. It helps you when you feel afraid and afraid to be alone. It is a friend and helps you help the earth heal."

They are geniuses, it's true. I love love love them sooooooo much.

solstice feast 2009

Check out more photos from the event here

Winter Solstice Two Thousand Nine

A Night of Ritual + Magic + Nourishment

Celebrating the Night and the Light

With Dori Midnight & a 4 Course Winter Feast by Yasmin Golan, chef

Kitchen Witchery + Feast + Magic

Sunday December 20 2009

In the Mission

The Four-Course Menu will shepherd us through the Longest Night of the Year, Between the Bones and Leaves of the Old Year, Over the Marrow of Love, Beneath the Cold Heat of the Northern Lights, Into a Galaxy of Stars; From an Abyss, into the Winter Sunshine. And Beyond.

 

kitchen witch, charming honey

I have been charming so much honey, y'all! It's true that the Hot Sex Charmed Honey is selling out- the ladies at Gravel & Gold  cannot keep it on the shelves and then get the juicy dirty tales from customers... yow.

Of course, there is always Fertility Honey, Love Spell Honey, and Abundance Honey. I am working on a Home Sweet Home honey right now too, which will be ready in the late winter.

AND I have been spell-crafting some personalized charmed honey for some people this season including a Finish That Dissertation, Honey and a honey made to bring an awesome boyfriend with cute fashion who is also a good listener into someone's life. 

I love my job!

pagu hard at work, being a familiar