friends with pesto
Crises are so present; maybe you are in the middle of one. I don’t know what to do, but I do a centering practice most days, and there’s a “centering in width” part about feeling with my body for the connections I have to others, so… know that I am often reaching for you <3
I harvested my first potatoes the day before we started our big road trip. Digging those up was the culmination of so much inner and outer work, and I brought some north with us to share. The trip was very sweet, and also much more challenging than I’d expected. I still make plans like I’m 26 and just finishing the peace corps, and I didn’t account for the energy it would take to be so far from home with a small, vulnerable person my whole being is organized to keep safe. And then my daughter and I got sick (not covid, just sucky)!
In the thick of all that, I woke up from an afternoon nap to find that a dear friend had done what I couldn’t: washed all the NC soil off these Yukon Golds, cooked them, and mixed them with pesto into a warm salad. So that’s a delicious bite of potato; it’s also a lichen. The whole trip was like that and I still get tearful thinking about all the care we needed, and got.
Offering announcement: I paused study+practice groups for summer, but I miss you and it’s going to get dark so let’s do it again. I am rejiggering things to honor longings for fiction and to create possibility for different paces. So: here’s a six-month, six-book plan + sign-up form; you could read one book or two or six, you could start now for January’s book, etc. First up, in October, Mariame Kaba’s We Do This Til We Free Us.
Some recent encounters:
Article about white teachers, anti-racist praxis, and identity development: basically, this describes why I am in social work school. I am also learning with The Embodiment Institute in a course taught by Prentis Hemphill. I continue to work their Finding Our Way podcast into every conversation.
Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground. Just 1000%, this art is worth your time. HBO or youtube.
Also, Reservation Dogs!! Ugh it’s so good. Hulu.
The instagram page of the National Day Labor Organizing Network is always telling me something I need to know
An upcoming event: Healing Justice Pedagogies: Ed Liberation network + Critical Resistance. Y’all this is gonna be something else. Sept 14, 7 PM ET. Tell me if you’re coming!
A place to put your money: getting this Black farmer land. Tamarya Sims lives where I live and makes this place better in so many ways. I give to this when I can. You could too! Or, what’s afoot where you live?? Here’s something rad in MD and in the general NE that people I love are supporting as they can.
That’s it friends…sending much love to you—please send me your pesto recipes <3