A bit of a read today, but love, memory, and truth are pouring out. I suppose we can thank Leo season for the visibility and surge outward. The sunshine!

As you know I am returning the I care about your body workshop at the end of this month, Aug 28-30 in Los Angeles. And while I have been holding this offering for 4 years this winter, it is always important to me to refresh the origins of the downloads and how I relate to the teachings in my own body - before I move into the facilitation role.

I have been meditating lately on the word “care”. The word can be overused or misused or even abused and used to control, yet I still find this word to be a north star for me in my somatic practices and especially this upcoming offering. More on this below dear ones. As always this meanders, but we do arrive.

Origin Story

“because… I care about your body!”

This was a stern declaration I made to my 90 year old grandmother one night after she refused to let me place her oxygen tube in her nose before her bedtime, an almost nightly ritual of defiance. At this point in her declining health she often forgot who I was. Definitely not her granddaughter, sometimes her mother, sometimes her grandmother.

I loved when she would talk to me like I was her elder - someone her body remembered as safe, wise, and caring. I would embody a sureness and tenderness that I imagined she craved from her long passed mother. Brushing her hair gently, sometimes carrying her tired body between rooms. I imagined her body trusted her mother more than her granddaughter with such brute caregiving tasks. I took her forgetting as a sacred compliment.

In 2021/22 I was living with my mother and stepfather and helping with the task of caregiving for my grandmother who had just moved in for her final years. I was freshly divorced, unemployed, and a quite bit lost on the path I imagined for myself. I went to the mountains when I wasn’t helping with meals or household tasks, and I read A LOT. I joked that I was getting my master’s degree in Somatic Psychology. I was reading dozens of books on somatics, ecology, polyvagal theory, and social justice, creating my own dreamy multi-year year degree program.

I was, and still am, struck by Resmaa Menakem’s revelatory writing on somatic abolitionism and the importance of harmonizing our nervous systems before even attempting to overcome hard things. In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, Menakem is primarily focusing on how our (American) culture perpetuates racialized trauma among black bodies, white bodies, and police(ing) bodies, and he imagines pathways to heal as a culture. Spoiler alert: the path to healing culture and community is through the body, and the in the body’s relationship to other bodies. I cannot get into all of the brilliance of this book in this essay today, but if you have not read it do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.

I was so grateful that the practices in this book translated directly into my ability to show up for caregiving work too. Attunement is about the body feeling truly safe and disarmed, rather than the narrative our mind carries about our security and comfort. My grandmother had forgotten who I was; it was not going to make much of a difference if I sat there and tried to explain it to her every night until she trusted me.

My body needed to ensure her body felt safe enough to continue living - in order for her to wear her oxygen before bed, eat the meal I prepared, receive the foot rub to bring circulation back into her legs.

Her body trusting my body was essential for care to happen.

Then there is the other piece. The innevitable fatigue of the caregiver. I soon realized, (from an embodied exhaustion) that in order for me to be generous and patient in my care, I needed to find ways to experience pleasure and restoration in the generosity and patience. How can I receive energy from the care I give, and when do I truly need to step away to refill my cup?

A desire for reciprocity is not selfish, but vital for sustainable relationships. And what is life besides relationships, community, life in dialogue with life? You cannot force it, sometimes you must find it.

Without her noticing sometimes I would sync my breath to hers as she was falling asleep. This brought me into attunement and presence, an accidental meditation that helped us both relax. It also attuned me to her care - to ensure the oxygen was working and her sleep was safe. I could embody her breathing patterns and see how it felt in my body. Too shallow? She must not have the tube in properly, etc.

My beloved meditation teacher, Vinny Ferarro, recently held a profound dharma talk on care and meditation. “Care says, “This is hard. What would help? Care has a warmth to it even when it’s asking us to do something that’s difficult.” In other words, care is not there to fix or change or control. That is something else.

Care is a loving container for things we cannot always hold alone.

This brings me to the importance of language.

Biofeedback - what our bodies hear impacts what our bodies believe. Language matters. A lot. If I said to my grandmother “I care about you!” in that moment of frustration, narrative enters. Who is “you” in that statement? In her dementia she was unsure of our relationship, narrative floods in, insecurity. But when I said “I care about your body!” the body remembered that it is a body, and the body can detect truth. I sensed a softening between us, and she let me replace her tube.

How does this all fold into I care about your body - the workshop?

Following the end of my grandmother’s time earth side I felt a surprising surge of creativity and desire to dance again. A gift from her spirit. This profound season of my life, living and collaborating with my family through caregiving (plus my self-proclaimed masters degree in somatic psychology hehe) sent a surge of curiosity and ambition through my body.

The workshop was born quickly. A series of accessible practices rooted in dance medicine that model ways to refill our cup in times of depletion - differentiating between the tools of empathy and compassion and redefining care in a culture that exploits the tender ones.

Differentiating Essential Tools: Empathy and Compassion

Empathy, as I understand it, is a feeling into someone else’s feeling to the point where you embody their feeling. If you are someone who is already deeply in tune with the pain and suffering of the world, this can be a slippery slope. Therapists, facilitators, and caregivers who are holding an empathy-heavy space might be depleting themselves unnecessarily by confusing their big painful feelings as care.

This is where compassion is essential.

Compassion is the sky. Compassion is a divine witness. Compassion allows us to see the whole person, experience, emotion unfold without letting it change your shape.

This distinction is really important - to KNOW both in the mind and in the body. All this said, one is not greater than the other, but rather, empathy and compassion are both essential collaborators and tools for sustainable relationships and community attunement. We must be able to feel into an experience to truly relate to the need.

Empathy can be a lightening fast practice - you do not need to stay there forever! Once the information is received in the body compassion brings us back to ourSelf and protects the nervous system from dissolving into despair.

Empathy can also bring pleasure - even rest! - in the body when we are feeling depleted. Think, “I love that for you”. The soft gaze on my grandmother’s face when I would brush her hair - this restored me. I felt her ease in my body. I feel her rest in my body. You see?

I could go on, but at a certain point language fails and we must simply practice in order to know.

An Invitation

I care about your body (dedicated to grandma Ann) is the container I have built to practice discerning the tools of empathy, compassion, and care through dance medicine and intersectional learning and sharing.

We are all living through something. We will all fluctuate in giving care, needing care, feeling full, feeling empty. Our ability to have a shared language, at the level of the nervous system, and in community can help us move forward through life’s unknowns, through the darkness and the light - creating a culture of sustainable care.

This is radical work. This is also gentle work. This pause to practice gentleness together is not escapism, but rather capacity-building for the times we are living through.

If any of this resonates, I truly hope you will join me this month in Los Angeles, August 28-30 at LA Dance Project. The wisdom and medicine is made more potent by the cohort of tender-hearted humans in the room. Registration closes when we reach 30 participants.

SAVE YOUR PLACE

May all beings know peace and safety in their body. May all beings be nourished and know true care.

With love,

sz

(substack “chat” was a bust, apologies for any confusion or excess info. i am resending this announcement more officially to you here, complete with links to sign up for this cherished experience - i promise i will not blast again for a minute.)

be well !

sz

I CARE ABOUT YOUR BODY RETURNS TO LA!

a 3 day immersive workshop (more like a retreat where you still get to go home)

THE THEME IS “YUMMY”

(adj) - extremely pleasing to the senses, especially to the taste

with guest facilitation and somatic food/play experiences by the iconic, Heidi Ross!

open level | come as you are

Aug 28-30 LA Dance Project | sliding scale

compassion building practices in community, a reset, a return to the body, and care as reciprocal action

join if you feel called 🔔

and yes, daily ROLLING PRACTICE is included 🫡🌀

SCHEDULE | PRICING | SAVE YOUR PLACE

space is limited to 30 participants

p.s. ICAYB proceeds directly fund artist stipends for the upcoming LA premiere of “prayer” in September 👀

july 11, 2026

beloveds,

recently i was blessed and invited into a short, but rigorous process with several folks i consider to be absolute dance heroes - led by visionary choreographer faye driscoll in an unknown exploratory world building terrain for her next work. i do not know what will come of this - if i get to move on with the project as a collaborator - but for a fleeting magical gift week i received a surge of creativity, community, and rigor. it was a lightening bolt to my artist.

i know myself better than i did before, this body, this dancer.

now, the echoes.

may all beings remember, know, and enjoy their creativity,

sz

p.s. there will be a flood of opportunities to share space, process, and performance in august and september. a la i care about your body workshop AND prayer performance revival at LADP + crucial crowd-fundraising to pay dance artists + assisting an esalen retreat (led by odeya nini) - i will update here soon with important information and dates.

beloveds,

i am having deja vu a lot lately - a signal that i am living in alignment, finally. at least for now. there is spaciousness AND rigor. rigor that i have capacity for. i bow to the balance. i know it is fleeting. it is written in the stars to be here now. and right now, it’s like this. i have been dancing again - a lot - and in the right spaces with the right people for me to really go far inward. to let the body dance me. safe excavation. plutonic intimacy. it feels like remembering who i actually am, an ache soothed, a longing fulfilled. after a particularly profound session yesterday with some of the most open hearted tender humans i wrote this down, uncensored, from the body. before logic and language could interrupt the truth pouring out. every once in a while i feel the spirit experiencing this human body - the soul speaking like a dream. transmuting love in all directions. porous. may we all do what we love and love what we do. may we all know passion. may we all know our bodies intimately while they are alive.

-sz

micro experiences performing sensing being seen and perceived I mask I mirror and imitate and posture to ache I step inside and out or in or outside pendulum becomes openings time extends and shrinks bodies beings breathe and hum resonant tones into my shoulder and my forehead your heat penetrates and reminds me I am you the two dancing women in the drawing while I am om-ing a swell tickles your hip and whispers soft affirmations into your right ear cranberry gentle lick of the eyebrow yes and no but what does his sweat taste like we all wonder then my heart pours all the way out of my chest pours soft hard floor wells up with tears safe to feel it all I felt you smell me and I wish I was quick no brave enough to smell you back thank you for holding me for as long as you did long enough to feel the butterflies settle and to just be two bodies ocean rides me now three now seven building through no past language or tangible remembering telepathy my desire and “the” desire and the womb and wanting and the satisfaction of all of us holding them and throwing them up in the air like a soccer ball us wrestling and screaming at thick hair sticky rosemary residue on my sweating palms making animal sounds badly smile stuck just trying a hot bright sunbathe and take off an article of clothing whisper I love you in my year I didn’t know you really do head to heart it feels good to hear you say it yes, and no, but but mostly yes, and I love singing with you I love y/our voice and soft skin yes trust fall eyes closed yes cradle my skull and tell me I’m good

beloveds,

how are you in this heat? in this season of change? the year of the fire horse is burning so quickly. life is moving fast. life is changing fast.

in May i completed grad school, and before i could even process this milestone, my beloved and i packed up our apartment and moved closer to the desert mountains. i have not told many people about this move as i have barely comprehended the change. we had been hearing the call loudly - since the altadena fires dramatically altered our course, and we moved 5 times in one year. now we are somewhere else again. we are learning what this means again. change is god.

this move feels ok though. it maybe even feels right.

before leaving LA my body was inflamed. i was not feeling physically or emotionally well, and my imagination for the future felt limited due to chronic pain and fatigue clouding everything. i was triggered easily, short-tempered, generally resentful. signals from the body i was not living in alignment.

so much has happened in the last few years. but also so much is always happening. i was not feeling like i could properly rest in LA despite LOVING the community, the art, the vibes beyond words - i was burned out and empty. the grad school race was over, but i was too depleted to care or celebrate. sorry but… academia is an impossible mess - more on that later!

now, after weeks of sleep, nourishment, family, and the desert - i feel a crack of light in my body. i began dreaming again (i hadn’t dreamed in months!), my digestion is calibrating, and my heartbeat is more steady. i am able to return to nature, my somatic practices, reading, and writing with discipline and consistency. i am smiling easier. i feel the sun on my skin.

this week, i feel my cup refilling. i am remembering how essential it is to live among care and to feel cared for - both by others, by the places we rest, and by our own attention.

when i first began to seriously study the nervous system and offer 1:1 somatic support it was following a long season of caregiving for my grandmother. her final year earth side was a choreography of caregivers in the household, my mother, my step-father, 2 alternating professionals, and me. there was always someone at her side for company and comfort, someone preparing the meals, someone doing laundry, someone talking to doctors, someone running errands. it was a miracle to be a part of this and to witness. however even with the loving train of ongoing support, something was missing. in our household there was still burnout. we would still crash.

all our attention was flowing in one direction towards one person’s well being, and we were not consistently able to be present for each other or ourselves. i was realizing that sustainable care must be reciprocal. but how? when someone is dying, it is hard to simultaneously prioritize and attune to life.

this is where practice comes in - sometimes recalibrating just requires a subtle, embodied shift in how we are tuned to our surroundings. what blessings are already present? sometimes our grounding requires a little help from another body - someone holding, witnessing, caring for the caregiver in small, consistent, practical ways.

when we are in positions of care (tending to others, or ourselves in illness, stress, or survival-mode) it is easy to take on more than we can hold. when we see someone (or we are) hurting, suffering, or straining the empathy takes over, we bravely muster strength and we push through - only to end up burning on fumes.

i am not immune to this, i learn this lesson all the time. and yet, each time the learning gets deeper. that deepening is what i wish to share.

i have had the honor of holding somatic support sessions and workshops over the years with soulful humans from many backgrounds and in many seasons of life - new parents and mothers, counselors and therapists, nurses, doulas, energy healers, professors, touring musicians, eldest siblings, cancer survivors, social workers, survivors of all kinds.

caring for ourselves is caregiving at the most profound and necessary level.

if you are seeking a little extra - support - witnessing - accountability - around how you tend to your body, nervous system, and living matter - let’s talk.

i am opening my practice this summer to those who are feeling called back to the eternal wisdom of flesh, blood, and breath - who wish to mindfully show up for the animal of their body through somatic medicine and embodied attunement.

free consultation and inquiry here

attuning to the body, nature, and life has immediate, powerful benefits:

• stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and promotes deeper sleep, digestive health, and our capacity for intimacy

• increases neuroplasticity, memory, and makes it easier to integrate healing downloads

• broadens our capacity for stressful situations

• opens our hearts/softens our minds to meet life with compassion, bravery, and curiosity

somatic practices are so simple and intuitive - they are ancient wisdoms stored in our bones. breath, touch, noticing, moving. but we need each other, other bodies, another’s witnessing for the medicine to set in and to integrate what we are learning with what we already know.

whatever you are moving through, somatic support helps us remember there is a body here to tend to, to listen to, to care for.

it would be an honor to hold space for you on your journey.

free consultation and inquiry here

with love,

sz

p.s. ROLLING PRACTICE AND I CARE ABOUT YOUR BODY IN LA | DATES COMING SOON

Read more

a touch that does not want

can touch not want?

touch is wanting? or repulsion?

i only felt repulsed by my own wanting.

the wanting runs so desperate and deep: stay. stay. stay.

but what about when they stay? i attune to their wanting.

heart to hand

someone truly weeping - someone in between - i admire.

it was lovers. it was sisterhood. it was motherhood. it was witches.

it was old. it was young. so curious

still if i am doing it right? aesthetic desire. then raw primal animal weeping child desire.

a euphoric dance.

humping, moaning, my sweat or yours. dancing.

what do i attract? i am attracted to my own vitality.

wanting signals i am still alive.

i owe you a longer letter, i am organizing thoughts on the somatics of wanting, the 5 basic movements of the human body, and how they translate into our nervous system interactions, and tuning the body in times of chaos.

i promise these writings are marinating in the slow cooker.

i finish my MFA in 3 weeks, then there will be some space to codify language and learnings again in a non-academic container.

in the meantime, if you are reading this - i wanted to invite you to

ROLLING PRACTICE

sunday may 3 at LA Dance Project

open level, somatic tuning score to the music of cate le bon

RSVP HERE

ROLLING PRACTICE is soft, buttery, anatomical realigning, dance floor massage bliss - and i’d like this to be a big one. to commemorate a milestone.

the last 2 years (let’s be real, the last 6 years) have been like crashing waves in a storming ocean, i have been trying to float, catch my breath, set up a future, but often i have needed to dive deep under the water to experience fleeting clarity or peace. i am completing graduate school with so much exhaustion and confusion, and yet I WANT TO CELEBRATE.

this rolling practice will mark a personal milestone, please come celebrate with me! we are all graduating SOMETHING!!!

if it is your first time - welcome, come as you are. if this is your 50th time, welcome back, your presence helped shape this healing practice in community.

a friend will be filming so that i may archive this practice as i work to bring it farther into the world. your presence will help this medicine MOVE!

love you community, so much more soon -

sz

p.s. i am also opening back up somatic 1:1 work for the summer in LA area, LV area, or on zoom - inquire here

photo from rolling practice - by dani dipillo <3

i was gifted with the blessed opportunity to assist long-time friend, teacher, and cosmic sibling odeya nini during her 5 day free the resonant voice retreat at the historic and iconic esalen campus last week - a place i have been dreaming of landing for many years. dreams come true.

it is impossible to describe the revelations i witnessed and experienced within the cohort and within my own body through odeya’s generous and powerful facilitation and with the unconditional love and support of the majestic lands and waters.

here is an attempt to organize thoughts, prayers, and epiphanies from the dozens of journal entries. it is a long poetic read that i truly enjoyed writing. i am sure i will share more coherently soon, but for now…

with all the love in my heart.

may we all know deep embodied peace and the power of our voice,

sz

i am sea salt sweating body ocean must sulfur seeping heat blue waters fresh to sea salt again. i am dead seaweed washed up dried chips and a luscious algae sucking rocks for minerals sun wakes my holes vibrating now fresh awake alive. fuck all! who cares! i’m breathing!

her - howling towards and through my body. shaking hands on sternum and scapulas, shaking your rib cage - freeing. freeing the voice. “i love my voice. i love your voice.” a daily mantra sung, whispered quietly to the self in a circle with 27 humans before 100 oms, before moaning into the wooden floor behind the darkened windows. “we need to make this room a womb.” circles of hot breath and ancestral sighs. ritual of sound as daily practice, as birth rite. remembrance. during a break we gaze at the sea and breathe fresh ocean air and eat dried dates.

i feel drugged, high, floating. eye contact comes easily and our bodies are all the same. naked in hot sulfuric earthen waters under starlight and moonlight, 17 of us packed into a bath, skin of every age touching watery swirling giggles, footsy not thinking about the germs. “if i think at all, this will not work”. hearing all about the mushroom trip that made you believe in soulmates, that freed you of your fear. i wonder if i will ever be brave like this - addiction to perfection, addiction to shame - leave me. down to the sea, drown, dead, die on those rocks. but i know it will never happen that fast, i must kill them every day. or love them.

on this particular day my voice had crystal green blue eyes surrounded by sea mist and ocean waves crashing. infinite. sparkling glimmers flecks, flicks, flickers of light sparkle waves crashing over cliffs. the little girl. you’ve always been free. blue whale floating in front of me, our eyes meet. a hummingbird leaps from my chest.

i am a truth teller. i am your soul moving through the cave of your body and out into the shared air. breathe. i am medicine for trees. i am yours and you are perfect. sing! sing! sing! i am pleasure. i am your child. let me play and be loud and be wild and be sweet. i belong. i am wise. i am love. i am. i am. i am. i belong. i am ancient. i am forever.

100 oms. mantra, meditation, and breath has me high. and this place. i am eating well. dreaming with sounds of ocean and river merging through the night. fresh and salt. confluence. i don’t sleep much but do dream. body does not need sleep in the same ways i do in the city. phone on a single charge for 5 days. i miss nothing. the sea and monterey cyprus and humming bird sage intoxicating blue smelling sweet sugar sap fuzzy sticking to my thumbs, what else could i ever need. hot tea, hibiscus.

meanwhile in the womb, god moving through her body, her vocal cords. vowels, AAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEE, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, EYYYYEEEEEEE, OHHHHHHHHH, EWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, OOOOOOOOOOOOO, WWWAHHHHHHHHHHH massage circles around the jaw, body is a body, a vessel here, like a vase, not quite like a flute, not like a harp. “not like a piano”, she reminds. we are not fixed in our tuning and the voice can always change.

may i crack open. may i know i belong. may i trust my power and let it lead me. may i love myself and all beings fiercely.

sunbathing naked post practice swim, oms. 4pm meditation nap. psychotherapists, energy workers, social workers, retirees, consultants for tech companies and politicians - what called you to your voice this way? “i see you” a circle gazing into everyone’s eyes. i am sound. i am sound. i am energy. i am energy. rose petals slow motion “happy birthday matthew” and finally resting, receiving “i will always love you”. we. we. we. we are the slashers and the healers and the healing takes much longer (than the slashing).

the sunset is a performance. the sun is romancing, setting just for me. my skin changes colors the blue deeper orange a kiss then a command. change.

air so still, just an atmosphere. trees transformed into black silhouettes the garden dimming to sleep soon. my soul is mist. my voice, a blue whale. body cold, cooling still wet from the swim.

i know god can see me because i can see the bright half moon. my favorite moon. because i can hear the river and the sea from my bedroom window. because of the naked rushing cold dip in the river morning. because of the hot water and privacy when it was needed. i know god can hear me praying alone in the dark grass and when my body rains into soil. frogs chirping - may balance be restored. may we all remember. blessed body baptised. blood pumping healthy strong. body healing itself. hydrated. sturdy trunk. invisible tattoo on the left side of my throat. a star on my neck. help me never forget. dream from this place.

ways to practice with me this summer and beyond:

i am graduating with an MFA next month and re-entering my professional practice. hope to see as many of you as possible in these healing spaces <3

ROLLING PRACTICE

all levels dance medicine somatic tuning ritual at LA Dance Project, sliding scale

sign up

SOMATIC 1:1s

1:1 sessions to develop sustainable and therapeutic self-tending rituals - accepting clients again for the summer !

sessions in natural spaces near LA or on zoom

set up a call

RETREAT

i am honored to be holding a 3 day somatic retreat with breathworker, poet, and beloved aquarius spirit lihi benisty in the sacred hills of berkley october 2-4.

nourishing plant based meals and food experiences by heidi ross.

we are focusing on fueling our senses for 3 days in the forest through dance medicine, breath, and deep listening. join if you feel called to this place and these facilitators.

more information + sign up

retreats are an immeasurable investment - concentrated containers that have the power to reset, integrate, expand our capacity to meet the times we are living through with a tender, discerning heart, and to strengthen our powers for community stewardship and care. this is not escapism, but a turning towards where we need our own attention the most.

i believe even one retreat a year can repattern our systems in deep ways that ripple outward and shift paradigms of consciousness. i have been drawn to this model more and more as my work in this field grows.

instead of my morning pages, i wrote this. i chose to not send this to my email list, but to only publish on substack. personal thoughts and reflections on this moment. this is not meant to be read as “news” but rather a real-time “processing” of news through my embodied lens.

—

the new moon in pisces only brought me into deeper confusion. yesterday felt like a vacuum for me, nothing made any sense, i had no words, and way too much energy. it was wild. how was yours? we are at the tail end of a mercury retrograde clouding communication, planning, and schedules. i am no astrologer, but i do follow along for my own sense of care.

yesterday i was mixing up plans, swerving on the road because i was daydreaming too loudly, and i overall felt quite depressed, low - though the feelings definitely felt trapped, numbed even. i was not able to release or name what or why i felt so down. i had not yet read the news.

i am in the middle of my follicular phase in which i usually tend to feel quite balanced (at least hormonally). i was restless. the only times i felt clarity of mind was in a dance rehearsal earlier in the day and a yoga class later in the evening. when i was with my body and breath only, not with language or explanation. i felt like a ghost. these are my somatic clues that something buried needs attention.

as i age i am learning to ride the waves when i have days like this. there is no need to label these ebbs and flows or to judge them. just ride, breathe them.

i wrote a prayer in my journal last night, “may i fall deeply in love with myself. and love myself fiercely every single day”.

i want my self love to feel the way it feels when you have a crush - they can do no wrong! the way they trip is adorable, or spill something on their shirt, their laugh, their smell, their questions, their confusions - all perfect. i want to crush on myself. it is humiliating enough to be a spiritual being in a human body without piling on our own judgement of the experience. the second arrow of it all…let’s do away with it in this new astrological year. welcome spring, welcome aires. thank you, pisces medicine. i am ready to shed the shame i have attached so strongly to for all these years.

anyway, i am not here to necessarily only talk about loving ourselves fiercely as a survival strategy in harsh times, though this is something i do wish to impart.

i am here to talk about how much of a freaking miracle this moment is - without bypassing the very real and traumatic suffering and violence that is occurring globally and locally and by the hands of fascist governments and oppressive systems. that is very real. however, our community’s response is shifting in a way that feels massive, care-centered, and profoundly transforming. dare i say, feminist, even matriarchal…

if you haven’t already heard, please go read something elsewhere. dolores huerta - farm worker union activist and labor leader, 96 years old - spoke her truth <link yesterday about caesar chavez’s abuse.

my heart sunk. my breath changed. grief, gratitude, collective, personal… truth is a tsunami. living in los angeles caesar chavez is such an iconic figure, his face on murals and monuments around the city, streets named after him. the labor movements he shaped were revolutionary AND he committed violent crimes against women. please do more reading about this as this is as deep as i will go into the facts, but dolores believed there were more than just her.

what i wanted to talk about was the community’s RESPONSE. immediately i saw SEVERAL local organizations advertising that they were holding emergency survivor circles to process and grieve the complexities of this news. language surrounding the news was survivor centered, nuanced, and generally positioned to believe her. it was triggering news of course, but it felt like the community (and media?) was dealing with this in a more trauma-informed, survivor-centered way. at least in los angeles.

i felt hope and empowerment. which is essentially never the case when news like this surfaces.

as a CSA and incest survivor i have carried decades of fear, shame, confusion in my body - severe inflammation in my body, paranoia, and distrust/judgement of the magnitude of my own feelings. a human lie detector, everything made me feel sick all the time. i did not trust the movie stars, or politicians, or my teachers, coaches, family members, etc. everything felt like bullshit, a cover up for how things really were - for how things really are.

this 96 year old woman, a heroic activist, carried these feelings too. her share is the ultimate feminist action of solidarity, crone-hood, and service to survivors. her truth telling reflects the invisible labor and impact that women, girls, and survivors quietly carry through all their life. the mountains of invisible effort carried in the maintaining of the visions and goals of the patriarchal masculine.

the strength and resilience in survivor bodies is more than i can fathom. may we love ourselves fiercely!

the release of the epstein files (let’s not forget about these!) have cracked everything open, the whole charade. during a mercury retrograde at the end of the astrological year in pisces (where language fails) light shined on the shadows. the veil, the bullshit, lifted. we can see clearly again.

survivors can look around and see themselves, we can see the magnitude of our numbers. we can see how many of us were disempowered, “de-fanged” to quote Fariha Róisín, and disarmed by abuse that shamed us and robbed us of our sense of self and belonging to this world. this is actually a miracle. we aren’t invisible anymore.

deep breath. this next bit might get cloudy, try to bare with me.

i suppose the “me too” movement tried to start this, but it was still rooted in facade. celebrities all dressed up at award shows saying “me too”. empty words to the masses of survivors that are not mega-privileged, primarily white women in movies. “me too” still kept so many stories in the darkness. triggered survivors without community, trapped in shame and powerlessness. there were very few community systems that knew how to hold the news of this time. not to mention “me too” was not really intersectional, it was two dimensional, it created scapegoats of the predators as individuals, rather than critique a flawed patriarchal system rooted in body supremacy and p*edophilia.

all while regular people - children, a myriad of intersections of races and classes and abilities sunk deeper into a sea of invisibility and unimportance. not to mention the media’s utter lack of ability to cover the movement resulted in lots of headlines about “alleged abuse” and positioned survivors coming out as “libel”, attacks, attempts at power grabs. diminishing the meaningful very real acts of bravery that were actually taking place.

i realize this movement was still a movement. “me to” created momentum and a crack in the walls. it gave us some necessary shared language as a culture. it did allow what is happening now to have a reference point, and for that i am grateful. we need all the warriors. we need to be ok with imperfection so we can learn.

i bring up “me too” and shine light on its flaws only to more deeply highlight why what is happening now is SO revolutionary and meaningful.

dolores huerta is 96 years old - in the sunset of her amazing life i imagine she could not leave without speaking her truth. carrying 2 children of r*pe to term secretly, giving them to another family. working closely with her abuser for decades for a cause that was bigger than her own body’s pain. she has nothing to gain from speaking out at this moment other than peace. no matter how one tries to spin it.

bless you dolores huerta. bless you for all of it.

may the empowerment of this time continue to snowball and inspire TRUTH. may our empathy give us bravery. may all survivors walk in the light again. may all oppressive systems and empires collapse. may the energy of all survivors’ shame, fear, restlessness, be recycled into empowerment and necessary cultural change that echoes for eras. may the magnitude of our feelings be exponentially increased as we SEE each other, HOLD each other, and MOVE into a future of care.

we are alive right now for a reason.

we are all wonderful and trying and flawed and trying. i am here in this space today to share blessings that have been showing up for me, grounding and simple inspirations during both sacred portals, transitions, and dire times.

may we feel and imagine blessings within and beyond the time we are living through. may we call onto the depths of the ancient past and futures, the unending, always transitioning flows of energy, light, and shadow. may we tend to our aching bodies and not bypass their grief. may our bodies be strengthened enough to carry out our souls’ purpose.

in december in joshua tree, i bought myself a tortoise hat at the little climber supply store. as a human homegrown in the upper mojave desert, i have always been so mesmerized by the desert tortoise. they are ancient. they live long, slow, quiet lives. they are loyal to the land they are born on. they often continue exploring, mating, and living off of the same square mile in which they were born for their entire life. mostly they are content. they do not exert more than they can - and yet they are immensely resilient creatures in the face of the harsh temperatures and extreme conditions.

when i feel hopeless i look to desert dwellers - the plants and the animals. they are resourceful, interdependent, efficient, and discerning.

lately i have been wearing this tortoise hat. i get complimented on it a lot, which affirms all of the meaning i have placed on the symbol of the tortoise (and all of the ways i identify my personality with that of desert dwellers, hehe). the tortoise reminds me, and others, the ancient value in slowing down when things are too harsh, too hot, too much. where is my energy most useful? how can i conserve myself to survive?

this past month i have been quiet.

the times are not in need of anything loud, or louder. full, or fuller. i feel there is enough.

i have been still.

the times are not needing my sprint or my heat. it is already fast, and it is already hot.

the urgency of the news cycle is overwhelming, unfathomable, triage.

i have not wanted to say anything else. last month i shared a small piece of my truth, and that felt like a mountain. it was plenty.

truth is infinite depth.

truth ripples.

i am sharing some extremely simple desert inspired practices that have been supporting my tender body during this current and impossible global news cycle. may these practices offer you resolution and restoration, a sanctuary in your own body before returning to the heated world.

inspired by the desert tortoise, may these practices return you to the metaphorical “one square mile” of your own life experience.

rituals and scores to slow down time:

• turn OFF your phone*** not just airplane mode, my loves. OFF. and hide it in another room. then, do literally anything creative or tender with your hands. water your plants, wash and prepare the vegetables, draw with a pencil and paper, massage your feet.

• read a book. nothing online. nothing from a screen. a paper book. touch the pages, let your eyes fall on the language. notice your body as you read. in a time that is so fast and reactionary, may we value the hours, research, editors, required to write a book. writing a book is a responsive, imaginative practice more often than a reactionary, unconscious process. let us be with that medicine.

• breathe deeply. incredibly simple, but anytime i teach yoga and we find ourselves in a super challenging pose - the surest way to move time forward is to breathe. you can stretch, or not, or lay with legs elevated on a chair, or up the wall, or in a twist. breath long and deep into your soft belly. count the seconds that you inhale and count the seconds that you exhale. let your exhale be longer than your breath. time will pass.

• yoni sunning - and if you do not have a vulva - sun your anus and/or your scrotum. find a private and comfortable place outside. lay in the sun for 10 minutes with legs spread to the sun god. breathe deeply. let the warm light pour into your dark places. i am dead serious, this heavenly, intoxicating practice is your birthright.

• sip plain hot water in the morning on an empty stomach

• sip cool water with lemon in the afternoon

• clear one day each week in your calendar to intentionally have fully “off”. be open to whatever blessings emerge for you on this day. let the day plan itself. only say “yes” to what and who will nourish you.

• if you have energy, burn it. go for a run, dance, hot yoga, hike, sauna. sweat, sweat, sweat. then hydrate like a sacrament.

• if you do not have energy, rest.

• kiss. if you have someone to make out with, do that. slowly, sweetly, with breath and presence without an “endgame”. if you are not geographically near your loved one, or in between intimate partners - can you carve time and affection (without screens) to be with your own breath, touch, affection? we can also experience a kiss when we eat something juicy and fresh from the earth.

• sleep with your phone in another room. (this goes for all electronic devices and anything that can connect to the internet). or cover them in blankets with their power completely OFF. the constant signals, always being reach-able, are impacting our ability to imagine, to dream, to prophesize.

• write down your dreams

at the risk of sounding like i’ve lost it (but let’s be real, i have) - our phones and all the apps and the perpetual flows of “news”, information, and communication are cutting us off from our super powers, and from true connectivity. through our bodies, through earth. these devices keep us ON and activated, even when we need to be OFF and softened. the more time i spend time with mine off, the more i realize how much i have been bypassing my body’s sheer rejection of these devices, and 5g, and wifi. i notice my heart beat changes, my eyes work differently.

listen to the revelatory telepathy tapes for more proof on how these devices interrupt our entire neural system.

all this to say, i am by no means shaming the value in a good distraction, losing ourselves in a show, movie, or story. we need this too. numbing out is also a vital strategy, especially when done consciously.

and lastly…

i have a friend in spain who keeps bees. he recently shared with me that the bees go absolutely bonkers when he has his phone on him. they do not let him near the hive if his phone is even in his pocket. it must be away from his body for them to settle and trust his presence. THAT ANECDOTE IS ENOUGH FOR ME. that affirms everything i already deeply feel, yet bypass in the name of capitalism.

i am not saying that we should not be informed, but i am saying that we must be boundaried, disciplined, and conscious with how and what we consume. we must be aware of the impact these systems have on our bodies and imaginations.

affirmations:

i reclaim my attention.

reclaiming my attention requires divine discipline.

i forgive myself when i fall back into the default of my conditioning.

i acknowledge that there must be a balance.

in order for me to stay connected to my community, and my work and purpose, i must learn to balance the technology of the time i am living through with the body i have been tasked with caring for.

the sensing body retreat:

truly lastly,

if you have the means, desire, and time to practice retreats, i highly recommend you carve the concentrated space to care for yourself in this way. yoga retreats, somatic retreats, hiking retreats, meditation retreats, writing retreats, etc.

retreats are an immeasurable investment - concentrated containers that have the power to reset, integrate, expand our capacity to meet the times we are living through with a tender, discerning heart, and to strengthen our powers for community stewardship and care. this is not escapism, but a turning towards where we need our own attention the most.

i believe even one retreat a year can repattern our systems in deep ways that ripple outward and shift paradigms of consciousness. i have been drawn to this model more and more as my work in this field grows.

i am honored to be holding a 3 day somatic retreat with breathworker, poet, and beloved aquarius spirit lihi benisty in the sacred hills of berkley october 2-4.

nourishing plant based meals and food experiences by heidi ross.

we are focusing on fueling our senses for 3 days in the forest. join if you feel called to this place and these facilitators.

more information + sign up

with fierce love,

sz

i’ve been in a doom hole. brought out briefly to march over the weekend in DTLA with some energized youth and beloved community in solidarity against fascism and ICE. bless the young ones, bless their bright aliveness, their togetherness, their fight.

then the e*stein headlines reached me. despite my best efforts to be boundaried. sometimes i cannot help but peak a little. the temptation of potential justice feels too tantalizing to withhold from myself. then the deluge. the ache. the throbbing, fever of disgust radiating through my solar plexus. the obsession over every layer new of information. the hit and the high i get off of the hatred, the paradox, the hypocrisy.

my soul is a truth seeking one and these collapsing times, the exposing of the dark truths, tempt my attention. meanwhile, billionaire tech profits off of my/our dis-ease. meanwhile revolution requires we look the devil in the eyes without collapsing.

recently some meme showed up for me about dreamings of matriarchal society and the ways that it does not simply mean “women in charge”. because as we have seen and experienced time and time again women are just as capable as men to uphold white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist ideals. this is not a new or hot take, but because it is in the zeitgeist (literally based my entire thesis on this) i wanted to address what this means to me quite literally.

feminism does not mean power over men, or power over anyone. true feminism requires intersectionality. true feminism requires everyone’s collaboration. it requires love. bell hooks discusses this in depth in her revelatory book, the will to change.

i pray for a matriarchal revolution, a matriarchal culture - urgent attunement to feminine principles regardless of gender. acute attunement to LIFE. to the body. to the womb. to cycles. and most of all - to children. resource sharing and cultivating. cycles. rest. care. honesty.

i also read something somewhere - sorry for no sources, doom scroll brain melt - about how children are the most oppressed demographic in the world. of course considering intersections of race, location, disability, and class, some children have more privilege than others. however, regardless of these intersections, children fully lack autonomy. they rely on the adults shaping their homes and societies to literally live. THEIR BRAINS ARE DEVELOPING. they are learning about the world and their body through the leadership and adults in their life and proximity.

i am not only talking about infants and small children, but the teenagers too. the ones who have more language, the ones who are more difficult, eager to grow-up, boundary breaking, but still deeply in a state of learning - still children. in a matriarchal culture we are all responsible for protecting and holding the children through all their phases of growth.

this brings me to the e*stein debauchery. i didn’t want to engage in this discourse, but that truth speaking and seeking part of my soul is stirring loudly. the full moon in leo has illuminated and ignited so much.

content warning/temperature check: sharing a little bit of my backstory and lens. pause and self-tend if this is too much to process right now, beloveds!

when i was 9 years old my abuser and groomer told me what he was doing was illegal. he did it anyway. i was sworn to secrecy under threat. he told me “this is how the world works, you will learn sooner or later”.

my heart, and the heart of every CSA survivor, is breaking over the release of these millions of pages of files. and all of the redactions. reading about this evil, sinister, abuse can be re-traumatizing. not only the crimes themselves, but the lack of protection for victims, the lack of accountability or justice for those perpetrating harm. all of the world leaders involved. everyone who knows more than they are willing to tell. men and women who hold power. people and systems who make our laws and control what we consume. profit and power over life.

when my abuser said “this is how the world works” he wasn’t wrong - and i reject this with my entire body.

the patriarchy knows that the children are the future - so they wound them.

i shake with mother earth’s rage.

my inner helpless child has needed so much of my attention, love, and patience this week. and yet, i am still expected at school, at work, to show up as a high functioning adult. i am already a mother. if you notice anyone moving a little slower this week, a little more tender - be extra kind. give grace. PTSD and cPTSD require a lot of energy to tend to - and we are all inflamed.

my prayer in this moment is that we all - regardless of gender - can access our inner mama bear, lioness, or bonobo mama. we can congregate, growl and show our teeth - whatever it takes to protect and grow our children, our earth, the future. may we be brave and know when and how to move forward with this information and unearthing. may the matriarchal ways be infused in our daily lives.

may all children everywhere be protected and know safety and love.

i will be organizing a somatic gathering this month for processing in community. it will be a reclamation of joy, liberation, and autonomy in the body we have now - free for CSA survivors. our practice will be a prayer for those who are suffering or scared. i am still moving slowly, but will share details as they come through.

love you fiercely,

stephanie

—

prayer is a word that carries charge and weight for many. For me, I find and feel god, divinity, a higher power when I am taking in a mountain or moving my body with other living beings. Dances are prayers. Songs are prayers. All creative processes can be prayers. By that I mean - there is power. I pray when the thing ahead of me is beyond what I can hold alone in my body and mind. I pray when something feels so enormous that I must call in a higher power to share the load, to unburden my spirit, and guide me towards the next right action with the body and mind that I have. I find myself praying a lot these days.

Read more

beloveds,

i open my story to liberate yours. i have nothing to teach, only to share. learning and healing is collaborative and essential. i’ll meander (as the name implies) and sometimes i will elaborate on a download. sometimes i will leave it enigmatic. let it be a poem. we can make meaning together wherever it happens.

no offense taken if you don’t have capacity to read this now, but i felt compelled to write and share and name some big moments and truths long awaiting before the new year begins.

i am also offering a free-writing prompt at the end of this letter if you feel called to guided reflection.

content warning: gentle mention of CSA and self-harming patterns

12-ish minute read

-

i feel like a heavy lemon tree pregnant with over-ripened fruit falling to the earth for good - ready to shed it all and finally rest. the heavy thud of full release. i know i am healthy and alive, but i might look dead for a couple of months while i go dormant and turn inward and listen to winter.

i come to you midway through a 10-day gut cleanse heavily inspired and supported by ’s OWL Reset. the second time i have reset this year, what medicine. to shift my patterning. to treat every single meal and ingredient like a sacrament. to touch and smell and taste after a fast. to meditate and breath through sugar withdrawals. to have the time and space to do so, to feel the effects of the nourishment in the foods i eat. while i find these cleanse periods challenging, ’s teachings remind me, “discipline is pleasure”.

though i am working with food tangibly, i feel my brain re-patterning around all my coping mechanisms at once. i notice my capacity increase for discomfort. i am absolutely raw-dogging my life today, sober, caffiene-free, sugar-free, mid-cleanse, post-social media detox, and oof! how lucky i am to be alive!

i was watching the preacher’s wife a few days ago with my beloved. such a soul-affirming movie with the most stellar soundtrack in the world, RIP forever music hero whitney houston. and i was struck by the scene where the angel dudley falls from the sky to earth. he is hysterical with joy, to have the chance to return HERE. burning the roof of his mouth on pizza, freezing snow on his bare skin, holding someone’s hand, looking into someone’s eyes, falling in (unrequited) love. of course i was sobbing and singing the whole movie like i do every year, but also mid-cleanse where everything feels especially profound, it reminded me how lucky i am to have a body. soul meets body, body meets soul. to be human is to desire, to desire is to suffer. life is complex and cyclical and imperfect. meditation teaches me to sense every moment without judgement, but as an affirmation. i am alive now. and now. and now.

in 2025 there were fires that changed my life, my location, and my future dreams. my soul companion, Dori survived a very very near death experience and my community banded together to help pay her extensive medical bills. i wrote, choreographed, produced, and culminated my graduate thesis - one more semester to go and i graduate calarts a second time… i navigated heart, gut, and womb health questions and medical spaces - some discouraging, some supportive. i became obsessed with making things out of clay. and finally, in cold december, in the perfect, transformative desert of joshua tree, camping by fire underneath a billion stars, my lover and i got engaged. a shooting star above his head.

i am alive now. and now. and now.

every ache, pang, joy, fear, dance, arousal, bleed, guttural cry was life energy MOVING. i am exhausted. i feel it all. i am alive, now! i have no idea what i am doing. i know exactly what i am doing.

the cleanse is helping me notice when i want to numb out. addiction yields addiction. phone addiction and food addiction and emotional addiction are related. addiction isn’t really about what the coping mechanism is, but why we reach for it. i also notice where and when my body needs less, or needs only what is efficient. when i am in nature i never miss my phone. i hardly need a somatic check-in. i need so much more comfort and help when i am in the city. when i am feeling the pull of everyone on their phones spending money and energy and time proving importance and relevance amid a system that profits on our competition and dysregulation. my body racing to keep up. these capitalist systems i inherited deplete me.

when i disappear for a while, as we are meant to, i only need exactly what i need. warmth, water, nourishment, love, beauty, sleep. i need to see an uncluttered horizon. the silhouette of black mountains against the twilight sky. i am whole again, earth mother holding me.

how can i find balance? i cannot simply disappear into a cave (literally). my life and community is in the city, my love and dances are here. and today, at least, i find balance in the discomfort of discipline, and devotion to my own truth.

dear colleague writes about choosing not to choose - letting nature decide for us what the day will hold. in the city we have so many (too many) choices, who to date, what to eat, shows to see… it’s a paralyzing privilege. when i practice discipline, meditation, writing, i am able to tune back into my body, my direct line to nature. and even if this body whispers, with less clutter i can hear - eat this. read this. reach out to them. turn off your phone. turn off the lights. meditate. drink water. etc.

i am also thinking about this as it relates to engagement. this is my second engagement, and will be my second marriage. years ago when i was feeling most hurt, i swore i’d never do this again. ever. and yet, the decision to say yes was somatic, not cognitive. my body has been saying yes to murphy since day 1. we took it extremely slow. courting over months of friendship, long distance, intentional gaps in communication to calibrate the nervous system when we felt ourselves losing balance. trust this. i am different now. i have my own back in ways i never did before. i trust myself more than i ever did before too.

my divorce was traumatic and my system is trying to protect me from feeling that pain again. but the thing is, i cannot feel that pain ever again. i faced that divine pain in the moment as it arose. i rode the waves and waves of darkness and came out the person i am now. in the end, the most painful part of my first marriage ending was recognizing my own Self-abandonment, in giving over my worth and power to another without question. and once i realized that, i vowed never to put myself through that again. thank you brave, tender, past-Self. thank you for showing me exactly the source of the rupture. it was in me all along.

now - more than ever - i feel available to open to bloom into love and devotion, my imagination for what marriage is has expanded in the same ways my imagination for my gender and expression and romance has expanded. my imagination for what love is has expanded. nature and the body and everything is queer. i love my Self fiercely and i speak and hear the truth with rigor. my beloved meets me here, shadows and light. that is all i can ask for. the parts of me resisting the opening are right, and the parts of me expanding into space are also right.

does any of this make sense? this is liberatory work too. when i free myself (from judgement, hatred, hiding) i free you and vice versa.

now, devotion.

devotion is the container for freedom. when i fully commit myself to a discipline, a practice, an action, a job, a love relationship - from a place of heart-guided, truth seeking, speaking, hearing - the energy is infinite. if i am resisting love (through doubt, old patterning/narratives), there is limited space for love to flow through me. if i am resisting money (through judgement, jealousy, hatred, resentment) i am limiting the space for money to flow towards me. 35 years later, naming.

this brings me to resistance and acceptance as life practice. we are born into systems of oppression and supremacy beyond our control. we must resist the ways that these systems poison our internal worlds and relationships. this is how we ignite change. and yet, if we resist and resist and blockade without some soul level of acceptance that we inherited this human experience, there is no life flow, the body dies. so many rites of passage and tradition have become sites for corruption and control. may i be in love with life enough to sift through and find the good. in nature when a road is built and sliced through a landscape, the plants and animals lucky enough to survive the trauma and damage must adapt to the rupture in order to continue living. they must find the nourishment. our bodies are the same.

i am a survivor of CSA at the hands of a severely wounded and mentally ill family member who manipulated and harmed my developing system in more ways than i will name here today. out of terror of retaliation i kept this abuse a secret for more than 20 years. after decades of trauma recovery work i realize that the hiding of the truth was more excruciating than any of the actual crimes committed. the perpetual burying of feelings resulted in my resistance to my own life, shame and self hatred, overriding my pain through addictive behaviors (enabled and encouraged by the overarching culture and media) - i experienced years of disordered eating, self-harming behaviors, love-addiction, estrangement, and unconscious co-dependency resulting in a traumatic divorce, and stress illnesses echoing still. this is part of this body’s story. many bodies share stories like this. wherever you are at in this journey i love and feel you all. soul revival is possible.

by sharing from a truthful heart, earth-bounded - i set my life free. i see a black crow, wings spread, coasting along canyon winds.

lately i am looking at the patterns in my life as thresholds for soul initiation, rather than pathologies that need immediate fixing. i accept the reality and resist the poison. i am tending to my wild garden rather than obsessively landscaping to present my growth in a certain palatable way. each time a default repeats or returns, a familiar pang - i hope i can soften - a divine site for transformation. the wound is where god comes in.

i hold the truths of my life experience with the infinite compassion of soul energy. i am the ocean. i am the sky. there were tsunamis and damaging storms, yet soul work teaches me to see the resulting patterning and coping strategies with love, curiosity, and expansion. i am human. i am luscious earth. i feel this way when i ground my body in safety, a deep breath, a dance, somatic tools, it is a daily, sometimes hourly practice. emotions are wildfires and storms. soul holds and guides the grieving body.

i seed, i grow, i bloom, i decay, i transform. and again, and again. i am alive. i am a world of peace.

may there be peace to all who are suffering. may we attune and devote ourselves to life.

with love in all (y)our seasons,

stephanie

—

light a candle, make a cup of tea. take some deep breaths and sigh. set a timer, write for 5 minutes or more in response to each question. no editing or censorship, free flow.

prompt(s):

• in 2025, what were some of the ways you were changed without even trying?

• how can you support the transformation that is already naturally arising in your life in the new year?

drink some water. give yourself a hug, feel the hug. build an altar.

—

upcoming:

• somatic self-tending 1:1s in LA or on zoom - accepting 2 new clients this season - custom practices geared towards reframing, safety, and cultivating trust in the body

• oct 2-4, 2026 - the sensing body retreat in berkley, CA with plant-based meals by heidi ross

I come to you after WEEKS of writing, editing, word vomiting, re-writing, re-editing my thesis reflection essay on prayer’s culmination. For those of you who have not seen the live work, prayer is a quartet for 4 cis men danced at the death-site of a collapsed patriarchal empire while unknowingly moving through the birth canal of the new world paradigm.

prayer is an attempt to stir the collective imagination towards something other than a zombie apocalypse or an asteroid hitting the earth. What if the apocalypse we are all collectively obsessed with avoiding is just colonial capitalism and patriarchal empires? What if matriarchal guidance and attunement to Earth Mother could bring us back into a harmony that is life-sustaining and abundant. What if we asked these questions through the desperate masculine body?

I am clocking in around 30 pages to close the semester and wondering, is there a book in here somewhere!? There is still so much more I have to stay. I had to literally stop myself from typing so that I could go live my life again. I shocked myself with how much was in there - and how every facet of my life since conceptualizing the work seemed to poetically align with the dance, and what I see happening in the world, and what I feel happening in my body. This was the first time in my life I really let myself write with the intention of publishing, even if it is just for my professors (or beloved substack subscribers) - my deepest creative thoughts and intentions. Sure, I religiously journal and do the morning pages, but the act of writing with the intention of your reading feels revolutionary. I get why people do this! And why they have done this for centuries! This is how we find collective language and shift paradigms!

Writing to be read feels wildly vulnerable and gives me vitality and has the power to awaken, ignite, and empower something in you! What a gift! Writing and reading are reciprocal, cyclical.

Many artists, activists, and dear ones in my circles are in heated discussions surrounding generative AI. Today I re-stacked a quote from artist, , from his wonderfully life-affirming essay on human creativity and the emotional enema that is our birth rite - go read it! I cannot even begin to clock the hours I have placed into my thesis, whether it be studio time, rehearsals, reading books and texts, or the writing - and I must say, embodying each of these actions, treating them sacredly - is healing me. And when I heal - others heal. It ripples. We mustn’t bypass divine discomfort - it is our responsibility to increase our capacity to experience life’s spectrum while we are breathing.

Birthing something into language or consciousness is very hard work, especially when the words do not feel like they exist quite yet for what you need to say. It is messy, uncomfortable, and undisturbed corners of the body begin to move shit - sometimes literal shit. In the process of building my work, prayer, I have cried ugly tears, ridden the waves of major ancestral grief, and of course I am scared to share it. What held me was the dancing body. The dance part of prayer wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult as placing these core beliefs into language. I am coming to realize I need both. We need both - the choreography and the text - the balance that emerges when logic meets body and then the secret third thing that occurs when someone else receives it.

In the essay, which I will eventually share in this space, I am linking climate catastrophes with the menstrual cycle. I am linking my body’s cycle of ovulation and bleeding and womb illness with the earth’s now-more-severe seasons, both on micro and macro scales. I discuss desert ecosystems’ emergency response strategies to sustain and adapt life in extreme conditions. And I invite us to sit with the somatics of empirical collapse and tune into the birth canal we currently grow inside.

Earth is writing through me, how naive to ever think that I am separate.

I offer a poem that syncs the start of the menstrual cycle, the first days of bloody release with the opening prelude of prayer:

MENSTURATION | PRELUDE

in the warm black, dark

we breathe together the room

womb

black and silent

reverence

not a sound

beyond the lungs

death, it is over now

(breathe)

a gurgle soft belly

wrestling, resting, restless

aroused, yield, yield, YIELD

(shhhh)

here

it was a quiet

natural dying

poor. sweet.

montage after montage

the self they know and new

the nuance

of who they are becoming

witnessed

chunky, sticky, wet, rose colored

I bleed

heavy floods

together at the

initiation threshold

If my work resonates with you in any ways and you’d like opportunities to integrate the learnings and awakenings of your mind and spirit through embodiment please join me in the following spaces:

• December 20 in LA | ROLLING PRACTICE | 10-11:30am PT @ LA Dance Project - sliding scale

• December 28 virtual | SOMATIC DREAM-TENDING | 9-10:30am PT - $25 or included for paid substack subscribers (only $8/ mo)

• THE SENSING BODY RETREAT w/ + meals by Heidi Ross

  October 2-4, 2026 in Berkley, CA | save the dates and sign up to receive updates and early bird registration and pricing

  ---

i have been guided by my dreams since i can remember though i did not know their medicine until about 10 years ago. as a child dreams were a sacred space i could metabolize the ineffable (and lightening fast internalizations) of daily life. in times of despair or unrealized expansion my dreams showed me how or when it was time to integrate a lesson. dreams are powerful downloads from our unconscious mind, a boundless, mystical space that humans were attuned to and guided by for centuries before modern technology (+extractive capitalism) began to block our powers to reach the inner well. dream space is a space of deep truth telling, creativity, and connectivity to Soul and Source. if you are not already in some sort of dream documenting process (journal, voice note, etc) i cannot recommend this enough. you will immediately feel more enriched and whole, i promise.

dreams reach us when they are meant to, they can communicate truths that our conscious mind has repressed or is afraid to embody. dreams can give us courage to go for the thing, say the thing, make the change, fall in love, or leave, take the break, schedule the doctor appointment, etc… if you are lucky enough to be dreaming, please listen…

“dreams are letters we write to ourselves”

-carl jung

in an effort to stay accountable in this substack container i have already set up our first somatic zoom community gathering to celebrate our dreaming! i aim to hold one gathering per month - included for paid subscribers - or for a small financial exchange for folks who are following along. the theme may rearrange, but will always be rooted in a somatic approach, that is, considering the body.

dream work is an essential part of my life and creative practice. as a cPTSD survivor, career artist, and sensitive piscean human dream work has been an affirming anchor, a compass when conscious logic falls short. my dreams let me know when i have gone astray, they light the path. even our nightmares are divine lightening strikes - terrifying us into awakening to something hidden from sight. they are all blessed helpers that midwife what is meant to come earthside.

“Kill the imagination and you kill the soul. Kill the soul and you’re left with a listless, apathetic creature who can become hopeless or brutal or both.”

-marion woodman

i look forward to sharing some simple dream embodiment tools with you to practice in community or on your own. if you love it, we will do it again. in the meantime, if you have a dream in the next week - write it down, or if you sleep alone, voice memo it to yourself. do not judge anything you are saying or try to make sense of it. write/speak your dream exactly as you experienced it. pay close attention to people, places, feelings, objects. deal!?

REGISTER

details here:

sunday nov 30

9am-10:30am PST

included for paid substack subscribers or $25

zoom sent upon registration

we will be pulling from exercises i have adapted through studying from the late and beloved Jungian dream analyist and dancer, Marion Woodman. i will also be sharing some mindfulness and breathwork to ground us in the inquiry.

• bring a journal and a dream

• colored pencils, pens, art supplies

• clear and prepare your private space for gentle movement and have cozy things close by, a blanket, pillows, yoga mat

REGISTER

beloveds,

firstly, thank you for reading. this community has been such a meaningful container to share and discover my voice through writing. to sometimes gracefully (mostly clumsily) navigate and name downloads from the soul.

i am writing to tell you that i will be sharing on substack from now on. in an effort to better support my future-self. mail chimp subscribers have been automatically moved - you do not need to do a thing! additionally you can unsubscribe anytime if my writing or this place does not align for you any longer.

instagram will ideally become a quieter place for me, more like a website that i update when something really professionally significant occurs (whatever that means!), but phone addiction has reached a peak for me. i need to shift. at least with newsletters i have to really sit and consider before hitting “publish”. it feels enormous, hands shaking every time. your inbox is a space i respect.

i love substack. i love reading other people’s newsletters, essays, prose, poetry. i have been on the receiving end for a while, and i believe it will allow for more intimacy and nuance in my sharing process and offer more accountability and organization around when and how i share.

i will be committing to monthly meandering newsletters - nothing new there (though they were more like “quarterly” meandering newsletters) - as well as sharing somatic workshops, performances, and retreat offerings throughout the year.

SAVE THE DATE FOR MY FIRST EVER IN PERSON SENSORY RETREAT OCTOBER 2-4, 2026 with some very special humans - details if you stay tuned - see!? you heard it here first! this is not a drill!

for those with any funds to spare (after cancelling whatever corporate goon subscriptions you/we had prior to our collective awakenings these past years, yay to boycotting extraction and cruelty!) there are some small monthly paid tiers available. paid subscribers will help sustain my creative practice when offerings are in development, the in-between times where the work is invisible. monetary exchange is powerful, necessary, and appreciated. especially in a time where the arts are being devalued at the state and federal level with facism/AI/tech rising all around us - grassroots relationships to content reveals an essential narrative - we vote with our dollars for human creativity.

paid subscribers will receive special content related to my creative processes beyond the newsletter including poetry, choreographic process notation/reflections, dream discoveries/analysis, ceramics, a monthly somatic community zoom call, and more as i learn how this relationship can expand..

and if you are simply here to receive, i also understand. and i am honored you find nourishment in my work.

either way, i truly hope you enjoy what this space will become.

on my substack i have archived some of my favorite newsletters from the past so they can live somewhere more witnessed. it was wild to read a letter i wrote you all in march 2024 about becomming fire long before the altadena wildfires turned so many of our lives upside-down and rearranged us forever.

this practice, like all creative time, is a portal. an awakening space. thank you to all who are just joining and to all who have been following (and collaborating) on the journey for a while now.

love, love, love!
sz

image 1 - sunrise in landers
image 2 - garden at a friend’s homestead
image 3 - prayer bowl i made at a fallen joshua tree
image 4 - mooooon last tuesday

beloveds

this is about a 7 minute read - offerings and resources at the end <3

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i have been in another cave season. detoxifying body, heart, mind. i write to you - amid a 14-day (surprisingly-SO-transformative) gut cleanse - from a place of gratitude and openheartedness for the unknown ahead.

last time i shared here was in april 2025. i announced some big culminations on the horizon and some big challenges that i (we) met in the opening 4 months of the year.

since then i moved homes 3 more times. i nested. i packed. i nested again. i danced with treasured friends. i danced alone by the sea. i worried about dori. i celebrated the wins. i grieved the losses. for 5 weeks, i lived in iceland. i learned how to drive stick shift on winding mountain roads. i held restorative space for others. i bathed naked in waterfalls and geothermal pools. i plunged into freezing rivers. i drank water straight out of the earth. i left social media. i made mistakes. i hiked enormous mountains. i experienced injury. i made love. i started sewing projects. i prayed and fasted and sat with strangers and horses and sheep.

i appreciate these check-ins as a marker of time, to be witnessed and to invite reflection, to note what has happened, the ups and downs. the trials and completions.

i am sure many of you consider yourselves, like me, cycle breakers. the beings in your family of origin who reject and divest internalized and externalized systems of oppression within the family and the greater society. we are imperfect, but we are trying. this requires daily practice. embodying an unknown trajectory because we believe in a future of harmony with all life. oftentimes, the cycle breakers have also lived through some life-altering traumas.

we feel things intensely. and this intensity is only magnified by the traumatizing culture we live within and witness. hopefully, eventually we have discovered somatics, 12 step recovery spaces, psychoanalysis, meditation, mindfulness, community, and our own creativity - to find a deeper sense of peace, healing, and Self. this road to spiritual health takes enormous courage and so much energy.

i want to hold a moment to breathe in the magnitude of the path we have each traversed so far. if you are reading this you are still here, now.

after what feels like a never-ending cascade of stress - i have been gifted with so much solitude and beauty this summer, intimate quality time with a few close ones and my tender, beloved partner. in this spaciousness i have been reflecting on the currency and value of energy and attention.

i have been feeling a really clear sense of the temporality of our time together here on this planet and been tediously realigning with my purpose and dharma. there is a lot to be shed to create space for the people we must become - relationships, jobs, commitments are tough, but at the very least, obvious. less obvious are the patterns and beliefs we take on that are not our own. some ancient toxic beliefs that clog the system. clearing this can be an exhausting labor, but the greatest possible gift we can give ourSelves. i name this, because i am in the thick of it.

lately i am amazed by the simplicity of what is important to me (and what is not important to me) and what brings me the most peace. food - the quality and source of food. water - the quality and source of water. the presence i bring to preparing, cooking, eating a meal, drinking tea, or a glass of water (or in iceland drinking directly from the earth).

i am so aware in this moment of the genocides and ecocides and injustices occurring at the same moment that i take the first bite of sweet, fresh fruit - and how dare i treat this moment with anything but pure reverence and joy.

i also feel an acute sensitivity to what i take in. not just through food, but with my eyes and ears and nose and touch. it is a default to focus attention on our suffering, but in order to not fall into unsalvageable (and unhelpful) despair we must also focus our attention on the beauty when and where it shows itself to us. we must return to our well and be replenished if we are in the position of privilege to do so. and what a gift to take in beauty, flavor, softness.

in iceland it was all quite easy. lush and generous landscapes would sprawl for hundreds of miles. i received so much medicine from earth mother in those barely touched mountains. i felt held in the container of her magnitude. she could hold all of me, she carried my prayers, i was never too much. and in her container i found a deeper well of self love which i know will be critical to my survival.

one of the beautiful hiking guides we met in egilsstaðir said “we go into the mountains and we breathe. we receive, receive, receive the mountains into our body - and then we take the mountains back with us - into our lives”.

i have one more year of grad school, and after that some big changes i will share later. i know that i need spaciousness, fertile soil, daily practices and rituals of peacefulness and self-love. i need health. it is the only way i can keep showing up for these times without burning out.

cognitively we all know this. we hear it all the time, hell - we say it all the time! but lately i am feeling it so deeply, a demand from my body, my eyes, my heart, my skin. “listen to me” they whisper, they beckon. the macro starts with the micro. and the soul cannot do much here on earth without the body.

take another moment to acknowledge there is a body.

take a moment to acknowledge there is an earth.

what a miracle to be here together - now.

below i am sharing some resources that have been powerful for me to meet this moment as well as some of my offerings coming up.

may there be peace to all who are suffering. may there be health to all who are malnourished physically or spiritually. may balance restore as we collectively meet the moments ahead. may we love ourselves fiercely. may we love each other fiercely.

love love love you thank you for reading,

stephanie

P.S. You are on this list because at some point you attended a performance, workshop, class of mine and/or directly consented to receive emails. The ways in which I share creative work have transformed through the years as I am sure you have too - if this semi-yearly/monthly newsletter does not align with you, i lovingly invite you to unsubscribe any time.

RESOURCES

read:

“how to smile” by thích nhất hạnh

listen:

on being w/ john o’donohue: the inner landscape of beauty

receive:

aug 19 - “discipline is pleasure” webinar w/ yumi sakugawa

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MY OFFERINGS

rolling practice + cate le bon’s “michelangelo dying” listening party + equinox(ish) potluck
september 27-28 - venue and sign-up TBA

somatic 1:1s :

i can take on 2 more clients at this time 🙂

zoom or in-person east LA only (highland park, eagle rock, pasadena, glendale, etc)

strengthen your self-tending tools, increase your capacity for the intensity of the times, access your natural inner-well of peace through simple somatic practices and the accountability of this container - I LOVE THIS WORK…

if you are even a little bit curious fill out an INQUIRY FORM and we can set up a free call to see if the time is right to collaboate in this way

choreography:

• sept 12 - murmurations by sharon chohi kim @ REDCAT - TICKETS

• oct 4 - prayer (excerpt) in collaboration w/ sam kweskin @ Canyon Country Community Center

• oct 23-24 - grad thesis production of prayer @ CalArts

• nov 14 - prayer (excerpt) at Compound Yucca Valley for the Joshua Treenial

support:

all tax-deductible donations made this year will help pay for my thesis research, paying dancers, covering travel costs, creative supplies, and collaborator fees. thank you to all past, present, and future supporters. DONATE

i care about your body:

lastly, for those missing ICAYB - i am hoping to hold one this winter in LA, and for sure in the summer. details as they come - love and miss this with you.

wip:

wip is back oct 6 with some very big and exciting news and an amazing line-up. follow the insta for updates and tickets <3

i am taking a 4 month sabbatical to focus on my thesis semester, but please be sure to support this incredible program in the meantime! ☺️

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love you byeee

image 1 - glacial pool near stórurð hike
image 2 - somewhere near stöðvarfirði
image 3 - fresh greens at móðir jörð
image 4 - view from stórurð hike
image 5 - algae and moss and rocks along stórurð hike
image 6 - hiking laugarfell with murphy

Dear ones,

I hope this message finds you healthy and taking care through all we are witnessing and holding, including the beautiful beginnings of spring! This is about a 7 minute read, and as always you can skip to the offerings at the end of the page.

I have not written to you in this way since July 2024, much life has happened. I wish I could tell you everything, but instead let’s land in this moment.

I am writing to you as I round out my first year of grad school. My body and mind are exhausted, invigorated, and eager all at once.

This year has been an intense one of complex grief, loss, existential overwhelm, and forced change on personal and global levels. Displacement, debt, chronic illness, estrangement are some of the heavier themes I have been grappling with on a personal level, but my own grief is reflected back at me every single day ((exponentially)) through climate collapse, g*nocide, and the accelerated rise of f*scism. I know I am not alone in the process, and I feel a profound connection to the earth, life, and loved ones known and unknown all around the world as we face unfathomable change together. And at the very same time, I have witnessed and experienced the deepest community care I have known in my whole entire life.

Being enrolled in a full time arts program at a time like this is an enormous privilege and, at times, feels complicated to “defend”. The arts in this country are devalued in every way imaginable, and some days it is really tough to not internalize the sick thinking that the arts are not a VITAL resource to sustain healthy life.

However as a soul driven body, I have never felt more aligned with where I am meant to be. Every single time I enter a dance studio I am aware of the power of the body and the necessary genius of choreography as a practice. This space teaches me I can hold pain, pleasure, equality, weakness, confusion, overwhelm, sensuality, rage all at once, and I can channel it into a clear, consciousness-shifting message.

Extractive capitalism (and everything that comes with it) has taught us to forget that we are souls first. We are animals/poets experiencing a brief glimmer of life. These bodies, these precious organic vessels(!), have an expiration date. We are blood pumping, metabolizing, witnessing, sweating, tasting, sensing everything. We are change. We are seasons.

Go outside and smell a blooming rose!

Touch water!

Kiss!

To my surprise, returning to structure, school, accountability, and a consistent schedule was the score that I needed to return to the power inside my body. I meditate on archetypal energies. Masculine energies: organization, consciousness, learning. My soul called me to strengthen my relationship to masculine energies in order to bring my more intuitive feminine sensibilities into a larger stage: the radical softness, the sensorial, the poetic truth of living.

As usual, if you are still reading, thank you. I know it’s not always conventional. I am writing from my heart. I am organizing this message (and the ask) the best I can in between a thousand other things. I know you are busy too.

And now the ask, because I/we are making something:

prayer

is a 60 minute performance score quartet researching themes of empire and the body, masculinity and care-giving, organic and mechanical, consciousness and shadows, forces of order and the poetic future of balance. It is a morphing research (following 3 years of the ‘vagus’ creation process) prioritizing the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems’ relationship to group tuning and ecosystem building.

Dramaturgical research includes a variety of lectures on archetypal energies by Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, prophetic punk music of the 80s and 90s including The Dead Kennedys, and Nirvana, and masculinity examined through a feminine lens via Claire Denis’ masterpiece ‘Beau Travail’.

A lot of this research has been done in the Mojave Desert, though I cannot yet articulate how that ties in other than I always look to the desert for survival strategies in extreme circumstances. The desert only knows slow ancient ways, interdependence, and patient growth.

prayer is my grad-thesis performance. A prototype/template of this performance will culminate on October 30-31 at CalArts and an adapted version will happen at the Joshua Treenial on November 14 via Compound Yucca Valley - after that, I hope lots more.

I have re-awakened my fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas in order to raise funds for my grad thesis project. All donations are fully tax-deductible and go directly to paying the artists for their time in the studio building the work with me.

I am aiming to raise $4,000 by June 1st!

If any of my work has meant something to you in the past please consider supporting this project directly via a one time or monthly contribution.

DONATE HERE <3

OFFERINGS / HAPPENINGS:

WIP PROM
May 3
los angeles, ca
WIP has supported over 32 LA based artist groups in 2 years in the development of new and ongoing choreographic processes - prom! party! catharsis! for our first fundraiser to support season 4: djs, performances, silent auction, edible art, and more!

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Ashram Iceland
July
my beloved has worked for this retreat space for years. recently i was asked to join their summer experience as a restorative practices facilitator.
7 day retreats in a remote fishing village in Iceland - this is a pricy endeavor, but if you have the means it will be a life changing experience i’m sure.

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somatic 1:1s return !!
i can accept summer clients beginning May 27th !!
la or anywhere !!
we can meet in your home, on zoom, in a studio, in nature !!
sessions are co-created and collaborative - developed to strengthen your personal self-tending rituals !!
i have worked with so many incredible clients, and i love this work so much !!
please review and submit the application if this calls to you !!

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rolling practice
I care about your body
TBA summer
i want to roll with you, stay tuned.

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prayer rehearsal residencies
june 1-15 and august 19-25
los angeles, ca
thesis research process begins - donations directly pay dancers

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SENTINEL OPERA r+d workshop with cast and musicians
june 25-30
los angeles, ca
invited showing june 30

Thank you for reading and being in community with me and my processes.

!!!!!love love love love love!!!!!

stephanie

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P.S. You are on this list because at some point you attended a performance, workshop, class of mine and/or directly consented to receive emails. The ways in which I share creative work have transformed through the years as I am sure you have too - if this semi-yearly/monthly newsletter does not align with you, i lovingly invite you to unsubscribe any time.

image 1 - winter solstice fire pit prayer
image 2 - rain
image 3 - beloved above me on a boulder
image 4 - mojave desert views from a friend’s home

dear ones,

i have not written in this way since march. it has been a wild season of personal and global grief, loss, illness, healing, and rest paired with conscious loving actions towards my body and the bodies and souls of those close to (and far away from) me. it has been a patient and slow season forcing necessary rest and recalibration. practicing listening. sitting with discomfort. embracing ease and abundance when it comes. there has also been profound joyfulness, accumulative growth, and a feeling of being hopeful and wide awake.

i am not going to attempt to sum it all up here right now, but rather share some offerings on the horizon - the venn diagram of all of the ways the lessons are culminating. physical spaces where i get to experience culture, community, and practice radical dreaming, learning, and embodiment.

as i soon embark on another detox from social media for time in the mountains with my beloved ond our dogs, please consider this email the invitation to join me where and when and how you feel called.

wishing you nourishment,
z

I CARE ABOUT YOUR BODY @ PIETER

3 day workshop - August 31-Sept 2*

(Los Angeles, CA) All levels somatic and creative movement practices to harmonize and co-regulate our nervous systems and awaken our imaginations in community informed by intersectional and circular learning/sharing. Sliding scale rates available for the 3 day offering.

This offering will/can only be held if at least 15 folks register by August 16th*
Please submit right away if this calls to you at this time!

DETAILS AND APPLICATION

“This workshop was one of the most interconnected spaces I’ve ever been in. It felt like collective healing. Not just in the room but beyond.”
-anonymous testimonial 2023

“Don’t quite yet have the words to express how this weekend impacted me, but yeah I’ve molted.”
-anonymous testimonial 2024

WIP ARTIST INQUIRIES OPEN THRU JULY 27

WIP seeks LA based movement and performance artists who are in the midst of a creative process for its 3rd season - curated by Belize Wilheim!

Be sure to read through the eligibility requirements, programming ethos, and WIP’s offerings before completing the fast and casual application.

In it’s first year WIP has supported over 25 artists with a growing audience of over 700 people. It has been an honor to serve the LA dance community as the director of Programming and Artist Relations beside ambitious and passionate colleagues (aka dance wives) Kate Wallich (Marketing and Development) and Belize Wilheim (Residency and Operations). Join us next season!

LEARN MORE AND APPLY

SENTINEL - WE ARE BUILDING AND OPERA!

SENTINEL is a deeply moving, romantic, feminist project by Danielle Birrittella unveiling themes of agoraphobia and grief amid a landscape of social violence, technology, psychedelics, and internal repatterining. I wept for hours after reading the libretto by poet Claressinka Anderson and cannot wait to finally get into the room with this incredible team.

We are raising funds to support our first in-person workshop as a company this Fall. Please visit the campaign, share, and donate if you can. The perks are so generous and include holistic offerings including poetry, music, IFS treatments, somatic tending sessions, and more.

LEARN MORE AND SUPPORT

WITCH SWEAT PODCAST WITH MELISSA WORD

I was so lucky to sit down with beloved internet pal, kindred spirit, textile and movement artist, and death doula, Melissa Word for her deeply thoughtful podcast, Witch Sweat. I have never been on a podcast before and it took me a sec to get cozy in trusting that the words coming out were the words that were meant to be heard and said. But wow, did we really arrive.

We talk about Ween (lol), capital “D” dance, de-colonial shadow work, the invisible choreography of the every day, the radical work of caregiving and nannying, creative resourcing in the US, returning to the wisdom of the body a million times over, intergenerational addictions to shame, 12 step recovery work, and more.

i love melissa and her work - give it a listen if you have time and capacity. its a long, soft, meandering time, but the landings and arrivals feel like those in dreams. and i cherish that this conversation happened.

LISTEN HERE - THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF THE UNSEEN SELF

OFFERINGS IN THE COMMUNITY

JULY 24th - IRL - HEALING VOICE OF DEEP RELEASE W/ ODEYA NINI @ TEA @ SHILOH

AUG 3rd (deadline to apply is July 24th) - virtual - HOW TO DECOLONIZE & RADICALIZE YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE TOWARDS COLLECTIVE LIBERATION w/ YUMI SAKUGAWA & FARIHA ROISIN

AUG 13 + 20 - virtual - SCRAP THE PLAN w/ MELISSA WORD

image 1 - storm clouds rolling into nashville
image 2 - the aftermath of a beautiful meal cooked by fariha roisin
image 3 - nude bed rest