Well shit, things are heavy in the world right now. I woke up in the middle of the night last night imagining things I’d rather not imagine. Things I’ve read about this summer. You know the stories. The senselessness and heartache of humans murdering other humans.
The parts of the ocean that are so deep we can’t find the bottom? I think those go straight through to the way to the other side of planet. Like, we all see the same water.
I’ve wanted to write about it. About my fears and hopes, about how/if to talk about it with kids. In our home we’ve talked about prejudice and racism with our daughters and we have not talked about people gunned down while dancing and police killing people and people killing police and big trucks driving through gathering families. But I have not written a thing, I’ve just been thinking and reading. Studying and listening. Talking to my friends and family. Wanting to do more than just talk. I have a lot of questions and very few answers.
Mama? Nature is in charge. It’s the most powerful thing. More powerful than you or the president. Really, it makes ALL the decisions.
Of the few answers I have ideas about, I feel sold contact with the following:
- Loving the hell out of people. I am not doing self checkout at the market ever again. I am making eye contact with humans and asking them – and meaning it – how they are doing. I am spending time with the kids that irritate my kids. I am high fiving strangers when I feel like it.
- Being the best mother I can be. Giving and exhibiting the love, guts and compassion I want my children to carry on well after I’ve sipped my last breath.
- Supporting initiatives and organizations – financially and physically – committed to peaceful, loving, inclusive proactivity. More on this soon.
- Experiencing and making beautiful things. Nothing is too small to form a meditation, a comradery, a ritual of the heart. We need to write poems, paint murals, sing ballads, sculpt clay, make clothes. We need to make art with our whole hearts.
I wonder what it feels like to be the earth. I bet it feels hard.
I think all four of those tiny objectives overlap a lot; we can fold them into just about everything we do. I plan on paying attention to just that.
I went to a yoga class this morning and dedicated my practice to a family member who is hurting. While on my mat I thought a lot about hurt. Down dog into pain. Bridge into divisiveness. Warrior One into grief.
Sometimes when I snuggle with Mabel, I like FEEL Alice. It’s like she’s there. Inside Mabel or me or something.
We made garlic braids. I always appreciate working with my hands, connecting to life and kin. Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow. So easy and surprising, the first to come up every spring, a hardy stock of spicy and explosive flavor that lasts until next year.
My daughters and I created a little video of braiding garlic/braiding love into food and experience and the world. xo
with our own two hands from Nici Holt Cline on Vimeo.
