JANUARY - choppy wind
"come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed. —Lucille Clifton
dear friends, dear community,
welcome new friends who recently joined this community. welcome home🏡. here, i intimately share with you my healing process💝 (how i compost my difficulties / how i move through this world we have) as well as offer opportunities for you to enter/deepen/explore/engage with your process🌱.
again, happy western new year 2024🎉✨ !
may it be new and fresh.
may it be the most supportive for our healing journey
may you touch newness each day.
may your intentions for the year be clear and wholesome.
may your ancestors and the earth support you and your intentions as you move through the year.
many attempts to write this sharing and things keep shifting. life. for the past few weeks, there seems to be a lot of movement in my nervous system as one event after another activates various emotions such as sadness, joy, delight, fear, disappointment, doubt, awe, anger, grief, fatigue, disgust, excitement, doubt, calm, irritability, etc. the list goes on. the words and meanings with these movements sometimes take time to come. i was mostly ok with the movements. at times i was bumped out of my resilient zone and thanks to having space and time, i could easily recognize what was happening and come back in.
TRI: CRM: resilient zone does not mean happy all the time
tonight as i was tending to my vermicompost, the thought that even the compost needs balance as an unbalanced compost smells😊. i continue to resource myself (internally) to be able to continue to expand my resilient zone and meet life open heartedly. i am also seeing that the UNIVERSE / CREATOR is kind as it gives me things in stages as well as what i need to move through it.
“fear is here to wake us up. the universe is friendly. —Byron Katie
december and january brought the anniversaries of two important milestones for me.
releasing my monastic robes and re-entering lay life - december 2021.
transitioning of my zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh (a.k.a. Thay) - january 2022.
transitions
reflecting on these milestones, i see that this has truly been a journey. if you told that young version of myself in 2008 that i would meet a zen master, be ordained and adopt a new lifestyle…i would have said no way. walking into Thay's sangha at the university of Toronto in 2008, i was suffering deeply. stoned faced, suspicious, tired of fighting, fearful and seeking something else. over time, Thay’s teachings melted my heart and opened me up to another world and this world continues to expand today as i move through each difficulty and help others do the same. i am forever grateful for that courageous part of myself that ventured down that unknown path and all the people, plants, animals who helped to shape me.
“the Buddha was not a stone, he was a human being. but he suffered much less because of his wisdom and compassion. this is a very important thing to learn. …why did the buddha keep practicing after his enlightenment? i know the answer today. happiness is impermanent just like anything else. we have to feed and nourish our happiness. —Thich Nhat Hanh
this is my growing edge
as i was gearing up to offer practice for 2024, i came across parts of myself that hold deep self-doubt and deep low self-worth. this surprised me as i had forgotten that they were there as i hadn’t seen them for a while. these parts are what kept me on the sidelines, kept me small, kept me out of sight all these years. this is what prevented me from offering my gifts to the world (as i believed that i had no gifts, nothing to offer). this time around, these aspects of myself revealed themselves a bit clearer...as well as the thought patterns that fueled them...the sensations and images that accompanied them….where they showed up in my body. "who am i to be offering these practices. leave it to someone else. this is really not for you. fraudulent. nobody wants to come anyways.” etc. meeting these parts of myself that come from internalized oppression was difficult to bear. it felt awful in my body - dense, heavy and gloomy. this is what the slave master left in me. the whip on the outside stopped but the whip on the inside continues. it's tough stuff to move through yet, i knew i needed to move through them. i didn't want to go to war with these aspects of myself as they are a part of me now. so i tended to them in these ways…. i called on the ancestors and CREATOR to support me. i soul scribed (as a way to practice deep listening to myself which also helps to get the stuff out of my head). i explored some of these pieces with my therapist. i also worked with the physical manifestation of them in my body using movement & touch. as i tended to them, i continued to take gentle steps forward as i prepared for 2024.
“wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. —Toni Morrison
throughout my life, i have felt deeply flawed. “something didn't feel quite right with me.” i didn't have language for it then…it was a felt sense and it came out in my life choices…of running after career, overachievement, perfectionism, even during my monastic path. yes, i tried to get enlightened thinking “then i will be good or ok”. in my personal and career life, i also tried… fake it until you make it strategy which helped me for a while as it helped to override and cover up what was below the surface and i needed to do that to survive. happy, bubbly, confident was “my fake it”. my aunt simply calls it pretending to be ok when you are not. brewing under the surface was low self-worth and self-loathing. i won’t go into it but i would like to name that self-doubt, low self-worth and self-loathing came from somewhere and are in place a reason.
the practice of self-acceptance is true love-making. accepting all of it! and in this instance of preparation for 2024 as i worked with the compost, what emerged was... feeling full, grounded, connected to myself and happily pregnant with the new year retreat offering. i communed with my ancestors, resourced and receive directions on what and how to offer. the energy in this pregnancy got me excited. this is the other side of the coin! we are truly powerful beings once we tap into and access our power. the conditioning / programming is not us. we don't have to identify with them. we are greater. the programming may distract us from the greatness that is also there. actually the programming can help us better see that greatness that is there so they do serve a purpose if we know how to make use of them...it's the contrast that helps us to see clearly.
“find freedom in the context you inherit” —Lee Maracle
during a teaching, i remember Thay showing us a piece of paper and putting a dot on it. he said, we can see the dot because of the contrast color of the paper. the same is true with the insides. we can see clearly the beauty because of the ugliness. we can appreciate the light because of the darkness. 2 sides of the same coin. everything is a process and i have come to see again and again that everything can be used for one's healing and liberation. thanks to the self-doubt and low self-worth i can see the inner working of my mind and how the body holds and releases things as well as the organic & interbeing nature of the human experience. thanks to the self-doubt and low self-worth, i can concretely touch deeper self-love and acceptance. i made a deal with myself at a point in my practice that no matter what reveals itself, no matter how ugly, i will learn to accept and integrate it. Ghan usually says that love is a capacity not a feeling. intentionally cultivating joy, resourcing are ways i expand my capacity to tend to the difficult stuff.
"if a tree were less than a tree, all of us would be in trouble. but if a tree is just a real tree, then there's hope and joy. that's why if you can be yourself, that is already action. action is based on non-action; action is being. —Thich Nhat Hanh
being with the kids at the local basic school is definitely a resource as it brings me so much joy… and recently my sister visited and shared in the joy of being with dem babies. the kids seem to also enjoy our time together.
general updates
last month, i got to connect in person with Valerie Brown on Jamaican soil. it was quite special as my stepmom came along for the ride and two worlds - intersected dharma sibling, family as well as our shared Jamaican heritage.
last month, the local basic school put on their annual christmas treat for the children. we are thankful for Ann Dugan and an anonymous donor’s contribution towards the cake, ice cream and gifts for the children. you can see a video of the highlights here
UMOJA's first informal meeting happened this week. there are 8 of us🎉! in the coming months, you will get to meet each person. first items: setting up UMOJA as a charitable organization and creating a website.
i became a core member of ARISE sangha🎉. after my first meeting, i am filled with gratitude and humbled witnessing the level of love and care that has been going behind the scenes.
local basic school: i continue to be with the children 2x per week. my sister got to be with them twice. attempting cultural handicrafts (making bracelets) with a small group of children after school was a success. the swing is very popular! looking into options for the seesaw: building it versus buying and shipping to Jamaica.
researching nature play-based curriculum.
dreaming of grand market 2024 with my aunt. the plan is to purchase toys bit by bit and "put it down” (this is typically how things are achieved here with limited resources).
my sister hanging out with the kids
kids making cultural bracelet
i will pause here for now. my stepmom usually looks over my sharing before i send it out and she said that i wrote a novel😁😂. if you have read to this point, thank you for your interest in my inner process/novel😉. i hope it is helpful for yours.
as we move through 2024, take good care💝,
Kenyatta A