MARCH- ride that wave!
“cradle closely whatever keeps you from losing your soul. —Jaiya John
dear friends, dear community,
welcome back those who have been with me and welcome new friends who recently joined this community. welcome home🏡. according to the Buddha, there are 84000 dharma doors (ways to practice) here i share my practice / process💝 with you. it may or may not support your process and i also offer opportunities for you to enter / deepen / explore / engage with your process🌱.
so here we are, another month has slipped away. grateful to have the space to pause and write as i wasn’t sure if conditions would allow for me to write this month.
there seems to be a lot going on in our individual and collective bodies and the body of the earth.
i invite you to pause to remember our siblings in Palestine, Sudan, Congo and many other places of war & conflict where bodies are threatened and being destroyed. what can be done? this is an inquiry that i hold. our practice for freedom and liberation is not for ourselves alone. we practice for our family, community, nations and the earth. we also practice backwards… and practice forward…
art by @mamamuralista
how do you keep or return to a balanced mind during these times? it seems easy to be carried away by despair, helplessness, anxiety, worries, etc. by the current state of the world or maybe by things unfolding in our personal life. if we are drowning in suffering, we won’t be of much help as we have lost the balance of the mind. we may not see a way out or have energy or clarity for helpful action.
how do you calm and soothe our anxious parts?
how do you internally resource yourself to move through these times and find right action and right relationship?
it’s very difficult and yet as Kaira Jewel’s book suggests, we are made for these times.
change
in the natural world, this week brought in the full moon, representing completion, fertility, abundance, creativity, and transformation, when the seeds from the new moon come into bloom. it may also be an emotional time. maybe seeds of your new year aspirations are starting to sprout or bud or to bloom?
there are so much that we cannot change yet there is much we can change. as a starting point, everything within ourselves is within reach.
source: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1861746-webcomics
"nothing changes until your mind changes. —Oppong Quaw George Esq
looking back at my upbringing, i can see that i was conditioned into helplessness and disconnected from my internal GPS so when things happened i didn't know what to do. i did the freeze response, maybe? this might be true for some of you too. while i was ordained and having difficulties in the monastery, i remember Ghan asking me to write to the sisters about my difficulties and i felt like she was asking me to do the impossible. on another occasion, she asked me to ask the sangha to send her family energy and that too felt too much. there was an awareness that something within was blocking me, preventing me from acting… my action wasn’t within reach. i felt ashamed as i had aspirations to help and to be of service to others and i was coming up against this blockage. later on it occurred to me that… if we don't have a sense of agency or know how to advocate for ourselves, how can we do that for another? again, the way out is in and it is a circular process. i have been on this planet long enough to start to see things repeating themselves. in order to effect lasting change we need a shift in consciousness and this takes time.
“what if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis? —Dr. Bayo Akomolafe
according to the calendar, this month is my earthstrong. i turned 45 years. it feels like an important milestone for me. on my birthday, my ancestors reminded me that 45 years isn’t any little thing, given our journey to the present day. the joy, the pain, creativity, resurrection, all of it ain’t no small thing!
being raised by my elderly maternal grandfather who was pretty content, i never knew that old age comes with “suffering”. he aged so gracefully. growing up i always wanted to get old like him. well into his 80s and 90s he continued to do mild farming and raised his 2 young granddaughters. my grandpa was very happy and prideful to share that he was x age. the only difficulty i knew he had was lower back pain. he lived until he was 101 years.
me and my sister Tanya
although this body-mind has been through much and i can feel the wear and tear on my body, i do have hopes to have a long, balanced life like my grandpa.
45 years means there have been lots of heartbreaks 💔, challenges and obstacles. a question that keeps coming back to me over the years as i encounter hardship is… how not to choose bitterness? in other words, how to remain open and keep loving in a world that doesn't always love me back? how do i grow the courage to love?
“daughter. spend your life loving. not seeking love. ocean need not seek water. you are already water, precious daughter. you are whole. live beautifully, as whole things do. if you chase love, you will lose it. you can only have love by being love. it is a flame. you must be a flame. see how fire behaves with its heat. then you will know how to be with love. be so fragrant with love that the honeybees will not leave you alone, and a million flower blossoms know your name. a flame lives in your soul that can give the whole world a fever. make us sick. —Jaiya John
patience
👈🏾/👆🏾my grandpa used to say… a patient man rides a donkey🫏.
i used to respond (under my breath), “i don’t want to ride a donkey.” my young self would question, why would i want to ride a donkey when there are cars, motorcycles or even bicycles🚲?
i have come to see the importance of cultivating patience in my life. Thay’s teachings helped me to see patience as an aspect of love. first duty of this patient-love is to myself. what if i could accept myself as i am, with no expectation that i will ever be different (no imposition)? this doesn’t mean that i stop practicing…it means i give myself space or room to be, so i can discover this thing i call me. like, watching a flower open without prematurely prying it open or imposing ideas on it.
🌺patience🌺👀
the reality is that it’s not always easy to be patient. from time to time urgency emerges in me and this brings up internal and sometimes external conflicts and battles. this is suffering. it seems that i am sitting on fire 🔥. how can one be patient when seemingly sitting on fire🔥and when the world seems to be on fire? …when there is fire within and without? this is suffering.
this question helps me to understand the urgency in me and it makes sense. if you feel like you are sitting on fire, you want to put it out right away. now! right? i don’t stop there, i need to practice first to put out the fire within. it is a process of undoing urgency and i am welcoming it. now, i really want to ride a donkey 😉 and there are parts that still want things fast.
urgency is not the enemy or inherently bad…it too has an organic nature. it too has its purpose…pushing for action. for me, sometimes urgency stems from my inner child taking the wheel of the car without seeing the bigger context. my practice is to note that there is an unmet need here and to take care of my little child within, so i return to a balanced mind and assess what can be done.
dreamtime.com
another aspect is comfort or ease. there can be the mutual dance of ease with urgency. it seems that when there is comfort, there can be ease in the action and with too much comfort, it seems there can be indifference and inaction. when there isn’t comfort, it’s hard to settle. one must practice in order to settle. in this month's SOULmatic gathering, i would like to explore self soothing with you...a way to quench the fire of suffering 🔥within.
patience isn’t about inaction… for me it’s discerning what’s there. when we are doing a sprint and when we are running a marathon and practicing accordingly. it’s also about deep trust in life and the current action that we need to take (no matter how small)…knowing that future moments are built on the current action.
“patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. it is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.” ― Rumi
as the natural world continues to consistently embody the reality of things, the process continues - being, learning, unlearning, reflecting, changing. swinging from patience - to impatience - to patience, urgency - to ease - to urgency, remembering and forgetting. this is it…humans doing our human thing imperfectly 🤔!
if you have gotten this far, thanks for your interest in my process. we all have our own unique process unfolding in each moment. i hope conditions allow for you to connect to it, value it and share it with the world.🙏🏾💝.
with love and care💝,
Kenyatta A
NOTES
Thich Nhat Hanh (a.k.a. Thay)
sangha means community
CREDIT
art by @mamamuralista
knowyourmeme.com/photos/1861746-webcomics
dreamtime.com
COMMUNITY UPDATES
for this period the healing scholarship fund awarded
2 partial scholarships to 2 Jamaican women to attend the yellow flower’s women network UNSTOPPABLE retreat
scholarship to one person for one-on-one support / trauma care
this month's UMOJA meeting was beautiful. we shared ourselves, our visions/hopes for our work together🔮...we seem to be creating a safe space for each other as we slowly organize ourselves to do our work in Jamaica. it was deeply nourishing to come together like this 🌱.
printed sample t-shirts UMOJA & this is Jamaica.
i have been able to access more education for mental health clinicians for trauma treatment as they recognized the need in spiritual communities ... i am expanding from trauma-informed to trauma treatment/intervention. FERENTZ INSTITUTE
this training👆🏾 will feed into my current ethno-integrated mental health mentorship and training with Shobha R at EWB.
whatever is unfolding here is still fairly young, organic and is guided & supported by the creator, ancestors, earth . i am not alone. we are not alone. we continue with faith and trust.
