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watch mindy perform poems at westside school for the desperate

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The BREATHE Act was unveiled today: “Imagine sc

The BREATHE Act was unveiled today:

“Imagine schools free of police and full of trained counselors and restorative-justice programs, where all our children are kept safe and their needs are met.

Imagine easy access to trained, trauma-informed interventionists who can be called on in domestic-violence situations and who are equipped to facilitate long-term safety, healing, and prevention.

Imagine 911 operators dispatching unarmed mental-health experts instead of police in situations involving behavioral health crises, and callers being allowed to request responders that connect to the gender identity of the person in crisis.

The BREATHE Act offers a radical reimagining of public safety, community care, and how we spend money as a society. We bring 4 simple ideas to the table:

-Divest federal resources from incarceration and policing.
-Invest in new, non-punitive, non-carceral approaches to community safety that lead states to shrink their criminal-legal systems and center the protection of Black lives—including Black mothers, Black trans people, and Black women.
-Allocate new money to build healthy, sustainable, and equitable communities.
-Hold political leaders to their promises and enhance the self-determination of all Black communities.

Uprisings around the country changed what was possible. What felt impossible two months ago is being accomplished now; what seems impossible today is doable tomorrow, and we will be the ones to make it happen. We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

#breatheact
breatheact.org

I’ve often heard Bayo’s voice in my head over

I’ve often heard Bayo’s voice in my head over the last 3 months, speaking the proverb: “the times are urgent, let us slow down.” As the reality of COVID 19 set in, it seemed to describe exactly what was happening, and what needed to happen, what we had needed to happen all along. A great slowing and uncoupling from ordinary/automatic states, a deepening understanding of our interconnectedness, a creation of the exact conditions that would finally allow for real and lasting change. As Bayo lovingly chides, we cannot solve problems using the same approach that created them, echoing Audre Lorde’s declaration that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Happy full moon friends.

It’s another big one. Tonight, at 9:44pm PST, the cosmic tides peak with a full moon lunar eclipse at 13º of Capricorn. For those of us in the U.S., it carries added significance, arriving on the 4th of July - Independence Day - meaning that this eclipse will happen as fireworks explode in the sky. It feels to me like a direct invitation to move even more deeply into contemplation of liberation. We must dismantle the master’s house, and the myth of independence, with its illusions of separateness and specialness and supremacy, isn’t going to get us there. To discover what will get us there, to be present to more true, more liberating ideas, we have to continue to not-rush, to slow down. We have to continue the work of opening our hearts and imaginations and cultivating radical receptivity.

Saturn has also now retrograded back into Capricorn, joining Jupiter and Pluto and tonight, the full moon, to begin its final six months of it’s Capricorn transit. Whatever rituals you do tonight, don’t forget to set a proper container, and show Saturn some respect. This is an opportunity to honor how far you have come, to complete a stage of your healing process, and to practice, again, releasing the stories that are holding you back. This moon has some Capricorn-style encouragement - stay with what is ending, stay with what is difficult. Stay climbing the mountain, one step at a time. Rest when you need to, but don’t check out. You have not come this far to only come this far.

Happy Solstice friends ⚡️ In the northern hemi

Happy Solstice friends ⚡️ In the northern hemisphere, this is the longest stretch of light, the big finish to the latest cycle of growth/flowering/expansion. It is coinciding this year with a moment of maximum contraction: a new moon and solar eclipse at 0º of Cancer, coming tonight at 11:41 pm PST. As with all the astrology this year, this alignment is epic. We are being invited deeper into this portal where old forms and beliefs and ways of life can dissolve, the next step in our collective evolution. According to the laws of alchemical transformation, solution can only come through dissolution. This next six months will dissolve things further, and we we have the opportunity tonight to honor what is ending or has ended for us personally, and to process our emotions and come apart if we need to. We can grieve all we’ve lost, and we can call in further necessary dissolution of any and all hostile patterns, systems, and beliefs in our culture that are disconnected, disconnecting, and bring harm to life itself.
At the same time, something new is being born. In some ways this new form is still a dream dreaming itself; in other ways its early crystallizations are already visible. The Cancer constellation evokes the archetypal mother and nurturer. New life is fragile and vulnerable. If it is to thrive, it needs safety, containment, home, love, nourishment, and attuned, disciplined care. What do you need at this time to restore your lifeforce and build your capacity for the work ahead? What new forms have you been dreaming of, and what might they need to become fully realized? How can you create more safety for vulnerable people, and for revolutionary new forms to emerge? What stabilizing structures and emotional labor might the revolution need to continue to grow strong? Get specific. Write it all down. Say it all aloud. Send any money you can spare to support Black trans lives, and tell it to grow ten-fold. Light a small fire and sing encouraging songs to it, then tell the dark, listening night sky what you wish for. The signal boost is strong. Use it well. Dandelion art by the amazing @hobopeeba 🙌🏼

Happy Juneteenth!! Our liberation is entangled! I

Happy Juneteenth!! Our liberation is entangled! I want to celebrate the work of Nkem Ndefo, the founder and president of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit. I have learned so much from Nkem over the last few years - including what is summed up so elegantly on this slide here. While somatic therapies are extremely supportive in resolving interpersonal trauma, and strengthening the connection to self in relationship, one-on-one settings / therapeutic dyads cannot resolve cultural trauma or systemic racism. We need group to activate those wounds and group to enact that healing. In her words, “When it comes to structural traumas such as racism, often the healing comes in the form of activism, community organizing, political engagement, and the arts. It is in these activities that survivors of structural trauma find ways to move out of freeze and/or appeasement and reclaim their power.” So let’s keep getting all the therapies we need but also let’s keep up the steady protesting, organizing, community building, art making, and celebrating through collective action this opportunity we have to transform this culture 🙌🏼 Follow @nkemndefo and @lumos_transforms, see Nkem speak as often as possible, and attend a workshop by visiting theresilencetoolkit.co

I took some time this last week to concentrate my

I took some time this last week to concentrate my energies and complete my work from the last six years - on Monday June 15th, I defended my dissertation research “Voice as Embodied Sense: Rethinking Voice and Language in Trauma Healing” and was conferred a doctorate in depth psychology with a specialization in somatic studies. I am now officially a Dr. It’s still dawning on me that I finished 😭 This is the golden gate of knowledge my husband Brian Ellis made for me to ritually walk under (swoon) while wearing the red ruby hermetic shoes of witchcraft, and the look of shock and joy on my face is very real. Thank you for all the flowers & notes & to all of you who have made this as special as it can be in the year of no parties. If there were ever a time to pause and grieve and celebrate and release and thank the gods for the gift of being alive to enact the revolution, this coming summer solstice solar eclipse new moon in Cancer is it. More soon ⚡️⚡️

Michelle Vosika Cooper is an incredible psychothe

Michelle Vosika Cooper is an incredible psychotherapist and human being, born and raised and living here in Portland, OR. If you’re looking for a local Portland resource, you can find her practice at www.allwithinyou.com. She also recently founded The Black Couch Project (theblackcouch.org) to address white supremacy and create consciousness in the field of counseling. The project provides critical feedback and guidance to white healing practitioners who want to do less harm. This work is a massive and generous offering, valuable for all white counselors, social workers, and facilitators and all clients they come into contact with. Considering the depth and breadth of racialized trauma, and inidivual and collective healing process ahead, this is leadership and work the world needs, and Portland needs rather desperately. Michelle deserves financial support to keep doing it. I invite you to check out theblackcouch.org, tell white therapists you know about it, and send a donation in any amount through Venmo to @Michelle-VC 🙌🏼

Happy full moon friends. If you’re not feeling f

Happy full moon friends. If you’re not feeling full up, fed up, at/beyond your edges, stretched in every way; if you’re sleeping well, if you’re not redefining your capacity and seeking new ways to apply your life force to breaking the systems and spells of white supremacy, it’s time to let this revolution into your heart.
Today, just after high noon, at 12:12 pm PST, is a full moon at 15° of Sagittarius and a penumbral lunar eclipse, activating a turn in the nodes of fate. If you want guidance on what this means for the movement against systemic racism and police violence, or for the uprising you are living through personally, I want you to head straight to @ChaniNicholas, who has workshops & rituals for this eclipse cycle. She is offering them for free right now to anyone who cannot pay, and donating 50% of all proceeds to Breonna Taylor’s family’s gofundme.
It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this is not already familiar with the astrology of Chani Nicholas. But just in case ✨ Chani is a clear, fierce channel of love and truth, teaching us each moon how to use astrology to create consciousness, understand healing, and repair the harm of white supremacy & patriarchy & capitalism. Her book You Were Born For This: Astrology for Radical Acceptance is like an instant old friend. Her emotional leadership on all fronts of the revolution has been tireless for years, but I think it’s particularly important what she’s done to ground and promote feminist, relational, justice-centered, activist spirituality. Follow her. Take her workshops. Send money to the causes she lifts up. To truly hex/transform this system, we must heal from trauma and freeze, lean into loving and interconnected action, elect new leaders, & write and pass new laws. Chani’s guidance inspires and nurtures this exact kind of spellwork.

Happy birthday Breonna Taylor! She would have been

Happy birthday Breonna Taylor! She would have been 27 today. The three officers involved in her murder have not been charged with any crimes. She deserved a full life. She deserves justice. Let’s celebrate her today by flooding Kentucky representatives with letters and calls.

It can be difficult to find a book on trauma and h

It can be difficult to find a book on trauma and healing that isn’t itself likely to retraumatize. Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies is truly a gift. Compared to most other books on trauma, designed to educate therapeutic professionals or academics, this book speaks to all of us, as we are all impacted by racialized trauma and other forms of trauma. Resmaa invokes a tone that softens the heart and the body, inviting extremely deep contemplation and healing. If you want a path to expand your understanding of both the trauma and resilience that has led to this moment in the struggle for civil rights, and way to begin working through your own trauma responses to this uprising, this is it. If you’re organizing or joining an anti-racist book club for white folks, this one will be 💎

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