inhale...exhale...relax your shoulders...repeat as often as needed

Sunday, June 28, 2020

some pieces for your consideration xo

Yesterday was Batman's birthday and the 13th anniversary of the day we first stepped onto our "bit of earth" here in Vermont. We had strawberry pie to celebrate. We may also have had pie for breakfast today.

I have not really said anything very specific here at sewandsowlife about the events of the last month and a half. I've tried to leave space for all of us to find our way through whatever it is that we need to do. 

I'm a child of the 60's, and my innocence was disrupted by assassinations, protests, and an early recognition that there was much to be done in this world. I have felt called to do some of that work.

When peaceful protestors were attacked on the streets outside the White House, the "people's house", to allow a fascist  to walk across the street to hold a book upside down for a photo opportunity something in me snapped. After I shrieked, screamed, raged and nearly lost my mind I took a deep breath and thought...OK, this is the moment when everything will shift. 

Resources have exploded across the internet. "You should read this!" You must watch this!".  This is required reading!" 

My, how strident we have become!

I have spent the last month finding my own way through articles, interviews, books, conversations and quiet thought.  I have been drawn to poets, farmers, quilters and educators. I am drawn to transformation. Matters of the spirit and of the heart. This is the only way I can find my way through life. Through beauty and hope and vulnerability and openness. 

I offer this handful of gems to you today. Pieces that have moved me to tears. Pieces that have challenged me, reassured me, shaken me up. There are so many! But these will do for now.

Take them or leave them. Your choice. xo

  • brönte velez's  spoken word, via for the wild, the prophecy of the well.
  • Resma Menakem, author of My Grandmother's Hands, speaking with Krista Tippet on On Being. Notice the Rage, Notice the Silence.
  • Serotiny-The Story of Lead to Life, On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of MLK,Jr. the organization Lead to Life gathered in Atlanta to transform guns into shovels used to plant trees alongside victims of gun violence. brönte velez is part of this group of young visionaries. 
  • Amber Tamm is hoping to create a farm in Central Park, NYC where a small settlement of predominantly free African-Americans lived  and worked. Known as Seneca Village, it was taken from them by eminent domain in 1857 to create the park as we know it today.
  • Our VTMQG hosted a virtual talk by Chawne Kimber last month that raised money for the Greater Burlington chapter of Black Lives Matter, the Social Justice Sewing Academy and the Third Street Alliance, a place dear to Chawne's heart. You can see Chawne's work here.
I have pages of notes and a list of where to go next. This work, for me, needs to be ongoing, sustained and shared.

If you have any gems that you have stumbled upon, please list them in the comments or send me an email.

Friday, June 26, 2020

fuscia and lobelia


Love is the bridge between you and everything.
-Rumi

I think I will carve out some time this weekend to
share a bunch of things with you.

podcasts.
articles.
things that have spoken to me.

Maybe they will speak to you, too.
I'll be back in a bit.

xo

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

reading, watching, listening...creating an action plan




Just checking in here, friends, to say hello and send some love.

We put up a chicken wire fence to keep a pesky family of woodchucks out of the raised beds.
We hung a gutter on a portion of the three season roof to send water into our rain barrel.
We've been zooming.
We've been enjoying fresh produce.

And in between all the routine of daily life, I've been making time to read, to watch, to listen, all in an effort to better understand what is happening in our nation. I'm moving forward with an action plan, because this is no time to be complacent.

Stay well. Hang on to hope and be courageous.

xo

Saturday, June 6, 2020

with you







Change leads to disappointment if it is not sustained.
Transformation is sustained change, and it is achieved 
through practice.
-B. K.S. Iyengar

Knowledge speaks,
but wisdom listens.
-Jimi Hendrix

I will choose to show up for this life,
right here as I am.
-Mogan Harper Nichols

How am I being called to live differently
in light of my privilege?
-Quaker query

Take some time away from the din.
Sit in silence.
Have a conversation with your own heart.
Then decide the way forward, for you.
It will be different for each of us, 
and that is as it should be.

March.
Donate.
Resist.
Reform.
Educate.

Some, or all of the above,
or something else.

I am with you in spirit
dearest readers,
wherever you are.

xo