Detroit.
Month: August 2016
loving in the war years: day twenty eight
Coming Back To Life: Healing Through Crisis With Ritual + Action
A creative parent holds space for a child to explore, be creative, test boundaries, let their imagination run wild, experience different personalities, ideas and roles. A great parent doesn’t control or shut down. This is the same when dealing with your inner-child. Allow yourself explore and experience life, empower yourself to make the right choices and live life in your own way. Be an innovative parent to your inner child: loving yourself when you’re sick, being encouraging when you fall over, and always cheering yourself on.
loving in the war years: day twenty seven
Feeling Grief + Dreaming Another World
“Philandro Castille. I honor your life by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world”
“To the people of Nice. I honor your lives by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world”
“ For the non-human communities who are devastated by strip-mining… For the three officers who were killed in Baton Rouge… For anyone who preaches hate and division… I honor your lives [or the lives that have been affected by your wounds] by releasing this grief to go home. I release this heaviness in my heart so I can be an active part of creating a new world ”
loving in the war years: day twenty six
the following quote comes from a really great blog post about nourishing self with food during times of mourning. it has a good recipe for bone broth that i highly recommend–with a few caveats. while this author is probably correct that bone broth should be made from organically grown animals, i also know that organic meat that’s connected to the organic bones can be and is often extremely expensive. sometimes you can get lucky and find just the bones without the meat, but even those can be super expensive. whole foods knows there’s a bone broth phenomenon going on right now.
my suggestion is to buy the ‘tough’ cuts of organic meat with bones in–because they’re not ‘prime’ meat they’re often quite a bit less expensive. you can also ask for bones, on the off chance you have access to a butcher (but as i said this often can be just as expensive depending on where you go). also, don’t forget that buying already made organic broth in a box is totally a choice. of course it feels good to buy things fresh and make it yourself–but, sometimes self care comes in the form of being able to pull a lid off a $2.99 container and heat up contents in microwave. you get the benefits of self care, self nourishment, and calming soup all for much less expense and much less work.
anyway. check out this excerpt:
Sorrow and mourning can take many forms, as death and loss can come in so many different guises. Sometimes it isn’t the physical death of a loved one that we mourn, but the end of something we cherished. The loss of a job, or a friendship, or an intimate relationship, or even a lost pet. So many experiences tear holes into us, and we have to practice a fair bit of self care in order to heal those wounds so they don’t grow and fester.
I’ve mentioned that one of the most nourishing foods I’ve come across yet is bone broth, as it isn’t just a soothing internal hug, but also replenishes a body right down to the cellular level. It can be used as the base for a heavier soup, or just enjoyed on its own by the mugful; something that I try to do as often as possible, especially during the autumn and winter months. Quite often, a cup of this broth first thing in the morning does more to wake me and replenish my spirits than half a dozen cups of coffee ever could.
loving in the war years: day twenty four
sometimes there are no words so the universe talks for you.
loving in the war years: day twenty three
and then there are the days when you just can’t think anymore or pray anymore or focus or do anything with the pain anymore. on those days of rest, there is the sylvester the cat series.
loving in the war years: day twenty two
a day of mothering: milky oats
trauma and grief
have actual effects, not just on the heart or the mind, but on the body as well. and more often than not, when trauma and grief are mixed with stress, a body has almost no choice but to move into a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ state.
or, in other words, extreme stress can cause extreme reactions–even if you are not physically under threat (like, from a lion). you may feel like you are, however, and so you become highly anxious, snappish, have insomnia, and maybe always feel like you drank too much coffee. or, conversely, you’re sluggish, sleep all the time, have no interest in life, and like it wouldn’t matter how matter how much coffee you drank, you’ll never be able to move again. or you’re too fearful to move, or all you want to do is move. or a combination of all these things, just depending on the time of day.
the thing is though, is that when it comes to grief and trauma, the fight, flight or freeze state doesn’t ramp up and then work back down again as it would with a lion. because grief and trauma stay with us, because grief especially never really ‘goes away,’ you can stay in fight, flight or freeze for decades. needless to say, you’re body is not built to handle that sort of stress for that long.
enter milky oats.
milky oats come from the same plant that gives you your morning breakfast. they are the tops of oat plant, and provide concentrated nutrition. within that nutrition, they also work to revitalize your very overworked body, you’re body that just seems to be too tired to work its way out of the hyper-vigilant state it’s in. too tired to do anything but be anxious or stressed.
milky oats is a long term herb, one that works best the longer you take it. it is an herb you build into your routine, that you have a relationship with. in these days when people are used to desperately searching for the miracle herb that ‘helps,’ many don’t find much use for milky oats. people have been trained by pharmaceutical companies to expect immediate relief from whatever ails them. milky oats doesn’t generally immediately help (although on some it does). and even when you take it long term, you don’t generally just wake up one day and know you feel better. the effects are so gentle, so nourishing, it tends to be more like one day you notice that you’ve taken the stairs every day that week instead of the elevator. you just sort of slip back into feeling ‘normal’ again. not the immediate relief many need (there are other herbs for that), but definitely long term healing.
it’s best to take a tincture when it comes to milky oats, so you can get the full benefit of the ‘milk.’ and the highest quality milky oats tinctures are cloudy green in color. but there is benefit to drinking a cup of dried oat tops or oat straw (the stalk/leave of the plant) tea. Susun Weed talks about the benefits of oat straw here. and you can read more about milky oats here (scroll down past the nettles information) and here.
it’s often very difficult to fit in a new daily routine in your life, but if you think of milky oats as less of a ‘routine’ and more of a small moment of daily mothering, i’ve found i rarely forget to take my tincture when i need to. in times of mourning and grief, even taking 30 seconds to drop a few drips of tincture into some water can be enough care taking to help you get through one more day.
loving in the war years: day twenty one
foto credit: della nohl photography
i still observe dia de los muertos.
even after a white lady invited me over to her house to ‘celebrate’ with drinks she made from a new recipe she found,
even after i was informed by a mexican mexican (who, unlike american poser mexican me, never suffered from assimilation) that i was doing it wrong,
even after all the articles declaring dia de los muertos to be the ‘mexican halloween,’
even after the thousands and thousands of white women with the money to get skeleton face make up tossed their braided hair at me,
even though i have so many questions: do you remember/honor children on the first or the second of november? how do you construct an alter? what do you say? what do you do? do you pray? do you cry? i search the internet for answers and curse again–oh, how i wish the internet was not my elder, my mentor.
even after the insecurity confusion anger
suffering.
i still observe dia de los muertos because it is a mourning ritual that still exists. it still exists. it survived.
the whispering wind calms me. lets me know. it’s ok.
it’s ok.
we’ll survive.
even after.
i honor
Berta.
Charity.
Jess.
J.
Maria.
because even after all this time.
i still miss them.
loving in the war years: day twenty
rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.