from here...

turning to face it

Good morning all,

It is hard, right now, to speak with conviction about spirituality.

There is no functioning over the impacts we are feeling, and no end to the demand for maturity, discernment, tenderness, and working smarter. The images from Rafah render me speechless and shaking. Something within me is emptying out. This response (the collapse of what we know, the breaking open of our hearts) is sane, attuned, and human. Crisis of faith should happen when violence transcends comprehensibility.

About two months ago, I attended a talk with Malkia Devich-Cyril entitled Embodying Grief, Eradicating Inequality. In one of many poignant moments, Malkia spoke of the extraordinary nature of the losses we are facing — the cumulative grief, and the sense (at times) that for all our mobilization, despite the efforts of thousands, millions of people… we do not know how to stop the injustices we are witnessing and experiencing.

“It’s not that the world hasn’t experienced mass loss before - but at the same time? Mass losses from climate disaster, repeated losses from police violence, the mass losses of colonial wars in multiple locations, the mass losses of gun violence, all back-to-back-to-back? We ain’t never seen nothin like this before…”

There is a balm for me, in hearing careworkers/leaders/thinkers give voice to overwhelm. Dr. Lara Sheehi uses the word “unmetabolizable” to indicate the levels of violence and cruelty that we are witnessing. People I look up to, people with tremendous experience in liberatory future-building are acknowledging the impact of cumulative loss in their systems. When Malkia made this acknowledgment, something in me was touched — something that needed touch, and needed companionship in disorientation and despair.

And yet, Malkia followed, “We have to turn to face it.”

Alongside my body’s expressions of horror, fear, anger, anguish… I am finding ways to make that turn. Participation, learning, relationship, creativity - these things are expressions of grief, and they are the passage through it.

photo by Mohammed Zaanoun

In tangible terms, this means embodying values: I perform grief rituals; I deepen my skills with discomfort and conflict; I dialogue with the land where I live; I attend events, ceremonies, talks, and learning spaces that help me grow and build relationships; I take care of my body; I find pleasure; I self-reflect.

What’s wild to me as a practitioner, is that I’m telling myself and my clients to build practices of life/living/aliveness… as the tide of what is sweeps in and nullifies this work. We grieve, as we are undone by further loss. We build life in societies that engineer unjust death. What I’m learning though, (especially from Palestinians) is that this perseverance matters, regardless of achievement. The grieving and the living is valuable… it has power that transcends ‘outcome.’

In Psychoanalysis Under Occupation, Lara & Stephen Sheehi write, “Palestinian clinicians, like Palestinian subjectivity itself, evade the alienation imposed upon them because they practice, learn, and live in their ‘home.’” Strong and reciprocal relationships to language, land, cultural roots, and community networks crack open liberation. Not just liberation later - but the freedom and connection that is possible in this exact, undressed present. If we come from languages, lands, cultural roots and communities of domination… our relationship to those is still a grounds for cracking open, if we can tap into the “clean pain” and process the “dirty pain” that is waiting for us there (Resmaa Menakem).

Malkia quoted Gargi Bhattacharyya, “Heartbreak is at the heart of all revolutionary consciousness.” What does it mean in spiritual terms to open ourselves to the revolutionary power of our heartbreak? This is not an empty question, or an invitation to think about practice. I am asking you concretely:

How are you doing this?

What daily motions, prayers and expressions of life are you building?

How are these holding you together - or, allowing you to fall apart?

I’ll leave it there, but I’ll also encourage you to write back with your answers to the questions above. Really, please do. I don’t know what this newsletter is for if not building some sense of togetherness and shared strength.

Yours,

Brooks

for booking, classes & more visit www.veilsveilsveils.com