Engage in something, anything---that helps you question, see, unravel cultural norms.
Fall volunteer commitments have begun.
Yesterday it was three hours caring for infants, and under ones, at a relief nursery.
Held one babe for over an hour.
That eye gazing love garden we played in.
Her’s dark brown sparkly. Mine green flecked.
In those moments all else ceases to exist.
The yellow color of the room fades.
The teachers voices, the coos of the other infants.
The light from the windows, the blue sky outside.
All disappears.
It's a flow of life force between two like no other I know.
And then last evening tutoring my new friend to improve his english. We are reading The Alchemist together and discussing it.
Jeez louise. Right.
It doesn’t get a whole lot better for me.
Sitting in the stone and glass downtown library.
As dusk is gathering out the big windows.
Upstairs.
Tucked between book laden shelves.
At a wooden table.
Together.
Reading aloud.
I have found greater well-being sharing my time this way.
(and I do know this is a privilege in itself, having this kind of time)
A different kind of caring.
Not because I am identified as a good person if I do.
Not to be seen as something I am not. Not to elevate my status.
Not to use it for any personal gain.
Caring because I believe in my bones taking care of each other (outside of my private life, or paid gig) is essential to our survival.
For me
It’s not sitting on the boards of these organizations.
It’s being in their classrooms.
Behind their tables at events.
Picking up donated food and delivering it.
It’s the human contact with populations that don’t live next door to me.
It’s not being in charge.
Or a leader.
It’s meeting humans toe to toe. Eye to eye.
Working with and for them.
It’s direct access to de-otherizing and de-mystifying those I have been conditioned to see as different.
Whether I want to admit that or not.
I need to dismantle those stories that live in my tissue, bones, psyche.
And to meet and step into relationship from a power-with ally-ship.
.
As I am unraveling, and mining my own privilege, supremacy, advantages, white western ideologies (the life time journey I am on) I’ve come to be curious and confused and unclear about what I “know”, and what I need to unlearn.
Particularly about the over-blown individual/self/me/mine/independent/privacy/separation/progress/success as all costs framework I was born into.
It’s been the writing on the wall of my unconscious mind.
Since I was a wee one.
And over the last twenty years the rewiring of my brain.
Slowly sometimes, lightning fast others.
The practice of shifting from judgment to wonder.
Again and again.
Unlearning and rebuilding.
The empathy muscle. The forgiveness train.
The addition of learning, living, and being with my feelings.
Discomfort as a doorway. A freaking hard one to lean into.
Valuing all of that.
The senses as the window to a whole nother world.
Living in and from my body.
And the imagination and creativity that comes with breaking through the barriers of
“I think therefore I am”-Descartes
So many ways to know and not know that I continue to reclaim.
Humility above all else may be what I need.
The shift from over-emphasizing the individual, family, private, separate to
Caring for self is caring for others
Many I don’t know
Aren’t related
Or connected in any traditional way
And betwixt and between the two
The dance of self and world
Is the meaning and fulfillment I long for.
(other-including the more than human world)
The culture of collective caring.
If you are ahead of me in this learning/unlearning. Thank you.
If you need a few suggestions to go deeper for yourself. See below.
We are the culture. The good news is we can be the change. The harder news is we have to be willing to do the work that entails. Part of which is revealing our blind-spots.
.
Find a cog. Or more than one.
Be a part of building a new wheelhouse.
A culture of collective caring.
Here are some things I do, am doing, have done---
Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy workbook (coming out soon) in book form. Or Robin D’Angelo’s White Fragility
Buy Stoke Your Woke-do the pages, start a group, bring it to your team, or board or family.
Volunteer for a new organization that hasn’t been a part of your life up to now. Maybe outside your comfort zone.
Read and do the work in My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Pay attention and regularly find a way to acknowledge people that do work/tasks that supports your life.
Read and do the work in Joanna Macy’s Active Hope or follow Shariff Abdullah
If you’ve spent your life mostly on top. Join something and serve those who have spent their lives serving you. Arrive to learn.
Add to the list your ideas_______________________________________________________
Five minutes a day. One hour a week. Something.
We can do this. For the future we can’t yet see but we can begin to imagine.
Thank you,
Carol
P.S. Upcoming Money: Self and World Afternoon Retreat. Saturday November 16th. A great way to take another step in unraveling a cultural construct. email me cae.delmonico@gmail.com to reserve a spot!