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I came to Maui to help my lifelong friend Bert in his garden. I have known Bert since 1978. The externals of our lives oscillated between convergence and divergence over these many years. No matter how different in external appearances, we always found common ground in our deep interest in waking up. This is the first time I have helped him in his garden.

Bert lives in Hana. I live in a hut on Bert’s property. Ordinary eyes would see a shed/kuti. Extraordinary eyes would see a Jade Vine Palace, with the jade vine wrapping her loving arms around the back, sides and starting to crawl over the tin roof. About 30% of the leeward surface is covered in screens. There are no windows. Right now there are no switches, just extension cords to plug lights and other devices in. The next time it rains so hard we can’t garden, Bert will help me install a switch. That will be an exciting day!

This kuti comes with a kitty whose name is Lei Momi, a sink and fridge, and cold running water. It’s equipped with a hot plate, a blender and a loft that I have to navigate several steps to get up onto. Lei Momi is very pleased I have come. It’s been high time that a human is at her command to rub her tummy, bend her ears, and listen to all that she has to say. It’s been a while since I lived in a kuti. Still tender from losing Kona, it is lovely to have a kitty to cuddle. I feel at home here.

Hana has gentle rain most days. The tropical sun and the absence of harsh winds translate the garden into semi-order in the midst of jungle chaos. Things grow so fast and furious here that it takes a lot of effort to keep up. Getting rid of unwanted vines, weeds and aggressive trees is no small effort. But yes, paradise is paradise. The first morning I was here, we harvested 6 papayas, a breadfruit, star fruit, oranges, and passion fruit. I have the sounds of the ocean lulling me to sleep at night; I go for swims in the Venus pond, a mere 12 minutes walk away before I begin gardening. I look out of the screens into the garden and smell the night blooming jasmine. I eat food that is so electric with vitality that the body lights up with each bite.

Bert planted his half acre with a lot of trees. In addition to papaya, banana, lemon, orange, pomegranate, fig, mulberry, curry leaf, kaffir lime and cacao there are many exotic fruits. I remember a small fraction of their names: soursop, star fruit, noni, white and black sapote, tree apple, breadfruit, and miracle fruit. Yesterday was an exciting day! Two new fruits that I had never before tasted became ripe on the same day – the tree grape and the Mamey Sapote. The tree grape was like a concord grape that explodes with flavor. Saying the Mamey Sapote tastes like sweet potato with brown sugar on it gives you a rough idea, but doesn’t dial into the custard-like texture, the aroma, and the nourishing filling experience eating one.

There are pleasures in paradise. But it is also true that paradise isn’t always paradise. One night I didn’t sleep because the rats kept me awake. Once we catch the rats, and  I can clean the mouse and rat smell out, I will also do something so the cockroaches don’t return. There are two inch garden spiders that spin huge extremely strong webs. These spiders and their webs are everywhere. Already I have walked into one. Spider web in your face! Ugh!  The slugs devour berries and leafy greens. There are no easy solutions to keeping the slug population down. And then there are the mosquitos. I have bites all over my arms and legs. Paradise is not delivered by a maître d’. Harvesting the fruits and vegetables takes effort and sometimes finesse. Bert tells me that getting a coconut and then opening it to eat the meat means you have to take an hour nap afterwards. I haven’t tried yet.

Today I learned that trees prefer compost that comes from their own fruit, from their own leaves. I never thought about it before. But it makes sense: what is familiar from within is nourishing.

The garden teaches me different ways of thinking. Someone came and gave us three huge avocados. This morning Bert asked if I wanted some. No, I already have some in my fridge. Then I shifted and started thinking about what I could do with them – make chocolate eclairs.  Put them on seaweed – avocado sushi. Super simple. Super delicious. The garden takes me away from focusing on what I want and puts me into flow with how to make use of what is being offered. This catalyzed an explosion of creativity combining flavors that I have never tasted together before.

I came and was full of aches and pains. My heart was heavy with sadness; for friends who have lost homes, my brothers and sisters who are pinned against the compounding stressors of Covid, financial and racial injustice against the backdrop of a climate that continues to get warmer, where we see extreme weather and fires in expanding areas around the globe.  The garden holds me through my waves of grief, encourages me not to hold back, but to let grief flow through me.

I’m learning pacing, and listening in a way where I can discern the difference between throwing my energy out of my body in order to get something done, and engaging just enough energy to do it for a little while. Then rest. Watch the palms gently swaying in the wind. I scan; are there papayas, cherries, noni fruits ready to pick? I don’t know the names of the butterflies or the birds that fly by. I take their flight and song as part of what helps me rest. When, after I have rested, hydrated and I still feel tired, it’s time to stop. The project may not be done. But I have to stop. Maybe a creative project in the kitchen is possible when gardening is not.

Here, the land holds me, welcomes me into myself, and allows me to notice and feel into many layers: the joy and pleasure of being surrounded by beauty and the vitality and the self-sufficiency of eating meals from the land. The joy of being with my dear friend and the rich conversations we are having. The creativity of cooking and doing new things. Then there is another layer that I have heard Bert describe, and I’m only just beginning to feel myself. When I work in the garden, sweat and labor with the ground, weed around the very plants that I harvest later, I become part of a constellation – it isn’t just me and what I’m doing. But the plants, the land as a living organism also are playing their part. Being part of a constellation, we impact each other. I enter into the constellation, give myself to it completely and become part of the garden even before I have eaten the food. The food changes, mirrors me and becomes more bio available as I eat. All of this makes it a lot more possible to ride the waves of grief when they come, let them move through me and release me.

I’m tired now as I write. But it is a deep and full tiredness, with contentment and gratitude underpinning it.

I invite you to join me in my beautiful and vibrant world here in Hana. Join me on Sunday, November 8 at 6:00 pm Pacific Time for a slideshow and video presentation to help you immerse yourself more into this healing world with me.

Register for the Zoom session here.

Strong

Brindled,

Wiggly, wagging bundle

Morning smiles;

Tender

deeply respectful greetings.

Leaning in

I wrap my arms around your barrel chest,

Palm your heart.

I got you.

Feel you melt,

Hear your deep sigh.

Your questioning eyes with passers-bye,

Yes, I got you still.

You watch where it’s thrown,

Your supersonic nose

Finds the ball in ivy

Sometimes you miss it,

From my projected image, find it

Overwhelmed anticipating losing you;

What do I cherish? What do I dare to dream and let in my imagination?

I cherish smiles at my door with eyes looking to see if I’m free to play,

The red ruby throated humming birds in the monkey paw, shimmering, hovering and making a bee line for the high place to rest,

Hand-picked Plum cobbler that my neighbors share

Watching the squash blossom turn into a zucchini

I love the heartbeat of kindness, wisdom as it drums me into remembering what it means to pause, take a breath, turn toward the moment with each other and with presence.

I love the great redwood trees that remind me of roots that are deep, offering support and sharing widely when they have more then they need. I love that they take in my out-breath and release as air imbued with consciousness for me to breath in.

I love being able to drop beneath the surface and touch into the ground of being, the luminous presence that ties me into belonging with all things.

I love the capacity to hold the deep ache of emptiness that comes from the absence of presence, hold it with care and kindness, knowing it isn’t all there is, and watch how its tendrils take so many different shapes,

How when I reach in, allow, the empty vacuousness changes and becomes full of presence, giving me faith.

I love inquiry, presence with others and open-ended questions where much is revealed. I become more whole or at least remember the wholeness that I have always been but somehow had forgotten.

I love expressions of generosity, when out of nothing is a heart reaches out and touches another with what there is to offer

I love the wild things, creatures, water, trees and the clouds that will not be tamed.

When I touch all of what I cherish, when I’m with others doing the same. When I’m around poets, song writers, dreamers and wild mad women who refuse to be boxed, bent and told how they are supposed to be, it allows me to imagine a world where life is respected. Where liberation and wellbeing are the birthright of all, and that awakening to our shared belonging within the web of life we cherish as we cherish life itself. Where our shared belonging is fundamental for a spiritually fulfilling, socially just, ecologically sustainable, and equitable world.

I imagine a world that is based upon compassion- the silver bridge that connects the tenant of unsatisfactoriness with the inescapable reality of love- that our togetherness and our inseparability go hand in hand with our challenges and heartbreaks.

I imagine a world where more people hold the paradox that liberation is eminent here and now, available to all, yet the injustices in the world prevent our access to collective peace and freedom. Together, we hold this paradox, develop insight and compassion, and empower ourselves, each other and our leaders to embrace and address, both internally and externally, everything that keeps these tragedies of wrong seeing in place, our biggest challenges of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, colonialism, racial capitalism and the devastating heartbreak of climate change.

I envision connection is our norm, rooted and tethered to what is timeless and yet ever present, grounded in ethics that sees our connection between intent and impact, and lives with emotional and relational intelligence.  We live a deeply embedded understanding that all life is interconnected.

I imagine a world where collective wellbeing is at the center or our worldview, we let that move us, motivate us towards our full potential as thriving individuals and create families, communities dedicated towards healing our world. Where we have the time, the support and the shared values to

Pause

Breathe

Heal self

Immerse in Self

Heal the world.

Repeat.

Obsidian Darkness

Cornered:    What is, is. It won’t go away.

Resistance:   I feel how unacceptable, shocking, infuriating, terrifying and defeating this is.

Turning toward fears:   Underneath my resistance are my fears. I turn toward them, see them and name them. As courage builds, I feel them.

Danger:   There is so much that is at risk, the magnitude is overwhelming. Where do I engage to bring more safety? I prioritize needs, and make sure that self-care is on the list. I do what is most compelling. Direct action helps dispel anxiety.

Unleashing what is disallowed:    I look at my contribution. Where am I interested in my own comfort at the expense of others or the Earth? When do I condone racism, misogyny or superiority? Where have I internalizedthese? What supports my releasing these patterns?

Obsidian darkness:    I balance keeping my body healthy with letting go. I let go of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and relax my attention into what is groundless. I let go of trying. I rest. Body and mind drop away. What remains is obsidian darkness, vast and pervasive, beyond all reaches and limitations; my gateway.

Amma Thanasanti is a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate Program (MMTCP), a two year course that teaches diverse mentees living in 51 countries how to facilitate mindfulness in groups. This slightly edited letter below was to one of the groups after a lengthy email exchange about racism.

I have been having many conversations about racism, systemic oppression and awakening to the implicit biases I sit in as a white person, and how that is on a continuum with explicit biases that I abhor.

I have been talking about what happens when we speak about racism. How awkward these conversations can be both for me as a white individual and as a white facilitator, and for some of my white students. I have been talking about what happens when you don’t address racism. As a leader, if I don’t explicitly name racism when it shows up there are problems. One issue occurs when I give space for an individual to have their own opinions. But when, for example, their opinion denies the reality of racism, and I do not explicitly delineate the difference between the right of an individual to their opinion, and the way their opinion is part of a pattern that supports racism, there is a lot of impact for People of Color. It leaves the people who are usually the ones marginalized, at the brunt of the joke, prejudice, and carrying the load of systemic oppression impacted. They feel numb, like they are crazy, afraid to speak up, or unable to find the tremendous energy to show up when there is so much denial to fight through.

Many of these conversations have been initiated because I have put my foot in my mouth, made mistakes and have been dealing with the mop up after. One thing that I’m learning is that I’m learning. There is no end to learning about racism and the dynamics of privilege individually, culturally and systemically. I have learned, I can’t do this alone. I can’t see my implicit biases all by myself. I need friends, students, colleagues, and mentors who are willing to show me alternatives, not throw me under the bus when I make mistakes, which I do often. I need friends to help me link together the implicit biases I cannot see, the biases that posits my white centric world as reality, and see the connection with the relational and the structural forms of racism that I clearly do not want to support. The work is time consuming, often painful, and yet the rewards are tangible. Slowly, I observe my own increased capacity to move in directions that are less harmful, more harmless, less supportive of collusion and delusion, and more aligned with what I value. Doing this works makes me feel my deep connection with all of life, and gives me the resources to show up when I’m scared. The single biggest help in doing this work is increasing my own window of tolerance. This way, I can deal with increasing levels of discomfort, squirm in my skin a little longer before freezing and becoming unable to respond or feeling like I’m in unsafe territory and need to escape or defend.

The unfortunate and very real truth is that systemic racism is real, pervasive, and deadly. Deadly not only because people are killed just for being Black, Brown and Indigenous, but killed from lack of healthcare, housing, funds or despair from the weight of it all. All of these things are in place because of structural laws and cultural agreements that keep it that way, the traumas that have been passed down from one generation to the next and are lived through in real time, re-enacted in small microaggressions and gross brutality often. This is true where I live in the USA. I know racism was present when the US constitution was written and signed. While I haven’t been to all your countries, I have lived in the UK, Canada, and Spain and have visited Switzerland, France, Italy, India, Thailand, Nepal, Mexico, New Zealand. In each of these countries I have been to, I’ve seen racism enacted in front of me and in the systems embedded in the country.

The question remains, how as facilitators do we discuss racism?  It isn’t an easy topic. But wherever we are, whatever we think, whatever opinions we have, whatever the facts are, as facilitators this is our next month’s topic. Get ready to feel uncomfortable; get ready to feel like we are out of our depth, that we are not skilled to do this, or that we are not competent enough.

A start to consider, what are the ways that resistance shows up for you from the racial location you inhabit? Can you differentiate between discomfort and lack of safety? What do you need to do, what are things you can do personally and with friends to increase your window of tolerance so that you feel a little more able to deal with feeling uncomfortable? One thing that I have learned is that if we, in the dominant culture, are not uncomfortable, then the conversation isn’t going very deep. For BIPOC, while the conversation of race and racism may have been present since you were born, as a facilitator, the work is to see and not succumb to the ways racism has been internalized. And while dealing with internalized patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia are not the same as internalized racism, my experience has shown me that recognizing internalized oppression is not easy. It is elusive. It’s like trying to figure out what parts of your nervous system, your moods, feelings, beliefs and thoughts were introjected and absorbed by dominant cultural values designed to harm you. For me, noticing and deconstructing internalized oppression is not over.

What I do know is that the basic premise of meditation is to show up with presence, awareness and a heart of compassion. The fundamental skills for a facilitator is to show up, track what is going on internally, sense what is going on in the group and do the next one thing that is available to further growth, lessen fear and create more awareness. Our aim is to move towards less suffering both individually and collectively. Sometimes we have to deal with our resistance to discussing racism and disorientation when we get into the many facets of the topic. If we use medical treatments as a metaphor, when it works, even if it’s initially uncomfortable or even painful, the results are that eventually there is less pain and disease, greater health. The same holds true with racism. Sometimes it is messy and uncomfortable. Applying the medicine of seeing things clearly, understanding the roots of suffering and bringing forward a heart of compassion to meet the suffering and respond wisely does pay off.

We have been training, accessing tools, reflecting on our goodness, understanding the importance of harmlessness and learning the specifics of how these apply in conversations on racsim. When any of the myriad forms of racism show up in our groups, it is time to put everything we have learned into practice and leverage our role as facilitators to reduce suffering and be a catalyst for peace.

I’m with you in this.

Warmly,

Amma

Photo by Richard Felix on Unsplash

Last year I wrote Seeing Beyond Racism. While I have learned more, and feel more comfortable seeing myself as White, I also see how multi-layered and complex racism and the process of waking up to racism is as a white person living in a white centered society. I’m grateful for my mentors, colleagues and friends. Just like my spiritual journey, understanding whiteness and unravelling racism is something we begin where we are at, and then take the next step forward. Like my spiritual path, deep work happens with connection and feedback, not in isolation.

Many people in this country, and worldwide, are still grieving and protesting the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbury and too many more. Collectively these deaths have taken our breath away as we wake up to the reality that these are just a few names of people in an innumerable list of human beings who have died or been harmed as a result of racism.

I use the Four Noble Truths as a framework for focusing attention and efforts. It is succinct, yet it offers profound guidance to compel a lifelong inquiry unravelling the causes of stress. Like the purpose of the Four Noble Truths, it is my aim to show how unravelling racism is also a liberation practice.

The Four Noble Truths are:

• • • • The Truth of Suffering
      • The Cause of suffering
      • The Cessation of suffering
      • The Path leading to the cessation of suffering.

Life is a Pain

The truth of suffering is that suffering is here. It is in our bodies, the aches and pains we have. It is in our susceptibility to getting sick, of aging. Suffering is the pain of death. Suffering can also be found in the stress when the things we like change and when the things we don’t like stay; when we’re not in control. With so many of us dealing with the impact of Covid-19, we see stress on our systems from isolation, from financial concerns, from anxiety about what is going to happen next. We can also see how much time, energy and resources it takes to keep ourselves clean, fed, housed and healthy. That is of course, when we are fortunate enough to have access to these basic needs. Suffering exists and is part of life. But that isn’t the whole story.

The Reason Life is a Pain

The Buddha goes on to describe the cause of suffering is our reaction to what is happening, the way we want and don’t want things as they are, not necessarily the actual pain itself. We can see this in the pain in our bodies and getting older. The real problem is not the pain and getting older, it is not wanting them in the first place.

Suffering is not the Whole Story

The cessation of suffering is when we turn attention to the causes and dismantle them. When we see our craving for pleasure instead of dealing with pain, our distraction in the face of pain, our dismay at getting older. Right where we feel this wanting and not wanting is where the causes of suffering can end. Right there is the cessation of suffering.

The path that supports our ability to do this is described by the 8-Fold Noble Path.

Racism impacts access to healthcare, home and business loans, hiring and firing policies, is embedded in the media, the criminal justice system, government, and the distribution of wealth. Impacts from systemic racism are visible in a disproportionate number of people of color getting sick and dying, as well as dealing with financial devastation in the face of Covid -19. Seeing all of this the harm and death as a result of racism, we can conclude racism is suffering.

Causes of Racism

There are many causes of racism including supremacy and trauma.

Here in the USA, we are in a white centered society. One cause of racism is the delusion that white people are superior to Black, Brown and Indigenous people. The flip side of superiority is being taught that non-white people are inherently dangerous, dishonest and don’t feel pain; that they are somehow less than human. This delusion is expressed individually, culturally, and systemically and institutionally.

Our individual expression is related to our personal beliefs and value judgments. My meditation mentor, a Black, highly educated, accomplished, professional woman shared that whenever she goes shopping, she does several things so no one thinks she is stealing.

Implicit bias is more challenging to see. It is like the air we breathe; it is not usually visible unless it’s really cold out, or there is something like smoke that highlights it. Implicit biases are the things we don’t know we think- it’s the way things are supposed to be. It is normal. In a white centered society, we don’t have a backdrop to reveal our implicit bias unless we create it. Another way implicit bias is like air is that it is everywhere. Implicit bias means that until we, as white people, see White Supremacy as our problem, it is not going to change.

Explicit and implicit bias, the delusion of superiority, and their shadow fears and negative stereotypes play out culturally in the way groups either deliberately or unconsciously are biased to select white people over People of Color and make it safe for white people and unsafe for People of Color to speak up and ask for and get what they need.

Systemic or structural racism operates in institutions, laws, ways that criminal justice, education, and economic systems work, independent of what we personally think, believe or value. Furthermore, as white people we benefit from these unjust systems even when we don’t agree with them and had nothing to do with creating them.

Trauma 

The second cause of racism is trauma. Looking at Resmaa Menakem book My Grandmother’s Hands, he shows how trauma is reenacted rather than resolved. He talks about medieval times in Europe when white people commonly tortured other white people. When white settlers came to this land, they unleashed their unresolved trauma on Black and Indigenous people.

Trauma is primarily a physiological problem rather than originating as a belief or attitude. Trauma lives in our bodies; in the tension in our muscles, the level of arousal in our nervous systems. When we have trauma in our system it will shape the way we perceive and interpret sensory input. This has everything to do with why it is really easy to have exaggerated reactions and extremely challenging to respond with discernment, feel calm, or settled when we are triggered.

Releasing Trauma

Releasing trauma is both an art and science, staying activated enough to feel discomfort, but not so activated we lose discernment. During this optimal activation zone, we learn to oscillate focus between discomfort and sensations or sights that are calming and soothing. As we do this, the trauma releases from our muscles, nervous system and we end up feeling settled and calm.

The causes of racism:

1.     Supremacy based on delusion, greed and ill will in order to maintain power and privilege.

2.     Trauma that is enacted on other bodies, rather than resolved.

We can say that the delusion of supremacy and trauma are causes of racism. 

Suffering isn’t the whole story. It is the beginning. When we look at the causes and unravel them, we release suffering. TheThird Noble Truth is that there’s a cessation of suffering.

Delusion, Conceit, and Separation

The Buddha spoke about conceit as a fundamental delusion. He wasn’t only talking about the conceit of feeling superior. Surprisingly, he spoke about feeling equal to and feeling lesser than someone else also as expressions of conceit. The Buddha was pointing out that we don’t exist as solid separate entities. Instead, we are part of a web of life, a set of interdependent causes and conditions. Furthermore, this delusion of seeing ourselves as solid, separate is a root cause of all forms of suffering, not just racism. Seeing this mistaken view, we are invited to come back into a fabric of being and relatedness, connected to the whole rather than isolated as a separate part. Understanding and living from the perspective of being part of the whole, from the place of connection is both the path and the goal of a spiritual life. The more we are connected to the whole fabric of life, the more it highlights the aberration of racism.

Since one of the main causes for racism is the sense of separation, seeing ourselves as distinct and separate from others, then as we release that, we also release the separation that keeps us in a wheel of suffering. This liberation isn’t abstract. It means that we come home to a sense of belonging in awareness, with each other and all of life rather than feeling on our own to figure things out or worse, being abandoned to outer-space without a mother ship.

The Four Noble Truths as applied to racism:

• • • • Racism is suffering
      • The delusion of supremacy and trauma are causes of racism
      • Resolving trauma and awakening to the delusion of White Supremacy is a path toward the end of racism
      • There is a path to end suffering

The Four Noble Truths point to the symptoms, the cause and the medicine to remove the disease. The elegance of interconnection reveals both the path and goal; showing how a spiritual path and unravelling racism are intertwined, and is personally liberating both in the way we release what keeps us tethered to the wheel of suffering and how we end up connected to life, wholeness. The path requires seeing how implicit bias, cultural bias and structural biases take shape and galvanizing to dismantle them. Spurred by tragedy and heartbreak, people worldwide have come together to deal with the explosive pandemic of racism.

It is time to mobilize. Wherever we are in our learning and commitment to unravelling racism, it’s time to take another step.

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Anti-Racism Resources

This blog post is a compliation of many different lists from many different contributing authors. This is why somethings may overlap. This lists continues to be added to.

The table Below contains a ‘short list’ with sources from a variety of channels. This list contains content from Black authors and content creators. The longer list of resources underneath the chart contains resources from authors and content creators of multiple races. This comes from Threshold Choir of the East Bay as a resource for its white members.

Further Learning: 

The list below is both long, and incomplete. If we missed one of your favorites, please let us know so we can add it! We also recommend trying to find ways to integrate content created by diverse voices into your regular content consumption for continuous and long-term exposure to diverse voices. — whether in news resources, movies and TV, books, etc.

Articles & educational tools: 

• Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh (great primer on some of the ways privilege presents itself for white folks)
• 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
• Showing Up For Racial Justice’s educational toolkits

Non-fiction books: 

• My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, Robin Diangelo: (here’s a podcast primer)
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
• Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
• The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
• Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
• Ibram X. Kendi’s Reading List
• Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis

Podcasts

• Serial Season 3 – The Cleveland Justice System (storytelling about institutional racism in the Cleveland justice system.)
• The Diversity Gap – Specifically this one.
• Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist
• The Invention of Race
• 1619 (podcast from the New York Times)
• Scene on Radio (Seeing White Miniseries)
• Code Switch Podcast (three more recommendations Political Prisoners? and After the Cameras Leave, A Decade Of Watching Black People Die)

Cinema | Miniseries | TV

• Blindspotting (filmed and based in Oakland)
• When They See Us
• Clemency
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Selma
• Fruitvale Station (filmed and based in Oakland)
• Just Mercy

Fiction

• Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
• Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
• The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
• Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
• Kindred, Octavia Butler

This following list comes from Nina Simons from Bioneers

Voices to Follow

As Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) share their lived experiences of oppression and discrimination — as well as their wisdom for moving forward to dismantle the systems that perpetuate it — the value of listening to these voices right now cannot be understated. Here are a few of so many inspiring  BIPOC organizers and leaders that you should be paying attention to.

• Patrisse Cullors, best known for being a co-founding partner of the Black Lives Matter movement, also wrote the New York Times best-selling book, “When They Call You a Terrorist.”
• Kimberlé Crenshaw is the executive director of the African American Policy forum and the host of their podcast, Intersectionality Matters!
• The Audre Lorde Project is a community organizing center for LGBT and gender non-conforming people of color.
• Code Switch is an NPR podcast hosted by a multi-racial, multi-generational team of journalists. Their episodes span overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting.
• PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity by Lifting Up What Works®.
• Dr. Rupa Marya is a doctor, professor and leading activist whose work connects medicine with social justice.
• The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, directed by professor john a. powell, advances research, policy, & communications in order to realize a world where all belong.
• Anti-Racist Research Policy Center convenes varied specialists to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, combats hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation.
• Repairers of the Breach is a nonprofit organization that seeks to build a moral agenda rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country.
• Color of Change is an online racial justice organization that designs campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, & champion solutions that move us all forward.
• Maya Wiley is a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, as well as a University professor at the New School in NYC.
• Dream Corps closes prison doors and opens doors of opportunity. This nonprofit organization brings people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to create a future with freedom and dignity for all.
• White Awake is a network of people combatting white supremacy by focusing on educational resources and spiritual practices designed to engage people who’ve been socially categorized as “white” in the creation of a just and sustainable society.
• Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice.

How to Support the Protesters Demanding Justice for George Floyd

This Teen Vogue article shares important resources — such as bail funds and organizations to know about — for helping protesters in need, along with further tools for getting involved and making your voice heard.

Read more here

What We’re Tracking:

• From Democracy Now!: “‘America’s Moment of Reckoning’: Cornel West Says Nationwide Uprising Is Sign of ‘Empire Imploding’” | As thousands from coast to coast took to the streets this weekend to protest the state-sanctioned killing of Black people, and the nation faces its largest public health crisis in generations and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, professor Cornel West calls the U.S. a “predatory capitalist civilization obsessed with money, money, money.”
• From MSNBC: “Nikole Hannah-Jones: Black Americans are ‘demanding their full citizenship’” | Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Magazinereporter Nikole Hannah-Jones and New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb discuss policing’s roots in slave patrols and enforcement of white supremacy during Reconstruction.
• From LA Times: “Op-Ed: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge” | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar notes that “black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus are people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.”
• From the New Yorker archives: “Letter from a Region in My Mind” | This essay by James Baldwin opens with a thematic quote from 1962: “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.”
• From the Center for Whole Communities: “Cut the Check or Count Me Out: ‘Good Whites,’ Diversity Diversions & A New Look at an Old Idea” | This blog post calls out white liberal habits of tokenizing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which seek to replace the true work of liberating Black, Indigenous and/or people of color from systematic oppression.

Ways To Become Involved

Action 

• Black Lives Matter – www.blacklivesmatter.com
• Campaign Zero – www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision
• Color of Change – www.colorofchange.org
• TED: How You Can be an Ally in the Fight for Racial Justice – https://ideas.ted.com/how-you-can-be-an-ally-in-the-fight-for-racial-justice/
• Showing Up for Racial Justice – www.showingupforracialjustice.org
• Support Black-Owned Businesses – https://www.supportblackowned.com/
• Vote! – https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote
• Week of Action In Defense of for Black Lives – www.m4bl.org/week-of-action/
• Write directly to your local legislators. To find who your legislators are, visit – https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
• “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” – www.medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

Donate

• Black Lives Matter – www.blacklivesmatter.com
• Color of Change – www.colorofchange.org
• Ella Baker Center for Human Rights – www.ellabakercenter.org
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.- www.naacpldf.org
• ACLU Black Lives Matter – https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/blacklivesmatter

Educate 

• Anti-Racism Resources – http://bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES
• My Grandmothers’s Hands:Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem. This book deals with the somatic path of untangling racism from the trauma inprints in black, white and police bodies and how to undo them. Highy recommended

NASA on Unsplash

I first published this piece in December 2016. It has taken on a new level of meaning with the unprecedented stresses we are facing globally in response to Covid -19. I am offering it again hoping that my process helps you name and gives support to yours.

Our world is in descent.

This summary of steps of a personal journey may help navigate the bigger picture.

Many life-changing events happened. I wasn’t willing. I was cornered – There was no way I could think or maneuver myself out of the situation and I didn’t see other options. With every ounce of fur, fang and resistance I could muster, I battled every inch as I stepped into the trenches to do the work. My resistance softened out of sheer exhaustion. Slowly I turned toward what I feared. I was confused and agitated. I unraveled. Descent into darkness was dismantling, disorienting, and dangerous. I didn’t know who I was, or what to plan more than a few days ahead. What was disallowed, repressed and unacceptable was unleashed. As my mind body processes were held in a frame of moral integrity and observing witness, until what is pervasive emerges. Guides support me in the process, I averted danger. Eventually, light emerges.

Cornered-

What is, is.  It won’t go away.

Resistance-

I feel how unacceptable, shocking, infuriating, terrifying and defeating this is.

Exhaustion-

At some point, I get worn out. When I get curious about the way that I experience my resistance, it begins to change.

Turning towards fears-

Underneath my resistance are my fears. I turn toward them, see them and name them. As courage builds, I feel them.

Confusion-

When I start to let go, assumptions, frame-works and belief systems fall away. In this place where I can’t locate myself, what opens up?

Agitation-

When I feel a large space without characteristics of identity, and there isn’t anything holding the fall, descent is frightening. I need to regularly soothe my anxiety to keep from meltdown.

Unraveling-

In this big space, what happens to “me”? What is asking for acceptance?

Danger-

There is so much that is at risk, the magnitude is overwhelming. Where do I engage to bring more safety? I prioritize needs and make sure that self-care is on the list. I do what is most compelling. Direct action helps dispel anxiety.

Unleashing what is disallowed-

I look at my contribution. Where am I interested in my own comfort at the expense of others or the Earth? When am I unable to fathom another’s perspective and go into judgment or dismissal? When do I condone racism, misogyny or religious profiling? What support do I need to make different choices? Where have I internalized these things in myself? What supports me releasing these patterns?

Moral Integrity–

Regularly affirming the intention to do no harm, and to support what is beneficial to all beings gives me a rudder when everything familiar is falling apart.

All Pervasive Love and Awareness-

I balance keeping my body healthy with letting go completely. I let go of thoughts, feelings, sensations and relax attention into what is groundless. I let go of trying. I rest.  Body and mind drop away. What remains is vast, luminous and pervasive. The mind extends beyond all reaches, limitations.  Love, awareness, energy pervade everything and everyone. Who and what I am becomes a thin veil,  conecting what is pouring in, to what is pouring out. There is no separation.

Guides-

These are my mentors, therapists, friends, rocks, animals, trees, practices and qualities of mind that remind me to stop resisting, to be present and meet what is arising. They hold me as I let go. They help me get up in the morning when I feel bruised to the bone and devestated and do what needs to be done. They support me to access seamless reality and remove obstacles that occlude it.

Emergent Light –

Death has been a gateway, an opportunity for new life. When I meet my own darkness,  dare the world to end in me, I live with less fear. I’m motivated to return to what is vast, timeless, and ever present. In the middle of THAT accumulations release and clarity emerges. There is reciprocity between people, culture, the physical world and “me.” Darkness is within the light and light emerges from the descent into darkness. My heart is full. I’m ready to do what is needed include meet my own human fraility in the journey of bringing relative and pervasive kindness and truths into the world.

The devil whispered in my ear, “You will not be able to survive the storm.”

I whispered back, “I am the storm.” 

Author Unknown