Dear Community,
Long time, no see, it feels like!
It’s been a minute since I’ve dropped in here with you all, and arriving today with gratitude, with grief, with awe, with rage, with singing in my heart, and with some of my meandering thoughts/feels/vibes + ways we might keep connecting or working together.
I’m also writing you from my first day of fire in the woodstove here at home, and I’m sending you a big bundle of that extra-special kind of cozy! (And frankly, gratitude that the cold is finely arrive - the lilacs in my yard are blooming, heartbreakingly confused at climate chaos, just like the rest of us!)
And I don’t know about you, but I’m also riding another special kind of cozy post-midterm elections here in the so-called US of A.
Y’all, I know it’s not everything, but it is definitely something, this tidal wave of blue liberation, and it warrants some celebration. There is still so much work to be done, but let’s not miss this opportunity to get super joyful about black, brown, queer, trans, Muslim, working class, young, indigenous, etc, etc, etc folks just blowing the establishment out of the water even in the face of all the corruption money could buy.
Here’s one of many incredible pockets of joy I’ve been celebrating (and weeping! and dancing!) with: adrienne maree brown’s IG deck and poetics!
And since a friend texted last Wednesday morning, “Do you think this is what Dolly was talking about when she sang about that clear blue morning!?” I’ve been belting that tune also!
Over these last weeks, I’ve also been in the midst of the pilot offer of Cursebreaking: Ancestral Storytelling to Get Free with my sweet comrades Kari and Lucy.
We wrapped the series with our final session last Wednesday, on that clear very-blue morning :) and it was such a deep and potent place to celebrate.
We got to honor all the incredible organizing that lead to so many red seats being flipped AND also celebrated all the important cultural work over many years (generations!?) that supported this being possible.
And this is so much of what we were intending to be up to inside of Cursebreaking, and what we are also up to inside of Weaving New Ritual.
We need a strong braid of cultural work, political work, healing justice work and so on to help us build the worlds and futures we dream of and need, of thriving and liberation for all of us.
What do I meant by cultural and political work, exactly?
I think we could use lots of different words here, and sometimes language can trip us up, but what I especially want to call in and center is that we need all of us! We need all of us on assignment, meaning, really finding what is MY most precious and unique offer given my gifts and aliveness and context.
Some of our assignments will be in running for (AND WINNING!!) elected office. Some of us will be building policies. Some of us will be working for Landback. Some of us will be growing veggies and gathering our neighbors around shared meals. Some of us will be doing politicized healing work, facilitating ritual, leading song, guiding our young people, doing trauma and resilience work, and so on.
We need it all.
And inside of Cursebreaking and Weaving New Ritual, we are realizing that what we are up to is really at these intersections.
And this is some of what makes it so alive and juicy and even hope-inspiring for me to get to be co-stewarding this work into the world right now!
Inside of the three short sessions of Cursebreaking, we explored how telling the stories of our ancestors’ harms helps open the path towards liberation, and uncover what our assignment might be. And we tried this on in a container that, to the best of our abilities, was embodying antidotes to white supremacy/domination culture in HOW we held the space and were up to these explorations together, including through the body, land connection and ritual. It was pretty darn cool.
Here’s what one of our participants said:
I feel an opening in my chest and growing compassion for the shame in my family. I am curious about my family and ancestors. What happened to us? Who have we harmed with our pain? What is possible for us now? This course brought transformative warmth to my feelings about my extended family and ancestors. A tenderness to ask questions, and listen carefully--what is the need behind this family narrative? Is it healing or harming us now? Am I able to shift something here and begin to crack this curse for the next generation?
This course gifted me with the quote, "this is generational work beyond our lifetime." What softening and relief! I don't have to go alone. I don't have to do it all. And here we are. In this time, context, and moment. Responsible for what we do know. Responsible for what we are capable of. Holding the potential to crack, shift, maybe even break one curse for ourselves, our kin, the next generation.
~ Rebecca Yoder Smucker, parent, community member, facilitator of children's spaces, Goshen, Indiana; Cursebreaking and Weaving New Ritual participant
And in Weaving New Ritual, we get to be together in more layers of this work for almost a year - really going deep, and getting to gather in person and online, all which really helps us sustain the work.
If any of this piques your interest - stay tuned!
We hope to have a save-the-date out soon for another short Cursebreaking offer coming in 2027, with more extended offers to follow. Stay tuned!
Weaving New Ritual: a community of practice for white people of Christian lineage to reclaim ritual fluency kicks off it’s third annual cohort in April - find all the info here!
And if what you’re looking for is more individualized support to deepen into your healing journey in support of collective liberation, I have several spots open in my somatic coaching practice, and would love to explore walking alongside you in this way. Please reach out to set up a free discovery call if you’d like to learn more and see if it might be a fit. You can just reply to this very email - so simple. <3
This work, too, is part of a strong braid of resistance, when we weave it with all the rest, and remember that our liberation is bound up together.
May we keep fighting (and singing and dancing and praying and obstructing and organizing +++) for all this for all of us.