POSTCARD FROM NORTH CAROLINA - SEPTEMBER 2026
My eyes are open, and with my glasses off, the trees and dappled sunlight make a tapestry of green. I stand a bit wobbly, rocking on the pine needles and small sticks. My skin is pleased each time the breeze picks up and rustles through the trees. Crows caw their shrill observations.
Inside, my lungs fill and contract with each breath, and I feel my shoulders lower, my right hip ache a bit more gently, and my jaw loosen. This is a politicized somatic retreat for queer Jews.
Somatics is a key to cooperation. When I can consistently tune in to my body’s experience, I become more capable of slowing myself down. And that’s political work in these times.
How do we cooperate when the stakes feel so high? How do we behave kindly when we feel frayed around all our edges? What does love look like when I am tired and haven’t asked for what I need?
My temper has always been a part of me. A rush to find solutions when hard feelings emerge, frustration when others do not synthesize a situation as quickly as I do, or a deep childlike need to be seen. Nothing has helped me calm my temper more than centering. I am so grateful for a practice that brings my attention to my breath. The idea that “I am not my feelings” has finally been demystified for me.
As facilitators, organizers, parents, managers, faith leaders, board members, therapists - as people who work with other people - we have so many opportunities to slow ourselves down and deepen our practice of compassion.
(artist unknown)
Key for me has been self-compassion. I have not always used the tools I know so well towards myself. How delightful it has become to experience my internal voice reminding me of how wonderful and worthy I am, how much it matters that I treat myself well, how my effort is seen and valued. The need for external validation is still there. It just doesn’t get to run the whole show anymore.
White supremacy requires us to remain disconnected from our embodied knowledge. When we feel our truth, we can’t ignore the desperation and violence around us.
When we feel our bodies, we may want less. We may notice what is enough. We may wander away from consumerism.
We may challenge the aggression around us. Whether that violence or oppression takes place at the staff meeting, or the HOA annual retreat, or the church elders’ circle, we can no longer pretend it’s not happening.
Body awareness also brings us into our animal selves. And when we feel our connection to all creatures, to the oceans and the earth, we begin to understand the power of individual and collective choices. We remember how our fates are inextricably linked. And we grieve. Capitalism cannot sustain itself without violating the earth.
We may challenge the aggression around us. Whether that violence or oppression takes place at the staff meeting, or the HOA annual retreat, or the church elders’ circle, we can no longer pretend it’s not happening.
Body awareness also brings us into our animal selves. And when we feel our connection to all creatures, to the oceans and the earth, we begin to understand the power of individual and collective choices. We remember how our fates are inextricably linked. And we grieve. Capitalism cannot sustain itself without violating the earth.
Ask yourself: Who am I excited to keep becoming?
POEM OF THE MONTH
Camas Lilies
Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
Provocations and Nourishment
Upcoming Opportunities
Toward Justice,
Evangeline
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