5 things on learning

5 things on learning.m4a

1. Green green greening. Every time I lift my head the trees seem more lush & full. The plants keep teaching me about cycles by being themselves, and I am still slow to learn despite their consistency. I can only hope someday I will not need to re-remember that there are times to reach and times to rest. I can keep imagining a world that honors this fundamental, natural truth. I can imagine a self that finally stops forgetting.

2. We learn by doing, through practice. Theory only goes so far. I've learned how to be in conflict by being in conflict, how to manage boundaries by managing boundaries, and sometimes, by doing so very ineffectively until I learned to do it better. There's a term in one of my somatic lineages (Strozzi, thanks to my teacher Carey Smith) that helps a lot: Generative Conflict. Conflict presents opportunities, if we allow for it, if we can stomach a potential change in our view of another, or the world.

3. We can start in the middle, and come around to the beginning again, and again back to the middle. Practices are adaptable, changeable. Just like us.

4. Ummm, and by the way, I mean so much more than our zeitgeist-y current level understanding of boundaries as a method of self or space protection, I mean the physical, emotional, energetic, intentional, attention-al ways that we connect and differentiate. The overt and the subtle. Conscious and semi- and sub-. Verbalized and embodied. And everywhere in between.

5. If we are in relationship long enough, we will disappoint each other. To be more accepting of my capacity to fall short is a welcome loosening of ego, control, and - if I am more truthful and use the word I really mean - dominance. The semi-conscious desire to be seen a certain way? Dominance. Perfectionism? Dominance. We have learned to do this to ourselves as well as each other. My younger self could not imagine not taking things so personally, and it is so incredibly freeing. Accountability has generally not been my issue as I - yes, I know, this tracks - am known to take more than my fair share of responsibility. Related, somehow: As a friend said this week regarding relational challenges: we can't have liberation because we can't do this [conflict] yet. Yes. Also, also, key word YET. Practice, practice. That's really it. Just keep trying. Keep opening to the vast possibility beyond what we think we know. There is a little letterpress card on my board from Ecotone Magazine, by Malinda Maynor Lowery (yes I am fed by the name symmetry of this wise historian who - in a greater and more foundational symmetry, is a member of the Lumbee tribe, whose land I am on.) It says: Admit. Atone. Act. Rest. Repeat. Wise guidelines. Critical - and compassionate - self-reflection is key.

A glimpse of my bulletin board: Letterpress Card from Ecotone Magazine that says: “Admit. Atone. Act. Rest. Repeat.” by Malinda Maynor Lowery of the Lumbee tribe. Little Mel. An image of frosted flowers from a dear friend.

5 things for her, of her

5 things for her, of her.m4a

Melinda Chase Hunt

1. I found myself wishing, as I (now remember I) do every springtime, that my mother could have experienced this southeast Springtime exuberance. The wish came with a deep ache as it tends to do, sharp in its unexpectedness even after so many years.

2. The traditions I was raised in didn't impart practices of relationship to those who have passed. I've only encountered some sense of this through my somatic lineages, a felt sense of connection to what and who have come before. The white western cultural engorgement on self, on NOW, on unattainable, untenable future states is a keen defense against a multi-directional connection to others, to past and future, to ground and sky. It is easy to forget that there are many realities beyond our own experience. It is meant to be easy to forget. This is a deep deprivation that I am thinking, in this moment, contributes to shriveling exhaustion and despair.

3. I have been longing for a deeper relationship to my mother, not to her memory, but to Her - her essence, however it is that she exists now, beyond my experience and limited conception of death, dissolution, transmutation, or spirit. I panned around my room seeking a "mom" object, something connected to her to feel and hold in my hands, against my skin. From my seat my eyes couldn't find something quickly enough. And I barked a laugh and clapped my hands over my mouth as the snap of alignment came (hands, mouth) - I am it, I am the mom object. This living, breathing, moving body; everything I do and all that I am, living evidence of her. Right here even closer than touch, right here in me, so obvious as to be invisible.

4. She knew the magic of connection - to nature, to source, to something bigger. She embodied a longing for it. She was belittled for it. And she passed this aliveness of ever-increasing awe to me through her very cells, a living inheritance. I used to tell the story of my scythed awakening after her death as her final gift to me, mother to child: her eyes closed, and my eyes opened, aware suddenly of a deep misalignment between my longings and my choices. And here this is now, 20ish years later - another awakening. There is no final gift - here I am, a continuation. There is no final gift from her, I am the gift.

5. I wish for words to say this truly, how it feels - to not overstate or diminish this insight or its reverberation through this physical body. I am not her only child nor am I the only life she touched. There are living impacts of her care in many people and families and generations of plants. She had a whole life before and alongside partnering, gestating, mothering. And I have the incredible gift of not only being shaped by but made by (of) her.