Human systems tend to move together over time in a synchronized direction, even though they are made up of autonomous units. I believe that this is the ultimate power of movement: that patterns created at the smallest scale influence patterns at larger and larger scales.

It is a dream that becomes true when we practice it. The evidence of its possibility begins to spread, like a murmur, until we all move together in the direction of exuberant gladness.

Here’s the thing: we are feeling beings who have been taught that we are thinking beings. Our feelings have so much information to share with us and yet we’re constantly looking for ways to logic ourselves into and out of our experiences. That’s not the only way, my friends. Give the body the attention it wants and deserves, and it will teach you how to feel your way in the world.

When we hold space for each other, make room for one another to feel every dimension of every feeling in the most embodied ways – we transform. We become different. I felt like Moses descended from the mountain after that dance. I saw God in every woman gathered.

Imagine sorting through the piles of heirlooms that are emotional, behavioral, habitual, familial, and cultural in the same way that we sort through the physical piles. What do you keep? What should be blessed, then released? Which ancient jewels are hiding in your pockets, weighing you down?

The future of my relationships is not without conflict or breaking or confusion or pain. But if I am lucky, those things will exist alongside resolution and repair and clarity and comfort. And if I am very lucky, I will get to experience life-giving liberation alongside those that I love.

Trust is critical, a required condition for meaningful human interaction. Without it, we carry life’s loads in isolated fear. We miss out on opportunities to be seen, held, helped, and loved. We suffer and celebrate in silence.

What if we think about a blessing as an acknowledgment of the sacredness of something that could easily be mistaken for mundane or unremarkable… except for the impact it has on you? Let yourself just be stunned by the present moment.

Many profound and conflicting truths must somehow co-exist. What do we do with such stark contrast? We let it be, and we know it will change.

Anger is a new dimension for me. To feel it is to open the door to a room that I’ve been told to avoid my entire life. But lately, I’ve been exploding. After three decades in this body, I now must learn how to deal with Anger and not allow it to deal with me.

I’ve decided to move through the world as a dancer again. In my life and work, I choreograph and improvise and refine my technique as fully embodied human with a unique expression and purpose in this world. It’s called the liberation dance. It’s the one where I move until my dreams wake up and the spark returns and I am free from the stories and lies that once crushed my spirit.

Traditions, like everything in life, have many dimensions. They can be fondly held and cherished; they can also perpetuate harmful patterns. When it comes to traditional patterns of the holiday season, they are often so baked into our most intimate spaces that only boundaries can change the pattern.

It strikes me that things considered necessary in a crisis (like the pandemic) somehow become radical in the status quo. But guess what? We’re still in the fight for our lives. And it’s even more urgent now than ever before, despite the fact that most of us are too distracted to know, notice, or care. Most of us are back in the grind, trying not to get eaten by the machine that we call “normal”. This isn’t normal. The status quo IS a crisis. Radical action IS necessary.

Healing on the individual level is a fractal of the healing the world needs. Healing requires us to confront the traumas that are keeping us stuck in unhealthy, harmful patterns. It means turning around to face the monster, smell its breath, see the death in its eyes – and say “We deserve better than you, we are stronger than you, we don’t have to be afraid of you anymore”.

Ritual is the bridge between the “can” (the ability to act) and the “want to” (my desire). Ritual makes sure that I get from “I will” to “I am”. Rituals can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. The point is that they allow us to remember and honor where we are in time and space and what it means for us.

What rituals do you use to bridge who you are to who you are becoming?

Galaxies in a grain of sand. If that’s possible, then how many galaxies are in these fingers, in the neurons that are firing and conspiring so the I can breathe and blink and type at the same time?

Bless New Orleans for being a place that reminds me to speak my truth.

Bless New Orleans for helping me practice being loud, expressive, and unapologetic about who I am.

On my own and dizzy with despair, I might fall off the edge. But with my community, I can find life-sustaining balance on the edge of fear and love.

The special moments at the kitchen tables and front porches and living rooms are irreplaceable. They can not be recreated through a screen connecting us through invisible wires and waves. Those tangible connections - those are what shape us.

Then I heard something that unstuck me: your work will expand to the time you give it.

WHOA!