On tending to the breath

Reflections from a writing practice.

Hey relative! For the month of December I am trying out a new publishing format. On Monday I will send out a new essay along with a note on what I am listening to, reading, and creating. There will be an additional Friday post for paid subscribers to include either an embodiment practice, or recipe. If you have questions, or feedback, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!

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As 2022 approaches rest, I’ve been thinking about how the past few years have watered the seeds for the upcoming year. Specifically, I’m curious about the possible emergence of hope. How do you let go of archaic and harmful belief systems so that something more life-giving can arise? Over half a century ago, writer, activist, and jazz poet Langston Hughes gifted us a speculative scenario in Harlem asking, “What happens to a dream deferred?” The textures that Hughes suggests seem more than probable: a dry, festering, stank, crusted-over, sagging, explosion of a thing. Perhaps, Hughes was proposing that a dream deferred goes through its own decomposition, breaking down into something else entirely. So what then, if we turn towards the process of compost, and lean into the decay? What if we bear witness to death, and also marvel at the audacity of life? How might we be transformed in the process? What might we learn in the threshold of change? When I re-read Hughes’ poem I realize that he is not just talking about the deferred dreams of Black and Brown people, but he might also be referring to our deferred decolonization as a collective.

Several months ago I found myself unsure of how to keep doing this work. I had made a stew of a few different newsletter formats, adding a pinch of this and that along the way. I put it on a slow simmer, and allowed the flavors to meld. The past month has been a taste test of sorts, to see what is missing, or what might be too much. Writing and sharing my writing twice a week has been a practice that has given me some insight: I enjoy making meaning with words and images. Planning ahead is helpful. Reading often is essential. Being a witness to what wants to emerge is ongoing. Reflecting on the task that I assigned myself for the month of December—to publish twice a week—I am now pondering what should follow the implementation of a goal once its reached. I bring this inquiry into every activity lately, which has helped to clarify the question even further. Most recently, I am finding an abundant source of wisdom in “You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience”, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown. The essays in this compilation are like salves for my mind and body, each one a gentle reminder that we—the Black and Brown diaspora—are enough as we are; in our struggle, and in our joy; whether our dreams have become shriveled, or they are surviving beyond trauma.

I need reminders like this to pull me back from the guise of adding more work to my plate. I have a tendency to devalue my efforts in fear of not measuring up to some obscure idea of who I should be, or what I should do. As I returned to writing week after week, with thoughts more distilled, a very coherent message came to me: follow the breath. In the month of December I wrote about relearning how to breathe, resting the garden, and my love for southeast Ohio. In between those musings I also shared a few embodiment practices, which I am gathering into an index for future reference. The repetition of writing has made space in my body for breath to move freely, and with it, new ideas. This, I am learning, is what yearns to flow. Still I wonder, since the breath is everything, how can my work convey this? Is it too all encompassing? Can I do it any justice?

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh passed into the ancestral realm nearly a year ago. In “Ten Love Letters to the Earth”, he writes, “You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.” The epistolary form shapes a conversational tone, and in this work it also generates a feeling of tenderness. These are essential elements to address when talking about the breath, and the Earth. We must remember our way back to, what Thay names, “the wisdom of interbeing”. Scientists are now coming to understand a fundamental truth about life on earth: the breath connects us with the entire planet. In a 2014 article science journalist Curt Stager notes, “The sensitivity of the oxygen and carbon dioxide balance of the atmosphere to the activities of living things shows that recycling is not just a passing fad but a tradition that has always been practiced on the atomic level by all life on Earth.” This is a tender and precious topic, I suppose, to address the nature of the breath and how breathing connects us. And who am I not to honor this extraordinary gift?

For as long as I can remember art has been my ally. I wrote poetry, and started taking theatre classes from a young age. By the time I was seven, I started documenting my environment through photography. The impulse to create has never left me; the dream of being an artist is still at the root of everything that I do. It has gone through many transformations, and this newsletter is one of them. It is a great joy to return here, inspired by community, to find pleasure in the process. Thank you for being you, for being here, and for breathing through this with me.

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This Friday’s missive will include a recipe for a warm and invigorating medicinal tea. Through the month I will be saving the practices and recipes in a catalogue available for all paid subscribers.

Image of a tent made from large branches and an opaque covering. Made in 2017 at the Saguaro National Park, AZ.

Listening

This is, hands down, my favorite Bob Marley and the Wailers song. “Fussing and Fighting” came to me in the midst of writing my senior thesis on the Prison Industrial Complex and its reach in Ohio, as an undergrad student.

Reading

As mentioned above, “You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience”, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown.

Creating

My family and I are moving at the beginning of 2023, so I’ve been crafting a packing/prep list using pen, paper, and the Notion app. The pen and paper helps to get everything out in one place—from ideas to logistics. Notion helps to get everything organized, while remaining flexible for the unexpected.