On Presence

Tending to your Aliveness as a garden

Nov 11, 2024

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Dear Community,

It’s been a week. I hope that you are doing alright, and that you are managing to find strings of resilience and hope within yourself that you didn’t know existed. I prepared this post in the last days of October and as I re-read them now they soothed my spirit and reminded me of the importance of presence, and tending to your day to day aliveness as a true act of refusal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all that my ancestors went through, and it feels important to not despair now—but to stay strong in the face of these ongoing, intergenerational battles. No government or regime gets to dictate my/your right to life. My right to life is as inherent as my breath, and I will claim that shit with everything I have. Even if that claim has to flow from this lifetime into the next one. One of the things that I love about Brazilian culture (my paternal lineage) is that no matter what the circumstances, there are so many resilience joy practices. I hope that we will all remember this and not let the world restrict our imaginations around what’s possible. I refuse to give up my power to people who are operating from small-mindedness, narcissism, and fear.

At the end of this newsletter I’m sharing some Tik-Tok conversations that I thought were interesting as it relates to the current state of the world, white supremacy and patriarchy 🙃 And as always I’ve included some mutual aid opportunities at the end of this note. Moving forward, I’m dreaming up how I can expand this Substack space into more of a proactive community, so please do drop me a response and let me know if you have any ideas/desires around that.

Over the month of October my intention was to practice presence, so for this reflection I decided to share segments from my journal entries over the past month. Inside of these entries is an invitation to be more present in your own day to day life, to be with both the grief and the joy, to become a friend of change.

October Snippets:

Oct 11th— Sweet little Naty passed away today. I needed to write it down so that I would remember the date. I’m happy that she’s no longer in pain and heartbroken for our family. I feel so emotional and grateful to have experienced her sweet spirit. Spiritually I’m moved by the understanding of how impact works. In four short years she made a huge impact on all of us that we will forever carry. It would’ve been beautiful to watch her grow, and see what she would have become. To know her through her stages of human life. I am praying that when she returns it will be to a healthier body, and to healthier circumstances—where she can play fully in the water as much as she wants to. I will speak her name into all of the magical corners of the earth that I discover. ‘Do you see this Naty?’ ‘I hope you can feel all of this beauty and wonder’ “We love you. We’re so grateful for you. Thank you for blessing us with your light.”

October 12th— There are some days that you wake up and everything is suddenly different inside of you. You feel different, and you look different to yourself. It’s hard being away from family during moments like this.

Today in my body, I feel the instincts of a mother. A deep well inside of me that wants to open up and care for all the creatures who need it. I wonder if its always been inside of me, this seed of motherhood waiting to grow.

I lit a candle for Naty and am holding her sweet spirit in my heart, praying for an easeful ascension.

October 13th— A poem

The grapes are seedless now

We’re not supposed to remember

Where life comes from

We’re supposed to think grapes

Were born in plastic containers

With holes in them

Only to be exchanged for tender

The grapes are seedless now

I wonder if they can feel

Their short life spans, knowing

They’ll never have the opportunity

To sprout and rebirth

Never to live in a garden

Or turn into a vine

Produced solely for our consumption.

A short, seedless life.

I miss the crunch of knowing

That each grape

Contained inside of it

Its own universe of possibility

It would plant its imagination

Inside of me

Reminding me

That I am connected

To the infinite

The grapes are seedless now

Its no wonder that we

Have forgotten

where we come from

And where we will all

Inevitably return

October 18th— Post Matriarch shoot

What did I remember?

—that the womb is not meant to carry pain

—that we don’t have to fix it all

—that the feminine is incredibly wise & powerful

—that time is not linear, and if we think about change linearly of course we will feel stuck & afraid.

October 19th— the choice of faith and optimism is often the more difficult one. In solitude I have the opportunity to find clarity about what I do and don’t want. In solitude there is space for organization and tactful release. Sometimes I’m just sleepy. Sometimes I want time to spread out and reorganize itself. And perhaps it will, if I am patient and trusting enough.

October 22nd— There are some things that I perhaps would not notice about life if I didn’t get up and sit outside sometimes in the mornings. If I didn’t wake before sunrise, I would never know the sweet charm of the birds morning song, or the way they seem to communicate with the light that trickles through the trees. I wouldn’t know the particular softness that is offered each day, a grace. I imagine that this grace blesses everyone in any circumstance.

If I think back to the most difficult times in my life, one thing always rang true. Even after the worst day in your life, the sun will still rise the next morning. There is the calm before the storm, and then there is the peace after it. That peace is a thread of hope that can be woven into something strong. Over time, over the years.

I was taught to fear aging, and it is surely a humbling process, but I appreciate the wisdom that can only come up with time, cycles, and experience. Some cycles operate like Saturn’s rings. They take time before you can fully understand that you were even a part of it. Some are lifelong. Some are generational. I am learning that understanding takes that degree of time. This is why trees are so wise. They will live much longer than many of us, and know a sturdy resilience that is beyond human comprehension.

This morning in the Gilberto Gil song: “se voce quiser falar com deus” I heard the lyrics fully and had an epiphany about their meaning.

Se eu quiser falar com Deus/ Tenho que me aventurar

Tenho que subir aos céus/Sem cordas pra segurar

Tenho que dizer adeus/Dar as costas, caminhar …

Decidido, pela estrada/Que ao findar, vai dar em nada

Nada, nada, nada, nada/Nada, nada, nada, nada

Nada, nada, nada, nada/Do que eu pensava encontrar

[The translation is more or less: if I want to speak with god, I have to venture out and climb into the skies without ropes to hold on to. I have to say goodbye, turn my back and walk decidedly along the road. That in the end it will be nothing nothing nothing…like what I thought I would find]

I had an epiphany about the word ‘adeus’ in the line “tem que dizer adeus”. For some reason I never thought about the fact that ‘adeus’ is formed by ‘a deus’. How poetic, how beautiful that the word God is embedded inside of the word “goodbye”.

October 23rd— the sun is getting hotter and I’m thinking about the bigger picture of life, loss, and purpose. I am an optimist and a dreamer, and I’m learning that I’m also strong enough to hold faith in the possibility of amazing things, even and especially when people seem to be the least believing in it.

October 24th— the sun and wind feel really gentle and nice today as I take my lunch in the garden. A butterfly on the ground batting its wings, but its right wing is torn. Before I have the opportunity to grieve for it, it lifts up and somehow manages to fly away.

October 25th—Here are the qualities of the morning: it’s gray and slow, and fairly quiet as far as the birds go. I hold the prayer in my heart that life will bring us closer and closer to centering the Earth. That humans will come to remember our relationship to the land vs. a dominion over it. Last night as I watched these big moments in history with all these massive well-known historical names [in the documentary Soundtrack of a Coup d’Etat], it occurred to me that nothing can take away the truth or validity of my own experience. I am present in my own life, profoundly connected to my own lineage, and fully awake to my own consciousness. I am doing something for my ancestral lines. Each one of them participated in these worlds that could never be reduced down to a few names, though we certainly try. I feel grateful for and rooted in what I am personally connected to. I know that I’m an important part of this forest, and so is everyone else.

We can’t boil life down to only the major moments, though often we attempt to.

What if life is actually how we feel/felt through the process? How much we were able to breathe into the depths of our bodies…how much we allowed ourselves to love, to feel, to touch and be touched?

October 29th— I woke up this morning feeling brand new. Reminded that when we empty ourselves to death, we make space for new life. I’m grateful because I’ve already lived so many lives in this one ever-evolving body. I feel/hope that I have much more to live, though I know that none of this is ever guaranteed. I’m remembering how many time in my life I’ve taken risks, perhaps out of naivety, but maybe at a certain age my world was rocked and I became afraid. I’d like to take risks again—to live life like a fool and truly enjoy it. Nothing is ever guaranteed. I wonder what the difference is between impulsivity and following your gut.

When do we know if its the right time to take a jump into something new? I’ve been craving answers where there are none yet— and in this space of suspended uncertainty, I have no choice but to surrender. ‘When you know you know’ and until then observe, be patient, become closer with your own body. Build a relationship with your own aliveness. Tend to it every day as you would a garden.

Thank you for reading 💗🌱🌹

If you missed my last episode of Loose Leaf Tea, you can check it out here: