the warrior softening
the cycle of surrender
I didn’t get to march this weekend. I was on for the hospital, Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, 7 pm to 7 am. On my second night, on the way in, I got to see the marchers in the rain. My coworker told me she cried when she saw them. I just felt numb. But happy.
Then later, around 8, in my labor room, (no windows in the hall or at the nurses stations, only in the rooms), there was a rainbow. My colleague noticed it when she came in to help me with a med with some funky packaging I’d butchered.
Over the highway, over the bridge. Soft and bright.
That rainbow felt like a softening. My sleep-deprived and sleepy, wired and tired body, trying to make it into work on time. My hands, trying to fiddle with a vacutainer I’d done in the wrong order and spoiled the vacuum on. Tanks rolling down Constitution Ave. No Kings protesters with clever signs. Everyone horrified at how everything is going. Shit going inarguably buckwild. Not in a fun way.
But there’s nature, sighing, softening, light refracting through droplets of suspended water. Hope after the flood.
A promise.
I got into birth in 2015. At first, theoretically. I was in Blacksburg, or Roanoke, or something, renewing my Wilderness First Responder Certification. I was practicing being in the wilderness and tending to the body, stopping the bleeding, makeshifting a splint out of camping materials, addressing the fear of the unknown, being with the concept of unthinkable pain. I was journaling. It was my Saturn Return.
I was like, I wish I could be kind of a yoga teacher, kind of an EMT, kind of a therapist, kind of an herbalist.
and I was like, damn, idk, that kinda sounds like a midwife. I’d never met a midwife. but I was like, OK.
I watched the Business of Being Born: Ricki Lake’s exposé on the birth ‘industry’ and how it prioritizes the system itself over those who churn through it. I felt angry. In those days, the pain of America sparked more fresh to me. I was raised in a military family and taught to be really proud of America and everything. I learned more, studied global politics, and I felt really betrayed. It turned my world upside down. So yeah. I was angry.
I thought we had to be warriors. I did my doula training, it was Black-centered, learned a lot about disparity, bias, and the actually horrifyingly racialized history of obstetrics. I thought we would really have to fight.
And we do. Don’t get me wrong.
But we also need to soften.
You can’t have a baby with your fist clenched. You can’t change a system when you are so rigidly oriented towards it and around it. Obsessed with it. You have to breathe, get outside of it. You have to soften.
Spiritually, in this moment, I am being asked to reckon with two horrific concepts: acceptance and surrender. The most basic, 101-ass-idea in literally any spiritual path. So conceptually simple, and so, so wiley, again and again, cropping up to be reckoned with.
They get my ego so dramatic: I’m dying.
But here’s the thing I guess. The rigidity and clenching didn’t actually ever protect us. It just has us resisting life and reality.
Of course, the cute little brain + ego consciousness wants control. But it’s not actually happening.
It’s always coming back to the Chinese finger trap. Or quicksand. Resistance, as in clenching, creates more stuckness. It gets in the way of what can become real resistance, in presence, to the troubles and evils and misguidedness that needs our resistance now.
Unclenched tissue gets to choose: when to relax, when to spring into action. It gets to have the nuance of slow, steady engagement, rather than the jerky action of a muscle that’s clenched, flexing more, and then going back to clenched baseline.
This gives us more choice and more capacity for actual Resistance: challenging systems of power and domination in a way that’s relaxed, soft, open, and human. Open to reality. Seeing clearly. And standing strong.
Returning to the body, remembering the body, is resistance.
My Work
My work is expanding! This summer, in addition to my Richmond, VA in-person Craniosacral therapy practice, I’ll be launching a new program called Prenatal Playground. Prenatal Playground is a light-hearted approach to a custom, alignment-based, prenatal movement strategy, where we combine an in-depth postural alignment and movement pattern assessment, with custom moves for balance and strength, all in a spirit of curiosity and connection with the body. It’s virtual (!) and the perfect remedy to the information-anxiety-spiral as well as the unhinged pressures put on birthing parents: bounceback culture, unsolicited advice, and all the objectification and alienation of dominant culture. Our bodies are complex, brilliant, gnarly miracles. And when we stop treating them like projects, they become what they were always meant to be: home, playground, portal.
more stuff i’m into
I like this substack piece about Americans being embarrassing and obsessed with work.
Here was my 2 cents I commented on the piece… (I love how every substack who’s been a stranger to me and i’ve commented on, i’ve gotten such a thoughtful sincere reply.)
I’ve always chuckled at how the French use ‘profiter’ as a fully indoctrinated American, with a stellium in Capricorn in my ‘goals’ house. How it just means enjoy. Like duh. Coming from a background so obsessed by ‘profit’ that it’s willing to sacrifice everything- everyone’s planet. Personal wellbeing isn’t really even counted as an option- unless it’s through wealth. I guess. I think that’s the crux of it- enjoying life, relaxing, security and safety- those are bouguie in the states- that’s what everyone thinks they’re hustling towards. But of course if you train yourself out of rest and enjoyment for 30 years, no amount of wealth you can accumulate will be enough.
Plus- American society is hell bent on leaving the poor out in the cold. So we are always looking over our shoulder. I think the British lineage- the memory of the poorhouse- the workhouse wail- and the puritan work ethic really seeped in. When I lived in New Orleans- which was never a British colony, only Spanish and French- I felt the difference. But there, sometimes people are hustling the living part, it felt to me. Art and taste and culture hustle.
Anyways this was v thought provoking, tysm. Still wanna move tf out of America. I guess I’ll make everyone cringe for the first 6 months, sorry in advance guys.
and this tik tok- about understanding and breaking down white supremacy culture.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
for those who might be tiktok averse, here’s a screenshot I took of her list of tenets that make up white supremacy culture:
and she points out the opposite of each one is indigenous wisdom. I am looking forward to working with this personally, it feels quite concrete and helpful, and a way to start bridging some of that gap between value and practice.
Thanks for being here, love you!