Unyolk

An oocyte is a cell in an ovary which may undergo meiotic division to form an egg. Primary oocytes are formed between three and eight months of gestation in the human embryo and remain arrested in prophase of meiotic division I until the female becomes sexually mature.

The youngest and eldest of seven sister healers.

We are cells in our mothers’ ovaries when our mothers are embryos in our grandmothers’ uteruses.

A new studio space for healing and community - before, a pentecostal church.

We are inside our grandmothers and mothers as early as three months of our mothers being in utero of our grandmothers.

January 1955.

Blink! The original awe. Pride. Immense pride to be born of these women, of this lineage.

Essential dignity. Soul. Conception. Realization.

One month in, mom’s dad dies along with the company. Money, not the most essential resource.

Division, desperation, and despair - a full-bodied lamentation from the twelfth house of grief and mystery. Feeling and knowing converge.

Some are laughing. Some are crying. Like when I was three and came down crying. They were laughing. Joni Mitchel said “Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.”

40 more breaths. An epsom salt bath.

One by one, my four grandparents sweep up from under me. Horizontally. They’ve given me all they’ve got. “Just get to work. We have nothing else to say. We’re behind you fully. The connection is complete. Now stay attuned.”

Emerge. Embody. Emanate.

Together forever and yet holding steady in the “I am here. And you are there.”

Unyolk.

Craftily Lit

“We live in a kind of dark age, craftily lit with synthetic light, so that no one can tell how dark it has really gotten. But our exiled spirits can tell. Deep in our bones resides an ancient singing couple who just won’t give up making their beautiful, wild noise. The world won’t end if we can find them.” -Martín Pretchel

The group of 22 adolescent orphans never knew a life of non-longing and neither did their parents or grandparents and farther back even. The longing grew stronger through the generations. Some oppressions and injustices were balanced and healed but the longing never was. It seemed that there was a larger missing piece that allowed the oppressive systems to keep sprouting up. The longing was for a culture.

Can we find true belonging outside of an intact culture? They would debate this everyday. Some would say why bother, it isn’t real, let’s not pretend and delude ourselves. Others would insist that we have to do something, albeit imperfectly. They would discuss the elements of what an intact culture consists of. Although there would be great variance in their debate, they would usually agree that a culture is led by percipient elders. Elders that have experienced and integrated multiple dimensions of their being through life’s ongoing uncertainty, grief and renewal. Elders who experienced more and more of their parts within themselves and without through the Other. Elders who could stay playful with the youth about their fears and reactivity.  Elders committed to reverence and revelry. Elders who left the position of their childhood and stepped into their place as initiated adults. Elders who were part of bringing the youth into the fold both delicately and fiercely. 

What the adolescents fantasized about was for an elder to take them in the night. 

Without permission. Without total safety.

Bringing them in touch with the life force so they could step into their undeniable place.

Through initiation.

Risking their life to belong.

In an essential once-and-for-good rite of passage.

The stories of an old time where a culture was still intact were miraculously still passed down. A time when the elders were so life-loving that a child’s first aspiration was to prepare to be a good elder. When a person’s place was taken, the young initiates had to continually court the elder masters of their craft while they trained as apprentices and then artisans. The elders were often persnickety and sharp and also doting, witty and sincere. The young initiates thought they knew more than they did but they also inspired and challenged the elders to apply what they know to what the youth felt coming down the road.

What qualities from an intact culture can we apply without an intact culture? And worse, in the midst of climate catastrophe and soul-sucking artificial intelligence? We can commit unwaveringly to our soul’s craft and contribution. We can discern well between messages of movement-based awareness and freeze-provoking fear mongering. We can stay low and slow in ever-expanding grounded gratitude. We can take pleasure and delight in even tiny exchanges of life and nature. We can practice turning away again and again from what’s not good for us. We can center the voice, perception and needs of the most marginalized for the largest collective evolution. We can insist on leaning on one another through simple presence and not too much elusive enigmatic abstraction. We can aim to increase our capacity to know just enough, see wider and wider perspectives, feel with greater inclusivity of all human feeling and think with increasingly sound luminosity.

Here I am.

Look at me!

Here I am.

See me!

Here I am.

I’m lonely!

Here I am.

I’m stuck!

Here I am.

I’m not safe!

Here I am.

I’m ashamed!

Here I am.

I’m lost!

Here I am.

I’m bored!

Here I am.

::Exhale::

I inhale. Another new start. Another opportunity to begin again.

I am. I can.

I start with the I am.

Here.

Here I am.

I am rooted.

Here.

I am here.

Here I am.

Rooted.

From a cosmology.

Through a lineage. 

In a collective.

I express myself outwardly to the best of my ability. For that day. For that moment. Under these conditions and based in this present reality. Expectant yet unattached. I allow a voice to come through me and trust the process. I’ll see what happens in the end.

Amò is neopolitan for love (Part 1)

My favorite memory of us is when we were giddily cuddling in bed the first night that we moved in together. We were so happy to be in one another’s arms. I think we knew even then, in that moment, that this would be one of the great loves of our lives…and also not a forever one.

We were curled up in a blue and white bedspread that we picked out together in Chennai when you visited me while I was working there. My students still ask me about you. They met you in Switzerland and then when we were in India. I didn’t know then what a triumph it was for you to get a visa to visit India…better yet a passport. You wouldn’t eat any Indian food, you carried around a miniature bottle of extra virgin olive oil to put on plain rice. You had never really left Italy.

The night we met, I was in your town, in Sorrento, with my friend. We were supposed to only stay a couple nights but the hospitality of the hostel staff was so overwhelming that we stayed a week. On the last night, we hosted a party for them to thank them: la festa della primavera sorrentina. I was behind the bar in a red orange spaghetti strap dress. All of a sudden you, King of Sorrento, walk in and inquire, “Ma chi sei tu, una modella?” “And who are you, a model?” I giggled and drank up every ounce of your attention. Later that night you’d take me to some grotto by the seaside. I was like, “Cosa stiamo facendo qui?” “What are we doing here?” I had no fear with you. You said, “Dobbiamo fare l’amore.” “We must make love.” I said, “Scherzi?!” “Are you kidding?” And then we both laughed until we cried. We were making out against the grotto walls and then I said, “Basta! Io ho una fame da lupo!” “Enough! I am hungry, like a wolf!” An Italian saying.

So you brought me to Marina Piccola. You ordered appetizers. There were 12 little plates of fish. I was completely and totally amazed, subsumed. I was 24 and I had never really had fresh fish besides maybe an occasional lobster - just frozen shrimp or fish sticks. We ate the fish paired with a carafe of peach-infused wine. And then pasta. And then more fish. And then dessert. And then amaro. And then coffee. And then limoncello, one of Sorrento’s world-renowned products. I learned how to eat from you. I didn’t even eat tomatoes before you. I guess I was waiting for the ones grown in the rich volcanic soil of Vesuvio. You said you didn’t know how to cook but your “I don’t know how to cook” was gourmet chef to me. I regularly make the simple and delectable spaghetti ai pomodorini I learned from you and transfer that nourishment I learned from you to people I prepare it for.

My friend and I stayed another couple nights. You and I made love in the hostel kitchen. Sitting up, eye to eye. It was hot. You said, “ti amo” and not the more friendly “ti voglio bene.” Furbissimo! Sly. Cunning. I stayed unattached because the hostel owner told me, “Lui è un pazzo ma un pazzo buono.” “He is crazy but good crazy.” Very exciting.

You cheated on me a lot I’d later find out but you gave me so much love, care and tenderness that I could never stay mad at you. You, the land and the people of la peninsula sorrentina cured much of my type A Americana rigidity. At work, I would not be praised for my competence but praised for taking breaks. “I’m going to get a coffee. I’m going for lunch. I’m taking Friday off.” “Brava, Mattie!” My life in Italy, and with you, woke up my pleasure body in tutti i sensi. And then there’s the exquisite beauty of our last encounter, after being broken up for some time, kissing one another on different parts of one another’s faces but not on the lips…in the rain. Non lo dimenticherò mai.

I didn't know

I didn't know that freedom meant

allowing grief to strike as it pleases

I didn’t know that freedom meant 

both at choice and surrendered

I didn’t know that freedom meant

staying low in liminality

I didn’t know that freedom meant

not holding onto anything

I didn’t know that freedom meant

continually raw and at risk

I didn’t know that freedom meant

finding security within uncertainty

I didn’t know that freedom meant

recollecting the here and now, in every heartbeat

I didn’t know that freedom meant

sobriety…capability through humility 

I didn’t know that freedom meant

a forgiving open stance

I didn’t know that freedom meant

withdrawing all extrapolation

I didn’t know that freedom meant

keeping faith and trust in the body

I didn’t know that freedom meant

yielding 

to not knowing much of anything

Andiamo! performing the tammuriata at the 2023 NYC Dance Parade

Adversity is not Trauma

Accompaniment is a resonant connection without direct involvement. We often cannot change someone’s life situation but accompanying their experience without reaction or judgment can make a significant difference in their ability to breathe easier and take sustainable steps to safety, freedom and integration.

It can be easier to acknowledge what is when someone is doing it with us. If someone is next to us with their stance of gentle curiosity and patience, not turning away in fear or disgust, we might have more width to acknowledge and feel instead of disassociate and repress. Our vulnerability and their curiosity combine and make an alchemical third witness.

My 1st and 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Coutu, had my brother in her class before me and knew of my parents’ divorce. When she looked at me, I felt her wide and empathetic gaze, as she remembered my context of being a younger sister to a disabled brother and the rupture of my parents’ divorce. As my parents’ court battles ensued, I had aunts and great aunts on both sides of my family reminding me simply that I wasn’t crazy, even when I insisted that “I’m OK! I get two Christmases now!” I was lucky to have people highlighting my strengths and providing playful reprieve. Mrs. Coutu’s gaze and those succinct reassurances made a big difference for me.

Adversity (e.g. loss, neglect, abuse, conflict, violence, illness) does not always become trauma. It is when we experience adversity in isolation that it is more likely to turn into trauma. If we are alone and isolated in our adversity, we might internalize it. We might unconsciously make ourselves wrong or bad for having experienced it, especially if the perpetrator has a position of power over us. We might make a habit of attacking ourselves or sabotaging our successes, punishing ourselves for how we must have been bad to have experienced the adversity. 

Accompaniment provides a spaciousness where adversity can be composted for eventual individuation and societal contribution. In this way, we can serve as co-conspirators to one another’s freedom in acts of accompaniment.

Instead of rescuing one another (and risking drowning with them), we can accompany one other, standing side by side in respect of one another’s essential dignity and capacity.

In Family & Systemic Constellations, facilitator, representatives, and participants create an experience of accompaniment for a person and the adversity. Participants witness the realities in a family system whether disassociation, mental illness, sexual trauma, enmeshment or other physical and psychological violence. The adversity is acknowledged as real. The representatives and parts are felt. Ancestors are brought in showing that it started before and to gladly be acknowledged as the width and resource behind a person.

I Got Rhythm

… I got rhythm

I got music

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

John, my babysitter’s husband and Battle of the Bulge veteran, was a musician, a pianist. Leah was supposed to marry the doctor, who her father approved of. At the last minute, she broke off the engagement and married John, her choir director, instead. 

.… I got daisies

In green pastures

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

Leah and her girlfriends would intentionally get out of line in the chorus to fluster John. She told me this story probably fifty times and it never got old. 

… Ol'Man Trouble

I don't mind him

You won't find him

'Round my door 

Leah came on Wednesday nights. She would prepare Kraft Mac N Cheese Deluxe, for Justin and I. The story goes that she didn’t want to come more than the one time,  she was older and was done with babies and little kids. However, Leah was hooked when, at age 4, after suggesting that he clean up his toys, my brother replied, “Isn’t it about time for you to go home?”

… I got starlight

I got sweet dreams

I got my man

Who could ask for anything more?

Who could ask for anything more?

I’m five years old, in kindergarten. John invites me to see the high school musical that he’s directing: Girl Crazy. I’m so excited and feel it in my belly. I haven’t felt recognized like this before. I’m not giddy about it. I feel serious in my delight. Maybe all of my steadfastness has paid off. John invites me, just me. And the show is on a school night! Leah picked me up, thirty minutes away from the orange country house that my parents built. She didn’t stay to watch over me. She quickly dropped me off as soon as we saw the doors to the school’s theater.

“OK Mattie, John’s in there, have fun!”

… Days can be sunny

With never a sigh

Don't need what money can buy

John introduces me to his students. They did not baby me. In that way, they were kind. I was not greater or less than them. I was impressed by their talent. They were impressed by my sweet and serious self-sufficiency. 

… Birds in the tree sing

Their dayful of song

Why shouldn't we sing along?

After watching the last rehearsal, I found my seat in the audience all by myself. I look down at my shoes and socks. White socks with ruffles. Keds that have rainbow-colored pianos on them. I feel good. I didn’t really like these shoes before but now I do. Because it has all come together now. Not an integration but a convergence. I feel, at once, adorable and a bit more grown up. How did I get here? This is amazing. 

… I'm chipper all the day

Happy with my lot

How do I get that way?

Look at what I've got

an embodied celebration of our collective intelligence

I find ease in facilitating family and systemic constellations because I can trust the field of our collective intelligence to do the work. I don’t have to do anything. My work is to stay out of the way. And I don’t mean just cerebral intelligence. My essence is in the room, all of me is already there. I trust the field to give everyone what they need. And I receive what I need too. 

It’s experimental, I don’t have the answers. I have to listen with wide curiosity in order to attune with respect. 

It’s not completely safe: healing, freedom and individuation. People who were a part of intact cultures risked their lives in rites of passage in order to earn their belonging and individuation. The elders chose for the youth when it was their time. The elders were long-attuned to the field of the village; its needs and its people.

In order to change, we might have to feel scared, frustrated or disappointed. We might have to feel the grief of small and large goodbyes within and without. Change includes all of that.

A family constellation is a celebration. Here we are. We agreed to come together to find freedom from and freedom to. We move around with gratitude, tenderness and respect. We listen. We practice balance and order. When the glimmers are a little bigger than the triggers, we can move.

And the cookies help, too.