A Mighty Softness
Blessed becoming to all, my loves,
And here we are again. The end of one season is the beginning of another. The Summer Garden officially begins July 5, but I opened the first pop-up sanctuary at Malcolm X Park’s Sunday drum circle this weekend. I’m calling our soft transition from the Spring Garden to the Summer Garden our Summer Breeze. Welcome, my lovelies!
I’ve been writing this version of the love note for several days now. In truth I felt for the opening—the title specifically— of this love note over a month ago. It’s taken me this long to return to it, and it’s not really a return because I’m writing from a whole set of life stories and realities. So much has changed in my body, in my home, in my heart. These shifts are also shaping what the Summer Garden will be.
The Garden is almost 15 months old. A world of creation has been generated in this time. I am feeling a deep call to really be with it all in a way that I haven’t slowed down enough to do yet. This summer I am excited to read through the bounty of our brilliance that’s been archived in the Creators Shared Diary—we’re past 150 pages! I am anticipating deepening discoveries as I watch and dance and study all the mmC Majestic Muscle Core practices. I am yearning to write, and write, and write about these many pathways that have been activated in our dialogue, in our sacred stories, in our movements, in our togetherness, in our budding sisterships. I share more about all my dreams in Visions for the Summer 2021 Garden.
I am also excited to pour into my family labors even more. The birth of the Creators Portal has given me the tech and design play space to weave together other interactive, virtual portals for our family business and our Family Learning Lab. I’ve spent the last two years trying to find a way to tell the story of how we nurture self-directed learning in a paradigm that centers all of us as learners. I feel ready to translate so much of what has been swirling through my mind and my heart, and the Garden has nourished me and held me and witnessed me all this time. I am overflowing with gratitude in every direction.
The journey here has been so turbulent, and the last few weeks have brought about powerful—and some painful— shifts in the landscape of my family. There is the possibility of clarity and connection in places that have never before been accessible. I am breathing through all the newness of visibility and understanding, and also celebrating my emotional endurance for staying with my vision even through the dark and lonely moments. And too, I am still sifting through the wounds that have collected over the years of trying, begging, pleading to be heard. It’s a process, messy, magical, miraculous. I am being with it all.
I am taking great care of my words, and speaking as honestly as I can about the truth of whatever is happening. As I’ve been coming to the space to write this love note, what keeps coming to me is that my own mighty softness allowed for the depths of transformations that are happening in my family. Had I continued to be angry, and only act from my hurts, it would have hardened me and taken me further from my dreams. In choosing to give the love that I wish to receive, but have yet to really experience, I have unearthed opportunities of being and relating that were previously buried and inaccessible.
Celebrate our first pop-up sanctuary + enjoy the photo essay in This Is A Sanctuary For Mothers.
It is from here that I am now creating, visioning, living. It is from here that I offer a softer, quieter, slower vibration for life in the Garden this summer. I share more in depth about reconfirming conscious participation, updating your creator profile (if you need to), and the overview of our summer flow, calendar, and collaboration opportunities in Participating In The Summer 2021 Garden. I’ve also introduced a new option for engagement with the Garden as a member of the Sanctuary.
I’m celebrating my arrival to this more expanded space of creation. I’m celebrating the gifts of change, growth, and more fulfillment as a creator and Mother Mother. I’m so excited for all the magic we are going to create together this summer! THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! As always, I am here if you have questions. This is an experiment! Your feedback and sharing is so nourishing to me!
Our last weekly labs of the Spring season were magical and phenomenal! You can dive into a bit of our brilliance in Chapter 60: The Nature Of Black Motherhood Is Queer, captured during Margaux’s heart-illuminating Soils Lab: Queering Our Mothering & Other Revolutionary Acts. In Chapter 61: My Journey To The Centrality Of Love you can dance inside our unearthed majestic during our Movement Lab: Celebration Station. So much love, brilliance, reflection, and tender sharing poured out in these labs.
Our last mmC Discovery Lab is this Saturday June 19 @ 10am EST. Our activation word is Synthesis. I realized this season that the mmC Majestic Muscle Core is the synthesis of all my labors—mother, dancer, fertility priestess, writer, movement facilitator, sacred nourishment (breastfeeding) guru, space activator, sacred storyteller, bush woman. This deeper understanding is supporting me in breathing through the intensity of all that is being revealed to me in each lab and practice. I’ve been revisiting the majesties brought to light in last month’s lab, mmC #011: Life, Death, Regeneration and am in the midst of archiving the video and audio captures from that lab and writing about the illuminations brought forth in the practice. It will be posted in the mmC Discovery Archive when it’s ready…stay tuned!
Every time I feel the intensity of my labors as Mother Mother in the Garden, I remember to breathe. This is a lot, because it is a whole world, a whole life, a whole galaxy of creation frequencies. There is so much to feel, to download, to upload, to translate, to process, to reflect, to release, to weave together. Each season I have less and less headaches. In this first year and few months of Garden living I’ve discovered the pace of possibility that is true to my creation labors. It is slow, it is lush, it is wide. It is softer, more luminous and expansive with each breath. It is also dense, heavy, and complex. I have to breathe through it so that I can fully mother through its mightiness, and remain whole all the while.
This is a liberating, joyful, and vibrant place to live from, a knowing that gives me infinite room to dream, trust, and explore. You have all helped me get here. Your time, engagement, ideas, stories, tears, laughter, questions, encouragement, deep listening, witnessing, presence, offerings, contributions, LOVE…it’s all been sooooo nourishing! Thank you, thank you…a million zillion thank yous! HERE WE GROW!
The Giving Well is where we practice giving in ways that feel well to our spirit and feel like a Yes in our heart. I welcome any donations to support the Garden and the movements of life at Mother Mother Sanctuary. You are invited to make one-time, weekly, or monthly offerings to the Garden if you feel led to do so. Thank you for giving from your YES!
Please take from these shares only what you need as a creator, and leave all else behind.
It’s day 4 of writing this love note. I’ve composed these words in and around so many mommy labors. Currently Revvy is on my back fiddling with something that might hold his attention long enough for me to send this out. We’ll see. If not, I’ll pause and come back to the last parts of the love note labors—composing and formatting the email, creating the hyperlinks, cross-checking all the links, pressing send! I LOVE PRESSING SEND!
I love you and I celebrate you! Thank you for being a part of this magical world with me!
Love,
Mother Mother Binah
(Now Revvy is sleeping on my back. Now let’s see if I can lay him down…)
Read all about the new season’s flow in Participating In The Summer 2021 Garden + reconfirm conscious participation or update your creator profile.