Leaving Behind What Has Been

Greetings dear good hearted people~ 

We did it! We completed 2021. Our beautiful and only home, planet earth, continues to orbit our brilliant sun, bringing light to our dark days in the northern hemisphere, while the southern hemisphere in full light welcomes the whisper of darkness, all spiraling in our cosmic world.

Many ways you may have crossed this threshold, leaving behind what has been, and stepping into the new. Though I imagine for most of us it is a welcome new cycle. It is a powerful collective moment, regardless of the arbitrariness of the Gregorian calendar marking this time, to be in a shared moment of transition into a fresh start. A moment to reflect and vision and begin again.

I had a dream last night, in which I wanted to change the dream I was in, recognizing I had been in the dream for some time. I expressed to my companion that I was not sure about this visioning thing. My first attempt was to close my eyes, and then open them to see what signs revealed themselves in a sort of divination. However I found that I could still see even with closed eyes. I tried covering my closed eyelids with my hands, and still I could see. I then spoke out loud... I am simply going to embody the feeling state in which I want to be - open, trusting, in love with an undefended heart, in connection held within community. And I breathed that in and the dream changed.

We can change the dream. This is really exciting good news people. And oh, so needed right about now. We are the dreamers. The cosmic intelligence and creativity of life expressed in divine human form, with the power to change our state of consciousness and hence the dream we are living. The more people that awaken to the dream, and dream the dream awake to the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible*, shifts our collective experience to that dream, that new story. I am not polyanna-ish here, it is not a given, and of course things are dire and we are in trouble, and and and... yet, the future arises out of our present moment. The state of body mind we cultivate and where we focus our attention in the moment matter. One person at a time, starting the only place we can to change our consciousness. Here and now, in our own bodies and minds. Pretty amazing.

What helps you stay in and return to joy and beauty, to a feeling of wellness and wholeness, amidst the very real and tragic and painful losses and feeling states? Do more of this. Together and in solitude. This year I have been more deeply grateful for music than ever to help me find my courage and joy. My body loves to move, to allow it all to move through. My most listened to playlists are a feel good playlist, a remind playlist a love and communion playlist and an unfurling playlist. I also have grief and rage playlists for moments when moving that energy is needed. But more and more, if that is the case, I listen to beauty.

Grief and beauty are intimately connected, like grief and love. To love fully we must let our hearts break, and our hearts break because we love deeply. Find places to weep, to keep the water moving, for water is life, and stagnant water begets sickness.

A few things to let you know about. I have a 4 week grief training program, Grief Accompaniment, coming up in February, which I imagine will be full of tears and beauty. I am also very much looking forward to hosting a 6 month online program for young adults, Regeneration Rising, which starts in March, registration happening now. My website is not yet up - turns out my rhythm and pacing is slower than the calendar!! You can find all the information and contact details you need below.

One more thing. The most important. Gratitude. And humility. That is two, I know, but they are connected. I arrive at this threshold feeling incredibly resourced and blessed. This is partly a function of the conditions of my life and my privileges certainly. But I am referring to the web of my relations, particularly the mentors I have had over the years, in many forms, whose presence and support, teachings and way of life, offered another way, a path, and a vision. All of the work I do springs from the well of those who have come before, in this living stream of creation.

I returned from a trip to South Africa a few days ago and among many magical and abundant gifts, a highlight was engaging with elephants at an animal sanctuary. Their devoted caretakers had been with them since they were orphaned when their adults were poached nineteen years ago. I arrived home to the rain and clear and strong flowing creeks here in the Chumash territory of Southern California. What a blessing to start the new year embedded within a water ecosystem and with the powerful gifts of Africa, our human origin belly button place, in my bones.

May your dreams for the new year be watered with a gentle rain, and may we find the inspiration we need to continue to show up and bring our hearts, hands and minds together to dream a new dream where everyone belongs and all our relations are tended.

wild grace and beauty blessings,

Alexis

*from Charles Eisenstein

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Inspiration

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Song: Colors by Black Pumas (thank you C.G.)

This morning I did a divination using The Wild Unknown Archetypes Guidebook card deck by Kim Krans and was prompted to read the following poem by Hafiz:

Hafiz: "Now Is the Time"

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child's training wheels

To be laid aside

When you finally live

With veracity

And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy

Whom the Beloved

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,

Why do you still

Throw sticks at your heart

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.

Courting the Dark

Santa Barbara backcountry, Los Padres National Forest

PC: Alexis Slutzky

Greetings !! ~ 

It has been a while, I know, and what a time it has been. Thank you to those of you who have written to let me know you have missed the newsletters in your inbox - that touches me. I am inspired to start writing again and engaging this extended and beloved community. I am grateful for that and for you. Much to reflect on and share, which I intend to do in a longer newsletter perhaps at the end of the year. How to give voice to what has transpired and is transpiring in this time of collective initiation?

For now, to acknowledge we are just on the other side of the Celtic New Year, Sawain, Day of the Dead, the time of the thin veil between the worlds, where the invisible realms and mystery are perhaps more accessible to us. A time of completions, endings, holy rage, heartbreak, approaching the last days of 2021... and simultaneously new beginnings, beauty, fresh perspectives, seeds, gestation ... as the cycles of change continue... same as it ever was, and in no way the same too. We are moving into the dark in the northern hemisphere, in the midst of what a mentor of mine, Francis Weller, calls the Long Dark, referring to these times. We must be prepared for the dark, and learn how to court it. There are practices that help us befriend the dark so we are not afraid, or if we are afraid, to have accompaniment. With hands to hold, songs to sing, stillness to surrender to, attentive listening and heightened senses, dreams, growing our comfort with silence and solitude, feeling the presence of presence/god/spirit/love, slowing way down, honoring what has come before and allowing what is while visioning what will be.

Last night, I gathered online with a group of folks to share together with the energy of the dark moon, as we have been doing each month since the beginning of the year. We reveled in silence, poetry- ours and others (one shared below), shared tears and laughter, and steeped in the felt sense of the seeds we are individually and collectively sowing. This morning, I woke early to swim in the ocean under a cloudy sky. It was marvelously cold, and lo and behold, it began to rain!! Oh water blessing beyond. It was pure divinity to be held within that expanse of water, above and below, behind and before, in all directions, wet. The blessing of that in these dry times and land was extraordinary. The seeds have been watered. And of course, as we remain in dire and beautiful times, we must remember to water the seeds of "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible"*, every day.

There are a few upcoming and time sensitive online offerings to share below.

If you are called to deepen your capacity to be with grief, as well as accompany others in their grief, please come join this dynamic 4-week online training, Grief Accompaniment.

Additionally, I will be co-facilitating a 6-month virtual journey of exploration and connection for ages 18-28 starting in January 2022- June 2022, ReGeneration Rising.

Podcast interview series coming soon. I am very excited and honored to be having recorded conversations with dear mentors and friends who have made a profound difference in my life, in order that I can share their insights and messages with you (as well as keep myself out of the familiar stance of isolation - stacking functions, the permaculture principle, as a best practice!!) I plan to release the first few episodes at the beginning of the year or shortly thereafter.

Also, as the monthly new moon calls come to completion --- the last one is December 6 from 6-8pm pt, which you are welcome to join, for registration and information, see below --- I am envisioning a new online community forum to continue to gather, share, seek shelter, find belonging, inspiration and rewilding. I will update as it comes into form, which I imagine will co-arise with an updated website. Stay tuned!

Thank you for taking the time to read. Please reach out if you are inspired. I would love to hear what is moving in you. May my gratitude for you be a drop of rain on the dark earth of your soul soil and may you find unexpected blessings in the dark.

in grace and wild peace, 

Alexis

*Charles Eisenstein

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Inspiration

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Veterans Journey Home

12 Veterans participate in a wilderness fast ceremony....Alone for four days and four nights with no contact with the outside world and minimal shelter. Their journey, rigorous and challenging, leads them to a clearer sense of who they are and where they belong in the world as civilians.

You are Your Own Best Thing - book by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Joanna Macy

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Practices of Retreat in the Day to Day

Greetings dear hearts~ 

The next new moon monthly gathering is just in a few days, this upcoming Monday August 9! I hope you can join.

I am very happy to be back home in Santa Barbara as of a few days ago after a much needed and wonderful retreat in Hawaii. Had a beautiful ocean swim yesterday to bring myself here, and was pleasantly surprised at my enjoyment. So different from the divinely warm clear turquoise waters and swimming with sea turtles of the islands, and yet, so amazing. I apologize for the late cancellation notice last month. I optimistically thought I would be able to host the call while on retreat, and it turned out, retreat meant retreat. Again, happy to be back home and resuming some rhythm, finding the practices of retreat, in the day to day. One of those being our monthly calls.

It has been nourishing to meet over the past months... to water our dreams, shed our tears, regulate our bodies, open our hearts, inspire our imagination, grow our trust, share our voice, find our way. We have been meeting virtually on/and or near the new moon since the beginning of the year and will continue to do so through the end of the year. Registration link and remaining 2021 dates below.

The August meeting is the last in the summer series and with the new season as we enter autumn, there are a few new changes.

• The gatherings have been quite intimate, which has been deep and powerful, and in the spirit of new, I am calling in more practice time, as well as more people. If you have considered coming, and haven't yet, now is the time! And if you have not come for a while, perhaps it is time to show up again. I know... more screen time... arg. And yet, you are free to close your eyes, be in your own space, call in by phone, lay down, etc. as we all find our way.

• Up until now these gatherings have been primarily for women. Starting next month I will open them to include anyone who would like to come. I imagine I will still only send this monthly email to this small group of women, you here, so it might be that not much changes, but we will see who shows up!!!

• I have offered this space free of charge. I love being able to do that, as community is a birth rite. However, I now invite folks to make a donation in the spirit of gift exchange. This is not mandatory, but a way to be in reciprocity with whatever feels doable and joyful in your heart to give. Right now, the platforms I have set up are Paypal and Venmo - both @AlexisSlutzky.

If you have inspirations or suggestions for how to enrich this space and open it up to more folks, please let me know.

Also, I am offering an intimate daylong nature retreat on August 14 for local women. Follow this link for more information and to register by August 9, and also feel free to email me with questions. Spaces filling.

Zoom registration link for August 9, 6-8PM PT meeting. 

with wild beauty blessings, 

Alexis

Remaining 2021 dates:

Monday evenings 6-8PM PT 

September 6

October 4

November 8

December 6

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2021 New Moon Monthly Virtual Gatherings

Monday evenings from 6-8PM PT 2021

Sept 6, Oct 4, Nov 8, Dec 6

Join me and others on or around the new moon each month for a collective field of support and inspiration, communion and connection, in the virtual presence of each other.

With the energy of the new moon, we listen together to what we are each and all calling forth, and that which is naturally coming into being. Each month there is a theme and connective practices and invitations to deepen into throughout the month. This is an emergent space - where we engage meditation, poetry, context, journaling and heartfelt sharing and respectful listening.

There is no requirement to commit to all the dates. 

All welcome.

Letting Go and Precious Endings

Artist: Christi Belcourt (Michif), The Wisdom of the Universe, 2014, acrylic on canvas

Collection Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Greetings~ 

Today marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, Imbolc in the Celtic tradition, which literally means 'in the belly.' In northern climes, this time initiates the lambing season, and in some places is referred to as the 'lactation of the ewes', when the milk comes down in the teats of the mamas to feed the babes not yet born. It is an expectant time, when we can see the new life just showing under the surface. As we move from the belly of the winter, it is also a natural time to let go of what has been and turn towards what is to come.

In southern California, the earth is steadily greening from the blessing of the recent rains and I am beginning to feel the stirrings of new life within and all around. The winter has been a time of slowing down for me, tending close to home and hearth and I am still enjoying that pace. In the challenge of these times, with so much falling away and so many dying, the letting go and precious endings bring to focus the tenderness and beauty of this existence, while the spirit of renewal implicit in spring offers gentle balm. We are reminded by those on their death beds who speak of what is important in this life... how well have we loved. How well have we opened our hearts. How much beauty have we made. In the end, this is what matters most. In her recent book, All About Love, bell hooks highlights love as a verb and action, and how ill equipped we are in this modern dominant culture in the ways and practice of loving.

I would also add the ways and practice of beauty. Beauty is the nature of this world. There is so much to love, as well as so much pain. Of course, we feel pain because we love so much. And when we are in pain, beauty often feels far away. We need beauty, and it is our birth rite, essential nourishment for the heart and soul. Just as we are provided with all we need on this earth in an exquisite and holy generosity, we are also beauty makers. How do we truly honor what sustains us in this life while we are here? I have been reveling in beauty. I have the privilege of feeling and being safe enough in my body's daily existence to take in the beauty of our world. This is not the same for everyone. In fact, I heard yesterday, that one in seven people in the USA does not have enough food to eat. Our work in these times is clear, understanding the ways we other and divide, within ourselves and in the world, taking responsibility for healing and creating a culture of belonging and care for all, living our part to turn the collective tide toward love, justice, beauty and ecological wellness... to co-create The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, of which author and activist Charles Eisenstein speaks.

In the practice of orienting towards what is beautiful, I share two phenomenal poems below by inspiring and powerful women: "The Life of Beauty" by Joy Harjo and "Hozho" by Lyla June Johnston. Joy Harjo is the United States poet laureate and the first Native American to hold the position; and Lyla June Johnston is “an Indigenous environmental scientist, doctoral student, educator, community organizer and musician of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages from Taos, NM.”

Lastly, I held an online gathering on the new moon last month and will continue to do so on or around the new moon for the next three months to transition into spring in the presence of community. If you are interested, please see details below.

May you find a beautiful and simple way to mark and honor this threshold time as we transition into spring.

Grateful blessings and wild peace, 

Alexis

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Women's Spring New Moon Virtual Gatherings

Monday evenings from 6-8PM PT 

February 15th, March 15th & April 12th

In continuing to open to community spaces online, I invite you to join me around the new moon each month for the next three months for a collective field of support and inspiration, communion and connection, in the virtual presence of each other.

This invitation is primarily for women in my practice and community with whom I currently work or have worked with in mentorship, groups, retreats. However, if we have not worked together before, and you feel called to join, you are welcome. I am also acutely aware of the binary implicit in the dominant cultural gender narrative. If you identify as non-binary, trans, gender queer, non-cisgender and are called to join a space that centers the experience of women, you are welcome. I have personally received so much from women's spaces, and am working to bring awareness and care to the ways I am complicit in perpetuating otherness around gender.

This is an emergent space - poetry, meditation, context, and invitation to share. With the energy of the new moon, we listen together to what we are each and all calling forth, and that which is naturally coming into being. There is no requirement to commit to all three dates. If you are interested, please email me, and an email with a registration link will be sent out each month for that month's meeting. This container will hold us as we transition into spring. 

What a treat it was to gather with some of you on the new moon last month to share what is moving in us in these powerful and transformative times - stories, laughter, tears, poetry, dreams, celebrations, struggles and remembrances. Thank you for your presence.

Zoom registration link for the February 15th, 6-8PM PT gathering. (Please click early so as to register in advance) 

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Inspiration

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THE LIFE OF BEAUTY

The sung blessing of creation

Led her into the human story.

That was the first beauty.

Next beauty was the sound of her mother’s voice

Rippling the waters beneath the drumming skin

Of her birthing cocoon.

Next beauty the father with kindness in his hands

As he held the newborn against his breathing.

Next beauty the moon through the dark window

It was a rocking horse, a wish.

There were many beauties in this age

For everything was immensely itself:

Green greener than the impossibility of green,

the taste of wind after its slide through dew grass at dawn,

Or language running through a tangle of wordlessness in her mouth.

She ate well of the next beauty.

Next beauty planted itself urgently beneath the warrior shrines.

Next was beauty beaded by her mother and pinned neatly

To hold back her hair.

Then how tendrils of fire longing grew into her, beautiful the flower

Between her legs as she became herself.

Do not forget this beauty she was told.

The story took her far away from beauty. In the tests of her living,

Beauty was often long from the reach of her mind and spirit.

When she forgot beauty, all was brutal.

But beauty always came to lift her up to stand again.

When it was beautiful all around and within,

She knew herself to be corn plant, moon, and sunrise.

Death is beautiful, she sang, as she left this story behind her.

Even her bones, said time.

Were tuned to beauty.

-Joy Harjo

HOZHO

It is dawn.

The sun is conquering the sky and my grandmother and I

are heaving prayers at the horizon.

“Show me something unbeautiful,” she says,

“and I will show you the veil over your eyes and take it away.

And you will see hozho all around you, inside of you.”

This morning she is teaching me the meaning of HOZHO.

There is no direct translation from Diné Bizaad,

the Navajo language, into English

but every living being knows what hozho means.

Hozho is every drop of rain,

every eyelash,

every leaf on every tree,

every feather on the bluebird’s wing.

Hozho is undeniable beauty.

Hozho is in every breath that we give to the trees.

And in every breath they give to us in return.

Hozho is reciprocity.

My grandmother knows the meaning of hozho well.

For she speaks a language that grew out of the desert floor

like red sandstone monoliths that rise like arms out of the earth

praising creation for all its brilliance.

Hozho is remembering that you are a part of this brilliance.

It is finally accepting that, yes, you are a sacred song that

brings the Diyin Dine’é, the gods, to their knees

in an almost unbearable ecstasy.

Hozho is re-membering your own beauty.

My grandmother knows hozho well

For she speaks the language of a Lukachukai snowstorm

the sound of hooves hitting the earth on birthdays.

For my grandmother is a midwife and she is fluent in the

language of suffering mothers

of joyful mothers

of handing glowing newborns to their creator.

Hozho is not something you can experience on your own,

the eagles tell us as they lock talons in the stratosphere

and fall to the earth as one.

Hozho is interbeauty.

My grandmother knows hozho well

for she speaks the language of the male rain

that shoots lightning boys through the sky,

pummels the green corn children,

and huddles the horses against cliff sides in the afternoon.

She also speaks the language of the female rain

that sends the scent of dust and sage into our homes

and shoots rainbows out of and into the earth.

The Diné know what hozho means!

And you know what hozho means!

And deep down we know what hozho is not.

Like the days you walk in sadness.

The days you live for money.

The days you live for fame.

The days you live for tomorrow.

Like the day the spaniards climbed down from their horses

and asked us if they could buy the mountains.

We knew this was not hozho.

But we knew we could make it hozho once again.

So we took their swords and their silver coins

and melted them

with fire and buffalo hide bellows

and reshaped them into squash blossom jewelry pieces

and strung it around their necks.

Took the helmets straight off their heads

and turned it into fearless beauty.

Hozho is the healing of broken bones.

Hozho is the prayer that carried us

through genocide and disease,

It is the prayer that will carry us through global warming

and through this global fear that has set our hearts on fire.

This morning my grandmother is teaching me

that the easiest (and most elegant) way to defeat an army of hatred,

is to sing it beautiful songs

until it falls to its knees and surrenders.

It will do this, she says, because it has finally

found a sweeter fire than revenge.

It has found heaven.

It has found HOZHO.

This morning my grandmother is saying

to the colors of the sky at dawn:

hózhǫ́náházdlíí’

hózhǫ́náházdiíí’

hózhǫ́náházdlíí’

beauty is restored again…

It is dawn, my friends.

Wake up.

The night is over.

— Lyla June Johnston

Gestation of Unformed Possibilities

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” 

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Postcard Artist: Sage C.F., age 14

Greetings dear people,

Those of us in the northern hemisphere are crossing the threshold from fall into winter, a time to honor our ancestors and what has come before, as we shed what must go, in order to live a more fresh, true, brave, and expanded life. In the Celtic tradition, this is the new year - a time of new beginnings catalyzed by entering the dark, winter, the gestation of unformed possibilities. What with the pandemic, continued and intensified climate disasters, social unrest, racial injustices and reckoning, the imminent historical election in the USA marking this moment, we are in the long dark, as a mentor of mine would say of this time. There have always been dark times, and there will be again. There will also be light. We are the fruit of our ancestors toils and delights. They sang and weeped, made love and fought, got petty over who did or did not do what, and longed and prayed and visioned and dreamed and labored us into existence.

There is an old fable shared in the Zen Buddhist tradition, about a woman who is being chased by tigers. There are many renditions, but the gist is... she runs for her life, as fast as she can. As the tigers quickly approach, she finds herself at the edge of a cliff. A vine winds down over the edge, so she climbs down and hangs onto the vine high above the ground. She looks down and sees there are also tigers below (what?!?) waiting for her to fall, ready to devour her. She notices a tiny mouse nibbling at the vine to which she is clinging. She looks around and sees a beautiful bunch of wild red strawberries growing nearby. She looks up and down, at the mouse and at the last thin fiber of the vine, then reaches out and picks a perfect strawberry and puts it in her mouth. The strawberry tastes delicious.

Although this is always the predicament we are in as humans - the tenuousness of life, the inevitability of death, with only our experience of the present moment - the particular now we find ourselves in feels even more acute with so much at stake; tigers above and tigers below. As the other side of despair, grief and outrage, our capacity for joy, pleasure and wonder when we are present in an animated world, gives fuel to our work of reimagining, restoring and recreating the world we want to live in. And as Robin Wall Kimmerer says, is the 'return of the gift'.

How much more present can we be today when we have death and endings in our awareness? How much more courage can we muster? How much more willing can we be to let go of what other people think, what is too small for us, the stories that keep us away from love?

I loved playing soccer as a kid. I most often played forward and halfback, and sometimes coach had me on defense. At the end of a game, if we were behind, my coach would yell at me to go for it, no matter my position. One game I left my post as goal keeper, and scored the final goal for our team. It was a rush.... I long to play that full out and give my all for this world. We are in the endgame (Check out Derrick Jensen's book Endgame). Time to unleash our dynamic potential, welcome the wild cards and stay awake.

On the eve of the official election day, our vote, our prayer, we can also choose how we inhabit the present moment - sowing seeds of love and justice for the future in our now. The vulnerable territory of unknown mystery and the ground of creative and abundant possibility in the present moment is calling us home. It is where I want to meet and collaborate with you and others for the rest of my life.

We are made for these times. We all really want the same things. All of us, really. Or at least, the very most of us human beings. No matter who we want in office, and all that. It is so easy to wage war, harder and more enduring to live peace. I hope this brings a breath of peace on this threshold, if even for a breath.

I have a new essay up on my website, Listening to the Land, inspired by a recent trip to Southern Utah; the first in what I hope to be a series of writings. I would love to hear your thoughts if you care to share!

With wild blessings, big love, and mercy for ourselves and each other,

Alexis

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Mundane Miracles, Holy Wonders & Other Tidbits

October 2020

"Caste away charm

Nobody is myself

Sweet, sweet afraid"

~ These words came through the silence while fasting in the desert sandstone of Southern Utah twenty five years ago. I returned to this place last month.

A Map to the Next World

By Joy Harjo 

for Desiray Kierra Chee

In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for

those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged

from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.

For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.

The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It

must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.

In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it

was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the

altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.

Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our

children while we sleep.

Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born

there of nuclear anger.

Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to

disappear.

We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to

them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the

map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-

ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.

An imperfect map will have to do, little one.

The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s

small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a

spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking

from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh

deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.

And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world

there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.

You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song

she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you

will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they

entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.

You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.

A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the

destruction.

Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our

tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was

once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.

You must make your own map.

FILMS

Follow Me Home

Brilliant film directed by Peter Bratt in 1996, re-released this month: "Four Los Angeles street artists hatch a plan to cover the White House with vibrantly painted murals in Follow Me Home, a rebellious fable infused with the traditions of Native, African and Latino culture. Joined by a woman with a haunting secret, they set off on an impetuous joyride across a desert landscape steeped in magic, mystery and danger. A powerful celebration of art, history, music and community, Follow Me Home challenges long-held beliefs about race and identity in America, adding an important voice to today’s racial reckoning."

The Cost of Silence

Powerful and disturbing film by friend and documentary filmmaker Mark Manning: "Secretly filmed over nine years, an oil industry insider exposes the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill and uncovers a public health disaster and the coordination between government and industry to silence the victims. The stakes could not be higher as the Trump administration races to open the entire US coastline to offshore drilling."

The Love - Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson

Chumash Territory: poster curtesy of Dawnland.

Rumble and Tumble of Reckoning

Sycamore and Oak, Santa Barbara backcountry

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Greetings dear people,

It is difficult to find words that do justice to the profundity of this time. A time of heartbreak, grappling, pain, overwhelm, action, change, possibility, healing, disbelief, inspiration, opportunity, awakening, chaos, breaking apart, breaking open, brokenness and beauty. Business as usual has been disrupted. First the pandemic, and then the brutal and callous murder of George Floyd (the most recent of devastating murders of black bodied people by police), which elicited an incredible and ongoing uprising around the world. People demanding justice and protesting the institutionalized, systemic racism and brutality, oppression and violence that has been inflicted on black bodies for centuries. Loud and clear around the planet. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. A call to wake up, a call for justice, for reparations, and for systems change. The USA was built with stolen people on stolen ground. We all live with that truth in our bodies in different ways. Whether we like it or not, whether we feel it or not, whether we understand our complicity or not. We are in the rumble and tumble of reckoning with the way our history lives out in our present. We are each called to do better, as Maya Angelou so graciously states: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

As a white woman, I am grappling with my place and response. I am simultaneously outraged by the racialized violence and humbled by the layers of denial and shame in myself and others that contribute to my complicity in systems of oppression. I am also grateful for the centering of black lives matter and the conversation around structural racism, and inspired by the powerful transformations and stories of change underway throughout the country. This week in Santa Barbara, our local Sambo's finally dropped its name, and our mayor approved changing the name of a local street, Indio Muerto (Dead Indian), to Hutash, the Chumash word for Earth Mother, which native people and activists have been lobbying to change for twenty five years. I share this, because although words might seem insignificant, they matter. The stories we tell matter. Dehumanization begins with language, as in so many creation stories, in the beginning was the word.

And, we are facing and engaging intertwining threads. Our collective health and well being, our social body, is intimately connected to the health and well-being of our ecological body. The systems of power and privilege that oppress and destroy black and brown lives, have the same roots as systems that are destroying our living earth. Our earth is ailing because of humans - human activity and human consciousness, in a story of domination. This sounds like a crisis. In the Chinese language, crisis is the same character as opportunity. We have the choice to meet this moment in fear or in courage and love. This opportunity lives in each of us, and requires devotion, practice and community. One breath at a time.

The future is not written. We have the possibility to tell a new story. One breath at a time. A story of restoration, honoring all life. A story of beauty, reciprocity, and love in action, unity in diversity. This future is born of our present, our presence moment to moment. We are planting the seeds of this new story. It is already here, in the seeds, in us. To live into a future worth living for all of humanity, and non human beings as well, we are each called to take responsibility and do our part. What each of us is called to do, when and how we are called to it, and what this looks like for each of us will of course vary according to our natures, proclivities, positionalities, identities, and so on. We are magnificent and beautiful beings, our bodies, all bodies, made of the elements of the cosmos - fire, water, air and earth, worthy of care and celebration. We each have a part to play and a responsibility to the whole. We are obliged to do better. Much obliged - indebted and grateful.

Right now, I am in a time of listening, and engaging, and practicing radical compassion, trust and emergence to inform how I respond, what I will do next, where and how I will show up. I am breathing in compassion for myself and breathing out compassion for the world. I am committed to deepen my awareness around my internalized racism, take responsibility for my unearned privilege, grow my relationships cross culture and color, have conversations with other white people around race, power, privilege and make nature connection more inclusive and welcoming of black and brown people. I acknowledge my limitations and am committed to learning and unlearning. I am doing my best and committed to doing better, with compassion and mercy. I know that I cannot take the next steps from the same consciousness I had before this time. I ask myself: How can I let myself be transformed? How can I allow the relationality of the world, all my relationships, inform how I respond as part of an interconnected whole, so my responses are not for myself alone? How can I open to the wild, the weird, the dreamtime, the unsung songs, the mysterious possibilities that live at the edge of the village, the depths of my heart, which is the heart of the world?

As communities and businesses open up more and more, let us not to be too eager to put it all together again too quickly, with the same mindset and tools that caused this catastrophe in the first place. This cycle of transformation is trustworthy -- the breakdown and dying of the old; the liminal place of chaos, seeming disorder and unknown as we let go of what is familiar; and the emergence of something new and never before seen. This is natural law. The eternal cycles of change and transformation. There is beauty in it all.

This week marks the celebration of Juneteenth, honoring the end of slavery in the US in 1865, and Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in this hemisphere, honoring light. It is a good time to celebrate what is good and beautiful, honor what has come to pass, say no to what is intolerable, and hold the light of our co-liberation as central.

With wild blessings, big love, and mercy, mercy, mercy.

Alexis

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Upcoming Events

Thank you for your support and interest. During this time, I am taking a pause to listen more deeply to what I am called to offer moving forward. I am grateful to have been collaborating and partnering with Mindful Heart Programs, Insight LA, Pacifica Graduate Institute and Emergent Resilience in the last few months. Please stay tuned for upcoming events coming soon.

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Tending Grief, Uncertainty and Loss

How Compassion, Mindfulness, Nature Connection and

Community Ritual Help us Soften Around our Pain

with Alexis Slutzky and Radhule Weininger

Sunday, July 5, 2020

2:00 PM - 5:00 PM PST

Online

We are in a time of a tremendous amount of change, loss and uncertainty. This may bring up overwhelm and anxiety and a sense of lostness. Underneath this array of feelings is often a very deep sadness and our personal grief gets intertwined with and intensified by communal grief. Throughout time, people have come together to honor and integrate grief as a way to stay connected and engaged. Experiencing our grief opens us to our love and gratitude and can deepen us if we allow it. As we connect with our deep sadness, we can slowly find traces of a path that leads us forward.

In this 3 hour on-line retreat we will tend our individual and collective grief and offer personal and community practices that can help us to find freedom in our suffering. This approach, based on mindfulness, self-compassion, community and nature connection, will help us find a way of being with our pain. As we experience more compassion, a greater sense of meaning, and deep, heart-felt connection can emerge. 

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Solidarity and Compassion Project

Meets second Wednesday of each month

July 8, 2020 - The Wellness of We: Caring for us All

7PM - 8:30PM PST

Online

​For the last several months I have been honored to accompany Radhule Weininger and Michael Kearney in hosting the “Solidarity and Compassion Project” a monthly gathering of guest speakers from the community joining together to discuss ways of community healing during difficult times bringing together members of the leading faith traditions, as well as a variety of thinkers, visionaries and activists to share how their individual traditions and practices such as prayers, meditation, music, poetry, and philosophies help us deal with uncertainty, anxiety, and fear during this challenging time in our country and our world.

In June we were blessed by the following speakers:

Julie Tumamait Stenslie was raised in the Ojai Valley. On the death of her father in 1992, she assumed the role of Chumash Elder. Currently, Julie acts as a Commissioner on the Native American Heritage Commission and a board member of the Santa Clara River Conservancy. She is the Tribal Chair of the Barbareno/Ventureno Band of Mission Indians (Chumash).

The Rev. Dr. David N. Moore, Jr. is an ecumenical teacher and author. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from the University of South Africa. His new book is titled, Making America Great Again: Fairy Tale? Horror Story? A Challenge to the Christian Community.

Ralph Armbruster Sandoval is chair of UCSB’s Chicano Studies Department. He has been very active in social movements for more than 20 years and has served on the Board of Directors for La Casa de la Raza, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and Witness for Peace. His newest book is titled, “Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity."

Fr. Tom Carey is a Franciscan friar. He is a member of the Episcopal Sanctuary Taskforce of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and works with The Wall Las Memorias Project, an LGBTQ community organization as a faith-based organizer. In his previous life he was a TV and "lm actor and holds a degree in Spanish from Columbia University.

Radhule Weininger, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, and teacher of Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology. She is mentored by Jack Kornfield in her teaching and by Joanna Macy in her interest in Engaged Buddhism. Her book "Heartwork: The Path of Self-Compassion", with a foreword by Jack Kornfield published by Shambala Publications. 

Michael Kearney, MD, is a physician with over 35 years’ experience in palliative care.  He works at Cottage Hospital and at Serenity House in Santa Barbara.  His latest book entitled "The Nest in The Stream: Lessons From Nature on Being with Pain," offers an ecological model of self-care and resilience that awakens the desire to act for the welfare of all beings.

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RESOURCES FOR WHITE FRIENDS

There are so many great resources available, here are a few I have found helpful:

White Fragility - short article linked here, and of course full book by Robin Di Angelo

SURJ - Showing Up for Racial Justice national organization with local chapters

Me and White Supremacy - book and workbook by Layla F Saad

My Grandmothers Hands - Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Seeing White podcast

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POEM

For the Interim Time by John O'Donohue

When near the end of day, life has drained

Out of light, and it is too soon

For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline

Makes everything look strangely in-between,

Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.

In a while it will be night, but nothing

Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim

Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;

The way forward is still concealed from you.

"The old is not old enough to have died away;

The new is still too young to be born."

You cannot lay claim to anything;

In this place of dusk,

Your eyes are blurred;

And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart

And you can see nowhere to put your trust;

You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow confusion to squander

This call which is loosening

Your roots in false ground,

That you might come free

From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here in your mind,

And it is difficult and slow to become new.

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

from: "To Bless the Space Between Us" by John O'Donohue. Pub in 2008 by Doubleday.

Invoking the Pause - Pandemic Portal

From Control to Emergent Intuition OR Initiation Me to We OR Pause Aversion

The global pause, the days the world stood still, the extent of our interconnectedness, undeniable. The time of pandemic, isolation, giving birth to a shared cry, an outrage, a protest and a holy call – for justice, dignity, life.

Invoking the pause. Stopping the engine of incessant growth, going, doing, striving. Long enough for many of us to take a real honest look at ourselves, patterns, assumptions, individual and collective practices and structures. This time out of time, where the whole world has been given an opportunity for a reset. There is suffering and sacrifice and loss. And space enough for a choice.  We have been on the rat wheel for so long, doing the things to stay afloat in a sea of oppression and capitalism. Some of us have been lucky enough to pursue what we love, and even to make a living, with such endeavors. Mostly as a result of unearned white privilege. In my life, that is certainly the case. I was given the gift of education, and the blessing of family support in other ways as well. I grew up in beautiful Santa Barbara. I come from a lineage that is oriented towards service and generosity. My dad is a psychiatrist and has always worked to alleviate suffering and to bridge the patient/doctor hierarchy gap. My mom worked many years as an attorney in land use and development in our local government, with an eye for fairness, equity and the common good.

Victor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychologist who spent years in a holocaust concentration death camp, and wrote the well-known, Man and the Meaning of Life, has a simple and provocative saying: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

 What if we look at the current situation with the pandemic, and the consequent changes in our systems, and routines, as this space. We don’t need much, just a moment, to pause, take some deep breaths, reconnect with our selves. So many, if not most of us, have been imprinted with trauma, a fight, fight freeze response, that has us often reacting to situations, as threats to our very survival. Whether or not the threat is real or perceived, the body reacts in the same way. This self-protective conditioned instinct was a viable strategy at one point in our lives, and if we are out of imminent danger now in the present moment, it is a hold over response in our psycho-bio-immunological systems. We cannot simultaneously be in a fear shut down defensive response and an open, collaborative, creative response. It is one or the other.

So this time of pause, essentially allows us, at least some of us, more of a chance to remember our power to choose. To step out of reaction. It is a choice point. There are many possible paths ahead, including the one we have been on as a species, headed toward destruction and annihilation of our precious world including our human relatives, particularly people of color. It is an opportunity to reflect deeply and see what kind of world we want to choose and create. We have the power, we are made of this earth. Our cells carry and contain billions of years of intelligence and creativity. We have never lived on this earth connected to our true inheritance.

Years ago, in a workshop with educator and activist Joanna Macy, I called a group break-out meeting for folks interested in Exploring a Beautiful Future. One of the participants asked me to clarify why I choose the word beautiful, out of all the potential descriptive words available. I had not given it a lot of thought at the time, it just felt right I said. There is something about our relationship to beauty, as an essential part of what it means to be human, as an essential aspect of this existence. We live within a beautiful natural living earth embedded within a beautiful natural living universe, or multiverse. We can enrich the overwhelming, exquisite beauty of this planet earth, with our own. We have the gift and capacity to make beauty. Martin Prechtel, writer, rogue wild orator of praise, teacher, modern shaman, speaks about humans as the beings who with an opposable thumb, and an ability to recognize the gift of this life, the generosity of this earth, the beauty of the cosmos, are made to make beauty to give back to the other world, the holy, the mystery. We can never completely repay the debt of how much life has given us, but we can dedicate our lives to feed what gives us life, with beauty. The debt is actually not meant to be repaid. There is a holy humility in that. A humility that has been forgotten in the modern world. We can never repay it, we are never done, and therefore, not off the hook, complete as separate entities. We are always tied in mutuality. With humans that think we are the masters, who can control everything -  get to the moon, create incredible technology, hold back the tides. The President of the USA was quoted earlier this year as saying the power invested in the president is “total control” The powers that be, in the fires that have moved through much of our forests, the floods and droughts covering our planet, and communities, teach us otherwise.

And now this. This tiny virus, with the power to bring our systems to a halt. A HALT. Makes me think of the acronym used in recovery. When you are in a reactive stance, take a moment to self reflect to see if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. If so, you have the power to make a change and meet some of those needs. We need awareness first, so that we can see the situation clearly. Then we have the power to act, rather than react. Many of us are hungry, angry, lonely and tired. The system is designed this way, so that the majority are run to the ground to serve and elevate the few, who continue to accrue monetary wealth. This is a game gone awry. King of the mountain. A game that serves the I and the ego.

With trauma, it is very difficult to perceive both self and other. We tend to either over focus on the external as a locus of control and safety, care taking others, worrying about what they think of us, making sure they are appeased so as not to rock the boat, or we are self absorbed – either in shame, not knowing our own worth, or in grandiose thinking about our status and self interest. The vulnerability required to both feel into our self and another as well as the place in between requires a presence that most of us have not learned, or more accurately, we have not un-learned enough of our mind set to be able to rest in this place of presence as our natural state. Presence is at the heart of our power and interconnectedness. We have limited our distractions now. Habitual patterns of relating to self and other are likely making themselves revealed, amplified in the simplicity of being at home. If we have a home, that is.

So beauty, opens our heart. Softens something. Connects us to our humanity.

What are we going to choose as our collective future? What are we going to metaphorically center. Have at the center of our community circle, in our commons? The welfare of our children? The health of our water? Of our oceans and forests? Our health? The field of ecopsychology looks at the relationship between an indivuduals health and the health of the whole ecosystem of which we are a part, understanding that our health depends upon the health of the whole. Right now, the health of the whole, has been sorely neglected and outright exploited.

So we can continue on the path we have been on. Getting for the few, corporations at the center, progress and technology at the center, with earth, animals, people of color, women, LGBTQ, at the margins. Or begin to recognize what has been lost as a result, grieve this, and then reorient to a new path. We have to believe we have the power to choose. We have to know this to be true. We have to remember in our bones that we come from this earth, are this earth. We do not have to know how this can happen. We can’t know how. We do not have to know the way, we only have to choose moment by moment the possibility of something that opens us to more beauty, connectedness, love, and care. There are solutions out there, there are those who have been re-imagining the world, and engaging prototypes of communities, technologies, etc that include the well being of the whole. There are indigenous peoples who have the traditional ecological knowledge to support this new path. Who do we have to become to choose a beautiful future? Martin puts it this way, If the modern world is to start maintaining things, it will have to redefine itself. A new culture will have to develop, in which neither humans and their inventions nor God is at the center of the universe. What should be at the center is a hollow place, an empty place where both God and humans can sing and weep together.

This seems a good place to start. In the space in between, that hollow empty place, the liminal, betwixt and between. And not to fill it with stuff, with attempts at self soothing, with food that makes us sick rather than nourishes our bodies. We have grown so accustomed in this modern civilization to accept extremely poor substitutions for our real needs. Many of us do not even recognize our needs. However, I believe that in our DNA in our bones we know what we long for, what we came here for, what we are capable of, and this gap between what we know is possible, and what our lives look and feel like, causes tremendous pain and suffering. I will write a few of what a mentor, Francis Weller, calls primariy satisfactions – attuned human contact and presence, meaningful work and contributions to the whole, connection with nature, meaning and purpose, beauty, arts, connection to a larger story, connection to the sacred, a so called spiritual life – relationship to the invisible world, intimacy, sharing good food. Secondary satisfactions are the poor subsitutes – addictions, shopping, technology, zoom calls, etc. A time to take our own pause, knowing that when we do this and choose love, as a response, as a psycho-bio-immuno response, we affect the whole, we are reorienting toward relationship. We are present within the web of our lives. Humility – knowing our place. Divinity –knowing our place. Beauty – knowing who we are, what makes us and what we have the capacity to create. 

As Martha Postlewaite wrote in her poem The Clearing…

“Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.”

May the Gifts of This Time Be Revealed

Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara Backcountry

Greetings dear people ~

We find ourselves in very unsettling times as a global community. Times of great change, catalyzing fear, loss and uncertainty. Also a time of slowing down, turning inward, generosity, deepening gratitude for what really matters, working together and community care. No matter the origin of this virus and global response, two things are absolutely clear, our interconnectedness and our capacity and willingness to work together to affect change.

Many of us have imagined and prepared for a time such as this. Although no one could have known the form it would take, nor the timing, though it feels right given where we are as a species in the throws of climate change. We also do not know where this will take us, as the end of the story is not written. We only know we are navigating our way through the uncertainty and possibility together. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I had on an old station wagon in my 20's - "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." It matters how we are in this time of transition. The way we navigate now, sows seeds for the future we are co-creating. This is not to give us extra pressure to get it right, just a sense of our own power and capacity for change. Sometimes this looks like not doing anything, except our best to meet each moment, returning again and again to presence, watching out for the pitfalls of a mind in terror, offering grace to ourselves and each other.

I know that many are suffering now. You yourself might be facing great challenges - children at home, loss of loved ones, job insecurity, social isolation, instability of any and all sorts, activation of past traumas, separation from loved ones. Most of us are impacted in some way or another. And truth is, many have been suffering for a long time. Our earth, our human and non human relatives, have not been well for a long time. When we are ripe for change, and do not willingly enter the territory of transformation of our own accord, life has a way of taking us there on its own terms. Francis Weller, a mentor of mine, calls this a rough initiation. This is where we are now. We have been severed from the familiar, our habits and patterns are disrupted, as we are in this liminal, time out of time, threshold. Nothing remains the same on the other side of any initiation. We are forever changed by the experience. In traditional initiatory rites, sometimes the young initiate would be covered in ash to signify the death of who this person had been. After coming through the initiatory rite, the old self was considered dead, and the person is reborn into a new identity. An identity that was much wider, including more and more of the web of life. Initiation was never meant for the individual alone, as an act of of self-growth or improvement. It was and has always been a communal act, serving to return us to our place in the web of relations, indebted to the community of all beings. The threshold time, or time in between the new and old story, or identity, can be a time to pray, let go, reflect on what matters, ask for vision of how to live in right relationship, account for the impact our habits have had on ourselves, others and the planet. A time to give thanks for the things we have taken for granted, earth, water, air, fire, our families, community, sharing meals together, food and shelter, all of the aspects that make up community and village life. We might ask: Am I living in alignment? What needs to die? Change? Be seeded? What is truly most important?

Another mentor of mine, Deena Metzger, practices and teaches what she calls the No Enemy Way. This path requires healing from our past traumas, which cause us to react in fear and separation and sever our capacity for relatedness, trust and connection. The type of self interest and self preservation we are seeing all around us, and maybe within as well, is a reflection of that unmetabolized trauma. We might be seeing more clearly, the ways we unconsciously and consciously 'other', create an us and a them, and retract into fight, flight or flee. At this point in our collective journey together as humans embedded in a civilization of disconnection and domination, very few of us, if any, have escaped the ramifications of trauma, which the Hopi refer too as tsawana, meaning "a state of mind in terror." Even if simply the developmental trauma of being raised without presence or attunement in a disconnected family, community, civilization, if not more severe abuse.

Given how many of us may be experiencing fear, outrage, grief, anxiety, this time calls us to utilize and engage all the tools we have for presence, collective care, equanimity, creativity, self regulation, connection, and the capacity to show up in relationship. I have personally been doing my best to practice returning again and again to a state of presence and joy, gratitude and ease, and am very grateful for the years of practice I have engaged up until now. Time in nature, time in nature, connection with others, mostly virtual now, writing, and moving my body in ways that bring me joy and pleasure, have been nourishing and grounding.

My vision of and longing for a garden, and community in close contact, is stronger than ever. I have heard that seeds are getting sold out of places that sell seeds, as are baby chicks and bread baking flour. Out of fear, necessity or just because it is a really good idea, people are beginning to make changes that are more life giving, and that unlink us from the dependency on the corporate industrial life killing systems. Community supported agriculture is spreading, and the gift economy is gaining traction. Neighbors are checking in with each other more often, people are more aware of the most vulnerable in their communities - whether they be the elderly, undocumented workers, incarcerated folks - and taking action accordingly to care for all in the circle of kin. All of this is good news and salve for the heart.

Whatever your personal experience of this pandemic, may you know you are not alone. May the gifts of this time be revealed, may you find solace with the fear and uncertainty, and deepen the practices that help you return to presence, generosity and love. Know that you are an incredible being of beauty and intelligence carrying gifts for our world. This is the truth, breathe it in as many times a day as you need to remember who you are. We are doing this together, and this togetherness feels more important than ever. So grateful to be alive at this time with you, as we are in the process of making history. Thank you for reading and staying connected.

Please see below to know where you can find me online during this time of transition.

Weekly Events Online

• Fridays 9AM - 10AM PST Meditation: Being with Grief and Uncertainty through the Mindful Heart Programs.

• Wednesdays 4PM - 5:30PM PST Awakening Earth Community Council: Forum for Being Human in times of Cultural and Ecological Initiation.

• Every other Monday 6:30PM - 8:30PM PST Women at the Well.

Other Events Online

• April 12 Sunday 2PM - 5PM PST Being with Grief through Insight LA Meditation Center. With Dr. Radhule Weininger and Dr. Michael Kearney.

• April 19 Sunday 2PM - 5pm PST Tending Our Grief through Insight LA Meditation Center. With Dr. Radhule Weininger.

• April 8 Wednesday 7PM - 8:30PM PST Solidarity and Compassion Project, with Dr. Radhule Weininger and Dr. Michael Kearney. Second Wednesday of every month.

Also including my first video shared on Facebook, with thoughts that were stirring last week. It is slowly becoming a practice for me to post videos, so as to stretch myself into more visibility, vulnerability, accountability and connection.

with wild blessings and big love, and mercy, mercy, mercy for ourselves and each other.

Alexis

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Mundane Miracles, Holy Wonders & Other Tidbits

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Charles Eisenstein's Article Coronation

Dawnland by the Upstander Project - FREE screening on April 21 8PM EST. Visit here for more information.

Dr Zack Bush interview, on microbiome.

MaMuse singing We Shall Be Known and also covered by Thrive East Bay Choir.

Message from White Eagle, Hopi indigenous, from March 16, 2020.

“This moment humanity is going through can be seen as a portal and as a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or go through the portal is up to you. If they repent of the problem and consume the news 24 hours a day, with little energy, nervous all the time, with pessimism, they will fall into the hole. But if you take this opportunity to look at yourself, rethink life and death, take care of yourself and others, you will cross the portal. Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with the middle body of your spiritual house, all this is synonymous, that is to say the same. When you are taking care of one, you are taking care of everything else. Do not lose the spiritual dimension of this crisis, have the aspect of the eagle, which from above, sees the whole, sees more widely. There is a social demand in this crisis, but there is also a spiritual demand. The two go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. But without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and lack of meaning. You were prepared to go through this crisis. Take your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.

Learn about resistance with indigenous and African peoples: we have always been and continue to be exterminated. But we still haven’t stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and having fun. Don’t feel guilty about being happy during this difficult time. You don’t help at all by being sad and without energy. It helps if good things emanate from the Universe now. It is through joy that one resists. Also, when the storm passes, you will be very important in the reconstruction of this new world. You need to be well and strong. And, for that, there is no other way than to maintain a beautiful, happy and bright vibration. This has nothing to do with alienation. This is a resistance strategy. In shamanism, there is a rite of passage called the quest for vision. You spend a few days alone in the forest, without water, without food, without protection. When you go through this portal, you get a new vision of the world, because you have faced your fears, your difficulties…

This is what is asked of you. Let them take advantage of this time to perform their vision seeking rituals.

What world do you want to build for yourself? For now, this is what you can do: serenity in the storm. Calm down and pray. Everyday. Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day. Good things emanate, what you emanate now is the most important thing. And sing, dance, resist through art, joy, faith and love.”

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A piece I wrote spontaneously on March 23, 2020, the day before I heard about the new book The Invisible Rainbow, about the history of humans complex relationship with electricity.

Tell me how much you love me, she said? 

What more will it take? I have given you everything. 

She remembered somewhere deep in her bones, that feeling of love. Of being cherished. 

And on that day, she swore, she would never ever lie. 

Why lie, you might ask? 

Because the earth does not lie. 

Everything is just as it is, precisely itself. 

This is the truth of it, and the beauty of it.  

And the nature of nature. 

Although she knew she could never lie, she also did not know how to tell the truth. So she did not speak. 

She got quiet, and small. Much too small for her size. 

Though in her muteness, she learned to listen. 

She listened to the water, the soil, the plants, the animals, the dreams, the heron, salamander, bear, black phoebe. And in the listening, she was returned to herself. She was remembered, in relation to all of the other voices, the songs of all of the beings of all of the world. 

She loved to sing, songs of praise and mourning. Because she loved the world. It belonged her holy. 

Tears took a while to loosen, from her dry eyes, as they had been so long, tucked inside, invisible. 

She did not lie, but she could not tell the truth. 

Until she could. Until she could not not tell the truth. 

Until it was all she could do. 

It was what she was made for. 

Truth and beauty. 

Today, the rainbow lit up the eastern sky at dusk. 

Was there ever such a thing? 

We needed a rainbow, he said. 

And it was given. Same as it ever was. 

Same as it ever was. 

This is the truth of it, and the beauty of it. 

Tell me again, the story of the rainbow.

~Alexis Slutzky

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

~Helen Keller, 1957

Nature Is Resilient. We Are Nature.

"...When she forgot beauty, all was brutal.

But beauty always came to lift her up to stand again.

When it was beautiful all around and within,

She knew herself to be corn plant, moon, and sunrise.

Death is beautiful, she sang, as she left this story behind her.

Even her bones, said time.

Were tuned to beauty."

~Joy Harjo

Mandala by Amara at a Mother - Daughter Retreat

Greetings ~

Blessings on the new year. Blessings on the full moon of this day, and the fullness of this time, the spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, as we honor women who are rising and standing and taking to the streets all over the world (International Women's Day), and the truth and reconciliation happening and not happening (International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims) - both United Nations observances this month. We certainly continue to have many opportunities, with fires, and now the primary elections and the coronavirus, to align with and stand for beauty, justice and life and not become overwhelmed and blinded by fear, despair or outrage.

On my drive home this afternoon after speaking at Pacifica Graduate Institute for International Women's Day, I spotted the beginnings of a fire in our mountains. Turns out it is a small brush fire, and fire fighters have mobilized quickly, with folks in the vicinity being evacuated, and rain is expected tomorrow. Here is to this full present moment....

How do we not succumb to a state of fear and disturbance, which causes us to have a narrow focus, revert to self protection and separation and contraction? And instead open to and maintain a state of possibility, creativity, connection, collaboration and emergent wisdom? There is no one way, but rather many practices, gatherings, teachers, experiences that help us to remember our true nature, and heal from our conditioned imprints of terror and shame. I have been exploring the concept of resilience, defined by Resilience Alliance as 'the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.' Last fall, I had the good fortune of co-teaching a course at Esalen Institute called The Ecology Within, about just this, thanks to my friend and colleague Rene Henery, who invited me to collaborate. The two of us, along with Charles Eisenstein, climate activist and change agent, sat on a panel to explore Being Human on a Living Earth in Times of Ecological Initiation. One of the things I am most sure of is the tremendous beauty, resilience and generosity of our mother earth. Just as it is our nature. Nature is resilient. We are nature. Nature is speaking through so many now, screaming, creatively acting, love making, finding new ways, remembering old ways. Of course, for many, perhaps most, there is tremendous trauma to metabolize. Which requires presence, containment, and care. When we are present, in our mammalian bodies, allowing our experience of the moment, without trying to fix or change, we strengthen our capacity to be with ourselves and others. When we have our basic needs met, our natural inclination is curiosity, collaboration, kindness and care. Strengthening our relationships with each other and the more than human world is essential, and a part of a system recovering from disturbance. And supporting and being inspired by our young people, reinvigorating rites of passage so more people recognize and act in accordance with their true nature - finding the courage and strength to align with ones heart and souls calling. As we are initiated, we come to know ourselves as unique and interconnected, sharing our planetary home with countless other living beings, understanding the systems within which we operate and are conditioned by so that we can take full responsibility for our place in the web of creation and participate fully in the mutuality of our co-liberation and care for people, place and planet.

I am very grateful to those who are leading the way, young and old, indigenous activists, those walking with me and beside me, those who have gone before, the women, my family and friends, everyone with whom I have the privilege and honor of working, my human mentors. I am grateful for the work, co-liberations, and collaborations, with the Global Youth Peace Summit in California (check out the website for teens summer 2020 program and apply now), Tara Mandala Family Retreat's Youth Wilderness Fast (also in 2020, registration open now), The Institute of Emerging Visionaries Immersion on the Big Island of Hawaii, and the Solidarity and Compassion Project.

I find myself inspired to write with more frequency and be in touch more often these days. Which may make the length of these newsletters a bit more digestible! I hope you choose to join me on the journey! If you would like to be kept informed about local offerings please sign up here. Grateful to be on the journey with you. It takes all of us, standing together, in courage, doing our particular piece. Reminds me of a song I learned years ago from a beloved mentor:

"I love the mountains and I love the desert. I love the rivers that flow to the ocean. A people united will not be divided. Come out of your houses, and take a stand. Stand for the children and stand for the future. Together in courage. Together in peace."

with wild blessings,

Alexis

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Upcoming Events

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Grief Ritual Altar

Community Grief Ritual:

Opening To Grace

Saturday, March 28, 2020 9:30am-6pm

Arroyo Hondo Preserve, Santa Barbara, CA

An opportunity to honor our personal and collective grief with regards to the sorrows of the world, loss of loved ones, ancestral grief, trauma, places in ourselves that have not known love, what we expected and did not receive, and the reality that everything we love, we will lose. Grief is a healthy and natural response to life, it reflects our love and the capacity of our hearts. When we allow it to move through us, without a story, it connects us to our humanity. Being real with our grief can motivate aligned and inspired action, while despair can keep us stagnant and disconnected from life.

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Soul Activism Series for Women

5 month women's groups meets once a month

Santa Barbara, CA

Initiatory Mentorship for women ages 20-35, meets one Saturday a month on the land.

Embracing Wisdom for women mid 30s and up, meets one Monday evening every three weeks

These groups are an opportunity for women to resource and nourish themselves in a circle of trust and support. A community catalyst for healing and vision - bringing out the most authentic parts of you in order to engage a purposeful life and awaken your soul's calling in service to life. Together we look at what needs clearing and integrating, what stories, patterns and beliefs are no longer serving who we are and what we are here to do and lean into a circle of support to celebrate, hold and water our visions.

More information on the website. BOTH GROUPS ARE FULL

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Awakening Earth Series

4 month series ~ Sundays &/or Fridays 3pm-5pm

Come to one or all for a sequential arc of deepening

Yoga Soup, Santa Barbara, CA

Sunday, January 26, 3-5pm: Darkness and Renewal

Friday, February 28, 7-9pm: Grief and Love

Friday, March 27, 3-5pm: Resiliency and Courage

Sunday, April 26, 3-5pm: Belonging and Collective Care

A community forum for wholeness and resilience to meet these times of cultural and ecological initiation. We will unite in a shared context of our love for the world and common care for people and planet, to build connection and courage for bringing forth what is most alive in us in response to a world in need of repair. We have unique gifts to share, as well as obstacles that prevent us from our natural and full expression. We need community and containment to see and be seen and explore our basic humanity. We will engage our love and heartbreak, questions of purpose and participation, and simple practices to listen to ourselves and each other. The theme will vary each month and the form will remain more or less the same.

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Introduction to Council Training

May 16 & 17

with Yamin Chehin & Sofia Rose Smith

Santa Barbara, CA

The facilitation training workshop series emerged from a community call for in-depth training to delve into tools, skills and practice around working with groups. With a focus on honing the tool of your own intuition and heart to navigate a group field, these workshops will provide a safe and structured setting in which to explore how we can meet these tumultuous times with an open heart, and create places and opportunities for others to explore what it means to be human. The trainings are relevant for working with groups in a variety of settings, and will provide you with skills, frameworks and a deepened sense of self awareness.

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Wild Awakening Women's Retreat: Women, Soul & Nature

April 16 - 20, 2020

with Janice Setser

Cuyama Valley, CA

In this 5 day semi-wilderness retreat, with nature as teacher, we are supported to find our natural rhythms and remember parts of ourselves long forgotten. We will share and weave our stories in a community of women, awaken unique expressions, listen deeply to the collective call, and follow our curiosities, desires, dreams, longings and wild impulses. 

Limited to 10 participants

Register by March 22, 2020

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Mundane Miracles, Holy Wonders & Other Tidbits

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The morning after the winter solstice, I walked in silence with a small group up a mountain trail under the stars of a dark sky to welcome the rise of the solstice sun after the longest night of the year. I have always loved winter solstice, and also sunrise. I have also always loved the vantage point of looking down at the city of Santa Barbara from the mountains above. It puts things in perspective, and usually I am most at home on the edges, closer to nature. The past few years, I have lived right in town. There a few live oak trees outside my home, and also quite a bit of cement, noise, business, hustle and bustle. I deeply appreciate the small city park down the street, with old live oaks, bay and sycamore trees, along the now dry Mission Creek bed, or Amal Amal, as I understand the Chumash call it. This year, the local fall harvest of bay nuts and acorns was abundant in my neighborhood, and I was able to fill some baskets with delicious sources of nourishment a short walk from my home. This is a miracle. Now, spring is in full bloom after only a few moments of winter. Flowers blooming, manzanita trees blossoming, many of my favorite plants are coming in green and fresh, some plants have already come and gone. Earlier this year I made my own local version of a Japanese new year traditional soup with seven local medicinal plants, to welcome in the new. I gathered nettles, hummingbird sage, pearly everlasting, artemesia, plantain, figwort, woodmint, and others... what a blessing.

One of my favorite things is taking my 22 month old nephew out at dawn to greet the rising sun on the cliffs of the ocean. We sing songs in the language of this place, drink dew drops off the grass and forage wild foods. Foraging is one of his very favorite things too. He already has a relationship to the plants, knows which we can eat, which are for tea, which not to touch, how to identify, etc. He calls them by name, knows their uniqueness, and is growing a relationship to this place. Not having raised a child myself, this is a holy miracle to me. How young ones learn. How much they know and register. Their capacity to pay attention. They are still so deeply connected to the dream state and the other world. I love this time with him. The preciousness of holding a small child in my care. This is the energy I wish to cultivate with myself, all people, this planet and all life. When I get rattled by the world of humans, I seek out wild nature, always a balm that brings me back to myself in presence and gratitude. I am very aware of the privilege of this opportunity and access and I am committed to making experiences in wild places more available to more people, especially young ones, and supporting organizations that also do this work.

FILM

Dawnland by the Upstander Project - FREE screening on March 26. Visit here for more information.

First Light by the Upstander Project

"For centuries, the United States government has taken Native American children away from their tribes, devastating parents and denying children their traditions, culture, and identity. First Light documents these practices from the 1800s to today and tells the story of an unprecedented experiment in truth-telling and healing for Wabanaki people and child welfare workers in Maine.

In 2015 the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that Native people in Maine continue to be targets of "cultural genocide." The commission is the topic of the Emmy® nominated documentary film, Dawnland, which aired on Independent Lens in 2018."

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POEMS & QUOTES

THE LIFE OF BEAUTY

The sung blessing of creation

Led her into the human story.

That was the first beauty.

Next beauty was the sound of her mother’s voice

Rippling the waters beneath the drumming skin

Of her birthing cocoon.

Next beauty the father with kindness in his hands

As he held the newborn against his breathing.

Next beauty the moon through the dark window

It was a rocking horse, a wish.

There were many beauties in this age

For everything was immensely itself:

Green greener than the impossibility of green,

the taste of wind after its slide through dew grass at dawn,

Or language running through a tangle of wordlessness in her mouth.

She ate well of the next beauty.

Next beauty planted itself urgently beneath the warrior shrines.

Next was beauty beaded by her mother and pinned neatly

To hold back her hair.

Then how tendrils of fire longing grew into her, beautiful the flower

Between her legs as she became herself.

Do not forget this beauty she was told.

The story took her far away from beauty. In the tests of her living,

Beauty was often long from the reach of her mind and spirit.

When she forgot beauty, all was brutal.

But beauty always came to lift her up to stand again.

When it was beautiful all around and within,

She knew herself to be corn plant, moon, and sunrise.

Death is beautiful, she sang, as she left this story behind her.

Even her bones, said time.

Were tuned to beauty.

~Joy Harjo is the United States poet laureate. She is the first Native American to hold the position.

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We are the DNA of Earth, Moon, Planets, Stars

We are related to the universal

Creator created creation

Spirit and intelligence with clarity

Being and human as power

We are a part of the memories of evolution

These memories carry knowledge

These memories carry our identity

Beneath race, gender, class, age

Beneath citizen, business, state, religion

We are human beings

And these memories

Are trying to remind us

Human beings, human beings

It’s time to rise up

Remember who we are.

~ John Trudell

"Relationships move at the speed of trust. Social change moves at the speed of relationships."

~Kenneth Bolding, Peace Activist/Quaker

Poem: (Obscurity)

Walking this morning to the wishing well,

Now that the rains have come,

Amal Amal is flowing.

The ducks have returned,

As have I,

Though I was there too

When it was dry as stone, dirt and bone.

Running dry.

A man on the corner,

talks to himself, keeping his own company.

Do you have a place to stay? Food?

Me in my pajamas, though you might not know,

slippers wet with dew,

Empty pockets

Heart full of prayers.

He under the bridge,

with others camped along the stream.

The bees have once again occupied the old sycamore trees.

A woman runs to her car, “I forgot my badge,” she says,

I imagine she works at the hospital around the corner.

Running, running.

Two men in masks, one of floral fabric, made by hands,

exit their construction vehicle.

We greet each other with our eyes.

I walk home,

On empty and quiet streets,

Full of our shared predicament -

picking flowers along the way, from the overgrown yards of my neighbors.

Just as I have always done.

Though as a small child,

my parents had me return each blossom, one by one,

to teach me, I presume,

about not taking without asking.

Who owns the flowers?

I wonder.

And the street corner,

and under the bridge,

and the sycamore trees - leaves soft like the tiny hands of some distant relative, whispered on the wind?