What Do You Need?
Blessings, Community,
There is nothing wrong with having needs. Feel this truth deep in your bones, because needing is one of the core qualities of being that has been abducted by systems-reliant living. Needing has been crafted as a limiting, perhaps even shaming, sensation. Need is the bountiful field from which God, compassion, love, heartache, truth, action, and mutuality aerate for liberation’s harvest to abound. We (humans and the more-than-human world) are needing beings.
How does it feel to try on this possibility? Meet the rough edges that might arise here. Meet the softness that might arise here.
As we transition from wood snake to fire horse year, a friend recently shared with me that, when a snake is shedding its skin, it needs to find rough surfaces to rub itself on to support removing its skin (search the web for this if you can, the videos are so moving to watch).
Look back on these last days and months (years) we’ve had…how rough have they been for our siblings, kin, and relatives? How rough have they been for you? As you allow yourself to move your body along these rough edges, who is it you are being asked to become? What is it you need in these remaining moments to emerge from this last thickened and deadened layer? Tell the truth.
Listen to the drumming of the horse hooves rushing downhill together (horses love community). Their wisdom, in fiery form, is inviting us to listen to the needs of each other and ourselves. Some of us may need to crawl instead of run. Some of us may need to rest. Some of us may need a cooling sip of water. Some may need to have their hips held as they descend into a new season. Needs give way to transformative care.
While sitting with my own needs lately, I sought the wisdom of someone, I feel, holds generous trust in the field of transformative care. I also sat at my altar, prayed, cried, danced, journaled, and listened to Spirit. What materialized is what I’m calling my care beliefs. For years I've been trying to unlearn what it is to care through a capitalist gaze. These beliefs are slowly releasing the binding encapsulations around the vessels of my heart's voice.
If we are all willing to trust in the benevolence, abundance, and vision of God, then I will listen to those who have expressed interest in my coaching container. The pricing has changed to align more with my beliefs, and the doors will remain open for the foreseeable future.
If we all sense it is scary to care fully and be cared for fully, then I will move anyway with what asking binds within my throat. In this practice, as I prepare to serve as a birth and postpartum doula for loved ones in Chicago and Charlotte, I am asking you to help me do this. I’ve held this capacity for friends, family, and local community members since 2022. At first, because I loved it so much, I interpreted that love as needing to make it my job (damn capitalism). I’ve abandoned that. My soul is tied to revitalizing the village ethos of my lineage. I do not charge for this service, and have no intentions to. Can you care for me while I care for my loves for a few weeks?
And what about you? When you sit with the voice of need and the bellows of care, what is it you believe to be true? What is the limitation you want to dissolve, and the anchor you want to lower and drag along the ocean floors so that the bones of truth might rattle and rise?
I’m listening, dear one.
