Here We Are

The past few months have been harrowing.  2020 will be a year none of us will ever forget: the year we saw so many things more clearly from economic toxicity and racial injustice to our own internal wounds and deepest desires still unrealized.

We are just on the other side of the Summer Solstice this past Saturday, marking the halfway point of the solar year.  Given that I am in devotion to cyclical living, I can only hope that after so much destruction and pain, will come the healing and rising in this second half of our journey around the sun.

I have been deep in the inquiry of how I can show up as the leader of this community and Whole Woman when racism is at the core of our collective trauma.

Racism is something I’m not an expert in, given that I have never experienced it as a white woman, and although I have spent time studying it the past few years, it has not been central to my learning and spiritual work.

What I have been focusing on the past year is cultivating a diverse team in my company, creating a loving and safe place to work, and seeking out BIPOC teachers in Whole Woman.

However, I am deeply devoted to doing so much more going forward and exploring the intersection of racism and patriarchy and healing both through Sacred Feminine practices.

When the murder of George Floyd became public, something in me erupted, as it did with millions of people across the world. I could clearly see how I needed to step into more responsibility for the great harm and trauma that has been inflicted on Black people in this country for 400 years, and come face to face with my shame for not doing more sooner.

For me, it was jumping head first into addressing the racism here in my predominantly white town through leading a protest, listening to young Black people in my town and creating a container for long term community work and education reform in the public schools.

In Whole Woman I created new guidelines to create a safe space for our BBIWOC, and calling the members into this work and starting to highlight how Patriarchy (one of the central teachings in Whole Woman) keeps white women from rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

In the coming weeks and years, it is my intention to fully explore how racism is a primary piece that keeps women from experiencing true freedom (both as the oppressor and the oppressed), just as I have done with systems of patriarchy and misogyny.

In Whole Woman, this will be fueled by new guest teachers who are experts in DEI and racial trauma and through me sharing my own learnings and experience through working with new teachers, of which I will always cite and honor so you can go deeper with their teachings.

Here are some of the current teachers I am working with. If you want more guidance in this area I highly suggest you enroll in one or all of these programs with me…

Karine Bell of Rooted and Embodied
Chloe Valdary of Theory of Enchantment
Leesa Renee Hall of Leesa Renee Hall
Andrea Ranae of Andrea Ranae
and Eva Cruz Pena founder of Sacred Inclusion

I am also reading
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown 
and Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Maree Brown

As with any great shift and awakening, both in the world and within ourselves, it requires the Winter/Dark Moon/Bleeding energy of silence, deep listening and integration in order for things to truly take hold and for sustainable growth.

So I will be taking time to be in this energy from today until Monday June 29th. If you don’t hear from me on social, that’s why.

When I return these are some of the projects I’m taking on in Whole Woman:

• Organizing small groups for a book club around My Grandmother’s Hands
• Bringing in more experts around racial justice, inclusion and trauma healing
• Exploring Sacred Feminine Lineages all over the world
• Each of us exploring and committing to our specific role in racial healing
• Exploring how our own intrinsic freedom and self expression is amplified when we address and heal racism

And of course I’ll be weaving in these themes here in my Moonday emails and on social.

If you have any questions, shares or ways that I can more deeply support you in this community, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Happy Solstice!

Love,
Sarah