I just added this quote from Prentis Hemphill's book, What It Takes to Heal, to my website "For healing to take place, for it to be felt, for it to root, remake, and rearrange us, it has to happen not only in the realm of our thinking, but in the soil of our bodies. Healing has to be embodied." I have re-listened to several episodes more than once, and re-visted the book a few times as there is always so much to digest If you are not aware of their work, it really is a must-read/listen. If you have read this book or listened to their podcast, share your thoughts in the chat! The Podcast Becoming The People is full of wisdom and grace! https://prentishemphill.com

Today I got up very early (I almost always do) and went to a hike I used to do a few times a week. It is very steep and I used to be able to do it with a raised heart rate but still able to hold a conversation. Having been away for a long time today was tough! A good tough. I truly felt my aliveness. I decided not to go all the way to the top and plan to build up to it. When I got to the spot that I felt good about I meditated and then sang this song that was gifted to me by my friend and soul somatic ally Anna Sheridan. She to me, along with my soul somatic ally @Colette Ghunim and we sang it with @Colleen Callan I hiked down to the flat spot with the view of the city and did Jo Kata in each direction. A powerful morning ritual that I hope to do more of. My voice is not like my amazing sisters but I am singing with my full heart for me.

Rooted community 🌿 I’ve been holding something with me since Saturday, and it feels like time to share it here. Saturday was my 56th birthday. I spent it in deep practice and community at the Strozzi Institute — that particular kind of immersion where the body is organized through rhythm and repetition, where you arrive as one version of yourself and leave as something slightly different. Somewhere in the middle of feeling into my commitment and my dignity, something landed in my body that I’m still learning how to hold: My time has come to be an elder. Let me say what I don’t mean. I don’t mean old. I’m not stepping out of vitality, or aliveness, or the rising energy of spring. I’m not handing in my badge or going quiet. What landed wasn’t an ending — it was a role. A different way of holding the work, the tale, and all the wisdom that’s been gathered over decades of practice, mistakes, returns, and refinement. Elder isn’t a stage of life. It’s a posture. A way of standing in the body and in the world that says: I have something to offer, and I no longer need to prove it. What I’m noticing is a shift in the quality of my pursuit. For most of my life, I’ve been chasing — chasing more capacity, more clarity, more credibility, more enough. There’s been beauty in that chase. It’s what built this work. But somewhere on Saturday, in practice, my body offered a different invitation: You’re allowed to slow the pursuit. You’re allowed to feel enough. That doesn’t mean stopping. It means a shift in posture. From striving to sharing. From accumulating to offering. From leading every charge to holding steady so others can take the helm. The work doesn’t need me to push harder. It needs me to stand here with what I’ve gathered — the tale, the practice, the long arc of return — and offer it. Within the Neuro-Somatic Integration™ Framework, Rooting (formally regulation, more on that change to come!) is the capacity to synthesize internal sensations, emotions, and thoughts with external cues — to hold complexity without collapsing and while staying connected to ground. Elder energy, as I’m feeling into it, is rooting in its most mature form: the body’s capacity to hold the joy and the pain at the same time — to celebrate a birthday in a fractured world, to laugh fully in a season of grief, to keep speaking honestly to inhumanity while refusing to let go of our humanity.

No script just a random thought to share about spring, practice and the rhythm of excitement! Would love to hear what your thoughts are? Where are you at?

Soundtrack of the day is the Bay Area local artist that gets me moving and makes me proud to be from the Bay. While usually I give my thoughts and why, this I am going to let the lyrics speak for themselves! Line from 2 minutes in "We going to make shit happen right here right now. My life is a combination of my life's achievements with a lot of heavy lifted and a lot of deep breathing, a lot of courage a lot of doubts a lot of mixed feelings, a lot of love a lot of luggage for a lot of reasons......." Love to hear your thoughts and share the song kicking off your weekend!