Whenever it’s difficult to come to the page, I remember what elder Ma-Nee told me. We were driving into Toronto from Peterborough and I asked Elder Ma-Nee what kind of stories I should write about. Elder Ma-Nee said, “write real stories.” Whenever it’s difficult to come to the page, I remember this, write real stories.
I was out in the sun earlier walking and enjoying the sunshine. It’s mild for the winter solstice, but cold enough when the wind catch ya. Snow was on the ground a few days ago, but everything’s already melted away. Today’s the shortest day of sunlight in the northern hemisphere. It’s only been the last few years that I started taking time to acknowledge the Northern Winter Solstice and it’s impact on me. I started looking for communal spaces where I could be with others tending to their relationships with Earth and her cyclical nature.
I found communal spaces for ritual and ceremony work as we transitioned collectively into the winter solstice. I found a peacefulness sinking into the darkness and learned to navigate myself through it. I had to learn new ways of care for myself, Divine Mother was guiding this process by illuminating what lies in the darkest of spaces in me.
Ceremony Work For Grief & Transitions
The more communal spaces I explored, I learned the art of healing in a dynamic way. I attended spaces working with lumpias to mend a broken heart to collective sound baths and poetry readings. In each experience, I learned a new way to care for myself and developed deeper awareness and insight into my needs. Through my most difficult times, I needed to be in community for support to process and accept the transitions I found myself in. As things were ending around me and my emotional and mental bodies needed care, it was communal spaces that met those dynamic needs. I found ways to move into grief work in community spaces and helped myself move through the feeling process into acceptance and completion. Ceremony work in community gave me that place for dynamic grief work. A place where I could mourn, allow death, dying, endings and completion to exist. A place I could practice acceptance and do my shadow work.
As the winter solstice is here today, what’s ever present is death, dying, destruction and endings. It’s present in my personal life and on the world stage. I spend time reflecting on the ways I feel towards the whirlwind of chaos around me. Decrypting Lalita Sahasranama with Savtantra Institute helps me make sense of this experience through the teachings of Lalita Devi. I can make sense of the destruction and understand my purpose for these challenging times.
In my return to Devi, I began reading Shakti Rising by Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan. The wisdom of Sri Vidya in Shakti Rising helps me understand the psyche of my darkness and how it’s connected to the shadows of Mahavidya. Through the teachings of Devi, I’m remembering my Creator essence and the existence of death and destruction in her dance.
The further I walk with Divine Mother, she opens up more awareness inside of me that becomes available as a source of energy. Why is this relevant? As the Earth’s northern hemisphere spends more time in darkness collectively, notice what shadows emerge in your awareness and what is happening in the world? As the hemisphere enters into the winter solstice, this is wartime in other places around the world.
There is destruction, death and dying in extreme ways. Destruction and endings are here and transitions are emerging. There is reorganizing, moving and restructuring needed. You may have to clean house, downsize and reorganize your family and priorities. Sometimes December 21 to March 21 is a difficult stretch to troth, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Community Care Helping Me Get Through It
This is the lesson of this cycle for me as I enter this cycle of shadow work with Mother Earth. You don’t have to do it alone. This cycle was pretty rough for me. It started in November 2022 when a mentally ill woman started stalking me at my home. She did this for 8 months until the court finally decided to detain her in a women center for 4 months. It dramatically forced me to restructure in ways that were unplanned for.
As this was happening, tenants including myself were grappling with our new landlords. We learned pretty quickly we had lost the right of enjoyment to our homes. Our building was bought over by a REIT - Real Estate Investment Trust which was owned by a private equity firm. 2020 to 2023 was and continues to be the worst years for tenants in this building.
But you don’t have to do it alone.
Through this encounter, we learned we were dealing with a criminal syndicate and connected to local resources like ACORN and other Tenants Unions like York South-Weston Tenant Union. These community organizers are important local networks to connect with and strengthen bonding and conviction when facing corporate landlords.
My Nurse Practitioner was one of my biggest helping agent. A young, Muslim brown woman was my first line of contact to help me document my health and mental health through the stalking and renovictions by our corporate landlord. My mental health therapist was my second biggest helpful agent, a young woman of Indian descent. She helped me document the impact and look for legal resources to navigate the justice system and other local networks.
Together, we created a plan to advocate for my healthcare needs. My mental health therapist helped me with my shadows of shame and blame. She helped illuminate the ways I internalize shame and blame and to place “blame where blame is due”. Her work helped me humanize myself as I went through these troubling times. A big part of my self-care during this time was connecting to community resources.
Finding Stability With Fresh Water Society
FWS is curated by myself and Jasmine, Spirit Nurturer. Through out this experience, coming back to our space to bring my whole-self was a steady comfort. We came together to work creatively and build a community around communal economics for shared prosperity. Coming back to this space we created together gave me rituals and ceremony when I needed it and flexibility and steadiness. It’s a place that holds space for authenticity and realness where I can come and be accountable to myself and my community needs.
Telling Stories With Firefly Writing
I knew I needed to sustain my writing no matter what and I had to put my money where my writing was. I didn’t know if I believed I was a good writer or not, but I wanted to develop my skills. I started doing more small group writing and building out stories in these small groups. I wrote stories that could take on another life and live in a universe where it could be experienced and felt.
Praying with Masjid Al -Rabia
I met some beautiful people in this virtual Jumma. Since the pandemic, I’ve been in this community with marginalized Muslims and it has become a comforting place for me. I can connect with faith and Allah and learn with other Muslims “what it means to Muslim”. I can come to my virtual masjid and be honest and real with myself about needing a place for communal bonding, prayer and safety.
Preserving Culture With Kathith By Deepti Designs & Aditiyeva Studio
This incredible art studio has been reviving art for me and brining art back to life for me. I started with their one off workshops reconnecting with traditional folk Indian art and eventually did a 4 day virtual workshop with them. I’m inspired by the work of young people to preserve what is ancient and ancestral and to find ways to preserve what is sacred to our diasporic heritage.
Embracing My Sacred Nature With Scared Space TO
It began with reading poems to leading a guided meditation to opening the activation of the very first womb healing circle. Together in a small intimate space with other women we explored our sacred needs. We reconnected to our scared communal womb needs and opened a portal for more healing to enter our lives.
Learning Communal Responsibility with Mama Jahi and Baba Jahi
Mama Jahi and Baba Jahi quickly became strong voices that helped me continue my unlearning. Their work together sparked a fire for responsibility to community building and my imagination for what that work could look like. They are strong voices for the values of self-determination and agency and they inspire me to continue purifying myself in the eyes on my community needs.
Co-Authoring with Foster
As I commit to myself as a Writer and Creator as part of my dynamic caring needs and shadow work, I’m freestyle writing in community with Co-Authoring by Foster. I’m exploring who I am as a writer collectively and learning what my writing needs are. It’s another way I’m committing to showing up for my needs and exploring what they are as Divine Mother guides me through this cycle of destruction.
As the gregorian new year is upon us, I’m thinking of ways FWS can create more opportunities for community care during our trot to the spring equinox. Jas and I are discussing a new challenge for ourselves to commit to our soul work and show up with strength and conviction. If you are looking for a community space for support, inspiration and accountability to show up for your soul work and business, then keep an eye our for our 120 DAYS COMMITMENT TO MY SOUL WORK challenge launching during the winter solstice!!
Community care is helping me get through this cycle of Death and Creation. With the support of community I’m moving into my soul work and finding ways to walk in passionate action. It is the strength of community where I can pray, write, create, make art and heal that is helping me get through it as we collectively walk this cycle of death destruction and creation.