Spring awakenings, BLM and long summer shadows
The inspirational sprigs of a succulent in bloom (photo by Christine Kraft)
As I write this post I am feeling the grief of all that is right in the natural world, and sadness for all of the ways we’ve manipulated or outright discarded our earth and each other, especially people who look different from us.
I travelled down to this beautiful perch in Monterey County for a break after months of sheltering in place. We were craving long walks on the beach and the sound of birdsong too. But, with COVID-19 numbers on the rise again in California, the county just yesterday unexpectedly shut down the beach for the holiday weekend. Tourists are wandering around lost. I feel it too.
That usually means that the work is inward. So when I tuned in, this is what comes up for me:
May and June 2020 offered explosive opportunities for personal growth. Perhaps you felt it too? The Black Lives Matter movement compelled a record number of white people to march and get closer to systemic racism and bias against black and brown people. It has been a monumental moment for our nation and with feelings raw on both sides of the divide, I felt called to learn and understand.
All who know me know I am a quiet activist. But this moment caused me to get way out side of my comfort zone and take a hard look at what I was doing to serve.
One thing I thought about is how so many of my east coast black and brown friends were smarter, wealthier, and more accomplished than I was, and that I ran with an elite crew. That meant I had not yet done the deep work of understanding systemic racism. I hadn’t considered the mind blowing levels of limitation and prejudice the black women I admired so much faced and continue to face.
I understood that I had bias, like all humans have bias, but I didn’t consider myself a racist. A racist was someone who acted out against different-looking people. That wasn’t me. And yet, I was a racist because I wasn’t conscious of all the ways I — as a white woman — had benefitted from a system that robbed black and brown populations of so much. I am still sorting through the leaps I was asked to take these last couple of months in order to stand with my black friends. I will continue that work because standing up for Black Lives does not diminish me — even while it makes me feel uncomfortable — AND it just might bring someone else up. #goals
One thing I find fascinating is that prior to the BLM uprisings, my intuition guided me to start working with Chandra Brooks, coach and founder of The Powerhouse Academy. I had just been elected the new President of the San Jose Woman’s Club, one of the oldest women’s clubs in the state of California, and was consciously seeking ways to build relationships with women across ages, stages and races, not just professionally but personally as well.
When I joined as a member of Powerhouse Academy Cohort 7, I received the gift of working with six amazingly talented younger women with diverse backgrounds. I was the sole white woman, and I was easily 15 years older than most of the ladies, some of whom had been or were single moms, or had served time in prison, and went on to run companies, write books, found nonprofits, and work as attorneys and global educators. The kind of company I like to keep!
As the country ruptured in protest, the work of Cohort 7 began and suddenly I felt so old, so self-conscious and irrelevant, and also like a beginner again. My sisters welcomed me from the start, and joked with me and even asked for my help. One time I remember they made me talk shit to myself, saying “I am a Mother - F’ing Bad Ass!” as they all laughed out loud while we Zoomed.
On a more serious note, one sister explained how the #Karen meme came to be and what it meant, and while one of my girls once muttered, “I just hate white people,” in a rare moment of emotion and outrage over #GeorgeFloyd, I hoped that she and I would someday become friends. I knew what she meant because I hated white people too at times. There was a lot to learn.
So, as the only white women in the group, with my graying hair and my personal east coast to west coast reinvention underway, I learned that I had to find my voice and that I was in the right place to do so.
Everything I took for truth was being challenged and my upbeat nature was hurting, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t feel fragile; I felt like I was in the right place at the right time to learn how to look into the center of the race rage and work with the energy. (Lord make me an instrument of Thy peace)
I kept listening. I went to protests. I read a lot. And I started to understand my whiteness better. But I was still sluggish and confused about how to bring the Aphrodite Works offering to the world.
Since part of Chandra’s strategy is about changing mindsets, I think I got a big win in her program. While I haven’t fully articulated all of my concrete business goals, I know that I’ve upgraded my personal leadership mindset to a 2020 global standard.
While initially I felt scared and confused about how to participate, now I see this moment calling me into a much bigger space; a space where I am being asked to lead and share more, not less, about who I am and what I value, and how to make change for good in the world.
As a creative leader and healer, the pandemic and the BLM movement has called this white woman into territory she just didn’t expect to go in her 50s. But if not me, then who? If not now, then when?
While I am uncertain where I am going, I am, in fact, on my way …
So, keep the lantern burning ahead of me, ladies and I’ll follow the light.
The questions I ask myself today:
Is my mission to work with divine feminine energy enough? (Or is that some white privilege nonsense?);
Is it enough to be devoted to beauty and nature when black and brown youth are incarcerated at much higher rates than white youth?
Is there a concrete service I can offer that directly helps the movement? Or would that be an overcorrection on my part?
After all, authenticity is the best remedy and I have been on the path of supporting personal advancement my whole life. I’m a healer.
So I don’t need to feel guilty that I value beauty in spite of all the pain in the world right now. This is a core foundation of my soul and it always has been. I make things beautiful where I am able; at home and in the world.
Even in the midst of the outrage and protests that terrified and overwhelmed me, I sought a small way to contribute, to teach about love and the light — to get personal with the issues and make change for good.
So many of us want to change for good but we just don’t know where to start.
The Border Women is a simple way to start and I am thankful that Toya Pyt Fernandez, founder of Youth Hype, Chandra Brooks and other organizers continue to welcome my table in the community.
Paper dolls meet racial justice with a dash of feminist power … that’s the work. It’s enough for my soul today.