Day 16: open to the sweet & learning from the stings

a wild weekend of protests, papa's, and practicing what it means to keep showing up

Hello and happy Monday, dear community,

How blessed am I to be here with you. Thank you, as always, for your continued support — opening these emails and offerings, and sharing in on the brutal and oh-so-beautiful ways that come with wanting to keep our hearts and minds open in this thing called life.

These last few days for me have been packed with all my practice embodies. We had the “No Kings, Just Queens” day protest here in Midland, which was everything I didn't know I needed and more to keep the hope in my heart and head alive. The turnout was incredible. The energy was pure and potent with love and the steadfast fight for liberation.

I ran into multiple folks I haven't seen in quite some time and met new ones along the way. I even had the blessing of standing side by side with our Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel — chanting alongside her and marching in unison for unity is something I will always cherish. Not to be too much of a fangirl, yet I am someone who appreciates the dedication she has for justice and the work she does in support of the well-being of us all. Is she perfect? No. I don't think any politician is or ever will be — they’re human too, after all — but I do bow deeply to her sincere intentions of doing her absolute best in benefit of us here in Michigan.

So, to find that the fates wove our placement at the protest was something pretty cool for me and my hubby…

I also started that morning off with community at the Hive and used that practice space as a portal to connect, communicate, and generate movement held in the curiosity of ego versus consciousness — and healthy/unhealthy ego at that.

I encouraged those in the space to hold both our individual and collective experience right now as Americans, as global citizens, as folks impacting and being impacted by fascist agendas, individual perspectives, and the detriment that happens when we operate in that singular lens of me and my, supremacy and shame, and the limiting lens that doesn't see beyond just here and now.

I was humbled by the conversation we held together and, of course, honored to use my voice as a vessel and gentle guide of coming home to our heart, coming home to our humanity, coming home to that sweet salve of Consciousness flowing through us all. Always, always, always. We just have to be aware. We just have to wake up and recognize it is flowing, it is guiding, it is always on.

I was absolutely exhausted as I made my way home from the protests — but it was a fatigue that felt so good. A fatigue of: Damn, Keri, you showed up today. You held that space and were a part of a movement I believe is being named as the largest American protest in history!

What an honor to use my body. What an honor to use my voice.

And among the many brilliant and witty signs I saw that day, the one I can relate to the most is: “You know it’s bad when even the introverts are here!” I know that’s right!

I went to bed with hope.
And that hope carried me into Sunday — Father’s Day — a day that can sting a bit, and yet I have learned a sting is not always bad. It can teach us so much. It can even improve our immunity.

I think that is one lesson I learn year by year by year in the aftermath of loss. It never quite disappears. Yet, parts of me continue to grow more strong, more soft, more aware of all the things that can actually improve the way I function, the way I feel, and the way I can — and will choose — to flow through my life.

I miss my dad.
I missed him long before he died.
Part of me always wonders if I ever even got to know him.

But what I did know about him — his healthy ego — was that he was funny, a jokester, he liked to make us laugh, and he was generous. He used his magick in the kitchen. I would feel like we had nothing to eat, nothing to make, and he somehow would find a way to turn single ingredients into magnificent and delicious meals and food.

He was a nurturer deep down, but I do believe his own depth scared him. And in that fear, it prevented him from always showing up that way. Plus — addiction, my friends — it alters the mind and does such damage to our bodies, our hearts, our relationships…

The relationship I had with my dad was one of wanting a relationship.
I was jealous of the people who got to spend time with him — and quality time at that.

I wanted so badly just to be his little girl, and I know, I know, I know — I was, and always will be, and am.
And yet, there’s a huge void that in our human life together never was able to be filled.

One of the blessings of his death is that, in a weird yet miraculous way, I have gotten to know him.
I feel him. I sense him. He is always close.

He shows up through the male cardinals that dart super close to my head — which I am sure my little jumps and screams of “Wowza!” get him laughing — or right in front of my windshield as I am driving. He always has a way of saying, Hey kiddo, I’m right here.

I feel he is protecting me. And alongside his protection, we are getting to learn about who we are to one another.
I feel him as I sit. I feel him when I get excited about something.
I feel him in a way I didn’t feel when he was in his body… and yet, how sweet I get to feel him now.

Twelve years ago would have been the last Father’s Day with him alive, and I chose not to spend that day with him. I instead chose to go to my now husband’s — then fiancé’s — family get-together. And when my dad called me, I chose not to answer.

I told my mom I was just too angry to speak to him.
I told my heart the same thing. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t find the words.
It was breaking. It was broken.

And I did the very thing I learned from him — I pushed him away.

Things kept escalating, and I was fed up.
Fed up with the perpetual cycle of 30 days in a rehabilitation facility, just to come home and have 30 days of hope that later turned into too many days to count of despair…

I was fed up seeing the fatigue wearing upon my mom — the way she was breaking and broken too.
I was fed up that he couldn’t just figure his shit out — which now I know is not always easy to do…

I was fed up.
And now, in this aftermath of our reality, I am trying to do all I can to get freed up — and I invite him into that possibility with me as much as I can.

I offer him forgiveness. I call him closer and closer yet.
I offer myself forgiveness — and feel how that allows me to be closer and closer yet to the truest pulse of Consciousness: love, light, and peaceful understanding.

I wish I could have seen him the way I feel him now.
I wish I could have embodied the patience and empathy and Higher perception — as well as learned wisdom about trauma, addiction, recovery, and all the obstacles, oppression, and ignorance that get woven around and in it — with him when he needed it most.

I don’t say any of that as guilt — just as growth.
For I know the chain reaction of it all led me here. And here, with this ability to see more than the surface.

And if not for the sting, if not for the shatters, I doubt I’d have the ability to be in that salve now.

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I wonder if you can relate?

I wonder if there are moments where you meet yourself now and hold yourself with a little bit more tenderness, a little bit more sweetness, a little bit more spaciousness, as you reflect on the stings and shards that brought you here.

I wonder if we — as a collective body of people — can also use the things behind us:
the unhealthy ego’s way of supremacy and separation, the ways we have pushed ourselves and each other away due to the inability to embody empathy and remain in the flow of Consciousness and connection…

to finally show up for a future
that might not have us physically in it,
yet damn, our hearts and souls are there, and it’s even better than when we left it. I wonder if that’s true legacy… and isn’t legacy for the living?

I wonder what it’s going to take
for all of us
to finally tune into
what is true and powerful love?

Not selective. Not singular.
Yet saturated in all things, all beings, all times, all spaces.

I wonder when it won’t sting anymore…

And in the meantime,
I do all I can
to be and receive
the sweetness, the nectar, the knowing —
that there is so much more we can be,
there is so much more we can share,
there is so much more we can do,
and all of it is bigger — so much bigger — than just right here.

I love you.
I thank you.
I hope no matter what you are holding,
you can take a deep breath
and feel the Conscious energy of love —
alive, vital, potent —
within every part of you.

Some photos from the protest and one of me and my popz…

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on the horizon this weekend…