excerpt from music & meditation: on feminism zoom show on 5/16/21

Feminism is important not just as an appeal for women's rights, but an appeal for human rights. 

In our patriarchal, capitalist society, unlimited expansion and hoarded resources by a few are prioritized. The needs of human beings are treated as necessary only inasmuch as they serve the primary goal of hoarded resources (capital). 

In other words, if it doesn't help capitalists hoard more shit, it isn’t prioritized or rewarded in society. 

Many human needs, such as those provided through care-taking, are offloaded onto the backs of women, who receive little to no resources in exchange for their labor. 

Think about it. 

Women get paid nothing for mothering children, which is a huge service to society (perhaps the biggest). 

Caring for the elderly, cleaning, nursing, and teaching - all traditionally women's careers - are paid very little while providing some of the most essential services for fulfilling human need and enriching life. 

Women's oppression is expressed very tangibly in society: through no or little compensation for our labor. And the personal ways that women's oppression affects us as individuals are linked to this disenfranchisement. 

The relegation of women is in fact a relegation of human need in general. The human need for care. For touch. For tenderness. For space. To be listened to. To be seen. To be nurtured. To be taught. To be all of the tender things that make us human, that make us feel most alive. To be BORN, for fucks sake. 

The very tangible social message - which is communicated to us through how resources are allocated - is that these needs don't matter. And this message can't help but touch all of us. And it teaches us a very dangerous lesson. It teaches us not to care for each other. It teaches us not to care for ourselves. 

When we aren't properly cared for, misery abounds. Violence in many external forms. Violence in internal forms too. Addiction. Mental and physical health disorders. Suicide. 

Feminism is a force of fierce and holistic protectiveness that seeks to bring humanity back to itself. 

Feminism is about people who have had their rights stripped by society taking them back. Feminism is about standing and working and fighting in solidarity with all who've had their rights taken away and are taking them back. 

Feminism is understanding that EVERYONE has a right to care; both in society and within our own private inner worlds. 

It's working socially for the rights to housing, healthcare, dignity, and wellness for all. 

It's working internally to reclaim a sense of honoring your needs instead of relegating them to the dark parts of your psyche.  

Feminism is for all of us. And to rebuild society into one that works for human beings, it must be from all of us. What is feminism to you? 

GUIDED MEDITATION 

So I’d like to focus our meditation today on reclaiming our relationship to our needs. 

So we’re just gonna slow down, breathe deep, zone in, and ask ourselves, with care, the simple question, “What do you need?” 

And we don’t need to worry about using our minds to answer the question. We can just relax into it, let ourselves go, and get reacquainted with caring for ourselves in this simple way, by asking, “What do you need?”

Really adore how this photo captures my essence & power. My boyfriend says I look like a witch. Couldn't be more proud of that.

I have come out of - and am still healing and navigating through - a religious and historical tradition intended to rob me of my power, my will, my vitality, my sexuality, my sacred womanhood, my beauty, and, on a deep level, my love.

I am so proud of the progress I've made.

I believe in myself, and I believe in all of us to heal and to create a new world.

Photo captured by my dear friend and collaborator Kyle Burgs. Watch our music videos here.

I refuse to cling to anybody 
who doesn’t make the sun come out of my eyes 
who doesn’t come to me like moonlight to the forest on dead winter’s night 
who doesn’t take me in like shore lapping up the sea 
and let it out like a home-come sailor meets the earth with his knees; 
No, 
this fragrant, raging, mountainous love of mine 
will be returned in kind 
will be returned in kind.

For those of us who are new to meditation, I want to just center us a little bit. 

Meditation is about taking the deepest possible rest - for your mind and your body. 
It’s about acceptance - to me, that means looking at what’s going on in my body and my mind, and just accepting it. Looking at it, letting it pass. Looking at it, waving it hello and goodbye. Not trying to change anything. Just getting right up close to whatever’s happening and observing. 

Find comfortable place. Chair, floor, lay on couch or bed. I like to lay in my bed because it helps my whole body relax. If you’d like to leave your video on, that’s fine, but if it makes you feel more comfortable and safe to turn it off, then turn it off. (3 min) 

Now, I recommend closing your eyes so you can focus on your experience. Settle in, feel your body against the surface of your chair or bed. Notice each point of connection. (30 sec) 

Start with taking some deep breaths.  Notice how your lungs feel and what happens in your body as you breathe in and out (1 min) 

And as we settle in we’ll start to breathe a little deeper. And we’ll invite our exhales to become longer than our inhales. So in……. And then out just a little longer (1 min) 

Now one of the wonderful things about meditation is that it’s a practice of clearing our minds, and clearing out the clutter of constant thoughts. Our goal is to have just a quiet, empty mind, that’s open to exactly what’s happening in the present moment. But this is pretty difficult to do, just because most of us aren’t used to it. And that’s okay. It’s a practice, and you’ll get better at it with time.  

One way I’ve found to quiet my mind is by focusing in on the feelings in my body. So we’re going to practice that right now with a body scan.  

As we go throughout our bodies, starting with our heads, down to our feet, I want you to pay very close attention to what’s happening in each part of your body. Don’t try to change it, just look at it, and practice accepting exactly whatever is happening. What are the sensations? Does it feel warm? Cold? Tingly? Empty? Just look, listen, feel. 

Let’s start with focusing on our head. (30 sec) 

Now move to focus on the face. (5 sec)  

Continue breathing deeply. (25 sec) 

Now focus on your neck. (30 sec) 

Now move down to the shoulders. (30 sec…. Continue like this.) 

So I wanted to have the event because of how stressful a time this has been for all of us. With that in mind, I want to teach you a kind of meditation I learned from a favorite teacher of mine, Thich Naht Hahn, called Tonglen meditation. It’s for working with pain or any kind of difficult emotion. 

First, I’m going to read a section of his writing from my favorite book, True Love. Please enjoy. 

*section from True Love by Thich Naht Hahn, "The Energy of Mindfulness."*

So for Tonglen, you take whatever painful or uncomfortable feeling is happening in your body - whether it’s an emotional or physical feeling - and you visualize it as dark, heavy, sticky, weighing you down.  

Then you identify some feeling or sensation that would be soothing and relieving for that emotion - whether that’s a blanket, a warm cup of tea, a hug, a listener - and you visualize that emotion as blue, expansive, bright, like the sky.   

So you have your dark feeling and your light feeling to work with. 

When you breathe in, you visualize the negative feeling - you feel the dark, heavy, sticky, weighted feeling filling your whole body. 

And when you breathe out, you visualize the relieving feeling - you feel the blue, expansive, bright feeling coming out of your body and filling up your surroundings. 

Think of this as generating inward care for whatever you are going through. Using your inner creative energy to relieve yourself. 

The coolest thing about this meditation, though, is we can use it as a way to not only connect to yourself, but to everybody else. Because at any given time that you’re experiencing a difficult emotion, there are millions or hundreds of millions of people around the world who are feeling just the same way.  So what we do, is when we breath in the pain - the darkness, heaviness, stickiness - we breathe it in for everyone in the world who is feeling that pain. And when we breathe out the relief, we breathe it out for everyone in the world who is feeling that pain. In this way, we can soothe ourselves while also generating compassion for others. 

So, let’s practice this for just a few minutes. 

You can use an uncomfortable feeling you’re having right now, or recall one that you’ve experienced in the past few days, and practice with it.

becoming sexually liberated is, for me, about so much more than sex- or even pleasure. it's about embracing my desire to give and receive love. about experiencing vulnerability as a form of strength with limitless potentiality. about realizing that the lines between "want" and "need" are not clear cut. about realizing that honoring myself does not inherently betray anyone else, but betraying myself betrays others also. about using every resource available to me. about overcoming depression. 

I've been socialized to view my body as an object of duty, productive capacity, and ultimately, as a failure to live up to the standards imposed on it. reclaiming my sexual self helps me restore a relationship to my body in which I view it as my very self, a flowing, beautiful, powerful recepticle for love, pleasure, creation, and essential being. 

FIRST AND FOREMOST- this is an excellent resource guide for learning how to be an effective anti-racist.

bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES

Featured Articles:
How to Talk About the Truth and Trump at Thanksgiving - Ibram X. Kendi
An Anti-Racist Reading List - Ibram X. Kendi

Featured Poetry:
Selections from Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou
On Working White Liberals by Maya Angelou
A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay

show archive coming

DONATE NOW: bit.ly/blacklivesconcert

 From Day 8 of #TwentyOneDaysofHope

1. sign a petition

 Here are some meaningful ones you can sign & then share with 5 friends:

• Tax Amazon & Big Business: Fund CV Emergency Relief: https://tinyurl.com/sedb5bc

• Suspend rent, mortgage, & utility payment during the CV crisis: https://bit.ly/3a6HUVX

• This Pandemic Demands A Systemic Response Poor People's Campaign Petition

• Healthcare Workers Need Protective Equipment!

  • More information about this: Frontline NY Nurses Lack Protective Masks & Ventilators, Say Worst Yet to Come as COVID-19 Spreads

2. check in on a friend

 You never know who is struggling or how until you ask.

3. learn about someone’s struggles that you didn’t know about 

Someone who is in a different demographic than you. 

4. watch an enlightening documentary 

Recommendations

netflix: 

• Untold History of the United States 
• 13th
• American Factory
• Our Planet
• The Great Hack 
• Knock Down the House 
• Chasing Coral
• Inequality for All
• What The Health
• Cowspiracy
• The Family
• Dirty Money
• When They See Us
• Food Inc.
• The Magic Pill
• Cuba and the Cameraman
• The Pharmacist 

amazon prime:

• Pride
• Citizenfour

Drop your recommendations in the comments!

*I wrote this in the bathtub by red candlelight while he fell asleep*

There's something that feels supernatural about the love that I've fallen into. First there was how we met, how I felt at home with him; how I knew that I loved him within just a couple of days. How my walls came down around him - the courage I took to express by vulnerabilities - the way I felt so confident and safe in sharing them. The way our personalities and external lives are so different, and yet we seem to share the same heart, each having pieces of the same heart. A slow-won yet innate understanding of each other. As though the love were there before we were. I'm not religious, but this love is supernatural to me.

Hannah Rooth, February 1, 2020

On the internal dictator 

Tells you what you can’t do...
what you’re not good *enough* at...
that people will think you’re weird...
your friends won’t understand...
your family won’t approve...
your childhood god would disapprove...
you’ll probably fail...
it’s stupid...
that’s not what girls do...
that’s not what boys do...
it’s too scary...
*insert your own version here*...

On the external dictator 

Defines what people are “bad” or “wrong” or need to be exterminated...
decides on what is socially allowed...
punishes, imprisons, represses for “otherness”...
represses creativity and creative action...
defines roles for all in society...
uses brainwashing and violence to maintain control...
defines the good or acceptable based on a social norm...

If you cannot stand up to your internal dictator, how will you stand up to an external one?

More resources on the idea of the internal dictator:
Regime Change
Your Little Internal Dictator

Resources on external dictators:
How Do Democracies Become Dictatorships?

~Hannah Rooth