Dear Reader,
As the daughter of first generation Indian immigrants, it is very hard to not follow through on something. Backing out was not an option when I was growing up. Once you committed to a project, an instrument, a person or a group, you stayed steadfast no matter how uncomfortable, hard or unenjoyable the experience became. In fact, joy was an afterthought, a potential side effect but never a core intention.
A lot was riding on the commitments my father made when he first came to Turtle Island in 1970 with $8 in his pocket and a scholarship to attend Springfield College. The scholarship came from a united methodist church in New Jersey which was the home church of the american director of the Delhi Christian Chorale in New Delhi. This director had high hopes for my father, a featured soloist in the chorale, and arranged for this financial award.
The scholarship covered my father’s tuition and board but not much else. With a student visa, my father was limited in work options. The ones that were viable were on campus jobs advertised in spaces where international students gathered. My father applied for and got a job washing the windows of academic and residential buildings. “You could do most of the cleaning from inside but for some spots, you had to go outside and stand on the window ledge.” my father told me earlier this week. I couldn’t tell if he liked this job or whether he felt safe washing windows while perched on a ledge. What i do know is that that job gave him a baseline income which he could save or spend at his own discretion and without indebtedness and for these reasons, he stuck with it.
After graduating from Springfield College with a MA degree in Community & Economic Development, my father moved into a two bedroom apartment in preparation for the arrival of my mother, brother and me. He juggled three part time jobs - laundry mat clerk, church janitor, and short order cook - sustaining at least two at a time, to pay the rent, furnish the apartment and cover additional graduate school expenses. He once told me the story of forgetting his uniform and being forced to wear the sweat soaked garment of the cook who worked the prior shift. “I hated that.”, he said grimacing as though his former co-worker’s stench still lingered on his skin. As a low-wage worker with a family to support, my father pushed through his disgust and sense of powerlessness to keep that job.
When he reached a certain level of middle class stability, my father turned his practice of never quit to commitments of lesser stakes. A skilled baritone, my father would commute faithfully to weekly rehearsals of a church choir whose repertoire he found meaningless and grating. As the pastor’s spouse, he felt it was his duty to remain in the choir for the 6 years my second mother served that congregation. My father believed that this expression of loyalty was more important than his own joy and peace.
I have both benefited from and judged my father’s sense of commitment. And unsurprisingly, I have repeated his patterns in my own adult life. This took the form of rehearsing weekly with a band two years past the point of feeling inspired in our music making. There were also the extensions of artist residencies that felt like a grind. And there were unpaid board and advisory roles that I devoted myself to for years even while it was clear that my family needed more income.
Within racial capitalism’s house of mirrors, the illusions of permeance and stability are reflected no matter where we turn. Seeing something through no matter the cost to our physical and emotional health, our relationships or our dreams is heralded as a worthy goal. But much like the oversized stuffed bear your child wins at the rigged skee ball booth, this goal is often forgotten once we move on to the next thing vying for our attention.
Something deeper within us knows that change, either consciously initiated or unexpected, is the nature of living systems. Over the past five years, my collaborator Ana Polanco and I have seen our share of both types of change at the personal level. I uncoupled from a partner of 20 years, moved into a new apartment with my child, supported my elder father’s transition to a full time care facility and shifted my business structure from one of freelance coach and consultant to a registered small business. Ana has moved to a different country twice, redesigned and relaunched the landmark program of her coaching business and accompanied her mother through significant health challenges.
These personal changes have happened against the backdrop of rising fascism across the world and the devastating changes caused by state sponsored terrorism, mass deportation and increased privatization and wealth consolidation. Here on Turtle Island, leaders and organizations I know and partner with are facing funding freezes, firings, heightened surveillance and ICE raids on their members and constituencies. Staying the course with what was planned is no longer possible in many cases.
Attuning to the changes we are experiencing personally and collectively, Ana and i had an honest conversation about the pressure, tiredness, grief, and uncertainty we are feeling in our bodies and relationships. We also acknowledged the ways this has impacted our marketing and design process for the Rebirth Retreat and a one-day retreat planned for July. It quickly became clear that a release of these projects was crucial for us to be able to tend to ourselves and our familial and work relationships in ways that are necessary and responsive.
When i acknowledged this need aloud, i felt my shoulders relax and my Anahata (Heart) Chakra open. Rather than the conditioned and reflexive (and perhaps ancestral) response of hunching forward and barreling through, i felt the full length of my spine and took note of my peripheral vision. These subtle sensations and noticings reconnected me with a sense of choice about what I sustain and what I release. From this sense of choice, cancelling events does not feel like costly desertion but a loving act of self preservation.
And so, dear ones, it is with both sadness and self love that I share that we will not hold the Rebirth Retreat in October 2025 and we are also cancelling the Awaken the Divine Feminine one-day retreat in Nyack originally scheduled for July 13th. Ana and i remain open to potential future collaborations and will revisit this when Spirit guides.
I’m curious about your relationship to unexpected change. What would it mean for you to explore this with curiosity and compassion and through this gain clarity on an intention you want to hold as we continue to move through these uncertain times?
While fascists weaponize change in order to destabilize, divide, and disempower, there is a different orientation to change that can help our nervous systems settle in the midst of shifting circumstances. Ancestor Octavia Butler spoke of this orientation in the sacred text, The Parable of the Sower:
“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.”
Change infused with the power and love of divinity invites us into natural ebbs and flows, seasons of seeding, cultivating, harvesting and resting and ongoing cycles of birth and death. While the pace of these changes may vary, their current moves towards aliveness and sustenance even in the moments when we let go of what we’ve held with great care.
