issue no. 785

LAST WEEK, I GOT STIRRED UP . . .

It’s not an unusual occurrence. In fact, it’s so everyday that the everyday nature of it also annoys me, making me feel slightly less stirred up than simply tired.

It’s all too easy - almost reflexive, like breathing without paying attention to your breath - to let outside forces stir you. Even if you manage to take an intentional break from strangers’ voices in the news, so many of our loved ones sneak in a stir. They do this sometimes almost charmingly, like my spouse who sits over the newspaper each morning, yelling out bits that are particularly hard for him to process alone.

In a training I took with community organizers - an experience that influences my thinking on a daily basis - I learned the importance of finding out what matters to people, at their core, by asking the question: What makes you angry?

Well, the truth is…a lot of things. But there is a difference between anger and rage. And rage, though it can be dangerous if not handled responsibly, is a sacred fire in each of us that I believe is essential to our livelihood.

One way to honor the sacred in rage is to pay attention to what kindles passion and possibility, what generates creative energy, that swell of love and belief that stirs you in very the best way.

This distinction - between external stirring, which can cause a lot of anger and irritation, and internal stirring, which may touch on the same places in your body and soul where the sacred fire of rage is kept aflame - is what got me out of the whirlpool I was in last week. I’m someone who spent a lot of my life allowing external things to lead me. I seemed to care, by default, about what other people thought was appropriate or acceptable. I cared about how to avoid other people’s anger or disapproval.

During that time, I used to watch my dad go about his days unbothered. Scaredy cat that I was, I could not figure out why he seemed so unafraid. Surely it was better - more human - to be afraid of something? Yet now, I feel my insides running to be more like him. Because I know that he was moved by things that stirred him inwardly. Things that stirred passion more than fear.

Focusing on what stirs you, in this sense, is not hedonism. It’s not about tuning things out, but tuning in to what matters to you. We created GFJ as a place where people who felt that inner stirring could go and find something that spoke back to them - an opportunity, a story, a community, an affirmation that this is the work that matters.

To what stirs you,

Dor + Tay

tidbits...

resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we’re reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . .

Do One Small Thing . . . pay attention to when you are stirred up, and notice if it comes from an external source or an internal one. How can you take different action around each one - for example, seeking a return to your center if you are externally stirred, or reaching out if you are internally stirred (for an example, last week, we heard a lot of loving responses to a friendship love letter - how might you act in one small way to share what stirs you internally?)

“I'm not interested in purity. I am interested in consciousness.” - Toi Smith, Not a Good Woman.

There are still spots in the four-day wellness retreat at Raven Crest Botanicals in upstate NY. Experience the magic of Sōlidago Wellness and book your bed.

“The olive does not only wait for us / Sometimes / It fears we may forget It / More than we fear being lost” - a poem by Yahya Al Hamarna, on farming under occupation in the West Bank, for Atmos.

In Pope Leo’s new encyclical, Magnificent Humanity, he writes that “Work…is more than a way of earning income…a requirement of the human condition, a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfillment,” and calls for “the protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual.”

Katelyn Jetelina and Dr. Emily Smith on Ebola as ‘the disease of compassion’ and the dangerous myth of self-interest as oppositional to the global good.

“The immensity of the skies is something best grasped a gallon at a time, never in its entirety.” - Paige Morgan on Saving Rain for a Sunny Day.

Dor’s first book, Imagine a Woman, is now available for pre-order. See a preview of the Table of Contents, and read a brand new poem from the book in the latest issue of What the Wolf Wore.

Do you love poetry? Have a book club where you already read poetry collections, or would like to? Interested in having Dor drop in - virtually or in-person depending on locale - for a book club discussion? Reach out and let us know.

View and share this free guide to How to Write a More Equitable Job Post, and stay tuned for new resources to deepen this work.

got a tidbit? drop it here for us and we’ll share it in next week’s newsletter.