Women, rushing toward shore

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Hey all!

So I took Regan Byrd's white allyship training on Monday night. It’s the third time I’ve taken it, and it was as potent and probing as ever.

If you weren't there Monday night, she’s offering another one on Thursday, July 2nd.

I highly recommend it.

As someone who really struggles to sit still during these types of zoom calls, I sat the entire time with ease, listening and focused on all that she was saying. Since it's on zoom, it doesn’t matter if you live in Colorado or not, which is kinda the beauty of right now, isn't it?

I did another zoom call that was similar to Regan’s last night, which really worried me, because I’ve never been good at the school thing, sitting at a desk, listening quietly, taking notes — I’ve always been a wiggler and a talker — so I didn't know if I could do another one of these zoom calls, two nights in a row.

I gave myself permission to turn my video off if I needed to, so I could dance around in my pajamas while I listened in. I didn’t need to dance around though. I kept my video on, and for a second night I listened, so deeply, in stillness to all that was being said. 

One thing that was said by someone in the small group I got assigned to, when we were asked what we thought the difference was between change and charity (which I had no idea how to answer or even think about) was that charity can be used to “calm people down so that fundamental and systemic change doesn’t have the opportunity to take shape.”

I heard that, and said, “Wait, what? Can you say that again?"  

She said it again, and then, because this seems to be my way these days, I almost started crying. I don’t know why, but I had to grip my lap desk with both hands and breath deep so that I didn’t burst into tears in front of this group that I had never met before. After she said it the second time -- that charity can be used to “calm people down so that fundamental and systemic change doesn’t have the opportunity to take shape" -- I nodded, bit my lip, and held tight to that lap desk to keep me from falling. 

So the money we are raising for Mirror Image Arts.

Change or charity?

This concept is still confusing to me, since I only started thinking about it last night, but this is my understanding:

As a community, we are pooling our resources for Mirror Image Arts, so that together, we can say:

“We value and care about all children having access to the arts because we know how vital it’s been in shaping our own lives, communities, and connections."

When I image not getting to take all the dance classes I got to take while growing up…

I actually can't imagine this, as it is so essential to my being.

Mirror Image Arts is thoughtfully, slowly, and with great care, building a space for kids, all kinds of kids, to make theater together.

They are mindfully working to see and listen to each child, fully and with presence, as a means of “disrupting the school to prison pipeline.”

That feels like change to me.

Does it to you?

I haven’t even given the money we are raising to the Mirror Image Arts people yet, and I’ve already gotten a thank you note from the director.

I know, I know, we are not doing this so that we are thanked. This isn't what this note is about to me though. This note is about the commitment Mirror Image Arts has to relationship building, which is another reason I chose them as the place we'd focus on giving this month.

Here's her note, to all of us:

I want to thank you. For your words in this email. For the support you guided toward all nonprofits doing this work AND for including Mirror Image Arts in your list. For focusing your hard earned $$'s toward MIA for the month of June. 

K, let's do the math.

(I secretly love doing the math…I pretend I don't, but I really do. Tax time is one of my favorite times of year).

Since June 1st, The Sunday Dog Dance Class along with a group of you who read this newsletter, have raised $420 for MIA so far.

THANK YOU -- I love the generosity of this group.

Can we, as a group, raise another $580 so that we can get to $1,000 for Mirror Image Arts by July 1st?

To get to $580, that would be:

  • 2 of you donating $290.

  • 5 or 6 of you donating $100.

  • 11 or 12 of you donating $50.

  • 23 or 24 of you donating $25.

  • 58 of you donating $10.

There are around 600 of you who regularly read this newsletter.

Will you be part of the 10% (or less) of this group who choose to  give so that the kids at Mirror Image Arts get the same kind of exposure and experience to the performing arts that we got, when we were their age?

You can give through pay pal to this email address and I'll send our collective dollars to Mirror Image Arts at the end of June in a greeting card made by Laura Brenton. Maybe the one with this painting above, Calm and Fury.

Please choose the "Sending to a friend option" so that 100% of your money goes to Mirror Image Arts, and not pay pal.

I'll end with these poems I wrote while watching Bre dance on Saturday (I wish you could see Bre dance...these words are so directly tied to her movement, her stillness, her breath, her imagination):

Watching Bre I

Floating water reaching up,
like sand, reaching up, 
like snakes, reaching up,
like fish, reaching up,
like plants, growing up,
like plants, unfurling out,
like water, like fountains, like clouds, wild animals 

— beasts —

like mud, 
like giving like giving, and like running,
like stampeding.

The folding in of a species,
like hunger,
like madness,
like artifacts lined up in the glasses cases of the museum.
Like heavy, like light, 
like good, like bad, 
like hearts on sleeves,
bone on bone,
medical procedures that fail.

Like the solemn waiting on a Sunday afternoon for water.


Watching Bre II:

So still and clear.
So forthright.
So much building.
So much destroying.
So much time finding.

So many wings spreading out from this one body,
So many wings piled on the garden.
So many still moments, so many still moments, so many still moments.

So many women in the bathtub with no water.
Knees to breasts, elbows crushed between the bodies.

So many places to perch on the arm of the sofa, 
and when the arm of the sofa crashes to the floor, 
so many waves of night that pull at the skin of the women
in the bathtub with no water.

Blue dark night, violent crashing night, 
hovering over this water.

Wave after wave of women rushing toward shore.


With love,
Joanna

PS: 
I'm going to play with putting articles and actions in the PS portion of this newsletter and see how that goes:

1. Article:
Kate, who is in our Sunday Dog Dance Class, sent this article to me:

Performing Whiteness by Sarah Bellamy:

"The Body is a powerful thing.

If it can breath."

2. Video:
How Can We Win with writer Kimberly Jones.
Watch from the beginning to the end if you haven't seen it yet.

3. Action:
Copied and pasted directly from a Casa de Paz newsletter, from Sarah Jackson:

Once again this administration is doing everything in their power to make immigrants NOT welcome in the US. They are proposing a disastrous new rule which will basically end asylum in the US.

We must speak out. Here are a few ways you can use whatever you might have - your voice, your privilege, your time and/or your power.


4. Dance, for 10 minutes:
Inhale
Gap
Exhale
Gap

Extend the two gap moments, just a bit.
Notice what you notice.
Your movement and your stillness.
Your momentum, your gravity, your weight.

Dance and dance and dance.
For 10 minutes as you spiral through space.

xo
jo