Digestion, February 2025 style

Hello friends, I am hesitant to write. I don't know exactly what voice wants to come through, and there are so many words we take in each day already, many of which are difficult to digest. They get stuck in my throat, and then my belly. They feel like they suck my digestive juices dry, and knot my intestines. So I am unsure whether I have something to say here that is useful. 

The other day, I was in an online room with strangers where the facilitator started by reminding everyone that each of us needed to be there. Roughly quoted, she encouraged us “to act like we need to be in the room, because we do.” It was encouraging. We all need courage. We need ourselves.

My question then is what can be written as a tonic for digestion in this moment, in these times we are propelled into. What can restore the flow of water to dry throats and cramping bellies? Maybe it is not words at all. Maybe it is…

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At least a few breaths of that. A few moments of my feet on the floor, my butt in the chair. A few moments of senses engaged with the land, the air ocean, the rosemary bush, the bare tree.

I am wondering about the experiences we are digesting. I am wondering about what I feed myself, my child, our community each day and over time. I am wondering what kinds of experiences are food for aliveness right now. They are probably different, and not so different, than the experiences that fed aliveness before. But they feel more precious, and perhaps precarious.

My physical digestion has been in a challenge place for the last month. Whether I engage the news or take a fast day from it, I find myself overcome by emotion. What is happening since the inauguration is not new to humanity, or to our country—but more of us are experiencing the brutality of it. The savageness of what is playing out so openly through our government systems has been conspicuously and covertly how our Western society has lived in relationship to every other living being on the planet that is not human, and also humans. The way our society formed and functions can exist because of a high value and tolerance of denial, looking away, of scapegoating. It exists through disconnection and brutality, first to the Earth, and increasingly to other creatures, and more and more groups of humans. There are always people who are resisting this and trying to crack through it, but it has persisted, and the magnification is huge right now.

I am noticing in my life how I can measure my own health moment by moment and day to day by how well I am able to connect. I don’t connect well when I can’t digest my food, my experiences. But I value deeply being able to connect to myself, to connect with other beings, to you. I value deeply being able to connect with something like God, something spiritually greater than myself. And though I have been consciously working towards goals of connection for a very long time—in some ways they still feel elusive. I feel how this time could unravel them further if I am not deliberate, conscious, and trusting enough to try. How do we digest together?

There are a few words inside me right now that feel very alive. They all live inside my body in different ways, in different energetic places. But I also see them literally sitting as if on a plate of food I’ve been served. What do I eat?

Denial.

Resilience.

Despair.

Fellowship.

Fear.

Authenticity.

Connection.

I am aware of what it feels like to feed myself denial—it is what I learned to feed myself growing up. It is revolting, soul crushing stuff. Despite being a person who projects and yearns for authenticity, denial has supported me in living at least partially off-course for most of my life. Maybe this is the side-note part of the post where I give myself a little gift of authenticity by coming out online as queer to any of y'all who don't know. Just so there’s no more covert denial about that for myself. And because right now being queer in public feels really safe. Nope. But, it is safer to my soul to be who I am. It helps me digest.

Okay, so I don’t want to eat denial so much. It takes WAY too much energy to digest. It’s tricky, hidden, sometimes tucked up under those yummy french fries, but yeah. I don’t want to eat it.

I am aware of what it feels like to eat fear too, and I am aware of what it feels like to eat despair. They all shunt my blood away from my digestion (literally). I cannot eliminate these things from my plate entirely (man, I’m really running with this food metaphor, I hope you’re hungry) but if I can’t eliminate them—I need to be piling my plate with other things that will hopefully fill me up before I eat too much fear, denial and despair.

I wonder what it would be like to experiment with piling my plate high with Resilience—with Fellowship—with Authentic Connection.

This is what I want to serve. I want to serve Resilience. I want to serve Experimentation. I want serve Authenticity. I want so serve Fellowship. So we can eat connection. Soooo Yummy! And I do not, cannot do this alone. I cannot be resilient in a silo. I cannot experiment without you to offer me new ways of thinking. I cannot be authentic without existing in relationship. And what are experiments in these things anyway? I think they are experiments in trust, experiments in mutual support, experiments in frequency and connection of friendship. And they can be serious, but they can, and must also be playful.

So on this waning of the Full Moon of the playful, fierce-ass, heart-centered Leo Lionness, I ask you friends if we can Experiment with Fellowship; if we can help each other digest our fear and despair; if we can grow our Resilience together. Please reach out if you’d like to discuss how. I’m up for it.

Love,

Inder