Dear Earthies, It's One week before "Oxum washes her jewelry before washing her children", the 6 hours of self-care immersion I am offering as part of the LOVE PRAXIS crossroads. I felt the need to take care of my offering practice by sharing with you some thoughts that are informing me in this session. In the times we live, to care, this fundamental human and more-than-human act has been systemically assaulted. Under the wounded masculine-oriented cosmovision of capitalist white modernity the meaning of care has been flattened, gendered, neglected, and depreciated while simultaneously marketed as a product accessible only to a few privileged bodies. That's so palpable that even when I decided to offer this immersion, I found myself surprisedly dealing with embarrassment, discomfort, and shame! We are being taught that Self-care practices belong to the silly - often Women. We are being taught that Self-care practices are dispensable and irrelevant in our lives. But we are literally talking about the more basic and obvious need of simply taking care of us! How absurd! When we look at Nature, the incoherence is self-evident: Onilé, Gaia, Pachamama - Mother Earth, our planet- is essentially an alive and complex ecosystem designed precisely for the purpose of care! The Sun, the Moon, the Air, the Waters, the Plants, the Trees, the Animals, and all the invisible beings are all taking care of US! Their distance, quality, intensity, and texture have the core intention of favoring life on Earth to be! In this sense, care is the first practice of living. We are beings conditioned to receive and give care as an intrinsic need for our survival. No life on Earth can experience incarnation and embodiment without being cared for. If we do not take care of ourselves then what?! What our lives have been about?! Personally, It was only 2 years ago, at the epicenter of my Saturn return, that I started to fully assume the practice of care as the core of my living experience! When I turned 30, I made it intentional to put time, energy, thought, and practice into every single aspect of my life that I can control. I take care of what I eat, and drink, the time I go to sleep and wake up; I take care of my thoughts, words, ethics, emotional and physical body, and I take care of my connection with Spirit. I take care of how I relate to myself, the people around me, and reality itself. If we consider that 3 generations behind me Black people were not even considered Humans, a committed self-care practice is one of the most revolutionary things I could ever offer to myself. But beyond our ancestral wounds, throughout our daily lives, we are constantly exposed to pain, the news is overpopulated with the never-ending crescent numbers of crimes of all kinds particularly against Women, children, Queer and BIPOC people; Wars, and the occupation of territories, Climate change emergencies, Natural disasters, etc., etc., etc. Let us not forget the apparently small interpersonal conflicts with our friends, family members, intimate partners, and so on. To where does all this emotional baggage go to? Our unprocessed trauma impacts our hearts' capacity to remain open to life! it impacts our capacity to trust, be gentle, compassionate, forgiving, hopeful, and vulnerable; Ultimately it impacts our hearts' posture``, in our capacity to love ourselves and the world. My consistent Self-care practices have paved my healing journey from where I started opening space to perceive the world from a more gentle lens and I became sensible and critical of the current wounded informed and fighting pedagogy established in social movements that I was active in around 10 years. And then, LOVE PRAXIS was born and through this service, I have been witnessing my warlike physical and emotional body slowly melt from time to time. Recently, I found myself saying _ I want my life to be an ode to tenderness! <3 __ And so, Oxum, the Orisha of the Sweet Waters has come around and invited me to dive deeper into my self-care practice by sharing it with you!
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