medicine | march 2025
✧ I send this medicine bundle to you in hopes that you are cultivating your own, that you are noticing and responding to the needs that surface this spring equinox, that you are tending to the joy that will not quiet, and making space for the rage, grief, and sorrow that simply wants to be seen.
✧ For members: Nestled within this month's offering is an audio-guided eco-therapy hike—an invitation to embody wonder as resistance as you awake from winter alongside the budding trees. Let the earth remind you of what your body already knows.
remembering
observations
✧ Members: Prefer listening? Audio version available below.
Once upon a time, I was a teacher. My classroom was Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. My students were under four, and my joy was abundant. Every day we'd gather our supplies, load up our wagon, and head to the forest, and in spring, we'd look to see the first signs. The melting snow and the appearance of snowdrops were a clue to our young explorers that spring was coming.
Remembering those days brings a smile to my face. I was Ms. Voya and I often felt like a mama duck with a trail of youngin behind me. Our philosophy was that children were the first teachers, their curiosity and wonder led to immersive learning. And I and Ms. Amanda, Ms. Gilly, Ms. Kristen, and Ms. Aketa—we as teachers were both a safe reflection and a deep well of collective wisdom. And Nature, she was our third teacher. Alongside our students we climbed, and danced, and wiggled, and laughed. We asked questions and made space for our feelings, and we spoke in some of my favorite languages: good food, art, a gentle hug, and deep, unyielding wonder. That time in my life was a lot like spring, full of endless possibility.
While Play by the Park school has reached its sunset, that same wonderous energy imbues me as we cross the threshold of spring equinox.
Last month I wrote about collective reckoning. This still feels true and very present. Yet, a reckoning isn't just about holding the rage and the grief. It is also about seeing the truth.
And the truth of us, the beauty of us in our messy, clawing, fear-addled brains, is that we, as humans, are built for wonder.
Our democracy is a mess. Yet as spring emerges, people are talking about the sun, the flowers, the trees. For me, that indicates the resilience of wonder as a practice. We are still in a collective reckoning and will be for a long while, yet, many of us are finding the full spectrum of reckoning. Yes it is grief, yes it is rage, yes it is a radical truth telling and authenticity in the face of great violence. And it is also wonder. And wonder is a love practice. It is cultivating a love with the world around you even when it feels like there is no place to belong.
