Coffee Shop Covers for COM|PASSion

Oi! COM|PASSionate REVOLUTIONARIES! As you settle into your holiday plans we wanted to give you a head's up that you don't want to party too hard on New Year's because you definitely want to be ready for Coffee Shop Covers for COM|PASSion on 1.2.15!!!

That's right- for ONE NIGHT ONLY the floor at Club Yoga will be open for musicians, yogis and Veggie Burger fans alike! Feel free to shoot us over any song requests or if you have a favorite cover YOU would like to perform!

Class will be a donation based all levels appropriate flow with food and drink to follow. Proceeds will go to the good folks and work of Farm Sanctuary!

We'll remind you again but save the date now!! Also, come check out other events in the COM|PASSionate REVOLUTION here!

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RSVP to the Facebook event HERE! 

You missed out.

No, seriously, you missed out. The Califia Collective Holiday Market was AMAZING!

There was of course the lovely Dream Workshop by our COM|PASSionate REVOLUTIONARY, Kaeti Gugiu, the highly anticipated Elixir Bar + Potion Lab, lots of lovingly made and magically imbued goodies and most importantly community gathering!

Those who swung through were lovely, folks with lots of healing knowledge themselves, aromatherapy and plant medicine aficionados, those just entering wide eyed into the world of quirky holistic healers and medicine makers, serendipitous new connections  and even some unexpectedly familiar faces! We were quite busy heading up to the event (and even almost missed it by a day due to confused chaotic holiday scheduling on our end) but we're so glad we did the hustle to get there! It was truly a testament to opening up to new connections, trusting and heading in with open hearts.

Because... when you're open to new connections, trust and head in with open hearts sometimes you come out well dressed, smelling delicious, warmed up from the inside and also vaguely sparkly from a fortuitous trade with a radical midwife who's partner makes magical goodies like Unicorn Sparkle Balm!

Yup. You missed out. In fact I hesitated too long and missed out on the Dragon Balm! Life lesson: If someone, ANYONE, offers you a magical gathering and sparkly things in jars labeled after mythical creatures there's no room for hesitation... I REPEAT, NO ROOM.

Lucky for you, though, dear reader, the magick women nurturing the collective, Kirsten + Alexis,  are continuing to busily create revolution in our local community with lots of new healing events!

Stay posted! We know we will! Check out links after the fold for holiday healing treats, services and revolutionaries!

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Traci is a patron of the lost art of mythical creature balm making, queer family building, community dreaming and naturally sweet smelling arm pits. She writes and dreams for COM|PASSionate REVOLT, facilitates mind/body summits through yoga and offers herself as a humble witness of process through her therapy practice COM|PASSionate REVOLT Healing.

REVOLUTIONARIES mentioned in, alluded to or complimentary to this post.

Califia Collective

Worts + Cunning / The Lunar Apothecary

Long Beach Apothecary / The Crazy Herbalist

Dreamwork for Survivors

Holistic Living With Kristy

Spinsters R Us

Taproot Midwifery

Dream Inspired Design

Califia Holiday Market!

Special Announcement!

Please join us at Califia Collective's Holiday Gathering & Market, tomorrow night!

The good folks at Califia are bringing me on board to teach with them, and tonight will be my first event with them. I will be there speaking about dreams, sharing a little zine version of the Litte Dreamwork Primer, and announcing my Dreamwork for Survivors course that will be debuting in the Spring! I'm so excited and pleased to be able to share this all with you. Our wonderful Compassionate Revolt team is going to be there too, sharing all kinds of lovingly crafted goodies and healing tools. This is a wonderful chance to meet, build community, support local healers, and get your little paws on some one-of-a-kind treasure.

Plus: FREE herbal elixir bar and make-your-own dream pillows!

So excited. See you there!

Healing + The Holidays

The holidays can evoke so many things for so many of us. They can be dreaded, nurturing, devastating or just plain old complicated. For some of us these couple of months can seem like a time to reconnect, rest and get back in touch with our families and friends while many of us are doing our best to stay grounded until the storm passes.

I felt immensely grateful to spend this recent Thanksgiving in a way that felt truly honoring of where I'm at and what I believe in my heart to be consistent with the spirit of the season.

I had the good fortune of connecting with a wonderful yoga community (Deep Dog Yoga, Yorba Linda) this past year and was asked to lead a gratitude practice at the studio on Thanksgiving morning. Skye was all set to accompany with acoustic guitar, voice and ukulele and at the last moment we re-connected with Jamie Jones of Mahoroba USA who brought their healing drum knowledge to our practice! The room was filled with old students, new students, friends and families. Yogis of all different experience levels-- including those, I'm sure, that didn't identify as yogis at all. We took deep breaths together and contemplated "Gratitude" or Kritajna in Sanskrit which translates to "Cultivated Consciousness." Poses were modified, options were taken as desired and, maybe most importantly, physical practice was de-prioritized beneath need and self-care.

We gave lots of hugs and headed off to our different spaces. I chose to cook and gather with chosen family around compassionate vegan fare. We ate and rested.

It was the first time the holiday space had been completely consistent with where my heart (which in all honesty was feeling a little bit worn down) wanted to be. I offered what I could. I prepped and rested. I didn't put myself in spaces where I needed to educate others or defend myself. I kept my space free of anyone and anything that might inhibit safety or cue my already hyper consciousness into the reality of trauma and violence in the world. This included not compromising (or apologizing for) my personal practice of ahimsa (non-harm) in order to gather which is often a conflicted place for me. Any other expectations that popped up unrequited I breathed thankfulness for the present moment into and washed them away so I could see clearly all that I had in front of me. I cultivated consciousness around the power of honoring and acknowledging my own agency in creating a healing journey that was holding for myself.

Anyone who experiences "otherness" on any level knows that we're often told that our experiences aren't "real." We are expected to engage in interactions and traditions that have different meanings for us than the world around us. I invite you to tap into the healing nature of connectedness this holiday season. Have gratitude for this.

Cultivate consciousness that brings you closer to your individual path of healing.

In Cultivated Consciousness,

Traci

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Traci is a queer vegan femme-inist yoga teacher and therapist striving to circle the metaphorical wagons of diverse queer community into digital and physical healing gatherings. She's utilizing a lot of mashed potato and doggy snuggle medicine this holiday season.

Gratitude, COM|PASSion + Community Trauma

Some of us are holders and keepers. We feel deeply with the entirety of our beings and take on heart work like it's an extreme sport.

Some of us are also particularly well suited for trauma because we have been trained by the unforgiving hands of socialization, marginalization and discrimination. We see it everywhere. Sometimes it feels that it is trauma that connects us. Everything in the world tells us that this... this... THIS is our storyline. Get used to it.

There's no space for anything but this.

Don't believe it.

Have gratitude today, dear friends, don't step away from compassion even

"if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,

my god that's plenty

my god that's enough."

Don't stop talking, posting, giving hugs, sharing tears, listening with open hearts. Appease the lump in your throat, the tension at your neck and the grinding of your jaw. Speak forth through the heavy fog of silence and fear and ignorance but don't get lost in it.

Take time to breathe and nurture and have gratitude for the spark of awareness rising up around us. Know that "the wound is an echo." It is reverberating through our communities.

Lick your wounds. You can't make it better, tell someone it's better, or hope it better right this moment.

"Just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts may have only just skinned their knees knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming-

Let me say right now for the record, I'm still gonna be here asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet.

You- you stay here with me, okay?

You stay here with me.

Raising your bite against the bitter dark

Your bright longing

Your brilliant fists of loss

Friend."

Take heart. Make space. Have gratitude that these things that have made us particularly suited to be holders and keepers also forge our spirits in a way that make us particularly suited to wield compassion in the face of our oppressor. Use your strengths. Believe in your superpower. Take your cape. Hold tight to...

"The ripchord of believing.

A life can be rich like the soil.

Can make food of decay.

Can turn wound into highway."

In solidarity and offering,

COM|PASSionate REVOLT

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Compassion and healing can't be separated from the source of the wounds. You can read Autostraddle's list of articles and action tips on "How You Can Show Up for Ferguson" here. To read Andrea Gibson's poem "The Nutritionist" in it's entirety you can visit this dedicated blog space or learn more about  Andrea Gibson on their official website here.