what to know about working with me

When we choose to partner together, it’s important to take the time before we begin to clarify intentions, expectations, and boundaries. And we do. 

Yet - we can do all the thorough planning in the world and unexpected things will still arise, it’s inevitable. What determines if we stay aligned in the process of facing those improvisational moments when our instincts take over? What we value. 

We can only prioritize protecting one thing at a time. That’s the simple clarity offered in moments of urgency and emergency - what we truly value becomes unmistakable. If our values are aligned, we’re pointed toward the same star, we can move together with ease and face the unpredictable in confidence.

It’s my intention to be clear here, to offer what I know is important to me, so that I can connect meaningfully with companions of the same compass.

I know what’s important to me because when things are dire, these are the cardinal truths that offer me direction - that show me the way to reconnection when rupture happens. 

It’s important that you know where I’m writing from. These beliefs shape my actions. These values are the soul of this work that falls into my heart that falls into my hands. 

If you choose to work with me, this is the foundational worldview you’re interacting with.
Guiding principles include:

If you’ll allow me to draw you a cultural map of Light Alchemy, here’s how these values come together to inform my choices:

If I value agency then I must avoid at all costs putting the other people I relate to in a position where they lack choices. The body experiences this as danger, it’s likely to trigger a survival state of mind. If they can’t say no, it’s not consent.

I hold meenadchi’s conditions necessary for non-violence as the foundations that make consent, care, and connection possible:
Non-violence in communication and action become increasingly possible under 3 conditions:

1. A person experiences themselves at choice

1. Violence emerges when we feel backed into a corner. A lack of choice correlates to a sense of danger. Behavioral options feel limited as our body’s survival mechanisms kick in. We may become defensive, loud, stoic, passive, or all together non-communicative.

2. A person experiences an aligned somatic awareness of their own body

1. Can you feel your body sensations as they emerge? Are you able to identify and articulate your feelings and unmet needs before they hit a wall of exasperation?

3. A person experiences an aligned somatic awareness of the collective body

1. DO you have a felt sense of the feelings and needs of those around you? Do you feel connected to them, such that your life aligns with their well-being?

Attunement unfolds in several ways.

Attunement to the collective space/shared reality between people: This means re-sensitizing to and taking radical responsibility for your part in co-creating the shared emotional field, being open to giving/receiving feedback, reflecting on the impacts of behavior, and tuning into the needs of the group without self abandoning. 

Attunement to self looks like staying curious about your needs:

• How resourced am I?

• Am I hungry? Have I drank enough? Am I tired? Do I need a break?

• Is now the right time for this?

Attunement to both of the above gives us access to: the rhythm of relational healing (from Christabel Mintah-Galloway)

Rupture → Boundaries → Interdependence → Repeat

In this process, we learn about ourselves through the reflection in and relation to others. As we continue to hone in on who we are, we can show up more and more authentically embodied. 

Authenticity is a continual process of checking in and expressing in real time - moment to moment, acceptance of thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, and sides of self. It’s a facing of the self, unblinking, without judgement but with curiosity and affection.

In this way, confrontation is the path to intimacy. Avoidance is the annihilation of humanity, a fundamental refusal to partner with reality. If magic is Man And God In Communication, then I must strive to be a collaborator with all of life. It’s the first rule of improv - I must be listening for the “Yes, and.”

“Test. Experiment.
Trust. Play. Feel.
Contract. Cleanse. Purify.
Expand. Contract. Expand.
The way the heat beats, the way the lungs breathe, the way birth happens.” Xenia Marie Ross Viray

When we choose to face what is, only then can we respond with true choice and agency. Only then is intimacy possible. Closeness cannot be coerced or caricatured.

Silence protects fragile or fake bonds. Honesty deepens real connections.

In avoidance, we miss out on valuable information about the other. If denial is certain disconnection, to choose confrontation is to choose love and wonder. To stay tender-hearted and turn towards conflict is the full expression of these values in action.

They serve to restore, reconnect, and remember the expansive living web of interdependence.

Grounded in this place of interdependence, we can exchange resources, nutrients, wisdom, connection - the web is a reciprocal tool of our collective liberation. Interdependence in action is mutual aid and commitment to accessibility. You may have noticed that all my events offer sliding-scale ticket tiers that keep the medicine available for all, no matter their proximity to wealth, privilege, and power. No one is turned away for lack of funds.

In this way, we create a more equitable world.
In this way we’re manifesting the empathy utopia. 

It is my intention that all the work we do together should serve us and all beings connected to us to the highest good.

This is a living, breathing document that will continue to evolve as I learn more in my practice. Assume that everything I've chosen to include here is intentional, based in real-world lived necessity. My boundaries are no different. Thank you for showing up fully with me as I show up fully and trusting the work to show us the way.