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Today I am working on creating a container of emptiness. Filling the god sized hole inside me can become a full time job in my attempts to fill it with anything other than god. And in the cultivating of keeping the void empty, I find peace and serenity.
My path to peace and serenity is that I first become fearful of every single thing I can possibly think of, decide that it is true, completely tornado through my mind and my life, stop drinking water, shop til I drop, chaos king my way to utter despair.
The great thing about a bottom is there is nowhere to go but up. Actually you could find an extra shovel and dig a little bit more and then start to climb up. You could even do this a lot of times, you could even sit down there for awhile and see if there is any last treasure.
I won’t promise you there’s not, there actually is sometimes.
Last week I had the ultimate pleasure of witnessing the Rev. Cindy Pincus give one of the most powerful sermons I have ever seen. I haven’t sat in church for a Sunday morning worship service in over a decade. As you know however, I love god, I love gathering, I love freaks, I love queers, I love Cindy, I love talking about going into the darkness, and I love Saint Mary Magdalene.
When I walk into any church my first thought is, am I going to burst into flames and immediately descend into eternal hell for being gay? My next thought in churches that feel safe is - oh look all these people are gay too at least we are going to the same hell if that is where we are headed.
Rev. Pincus (or Daddy Pincus as we like to refer to her when she wears her little collar or her very hot heels with the quilted stole her mom made her) weaves in the stories of the bible and applies them to how we exist in real life in a way so soft and so radical I wept the whole time. Like had to tip my baseball cap down over my face and blow my nose in my mask because my face was a sloppy mess.
Ok I am not going to butcher Cindy’s sermon here but what I heard was about witnessing, waiting, the willingness to go into the darkness to see the light, and basically how Mary Magdalene is the fucking best and can teach of us everything about healing each other and ourselves through forgiveness and faith.
Cindy is also a believing mirror for me, something I talked about last week. So consistent in how she shows up for me in our personal relationship and cheers me on in my work. But one of the best ways to be a mirror is to just be impeccable with your word in your own practice. And that was what I got to see yesterday.
In seasons of jealousy and comparison it would be so easy to think - wow great Cindy is a PERFECT public speaker and I will never be that good. But with true believing mirrors (and in the house of god no less) I can access complete and total awe and think - what an amazing gift she has given us - her confidence, steadfastness, research, humor, presence. That is what I want to bring into my work.
The last few months I have been waiting. Waiting to feel that, waiting to feel better, waiting to unpack a box, waiting to get my studio set up, waiting to feel nice, waiting to not compare, waiting to find the right trail, waiting for someone to call me, waiting for the coffee to finish, waiting for someone to say I’m hot, waiting for anything to make me feel different. It feels like I am in that waiting room in Beetlejuice where you know you are dead but you aren’t entirely sure you are dead and you don’t know where to go next but you sort of just want to go back to your house where everything was normal and good.
Even in the story of Beetlejuice, though, we see how going back to the way things were takes away from the beauty of what could be. You could be an eternal ghost and dance with Winona Ryder forever instead (wino forever) or just live in your earthly body and die in the house on the hill.
The most important question about waiting is : what am I waiting for? I just started reading No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz who also happens to have a book titled : You Are The One You’ve Been Waiting For. HELLO! HELL OF A TITLE! I have already been doing parts work with my therapist for the past two years (shout out to Irene) but in the first few pages of No Bad Parts I think I yelled out loud 40 times. Just like - wait you have to be KIDDING ME THIS IS IT THIS IS IT.
Now of course I have read other things in my life that felt like the missing link. And they were. And they helped integrate the things I have been working through. And then a new link got unhooked and it was time to go into a new tomb. Which brings us back to Mary.
The way Rev. Pincus explained it to us, the congregation, was that two other disciples of Jesus go looking in the tomb and just see Jesus’ bloody clothes but then Mary goes in and sees angels and Jesus being like - hey why are you crying? Mary sees in the dark. Mary is willing to look in the tomb, into the deep darkness, even when others already have and were like - nope, nothing to see here!
She doesn’t wait because she is trying to fix herself, she waits as witness, she waits as prayer, she waits as holy practice.
I have yet to experience going into the darkness and not seeing the light, but it requires opening my eyes a bit more. If I enter the darkness with the assumption that it will stay dark forever, well, then it will. If I enter the darkness with curiosity and faith that perhaps literal angels could swoop down out of the sky - usually something like that happens.
In the container of nothingness I feel free to not be me. To just be a vessel. To hear god’s plan for me instead of trying to constantly assert who I am trying to be, trying to become.
May becoming less be it’s own effortless path
Atiya Jones is having a knit hat raffle to benefit the WeShare Food Bank
Thank you to everyone who bought Jackie and Kate’s collab THINK ABOUT THE MOON sticker - we sent $333 to the Cooperative Gardens Commission (CGC) Free Seed distribution gofund me - YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE HERE
This tweet from wendy macnaughton
Grab a copy of Getting To Center from my local bookstore Shop Matter - so many other amazing books, perhaps my new favorite place on Earth?
January Quilt School is sold out on Saturdays, one spot left for Thursdays, so we added a Tuesday class! Scholarships for BIPOC students still available for all three sessions (nominate yourself or a loved one)
New Person, Old Place by Madi Diaz
RHD Morris Home Holiday Wishlist : Morris Home supports trans- and gender-nonconforming individuals as they develop the knowledge, skills and supports necessary to promote sobriety, manage emotional and behavioral difficulties, choose and maintain safe and healthy lifestyles, and develop healthy relationships with peers, family and the community. Morris Home, the only residential recovery program in the country to offer comprehensive services specifically for the transgender community, provides a safe, recovery-oriented environment in which people are treated with respect and dignity. You can also support them here
My friend, dance mentor, and one of the biggest cheerleaders of my life Katherine Ferrier opened up her MONTHLY POETRYSCOPES subscription! Katherine’s poems bring me back to myself and are such a beautiful gift to the self and others. In Katherine’s words : Writing and sending them out every month tethered me to purpose, and connection. Allowed me to be in service. And hearing back from folks how much they mean to them, how sweet it is to get something handcrafted and meaningful in the mail every month… that is beautiful icing.
Happy Saint Lucia Day to my fellow Swedes <3 May the inner light glow
Something I heard someone say this week : What I thought would collapse me is what always saves me
A portion of paid subscriptions this month goes to RHD Morris Home
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