The depths

It’s turning towards a new season in 2025, and we’re approaching the last few months of this chaotic year. How are you feeling? What are you feeling called to do? What is your why? How does your story bring you to the you of today?

I’ve really been noodling on this last question after a great conversation with a coach.

I’ve often felt deep in my bones that change for me, as an ordinary person in this world who has no desires for fame, is on an individual to individual level. It’s the interactions with a neighbor, a client, a family member, a friend. Our sphere of influence may not be huge, but we can do a lot within what we do have if there is the desire coupled with knowledge, and then put into action (even small actions).

Here is a list of events in my life that bring me to starting the Liberation 101 course and Aetheria Movement.

A slide deck I shared in a University for PEACE course to introduce myself.

As a white bodied woman who grew up in South Carolina in the 90’s and early 00’s, I was steeped in post-integration. The treasonous and racist flag of the confederacy was flying on top of the SC state house for many of those years. There was a huge fight, with the NAACP leading the charge, to take it down. BDS tactics were used then and did bring the flag down (but to the statehouse lawn). And yet, too, I went to public schools that were quite diverse, racially. I had friends who were of various races and backgrounds, citizenship status, immigration status, and the like. I was also involved in a fairly diverse dance group led by a Chinese-American woman. I remember one of the dances that we did was honoring the victims of Sarajevo. 

I was raised by a white woman who grew up in North Carolina in the 50’s and 60’s and went to segregated schools, who didn’t realize how bad things were on the other side because she was living in a societally created oblivion. 

Fast forward to an international student ambassador experience the summer before senior year of high school - I met Indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand and I saw that (while imperfect) other ways to be in a “western” country.

Then, I entered college - where many of my closest friends were PGM, first generation, and from very different backgrounds to my own. This is also where I met my husband, a Black first generation man from New York. I became more aware in my study of political science and activities in student groups of important fights for liberation happening globally. A particularly poignant one was dancing in a South Asian student group’s program to raise awareness and funds for the genocide of the Royenga people in Burma (Myanmar). I also studied abroad in Italy and started to really travel internationally.

From there, I moved to NYC and worked for the city for a bit, while formally dating my now husband, who was in law school in New Orleans. More exposure and more learning.

And then, I too went to law school and moved to New Orleans. This was a huge moment in my learning journey - both in my gaining of intellectual knowledge and lived experience. I moved here in 2009, just 5 years after Hurricane Katrina, I learned in Constitutional Law 1L year how racism and othering is really baked into the legal system of the US, and then in 2012 Trayvon Martin was murdered. 

Between law school and now, I worked for a child abuse prevention non-profit that opened my eyes to my own childhood trauma (and opened the door for healing), lived in Oakland, CA and again worked with, learned with (in a year long fellowship) and befriended folks of so many different backgrounds. More exposure to difference and learning from others and in structured ways. I also traveled more - and more outside of the “west”. I read books about liberation and learned more about the Black Panthers. I started a deeper yoga learning journey. 

Then I moved back to New Orleans and visited so many poignant sites that I’ve written about here and on IG previously that put New Orleans in its rightful place in history as a space of deep racial violence and deep resilience and fight for justice. The work continues there by many impactful people and organizations, including artists - because liberation won’t just happen with intellectuals - artists, farmers, and all of us are so important to this awakening.

What also happened during this time in New Orleans (and the pandemic) was my participation in a 300 hour yoga teacher training that was focused on social justice. It was a huge training led by a famous Indian-American teacher, Susanna Barkataki, who broke the diverse student group into affinity groups. I was in a beautiful white anti-racist cohort for nearly a year of learning together. This was one of the most impactful pieces on my liberation and allyship journey and a huge inspiration for the model of Liberation 101.

Bits of Fairy Dust - my white anti-racist 300 hr YTT cohort in 2021.

Now I’m living abroad and again, it’s opening my eyes to what it really feels like to be an outsider. I don’t speak the language well, I look like an outsider. This is living in being othered and I am aware of the space I take up and how I am here. 

What are the pieces of your story that bring you to your why now? What do you offer to the world? I’d love to hear from you - comments are on.

PS I’m actively working on starting language classes:).