Through Me (a collective poem of our undrowned breathing)
What is flowing through you? Love and gratitude is flowing through me. Fittingly, last month when we kicked off Wrapped in Ocean: Undrowned in Practice with an oceanic writing and breathing workshop called “The Scale of Breathing,” LOVE and GRATITUDE were the words that showed up the most times in in the chat (followed closely by SPIRIT.) During the workshop more than 60 people participated live in a series of reflective writing and breathing activities over the course of two hours, and more than a hundred people have engaged the recording since. It never stops amazing me when people show up for their own transformation and the possibility of experiencing love, especially with strangers, especially across space and time, especially at the invitation of a weird poet obsessed with marine mammals. But it happened!
The participants in this workshop were brave about their empathy, accountable to to their ancestors and communities, creative in their experiments in healing. And everyone was brilliant, literally luminescent with love through the screen. At one point I thought I was going to dissolve into a puff of glitter. We were honest about our sputtering awkwardness in the face of change, and learned from the baby and mother weddell seal about how to breathe into and through it all. In the end, we became poets again. And this is the group poem we created to honor what was flowing through us in that moment. We made it as our portal back to that time of togetherness and we offer it to you so you can join us in possibility of freer breath.
Through Me
a poem on the scale of breathing by the participants in the first ever Undrowned writing workshop
(to be read aloud if possible)
a future is flowing through me
a life-tide is flowing through me
those who have met in the water undrowned are flowing through me
ripples ripples ripples
ripples are flowing through me
genesis is ongoing and it is flowing through me
abundance is flowing through me
the infinite love of the universe is flowing through me
love is flowing through me
ancestral affirmation is flowing through me
love is flowing through me
village is flowing through me
love is flowing through me
the glow of each other’s love is flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
all the places I have ever been are flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
softness is flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
grounded divinity is flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
the breaths we take together are flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
silky waters full of nourishment are flowing through me
gratitude is flowing through me
deep gratitude for the core of my belly is flowing through me
gratitude for the unknown and the unlearning is flowing through me
wind is flowing through me
oxygen is flowing through me
all of you are flowing through me
us together is flowing through me
connection is flowing through me
glowing thick connection is flowing through me
luz is flowing through me
the stars are flowing through me
amber is flowing through me
glory is flowing through me
resonant song is flowing through me
the dance of the unknown is flowing through me
wonder is flowing through me
tenderness is flowing through me
spirit is flowing through me
movement is flowing through me
lands and seas are flowing through me
exhaustion is flowing through me
cariño is flowing through me
surrender is flowing through me
release is flowing through me
relief is flowing through me
death is flowing through me opening my heart and vision
my ancestors are flowing through me
generations to come are flowing through me
life is flowing through me
clarity is flowing through me
grace is flowing through me
ease is flowing through me
abundant trust in myself is flowing through me
grace is flowing through me
hope and stardust is flowing through me
laughter and trouble-making is flowing through me
joy is flowing through me
hope is flowing through me
quiet power in community with bits of glitter are flowing through me
hope is flowing through me
wow is flowing through me
rusty hard rain is flowing through me
unafraid song is flowing through me
bravery is flowing through me
trust is flowing through me
faith is flowing through me
light is flowing through me
truth is flowing through me
possibility is flowing through me
movement is flowing through me
magic is flowing through me
iridescent light and sound are flowing through me
coolness and clarity are flowing through me
expansion and co-creation are flowing through me
compassion for the bumps and bruises is flowing through me
longing for sea tendrils reaching the moonlight is flowing through me
trust is flowing through me
manifestation is flowing through me
balance is flowing through me
poetry is flowing through me
spirit is flowing through me
Sign up is still open for Wrapped in Ocean: Undrowned in Practice a series of activities inspired by Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals which includes a module based on this workshop. If you only want to participate in the workshop retroactively you can do that here.
