Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Hi, everyone.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Hmm… Just practicing, moving slowly.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And… letting our nervous systems… Take the time that they need.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): It is just past Maha Shivratri.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And the themes that felt alive for me today are both ancestors, connecting to the ancestors, and grief.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so I just wanted to name that, in part because some of us got to meet with Lama Rod, and if you didn't, you can watch the recording.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And he named grief work being kind of the threshold of where we're headed in our work.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): As caring, healing, you know, service providers, but also just people sensitive to the moment, and the times and the direction that we're headed.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And… So I thought we could start by, doing a little practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): But also, I wanted to… Give a…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): It's funny. I think, a content warning. So, the content warning is around…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Death and dying, cremation, cemeteries.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Shiva… Some of his practice… Is in the cremation grounds.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And… So much of…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): our lives, you know, especially in the West, sort of lived in denial of, or in resistance to, or avoiding the fact that death is an inevitable part of life for any enlivened being.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so I actually thought we could start by looking around our space. It's nice to, like, be together online, but also be doing things offline. And notice…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): aliveness.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So maybe there's… and then also, notice the signs of…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Right? That transition, the mud and the lotus.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): The flowers blooming.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): in the cremation grounds, the births and the deaths, and so just a concrete example, if anyone's like, I don't understand what you're talking about, Susanna, is like, when I look at
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): The plants around me, which some of which you can see, they are very alive, but you maybe can't see, because you're not up close, but the plant behind me
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): its tips are dead, right? There are dead parts on this plant, and we specifically, you know, sometimes it helps the plant to cut those off, but I like leaving that part on, because it reminds me of…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): the cycle. And so just… we'll take, like, a minute to look around your space. You can move if you want, or touch, but noticing signs of…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Aliveness, birth, death, change.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In the space that you're in, or if you'd prefer, you can visualize.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Coming back together, and just an invitation to drop in the chat. You know, you don't have to explain, but the words, maybe what you noticed, what you observed.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And create kind of a shared, found poem.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So, as you… with no rush, if you'd like to drop anything you noticed… Yeah, dusty surfaces…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Artwork from family long gone.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Old faded clothes.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Leaves tipped with brown.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And feel free to add yours.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Photos of part of my life that no longer feel like… seem like me.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Dried flowers, live plants… Pictures of deceased pets. Pictures of mighty trees that have lived for hundreds of years.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Propagated plants, dehydrated flowers, pine cones, my grandmother's needlepoint.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So much wood, which seems death now.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Shed cat hairs on my clothes.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Scratched old wood floors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Please continue to share if you would like.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We're entering the realm of the imaginal, the symbolic.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Right? Like, sometimes… With yoga as unity, it's hard to intellectualize or understand.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): That which is beyond birth and death.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): But in the symbol, in the present experience of a thing, We can get a glimpse.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): of what it might be when the Bhagavad Gita talks about deathlessness, right? The soul that the Brahman
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Of which each of us has Atman, our individual piece of that, that cannot be wetted or dried, that cannot be killed or born, right? Like, we can say these words.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): But to really have that experience when, you know, it's like the very…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Vivid absence or loss of a loved one, a pet.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): A family member, a good friend.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Even grieving, like, the parts of ourselves that are subject to change.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so, what is it to hold both that unique individuality and the oneness?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): sometimes we can't get there just through the mind, right? We get there through experience, through symbol.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Through signs, through… Dreams, through meditation, dhyana, through practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so I wanted to bring in a little bit of that, like, the unknowable, the untouchable, not to…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): make you feel like you need to access it, but just to invite that presence, right? Presence in.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And to notice symbols, signs, synchronicities.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): As part of our practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Yoga, of course, has many tools, right? Shiva…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): himself gives us the practice of meditation, of Dhyana.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): as the first Adi Yogi.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And then there are also stories of the yoga teachings coming from, you know, I put my hand here to imagine, like, the Lord of Death, right? Like, the Yama, the Lord of Death, sitting on our shoulders. And in a way, the whole of yoga could be considered a conversation.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): with the Lord of Death. With death.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): with… Impermanence with change, and how we relate to those things in our lives.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We'll move into a little practice in a moment, but I just want to pause to see if…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Anything is arising, and then also, before I open it up.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): the piece that I didn't talk so much about, so holding grief, death.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): presence, magic, intuitive awareness, and then also connecting to our ancestors, right? Like, that remembrance that we're not…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): here alone. That we come… From a line of people, perhaps known or unknown, And…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): that those ancestors are within us, right? Their struggles, their joys, their challenges, And… There's a lot that…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We can gain by even just remembering or connecting in the various ways that perhaps you connect.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And the ancestors don't just have to be blood ancestors. They can be land ancestors. The land that you're on, Lamarad talked about that.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): They can be spiritual ancestors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): They can be activist ancestors. One of the biggest things I've learned from
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): being around groups of white folks, working on reclaiming their abolitionist and anti-racist lineage, there has been a long lineage, right? If you think about it.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): so long, like, back to as long as there has been enslavement, there have been conscientious objectors, there have been people who were part of the Underground Railroad, there have been those who, you know, protested through kindness.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And care when it was not…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): popular, and those who put their bodies on the line and their lives on the line, you know, to interrupt oppression. And the stories of, for example, our abolitionist ancestors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): They don't get told enough.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Right? But we can connect to and claim those, and part of the work that we might do
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Is that connecting and reclaiming and learning?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And then for those of us who are living… well, I'm mixed, so I get… I can… it's important that I do both, but for those of us living in bodies of color and culture.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Also, we may not have…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): access to some of the stories, or some of, you know, because colonization breaks down and cuts off some of the lineage, but…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): we can choose, we can look into, right, like, the women's lineage of yoga history, for example, or bhakti…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): devotional lineages, right? We get to reclaim and connect. So spiritual, blood, land…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And even the ancestors of… ecosystems, right? Like… projects.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): One of the groups I've been part of, we used to talk about, when we would work on something.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So there were 20 of us working on a show. Like, we once did this…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): event that was a fundraiser for bail funds for one of our members' family.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): and it was called Earth Path of a Deity. The show had fashion, and spoken word, and music, and art. It was really a wonderful thing, but we would talk about it, it took, like, 4 or 5 months to put it on, as we're creating spirit children together. Not just, you know, some of us now have actual children, but…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): the project itself created offshoots, not just the performance, which was powerful and wonderful, and the support we could give.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): But perhaps there's ancestors that are, like, paths you haven't taken, right? Like…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): the journey that you didn't go on. The partner…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So funny. My mom, for example, almost married this guy that looks like Harrison Ford. And I always think about, well, who would I have been if she had gotten with him? Would it be me? Would it not be me, right? Like, you can look also in that imaginable way, that creative way.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): at ancestors. Doesn't have to be so, you know, here is… it can be, here is a picture, here is this person, they're part of my lineage. Absolutely, it can be, and there's so much depth in that, and it can also be…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): A bit more ethereal. So I will pause.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And see if there's anything that's arising for folks before we move into a practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Is this… just checking, is this theme resonating for you?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You can put a word in the chat.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Yes, or… If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in, or… Reactions, as well, like that.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Ancestors… Grief.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): conversations with… Impermanence.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Yeah.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Mmm, been thinking about ancestors a lot, reading my grandmother's hands.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Yeah
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Okay.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Part to the whole interconnectedness, yeah.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So, I'll invite us to move into a practice, and you can do this practice seated, or standing, or lying down.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And the biggest, quality I'd love to invite in is compassion, right? In the Yoga Sutras, it's karuna, compassion.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Towards ourselves, to all beings. And so, as you're moving.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Seeing if you can bring that kind of compassion to… yourself.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Knowing that these bones, right, these bones, this flesh, this skin, is the Earth of the cosmos.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And that we're made of the same elements.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Our ancestors are not actually a metaphor.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): They're here in us, and so as we move, and as we care, we're caring for not just ourselves, right? It's like self-care. What is the self? The big-ass self. We're caring for all.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so I'll invite you to come into… supported…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Seated or standing Tadasana, or lying down. So you're mountain shape.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): However you would like to take it.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And let me… let me stand here.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm finding… Your solid weight on the ground.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Perhaps lifting up on your toes and dropping down onto the earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inhale, and exhale.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You can stay right there, or if you would like, inhale your arms up.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Towards the sky, exhale and down.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Bending your knees… Inhale, rise.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Exhale, release.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inviting in a feeling of weight.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): of support. So often in the West, weight is negatively coded, but what does it feel like?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Say, oh, no, I'm embracing my heft, my girth, my length, my depth, my weight.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): There is power.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): this weight.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Connecting to the Earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): She's so strong, and solid, and… Has a density. Huge.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Solidity.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm feeling that quality of… depth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Breath. Wait.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In the earth, and in you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And your next exhale, coming into any kind of supported forward fold. So if you're standing, maybe holding onto your own body.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Or a table, or a chair, if you're on the ground, perhaps coming into Balasana or Child's Pose.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): If you're seated, you can rest your body forward on itself.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): What a gift, the support of the earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And if there is anything you would like to… Let go into the earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Releasing it now on your exhale.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And you can stay here as long as you would like.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Or… moving into… The element of water.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Perhaps a gentle sway if you're in your forward fold, moving your hips, shoulders.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Where you are.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And slowly… Coming back up to your Tadasana with no rush.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Extend our arms out.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Take one hand up, flip it over, alternating.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Arms, like you're moving… Through water laterally.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Gently bringing your arms up overhead, clasping one hand around one wrist, stretching to the side, maybe gazing down or up towards the sky.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inhale, rising up.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Switching sides. If you'd like, you can exhale and rinse everything out, release everything.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Lift your arms back up. Your shoulders are… Wanting a little break.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Hmm… Stretching through the other side.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Moving… like water.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Maybe a little rocking or flowing.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Feeling your connection with the waters of this earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inhale, rise, and exhale, arms come down, and perhaps now, just letting your arms Twist… Side to side…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You can take Warrior 1 if you're standing, or if you're seated, keeping…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): One foot forward, one foot back, and inhaling your arms up towards the sky.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Exhale, down and around, imagining that you're perhaps splashing some sacred waters.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): letting… The droplets refresh you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Water has the power to restore, to cleanse.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To heal, and of course, as part of all… life.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): One more circle on this side, and then exhaling, release, and switch the sides of your legs, so other leg forward, other leg back.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And then you can continue to circle your arms around, or if you'd like, you can circle them the other way. I like to always go back.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): allowing… Movement, the element of water, to move us through stagnation.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To allow for flow.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): One more circle here.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Beautiful.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Exhale, releasing, finding your Tadasana, or mountain.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Allowing the energy to integrate.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And we'll connect to the fire element.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): a few options here. So if you're seated or in a chair, you can stay in your chair, or…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Push into the earth with your legs, so you're hovering your body just slightly above your tear. If you're standing, you can come into…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Utkatasana.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Chair pose?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): wherever you are, and if you're on the ground, option to twist to one side. Wherever you are, we're gonna twist to one side. So, exhale, twisting. If you're in chair, maybe one hand is down on the inside of your thigh, other hand is up towards the sky.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Feeling the fire at your belly as you twist from your core.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inhale, coming back through center, and taking a moment to lengthen up, bring your hands down, maybe wiggling it out.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Back into… Utkatasana, your version of chair, or a… any twist.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You choose the intensity here.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm twisting to the other side.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Fire, as well, is our ancestor.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Lights, insights, power…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): One more breath here.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Allowing whatever needs to be, to be metabolized.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Exhale, back to Utkatasana, standing up.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And folding forward, releasing…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Once more, coming into… Tadasana.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And we'll connect to air, to our lungs.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Breath, and it can help to place your hand on your chest, or if it feels comfortable, whatever way, on the outside of your lungs and just the outside of your chest, kind of under your arms.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Breathe in a way that expands, right? And if this feels weird on your shoulders, you can just visualize it.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Expanding your chest out to the side.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And then imagining that you can place a hand in the center of your back, Or…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): A visualized hand, and breathing into…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): The space between your shoulder blades.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And then inhaling… You'd like bringing your arms out.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Feeling the kinship, the connection, the shared breath.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): The same breath that moves through your ancestors. Blood, land, spiritual.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Moves through you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And if you'd like, you can bring one hand in.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And one hand out, so you're alternating.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Bringing in… breath… Love, compassion.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And sending it out.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Inhale… Exhale.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Two more on each side.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): With your own breath guiding.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Now, moving in any way that your body needs. We'll take about a minute before we come.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Into seated, or stillness, or standing, or lying down stillness, but really take your time, give your body what it needs.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And if you're not sure what to do, one option might be clasping your leg and your arms and stretching.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Or making circles and wiggling your body.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Slowly and gently making your way towards your…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Stira Sukha, your steady and easeful seat.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Whether that's seated, or standing, or lying down.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm feeling the space holding you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): This element… That integrates all the elements.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We are layered beings.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Grief and liberation both can coexist.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In different layers.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So, taking some time now…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In meditation, to thank the Earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): the earth element… In you, and all around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To feel… The call of the earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To connect to the water element within you and all around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To feel the…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Rain, the tears… The call of the waters.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): The fire element…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Light… Insight… To feel… The brightness and insight.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Fire and light.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Within you, and all around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Air element…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In you and around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Feeling the call of the air.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Space element…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): A space in which… Birth and death.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): R1.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Feeling space within you and all around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Before you, behind you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Now imagine yourself standing at a threshold, Behind you… Is the future.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): In front of you are those ancestors who came before.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You decide what ancestor means.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): spiritual… Activists, teachers, ecosystems.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): qualities…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'll invite you to… Connect to one. You can do this again and invite another ancestor.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Connecting to one, perhaps one ecosystem, or if you prefer, it even could be an element, earth, water, fire, air, space.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We're going to take a few minutes to journal as that ancestor, to let them speak through you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): What grief.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Do they carry… What wisdom do they embody?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): What message do they have for you?
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): For us, through you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So in a moment, I'll invite you…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To keep this meditative quality and turn from Meditation to writing.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We'll take some silent time together to write.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm taking a minute more to finish your…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Vision…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Perhaps connecting to elemental time, time beyond time.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): image… symbol… form…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): We'll close this practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): By thanking your ancestor or element.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You can bow to them or offer them any gesture of honor and respect and care.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Knowing that in the cycle of yoga.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You've got Brahma, creation, Vishnu, preservation, Shiva, dissolution, ending, transformation.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And they're all necessary.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): for evolution.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So, letting go… I'm bowing… To your ancestor.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Perhaps placing something symbolic on the altar of your heart.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Close our practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And we have… The opportunity to chant, and if you would like, I wanted to drop the…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): term Laia. Laya is like absorption, right? There's a way of absorbing back into source.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You can just chat OM, or if you'd like.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Which is a chance to shiva, but Shiva is the embodiment of that absorption, that laya, or connection back.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Into Source.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so if you'd like, we'll chant O Nama Shivaya.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Nine times. Or you can just listen. Chant alone.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Oum Nama Shivai.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Omnamasivia.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Oum Nama Shivaiah Oum Nama Shiva.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Oum Nama Shiva.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Oum Namashivaya.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Nama… Shivia…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Deep breath in, and a full breath out.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Gentle bow to yourself.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): For this practice.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To the lineage from which yoga comes.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To the unnameable, unknowable.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Wisdom of your ancestors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): To all of our ancestors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Taking a moment to ground down, feel the earth, maybe moving, looking around you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Noticing form and color and shape.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And we have just a few minutes if anyone wants to drop any takeaways or insights in the chat or share out loud.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And I'll ask for your forgiveness. My voice is a little scratchy. I'm still getting better from a,
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): a cold that I had, so…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Welcoming your… your voice, your insights, your questions, your…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Ahas. And if you'd like, maybe just sharing, you don't have to, but if you'd like to drop in the chat.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Which ancestors you connected to.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Lynn, were you gonna say something? I thought I saw your hand, but maybe you were just moving.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Hmm… My mentor… I connected to water…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): My grandmother… Earth.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Thank you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): How is that practice? Any… and any requests for the next,
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Next office hours, or pilgrimage and puja is anything that's on your mind or heart.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): My aunt, who passed about a year ago.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Thank you, yeah, honoring your aunt.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Connected with water, and my grandpa, who recently transitioned, today was exactly what needed. Thank you. Yeah.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Yeah.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): I'm just feeling ourselves being together. It's like a soft, quiet time. I know we need so much care. So remembering that, right? When you care for yourself, even these micro-moments of rest, of ease, like the practice we just did, about half an hour of practice, 40 minutes.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): an hour.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And even just 5 minutes, 3 minutes, you're caring for the universe as you care for yourself. You're caring for your ancestors, all the ancestors.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And so, inviting you to take that out with you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): And… I feel our gentle, kind of…
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): Calm space, but if anyone would like to unmute and say goodbye, or speak any words into the space.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): are open, and… As we close, thank you so much.
Teddi: Thank you.
Jena McCutchen: Thank you.
Lynn Shuck (she/her): Thank you, Susanna.
Katherine Sorensen: Thank you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): So welcome.
Karen O'Lone: Thank you.
Susanna Barkataki (She/They): You're welcome.