Finding Your People
A solstice ritual I led last evening at Crowded Table Club’s midsummer gathering. You can see me on the far left, I’m the one with horns and a piece of paper in my hand
This one’s a bit long and there’s some swearing
I encourage reading it in 2 bites if that’s your thing
It’s been a wild early summer for me, full of significant changes. The material stuff has stayed the same: same house, same work, same partner and friendships and pasta I like to make and clothes in my closet.
But you know those seasons when everything inside you is swirling and changing while everything outwardly looks relatively unchanging? I’m having one of those.
It’s all positive: I am taking more responsibility for myself in relationships. I am doing trauma therapy and healing my brain from PTSD. I am shifting all the stressful and pressure-filled elements of my work into intuitive choices.
I couldn’t do this without it being high solstice season, with the influx of energy and light that brings. Happy belated solstice! It was on June 21, at 4:24am eastern time.
Have you noticed your body and mind feeling different this season, as well as the world around you? Things are typically BIG and FULL at the summer solstice, the height of light and growth in the northern hemisphere. This year in particular, I’ve noticed the Fullness. As soon as I handle one thing, the universe sends me another, with the question, “Can you catch this too?”
And they are HARD things! Holding boundaries. Not letting my brain succumb to flashbacks when I hit a trauma trigger. Being loving to myself when I backslide.
(There’s an important difference between the things the universe throws at me, and the things I throw at myself. The ones that come from me feel tight, bad, and stressful. I’d have to force myself through them. The ones that come from the universe feel challenging, but exhilarating, laden with the question, “Can you become the version of yourself who is strong enough to respond to this with integrity?”)
All this change has led to something really beautiful, that I want to put at the center of everything that’s on my plate right now, like those purple orchids you sometimes get at a restaurant, but stuck right in the middle instead of on the side.
This spring, a friend and coach recommended that while I transform how I work in my business, I start trying to spend time with people who support and light up my fullest self, the people who love what I do and have similar vibes and values. I’ve also been looking for people who are actively working on themselves, who are learning about themselves and the world with passion, curiosity, and depth.
Me leading a workshop on journaling for clarity at Clapping Hands Farm’s Women’s Camp
Clapping Hands Farm
This spring, after hearing about it from a new friend, I immediately signed up for Women’s Camp at Clapping Hands Farm in Pittsboro, NC. I know CH did kids camps, which are also amazing, but I was especially pumped to hear about Women’s Camp as I am not a child and do not yet have one. If you identify as a woman, trans, non-binary, gender-fluid, or gender-creative, this camp is for you. Louise, the founder of Clapping Hands Farm, writes:
“Women's Camp is about creativity, relaxation, and sisterhood in equal measure. We want to create, stretch, get messy, sing, move, reflect, play, rest, try new things, listen, share, and invite you to bring home a new commitment to yourself and the things that make you happy.”
All this happened for me!
To convince you to come, I’ll tell you specifically what I did there: for 4 days, I moved my body in qigong, yoga, salsa dance, and bounce dance classes; I learned which plants that commonly grow in yards are edible, and then ate them; I did creative writing with the guidance of kind writing teachers.
I also spent a lot of time talking with others about how they were, and being asked how I was. I cried in a small group of loving people who took care of me as I mourned something. I laid alone in a field and watched the trees until my system felt free and imaginative. I sat in a hoop house and did handicrafts while chatting with other people doing handicrafts.
I also led a workshop on journaling for clarity and an earth ritual / song circle, and I sang a ballad at the impromptu end-of-camp talent share.
Louise is really special. She is attuned to everyone throughout the week, and creates each new camp day based on what people have asked for and what they want to offer. She creates a space for us to learn to take care of each other BY sharing our gifts. Louise’s support team makes her vision possible. This is the system of resources and support that I dream about for the world. I’m finding those people who have simliar vibes and values, in spades.
The other campers I met were loving to me. They taught me how to mend clothes and massage my own lymphatic system and they smiled at me in the most genuine, open way. Women’s camp was the most collaboratively creative, caring and supportive group time I have yet experienced, and it came out of the chemistry of everyone being together.
You bet your ass I’ll be back there next year.
Me leading the solstice ritual, closer up
Midsummer with Crowded Table Club
Hello to all my new friends from last night who signed up for my email list! ♡♡♡
Last night I had the absolute fucking pleasure of leading a summer solstice ritual for an event hosted by my good friend Lucy, whose Crowded Table Club creates fun and deep and playful spaces for women and femmes to make new friends. Lucy caters especially to those who have felt like outsiders at some point in their lives, and creates magic portals for us all to feel like insiders together.
Last night, we felt like insiders while wearing amazing midsummer outfits. There were so many wonderful parts of the night: getting my face glittered, being told I have “great blowout hair” - I have mostly been a feral curly hair babe but now I really want to try a blowout - making a beautiful bracelet.
Two parts of the nights were the highlights for me:
First, meeting people. I’ve discovered that my best move at big events is to focus on having 1-1 deep dive conversations with a few people, rather than trying to meet everyone. I end up meeting SO many cool people anyway, and this is how I thrive.
CTC is the perfect place for me to find people who will get real with me in about 3 seconds flat, which is my favorite thing. I talked with people about death, stress, aging, parenting, and childhood ostracization. And behind every one of these topics was the running theme of “I am learning how to love myself and others.”
Second, the ritual. WOW I love leading a ritual, especially one that looks like a scene from Midsommar but more multiracial and less traumatizing. We felt our feet on the earth, I made a joke about hearing my own deep breathing through the microphone, we reflected on this moment in the wheel of the year, what’s already come and what’s to come, and what we want to continue to grow and what we want to let go. Then we collectively felt the energy of what we want to grow, and raised it up through our bodies. Let me tell you, feeling a group of 50 people do that at the same time is pow-er-ful.
If you are looking to make friends in the Raleigh area, Crowded Table Club is going to make that happen for you 100 times more than you dared hope for.
Kesha’s Raleigh stop of her Freedom Tour
The Kesha Concert
Lastly and shortestly, I went to a Kesha Concert. That woman has been through the wringer, and she put on a badass, powerful show built around themes of sovereignty, healing, and being whoever the fuck you are. She created an intentional space at the start, asking her “animals” (yes, animal mommy 😭) to be aware of and loving to their bodies and the bodies of those around them. This concert was one of the places I have felt the most safe dancing and partying in a VERY long time. I wore bike shorts because I worried I’d feel unsafe in my true Booty Shorts, but goddamn I wish I’d worn those booty shorts. Next time!
The audience was other femme, queer, and weird millenials, along with a LOT of high schoolers, who apparently fucking love Kesha. I learned that Kesha collects human teeth gifted to her by fans, which is the weirdest and sweetest thing and it made me love her as much as those high schoolers do.
I danced and drank a gigantic White Claw (my hot weather party drink of choice) and cried when Kesha sang about freeing herself. I want to be free and dance too.
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These are three examples of places where I found big groups of people who openly loved and celebrated what I am about while I did the same right back.
THIS is what “networking” should mean.
THIS is how I want to grow my work and my life.
THIS is the organic and intuitive shiz I am courting right now.
All right.
Phew.
That was a lot to channel into a post.
I’m going to go lie down with my cat.
I’m sending you lots of summer love,
Isabel
The field where I lay and cleared my energy and mind at Clapping Hands Farm
My lewk before heading out to the ritual last night
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