Roots + Lineages

i come from whispering witches and cavalry for hire,

slow-growing forests, linden berries, broken fiddles and highland cattle,

i’m from those who fled and also those who conquered,

cigars and crochet, Aripiprazole and nesting dolls.

i’m from Comfort over Truth,

born again into hate costumed as compassion,

speaking in tongues and honest hallelujah.

i’m from Degarmo & Key and Ray Bolz-in-the-closet.

i’m from Cocoa Puffs and microwaved pierogies,

mandatory dodge ball, Barbie weddings, side hugs, and biting my tongue til it bleeds.

i’m from paintings on the piano and “no right or wrong, play what you see”,

kick-ball-change, No Day But Today, No One Is Alone,

and why yes he did look at him that way.

i’m from Lou and Marsha, fairies and faggots,

dungeons and gardens and the holy piers,

Moon Choir and Singing For Our Lives and all the ways we hold each other.

i’m from ocean-wide whale song collaboration and stars beyond stars,

and i’m from our collective breath, temporary and infinite.

First and foremost, I am rooted in movements for justice and liberation which center the leadership of disabled, queer, trans people of color. I am who I am because of the communities, the stories, the individuals with whom I am interconnected, and the wisdom of Black Feminists has shaped me in especially profound ways (the Combahee River Collective, Audre Lorde, Ruby Sales, Marsha P. Johnson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, adrienne maree brown, bell hooks, and beyond). I am in a lifelong process of learning and action with transformative financial solidarity as well as reparations practices, and I understand this to be a vital part of liberation work and at the same time merely a drop in the ocean of possible right relationship. If you have specific questions about the ways I am currently honoring all that has shaped me, please feel free to ask.

The many-gendered mothers of my heart* (some of whom i am blessed to know personally, some of whose words and actions shape me from a wider circle) include:

Don Leonard, Jr. (along with Nancy and Don Sr.) ran the community theater that was my Home from ages 5-12. I am who I am today largely because of the family and magic we created together.

Alicia Lancaster, Fran Onley, and Nancy Botti, my childhood music teachers, nurtured my virtuosity and encouraged my weirdness. 

Linda Rodenburg (middle school math) and Spiro Bolos (high school U.S. History), were the first to invite me into how to think, not merely what to think.

I am stronger and braver and more fabulous in every way because of my Queer and Trans beloveds and communities who continually love me into being.

adrienne maree brown (emergent strategies) and Ruby Sales (public theologies) are the most foundational shapers of my current worldview.

Everybody at Occupy Wall Street set me on the path of aligning my actions with my words in the love-fight for collective liberation and living into the world I would like to inhabit, with wild imperfection as the only honest way.

My understanding of the ways I am not separate from anything else and how the elements flow within me and beyond me is rooted in Slavic and Celtic Cosmology (my bloodlines are mostly Slavic and Celtic). 

Lakota/Dakota/Nakota elders at Standing Rock woke me up to how prayer is inseparable from action.

And Lenape land is the land with which has shaped me the most. I am grateful that the Manna Hatta Fund as one way of moving toward right relationship.

Everybody at Alt*Div had a profound impact on me beyond what I could ever put into words, but those relationships were my primary grounding in braver spaces and laid the foundations of who I am as a community minister.

Rev. Alba Onofrio and everybody at Soulforce opened me to healing from the spiritual violence I experienced and to honoring the massive resounding holy hallelujah  of Queer and Trans pleasure, as well as introducing me to how to sabotage Christian Supremacy while still loving Jesus.

The legacies of Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera and Miss Major keep me grounded in community abundance and thriving-beyond-surviving.

Jonah Welch and Lou Sullivan taught me that non-binary-ness and transfaggotry are not merely individual identities to be asserted, but collective lineages to be honored.

Andy Izenson woke me up to what is possible in Queer ritual, including the one through which I received my name. 

The wisdom of Rev. angel Kyodo Williams and Lama Rod Owens ground me in honoring anger and grounding in justice-rooted spiritual practice. 

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Mia Mingus got me even more fired up about collective care and disability justice and the ways that centering access is paramount (I am on a lifelong learning edge of honoring that more fully). 

Much of what I know about trauma-informed communication, I learned from the perspectives of Meenadchi.

Because of Nehemiah Luckett and Zhailon Levingston (and so many others, but especially N + Z!), I know in my bones that collaboration can be co-liberation. 

Brittany Ramos de Barros, Una Osato, Brown Radical Ass Burlesque, and About Face make it both joyful and inevitable to center bodies and pleasure as we compost empire and all other systems of dominance.

My brilliant therapist Jennifer Jones, along with teachers at TGNC meditation retreats have taught me how to be softer to my own heart.

Sandra Kim, Sheena Wadhawan, Portia Beed, and Aaron Johnson have supported me greatly in my lifelong journey of healing from internalized whiteness and grounding in the work that is mine to do towards dismantling White Supremacy.

My beloved dog Jack (part terrier, part dragon) keeps me grounded in curiosity and love above all.

This list, like me, is imperfect and in process! 

I also invite you to read my prayer for transformation.