Embracing Our Exiles
Practicing Wholeness Under Forces of Fragmentation
First . . . a big welcome to all new subscribers! It has been a while since I’ve integrated all the various lists. So, if you are newly receiving this, I am truly grateful for the invitation to your inbox and this connection between us. <3
There is a Korean word that I think about often which we do not have an equivalent for in the English language; jeong 정.
We have no word like jeong, because it specifically refers to a core cultural concept of interconnection. Its meaning speaks to a collective bond that goes beyond individual love and friendship. It encompasses a communal sense of mutual care and responsibility for others, even strangers. Jeong is a broad affection and sense of empathy and loyalty that inspires relational action in big and small ways. It weaves all Korean people together across time, place, and differences.
What I’ve always thought of as collective belonging, I’ve recently realized, is in essence jeong.
How this ideological orientation stayed with me across time, oceans, cultures and language is a poignant example of how wholeness can prevail against forces of fragmentation. It has helped me better understand my deeply rooted beliefs about belonging in a very unique and embodied way.
Embracing our infinite multitudes, even our exiles — especially those, helps us practice belonging as confluence and integration. As a somatic IFS facilitator I see how it is always our exiles, the parts of us we struggle with the most, that need our greatest care, compassion, safety and witnessing. Practicing our own wholeness helps us reach for a kind of defragmented, collective belonging that feels to me like jeong, both within us and between us.
Let’s practice together.
In Our Community Practice Portal
Community Care Seed Swap - sign up now (for free members too!)
Our First Yang Fire Horse checkpoint: practicing wholeness, there is no yang without yin. . . no fire without water. . . (get your Year of the Yang Fire Horse zine and guide for FREE)
ongoing Radicel Ritual and 5 Bodies practices to use with your RR Planner (or on your own)
Collective Resources
AANHPI Art Exhibition hosted by Lucky Knot Arts and Punto Urban Art Museum in Salem MA — my pieces about adoption and the search for belonging. Opening reception 4/18 at 6pm
the pending Supreme Court case challenging Birthright Citizenship is currently being decided — add your name to the petition to protect the 14th Amendment here
Technologies of Relation exhibit at the Mass MOCA
true healing prescribed by our former Surgeon General
a sweet and joyful art as love machine
Hot Flashes open mic on menopause at Indigo Whimsy Studio in Tewksbury MA
FREE community care focused zine rack at Brookline Booksmith - find copies of my 5 Bodies Framework for Collective Belonging zine (or grab it online here)
how to help care for your immigrant friend from a war or disaster effected area, and additional helpful downloadable tools
Making Sunshine creative retreat for AAPI and gender expansive women in Salem MA this June
Collage Craft Night at the Lucy Parsons Center on 4/19
more creating less consuming (below) by Lebanese artist Anisa Makhoul, follow and support
