The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope

Radical Rest and Liberated Imagination with Alexx Temeña and Zenaida Peterson

• Pendle Hill • Season 5 • Episode 5

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Dwight Dunston speaks with Alexx Temeña, a somatic minister, ceremonial artist, and experiential educator, about the transformative power of rest and embodied practices in world-building. Alexx shares insights from her work with the School of Embodied Praxis and her interactive public sculpture, House of Kapwa, which honors Rest, ecological grief, and Filipino indigenous wisdom. Alexx explores how creating rituals and new frameworks can disrupt grind culture and cultivate a sense of safety, connection, and liberation.

Later, Quaker poet and activist Zenaida Peterson offers three evocative poems that imagine liberated futures. Zenaida reflects on the power of imagination and creativity to envision new systems rooted in justice, equity, and community. Their work reminds us that dreaming is essential to building the world we long for. Zenaida has competed and coached at national slam poetry competitions, including the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational and the National Poetry Slam, often placing in the top 10. ​Zinaida ​founded ​the ​feminine ​empowerment ​movement ​Slam, ​also ​known ​as ​Femmes. They have ​been ​published ​by ​Pizza ​Pie ​Press ​and ​Button ​Poetry, ​with ​their ​first ​full-length ​collection ​forthcoming ​from ​Game ​Over ​Books.

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The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

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alexx temeña:

I have been driven by my questions, and I let my my deepest questions drive me

Zenaida Peterson:

If we don't have the imagination to know what we're looking for, what we want in our lives, what we're seeking, what we're moving towards, we won't know what direction to move in. That feels so dangerous to me.

Dwight Dunston:

You're listening to The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, a Pendle Hill podcast where Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world growing through the cracks of our broken systems. I'm your host, Dwight Dunstan. For season five, we're focusing our attention on world building. It is easy to point out all that is wrong today, but what is the world we long to see and inhabit? What models from the past inspire us as we consider new ways of organizing society in the future? What creative visions of community motivate us to co create future systems filled with values of cooperation, reciprocity and love, and how can we begin to live in that new reality right now? On today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome two guests. Later in the episode, you'll hear three poems from Zenaida Peterson, a Quaker poet and seeker who works as the Boston coordinator and director of equity and empowerment for Quaker Voluntary Service. But first I chat with alexx temeña, a somatic minister, ceremonial artist and experiential educator. Alexx leads the school of embodied praxis, a groundbreaking project that envisions education beyond traditional structures. Her recent work, House of Kapwa is a public sculpture in Chicago that offers a space for rest, ecological reflection and honoring Filipino indigenous wisdom. Alexx also studies under post activist philosopher Bayo Akomolafe and the apprenticeship for dancing with mountains.

alexx temeña:

Duns, you can call me X, like you do, but my full name is alexx tameña. I know, should we warm up our voices?

Dwight Dunston:

Oh, yeah. How would you like to warm up your voice? Slash our voice.

alexx temeña:

I love to warm up my voice. Sometimes, what I'll do, actually, and I didn't get to do it for this time, is, I say different lessons I've learned from the past year in between sips of warm water.

Dwight Dunston:

Oh wow, great. Let me get my water. Hold on.

alexx temeña:

It's a practice for me to remember who I am what I'm learning. So that's where that ritual comes from.

Dwight Dunston:

And so to open this up to our listeners, we invite you to grab a glass of some warm water, keep it close and to share sips with us in between the lessons that we are bringing to this episode for you to practice. If there's a lesson you learned, a piece of wisdom you've gained this year, we invite you to share that in this moment, and we invite you to take a sip of your warm water to acknowledge that lesson. And we'll do the same. Oh, you want to model?

alexx temeña:

Okay, yeah, I'll model. So. So I take my my warm cup, and I say grief transformed me.

Dwight Dunston:

Slowing down is always better than speeding up.

alexx temeña:

I'm worthy to be heard, nurtured and protected.

Dwight Dunston:

I have something to say through my art, and my art has something to say through me.

alexx temeña:

I'm a drink to that too. I can only rest and surrender as deep as I feel safe.

Dwight Dunston:

I am not alone, no matter how much my distress wants me to believe that's true.

alexx temeña:

I get to choose what's right for my nervous system.

Dwight Dunston:

Family gets to be my anchor. Hmm. Maybe one more.

alexx temeña:

I can choose a season of simplicity and stability.

Dwight Dunston:

I always have something to learn. Thank you,X.

alexx temeña:

Thank you Duns.

Dwight Dunston:

For bringing that to our podcast. One of the lessons I've been learning this year, as I named during our water sipping ritual, was to move slow. So I want to jump right to the, some juicy questions, but I want to slow down and just ask you. X, what is it like being you today?

alexx temeña:

Well, I had a really slow morning in preparation for this, but also, as I'm coming down from a really full two weeks. And so what it's like being me today is I've gotten like a 40 minute yoga nidra session in me already this morning, which is, yoga nidra is a practice of really deep rest. Actually, it's like you turn your your body goes to sleep, and your mind goes to sleep, and only awareness remains. And so it's just this deep recovery space that makes me feel really connected to spirit and to the Beyond. That's in my body as I'm joining you today.

Dwight Dunston:

I'm curious how long that's been a practice that you've been able to tap into and, yeah, invite in, in the ways maybe you've you've seen that practice evolve and grow as you've evolved and grown.

alexx temeña:

Yeah, so in 2020, you know, big, transformative year for lots of people, and for me, it looked like going into a residency after quitting a job. I was a curriculum designer around purpose and meaning, and yet I felt really disconnected from my own purpose and meaning. And so I went into this residency thinking I would make up for all the time lost of not making the art I wanted to make. And yet, my host, my dear friend, Matt Garza, reminded me that my process could be rest, and it could it could be led through the process of rest and emerge out of that. And what happened is, in those six weeks, it became the core inquiry for me, how do I deepen the quality of my rest? What is the skill of that? I was really inspired by Trisha Hersey, the nap ministry, the nap Bishop, around the importance of it and the radical quality that rest can be. And I was curious about, what does that physically mean for my body? What is the skill and what is the what are the rituals needed? What's the safety needed in order for me to really sink into that? And it became this year long, a little bit more than a year long sabbatical of practicing that every day, like seeing that this is a discipline of not having any inputs, no music, no reading, no social interaction until noon every day. That shifted a bit as the year went on. But while I was in my residency for sure, in those six weeks at the house of glitter in Providence, Rhode Island, there was this diligence. From the time I wake up until noon I was I was just really with my self. I would joke that it's like my meetings with God. It's like it was my time for for that to actually, you know, as questioning the presence, or I had a lot of questions about who God was, who God is what kind of relationship I could have with the divine. And so in that time was that exploration, while also physically learning how to systematically relax parts of my body so that I can dive deep into a surrendered place and let the earth hold me and let the divine hold me and to bring myself into rapport with myself again after I had been so disconnected from my own needs and my sense of purpose and connectedness to my creativity. Yoga nidra actually came after that, where I was discovering this way to work with my body and to allow myself to receive the force of gravity and actually let myself be held, which was quite a practice. I realized how hard it is actually for me to fully relax. And then I learned about yoga nidra, after that, which is an ancient tradition of this work. It's fascinating to find my own way to it. And then, and then, actually, you know, get trained in how people can facilitate these kinds of meditative experiences.

Dwight Dunston:

Just thinking back to your younger self, X, I'm wondering if there's something from your childhood that you hope endures into the future.

alexx temeña:

Oh man, the first thing that comes to mind is actually my earliest childhood memory. Have I told you this already Duns?

Dwight Dunston:

I don't think so.

alexx temeña:

So I was in the Philippines. I went to like kindergarten twice because my aunt ran the place. I was bored at kindergarten. I think we were coloring something I had done the year before because I had already, it was my second time around

Dwight Dunston:

Twice as nice. It was already twice as nice, that coloring.

alexx temeña:

Right! And I remember like staring out like, not unlike what I was just doing. I was staring out asking myself, How do we know if we're in a dream or not in a dream? How do I know if this is real or not real? It sticks with me, because I feel so driven by my deepest questions. Often people, they find it really like my work or or like how I've lived my life, kind of professionally and creatively, like feels a little like illegible to people, because it's It feels like I've wandered and and I have all these creative projects moving. I have been driven by my questions, and I let my my deepest questions drive me. Feels like it was seeded a long, long time ago with those questions I was asking in kindergarten. Yeah, questions around, how do we know it's real and not real? And that really connected me to neuroscience and those questions, but then also like meaning and purpose and belonging and and it's just evolved since then. Can I share a more playful trickster one though? I mean, it's not trickster.

Dwight Dunston:

Oh, please, please.

alexx temeña:

The other one is dancing. So much of my somatic vocabulary and leaning has come from being a dancer really early on with Filipino folk dance with my family, and then studying dance in contemporary forms on my own, it has felt like a through line through everything, even though it's never been the center thing that I do. I think of danc as breathing and not like I'm a dancer.

Dwight Dunston:

Yeah, I love both of those images and memories and practices from your childhood. Feels like it relates to how you describe yourself today. You know dancing as this way that you take in the world around you, as this way that you express the soma, right, really being in your body through dance as a way to be with, and you describe yourself as a somatic minister. From what you just described, I'm like, you've been ministering somatically, it sounds like for a very long time. Yeah. I'm just curious of what the title of or the descriptor of somatic minister means to you?

alexx temeña:

Ooh, this is so good. Thanks for this question. The title somatic minister actually came from a kind of impromptu comment from Reverend David Black at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. We were actually at a book reading, and we had been in this book reading for maybe an hour or so. The author wanted to offer like a Q and A session, but beforehand, Reverend Black, I call him PB, Pastor Black, he interrupted, and he said, Before we move on to the next section, let's I'd like to invite alexx to offer somatic practice for us. She's our resident somatic minister. That really shifted something for me, because I didn't have the language for it. The conversations that we were having were a lot about my frustration that the body was not part of my experiences at church growing up. I was raised Catholic, didn't really go to church much, I was more culturally Catholic. But I think one of the reasons is I just felt like the these places were so disconnected from body and feeling, and so when I was growing a relationship with the First Presbyterian Church as an artist, that was one of the things I was really interested in. How could I help create more experiences that were more embodied? Because that's how I relate to the divine. That's how I relate to the beyond into the Ancient One. Is to be able to feel. It's just such an important sense to me, my somatic sense is just feels like so much more heightened than other senses. That's where I feel like that I have a sensitivity to when I feel like I'm in relationship with something outside of myself. And so I think somatic ministry is about, from a practical level, at the First Church of Chicago, I helped develop alongside PB, Pastor Black, I developed a hand washing ritual. It was like actually a sacrament that we developed together at the Church of hand washing as a way of reminding ourselves to receive the grace of God Hand washing as a way to connect us to touch and to the vulnerability of touch, it really is like an opening to let ourselves be washed. It's a really powerful practice, actually, to be the one hand washing, because there's just this intimacy of pouring warm water on someone's hands, over someone's hands, wiping and drying, and then applying oil to their skin. And it's such a beautiful practice of connection in a world with so much disconnection, and people are really touch starved, and people are intimacy starved, especially after the height of the pandemic and the pandemic that looms over us still this like craving to be held and for that kind of connection. Did I answer your question?

Dwight Dunston:

Yeah, and especially that last piece, when I think about the idea of intimacy, being known by another, being witnessed or accompanied in an experience to feel a sense of belonging, which necessarily requires a mirroring back to you, of your goodness, your humanity, your worthiness. There's something in your somatic ministry, as I heard it is about, yeah, helping people see the divine in them through the body, through physical experiences. So this idea of hand washing, washing someone else's hands, I can imagine having done a foot washing ritual with Bayo Akomolafe, who I know you've connected with and have done work with. And, yeah, he led it at, let us at Kirkridge, at a retreat back in March of 2024, yeah, it was intimate. There was a lot of like, No, don't touch my feet, you know. There's a lot of like, feelings and emotions, you know. And there was some part of me that didn't feel like worthy of it. When I really get down to the core of like, what was I repulsed by? Or like, what was I deeply uncomfortable with? It was around the body, you know, the body as untasteful or something distasteful. There was something so liberating, and it's still that practice. I'm still integrating all of what it meant, but it was something liberating and really radical to have that experience of my feet being washed by another. It's biblical, and perhaps other sacred texts also have this practice. But I hear in your somatic ministry, something about like it's in the intimate, it's in the physical that we recognize something about our divineness. In our conversations. X, you know, we cipher, we rap about a lot of different ideas. And I also know that you have done public artworks and public installations your House of Kapwa work in Chicago. It might not have had that physical touch as the the hand washing, but there is something somatic about that project.

alexx temeña:

Yeah, it's so funny to feel like in this conversation so far, we've centered, like, my experiences, like at church and God. And I don't know where that's coming from, because so much of I think somatic ministry is actually happening for me outside of that space. Can we jump in with, like, talking about the somatics in your work? I mean, it's so somatic to clown. I mean, like, isn't it only somatic?

Dwight Dunston:

Our teacher Donna Oblongata, talks about the way the brain and all its powerfulness and its ability to do so much and stuff that's important to the entire body. And clowning is actually the slowest part of the body. The School of Clown that she teaches from, Pachinko, focuses on and turns the attention of clown practitioners onto the body and really getting into the body. Yeah, she says pretty early on that the clowning that we do is not a performance workshop. It's not about making sure you get on stage and get in touch with with every character you might play or like, get ready for the bright lights. She says, it's a creativity workshop. The most richest depth-full creativity doesn't live up here in the brain. I'm pointing at the brain to our listeners, but lives here in the body. I'm doing sort of this wave motion to my body, and it connects so much to what you have been sharing about somatic ministry. And, yeah, the body as a source of deep wisdom, you know, is a source of joy and pleasure and trauma. Our body has a place of rest, you know, our bodies knowing how to rest. I can nerd out about clowning all the time

alexx temeña:

Duns you're, I think it is a form of somatic ministry, you know, and and I feel like I'm still trying to understand that I'm always in in questioning of, like, what else does this mean? Because this the somatic ministry, feels like it was a gift given to me, not something I, you know, I did not name for myself. And so it just feels like, oh you're helping me understand what this is more and more. And what you said reminded me of this line in this work I put together that was part of my healing journey around my grandmother's passing, where I wrote, We whisper tune our bodies to hear you. We whisper tune our bodies to hear you. Somatic ministry might also be about helping people tune into a sensitivity where then the somatics can be a way of knowing for somebody for whom the intellect or the mind is their predominant way of knowing. And so how can I support that opening to other intelligences through the body for people, because I've learned so much through that. I've actually found that I've had to create structures for people to really understand, you know, how to then move from the mind to the heart to the body of what this actually means. Trisha Hersey does this so well, where she's, like, really trying to help us understand the gravity and the importance and the liberation practice that it really is. And then there's like, this level of well, how do we do that, given that it's so hard for us to access that in our bodies. Can we at least understand a framework for how we can do this better? How can we deepen the quality of our rest, our ability to surrender, our ability to receive, our ability to surrender to our goodness? We are good, even in our stillness. I found myself needing my own framework to understand that. I need to feel safe to do that, and we are just not safe. We're just not. And so how do I actually co regulate to have the imprint of safety, even if it's an illusion and it's ephemeral, of what safety can look like in the current state of the world that we're in, it's hard to feel safe, you know, how do we build that safety? How do we like move what's in our bodies that's keeping us from resting? There's actually all these steps that the School of Embodied Praxis has laid out. I've gotten questions from people like For something that is so about relaxation, why is there so much diligence or structure or, you know? And I was like, well, well, we're working against a lot, and if we're working against a lot, we need new structures and new frameworks. You know, we need to build a different world. How can the ceremony hold us in rest so that we can embody something different when our status quo is actually a grind culture? And in capitalism, it's like those are, these are the ways that we're actually like functioning. And so we have to actually, like, create a space where the rules are really different and the structure is really different in order for us to really embody a new way of being.

Dwight Dunston:

I want to pull in that thread of world building, because that's what our whole season is about. So curious, just even when you hear the word world building, what comes to mind for you, what's the world that you're trying to build and with whom? To rest? And getting that question of, you know, why we gotta do so many steps to rest? And you're like, you know how many steps you're getting to unrest? You know, by our society, by capitalism, by environmental degradation, around the various forms of oppression, you know, the things that are conditioning you not to rest? You know, I really feel like, wow, we need to rewire. When you hear world building, what comes to mind?

alexx temeña:

Duns, you just put that into words better than I could. Thank you for saying that. Like that, that really is what I yeah. That's the energy that was also bringing with that. It's like we're up against so much. And so it's like when we create worlds, you know and for me, it's like, okay, rituals, retreats, installations, it's like we're trying to create something where you can exist under a different operational set of guidelines. Right? When I was trying to help people understand the School of Embodied Praxis and why I had to be so diligent about courses around called, like the Principles of Divine Intuition, or Intro to Rest, one of my assignments for myself was like, Well, what are we up against? And so I created this transcript of courses for the School of Survival in a disembodied world. For many of us, we've had to take on these courses. We've had to enroll in this. All right, so let's see how many of these courses you took with me. I was a TA in the Department of Codependency, Advanced Caretaking and People Pleasing, Mastering and Upholding Scarcity Mindset, the Art and Practice of Shame, and then Foundations of Emotional Numbing. Additional courses: Erasing Childlike Wonder, Play and Pleasure, Reinforcing Shame: Sexuality, Self and Sensitivity, Defining Self Worth: Productivity and Popularity. This is the two, two of the following three courses, Helping Those Who Don't Need Helping, Mothering Those Who Don't Meed Mothering, and Earning Love by Doing Good. Code Switching, Advanced Fluency and Strategies, and Constant Apology for the degree of the master of disembodied.

Dwight Dunston:

I got chills on many of those. Wow. Right. As a closing question, it's sort of twofold. One, I want to just leave it open for any last things you want to share. The other question is, just, what have you been grieving lately? Where has your love been directed towards in these times?

alexx temeña:

Yeah, I mean, even in my reaction to the question is, yeah, I'm really finding that there are limits to intimacy for me because of fear and I'm grieving that of all the ways that like I block intimacy out of fear and out of not really believing I'm worthy to be seen and respected and held. And my sensitivity, in my depth of feeling, there's a grief in that of missed opportunities because of that. Yeah, I haven't honored my sensitivity and in that way, like I was in Chicago for three years, and I knew there's something not quite right about that. Yet even though there were so many beautiful things and so many beautiful relationships, it was, it was really difficult for me, and it just took me so long to acknowledge that, because I I'm not even tuned in with myself enough to honor what I need. And so there's a grief in that too, that I'm experiencing, and the praise on the other side of like I'm I'm a different person now. I honor myself differently. Like I said in the lessons part is like, oh, I can make different choices because I honor that part of myself. Love. Where am I directing love? Yeah, where am I directing love? Man, I am so in love with the land here. I'm in Grass Valley, California, Nevada City area close to the Yuba River, on the ancestral lands of the Nisenan people. I'm tuning into a different kind of listening to the rivers and the mountains and the trees. I really feel like the Yuba River and I are getting really close, and something's happening there. For the first time, I'm in a place, not just because of the people, but because the land is here. And I want to be in relationship to the land. I want to be in relationship to her. That's a really different feeling than I'm going this place because of a school or an opportunity, and so there's just so much love there to be committed to a place because of my relationship to the land itself. Everything else will work itself out. That's the hope and prayer. I'm new here. So listeners, if you're here, let me know. Let's listen to the land together.

Dwight Dunston:

If you got grief, if you could feel the grief, I know you could feel the love you just you just gave me that equation.

alexx temeña:

Thank you, Duns. Can I share one thing about you? I want to re gift a question that you gifted to me. I want to re gift that to our listeners, which is the first time, yes the first time we ciphered you asked me, What part of your sacredness do you find hardest to accept? What part of your sacredness do you find hardest to accept? And that is a question that walks with me everywhere. And I mean, I'm feeling a sense of, you know, a milestone or or maybe a completion of a cycle around that question, when I said that I'm tuning into my sensitivity and tending to it in a different way, seeing it as a gift, seeing my ability to love so hugely immensely as as something that's a gift and not a burden or too much. So I just, I want to gift that to those who are listening to be with that question, not even to think about it, but maybe let it land somewhere in the body and see what that part of your body says. Thank you, Duns!

Dwight Dunston:

Thank you, X! Thank you, X, for your wisdom and creativity. Your work invites us to think deeply about how we embody hope and connection. To learn more about alexx and her projects, visit alexxtemena.com that's alexxtemenia.com I will have this link in our show notes. Now we turn to our second guest, Zenaida Peterson, whose poetry offers a window into a liberated, imaginative future. Zenaida Peterson is a passionate advocate for equity and empowerment, and serves as the Boston Coordinator for Quaker Voluntary Service. They are a poet who has competed and coached at national slam poetry competitions, including the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational and the National Poetry Slam often placing in the top 10. As a Quaker and seeker Zenaida brings a unique blend of faith, artistry and activism to every space they inhabit. Their work challenges us to imagine a more just and compassionate future. I'm honored to share their voice and poetry with you. Zenaida, welcome to The Seed. You've prepared three poems for today's episode. Can you tell us about the first piece and how it connects to the theme of world building?

Zenaida Peterson:

My co worker, Rai and I were working with our fellows, and I got a huge piece of butcher paper and had our fellows draw what a liberated town looks like, like, what exists? Do we have cars or we, do we travel by boat? Do we travel on horseback? Like every detail you know, is there a school? Where is it? How do people get food? What is the system of currency? Is there money? And we finger painted this like huge piece of butcher paper, because we got so deep in it. Sometimes I have to remind myself, like, Oh, that's not quite real yet. Dwight, you are co leading Quakers Collaborating to Uproot Racism with Lisa Graustein. And when we were doing brainstorming, Lisa pulled out a bag of toys, her kids' toys. Pull out the beads or the little Lego man talk about what our liberated Quaker future looks like. In my writing, I'm a poet. I love pulling snapshots of what a day looks like in my liberated future. I think our culture is in an imagination deficit. It's easy for us to point to what's wrong, what's not going well, what feels bad. But if we don't have the imagination to know what we're looking for what we want in our lives, what we're seeking, what we're moving towards, we won't ever know if we got there. We won't know what direction to move in. That feels so dangerous to me. Not to be dramatic. I'm pretty dramatic.

Dwight Dunston:

Come bring the drama.

Zenaida Peterson:

I'm pretty dramatic, but it does feel dangerous to me. If we only are certain about what we don't want, we're gonna keep moving towards what we don't want. I prepared three short poems. The first poem is a part of a much longer poem called I Sing and Sing and Olives Fill Your Pockets. Our trees are in solidarity with Palestine and the ones bearing olives that have been uprooted, they share in your grief. Mycelium under the concrete road where you march is in communion with the Redwoods in the west and willani, where tortugito was murdered in the south. Mushroom fall minds teach us how to resource community in ways that are invisible, but help us stand unmoving in our truest, sturdy, slow built selves. The old way to Palestine is through the Atlantic, where some of my ancestors knew that being taken from home was unimaginable, unsurvivable. So the ocean became a new home, and they are still watching us below the surface. Creatures have heard the world get louder and louder, and they fight to hear their family songs. As the sea gets warmer, they struggle to find home. Whales are displaced and hear the cries from the Holy Land, and they know they are voices of their loved ones trying to break through the noise. The land and water are not confused. The state will not free our people, human or not, but we have to tu luchaes mi lucha. We are never alone. This poem is called Whisper in the Rising Head of the Nail's Ears, from the perspective of a future child. Lace around their ankles in the dirt always got them and not coming around the house like they like when my little hands curve on their cheeks, smell like sweet potatoes frying, Valerian and Florida Water. If I don't say nothing, I see them running this way and that. They won't even notice. Always carrying too much, doing a whole lot at once, it seems. But it's all interesting. Then all of a sudden, they catch me, drop everything and scoop me up. Say what you getting into sugar. Put me on their shoulders as they continue with that and this, the seeds, the jam, the medicine for Hannah's auntie. They say, I'm a huge help way up there, because I can reach the tallest things with them loving me. Once, and they all snagged the lace, and they said, This won't do. Pulled the nail right up out the floorboards with their fingers. Pass it to me, and the iron rests in the entirety of my palm. They teach me how to hammer, and now I look for moving nails everywhere. Tell them what mama tells me. Whisper in the rising head of the nail's ear and say, You gotta rest. That's your job to rest in place. You hold us together. Mom will get the hammer and we'll tuck you in good. I stand sunflower stalk and don't hear them. I open the door and smell biscuits or scones sweet and Oh, there they go! And race down the stairs, falling they're singing into the fired hearth. This poem is called Day of Mourning. Back turned to Plymouth. Humming of chatter filled the crowd until the drums began and everything flipped. Red tail hawk flew over us like she had been waiting. The nautical buildings and American flags were swallowed into the earth. She exhaled and trees bloomed up a decade of growth up towards our star. In a moment, a colonial light that still remained attempted to mouth the sun for just an instance before creator became free again, and coyotes ran through the opening, and deer hid off in the distance, curious. And the wild were coming into view everywhere, denser than I've ever seen, and a speaker with a megaphone up ahead hollered, what do we want? And the crowd responded, land back, and the speakers, megaphone became a conch. When do we want it? And we said, now. And it was so. It was so.

Dwight Dunston:

Thank you for those poems. Zenaida, thank you for sharing this gift with us. And, for all of the seeds of hope and possibility you've been spreading and tending to. Many of us have benefited greatly from your vision, from your brilliance, from your imagination.

Zenaida Peterson:

Thank you, friend, thanks for being an important part of my spiritual life and my story and way that I see the world.

Dwight Dunston:

Just so grateful for you and love you so much.

Zenaida Peterson:

Thanks, Dwight, I love you too!

Dwight Dunston:

Thank You, Zenaida, for sharing these beautiful poems. Zenaida founded the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam, also known as FEMS, and has been published by Pizza Pie Press and Button Poetry, with their first full length collection forthcoming from game over books. To find more follow Zenaida on Instagram and TikTok at Puppet_McFly that's @Puppet_McFly. Friends as we settle into this Gregorian New Year, particularly, I'm centering myself on alexx's invitation and practices centered on rest. As someone who moves around a lot, I've been slowed down for sure in the last few years by circumstance, by spirit, and still, I feel myself rushing from one place to the other. Alexx reminds us of the revolutionary act of slowing down, of resting, pacing ourselves, especially in a world that demands so much of us that prides or celebrates moving quickly from one thing to the next. That teaching from alexx, coupled with Zenaida's invitation to imagine a new world, new futures, dreaming those worlds into being, I feel called to invite you in to think of one small intentional act that you can take this week that feels in service of you experiencing more rest in your life. What's one act that you can take up that feels like it aligns with values of cooperation, reciprocity or love? I know for me, I've started to journal again and have a commitment to do that for at least the first 30 days of this year. It's really something that allows me to slow down and to be present with myself, my thoughts, allows me to center into spirit, just taking a moment every morning before reaching for that phone or typing on a computer. Just taking a moment to journal. That's going to be my small act, supports me to rest, supports me to dream of a new world, and also feels very aligned with the value of love. It's a way that I get to show love. So I invite you to take a breath, in and out, and listen inwardly for that small intentional act that wants to come forward in your life and feel free to share it with us as well. The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit led learning retreat and community. We're located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni Lenape people. Many of our guests are teachers, leaders and speakers at Pendle Hill. We host retreats, workshops and lectures all year round. For a full list of these upcoming education opportunities, visit Pendlehill.org/learn. This episode was produced and edited by the wonderful Peterson Toscano, with assistance from Lucas Meyer Lee. Our theme music is the I Rise project by Reverend Rhetta Morgan and Bennett Kuhn, which was produced by Astronautical Records. Our music comes from epidemicsound.com. You also heard some music that I produce. I'm glad I could share a little of that part of me with you. For complete show notes with links and a transcript, visit Pendlehill.org/podcast that's Pendlehill.org/podcast. The Seed podcast is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H and Mary Williams Shoemaker fund. Thank you. You can stay in touch by following us @PendleHillSeed on all social media platforms or by emailing us, podcast@pendlehill.org. We created a listener survey form for you. It is quick and easy to complete. We need your input as we plan season six of The Seed. To complete the survey, visit podcast@pendlehill.org That's podcast at Pendle hill dot org. You can also worship with me online through Pendle Hill. Once a month, I attend this virtual Quaker meeting on the last Friday of the month. The worship begins at 8:30am Eastern Time, and lasts about 40 minutes. To access the virtual worship space via zoom, visit Pendlehill.org/explore/worship. If you're finding these conversations meaningful, consider supporting our work financially. Simply head over to Pendlehill.org/donate. You can also support us by letting people in your life know about our podcast. We want to connect with other folks like you. So please subscribe, rate and review us on your podcast platform. These seeds could not be planted without you. This is a new year. Have I ever done podcasts before Peterson?

People on this episode

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Dwight Dunston

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Pendle Hill

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