Contemplative THREADS for the Community
+ more on Seeking Sanctuary
Yesterday, I sent out this substack email and alerted people that I reached the edges of despair last week. I hope you’ll read it as it gives context to the following update.
I wanted to give y’all an update and will continue to update folks on the crowdfunding efforts. We almost have 1 month of rent covered, which is about 27% of the total amount we need. It will cost us $6000 to break our lease, which is 2 months of rent. We moved here, a more expensive place, to be safer after the Proud Boys targeted me. Now, we must make another move in an effort to find sanctuary from the State Violence that has been and is terrorizing me.
I am a Trans Refugee seeking sanctuary in another State. If you have resources you can share, please do so! Many people have reached out offering me retreat space and I am so grateful. I plan to take up this offer once we get thru the summer. We are focussed on downsizing and packing up our place with the intention of breaking our lease and getting out of Tennessee. It’s sad that it has come to this, but I can no longer survive here. If you would like to participate in this effort to help me find sanctuary in another State, please reply to this email.
Welcome to the first edition of Contemplative Threads for paid subscribers! In these posts, which drop on Mondays during 2023, you’ll be invited to contemplate on an image; reflect on sound; engage in a somatic exercise; and, read a few sentences. Again, I’m introducing sound to the posts, because we all resonate with different aspects when leaning into contemplation! Let me know how the sound is resonating! These posts won’t be long, but rather they will be an invitation for you to follow the threads throughout the week!
These posts are for paying subscribers, so I hope you’ll upgrade your subscription. I’ve lowered the price to $5/monthly or $50/year. You can still be a cultivating member, so that I can gift subscriptions to others who otherwise can’t afford the cost. Let’s fight poverty; not the poor! As a deeply working class person, I am in solidarity with the underside of history! Let’s join together and be the healing of the wounds!
I have spent the last week struggling to make sense of the swirling politics around me. I am meditating several times a day to ground myself in the work and practice of contemplation. I am trying to slow down in the midst of an accelerated political situation. I am trying to feel my way thru the toxicity that is designed to terrorize me. Perhaps we can learn to be the healing of the wounds.
I hope you’ll stick around for what we are building here! Consider upgrading your subscription to become a part of a collective becoming.
Onward, —Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza