I’ve been overwhelmed the last couple of days as thoughts of “I’m a failure, I feel stuck, I feel alone in this…” continue to cycle on repeat as stories around money and the ego thinking I don’t have enough continue to blast on my mind’s radio.
All this has been surfacing as I continue to dive deeper into my spiritual life. When I turned 25 last year, I had deep a sense that this was the beginning of my spiritual path and began exploring different modalities —meditation, shamanic journey work, the Diamond Approach, Family Constellations and Holotropic Breathwork. All of these have opened me up to new realms, new understandings and a deeper a sense of being, but I have come to realize that my most profound moments of aliveness and peace come when I’m on a run, or dancing, or in moments like tonight, when I was in jail.
All this has been surfacing as I continue to dive deeper into my spiritual life. When I turned 25 last year, I had deep a sense that this was the beginning of my spiritual path and began exploring different modalities —meditation, shamanic journey work, the Diamond Approach, Family Constellations and Holotropic Breathwork. All of these have opened me up to new realms, new understandings and a deeper a sense of being, but I have come to realize that my most profound moments of aliveness and peace come when I’m on a run, or dancing, or in moments like tonight, when I was in jail.
For the last two years, I’ve been creating theater with the Medea Project: HIV Circle. For twenty years before working with women living with HIV, the director, Rhodessa Jones, one of the most extraordinary woman I know, worked with incarcerated women to create theater about their lives. Rhodessa was recently asked to come back and teach a five week course, and today, the women of Medea went into the San Francisco jail on 7th and Bryant to talk about what we do.
I’ve never been to jail before. Before we went, I told Rhodessa, “I’m scared they won’t like me or listen to me, I’m such a little white girl whose lived a very privileged life!” And she said, “Honey, white girls do crack too; in jail, the color of your skin doesn’t matter.”
I had been feeling so blaaaahh this whole afternoon, I had driven an hour to San Rafael to attend a 2.5 hour long class on Spirituality at the Foundation for Spiritual Development. I was so excited for the class! A dear friend told me it was amazing, that she could now see people’s energy, and access her guides and felt much more in alignment with Spirit. “How great, “ I thought, “I want that too!” But I felt myself shut down during the class, as something about the male teacher’s domineering and sarcastic presence made me not trust him. (Yes, this is very much my own issues with men presenting themselves!) I’ve been feeling uncomfortable around men who tell me “I can see your energy. I’m in touch with God, I know what’s right and how you can access it…” I don’t doubt that they are in touch with the Universe, but I’d rather find me own way to Divinity and just have a gentle feminine presence guiding me along the way.
So I was in this state of blaahh when I met the women of Medea to go into jail. There were about 50 women, different colors and ages, all dressed in orange. Rhodessa asked, “How many of you are doing the crack/cocaine thing?” “How many of you have babies?” “How many of you have prostituted yourselves?” She just went there and the women met her. “In the Medea Project, we do a deep internal search and it ain’t always easy. We speak the Truth so that we can learn to save our own lives. We speak the Truth so that we can learn to let go of the shame and the anger and realize that we are all extraordinary human beings.”
I left the jail radiant, alive, full of possibility. Suddenly bills didn’t seem that important anymore. Suddenly, learning to speak our Truth, learning to connect with women, no matter where we come from or what we’ve been through, learning to Love ourselves so that we can Love one another, suddenly that all seemed much more important.
And with that comes a deep feeling of peace, the kind the Spiritual books talk about, and I can’t help but wonder, that it is perhaps here, in jail with women who speak their Truth, rather than on a meditation pillow or in a spiritual class, that I will one day fully come to know God.
I’ve never been to jail before. Before we went, I told Rhodessa, “I’m scared they won’t like me or listen to me, I’m such a little white girl whose lived a very privileged life!” And she said, “Honey, white girls do crack too; in jail, the color of your skin doesn’t matter.”
I had been feeling so blaaaahh this whole afternoon, I had driven an hour to San Rafael to attend a 2.5 hour long class on Spirituality at the Foundation for Spiritual Development. I was so excited for the class! A dear friend told me it was amazing, that she could now see people’s energy, and access her guides and felt much more in alignment with Spirit. “How great, “ I thought, “I want that too!” But I felt myself shut down during the class, as something about the male teacher’s domineering and sarcastic presence made me not trust him. (Yes, this is very much my own issues with men presenting themselves!) I’ve been feeling uncomfortable around men who tell me “I can see your energy. I’m in touch with God, I know what’s right and how you can access it…” I don’t doubt that they are in touch with the Universe, but I’d rather find me own way to Divinity and just have a gentle feminine presence guiding me along the way.
So I was in this state of blaahh when I met the women of Medea to go into jail. There were about 50 women, different colors and ages, all dressed in orange. Rhodessa asked, “How many of you are doing the crack/cocaine thing?” “How many of you have babies?” “How many of you have prostituted yourselves?” She just went there and the women met her. “In the Medea Project, we do a deep internal search and it ain’t always easy. We speak the Truth so that we can learn to save our own lives. We speak the Truth so that we can learn to let go of the shame and the anger and realize that we are all extraordinary human beings.”
I left the jail radiant, alive, full of possibility. Suddenly bills didn’t seem that important anymore. Suddenly, learning to speak our Truth, learning to connect with women, no matter where we come from or what we’ve been through, learning to Love ourselves so that we can Love one another, suddenly that all seemed much more important.
And with that comes a deep feeling of peace, the kind the Spiritual books talk about, and I can’t help but wonder, that it is perhaps here, in jail with women who speak their Truth, rather than on a meditation pillow or in a spiritual class, that I will one day fully come to know God.
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