Dear Qoya Community,

I hope this email finds you rooted in the resources that support your resilience. I also hope that in times of need and desire, the movements, ritual, community, and pilgrimages of Qoya can be a source of nourishment for your soul to feel its body as home, this earth as home, and a visceral sense of belonging.

On the surface, Qoya could present itself as solely a movement class; however, the intention has always been deeper. Qoya creates a container to support the awakening of the intuitive body to navigate life's challenges and blessings in resonance with the physical sensation of truth in the body. The definition of truth in this context is the one that attunes to the holistic interconnectedness of all life. This is the realignment that each moment is asking us to make: to have an integral approach of being able to see what is most necessary to return back to integrity within self, in relationship to spirit, with the earth, and with each other.

In the midst of a global pandemic and a political uprising, I turned 40 last week. In this personal solar return, integrity has been a large focus point of reflection. With an ache in my being to admit, I have learned more about systemic racism in the last two weeks than the four decades before it. Halfway through the books, Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, and My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem, I have been looking at my complicit participation in the system that upholds white supremacy and the ways in which I have benefitted from this system receiving unearned privilege. My personal and our collective shadow is being brought from the unconscious to conscious. I honor those who have come before and embodied a stand that is truly aligned in the spirit of being wise, wild and free.

As we all travel through this solstice, experiencing the longest days in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest nights in the Southern Hemisphere, I wonder where each one of us feels our integrity being brought into alignment? Does it feel like it already is in alignment or is it needing an adjustment? Does it feel intense like going through a ring of fire? I ask because I heard someone mention this solstice, new moon, and eclipse happening this weekend can be called a "ring of fire," alluding to the image of the sun's flares framed around the moon. When I was in doula training, I remember hearing about the "ring of fire" as something that a mother will go through in birth, referring to when the labia and perineum reach a point of maximum stretching, the skin may feel like it's burning as the mother's tissues stretch around the baby's head. It's often one of the most intense times of birthing when a mother may feel "I can't do it, I can't go on." As I reflect back on feeling that way when I gave birth, so deeply pushed beyond my limits, I remember I had two dear friends as doulas there reflecting to me that I could. A dear friend of mine experiencing great challenges at this time said, "I will hold on for the birth of this new world," and that has stayed with me as her words inspired me, and we continue to reflect back to each other our capacity is greater than our doubt.

In the midst of this transformative time, my one-year-old son is learning to walk. There is a powerful teaching every time I witness him fall down. He feels how he feels for a moment, aligns with his innate resilience, and gets up again. Every time I fall emotionally and/or energetically, I can also sense that I have moved into the stress and worry of my analytical mind, and that my innate resilience is not rooted in my mental gymnastics, which can often keep me down. My innate resilience lives in my intuitive embodied nature. When I'm unable to access it mentally or physically, I can always see it reflected in the natural world around me. The highlight of my birthday was making an offering to the earth that supports me where I live and feeling this powerful restoration and exchange of supportive energy. As I took time to offer flowers, prayers, and gratitude, I heard a message that "this is what right relationship feels like, an equal giving and receiving. All of the places that you are yearning to bring healing need to reconcile and come into more relationship of equal giving and receiving."

I wonder what brings you back into your innate resilience and where you feel the sensation of right relationship? Where are you inspired to act and invest in a world that is finding its way? Where are you willing to listen and be present with another's pain? How can you redirect resources (yours and our society's) to those in need versus those in greed?

While I was pregnant, I did a doula training with Latham Thomas, the founder of MamaGlow, and I learned that in the U.S., maternal mortality and morbidity disproportionately affect black women at a rate four to five times greater than white women. In New York City, black women are 8 to 12 times more likely than white women to die as a result of pregnancy and birth-related causes (although it should be noted that not only black women are affected by poor maternal health outcomes—more American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than in any other developed country in the world). This is not an issue of race; it's an issue of institutionalized racism.

Latham wrote in a recent newsletter, "We should all be furious that black women are dying from preventable pregnancy-related causes. We should see other people aside from black women concerned and speaking out about this. Until this issue is front and center as a human rights issue, as a feminist issue, it will only be seen as a black issue. This is a problem for all of us. This is about preserving black life before it’s lost. Please don’t wait for lives to be lost before your activism starts. You can invest in, support, and uplift folks who are doing the work to address this issue directly."

She then offered the action steps below.

1. Sponsor a doula of color in doula training.

2. Sponsor and support a midwifery student or program.

3. Support black and brown birthworkers and healers by hiring them for their services at their rate.

4. Donate to a scholarship fund at a doula organization run by black folks.

5. Hire black birth educators to speak in institutions.

6. Pay black birth workers to contribute their wisdom/writing for your platforms.

7. Allocate financial support for black and brown birthing people who would like a doula.

8. Pay for virtual doula services.

9. Follow diverse accounts centering black and brown stories, and buy and support their offerings.

10. Read, listen to podcasts, learn, and act on that learning.

In the books White Fragility and Me and White Supremacy, clear concepts are introduced to explain the tendencies that emerge when white people are asked to look at their privileged role in systemic racism. Most commonly, it is a mix of fight, flight, and/or freeze. When someone is called to see their role in a racist culture, a series of defenses are often enacted to claim one's character as good and not racist (fight), distracting themselves from the discomfort (flight), or feeling paralyzed by the fear of doing it wrong (freeze). The problem is that if we cannot discuss these dynamics or see ourselves within them, we cannot stop participating in them.

These are all somatic responses that are difficult to overcome if left to one's own egoic thinking. However, movement allows another way in: to feel the truth that is being asked to be revealed. To expand your capacity to stay present with the pain and look it in the eye with love.

Qoya is based on the idea that through movement, we remember. We remember our essence. In remembering our true selves, we see an opportunity to release the fear entangled with being overly self-focused and reclaim our co-creative capacity to live into a new possibilities.

I'll be leading a class this Sunday, June 21st from 3:00pm-4:30pm EST called Embodying Our Integrity. This class is offered in the spirit of the solstice and the power of this time to explore your relationship to integrity and reflect on the distance between your beliefs and your action. Click here to register.

All of my online class proceeds in June have been going to initiatives in alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement. In addition to the large national organizations, I have reached out to the Qoya community to connect with local initiatives through which there are existing personal relationships. 100% of proceeds from this solstice class will be re-distributed to organizations in service to those most impacted by systemic racism.

May we each remember the physical sensation of embodying our integrity.

Dancing with you,

Rochelle

P.S. To learn more about this New Moon Eclipse, visit Virginia Rosenberg's wise words.