Team Squirrel collaborative vision board, January 2024
Hey I just wanted to say thank you for making your squirrel videos! They’ve gotten me through a lot of tough spots in my life; I think about these videos and what they have to say a lot, and I just wanted you to know that they really help 💕 -s
So much has changed in the past couple of months. More on that in a moment.
First some Squirrel news. I received a most astonishing message from a fan in Germany, in the form of this photo. As far as I know, the first extant Squirrel Dialogues tattoo.
Also Squirrel’s first poster, created by an Orcas Island artist, just arrived. Once it’s scanned and printed and ready for sale, you’ll be the first to know
And here’s Squirrel’s latest video, on the myth of separation:
In January I brought Squirrel into the Evergreen Changemaker Lab. I’m now collaboratively developing a strategic plan for the next iteration of the project. Our professor likes to say “we climb up the tree backward,” in that we flip typical organizational development on its head. We start with high level strategic planning and vision work (rather than starting with a product or service). It’s the most difficult collaborative work I’ve ever undertaken, but when it works, the hair stands up on the back of my neck. It’s that magical.
An Evergreen professor recently told me we are in an season of change. Yeah. About that…
But first a message from our sponsor, which is you. Right now my video and writing work and my Evergreen studies are supported by my Patreon patrons. Please help me grow this work by supporting me on Patreon.
Harvest
My voice has changed. I hear it and so do my loved ones. There’s a new cello warmth, a honey to it. One of my guides in this work, an elder named Laurence Cole, speaks of “gladsomeness.”
Yes, exactly that.
Or I hear, in my purrs of gratitude, the husky voice of Father Richard Rohr: “Oh, isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it wonderful,” we say.
Loved ones ask me what has happened, and what can I say but:
I am coming alive.
The beauty is often too much and I weep in the car, on walks, in front of friends, in front of students at the Changemakers Lab.
I sing now, in my house, strolling to class, in my men’s group. I’ve grown to love my voice, an instrument I never knew I had.
I sing:
Sing through my voice,
Play through my hands,
Let the way be open
I sing:
We let the love wash over us
We let, we let it be
And it does and I do.
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I’ve heard a metaphor of life set to the rhythms of a farm: Cycles of sowing and harvest.
Long have I sown: My intensive healing journey, those seven years on that island. Long have I begged, long have I prayed for harvest.
And friends, when it came, it came in outrageous gratuity, pure senseless grace. I cannot account for it. But here, let me try.
I believe the healing work I have undertaken, with the help of many others, is bearing fruit. Particularly as I have enjoined in community healing work: The grief rituals, the men’s groups, the ecstatic dances, the song circles. And the medicines along the way: The touch, the ketamine, the psilocybin, the sacred witness, the MDMA, the dog kisses. That at long last the ice dam is breaking and I find myself cracking open, I find myself flowing.
I’ve found anxiety medication and psychotherapy that actually work for me. (Trazodone, and Internal Family Systems, if you’re curious).
And in December, in a soaring healing ritual, I resolved to show up differently. My guide’s gentle mantra:
You don’t have to be afraid to be you anymore.
You don’t have to be afraid to be beautiful.
Long exiled parts of me came in from the cold. The queerness in me, the genderqueerness, the neuroqueerness. This graceful, beautiful body. And something else.
In a men’s grief circle this month I shared my grief about the violence that men do. And my teeth clenched and my voice hardened and I smacked my thighs and I said through hot tears:
I want them in this room. We will heal together.
And a passion surged up my throat and out my mouth and I said, to my wonderment:
I’m not afraid anymore. I am full of almighty justice.
Sometimes now, when I walk into a room, I’m astounded to walk in tall, in a 41-year-old human’s body. I speak with gentle authority, or I name my worst fears, or I let the tears fall shamelessly because I am not afraid anymore.
Sometimes that room is the fourth floor of the Seminar C building at Evergreen, the Changemakers Lab. And in the winter break I resolved to truly show up there in the beginning of quarter two. And I presented my true work, my Squirrel ministry, to the program in a slideshare that felt like a coming out.
And I was met with applause, and astonishment, and tears, and a team of collaborators who are now Team Squirrel. And we went to the goddamn capitol and we told 30 Republican legislators about our dream of a connected and loving community, and how we’re going to do it, and they hooted and clapped and I think we blew their goddamn minds.
I landed it with a metaphor, from adrienne marie brown, of emergence. The dandelion seed that is planted, sprouts, blooms, and releases a hundred dandelion seeds that plant, sprout, bloom, and on and on.
Afterwards one of my teammates, a hard-eyed hawk of an army veteran, looked at me wide-eyed and said, “Dude, the dandelion thing…?”
Don’t be afraid to be beautiful.
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Inspo
A gorgeous interview with touch activist Aaron Jhnson by my friends at Bliss Is Ordinary. I met Aaron at the Wails gathering last summer.
Christina Figueres, architect of the Paris Accords, in an inspiring and spiritual interview on the climate crisis (On Being with Krista Tippett)
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Song Credits:
“Sing Through My Voice” by Beautiful Chorus
“We Let It Be” by Rickie Byars
Wow, Evan, this is such a beautiful post. I want to hear more about your work at the state capitol. So beautiful to hear you in your 'gladsomeness'. <3