Beloved Other

Dear Friends, I hope you are all keeping well here in the middle of summer, in the middle of a pandemic and in these unsettling and transformational times. Last month, Efrat Livny from Threshold Community Space and I put our heads together to create another collaborative storytelling evening similar to what we've done these past months during the Great Pause.   For a handful of days I courted with what to call this event along with which stories might want to be told.  Listening in patiently for the naming, the titling for this event...curious to see what might show up.  It was an intense time; George Floyd's murder weighted heavy on my heart and the protests in his, and so many other people of color's names were erupting all over the planet. One night, as my body moved into the liminal space between waking and sleep these words - Beloved Other distinguished themselves and were there when I woke the next morning.  So began an inquiry into what this meant to me.  What rose up for me throughout that day and those to come (it is still emerging) is this: Beloved Other is about acknowledging this paradoxical dance us two legged can have with "otherness". We can be drawn to, repelled by and view what appears to be 'other' as a commodity to be exploited.  This is a deep rabbit hole of a conversation...one I pray continues to be reflected on and discussed and most importantly listened into. Lakota Chief, Luther Standing Bear shared this wisdom from his people speaking to their relationship with the Great Plains. “ We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth,