November 9th, 2025
my waters flow with yours and our river remembers
❁
As the full moon arrived last week, I found myself, too, full and heavy with my grief.
My cycle has been delayed nearly three months, and with my internal hormonal cycles distorted and delayed, I’ve found it more difficult to bear the grief. I was homesick for a home I still haven’t yet made, weary from travel, missing my mother after the anniversary of her birthday, and grieving for our collective future in the wake of elections, devastating natural disasters, and ongoing genocides.
However, as the climax of this current moon cycle passes, my body is finally opening — finally releasing, finally bleeding and shedding all that I have gathered and held the last three months.
Maybe it is odd to start a letter with a reflection on menstruation, but just as I would tell you where I am and how I am, this is what is happening in my body. And my body is my teacher, my most intimate guide. My cycle reminds me the importance of release. When it is delayed or elongated, I become that much more grateful for it — and aware of the necessity of habitually and routinely letting go.
Today I am reminded: I don’t have to hold onto everything that passes through me. Impermanence can be a gift. Cycles offer reminders of this. Reminders to loosen our grasp on what has already passed, reminders to unclench, drop down, fall back to earth.
And indeed, I feel myself falling. I came back from Mexico begging for home — to come palms to earth by the creekside, and call upon my mother. The creek reminds me of the power of continuity: what is here now doesn’t have to stay. What I carry now, I don’t have to hold. What I can not bear, I can offer to larger waters.
I live creekside, on Peavine Creek — a humble waterline that whispers and giggles behind my apartment, accompanied by a soft melody of crickets and songbirds. In the last three months I have traveled to far places, islands and beaches to be with the ocean, to bathe in the Atlantic and Pacific. But there’s something about being beside the creek — this whispering trickle — and knowing that what I offer here is carried through tributaries, into Peachtree Creek, down the Chattahoochee River, through the Apalachicola, to the Gulf, and eventually, out into the vast Atlantic.
I grieve so often at the shore of the Atlantic. I think of our collective pilgrimage to Salvador, Brazil last year and the deep grief of the waters we bathed in there. Now, on my back porch, listening to the creek wander by, I am reminded all these waters are connected. All our grief is connected. My waters flow with yours and our river remembers.
If for the last three months, my body was closed — if i have been closed off from you— today, my body is open. Today my spirit is able to receive. and so today, I share an invitation. Tomorrow I will be holding for myself, and for us, a full-day ceremony of release. I invite you offer up your grief — offer up what you can no longer hold, what you have held for too long — and let us release it to the waters together.
———————
Ceremony Outline:
Day: Grief Offerings
Prayer & reflection at the altar. Speaking my (our) grief into water.
4:30 PM EST
Afternoon: Collective Procession
Walk to the creek's shore. Release collective water & grief.
Evening: Somatic Release & Play
Letting the rest out on the dance floor.
This is an open offering. Feel free to share with your dear ones. ❤︎
I’ve been eager to make some homemade fall granola. Tomorrow I’ll be home all day, sitting in the living room with soft music and incense burning, journaling while some kind of maple–pecan granola slowly bakes in the oven (hopefully filling the house with sweet, cozy smells).
Simultaneously, there will be a bowl on the table and a jar of water beside it. As I (we) journal and reflect— as grief arises, as something we want to release surfaces— I (we) will pour some of the water from the jar into the bowl.* In that act, we are offering up what we cannot hold, asking the water to take it from us and store it for safekeeping.
As the day goes on, the water will gather—holding our different stories, offerings, and griefs. If we need more space, we’ll bring out more bowls. Bring what you have; pour out what you must. We will find ways to carry it together.
*Shoutout to Eujue, who made and gifted me the beautiful ceramic bows we will be using. She’s currently selling more of her ceramic work to support buying her grandparents’ house in Seoul.
Share in space
Come in person. Sit with me in the cozy fall scents
Join in parallel space. If you can’t come in person. Hold your own soft and reflective space where you are. Drop into your sense and attend to your grief.
Add to the senses
Contribute to the soundtrack. Send a song or album for me to listen to.
Add to the smells. Bring incense (I’m a little low actually! eek!) or a candle.
Release with me
Offer water or tell me what you'd like to release. Text me what you'd like me pour into the bowl for you. Or send me a photo of water. Or some other representation of what you would like to release. I will pour out a prayer
Walk together to offer our waters to the creek
At 4:30, I (we) will walk together in procession, carrying our bowls of water to the creek to release them into larger water.
If you cannot walk with us, send me any words you’d like spoken to the water—offerings for the creek and our rivers—and I will speak them for you, so you can be with us in ceremony.
In person:
Walk with me and help carry these waters. Those with more capacity will walk at the front and back, guiding and shepherding our crew of mourners to the water’s edge.
Carry water for yourself and for your kin.
From elsewhere:
Make your own procession to water.
Send any messages to me that you would like for me to speak to the water here.
Move body to release.
To close, I will run to release from the body, let my energy flow, remind myself how I move, how my body allows me to travel, to flee when needed, and always return., I invite you to move your body, find our own meaningful movement, and somatically release anything that remains after our shared alchemy. Maybe a sunset run or stroll, yoga, a session at the gym, or a long, cleansing bath or shower.
In the evening, one of my Atlanta favorites, Ash Lauryn, will be spinning at El Malo, supporting Natasha Diggs. I’ll be continuing to release through grooving on the dance floor—come join if it calls to you.
In person: Join me at El Malo! Tickets aren’t cheap, but if the price is a barrier, I have two extra and can save one for you.
From elsewhere: Make your own dance floor. This is one of my favorite mixes by Ash Lauryn on her NTS show Underground and Black.
Notes:
On doing this together
There will be absences. Parts of the ritual, you won’t see happen, parts you won’t participate in. What if we lean into that? Trust that it is happening even if you can’t see it. Trust your grief is moving even if you can’t feel it yet.
I think it’s lovely that throughout your day, however closely yours mirrors mine, you could pause, take a breath and know I am over here performing ceremony for us. And in that silent, non visual witnessing, you are here and we are in ceremony together.
How divine.
On documentation
I want to find non invasive ways to also archive this ceremony (and future ones) for us. I think this will be beautiful. Typical modes of archiving would invite us to “capture” this, record it in full length, 4k definition. I wonder how we can be more creative. Is this website enough of an archive? Do we want to record the sound of all our pours, montage them into an audio collage? Record small moments of our days and assemble into a gentle ambient collage? If anyones creativity is ignited by this prompt, I welcome your collaboration.
On (false) tardiness
And if you read this after the ceremony has completed and feel you were too late to participate, you aren’t. The fact that this link somehow made it to you means that someone thought of you, summoned your spirit already into ceremony. Perhaps, even unknowing to you, you are already being carried and guided, welcomed and received.
