From Discipline to Devotion
Moving from rigidity to awe so you may be of maximum service
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One of my favorite books on recovery, Drop the Rock, opens with a beautiful scene where all these people in unbound serenity are on a boat and they are waiting for their friends to arrive so they can take off. The friends don’t seem to be coming so they untie the boat and set sail. All of a sudden in the distance they see one of their friends swimming toward the boat as fast as they can and then notice she is carrying a huge boulder and trying to swim at the same time. “DROP THE ROCK MARY!” They all shout “DROP THE ROCK!” And she just keeps swimming and it’s so fucking hard to let go of the rock and she finally does and they pull her on board. In the distance Mary see’s another friend doing the same thing, and then Mary, with the relief of knowing what it felt like to drop the rock, shouts to her friend - DROP THE ROCK! And it repeats forever and ever until we get as many people on the boat as we can and as many rocks to the bottom of the sea of despair.
Dropping the rock sounds easy. Just quit carrying it, it’s clearly so hard, just put it down. The thing is though, we don’t know HOW to put it down let alone that it is an option unless those who come before us tell us and help us onto the boat. The only one who can drop the rock is the one who holds it.
The one who holds it must move towards action and slip into devotion. By doing this I learn how to drop the rock and swim to my people, swim to the ones who came before me, and shout out to the ones I may be of service to. Hurricanes, Fires, War, the list goes on, can distract us from what is right in front of us : an opportunity to be available, generous, and abundant with our resources. The inner landscape distracts us, the amount of work we put in to heal the wounds of ancestral trauma, our attachment injuries, caring for mental and physical health. It exhausts us, burns us out, and can leave us feeling helpless.
Discipline is a core part of my work, my life, and my art practice. Many days I do the same thing at the same time because it keeps me steady and I like how it makes me feel to keep my commitments to myself. Sometimes though we are in a season of grief, transformation, processing, the essence of the outside world pouring in, and discipline and action fall out the window. Instead of expanding our capacity for more more more we become small and unavailable.
First of all. This is ok. Die one hundred deaths and see what is reborn, what emerges in its place. Three weeks of unlearning everything I ever thought was true, destroying the structures I thought were keeping me safe, or laying in bed for days on end - are all worthy tactics. And sometimes it’s time for me to get my ass up before I’m ready and turn towards devotion.
Knowing exactly what I am devoted to keeps me out of having to prove it to anyone, publicly or privately. It is a list created from the inside out, sometimes written on paper, in my notes app, floating through internet space, posted on a thousand sticky notes in my studio, everywhere I turn I see exactly what I am devoted to. In how I trust and care for my partnership, how I love my dog, how I show up for my friends, how I show up for my hopes and wishes and visions in my art and my teaching.
This took me many years to cultivate and become dedicated to, knowing where discipline has pigeon holed me and where starting with devotion can both bring me back to discipline if I so desire, or into an even bigger form of expansion. A friend said to me today : this could also be called “From Disciple to Devotee”. I once heard that being disciplined is being a disciple to oneself. I want to be a disciple to myself and a devotee to the world. Devotee to pushing against the edges of chaos. A devotee to spirit and love and the way everything fits together even if I don’t understand it. To sharing in a new way, a way of infinite possibilities with no guarantees. To be devoted is to be engaged, even when it’s painful. Dropping the rock, getting on the sailboat, the sweet relief of not giving up before the miracle happens.
Good news - I am teaching a two hour workshop to share all of the ways I have shifted into more devotion on Sunday September 19 at 10am pst / 1pm est in the cosmos of the zoom room. We’ll talk about the practical ways devotion can help you redistribute your time, money, and skills. How devotion keeps you attuned to yourself when you want to obsess over other people, places, things, and events. Devotion, starting where you are and getting clear on your values to weave them into the fabric of your art, work, neighborhood, self. To let devotion ripple out in maximum service.
We’ll journal, we’ll talk, we’ll laugh, we’ll create community visions. See you there.
Class is sliding scale $44 - $88 - pay more to provide flexibility for others, pay $44 to pay the cost of class ⌓ Closed Captions provided live and with the replay
10% of class will go to Trans & Queer Youth Nola : Hurricane Ida Mutual Aid Assistance
The link will be automatically sent to you when you sign up
This quilt by Flora Wilds
The amazing quilts by Melissa Word who took A Quilt is Something Human - the forever feeling of absolute pleasure teaching the people and watching them grow in their own practice and share it with their people what an honor to witness
This is a list of ways you can participate in supporting the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Thank you to readers who sent me these resources so I could share them all with you :
Imagine Water Works Mutual Aid:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTJIJr-jwBu/
Trans & Queer Youth Nola:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTNauU1lkpS/
Nola Black Youth Fund:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTPsj9WlNzK/
Trystereo harm reduction/mutual aid:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTR4G7brBPn/
Cajun Navy:
@cajunnavyreliefFor more mutual aid opportunities
@idasupportnetworkI missed this exhibition but am happy to read about it - Queer Communion : Ron Athey
Reading : Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom : A Tarot Journey to Self Awareness by Rachel Pollack
Sasha Spielberg’s Watercolor Pet Portraits which you can buy here
Listening to : Cost Your Love by Miya Folick
Pre order : The new book Sensual Self by Ev’Yan Whitney
Forever grateful for Kai Werder and the way they have completely expanded my views on my relationship with myself and others
Today I pulled the six of swords, a card I can’t remember ever pulling or even seeing in a reading. I have been reintroducing my practice of pulling cards and it’s giving me so much information, so much to bounce off of. To borrow from Pollack’s description of the card : The freight is light, the swords do not weight down the boat. It reminded me I can carry the things that are hard, and still keep paddling towards truth and trust. The swords don’t have to sink the ship, in fact they may even be safe passengers en route to the wooded isle. A quiet passage, a time of easeful transition. A sense of movement in the self, what if even the heaviest lessons were a path to ease. The bottom is so sweet when the only way to go is up.
SIGN UP for Jade and Jackie’s fire season class which happens this Sunday! Bless these two, what a gift to love them, be loved by them, anyone who takes this class will be blessed with queer earth tenderness! photo by Jackie Barry of the Bringham Fire last season
Many Blessings
P.S. Yesterday I turned 33 years 3 months and 3 days old and am happy to report the goddess is alive and magic is afoot. God is either everything or nothing.
Everything everything everything.
⌇⋰Quilt Class : October registration is open
⌇⋰ email : info@marleegrace.space
RURAL : top photo is by me of Jacqueline Suskin at Folk Life Farm