Hello dear reader,
How have you been since we last touched base?
It's officially autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. I don't know where you are, but where I am, the Netherlands, the energy feels different from how it felt just a week ago. It's more somber and earthy.
In my 12 years of exile, my body has gotten used to how nature signals the arrival of autumn here. The wet smell of the Earth, the yellowing of trees, and the shortening of days invite more reflectiveness into my system. But my soul, my soul has never gotten used to the lack of a communal land-based practice or tradition to seal this transition.
In my previous newsletter, I wrote about the importance of the olive harvest and mouneh (aka provisions) making in South Lebanon. In this newsletter, I am inviting you to a more concrete conversation about what it means to live in exile when the land calls your name.
And I'm inviting someone very special to join me: Ashira Darwish.
I first met Ashira during a panel talk and the screening of Where Olive Trees Weep. And what struck me most were her courage and clarity. She answered all my question without a single flicker of hesitation or doubt.
I wasn't who I am today back then. Grief and loss hadn't yet shaped, rearranged, and initiated me into what she was already initiated into as a Palestinian woman—this unshakable discernment and claim to her ancestral land. I wasn't there, my body was still afraid of the consequences of visibility and courage. But her presence showed me the embodiement I longed for. I too wanted to be the voice of clarity and courage.
But today, after all the soul and land violations I have witnessed and felt in my tissue, the land speaks to me and through me too. Through dreams, through the contraction in my chest, through visions, and in many other ways I can't yet explain, but which are clearly not going anywhere any time soon. So much of my work has become about grounding the impossible into what's possible—the very foundations of liberation somatics.
Which is why I'm inviting Ashira into this very important conversation for our communities, and for any community, who has a deep desire to heal with their ancestral land. Who hear the call, but don't have the ability to return or continuously inhabit it yet.
I hope you can join us, and I can't wait for you to meet Ashira.
Join The Deep Dive with Ashira Darwish
With care,
Tania
P.S. The Deep Dive is a community supported gathering that runs on donations. We are allocating most of the donations from this talk to support the displaced communities of South Lebanon.
Thank you for being part of the TDK đź’™
Responses