Ashes and waves: an update from us
Where we are, where we're going <3
Dear people!
We send you loving greetings from the first fortnight of the lunar New Year, the emergence of the Wood Snake. A time of consideration, strategy, sharing, commitment, and hope as a practice. We also passed through Imbolc and marked the exact midpoint between the Solstice and Equinox, and are just beginning to feel the tiny stirrings and rustlings of new green life in the earth. Choosing what we are going to be planting this year, with whom, and for whom.
This is Pam, writing to you from Los Angeles, where we are all to a greater or lesser extent emerging from the devastating fires and loss of the last month. It has been a time of very sudden and violent dissolution, letting go, dispersing - and also a time of gathering, discovery, and remarkable integrity in relationship and community in the face of all the destruction. It continues now, even as the eyes of the world and the hungry-ghost urgency of the news cycle has moved on to the next crisis. The spirit of mutual aid here continues to be profound, as are the practices of steadying that sustain our souls and bodies.
We have also just felt the first rain we’ve had since May of 2024, just as Emily was leading us in our last monthly Woven practice exploring the embodied experience of water. There was a deep settling into my body, listening to her voice, tucked into bed, listening to the rain on the windows and feeling my spirit return to my body after the shock of emergency that had defined that blur of days and weeks.
Those rains were what finally put the fires out, and put an end to the ongoing threat of new ones starting. In their wake, we have been able to begin to survey what’s happened, get a little bit more perspective, and stabilize ourselves for the work that lies ahead.
So it’s with a bit more resource and range that I come to you today, and excitement to let you know some of what we’re up to in this coming year.
In our initial conception of the School, the horizons Emily and I were able to see were ambitious and beautiful: a 9 month hybrid training that would offer provider certification for hands-on pelvic care unlike any other we can find in the world; continuing education training modules offering a thorough foundation in embodied consent for healthcare providers; mentorship and facilitated peer support groups for a community of practitioners committed to transforming the culture of care together; a platform to exalt and amplify the work of other educators we admire; a rigorous, practitioner-focused online deep dive into the anatomy and energetics of the pelvis.
Every single one of those things is in the works.
But what we have realized, as we’ve taught together online now for over a year, is that our work is also comprised of much smaller, consistent gestures, regularity, showing up and attending to ordinary cycles together - the kind of continuity that creates relationship and trust and therefore actual community.
Our relationship, mine and Em’s, is comprised of weekly Zoom hangouts where we are, simultaneously, dear friends having tea together and lamenting not being neighbors so that we could cook together more often, *and* we are teaching partners living and raising children in different parts of the world, dealing with business logistics and formulating curricula and talking about the minutiae that comprises our work together. A different kind of cooking, one that is intrinsically political, as it engages and reflects every aspect of the world we’re bringing into being. I imagine SET as a shared house with legs like Baba Yaga’s hut, straddling two continents and an ocean, one foot in the US and one in the UK. Like this:
We’ve made a home online on Substack over this past year (if you’re reading this now, it is because you have joined us at the feast table here - thank you for being with us!) and we’re beginning to experiment with the possibilities for how paid subscriptions can support us in continuing to grow the School.
Beginning on Monday February 17th, we will be shifting our offerings on Substack, with different tiers of offerings for those who would like to be engaged with our work as it evolves.
Free Subscriptions!
If this is your zone, thank you for the powerful gift of your attention and presence. We are so very glad to be in community with you.
Our monthly live Woven practice will always and forever be available to everyone for free.
We will be sharing more public writing with you all in the coming months.
We are very excited to begin to host and interview other remarkable educators, practitioners and activists we love doing amazing things whose work is relevant to our mission this year, and all of those live events will be freely available to all subscribers.
Paid Subscriptions
Until now, those of you who have become paid subscribers have done so in a gesture of incredible generosity. We thank you from our hearts for the value you’ve placed in our work during this past year - it means the world.
Beginning next week, supporters at the $15/month or the $150/annual level will access:
The full archive of Woven recordings, adding a new one each month - an ongoing series that, as of today, contains 12 hour-long somatic guided practice recordings, led by both of us.
The new & evolving archive of recordings of all guest classes and interviews.
Preferred pricing and access to all of our online classes.
*If you have had a paid subscription until now, you needn’t do anything different - we will send you an email to upgrade your subscription this week, and you will continue to be charged at the level you originally selected for as long as you choose to continue.
AND!! A Practitioner Circle!
For our fellow practitioners who want to participate in a supportive, nourishing facilitated space - this is for you bbs! The Circle is a space where we can discuss the pressing questions that arise in our work and move together toward a culture of healthcare where common humanity, embodied experience and consent are the norm rather than the exception. The Practitioner Circle level (ordinarily called the Founding Member level on Substack) is where, in addition to the paid subscription offerings, members will receive:
Invitations to a live monthly practitioner Q&A
Our direct, responsive support with questions and issues that arise in our respective clinics and practices
An active community forum for practitioners through the subscriber chat on our Substack.
The Practitioner Circle will be accessible as a paid subscriber at any amount of your choosing over the $150/annual level (it says $200 but is in fact, flexible.)
If you are thinking of becoming a paid subscriber and want to check out the archive of Woven recordings, they can be accessed freely until February 17th in our archive.
I’m including this here because I could not find it for the life of me:
If you would like to change your subscription, you can update anytime via Substack:
Log into your account;
Click on your profile icon, top right;
Select Settings from the drop-down menu;
Scroll to the Subscriptions section;
Select the publication you want to upgrade, and then click on the orange button at the top Upgrade To Paid.
That’s all for now, sweet people. We are busily plotting, and there will be more to come soon.
Thank you for being in this alongside us.
Please write back if you’d like and let us know how you’re faring out there.
Sending big love and courage to you and yours,
Pam & Emily