permission

Amah has several interpretations through the ages and around the world. Mostly meaning mother in most contexts - mothers, mothered, mothering. 

Biological, occupational, ancestral - they are the women who birthed or raised us, brought about our being, giving life to who we have become and continue becoming. 

Returning to the island of my birth after being abroad for two decades and away even longer, since I left it for college and work in my teens. 

ancient mother - 1, 338 year old banyan

A place too familiar yet unrecognizable - where our resident volcano has been restive for close to two years on and off. Spewing ash mostly but also shaking often in rumbling earthquakes, even sending out vibrant plumes of brilliant lava a few times. 

As tectonic plates shift and crunch under the building pressure crush of the earth's Ring of Fire - so too has my life been drastically rearranged. That’s what has unfolded upon my return to this side of the world. 

Since I relocated permanently in 2006 this page has been a big part of my life. It is where I share, learn, heal, and sit in community. Gateway and portal - both entrance and exit into and out of me. 

Continued build up and constant noise through the years could either grow and add to or drown out that purpose. I’d end my days feeling elated or drained - giving everything to a screen and holding back nothing. 

What was I left to offer the world in front of me after all that. Could I remain present in my own life? 

After packing up my apartment and shipping off what was left for storage, I let myself rest. Back home - fully sinking back into my soil, feeling the ocean air, smelling the local scents, getting back in tune with its native vibrations.  

Laughing without purpose, letting joy exist - guilt free, no agenda. Changed once more. 

Joy and rest are no betrayal but what fuels the revolution, resistance, rebellion. 

I never really felt it. It just always seemed like a cool, out-of-reach concept. 

Coming home I decided to shift how I show up. Outside my comforts and zones - connecting and listening in new and different ways. Once more and all over again.  

I want my energy - with that mix of justice-seeking fire and radical hope - to go somewhere, to build something. 

Pour more of myself into more community - a space quietly growing with people who still believe that change starts with collaboration and relationality. 

Rooting me back where I belong. 

Developing a typology to describe the various forms of what I call educational trauma. The unintentional and inadvertent harm experienced in fields of learning and training - by students, teachers, staff, guardians, stewards, and communities. 

Learners affected by this trauma have a range of mental health symptoms - from rejection or refusal, test anxiety, perfectionism, depression, and attentional problems. At the mild end - to self-harm, suicidality, and homicidality - at the most extreme end. 

Folks come in tired from fighting systems, from being online too much, from holding hope alone, and they start to remember what it feels like to be part of something alive again. They start to think sharper, feel deeper, and act from a place that is grounded in hope.

This is an open invitation to all - to build something that lives in the sacred tension between resistance and flow.