Live from Where? The Savor Complex.

Locating myself in time. Naming where I'm writing from.

SAVORIST: One whose life experiences have led them to recognize an urgent need for them to slow down so that they can a) acknowledge harm b) detangle/deschool and c) notice or make important connections.

SAVORING has a core practice that can take as little as ten minutes, and as long as weeks if we need to. This core practice allows us to tap into seven senses (the five that we’ve been taught, plus two more) to bring ourselves into an awareness of our savor complex. We learn, through the core practice, what a savor complex is, and how to install our own unique savor complexes to prepare for, or to integrate significant life experiences.

EXAMPLE.

Me. Now. This space you’re reading from is me all up in the middle of my own savor complex. This post isn’t an excerpt from the book I’m writing. This one is. But what you’re reading now is about me noticing that the book I’m riding|writing is coming from a newly-alive version of Me. One who could have only emerged after a version of me died in 2019. That death sits in a line of life-alterning experiences that drive my choices and support my purpose.

Line of Life-Altering Experiences (partial list, obvs):

1996. Decided to go to college in Atlanta.

2004. Decided to design my life instead of pursuing law school.

2008. Decided to focus on writing and coaching.

2012. Withdrew our daughters from school prison.

2016. Started a podcast for Black unschoolers

2018. Expanded from a podcast into a community media network

2019. First experience with Ayahuasca and past-life regression work

      Acknowledging the need for a version of me to die

2020. Published Raising Free People Book

2021. Had two major surgeries early in this year

2022. (March). Honored the need to pause from the pace of work/life tings

(December). Deciding to stop focusing on unschooling, and instead speaking as the person it freed and shaped.

And here I am today, trusting this massive pivot away from a message and a brand that has gotten me in front of the eyes and ears of so many people. I have to walk away from this version of what I created because my soulwork doesn’t live there anymore.

I didn’t even realize how much I was over this focus on unschooling. It’s like I was stuck where the attention lived, especially after my book came out. But all it took was the last stage of a particular spell being cast when somebody told me No. They fucked around and jolted me back to the realization that I let a very important aspect of my life design sit in someone else’s hands again. Lesson gained. More gratitude, less disappointment; got it. I designed a particular life between 2012 and now, so I'm here in a position to notice and make connections about that life that I designed in such detail, and I’ll be damned if I waste this precious, potent opportunity!

Now I have the space to study savoring…

This term was gifted to my spirit back in September; ain’t left since.

Savoring/savorism is one stage in our human journey. It’s temporary, so we do not stay in savor mode. Invoking a savor complex is about addressing a present need or an in-recent-moments-passed need. Think of like getting a cast put on because something's broken and you need it to mend. While it's on the mend, you're gonna need to keep this cast on, and at some point you take it off, and then you can start moving that part at a pace that makes sense for you from wherever your healing got you.

A savor complex is a short-term stance, one we invoke when we realize our life is calling for the languages of new skills and potent rituals. Any significant partnership creates three things:

1. Rituals.

2. It will also create skills that you develop as a result of living, playing, life-ing together.

3. Lastly, any significant relationships will highlight the lack of skills that we will need to seek out, to pull from other places to stabilize and sustain ourselves and our most important partnerships.

Savoring is about the designation of sacred space to notice and name these skills and presence these rituals. It’s a type of accelerated intimacy with our own selves.

Savoring calls in opportunities to:

1. Acknowledge harm

2. Detangle/deschool

3. Notice or Make important connections.

And as I felt through this in relation to my own family, I can see clearly how we were able to go through that process, starting in 2012.

1. We acknowledged harm, which allowed us to withdraw our girls from school.

2. Then we detangled from a lot of the ideas we had, slowly deschooling, severing some ties eventually, and reclaiming our connections to intuition and authentic seeking and learning.

3. Armed with all that spaciousness, and at that slow pace, we were each able to establish or notice connections to our needs, our interests, and our own gifts and talents.

Essentially, unschooling brought me here. And now, this is my stop. I’m allowing myself to get off this train ‘cause I I feel really clear about my schoolishness and can notice and name schoolishness in so many of its forms.

Living that life led me to a big pause; a slowing down brought about by a small circle of patrons funding my business so that I could delegate, direct, and most importantly, rest and heal. Since my healing journey began in 2019, I’ve had two major surgeries, hired a mental health support team for our family, got the help I needed to heal my nutritional deficiencies, and honored the shit out of an overdue pause-and-heal period.

I thought that the other side of all that pausewerk and healing would look like a new lens on podcasting and writing, and in a way, I was right. The “new lens” is one of letting go, because what’s on the other side of that pausewerk and healing is this space in between resting and doing, this savor complex, and it's the space that I want to live in and serve from now.

I know that doing has gotten me a lot of goodness, and I have known intimately the benefits of rest. And not just one good pocket of rest, but incremental rest over two-plus years (late 2019 through 2022)! That has led me to want to serve in this particular space that lives in between resting and doing.

It's an interesting space that I'm in, and as I notice my life and locate my current self inside of it, what is true for me is that I crave more conversations about savoring. I’m feeling my way through it, and noticing that I need to work with my my hands and stories to care for and amplify something other than the things I was moving away from.

I don't want to talk about unschooling, I want to live into what I've learned as a result of it, which is what savoring is all about. I want to talk about what we can do when we are freed from the spell of school-centric living, and get to know whole humans outside of their/our capacities to do, perform, and produce things.

Now that I'm clear on that, I’m seeing unschooling and the naming of schoolishness like an old building that I used to care for.

• I helped construct it and informed its design.

• I cleaned it daily.

• I hosted conversations and good cries there.

• I was a vessel for language and rituals in support of many families’ battles with schoolishness.

• We held sacred ceremonies in honor of intergenerational peace, youth rights, and the protection of confident autonomy.

• I held space every week, in audio, written, and real-time formats so that people could hear other people’s stories to find connection and embrace discomfort.

• I lived with schoolishness. Studied it and lived with its presence in my own home, in my own body, with my own children and partner, and with many other families.

• I supported the examining and weakening of schoolishness’s power in collaboration with groups of people. From stages, in circles, with books, in book clubs, in countless essays and interviews.

And now that's done. Like, done-done.

So really, this is me out loud, no resisting, all allowing. Trusting that if I'm not talking about unschooling in the same ways that there's still something for me to do. There's still ways for me to earn, there's still community to live into. Trusting that. Looking out for the instances of that. Letting what needs to die die, and letting its death fuel life. My life.

So, like I said, I’m using this space to write Black Bear | Wild Weed. At the same damn time, I’m getting to know the versions of Me that are available to write this type of book in this particular time in history. I will do what I’ve always done, which is to struggle/study my life out loud. This time I’m studying who I am as this book pours out. I need to get familiar with River Safiah, the Savorist because this version of me has been dormant, dominated by the make-it-do version of me that was born and raised in schoolishness. That version has been laid to rest. May she rest in peace and power while I walk this Savorist walk in my life and through these messages in this space. May I rise in curiosity, courage, and community. Here I/we g(r)o(w). Glad you’re here for it with me. Let’s ride.