My Life in the Fall of Queering Systems Change 🍂

Allow me to visibilize myself & the complex unglamorous work I do in the world a little bit.

It’s been a minute since I shared about what it’s like on the inside, behind the scenes of queering systems change work. Firstly, because I was hit with another bout of COVID, and thus, a pretty terrible chronic illness flare. Secondly, because I’ve really been letting the surface level, shallow, day-to-day drift of social media life pass right over me in disinterest (more on that in the next Stack). 😌

For now, allow me to visibilize myself & the complex unglamorous work I do in the world a little bit. There have been much, much deeper things afoot in my world of queering Systems Change, somatics & solidarity.

🎓 I received a Certificate in Collaborative Impact & Leadership from UMSL (woot).

📚 I’m currently enrolled in the Politics of Trauma 2.0 Course w/ Staci Haines of Generative Somatics & the Stozzi Institute. Fortifying more layers of somatic practice into the systems tools & applications I’m co-building with my co-facilitator Ishmaiah Moore.

🤝 Who, speaking of which, I’ve had the pleasure & benefit of slowing our damn pace with, in order to scale deeper impact for the SQSH, “MyQueerRhiza Systems Change Fellowship 🍄 ” we will be convening 10-15 queer St. Louisans for in spring to do the damn thing collaboratively (and with decent funding from Missouri Foundation of Health). Get at me if this interests you.

🧯 I’ve been conditioning the soil of my own professional, queer-healing & spiritual offerings, widening to include restorative conflict and rupture & repair facilitation and eventually, workshops (lookout for the first coming in February). This work weaves my spiritual foundation in Engaged Buddhism, a decade of personal practice with the Nonviolent Communication framework (but with a counter-oppressive & trauma-aware lens), polyvagal somatics, anti-racist praxis and intergenerational healing for white & European ancestral identified folks (fortified with my ongoing Systems Change work with Forward Through Ferguson). Stepping into the Healing Justice & Systems Change role at SQSH has required me to leverage my skills and my privilege to meet the tremendous need of qualified, somatic conflict healing for the St. Louis region.

🎉 I am, for the second time in my adult life, FULLY FUCKING DEBT FREE. To folks inside trauma-healing spaces, we know that trauma isn’t just about a one-time event, it’s about how it fundamentally can change and effect your life in a multitude of interconnected ways. For me, financial instability has been one of the more challenging aspects, and though I am far from financially stable (about to be age 45, and with no surmountable savings, retirement or intergenerational wealth), I am at least not carrying debt into the apocalypse, lol. And I know that no matter what happens, I will never return to those unstable conditions that lead to tremendous debt & instability. I also know, every single one of my last damn political & grassroots organizational choices going forward will be made with adequate & safe housing for all in my actions.

🙌🏻 I have trimmed my work hours down from 50-60 hours a week (which I’ve been doing since August of 2021 after ending my bout with pandemic unemployment) to 40-45 hours a week, entirely by the grace & Divine Timing of internal systems change reorganizing in my full time work with SQSH. And I aim to keep it there, even as my career path evolves. Smarter, not harder. I didn’t have the privilege of going back to school for a life reboot. I’ve had to do it the long & hard way, and I commend the fuck outa myself for the discipline, grace & self-forgiveness that has gotten me through.

🕺 Lastly, with the work-hour trim & career alignment in step, I’ve created more of the time I need in my week to tend to my health (chronic illness & now, perimenopause, yay), and to tend to my creativity & play!!! As my professional outputs subside for the fall into winter months, I’ve now got time built in for creative hobbies & crafts, play adventures with folks I cherish, and what I’m most excited (and maybe a little nervous about), inviting dance back into my life in a real way… purely for my own spiritual sustenance (still retired professionally y’all).

That’s it for a quick update, I’ll have something deeper & juicier for you systems thinkers & quantum revolutionaries up first thing next week. In the meantime, drop a like & a comment and let me know you stopped by (and support visibilizing queer systems change work to the algorithm).

In solidarity,

-Deanna Sophia Danger-