• to me, integrity and right relationship means belonging embodied—understanding, compassion, and truth rippling out from one’s presence

• integrity and right relationship means creating boundaries so I can love fully—myself, others, and the world around me

• integrity and right relationship means showing up for myself so I can show up for others

• integrity and right relationship means creating space for things to die, decompose, and be reborn

• integrity and right relationship means living in the dark just as much as the light

• integrity and right relationship means welcoming in and accepting each present moment as being what it's meant to—happening for me, not to me, medicine and wisdom no matter what

• integrity and right relationship means taking responsibility for my cultural conditionings and privileges—my relational patterns and actions, so I can be in awareness and agency to disrupt harmful actions and words and dismantle oppressive culture when it is present

• integrity and right relationship means understanding my stories and impacts of trauma and pain, neglect and abandonment, and how i am who i am without falling into victimhood

• integrity and right relationship means honoring and centering the lineage and ancestry of everything in my life–the music, food, rituals, celebrations, etc.

• integrity and right relationship means accepting the fractalized impact our colonizer culture of separation and domination has had on my internal landscape, and still using my inherent agency to counter to it

• integrity and right relationship means taking accountability for the ways i am who i am from socialized, privileged identities and conditionings–external and internal, and open up to remember the truths in my beings and nature around me

• integrity and right relationship means honoring the abundance that nature and community brings into my life–from the wood for my fire and the meals on my plate, to the technology, rituals, and relationships that support me

• integrity and right relationship means recognizing my gifts and not denying the world of them, just as the bird and trees doesn’t deny the forest its song or shade

• integrity and right relationship means for me also to navigate which of my gifts are meant for this time and place, understanding where the world is today and where it needs to go—taking up space consciously and stepping into my leadership at some moments, while giving up space and stepping out of the center at others

• integrity and right relationship means recognizing my inherited power within a harmful culture and oppressive system and actively doing the work to shift that power to help steward a different world into being

• integrity and right relationship means building a world that remembers the old ways, cultures, and rituals that guide us towards regenerative, communal ways of being

• integrity and right relationship means meeting the world where it is at, and embracing all the tools and technologies—social, natural, or mechanical—to reimagine what this world can be

• integrating and right relationship means integrating all parts back into wholeness, not bypassing anything–the traumas, griefs, and angers and rages of the colonized and the pains, fears, and disconnection that led to the colonizer colonizing

• integrity and right relationship means that cultivating belonging for others, starts with cultivating belonging for all of me within me–recognizing how my judgments of others are simply projections of my own judged parts of me

• integrity means that we can’t step into a new way of being until we create space for reconciliation and reparation from the past to step into the future

• integrity and right relationship means the means is the ends–it means that going slow and taking the harder, more nuanced road is most often the right one.

this is the journey i am on. learning and growing with what feels true to me.

learning and growing to become a grief tender, a land steward, and a warrior of the heart and mother earth. feeling and healing backwards and forwards, inside and out, deep and wide —

• through my ancestral lineage behind as well as my descendants generations ahead

• through all my inner parts as well as my inherent interconnection within all around me and the cocreated cultural body we manifest together

• through the depths of my being as well as each living kin’s, human and non-human, that weaves into my life

learning and growing to serve my body, my community, and this world through growing, harvesting, cooking, and eating food in right relationship —

• food as medicine. i believe that healing our bodies begins with how we nourish and sustain ourselves with what we eat and drink.

• food as nature. i believe that healing our relationship with food is healing mother earth. we need to transform our food systems, alter our food culture, heal our relationships with land by shifting to embody a sacredness with our food that guides us to remember ourselves as nature—with gratitude, reciprocity, and interdependence

• food as love. i believe that food is a love language for family and community, and i’m blessed most days with opportunities to serve my community and generate my livelihood through cooking delicious meals from local, farm-grown, organic food for those I care about and love.

learning and growing to surrender to, trust in, and follow the wisdom that all my feelings, needs, desires and dreams guide me towards —

• towards feeling, healing, and integrating all my feelings and parts into wholeness and belonging

• towards bringing my healings, learnings, and growth into my body and my relationships

• towards being true to me and my integrity—loving and serving from my inherent sovereignty, with boundaries and care

there’s a lot of work to do. and i can’t do it alone in isolation. this type of embodied growth and relationship, this remembering and reimagining can only happen with each other and in community.

so i invite others called to aligned journeys to heal and cocreate with me — to root deeper into themselves, grow truer in alignment and integrity, and blossom wider in their expression and purpose.

in community and with love,

jordan lyon
he/him