How can we show up for each other AS family? What is mine to do?
This was a question Chani asked in one of her year ahead or week ahead readings in January and I’ve been noodling on it big time. The Full Moon in Cancer and Mars retrograde in Cancer came in like a wrecking ball this year. Most people I know with strong Cancer placements (sun, moon or rising) tend to love feeding people.*
Queer folks have been creating families away from our blood kin for as long as cultures that discriminate against us have existed.
One of the things I learned most from the queer elders and melders (not young not yet an elder–a generation that creates connections) I got to hang with in my young adulthood was how important it is for us to act AS FAMILY to one another. Rupture and repair. Meet one another with compassion. Break bread.
Recently I’ve been blessed by local community gatherings that center a meal and require nothing but my presence. Both of the hosts are strong Cancer placements (Cancer sun & rising in one and Cancer moon in the other).
I’ve experienced community meals many times in my life but I have loved and appreciated the ongoing nature of both of these recent gatherings. (I also rarely take pictures because I prioritize being present!) I reflected on these in my podcast How to Build Community Part One, but in sum the ability to host a “third place” neither home nor work and provide a meal really meets human needs.
Danette, the host of one of the local gatherings, used to do something called “Dine and Dash” in a previous neighborhood she lived in where folks didn’t have time to do a whole gathering. The idea was there was a meal ready at the same time each week, folks could come through and eat, not have to do dishes and get a move on.
I love the premise because time is something most folks are stretched with. The very “come as you are I just want to nourish you” generosity of this concept is so great. Dine and Dash could be a Taco Tuesday, a soup dinner (I had queer friends who did a soup night every Friday for years), a casserole/hot dish night, a spaghetti feed…
It’s also disruptive to the billionaire hoarding of resources. If one Dine and Dash event per week saves one family from buying fast food, that’s depriving that corporation of money and putting it someplace else.
Colonization and coloniality have stripped us of the interdependence humans evolved to need. We evolved to walk on two legs because humans were living in tribes and could depend on needs being met through community during the 4th trimester.
Forcing us to rely on ourselves for everything is against what our bodies want and need. As everything gets more expensive, the folks with the resources and capacity to host something like a dine and dash or community dinner night make a huge difference.
If you aren’t up for hosting but want to cook for folks, consider a weekly meal you deliver to people who need it or drop off at a community fridge.
I think one thing that really gets in the way of folks starting something like this is fear of rejection. Most of us are trained that rejection is the worst thing in the world. I know it has felt like that to me many times.
I have grown a lot through necessity because marketing requires a resilience to rejection and no one learns about my awesome aerobics classes without my putting myself out there. Entrepreneurship is a personal growth path with a business attached. My limiting beliefs put a cap on how many people I could serve. I don’t want to continue to get in my own way.
One of the community dinners I go to I was invited to by a stranger. He has invited probably hundreds of people to this dinner and the success rate of attendance is probably not super high. Yet he persists! I’m grateful for this resource and I know most of the time people who say no to an offer of help is nothing about the person it’s the offer.
But if you’re persistent, you’re probably going to change lives. I think that’s true for anything on your heart you want to birth into the 3D world.
Vulnerability is strength, there is no intimacy without vulnerability. And to do something like this we need to be vulnerable. When you want friends and community it starts with strangers. I have benefitted greatly by taking the vulnerable risk going to a stranger’s home for soup and fellowship.
Everything going on right now can feel so overwhelming. But I find “What is mine to do?” such an empowering consideration. We need one another more than ever and I encourage you to find more ways to reach out and help wherever you can. Or to reach out FOR help–you are not a burden. You are human!
I rarely recommend books I haven’t finished reading, but I got Rejection Proof from the library and so far enjoying it! Also suggest the book Mutual Aid by Dean Spade.
*My mother is a Cancer sun and when I was vegetarian for seven years would always suggest things to me to eat and I thought it was SO ANNOYING. I have worked hard at harmony in our relationship, and consider my relationship with my Mother my greatest success. (We fought for many years and I went no/low contact for most of my 20s/early 30s because I didn’t feel safe with her.)
Once I started studying astrology it helped me lighten up about my mom. Observing how she acts out her Cancer sun by wanting to feed me even with my variant dietary needs over the years; and communicating with me through her Sagittarius moon (both Sag and Cancer can be prickly/mean communicators especially when they feel unsafe). I love astrology both for teaching us about the present moment through archetypes, but also for teaching me about all of our diverse personalities.
I believe all humans are different by design and astrology is the great Pattern that God chose to create that harmony among diversity. I have received a lot of peace and groundedness in these wacky times listening to Chani’s week ahead readings each week this year and the resources in the paid section of her app (a birthday present from my friend McKay).
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