You’ve seen updates over the past few months about this and sharing about the ways that it parallels the Open Horizon Stargazer Sabbatical pilot program for partners, named in honor of her mother Malinda M. Jacobs.

Ms. Malinda‘s favorite rest activities included both daily restorative practices and indulgences for which she had to creatively budget.

Every morning she would wake up and be still. In her stillness, she would read her daily scriptures, say her prayers, and write the most important ones naming those who she centered. She would write five things that she was grateful for and take time to describe them to be sure the gratitude was specific. Her faith offered her rest. And she maintained high spiritual hygiene with her daily practices that created a portal for even her mother and her mother‘s mother and her mother’s mother’s mother to rest in. That same portal that she maintained and nursed over years is now offering rest to her daughter, our Executive Director. Her faith can offer us all rest.

She loved a good facial and massage. She revered short trips, especially with D’Lynn who reflectively found her mommy was the best road-buddy sidekick ever! She had to budget to attain these luxuries although they should have been easy and always accessible as care options for her to restore. We affirm that rest is not rooted in capitalism, it is better rooted in pleasure. Neither cost nor culture should have been a barrier for these pleasures to soothe her soul.

Open Horizon has committed a wellness stipend for the Executive Director to use at her discretion for anything that will help center her wellness during this sabbatical time. The amount mirrors the external offering to stargazer sabbatical program participants. Funds can be used to do the same things Malinda may have done like get facials, get massages, buy a bed, pay a bill that’s been looming over her, send a child to camp…Whatever may calm a Black mama‘s nervous system. Open Horizon is curious to learn and document some qualitative and quantitative data about what these funds may be used for; there’s no expectation of returning receipts and the use of funds is fully at the discretion of the two Stargazer pilot participants and, similarly, the Executive Director. We value the importance of no one being able to define rest for another body or soul.

Leading to the sabbatical, Open Horizon sent D’Lynn to a healing retreat in Jamaica coordinated and facilitated by the incredible Dr. Yanique Redwood, author of “White Women Cry and Call Me Angry,” a collection of 18 essays about her experiences of racism at work. Not only is Dr. Redwood adapting her book into a film so the themes are more accessible to a broader audience, but she is also evolving an emergent strategy building infrastructure support to ensure that sisters who see mirrors when watching the film or reaching for the book have the allies, accomplices and resources they need to respond the pain they recognize.

Reflecting on the book and her experiences with racism at work (and everywhere!) D’Lynn journaled her trauma stories in hopes to be eloquent sharing while in community with 15 sister cousins; the retreat surprised her as it truly centered pleasure. It was a wonderful and welcome re-orientation. Re-membering. Re-alignment. What we focus on is what we see and what we desire can be what desires us. We can move from wholeness, with Self-led energy, and a true knowing that is informed by ancestral technologies that we can creatively upgrade if we are aware and choose to do so. And there is joy in that knowing — joy can be vibrant healing in the center of the revolution. It can calm the nervous system. Pleasure can fuel revolution as well, not only anger or rage. “… [F]eeling good is the antidote to whiteness” writes Dr. Redwood, as she describes that pleasure is a “political activity, an act of resistance” to reclaim joy from limitations of oppression”. Pleasure is the antidote to the pain of the trauma of many years of scars from white supremacy and colonization, disconnecting us from our culture and our people …and each other.

The pleasure experience was enriched for D’Lynn by her sister Dr. Dawn Jacobs Martin attending the retreat as well. The two of them engaged in remarkable healing practice together including somatic journaling, participating in a pleasure session facilitated by Tosh Patterson, sharing two side-by-side luxurious baths (one for release and one for restore), and getting a couples massage. Ms. Malinda would be pleased in how her girls are expanding & re-conditioning on the open horizon together.

So, please stay tuned, and we will report back how the essence of Malinda continues to flow through the sabbatical opportunities, and especially through D’Lynn Jacobs, her youngest child, as she accepts and metabolizes this opportunity to rest.

From May 15 to August 15, please contact Lisa Cohen as acting Executive Director of Open Horizon, for any needs you would ordinarily extend to D’Lynn. Please don’t hesitate to share feedback and guidance too as we shape shift for a few months. D’Lynn will not be responding to emails while on Sabbatical and will re-engage with emails sent on or after August 16 when she returns.

We look forward to interconnectedness as we expand as an organization through the deep learning we know we will continue to appreciate as we step forward in this exciting process.

What are your daily and deeper restorative practices?