therapist — Blog — Danielle S. Castillejo

plantation politics of “little norway," and rise up

“If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote.”
Delores Huerta
Latina American labor leader and civil rights activist

abuse, advent, Bodies, theology of suffering, wild, ptsd, RaceDanielle Rueb - CastillejoOctober 19, 2023plantation, plantation politics, politics, political themes, race, race work, racism, mixed race, poulsbo, poulsbo middle school, north, north kitsap, kitsap, Kitsap sun, Kitsap council for human rights, human rights, protest, non violence, non violence protest, love, faith, faith and love, the Allender center, the Seattle school, psychology, therapist, therapeutic, therapeutic spaces, trauma, trauma therapist, work, working, blog, blogs, blogger, blogging, podcast, podcaster, the arise podcast, arise, story, narrative, trauma care, trauma informed care, Delores huerta, civil rights, civil, rights, latina, latino, latinx, latine, independence, alaskan native, African American, BLM, vote, voter, political power, power, norway, little norway, kitsap county, county politics, socio political power, social powerComment

try to ground the butterflies but don’t count us out, yet.

Conditioned against healing the systems oppressing us, I sit here, too. The spice hits my tongue. I love its hotness, the dare of trying more on the next taco.
Unwavering in my tiredness, delight, anger, angst. The bigness of feelings, embraced. Familiarity with oppression is normalized, to where I am chastised for any attempt to bring relief to mi gente by asking those in power to remove their heavy feet off our necks. But we keep asking, demanding, resisting, and flying.

The Binds of Injustice

Michelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high.” My dear African American colleague reminds me that supremacy creates a false dichotomy of the choices you have in a scenario – creating false equivalencies which are rarely true.

Advent's Companionship of Hope and Grief by Kalee Vandegrift

As I sit here trying to let my flame of joy live, I wonder about this. My rational brain and therapist in me say, “Yes, we hold the tensions of this world, we hold our various emotions and experiences together.” But my body and my heart are skeptical, possibly even scared, unsure if it’s safe. Safe for what you may ask? Safe to believe God is all who She says She is and I am who She says I am. Safe to be in my body as I feel the goodness of God and not fear disappointment, death, and it ending. Safe to take up space. Safe to believe that it’s okay to find rest and relief in my joy.

The Sun Stands Still

The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!”