When Ruben left our home in Victoria for the final time, he pulled some of the iron nails from the rafters as a gift for me. The house was built for the family of a labourer who was working on the Empress Hotel, c.1904.
16
TRIBUTE: DAVID SULLIVAN (APRIL 14, 1941 - DEC 23, 2024)
Marisa’s dad, a life in art
18 COOL TOOLS
Astrology apps and sites I use on the daily
INTERVIEWS & MEMBER TESTIMONIAL 19
Recent podcast tour
22 WHAT IS FRIENDSCHOOLING?
with Numinous Network member, Jen Choquette
PROVIDER DIRECTORY
Where to get care that’s values-aligned
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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE NETWORK
Spring highlights including an AstroJam! with ET Shipley, Creative Collage for the New Moon with Kayla Arnone, Free Week, and the return of the True Prosperity Program!
FROM CARMEN
Friends, I hope you enjoy my little experiment this year: no newsletters, only a few zines. Interesting & interactive! I promise! It will always be a mix of attachment, collapse, animism – all types of small and delicious life stuff.
You’ve probably heard we shifted into phase two of our collapse-friendly lifestyle, relocating to a 70 acre piece of land where my husband, Ruben, grew up and his parents have been living for 50 years We recently unloaded the third and final massive U-Haul truck, the result of six months of logistics, five ferry rides for three cross-province trips, and countless hours of packing by ourselves, some great hired hands, and some extremely generous friends (Thank you Robin, Claire, Mara, Ande, Cathy, and Megan!) When it came time to return the U-Haul, it slipped on the icy driveway and got stuck in a snowbank After hours of shovelling and sanding and trying every thing we could think of, we finally called a neighbour who arrived in mere minutes with his huge pick-up and chains to pull us up and out the driveway. So we got by with a little help from our friends, both coming and going. I’m choosing to see it as an auspicious beginning. Community-as-collapse-prep for the win!
In this inaugural issue of my zine, you’ll find plenty of support from friends Some are are members of and some are Guides in The Numinous Network Plus, I’ve included Contact Nutrition galore! Find kind eyes in my make-up tutorial, vocal prosody in the video clips, and a big heaping of inspiration for ingestion behaviours as I share my recent menu plans and favourite recipes using a site I highly recommend called Cooked
I hope you find this format as fun and connective to take in as it was to create!
CREATED ON THE LANDS OF THE SYILX OKANAGAN PEOPLE
while listening to the Winter Stories of Elders who said to listen while snow is on the mountains
CONTACT NUTRITION
The building blocks of secure attachment
Watch my videos in Contact Nutrition 101 for what to do if there’s a mis-match in desire or ability when it comes to giving or receiving nourishing attunement.
Kind Eyes
The “beam gleam” that says, “Your existence delights me ” Not every neurotype tolerates eye contact well That’s ok! Start with a different form of Contact Nutrition and see if more safeness creates more capacity
Vocal Prosody
Resonant tone, vocables, and language
Try the meet-and-match approach in order to co-regulate This helps us feel “gotten”, and is how we “collect before we direct”
Safe Touch
Soothing self-touch and consensual connection
Folks with sensory processing difficulties can try temperature, aroma, weighted blankets, and soothing stims to access this form of Contact Nutrition.
Shared Rhythm
Start here to connect across neurotypes! Create predictable routines around mornings and bedtimes, comings and goings, and weekly or seasonal routines Parallel play is a great place to begin
Ingestion Behaviours
Eating and drinking
Not every neurotype does well with relational connection at the dinner table. Not a problem! The process of making a pot of tea to share, or gifting your neighbour with a loaf of sourdough, and other actions involving food imply the act of taking in love and care from another, sharing in a state of wellbeing, and feeling nourished by the relationship A sense of safeness while we eat or drink supports parasympathetic nervous syetem regulation, also known as “rest and digest”
thanks to my Cooked account, discovered this recipe actually pre-dates its viral TikTok/New York Times popularity by 7 years!
TIKTOK TIPS: MAKEUP FOR WOMEN OVER 40
The most useful info from three years on the app
TAKEAWAYS:
STEP ONE, ALWAYS: HYDRATE SKIN
THE MORE FLUID THE PRODUCT, THE SOFTER THE BRUSH
WORK WITH LIGHT AND SHADE TO BALANCE FACE SHAPE
BLEND ON YOUR HAND, WATERCOLOUR ON YOUR FACE
CONTOUR USING THE MENOPAUSE 3
BLEND LIPSTICK INTO BLUSH FOR EVEN CONTRAST DEPOSIT BROW PRODUCT ON THE ARCH
MASCARA: PRIME, DEPOSIT, SHAPE, OUTER QUARTER
SHADOW THE LIP LINE FOR A SOFTER PLUMPING LOOK
CREATORS I’VE LEARNED FROM:
face mapping! love her
how we used to do it vs how we do it over 50
contrast makeup = revolutionary
trendy technique celebrity makeup artist
RECLAIM YOUR LIFE
AFTER A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP
with Taraneh Erfan
What are 5 signs you’re in a toxic relationship?
When I think about this question, my brain goes into two directions; One is that there is the long list of typical things you hear around toxicity and relationship or emotionally abusive relationships where the person is controlling, they diminish you, they call you names and belittle you, they're manipulative, they gaslight you, they guilt you, they sabotage you, they isolate you, they deflect responsibility and they shift blame, and all of those are all super, super true.
But I'm more interested in approaching this question from some of the more hidden signs that you might be in an abusive or toxic relationship.
What does it take to leave?
This is going to be really personal for each person. Each person has to arrive at, ‘Enough is enough’, or, ‘If I stay in this, I’m going to die ’
It takes:
• Deciding enough is enough
• Resourcing yourself with information and supportive people on the path to leave.
• Arranging a safe landing place
• A goal of a life that is beyond this relationship.
• A shit ton of guts.
How long does it take to recover?
Well, first: Recovery can be cyclical. You might feel like you’re doing really well in your recovery and then an incident occurs that will resurface a bunch of things that need more healing. Years might go by and you are in a new, really healthy relationship, and the new experiences highlight scar tissue or wounds that need some tending.
Credit: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database David Douglas (1799-1834)
“EVEN A DECADE OF RECOVERY IS BETTER THAN ANOTHER DAY, OR WEEK, OR YEAR, IN A TOXIC/ABUSIVE, LIFE DESTROYING, SOUL CRUSHING RELATIONSHIP.”
Secondly, I think it really depends
It depends on the level of abuse or toxicity that you experienced It depends on the length and the nature of the entanglement with this person. It depends on what the preparation for exiting the dynamic looked like and how prepared you felt for leaving
It depends on the internal and external resources that you have at your disposal
So I can't give like a specific timeline to how long it takes to recover, but I think all of these are elements that play into it. It will take as long as it needs to, and what might be helpful to remember is that even a decade of healing and recovering is better than another day or week or year in a toxic or abusive, life destroying, soul crushing relationship
Maybe it's about flipping the script. Maybe it's not so much about how long will it take to recover, but choosing whatever length of time it takes over remaining in it and living a diluted, depleting, devastating life Instead, choosing an expressed, joyful life, even if there is a lot of grief in recovery from harm.
Join Taraneh’s therapeutic writing group for people exiting or recovering from a toxic relationship
A bent rusty nail will incapacitate them –your target’s best laid plans will falter and fall apart.
THE (SUBVERSIVE)
SPIRITED KITCHEN
Spell Jars for Hexing & Cursing
Fight
Stones and crystals in the shape of tears will send your target grief, regret and remorse
Learn more about The Poison Garden
Make them rue the day
evil with evil
Red pepper flakes and peppercorns can be infused with a message: “Be a pain in my ass, I’ll be a pain in yours...”
Envision your target with heartburn and hemorrhoids as you place these ingredients in the jar.
FILINGS FROM THIS BARBED WIRE
Stick it to ‘em!
Use these baneful materia magica when you ’ ve got no fucks left to give
would carry a cautionary energy – a warning that the target should not mess with you.
When you mess with the bull, you get the horns!
hammer a nail on an exterior wall to hang it from
Remember to hex on high energydays because cursing can be reallydraining!
Is the Three-Fold Law really a thing?
The three-fold law comes from the Wiccan tradition and states that your magical workings, for good or for bad, will come back to you three times over.
So if you create a spell jar for prosperity, expect the goodness to flow back to you in three ways, or at three times, or for three days/weeks/months, or somehow by an order of three.
Similarly, if you create a spell jar to curse someone, according to Wiccan tradition you’d expect the dire consequences to be revisited upon you, three times over.
But I am not a Wiccan. That law doesn’t align with my understanding of the world.
Newton’s Third Law of Physics states that every action will cause an equal and opposite reaction.
So any suffering I’d inflict on another, I must be willing to submit to myself. I look at hexes and curses as a willing sacrifice I make on behalf of the collective, one I undertake gladly.
Hawthorne, given the right intention, can induce heartbreak (or worse). MORE IDEAS FOR MATERIA MAGICA: SKULLS, BLADES, OBSIDIAN, TEETH, THORNS, BROKEN BONES, AN
A funereal incense to mark the target’s impending demise might consist of ground seeds or dried leaf of datura
rowan or yew You’ll find details on making spell jars in the Ostara chapter Consult your copy of
THEIR NAME WRITTEN ON A PIECE OF PAPER
henbane elder
rosemary aconite
foxglove
mugwort
juniper
DAVID SULLIVAN, A LIFE IN ART
On December 23, 2024, Marisa Sullivan’s father, David, passed away Marisa leads our Soft Animals intermediate somatics class in The Numinous Network and will lead a Pelvic Steaming Workshop on March 15 Her father’s obituary was featured in The Boston Globe Here, she shares about her life as a child of artists
What did your parents teach you about making a living as a creative person?
My dad became an artist very early in his life. He just went up to his studio and made art forever from 22 years old until 80 My mom had a lot of jobs but they had a gallery together and sold art, and they would buy and sell antiques They would have really incredible luck with it and make money They were really kind of good at it It isn’t a great lesson necessarily, but they taught me it was ok to not pay your bills It was ok to get by with pennies We would often have the electricity turned off and that was just kind of normal for me It was a very low bar for me – I always felt good that I never had my utilities turned off as an adult. They taught me that all those things that capitalism teaches you? Screw it. My dad used to tell me, “You know, the way you pay taxes is you figure out how much money you have available to pay and then you just make the books match it ”
How have you been managing your grief since your father died?
I haven’t We had to write his obituary so that’s been helpful to review the legacy of his career as an artist and his major breakdown just as he was a rising art star. When he was 40 years old, our house burnt down and he lost all his work. Then he went into a really weird OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) art project for 40 years where he just drew four images of Cézanne’s work over and over again, in a spiral So there’s been a huge process of writing the obituary and hoping we could honour his legacy, and we also have the work of selling all his art He died peacefully, but the grieving has been stressful My body’s been in trouble I manage my grief by having his picture in front of me and feeling him around me, helping my mother
Marisa, when did movement become a prominent part of your life?
When I was 16 years old, I went to school in Japan for a year as a foreign exchange student It was a miraculous experience I had wanted to be an actress but my father wouldn’t allow it, so later in college at Barnard, I studied Japanese theatre and dance Eventually, I studied Butoh, a Japanese dance form that is about allowing yourself to be inhabited by spirits and ghosts and the presence of other entities around us, moving our bodies. I ended up returning to Japan again to study Butoh.
I studied with a very, very small Butoh company, and performed with them in Tokyo I got to work with a lot of really major Butoh dancers Years later, butoh became a really big movement in New York City and it still is I mixed Butoh movement with feminist performance art and layered it with film and media. I had a small dance company for many years.
One of my last pieces of performance art was based on Leonardo DaVinci’s, Pietà I called it, I Hold the Space It was an interactive piece so I would sit on a platform in the shape of the Madonna where she’s holding her son, the dead Christ I’m sitting there with my arms open holding the space and there’s a tape that’s playing with some church bells and my voice. I’m saying, “Come, I hold the space. Come, lay your suffering in my lap. I can hold it. I hold the space.”
We didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but people started coming and laying in my lap and it was really fucking incredible It was unbelievable People would walk into the space and start crying They would lay in my lap and start crying
At one point, a very large man came and I was holding this man in my arms for a long time. I looked at him and I looked at my arms and I thought, There’s no way I can be holding this man on my own It was a major experience of channelling
What secrets unfold when we do pelvic steaming?
You’re in this relationship of healing and pleasure for your pussy and we don’t have anything like that in our lives, really All sorts of miraculous stuff happens Plus, it’s very, very relaxing and pleasant It’s a beautiful place to deal with trauma and grief In Ayiti (aka Haiti), where this practice was never lost, their rape crisis counselling centres immediately perform steaming on people who’ve been assaulted.
You’re combining a pleasant experience and pleasant aroma and this allows the release of unpleasantness
You’re in relationship with your pelvis in a different way It’s spacious It’s meditative It’s old magic that was taken away in some countries It had to be hidden
Part of the miracle of it is just being in good relationship with your body.
Marisa Sullivan is now accepting new clients for remote pelvic/womb care sessions marisasullivanhealing.com
Our Current Collapse Preps
PROVIDER DIRECTORY
In practice I mostly see people experiencing transitions in their lives, finding themselves dealing with increasing health concerns and discomfort. As an ND, the work I offer is often to support bridging conventional medicine and traditional care.
ATTENTION BC AND ONTARIO RESIDENTS!
Dr.Jiselle Griffith, Naturopathic Doctor, is accepting new patients for telehealth (open to residents of both provinces), as well as in-person appointments in Qualicum Beach or Nanaimo, BC
Why did you move to BC?
I grew up mostly in eastern Ontario as well in the Caribbean. I travelled to most continents and move often within my early life. I’ve always felt drawn to the natural surroundings here.
How did you decide where to relocate?
Astro-cartographer, Rose McMullen, offered guidance on what places might line up well for me to live for growing in my gifts as a healer and where I might be of service.
I also held Ifa divination and consultation with my Awo (Opeifa) and Babalao and Iya (at the Ketu Institute) to help this be a spiritually and ancestrally guided transition.
Astrologer, Bronwyn Simmons, friend of The Numinous Network and island dweller, provided me with helpful insights about my placements and connections.
My friend, Diviya Lewis, a registered psychotherapist who hosts podcast ‘Brown Girls Don’t do Therapy’, also provided valuable insight and support to living and working as a woman of colour in remote Canada.
Since arriving, care, community, and herbal remedies of the land have come my way through friend, colleague and owner of Xalish Medicines, Dr. Jacqui Wilkins
As I grow as a doctor, and as someone who’s facilitated healing for 20 years, I see more rounding out of the journey into the need for ancestral and spiritual alignment. I’ve been doing more learning both in traditional medicines of acupuncture, Ifa and family constellations to deepen the care and services I provide.
PROVIDER DIRECTORY
Aurelie Richards has space for three new clients for counselling in her private practice starting in April 2025. Email to get on the waitlist: post@aurelierichards.com. Aurelie is prioritising neurodivergent folks, people using wheelchairs and therefore often excluded from somatics, and trans people. Invoicing can be in EUR, GBP, CAD, USD, and MXN, and she has a narrative-based tiered-payment scheme.
LGBTQIA+ people with migration and refugee backgrounds living in Berlin can receive free short-term counselling, sponsored by the Berliner Landesstelle für Gleichbehandlung (State Office for Equal Treatment).
Email aurelie richards@lsvd berlin
PROVIDER DIRECTORY
Taraneh Erfan, RCC, is shifting her practice to focus on accessible, holistic group mentorship Think therapeutic care in a communal container with plenty of personal magic-making Now accepting applications
RECLAIM is Taraneh’s newest therapeutic writing group for those healing from emotional abuse or a toxic relationship Spring cohort is April - June mindonspirit.com
Christi Jarland has space for 2 ongoing monthly mentoring clients, plus a smattering of spots for one-off sessions, providing support for nervous system settling and gentle resilience building
Single sessions are $100/1hr Ongoing monthly support starts at $300/month Free drop-in sessions offered once/month, typically 3rd Thursdays, but be sure to sign up for her email list to get specific dates and the booking link
christijarland.com
IKayla Arnone has 5 spots available for one-on-one support for individuals with Long COVID, offering care mapping, somatics, resources, and peer support Long COVID peer support groups start in April
She’s also welcoming one-on-one clients and couples interested in learning TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercise aka therapeutic tremoring) Pricing varies for each offering, with sliding scale options and extended payment plans available
Contact Kayla at longcovidcompanion@gmail com kaylaarnone.com
Danielle Smith, RMT is taking new clients online for The Resilience Toolkit (aka therapeutic tremoring) and in-person for massage in downtown Toronto Her rates are as follows: 90min/$180, 75min/$150, 60min $130, 45min/$110, 30min/$90
She can be reached at rmt@daniellesmith me
dsmithsomatics.com
Add reminders to your calendar:
Saturdays in May: The True Prosperity Program returns!
