What We Tend Grows

Choosing Creation, Conscience and Community in a Time of Collapse

We are living through a profound period of upheaval and transition, and many of us carry it in our bodies. At times, it’s as though the ground beneath us is no longer steady--both in ways we can see and in ways we can’t.

The Year of the Horse is not a year for shrinking, numbing out, mirroring the dysfunction around us, or waiting for permission. It is a year for choosing how we stay truly enlivened and how that aliveness shapes our activism, creativity, and work.

It’s a year for intention: releasing what isn’t ours, tending what sustains us, composting what’s done, and planting what’s next.

My 2026 New Year water ceremony ritual at the Journey of the Heart retreat in Playa Del Carmen this year. What does the element of water mean to you? What is it teaching you? How are you healing the waters inside you and outside of you? What have your ancestors taught you about your relationship to water and what have you added to that story?

Collapse can usher in rebuilding, but the uncertainty before clarity is taxing. It strains our nervous systems, our sense of orientation, and our capacity to imagine forward. That is why tending ourselves and one another matters so much right now, and for what lies ahead.

Despite external pressure to override ourselves just to get through these times, many of us are no longer interested in that path. Instead, we are exploring how to meet this moment with intention, vision, hope, creativity, and joyful defiance.

This February marks the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, and I am reflecting on what it means to honor my ancestors and to pursue liberation. With discernment rather than reactivity. With connection rather than apathy, resignation, or numbness. With solidarity instead of toxic individualism.

Recently, after a string of soul-wrenching experiences, I wrote in my journal that my ancestors did not survive and imagine forward so that I could shrink my life, repress my spirit, stifle my breath, or harden my heart. They modeled creativity as survival, care as strategy, and community as protection. Remembering that lineage steadies me, and it invites a broader question: what is anchoring each of us as we try to remain steady amid chaos?

When systems around us fray and reveal their fractures, we can turn back to care, empathy, shared responsibility, and mutual aid as ways of thriving. It is also why I feel deeply proud that my book Make Good Trouble was featured this year in Empathy Lab UK’s “Read for Empathy” collection, at a time when empathy is being flattened, distorted, and dismissed as weakness. Empathy is not self-abandonment. It is how we stay human.

Order Make Good Trouble here.

Creativity and empathy are inseparable. Both require presence. Both ask us to stay in right and sacred relationship, even when disconnection and dissociation are being sold as strength.

In 2026, I am partnering with kindreds to offer luminous spaces where we can gather with purpose. To create in community. To retreat without disappearing or dimming. To tend our creative fire so it can sustain us for what comes next. You’re invited to join us:

May 29–31, 2026

The Vital Spark: Tending Our Creative Fire
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, New York

I captured this photo while walking this path on my own creative retreat at Omega. Join us for your own creative journey this May!

A creative salon weekend rooted in community, play, presence and experimentation. Together with Rochelle Schieck, Morley Kamen Bruce, Ericka Tiffany Phillips, Robyn Moreno, Lisa Weinert, and Chris Bruce, we will move between writing, music, reflection, and collaborative creation.

For anyone longing to reconnect with their creative pulse and spend dedicated time working on their creative projects in a thoughtful and loving community.

👉🏾 Join us in Rhinebeck

June 13–20, 2026

The Birth of Creation
Kythera, Greece

The view from our cozy retreat home at the lovely Porto Delfino in Kythera. I’m counting the days until our return this year.

A mind-body writing retreat guided by Lisa Weinert, Brette Popper, and yours truly. This experience weaves Narrative Healing, yoga, meditation, and writing on the island of Aphrodite, supporting deep listening and new beginnings.

👉🏾 Learn more and reserve your place

January 7–12, 2027

Art of Self Worth: Journey of the Heart-Women’s Retreat
Playa del Carmen, Mexico

I snapped a picture of this gorgeous bird while I led a movement session at this year’s retreat. This beauty stayed with us for almost an hour. Palmaia’s ecosystem is truly stunning.

A retreat centered on rest, embodiment, creativity, and belonging in a gorgeous location with a supportive community. We offer 2, 4, and 10-month payment plans to make this magical experience accessible if you need to flow your abundance through partial payments.

👉🏾 Join us!

I am also preparing to offer several free weekend virtual Qoya-inspired movement classes while completing my teacher training. If you’d like to move with me this spring, sign up for my mailing list. Let’s dance.

These offerings are not escapes from reality. They are ways of staying rooted in rhythm with ourselves and one another—ways of returning, reclaiming, and renewing together. Places to metabolize what is happening and practice moving forward with care.

Reuniting with two of my beloved Art of Self-Worth kindreds under the California sun.

If you're interested in joining any of these experiences, I’d be delighted to welcome you.

You’re invited. You belong. You are enough. You are worthy.

With love,
Jamia xo