It’s hard to know where to begin with my gratitudes and appreciations. I’ve had so very many teachers in my life. Teachers who held me gently, and teachers that pushed and challenged me. Sometimes, these were the same beings. Usually, one or the other were just what I needed. It feels important to acknowledge at least a few.

In no order of importance, here are some of the folks who have shaped me. For those that are publicly accesible, I encourage you to check them out, interact with their teachings, and support them financially and otherwise when you can.

Here goes:

• Thank you to the First People of the stolen lands where I live and where I was raised - Portland, Oregon and Denver, Colorado (as named by white domination). Since time immemorial, the people that have cared for, tended to, traded on, and moved through the Denver area include the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Lakota, Ute, Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Shoshone, and others. Those that have stewarded and been in relationship with the lands of the Portland area include Multnomah, Kathlamet, and Clackamas Bands of Chinook Indian Nation; Tualatin Kalapuya; Molalla; and many other tribes along the Columbia River. In the Portland area, two organizations to check out and support are NAYA Native American Youth and Family Center, and NARA, Native American Rehabilitation Association. A portion of my income goes to NAYA, as a land tax.

• Thank you to my ancestors. Some of my human people are Ashkenazi Jews from what’s currently known as Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. Others came from Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany, and France. Thank you to the mountains and foothills, rivers, streams, trees, and dirt of Colorado where I grew up. The plants and animals of Kansas where I spent summers as a child. The forests, deserts, oceans, and mountains of the Pacific Northwest region where I have lived for over 25 years. Plant, fungi, elemental, and Other Than Human animal ancestors are numberless, and I am grateful for the blood, bones, and breath they have gifted to me.

• Thank you to the family I was born into, including the animal people that were part of this family. Thank you to my family of choice - my friends/chosen kin, my partner, my child that I live with, the children I deeply love that don’t live in my home, my children who were not born, and my animal kin. To all of those alive and no longer living - thank you for the gift of my life.

• Thank you to the public school teachers that showed up, nearly every day, for years, doing thankless work. Some navigated this skillfully, others, not as well. They all taught me much.

• Thank you to the teachers, thinkers, writers, healers, podcasters, organizations, musicians, and spirirtual teachers that have helped my heart, mind, and spirit grow such as Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Maya Angelou, Louise Erdrich, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Oliver Sacks, Thich Nhat Hanh, James Baldwin, Pema Chodron, Jan Chozen Bays, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, the Zen Community of Oregon, Megan Leatherman & A Wild New Work, brontë velez, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sophie Strand, Autumn Brown, adrienne maree brown, Karma Maymi and everyone at Clary Sage Herbarium, Ayana Young, Rena Branson, Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Dori Midnight, Taya Mâ Shere, Hadar Cohen, Keshira haLev Fife, Jo Kent Katz, Wendy Elisheva Somerson, James Welch, Jessica Lanyadoo, Mariame Kaba, Walidah Imarisha, Batya Levine, Carmen Spagnola, and so, so many more.

• I’ve recently joined the Connectvertising Collective and I’m grateful for the folks doing good work, and spreading the word about their own and each others’!