Stillness in the Ramble
"We spend our lives in unconscious practices, practices that make us deny our true selves, our true power, our collectivism." - adrienne maree brown
I used to walk through Central Park as if it were just another set of busy Manhattan streets. I power walked through its outskirts when the crosstown bus was running late or not stopping. I put my headphones on and loudly spoke to a friend or colleague while walking the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. I’d turn up the volume on a playlist in the mornings while smiling at dogs during off leash hours on the Great Lawn. I’d weave in and out of crowds of tourists with a walking pace that, if you asked my husband, was questionably running (I still consider it walking, just with long legs).
Looking back, my walks in Central Park really resembled the last decade plus of my life.
Mantras for an Aspiring and Charismatic Biracial Black Woman Leader as told by the Central Park Trees:
Stay on the path they told you and move as quickly as you can to advance to the next milestone in your career.
Weave in and around white communities and organizations using protective masks. Be weary of being authentically you, but show enough authenticity. Challenge assumptions, but not too hard or consistently to not be deemed “difficult to work with.”
Silence should be swapped with action. Use sweat fitness for rest. Pack days with “productive” activities.
At the end of 2019, I knew these mantras were beginning to take me off of my legacy path for at the least the second time - I just didn’t know it at the time. Or perhaps, I just didn’t have the courage to face it. Either way, I was beginning to resemble the Great Lawn back in the 1980s when the words “dusty” and “deteriorated” were the words commonly used to describe its spirit. Dusty and deteriorated. That’s not a place of respite.
I started 2020 deteriorated; for years I did not treat my body as deserving of respite. And then, the week before the NYC shutdown happened. I was grounded for work travel and my husband begged me to stop buying random items in bulk. (No, I wasn’t a TP hoarder. Just fresh lemons.) One day my anxiety about a looming shutdown translated into ringing in my ears. I couldn’t bear the thought of turning on music or any other noise. And so, for the first time since I could remember, I headed into the park and ditched my headphones. And instead of following my usual path, I found myself wandering.
Wan-der-ing
Adjective: Characterized by aimless or slow movement
Noun: Movement away from the usual course
Synonym: Rambling
I found multiple streams of water underneath the canopy of tall and grand trees. At every stream I stopped, said a little prayer to myself that everything would be okay, and kept going. Neck cranked up and to the side, observing the beauty of the trees. “How did I never know about this place?”
Now at this point in time, I had lived on a park street for seven years and counting. And in those seven years, I never stopped to be still.
I never stopped to be still.
I never stopped.
And here I was, during a week of mounting confusion and anxiety in one of the largest and busiest cities in the world, transported to another world where the wind of the trees and the symphony of bird song could nearly drown out the taxis. Here I was, still in the Ramble.
For years, I unconsciously walked through the park. I kept practices that denied me access to my own power - from an act as seemingly harmless as using my headphones during walks. I filled up moments of silence and stillness with noise, activities, and to do lists. I thought these would be the practices that would build and sustain my legacy. But I was completely wrong. The practices - unconscious and conscious - were slowly chipping away at my legacy.
In the weeks, months, and years that would follow our first shutdown in New York, the Ramble would take me on a journey of finding, redefining, and reimagining my practices. A journey focused on grounding - of reconnecting with the Earth. Of finding presence and connectedness to my body again. I slowly began to understand and witness my own evolution through a few seemingly simple, but always luxurious acts:
Act 1: Leave the apartment without headphones.
Act 2: Slow down my walking pace by breathing to the pace of two to five deep breaths with every step.
Act 3: As the Psalm says - “be still and know.” Watch the movements of nature without a timestamp. Be in inquiry. Stay curious.
Act 4: Eventually pack a bag with water, snacks, a journal, and binoculars.
Soon I would begin to trust nature - and science - that stillness would build and sustain my legacy.
The stillness of the Ramble would hold my tears as the city grieved the global health pandemic and we lost loved ones. It would hold the sound of our collective footsteps as we marched for our lives. It would hold my deep breaths at every turn of realizing I needed to get back on my legacy path and build an organization unapologetically focused on redefining what it meant to invest in the power of Black women. It would spark my curiosity about the lessons we need as leaders and humans from the natural world in order to move from surviving to thriving. It would teach me about the art of being still - of waking early in the morning to listen to the latest migration of birds passing through for respite.
The Stillness Ranger was planted as a seed by the team at The Highland Project, the non-profit I founded in 2020, during a retreat with them in the Ramble. It was watered by my beloved OYATE cohort in the fields of Bailey, Colorado. Both communities encouraged me to write about what I was learning from nature and how my growing appreciation for stillness was not only healing me, but moving me to push the bounds of my own imagination and creativity. I’m excited to begin the next chapter of the journey and invite you into an exploration with me of nature as a portal to the world that was here before us and the world that will be here after us. Each month, I’ll explore legacy building through the lessons from and stillness of nature. I encourage you to walk with me by following along here where I’ll post monthly and on Instagram where I’ll share weekly reflection questions for your own explorations of your legacy and nature.
It is my hope that The Stillness Ranger becomes a place for other Black women and women of color leaders to know they aren’t alone. I hope it becomes a place of inspiration and respite for social change leaders. I hope it becomes a place that pushes all of us to look at and value Mother Earth differently.
And so, we begin.
Learning to be still in the Ramble helped to put me back on my legacy path. But I don’t have all the answers - I just have more observations, curiosities and questions as I continue to build my legacy. I start this blog back where I started in 2020: finding my grounding again in order to realize the deliciousness of stillness.
What part of you is most in need of grounding? What does it look like when you are grounded? What does it feel like? How do you practice grounding? What patterns do you need to disrupt to realize the power of grounding?
Grab your shoes. Ditch the headphones. Let’s walk. Let’s breathe. Let’s be still. Let’s be in still of grounding.
In Stillness,
Gabrielle
