April: Emergence & Awakening

April feels like an impatient toddler—too restless to sit still, not ready to go—and nature mirrors that same in-between energy.

Emergence in humans begins internally.

It can be messy and incomplete, unfolding in the uneasy space where something is clearly changing, but nothing really feels settled yet.

Emergence is a process, a transformation. It can bring up grief for what we are leaving behind or what we can no longer tolerate, and fear because the future is uncertain.

These emotions show up in our thoughts and move through our bodies. It may show up as restlessness, tenderness, heat, or deep exhaustion—signals asking us to pay attention, not to override or ignore them.

In times like these—both seasonally and in this moment in history—there can be a strong pull to rush toward action or retreat into numbness and avoidance.

Emergence asks for something different.

Adrienne Maree Brown reminds us that transformation doesn’t come from force or urgency, but from critical connections and authentic relationships. 

Emergence grows in these relational spaces—whether we are willing to stay present and curious when listening to someone we disagree with, or to sit with our own questions and sensations as we explore how we might show up before taking action.

These moments—small, repeated, and intentional—allow us to cultivate understanding and the emotional capacity to engage with the world as it is.

Emergence also happens through the ways we show up in our own bodies. 

In somatic abolitionist work, therapist and author Resmaa Menakem describes what it means to “stay in the heat.” Staying in the heat means consciously remaining present with the physical and emotional discomfort—anger, fear, defensiveness, or anxiety—that arises when confronting the stress and tension created by systemic oppression, rather than running away, freezing, or trying to resolve it too quickly. 

It is a practice of tempering the nervous system to handle, rather than bypass, the intense sensations tied to racialized trauma and structural inequities.

Just building emotional capacity—learning to notice, tolerate, and respond rather than react—is one small step we can take that has real impact. These small interactions, repeated over time, create the conditions for real change.

This month, we practice staying with what is stirring.

We honor the discomfort and uncertainty of awakening while trusting the body’s intelligence to guide us. 

Nothing needs to be fully formed yet.

Listening itself is part of the becoming.