Candice

“Revitalizing these Lost Zones within our psyche is about looking directly at the damage, as we do with dreamwork, and stitch by stitch, bringing what has been torn from us back into belonging.”
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home

“as the Persian poet Hafiz warns, “Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut you more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human and even divine ingredients can.”
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home

“The keeper of silence has tremendous control. What she keeps sealed away can never be harmed so long as it remains hidden. Silence is a power, yes, but when does silence turn upon its keeper and become the captor? When does it inhibit the natural impulse to speak, the urge to sing, the longing to contribute? So many wait for the express invitation to speak, for some permission to be granted, to be coaxed into contributing. But what if this invitation never comes? When does silence stop us from fulfilling our purpose, or making connections with others? When does silence stop a healthy disagreement, like the one that names an injustice and invokes change? When is silence being complicit, when it should be calling on a revolution waiting to happen?”
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home

“The willingness to rebel from the expected norms, rules, and silent contracts of establishment comes out of knowing that one cannot afford to build resentment. Resentment, which comes from the decision to go against one's truth, embitters the self. It somaticizes in the body and takes on the burden of pain as if it were ours alone. The whistleblower, on the other hand, reveals a shared complicity. It says, "I expect more from myself and from you." And in that stance, the pain becomes, in a sense, communal.”
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home