Patricia Barnes Therapeutic Yoga

11/25/2025

Rest in peace and power.

The King Center mourns the passing of Viola “Mother” Fletcher, one of the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Born May 10, 1914, Mother Fletcher carried the truth of Greenwood with strength, dignity, and unwavering courage.

Her voice helped ensure that one of our nation’s greatest tragedies would not be erased from memory.
We honor her life, her resilience, and her commitment to justice.

May her legacy continue to guide us as we work to build a more just, humane, and peaceful world.

Rest in power, Mother Fletcher.

11/24/2025

I like this image as well as the words.

Long before God the Father, there she was – God the Mother. Where did she vanish to, this great mother goddess?

How did we women become so completely dispossessed?

It wasn’t that I wanted to replace a male god with a female god; it wasn’t that I wanted to find a religion at all. I was simply looking for some sense that women might have worth.

And I found it: there in the old stories of my own native land, I found it. Filled with images of women creating, women weaving the world into being, I took up knitting.

Thread by thread, stitch by stitch, I began to knit myself back into being. I had never thought of myself as being a particularly creative soul, but I discovered that creativity was a wide-ranging affair.

I simply thought about what brought me joy, and I began to cultivate it.

I dug my hands into this strange foreign soil, and I began to grow things.

I began to reacquaint myself with the soft animal object that was my body.

Slowly, spending more and more time outside, focusing on the wisdom of my senses rather than on what was going on inside my head, I began to weave myself back into the fabric of the Earth.
― Sharon Blackie, If Women Rose Rooted

Photo: by Karen McGuinness on Pinterest

for the Woman's Soul

11/20/2025

I believe that love is stronger than hate. If we keep practicing love, it will grow even stronger! ❤️🙏🏻

The question that could change everything about how you handle conflict: 💭 What if we tried something different?

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

With ongoing tensions in communities nationwide - from school board meetings to neighborhood disputes - we're seeing the same pattern: anger meeting anger, creating more problems instead of solutions. But WHAT IF we tried something different?

asks us to pause and think: "How can I bring light to this situation instead of more heat?" It might mean listening before speaking, finding common ground, or simply refusing to let someone else's anger control our response.

Before you react to conflict today, ask yourself this question reflective of Dr. King’s teachings: Am I adding light or darkness to this situation?

Share this post if you believe love is stronger than hate. Let's flood our feeds with this reminder! 🌟

11/17/2025

I want to read more from this author.

Audre Lorde taught us that silence is not safety. Freedom lives in our voices, our stories, and our truth. We speak because we must.

11/14/2025

I had not heard of World Kindness Day until I saw this, and it made me reflect on what kindness I may have given today. I'm sure you have done something kind today, too!

Kindness can change a life. 💛

When Dr. Maya Angelou was a young girl living in Stamps, Arkansas, she met a woman who forever altered the course of her life — Mrs. Bertha Flowers.

As Dr. Angelou wrote in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:
“Then I met, or rather got to know, the lady who threw me my first lifeline... She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be.”

Mrs. Flowers’ kindness helped Dr. Angelou rediscover her voice after years of silence. Her compassion nurtured a love of language that would later inspire millions across the world.

On this , let us remember that a single act of kindness can transform a life — and even shape history. 🌿

11/11/2025

This quote lifted my spirits, and I hope it will do the same for you!

11/06/2025

This need is now! Please join me in donating☺️

The need for food assistance is at an all-time high. Every $1 helps provide a meal for families, children & older adults

11/04/2025

This message is the most meaningful, concise, and inspiring that I have heard on this topic! I hope it will be helpful to you💛🙏🏻

Self-care is sacred. It helps keep us fueled for justice., our minds aligned with purpose, and our spirits encouraged to create the Beloved Community. 💛

Here are a few tips to enhance your self-care:

🌿 Pause daily. Take a few quiet moments to breathe, reflect, or pray.
💧 Nourish yourself. Eat well, rest deeply, and hydrate often—your body is an instrument for peace.
🤝 Connect. Build a community that uplifts and restores your energy.
🕊️ Set boundaries. Protect your peace so you can serve from abundance, not exhaustion.
💬 Reflect. Journal, meditate, or spend time in nature to realign with purpose.

Remember justice work is a marathon, not a sprint. Caring for yourself helps you keep showing up—whole, grounded, and ready to love boldly.

11/03/2025

Let's keep reminding ourselves of this important message❤️🙏🏻

Love, which is the foundation of nonviolence, remains the most durable, transformative power in the world.

Let’s choose love over hate, light over fear, kindness over cruelty, and peace over provocation—365 days a year.

11/02/2025

This hit me right between the eyes. How about you?

WELCOME NOVEMBER…

There is something about November that says ‘just keep going’.
We are not quite through the year yet the finish-line looms out of nowhere.
We are plunged into darkness by Mother Nature.
We are faced with the ‘season of joy’,
and yet many of us wonder where we will find it.

And I think November is a great time to take a little peek behind you,
and see just how much you’ve done.
To take stock of your achievements, your endurance,
your survival.
To rest, reinforce, before the festivities envelope us all.
Before beautiful new beginnings.

And most importantly, November is a time to seek out light.
As the natural order darkens, we must find it ourselves.
We must do whatever we can to brighten our day,
our home, the world.

Seek out light wherever you can my friends,
and pay no heed to those who condemn your sparkle.

You are much-needed.

Keep showing up, in that special way only you can do.
And show up for yourself too
(which can sometimes mean not showing up somewhere else).

This year has been hard.
Again.
But beautiful.
Again.

As is the way of life.

As is the way of life.

Donna Ashworth

Art by my favourite Bettina Baldassari

(If you’d like to pre order my latest book ahead of its launch in US/Canada this month, I’d be delighted)

10/28/2025

Let's keep doing our best to help each other through these times! ❤️🙏🏻

❤️

10/22/2025

This writer sets a strong example for today's situation.

Richard Wright was warned that his words could get him killed — so he made them louder.

He grew up in the Deep South during Jim Crow, where reading was rebellion. His grandmother forbade “worldly books,” his teachers punished curiosity, and white men punished everything else. But Wright read anyway — newspapers, pamphlets, anything he could find. “Words were weapons,” he said. “I just had to learn how to use them.”

At seventeen, he left Mississippi with two dreams: to eat every day and to write without fear. Chicago gave him the first, barely. He swept streets, hauled coal, and wrote on scraps of paper in freezing rooms. What he produced was too raw for publishers — stories of hunger, shame, and rage from a man society wanted invisible. When he finally found editors brave enough to print him, he didn’t hold back.

In 1940, Native Son detonated like a moral gr***de. It was the first American novel to force readers — especially white readers — to stare directly at the consequences of racial oppression. Its hero, Bigger Thomas, wasn’t a symbol of hope. He was a mirror. Critics called it violent and un-American. Wright called it the truth.

Then came Black Boy — a memoir so searing that some libraries refused to stock it. He described starvation not just of food, but of dignity, love, and freedom. It wasn’t autobiography; it was testimony.

Tired of being surveilled and censored in his own country, Wright moved to Paris. He called exile his “freedom within exile.” Even there, the FBI kept a file on him. He wrote anyway — essays, novels, and warnings about the price of silence.

When he died in 1960, his ashes were buried beneath a tree on the outskirts of Paris. On the urn was a single word: “Writer.”

Richard Wright didn’t ask America to change.
He dared it to admit what it was — and that was far more dangerous.