Alchemizing Rage: A Sacred Practice

My heart has been heavy with grief and rage this season. I feel a steady, strengthening rumble of collective and ancestral anger. A cleansing rage revealing what’s crumbling and what’s ready to rebuild. Watching our government actively dismantle community and systems of care through deportation, displacement, starvation, medical neglect, and genocide feels like watching a carefully tended and deeply loved garden bulldozed.

These attacks also hit at a personal level. The federal contracts I worked on were among those impacted by DOGE. I’ve been juggling unemployment, single parenthood, and community organizing and support while integrating the collective implications of this moment in history.

What’s most painful for me is the predictability of it all. My training in power dynamics, abuse, and violence prevention has shown me the patterns. Militarized or policing responses do not make communities safer. The pillars of safe, healthy, and thriving communities are healthcare, housing, education, and connection. This administration has ripped away the funding and infrastructure for this work, ironically in the name of crime prevention. And those of us who did the real work are now waiting on unemployment checks, in line at the food bank, and are reinventing careers outside public systems.

Rage is my honest response. It’s ancestral and righteous. It’s a rage that has echoed through time among countless souls.  My anger fuels me. It keeps me moving forward and demands action over resignation. I’m furious about the oppressive policies coming out of this administration. I’m outraged over the ICE raids and deportations, the program cuts, the dismantling of the Department of Education, and the weaponization of basic human needs as a political tactic. And I refuse to let that fury be quiet.

One of the things I chose to do with the grief and rage I've been carrying is co-facilitate a sacred rage circle. I partnered with Eden from Tantra Philly to hold space for dialogue about and somatic release of rage. We sat under a full moon in a New Jersey "suburban homestead" around a roaring fire on election night. The air was tense with uncertainty and fear, and we cut through it while calling on the power of ancient feminine rage. We wove together the threads of our personal, ancestral, and collective rage to see the bigger picture, with patriarchy and colonization at the center. A poisonous root system infecting everything it touches. We gave primal voice to the rage coursing through our bodies as we screamed and grunted and hissed under the moon's light. Shaking it out through our bodies as though possessed by demons. Music that pounded with the beats of rage coursed through the air as we danced and cackled. And then we soothed and settled into the slow rumble of a deeper knowing to the sultry voice of Stevie Nicks.

The ritual of naming, burning, embodying, and connecting with our rage is one way of alchemizing rage. The justness and righteousness of our rage doesn't mean releasing our anger, it means releasing what's holding us back from acting on it. Rage can demand we scream, shout, and move- protests and gatherings likes rage circles can be spaces for this need.

If you find yourself burning with a similar rage, remember that it’s a source of clarity and wisdom. Allow the light your inner fire makes to reveal where you can support your community and those harmed by this administration. Rage is a catalyst for transformation. Carving a path through the rot and decay, laying the ground for new life to arise. How will you transform the world with your sacred rage?

Some reflection questions for sacred rage:

• Does your rage feel personal, collective, or ancestral? Maybe of a combination?

• Where in y0ur body do you feel your rage?

• If your rage could speak, what would it say?

• What actions does your rage want to take?

Follow my social media and the Events page for updates on upcoming moon circles!