
Block by Block, Heart by Heart: Dr. Lyla June, Kaira Jewel Lingo, Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg & Rae Abileah
Sounds of SANDShow Notes
Recorded from a live SAND Gathering (February 2026). From Los Angeles to Minneapolis, communities are turning toward one another in a time of uncertainty, remembering that care begins close to home. Beyond public action, quieter networks of support are taking root: block-by-block relationships grounded in land, lineage, and love.
This gathering explores how spiritual practice, trauma-aware care, and neighborhood organizing are being woven together as living traditions. We ask what it looks like to shift our energy from reactive mobilization toward steady, proactive organizing that can sustain us for the long haul. Drawing from Indigenous memory, Black freedom traditions, diasporic Jewish practices of care, and contemporary grassroots work, we reflect on how mutual care—feeding one another, tending grief, protecting children, honoring the dead—can be reclaimed as daily sacred practice.
This is a conversation about blending spiritual practice and movement practice; about thinking smaller, closer, and more relational; and about learning from quiet, resilient forms of organizing that move people from isolation into coordinated courage.
This conversation invites attunement: How do we stay grounded in grief without collapsing? How do we strengthen relationships across differences? How do small, steady acts of care help communities move from fear toward shared courage?
This is an invitation to listen to the wisdom already alive in our histories, our bodies, and our neighborhoods.
Topics
00:00 Welcome and Context
02:33 Grounding Breath Practice
03:22 Why We Gather Now
05:19 Meet the Speakers
07:36 Lyila June on Collapse
09:12 Chaco Canyon Lesson
12:36 Kaira Jewel on Flow
16:39 Rejoicing and Ancestors
20:04 Rabbi Jessica in Minneapolis
24:54 Sacred Geography and Duty
29:59 Lyla June on Forgiveness
36:22 Liberation for Everyone
37:32 Grace and Sobriety Story
39:06 Jewish Wisdom and Mutual Care
41:27 Feasting Fuels Mutual Aid
45:53 Spirituality Is Not Neutral
49:11 Sacred Criticism and Fierce Love
53:49 Mycelium and Small Acts
59:51 Resources and Community Questions
01:03:30 Heart Practice for Overwhelm
01:06:17 Reweaving Interdependence
01:08:46 Warrior Love Closing
01:14:31 Final Announcements and Farewell
Decolonial Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Ethical Insights from Palestine with Dr. Samah Jabr (March 1, 8, 15 & 22, 2026 • 9:00 – 11:00am PST online with SAND)
Please consider donating to Rabbi Jessica’s GoFundMe campaign in support of students at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. The students are using creative arts to process the trauma of recent encounters involving ICE and U.S. Border Patrol.
In collaboration with local artists, they are developing an art installation intended to uplift and inspire both the school community and their neighbors, while continuing to advocate for justice and safety for all. This project offers a meaningful way to strengthen community bonds and foster collective healing.
Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
More from Sounds of SAND
What if humans and AI share the same hallucination?
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee grew up with a Sufi teacher living downstairs and fell in love with jazz at an early age. He is now a Sufi teacher himself, a filmmaker, and the founder of Emergence Magazine. His new book Remembering Earth asks what it would take to come back into relationship with the living world. We talk about silence, the primordial covenant, the eye of unity, walking as practice, dreams, and what it means to meet this moment without turning away from beauty.
Joan Tollifson returns to the podcast three years after her first conversation. We talk about her June essay Two Inseparable Truths, on the relative and the absolute and the trouble with getting stuck in either one. Along the way: the silence of many nondual teachers in a dark time, what cancer and an aging body insist on that philosophy cannot, and why "I don't know" may be the answer closest to truth. She closes by reading her essay 'Radiant Light in Dark Times' in full.