so grateful for friendship, lovership, spring and their infinite surprises, each friend’s gifts a ceremony, the storytelling, the clowning, the weirdos, the animales, all the little nowsss!
“rows and flows of angel hair” — thank you @olive_sidoine_reday for the tresses even though you were like “now why do you want this?” hahaha i’m feeling very happy and affirmed giving both/and 🥹🥹🥹 dearest @ponytrick got me together on top of head!
my annual love affair with green. i feel very unsure about my path right now - hence the ministry of unfulfillment. but i know for sure i want to follow in green’s footsteps. i wrote a lullaby in my worship practice the other day that sang “verde de mi alma, verde de mi alma, gracias aun sigues así / hay guerras y armas y gente que no ama esta tierra pero el verde sigue así / color brillante, color de alma, gracias por decirme a mi / que mi alma persiste, que vive en lo verde, y florece dentro de mi”🍀
my poem for the verdant came through for @ameiasmith and co’s People’s Almanac last year!
Our Spring 2026 issue, Underground, is officially here! 🪱🌱🤎🫧
At Tractor Beam, we believe that speculative fiction has the power to shape our future, so we’re celebrating the launch of Underground by spotlighting some of the real soilpunks already doing that work to make those brighter futures a reality.
brontë velez (@littlenows ) is a Black-Boricua transdisciplinary ritual artist, shepherd and cultural worker. Their eco-social art praxis is an intergenerational prayer to resanctify labor with land through rebuking the hauntings slavery has had on our precious relations with earth-rooted ritual and craft. brontë practices pastoral care (in an ecological and ministerial sense) as a co-director of The School for Inclement Weather (@weathering.school ) and as the adult programs director and climate chaplain for the climate preparedness program ATTUNE at Weaving Earth (@weaving_earth ).
Learn more about brontë’s work through the link in their bio and explore Tractor Beam’s Spring issue, Underground, at tractorbeam.earth!
#TractorBeamUnderground #pastoralcare #regenerativeagriculture #ecologicalrestoration #soilpunk
my practice right now is that when it feels like i wish there was a rapture and angels would take me off this god-forsaken planet i try to be enraptured by beauty, i’m desperate for it. i’m in a daily practice of going to behold the land’s worship in the morning and offer worship back in the evening even when it feels impossible. i am seeing the wonders that practice is rearranging in me. this song has been a wonder for me, particularly that “beauty” harmony which is what i’m trying to align myself with. a prayer that when i align myself with beauty i am more capable of offering the beauty of protective presence, of safety for my community, of defending the sacred
grateful for another opportunity to pray with the beloveds hosting the multi-faith prayer circle for Palestine. thank you @heartofearth_ and @dorimidnight for hosting this miraculous space. thank you to all the prayer warriors who offered their prayers up this morning.
i wrote this prayer coming out of ATTUNE’s Wilderness First Responder training yesterday led by @solidarityfieldschool in collaboration with @weaving_earth for today’s prayer circle. witnessing folks learn how to respond to massive bleeding and regulate their nervous systems, open airways and stay with their own breath, splint an injury and sit with bird song in the morning. asking again and again and living into “what if our mystics and prophets were also our first responders?” i pray this prayer blesses your musculature for worship ~
MULTI-FAITH PRAYER CIRCLE Sunday, March 22nd 2-3:30pm et register 🔗b10
Join us for a virtual multi-faith gathering to ground, grieve, pray, and connect in the face of crises, collapse, genocide and global authoritarianism.
As the horrors continue, we deepen and fortify our commitment to resistance and collective liberation, deepening our prayers. We keep loving each other. We keep showing up. We keep resisting, fighting with every tool we have.
We come together to pray a multitude of voices, languages, streams of traditions with the intention that these practices can irrigate us, steady us, open us, fortify us, anchor us, & move us towards radical action in our ongoing commitment to & work for a free Palestine, for collective liberation, for protection and thriving and belonging for all beings everywhere - knowing that prayers are not enough, knowing that the notion of praying is sometimes used as a way to bypass the rigorous work that is required in this moment.
And we will be rigorous in our prayers - praying together not as a way to bring comfort or ease for ourselves, but to continue to be steadfast, to move & act with courage & conviction. Prayer as non-compliance. Prayer as resistance.
Come join us to weave and be held by this generous, radical web.
Prayer leaders:
@dorimidnight@lubna.masarwa@touk.keo@samantharise@heartofearth_@iamrotana@adriennemareebrown@littlenows@ahmeddremly@durganyc@yashnamaya
*closed captions are available*
Our offering is always free. We’ll also be sharing mutual aid links for anyone who feels called to contribute.
my last name velez comes from vela meaning candle (though i have also seen “vigil” and “crow” — i like all of these meaning the same thing)! alas, i am stepping into the ancestral ritual vocation of sacrament making. i have been making candles for the past 6 years for gifts, sabbath, and prayer and excited to offer these okra votives as a way for folks to support my ministry, craft and study! and in reciprocity to offer a ritual object of devotion to my community’s prayer life 💕 my lil sacrament slinging shop is called “sell the shadow” following sojourner truth’s strategy to support her itinerant ministry: “i sell the shadow to support the substance”. <🔗🔗🔗🔗 ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️>
i made the mold from a dried okra pod gifted from @gabrielle_eitienne . i achieved this green tone with integrating ash with the beeswax from one of our prescribed fires at @weathering.school in Kashia Pomo territory. my dearest @con_vexa instigated the ash into beeswax mixture at a fire we hosted years ago and the color got me going since. the prayer of good fire sustaining us is held in the candle. i am receiving prayer requests for each candle and will write a personal prayer for you and hold that prayer for you as i craft.
<and manicure shots so you can see the careful hands preparing your candle! yes @enterthenailrealm designed these nails after the birthday necklace i made 🥹 and yes i dyed my dress 🥹🥹 the glow up is!!! >
background photo by @tksloane at ATTUNE fire at School for Inclement Weather in 2023 🔥🔥🔥more on the process in story highlights! thank you @silkensap for teaching me how to make molds 🥹🥹
i am so excited to finally share these questions with you following Howard Thurman’s invitation that there is “a special ministry of unfulfillment”. this is me taking that language through the rumen of my spirit, setting my perception ovine, dilating the heart beside the narrow vision of capitalism toward stranger things (i’m finally on season 4 finale don’t spoil for me i know i’m behind).
i pray this inquiry blesses you, that where you feel unfulfilled you notice god is lingering where you didn’t expect…anointing you even. that the vacuum, the void, is an embrace, is a song, is an eternality that gives life if we are able to perceive its hospitality. i’m hoping to accompany folks with this oddball ministry and inviting people to follow my work for a special consistent online space i will host called the ministry of unfulfillment where i try on my itinerant pastoring. where we can take refuge in some teachings and practices together. and tonight i’m co-hosting a pop-up in person space in Oakland with my dear friends at @playgrndexperience on longing and the ministry of unfulfillment!!! come throughhhh!
•••
Photo is from an image of Diedrick Brackens @deedsweaves work I write about in piece from a body of work called “ark of bulrushes”! (i found three titles for this offering that i have listed in essay but correct me Diedrick! Ha!).
It was an unforgettable evening with @esperanzaspalding ! As part of Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being Concerts, the five-time Grammy Award–winning artist brought a multidisciplinary experience centered on the power and beauty of shared musical moments to our Resnick Education Wing. The unique concert experience—which spalding described as a “homemade field of love”—took inspiration from June Jordan’s poem “1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.”
Hosted by writer @alexispauline Gumbs, the evening featured musicians, dancers, vocalists, and “sacraments”—a stunning visual art component curated by @sourcestudioart ’s fellow brontë velez (@littlenows ). brontë and @sourcestudioart prompted a cohort of artists to muse on Jordan’s poem and create works inspired by its musings. The result was an immersive, shared creative space for artists and audiences alike. Our thanks to @sourcestudioart and the artists @karinasharif , @jasminebestart , Spirit Adams (@nameyaself ), @nastassjaebony , and Cici Osias (@its.cicii ).
📷: @jennifertaylorphotography (1-10), @madbilly114 /@sourcestudioart (11-14)
❄️We’re still floating from a beautiful week of retreat, ritual, and co-musical performance! ❄️
Last week, SOURCE hosted and produced a residency led by our R&D Fellow brontë velez @littlenows , who gathered a small cohort of artists in a deep ritual practice at/in partnership with our friends @artslettersandnumbers . The sacraments they created culminated in a special evening at Carnegie Hall with esperanza spalding and alexis pauline gumbs.
The residency and performance took inspiration from June Jordan’s 1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, in which she describes Hamer’s cultivation of a homemade field of love. brontë dreamed big and generously during their SOURCE Fellowship, inviting more artists to expand this homemade field of love.
Listening to Fannie Lou Hamer sing, brontë pulled notes from the poem along with invitations from esperanza and Sista Docta Alexis and posed questions to the artists:
🧹How might we clean the air and make our hands brooms?
🌊How might we cool the waters with a libation?
🌱How might we sit “lion spine relaxed” like ancestor June witnessed of ancestor Fannie despite the racial violence she was up against?
🥀How might the fire at the center of this field of love be “one full Black lily luminescent?”
Meditating on these questions, the artists crafted potent sacraments for a week of music, prayer, dance, and black feminist teachings.
It’s an honor to witness what @littlenows@nameyaself@jasminebestart@its.cicii@karinasharif and @nastassjaebony brought into physical form.
We’re so grateful for our friends and partners at @artslettersandnumbers , as well as the amazing team at @carnegie that helped us pull off this visionary project.
Photos by Billy Chen @madbilly114
More soon.
