Practicing Rest at World’s End with Maggie + Frug
Maggie, Frug and I made our way to World’s End in Hingham yesterday.
Ohhh what a gift it is to be by the sea, no one in sight but the three of us, birds calling and tiny waves lapping quietly around us.
We spent some time connecting and preparing for the Community Rest Ritual we’re co-facilitating at JP Centre Yoga on Saturday, slowing down for long moments of rest and connection ourselves.
Speaking of rest, I’m being called to a slow evening re-connecting with my body and my heart. So I’ll pause the words here and leave you with the gallery.
First, a photo Maggie took of me taking a few minutes to get really quiet and just listen to the soundscape + connect with the texture and temperature of the pebbles beneath me.
Then, some photos from my lil camera companion. I’ve been surprising myself with how much I’m enjoying photography again lately. My first love! It brings my eyes sooo much pleasure to just pour over the photos once I get home and edit them. SO SATISFYING!!!
Hope you get even a tenth of the pleasure and delight and yummies that I get from them - may they be a nourishing pour into your cup!
Thanks for being here!
em
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To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
3/16 Queer Somatic Nature Walk by the creek + rhododendrons @ the Arb
I wanted to share some sweet scenes from this past weekend’s Queer Somatic Nature Walk + Embodied Journaling workshop by the creek and rhododendrons at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.
This was the first one of 2025, inspired on a whim by looking at the forecast and seeing it’d be 65 degrees that Sunday.
It felt so special to get together with this sweet crew and be present with this beautiful land and water, our senses, ourselves, and one another on a beautiful, warm (almost) spring day.
I always feel so nourished by hearing about what people are noticing when they get a chance to slow down and enjoy connecting with nature through their senses, and I love hearing the reflections that come through journaling as folks connect with their inner wisdom + the land around them.
A reminder that our bodies hold so much wisdom! We are rich in so many ways when we cultivate space to connect ourselves + the beings around us, and especially when we then share that with one another.
Truly cannot think of another way I’d rather spend my afternoon - I’ve been basing in giddy gratitude about how much I love the work I do!
If you’d like to be kept in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
Thanks for being here!
em
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
coastal adventuring with frug + maggie
A change of plans and some time spent exploring a path through the coastal landscape in Quincy.
I’ve been missing the ocean dearly lately. Exploring coastal landscapes just does something good for my spirit, especially when I get to do it with my loved ones (and/or frug).
I went a little too long without filling that particular cup this winter, so when Maggie invited me for a last minute walk near the Quincy coast, frug and I eagerly drove down to meet them.
We didn’t find the trail we were looking for, but we did get to have a little adventure, exploring this marshy bit of land, watching the wind blow the grass and throwing oyster shells into the mud, watching them land with a satisfying thuck.
romancing myself: artist date with the camellias at the lyman estate greenhouses
Oooh what a delight it is to share these photos with you (full gallery after my musings)! These are so so yummy to my eyes and bring up a warm swelling in my heart.
My eyes have been craving flowers lately. I literally feel it as this yearning reaching coming from my eyes and my heart.
This is a familiar feeling for me, this time of year. Winter always seems to leave me feeling thirsty for green, for color, for the kinds of beauty and aliveness I feel most inspired by.
I’m on my third week of The Artist’s Way (well, really, it’s a mix of TAW + Living the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s newest book), and I’m just now picking up my weekly artist dates with intentionality.
A series of starts and stops and surrendering left me with a free Saturday afternoon, a body in need of time to process, and the information that the Lyman Estate Greenhouses have camellias that bloom this time of year.
Learning about the camellias was a sweet synchronicity - normally I visit the camellias, one of my favorite flowers, on St Simons Island, GA.
There, they bloom in February, generous red and pink and white blossoms dotting the lower layer of the live oak and spanish moss canopy that shades the cemetery where I visit my mother’s grave.
This year, with the political climate around transness so soon after T’s inauguration, an X on my license, and looking more visibly queer and gender non-conforming than ever, I didn’t feel comfortable traveling there. A first time, and a heartbreak.
I’ve missed my time on the island dearly.
I can feel the absence of that mid-winter fill up on connection with the camellias, the ocean, the live oaks. With the warm sun on my winter skin and the salt air in my nose. Ocean sunrises and sunsets, bird watching, shifting sand patterns, and crispy crinkle cut french fries from Frosty’s, all just a quick bike ride away, waiting to be delighted in and devoured.
So when I learned that the camellias were in bloom, it felt like a gift for my grief and longing. A chance to connect with my beloved camellias, all the way from up here in Boston.
I got there in the afternoon and moved slowly through the green houses, letting my eyes soak in all the beauty and color and aliveness. How good it was to have this time with nature and my camera!
After many years of disconnect from photography following a disabling burnout that I’m still recovering from, it’s been this incredible, tender gift to get to start rediscovering all that I love about it. To remember that I love spending time with myself and my camera this way! Taking my time, appreciating and reveling in the beauty of it all, going just as slow as I’d like to and taking it all in.
After the greenhouse, I made my way to Mahoney’s on a whim. Along the way I saw a farm store with a bunch of cars parked outside and followed a ping to stop there. I left with an abundance of fresh flowers, homemade pumpkin and squash ravioli, and some apple cider donuts.
Upon returning home, I’m happy to report that my apartment is starting to fill with fresh cut flowers again… tulips and daffs and hellebores splashing color across my dining room table. Pleasure and beauty and bread for the journey every time I pass them.
((((((( may these photos act as a nurturing portal as you spend time taking them in ))))))
thanks for being here!
em
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
\\ full gallery below - tap and swipe to go through larger photos one by one//
Big news: I’m moving! I’d love community support in finding my next home.
I originally shared this in my January newsletter, and I wanted to give it a place to live where I could share it easily.
I started the year off with some big news - my current home will no longer be available for renting, so I'll be moving sometime in the next 6 months.
This is big big news for my nervous system that I'm still taking in and stabilizing around, especially because it's coincided with news of some of my dearest local pals moving far away in the coming months too.
Fear, grief, heartache, confusion have made their presence well known this month. It's been tough, and it's been pretty cool to watch the ways I'm able to be with these big big feelings differently than at any other time in my life.
And, I feel hopeful - I've been sensing that life is calling me into a new chapter, and I'm curious and excited to see what it is and who will be a part of it.
Here's a cyanotype I made while I was processing all the feelings that came up with this news + all that's happening in the world right now (particularly witnessing the impacts of all forms of extraction and supremacy culture happening globally right now):
What will this mean for me? I'm not sure. Maybe a 1-3 month stay somewhere new this summer as a DIY artist residency? Do you know someone with a cool place to stay? Especially somewhere in nature? Should I rent a place and invite folks in for their own artist residencies + lead a retreat or two there?
Or maybe directly into a new place, here in JP/Rozzie, or possibly western mass (Easthampton area perhaps?), Portland Maine, Providence RI...
I would love to stay in JP for another rental cycle or two if it happens with ease.
Preferably in a shared home with other queer artists/healers/nature lovers who want to occasionally collaborate on community-oriented offerings. Possibly finding an apartment/house to start our own co-op?
Some details:
I have 2 cats and a dog who love to hang out and be loved on by housemates, so I'll need a pet-friendly place.
I'm in a vulnerable place and feeling a bit exposed - I'm still recovering financially from years of disabling burnout, CPTSD treatment, and a divorce during the pandemic.
I have a co-signer but I'm transitioning from living off of savings from a previous business to building a sustainable income through my current art, facilitation, and somatic support practice. I'd really love to be invited into a space that is open and supportive about the position I'm in.
I'm at a really beautiful point in my process of post traumatic recovery and growth (and business growth!), and looking to surround myself with people who believe in me -especially at my most vulnerable- and take pleasure in investing in my growth and my thriving.
If you have any connections (to places to live or people looking for something similar), I would love to receive them! :)
In the meantime, I've been doing my best to savor my remaining time in my current home. I've been re-exploring my relationship with photography - it's taken a long time, but I found a camera that feels just right for me right now, and I've been taking it with me on my daily walks with fruggi girl (my dog).
It's been such a gift to live so close to the arboretum these past two and a half years. Here are a few photos, more on my instagram.
Brookwood Community Farm - Folk on the Farm Event || Canton, Massachusetts
September 1, 2024 [full gallery at the end]
Had a real sweet evening at Brookwood Community Farm’s Folk on the Farm event in Canton yesterday.
I’ve been slowly repairing my relationship with photography after years of burnout - taking things step by step, staying open and releasing pressure when it comes up. I’ve been slowly feeling the passion return.
When I photographed another one of my dearest people, Cheyenne, on the eve of their gender-affirming chest reduction surgery in early August, I felt the flame starting to light me up again, this time with new dimensions mixed in with the familiar.
I’ve noticed myself getting more curious about bringing my camera with me places again, giving myself space to play. I forgot how much I love connecting with people and places this way, and I love being reminded each time I bring it.
So yesterday, on my way out the door, I brought my camera on a whim.
I got there a bit later in the event, so I missed Ragu, but caught a bunch of The Moonbeams’ set. A small crowd was gathered under a gorgeous, giant Maple tree.
Pals and kiddos climbing up its massive, winding limbs, bare feet dangling, others lounging on its sprawling, ropey roots. A light breeze moving through the leaves, families and friends gathered on blankets and chairs, listening to the banjo and sweet voices harmonizing. Chips and Maggie’s homemade dips, my first time trying baba ganoush.
Gorgeous dahlias from 13 Moon Farm, tiny cantaloupes, juicy raspberries that I’m gonna miss dearly when winter comes. Pals being sweet and playful with each other, many worlds coming together, basking in the interconnectedness of it all. Backlit fuzzy grass and rows of sunflowers as the sun sets.
So dreamy. Good spirit feel for sure.
Bonus digital sunset selfies courtesy of Zenaida’s long arms cause they’re real sweet -
—
After, an evening trip to Houghton’s Pond with Maggie and Rabbit.
Crickets and frogs and cicadas, silhouetted trees and points of light in the sky that may or may not be a plane/star/planet/???.
A whoosh turned into a spontaneous game, marigolds in the water, letting go and making wishes.
Having my portrait made by rabbit in the dying light, remembering the joy it brings me to share the magic of using this camera I love with others. And the magic of being seen through the eyes of friends.
Singing simple songs about the beating of our hearts and love and solidarity together on our way back to the car.
The sweetest goodbye to the month of August.
Ahh, what a joy to have my camera with me!
I’m appreciating the ways that photographs often invite me to linger on an experience: to notice details I might have missed, to reconnect with the felt sense of being there, to fill up on the nectar of the sweet connections and the presence of the people + environment in them.
I’m looking forward to following this thread… what might emerge?
Full gallery below!
PS. if you’re any of these photos and want to arrange picking up the physical instaxes that you’re in, send me an email at info@emily-tebbetts.com or DM me on Instagram and we’ll arrange a pickup!
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Cheyenne || Embodied Portraiture + Witnessing Pre- Gender-affirming Chest Reduction Surgery
These portraits are of my dear, beloved friend Cheyenne on the eve of their gender affirming chest reduction surgery.
I’m feeling inspired to tell some of the story behind these portraits, which comes with a lot of personal significance for me.
If you’re not feeling called to read right now, you can scroll to the bottom for the full set of photos.
Cheyenne coming into my life back in 2017 changed nearly everything for me - I truly cannot overstate the impact her presence, her magic, and her friendship (also, her photography + her own self-portraiture) has had on my life: my personhood, my freedom in myself, my relationship with my body, myself as a sexual being, my relationship with beauty and softness and pleasure, my relationship with online community, and practicing toward liberation daily through the ways we love one another.
Cheyenne and I have witnessed and loved and supported each other through so much self-discovery, hardship, growth, loss, and life transition. We’ve kept each other company as we’ve journeyed through the depths of our underworlds, and through the many expansions that intertwine…personally, creatively, and professionally.
In the time we’ve been friends, we both came into our queerness, and then into our gender identities. It has been SO BEAUTIFUL to witness Cheyenne in their own queerness + gender journey. Most recently, the questions they had to answer for themselves, the risks they chose to take to move toward their body’s truth and desires, and the grief they’ve chosen to face that accompanies stepping more fully into your freedom, your truth, your vulnerability, the legitimacy of your desires, and receiving more abundantly.
I had the honor of being Cheyenne’s primary care person for the day of their surgery and the day or two after, and had planned to get down to Philly the evening before.
After many years of burnout that affected my relationship with photography in particular, I’ve been slowly finding my passion for it again, delighting in the emerging ways I could integrate the kind of embodiment magic I love practicing and facilitating with the portraits I was making.
As we got closer to Cheyenne’s surgery, I had a deepening knowing that I wanted to photograph them before their surgery as a ritual, as a portal, as a space to process and feel and honor past selves and express and make art out of it all on this threshold of a new chapter of life.
It was such an honor to do this with them. And such a sweet, rich treasure for me, getting to share this experience with them. There were so many special moments, so many tears.
We made these photos at the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust - a beautiful stretch of land that was just a few minutes away from Cheyenne’s childhood home.
Cheyenne and I have talked a lot about nature and our desire to live more immersed in nature over the years. If you know Cheyenne, you know their deep love for the rivers and the woods. I love love loved getting to witness them and photograph them in this beautiful place that they so clearly had a deep, reverent connection with.
The air felt thick with presence and significance to me as we walked out to the field and began dropping into the session. I asked Cheyenne if there was anyone they wanted to call in, or whose presence she wanted to name. Her people were already there with her, which didn’t surprise me at all, but felt powerful to hear spoken aloud. Then, she told me that my mom was there too, and that she had come with me.
My mom died when I was 19, after a decade long journey with breast cancer. She went through many surgeries, including a double mastectomy. As I felt into my own needs in preparing for my role in Cheyenne’s care team, I was struck by how much came up from my earlier experiences of my mom’s surgeries, illness, and death.
When Cheyenne named her presence, I could feel the truth of it. It felt so powerful, this moment of re-engaging with photography in this new way in collaboration with one of my dearest soul friends, on the threshold of a new chapter of life and self-expression.
Big tears.
We moved through the field slowly, letting the emotions come up and wash over, tuning into our senses, letting our bodies move in expression and response. I felt the passion I had for photography as a teen rekindled strong and true, after a long time of nursing a spark and some embers.
This is what I want to do. And I want to do it this way.
Light was fading and the gates were due to close soon, so we buzzed around a bit, finding our way back to the parking lot. On our way, we stumbled upon a field that was clearly calling out for us to play and make in. Just real quick!! God I loved that part about portrait sessions, and I had forgotten.
I invited Cheyenne to drop into presence and intuitive movement for a bit before we left, and I think those photos are my favorite from the whole session - it was so dark at that time, so I knew I was working with long shutterspeeds and intentional expressive motion blur and intentionally underexposed images. I loooove it how it looks on the black and white instax square film.
There’s so much more I could share - more to say another day, when I’ve processed the experience more fully. For now, I’ll just say -
The way Cheyenne and I approached preparing for that time together - making space for the anxieties, fears, emotions and triggers, and needs we each had and working with them - was such a healing and significant experience for me.
Seeing one of my dearest, most bedrock people in such a vulnerable state, and watching them navigate tender growth edges to practice receiving connection and support of all kinds was, too.
It was such an honor and beautiful growing experience for me to get to be a part of this in all the ways that I was. A potent reminder that being in the practice of caring for one another’s well-being and freedom and self-expression nourishes everyone who participates.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for witnessing. It means a lot to me to share these.
Here are their portraits -
FULL SET Below
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