Impressions from the Satyam Community Retreat

20 & 22 of December 2025
Mai Shahin

I wanted to share a few impressions with you from our Satyam retreat that ended today. I’m still carrying the echo of these days in my body — the stillness, the tears, the truth-telling, the breath returning to places where it had been missing.

We held NVC trainings, empathy circles, and grief rituals that opened something essential in people — especially those who were experiencing this kind of togetherness for the very first time. You could almost see it happen in real time: shoulders slowly dropping, eyes softening, voices trembling into honesty. Many came with old armors, with stories that were never held, with grief that had never been witnessed.

And then — the room shifted.

A circle of strangers began to breathe as one.

There is something almost sacred about watching people discover,q maybe for the first time in their lives, that they don’t have to carry everything alone. To see them realize that connection is not a luxury — it’s a birthright. That listening is a form of love. That grief, when shared, becomes something that can move, soften, transform.

These last days were a reminder of why we do this work: because when human beings are given a space of safety, presence, and dignity, something ancient in them remembers. Remembers how to feel. How to be held. How to return home to themselves and to each other.

I leave this retreat deeply grateful — for the courage in the room, for the willingness to stay with what hurts, for the beauty of voices speaking truth without fear. And grateful for you, David, and for all the ways you continue to support this path we are building.

Togetherness is not just a practice. It is a revolution.

And this week, we witnessed it begin in so many new hearts.

Poem - The Tribe That Remembers

By Mai Shahin

Come close, my children of dust and dawn,

sit by the trembling flame.

Let the night lean in and listen

to the pulse of our tribe,

to the beating of our shared heart.

When the world forgets — sing anyway.

Sing to the bones,

to the rivers,

to the earth that still remembers us all.

When they burn your homes — do not curse the fire.

Place your hands upon the soil.

Let the ashes teach you

the language of return.

Let the wind carry our prayers

to every corner the oppressor would hide.

We are not alone, my beloved.

We rise together —

daughters, sons, mothers, fathers,

the children of every street and stone.

Every step we take is a drumbeat,

every breath a seed

for the healing of the world.

Do not speak in anger — speak in truth.

Let your words rise like smoke:

soft, unbreakable,

carrying the scent of the sacred.

When the guns roar, we hum beneath the noise.

Life moves through us — still,

even in the shadow of war.

Our grief becomes a river,

our tears a bridge,

our song a shield

against forgetting.

O Gaza, heart of impossible love,

your sorrow is the fire of survival,

your laughter the whisper of rebellion.

The world may try to silence us,

but together we rise —

not only to survive,

but to remember, to heal, to resist.

We are the tribe of the remembering,

the keepers of the pulse of life.

Our grief is holy,

our sorrow is sacred,

our love is a revolution

that no wall, no gun, no genocide can erase.

When your body falters — lean on each other.

When your voice trembles — let the tribe speak.

When the world turns its back — build bridges with your hearts.

We are the living resistance,

the prayer that refuses to end,

the fire that cannot be contained.

Let us plant together,

let us heal together,

let us rise together.

Every hand that reaches,

every mouth that sings,

every heart that remembers

is part of the same flame.

We carry the future in our joined hands,

we carry the ancestors in our bones,

we carry the fire in our hearts.

Even in ruin,

even in sorrow,

we are alive —

we are awake —

we are the tribe that remembers.

So breathe, my children — deep, slow, together.

Let the earth hear our song.

Let the rivers hum our names.

Let the world learn again

how to live,

how to heal,

how to rise.

Poem - From The Womb of Fire

A Poem By Mai Shahin

I came from the womb of the fire,

from a mother who spoke through stone.

She said — child, you are dust and desire,

you are many,

you are one,

you are home.

I came through the salt of the mothers,

through milk that remembered the dead,

through songs that were buried in silence,

through prayers our grandmothers said.

O tribe of the trembling river,

O keepers of flame and sky,

our grief is the drum of forever,

our tears — the reason we rise.

We have fed on ash and hunger,

we have slept with broken names,

yet something holy beneath us

kept whispering — rise from the flames.

We have carried the bones of the story,

through centuries heavy and long,

but even the stones of our sorrow

have learned to hum our song.

O fire, remember us kindly,

O grief, be gentle tonight,

for we are the daughters of silence,

turning our pain into light.

The river inside me remembers,

the soil in my palms still speaks.

There is no border in spirit,

no fence between wounds and peace.

I call to the ones who are weeping,

to the ones who forgot their sound,

return to the breath, my beloved,

return —

to the sacred ground.

We are not broken — we’re molten,

we are not lost — we are wide,

we are the voice of the ocean

singing from inside.

We remember — the first fire,

we remember — the first cry,

and every time we hold each other,

the world learns — how to survive.

So gather your drums and your daughters,

your brothers, your candles, your song,

the tribe has been sleeping too long, love,

the tribe has been sleeping — too long.

Light the fire — in your chest,

let the smoke become your breath,

and whisper through the wounds that ache:

I am alive. I am awake.

Mai Shahin

December 23rd ,2023