• Home
  • Blog
    • Writing
      • White Supremacy and Racism
      • Connected At Our Cores
      • The Inner Self
      • Lessons from Alzheimer’s
      • Creating a Home
      • In Summary…
      • From Mother to Mentor
      • Oh the Places We’ve Been!
      • Out and About
      • Writings and Art From My Colleagues
    • Art Gallery
      • Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) 2012 – The Dinner Table
      • Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) 2014 – Ilene and Frida
      • Eye Series
      • Frida Series
      • Goddess Collages
      • Goddess Mirrored Collages
      • Goddess Oil Paintings
      • Guiding Hand Series
      • Papercuts
      • Playing with Book Pages
      • The Sketchbook Project
      • Web of Life Series
  • Connect
    • Work With Me
  • About

Ellen Sauer

    Mom Artwork

    Death as Portal

    February 2, 2024

    Her scent arrived first. Francis Denney’s Interlude. Delicate at the start, then coming to rest like a swaddle, a heavy musky balm, felt more than smelled.    Next a tender clinking sound. Seashells? Wind chimes? No. Broken and mismatched rosary beads, dangling from wrists and waist.  She bustled in with a casserole of course. Chicken and rice. And two old fashioneds, orange wedges and maraschinos on their colorful plastic skewers. (Sigh.) And she brought all of the pieces of self, abandoned…

    Continue Reading

    6 Comments
    Share
  • Radical Connection Newsletters White Supremacy and Racism

    In Summary… VOICES

    Dear Radically Connected Friends ~ Just one month ago I was hunkered down, writing in my little attic office hovel, wrapped in fleece, feeling like this was going to be it for the long…

    March 14, 2021
  • From Mother to Mentor White Supremacy and Racism

    The Kids Are Listening: Let’s tell them the truth

    When I was a kid, my family didn’t talk about the important stuff that was going on in the world. The news was on TV of course. And I probably overheard adults talking here…

    February 4, 2021
  • Connected At Our Cores The Inner Self White Supremacy and Racism

    A reminder to my white self.

    Be on high alert if you find yourself hoping for a return to ‘normal’. The norm is no longer yours to determine. Release normal. Release.  (Truth: ‘Normal’ was (is) awful for a lot of…

    June 5, 2020
  • Art Gallery Goddess Collages Goddess Mirrored Collages The Inner Self

    The Big Reveal

    I know I scare you.With my constant call for change and my fiery demand that you see.Be aware though…it’s not the changing or the seeing that is frightening.It’s your resistance.But it’s time.It’s always time…

    June 11, 2019
  • Goddess Collages

    Transformation

    Am I a bleeding heart?Yes. Yes, I am.Wide open. Hemorrhaging.All over the white living room carpeting.Don’t Resolve to scrub it away.Let the dye-ing seep in and through.It’s time. Time to transform.Time to reweave. Image:…

    June 3, 2019
  • Connected At Our Cores The Inner Self White Supremacy and Racism

    Operation Assimilation: ASAP v. What’s the Rush?

    Two journeys to whiteness Like many of those of European decent, I grew up learning about my immigrant ancestors, harboring great pride in their brave choices to leave the strife of their homeland and…

    May 14, 2019
  • Blog Connected At Our Cores The Inner Self White Supremacy and Racism

    Journal Gazette Op-Ed

    Journal Gazette Publication: October 14, 2018 We tend to think that school-age children are blank slates who don’t see color and only learn about race when they first encounter it. Yet studies show that…

    October 14, 2018
  • Blog

    1:1 Sessions/Workshops

    I love to help people dismantle internal obstacles so that they can connect with each other in profound, meaningful ways. What do I mean by ‘internal obstacles’? Patterns, belief structures, childhood learnings often before…

    October 14, 2018
  • Blog Connected At Our Cores The Inner Self White Supremacy and Racism

    Dissonance

    we are all connected in the deepest, most intricate of ways – each of us to every one and every thing, seen and unseen. There is not one thing we do or action we…

    August 1, 2017
Older Posts

ellencsauer

Shout out of gratitude to @eyeseeme_bookstore for Shout out of gratitude to @eyeseeme_bookstore for the old-fashioned phone call to do a double check on my order when something was out of stock. And also for choosing some great subs for us. My grandkids’ Easter baskets will be full of good reads. They’ll love them all! #eyeseemebookstore #saveindiebookstores
This book is billed as a 'remix of Stamped From th This book is billed as a 'remix of Stamped From the Beginning' - written for kids age 12 and up. I started with this one, i.e. I read it before I read Dr. Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning original. This one by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (@jasonreynolds83 + @ibramxk) is fast-paced and written with teenage lingo and just plain, straight talk and I wish I could have read it when I was 12+. But I didn't/couldn't. NOW is the next best time. I also wish I would have read it with my kids when they were teens. It just opens us up to talking about race in clear, honest ways (not whitewashing.) It's won all sorts of awards. And it has an educator's guide so if you're a teacher or a parent or an aunt or uncle or lead a book club, you can download the guide for free and enhance your discussion which is super helpful for us white folks who aren't used to discussing race with the kids in our lives or at all. (Also, Jason Reynolds has a slew of other books that look great, so keep digging into his website and social media, etc.)⁠
⁠
#tellthetruth #dismantlewhitesupremacy #connectedatourcores #antiracism #letstalkaboutrace
I read this book by Dr. Kendi (@ibramxk) over seve I read this book by Dr. Kendi (@ibramxk) over several weeks as it's a long one and every page is FILLED TO THE BRIM with history - dates, people, events, stories. Now, if you like history, you'll love this book just because of that 'filled to the brim' part. And if you're already overwhelmed reading this, please know that I’m not an official history buff per se, but I am realizing that’s because the versions of history I learned were not accurate or truthful. Thus I loved the truthful connections this book made and the flow of it all. It brought our nation's history together in a unique way - featuring five Americans that we all may know, but delving into them and their influential time periods in more subtle ways, how their views and other events and people surrounding them factored into their influence. I very much appreciated the overflowing presence of Black leaders and people - their influential presence and stories told truthfully rather than as footnotes or erased altogether which is typical of the white history we all learned growing up. I learned the clear as well as nuanced distinctions between segregationist and assimilationist views as well as abolitionist and anti-racist. Valuable because those terms and those views are prevalent today and get all mixed together in confusing ways. I wrote down so many things to remember and look up. I definitely recommend this book. Take your time. Enjoy the nuances. Admire the deeply researched and assembled story (aka brilliant.)⁠
⁠
#tellthetruth ##connectedatourcores #antiracism #dismantlewhitesupremacy #letstalkaboutrace #dismantlewhitesupremacy #breakthesilence
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mamm Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals by @alexispauline. This book is so beautiful. So meditative. So whole. I felt it deeply in my body as I read. Some of it was for me/us, the whole of humanity, yes, and some allowed me to feel the Black feminist vision and healing and wisdom that the author expresses with creative, flowing eloquence. It felt powerful to be allowed to witness and feel. Her wisdom and insight in linking Black feminism to marine mammals is so deeply connected and just stunning. If you pick up this book to read, remember to do so without focus on cognitive understanding and opt to FEEL your way through. And consider doing the exercises she offers in the back of the book to deepen each chapter. Just. Simply. Beautiful.  #undrowned #BlackFeminism #connectedatourcores #blackfeministlessons
Follow on Instagram

© 2023 - All Rights Reserved.

Ellen O'Connor Sauer