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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (May 24, 2013)
street roots M ay 24, 2013 YOGA, from page 4 people who have been homeless or who have experienced the grips of long term addiction tend to hold that in their bodies,” said Michelle. She believes yoga releases a certain kind of grief and it allows those who practice yoga a freedom if you can learn to sit still and breathe. “Yoga offers your mind a chance to be still and focus on something other than where you have been or where you are going. It allows you to be right where you are. When you can learn to be in the present, it changes you. It helps you to deal with whatever you have to deal with when you step off the (yoga) mat whether it be prison, homelessness, grief or pain. There is something about yoga that makes coping easier. If you can find joy in the midst of total chaos you can store it and tap into it when you need it. Once you find it, it is always present. Yoga helps you cultivate that.” Living Yoga offers more than 900 yoga classes in prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, transitional facilities, and to populations who would otherwise not have access to it. Currently, Living Yoga serves 11 institutions with over 20 different classes/week. They have nearly 80 active volunteers teaching more than 10,000 student hours of yoga. Street Biography p h o t o by k e n d a ll Shasta Smith BY KENDALL istening to other women’s stories is her says. mission in life. Shasta Smith has been “Some women are quiet, afraid to ask for unhoused off and on since 2004, in four anything, afraid to speak up. I’m very loud and different cities. She began being an advocate for vocal, and I’ve always been that way. I think every women on the street around 2011, when she lived female’s voice needs to be heard. So I ’m here to at Right 2 Dream Too, which is where she began listen. That’s the main thing I do: listen. ... There to join other unhoused people in demanding were times when I was out there when I just needed somebody to hear me, listen to me, be a systemic change. witness to what I was going through and treat me Now she has housing, she has a caring partner like a human being. So now I do that for others. who is involved in advocacy with her, and she’s “It takes me an hour to get into town from eight months pregnant. At the age of 38, she where I’m living and an hour to get back home at knows there are no guarantees about what’s the end of the day, but unless I’ve listened to at ahead. But she has a heart for women living on least five women during the day, not just saying the street. She has been where they are, and she hello but really getting them to talk about what knows the hours and rules of the shelters for they feel, then I’m not ready to go home.” women in Portland and several other cities. She Shasta says the reason she doesn’t burn out is knows what pitiful few services are available for that she knows the work of listening makes a women on the street, and she can help others find difference in people’s lives. But she sees a need them. She’s a volunteer at Sisters of the Road. for more day centers where women can gather in She’s been clean and sober for two years and groups and support each other, more places knows how to help others get addiction off their where they can charge their cell phones and backs if that’s what they want to do. “But I don’t computers if they have them, and more places to hound anyone,” she explains, sleep in safety. She’d like more empty buildings to “I have a young friend about 19. When we see be used as shelters. She’d like to see 24-hour each other, we both light up. When she’s ready to hygiene centers. She’d like more services for be clean and sober, she knows where to find me, women with mental health issues, more clinics, and she knows I’ll support her. I don’t have to say more therapists, more health care for everyone. a word to her about it. It’s her decision. I’ll make She’d like to see more shelters for women and phone calls for her. I’ll lend her my phone. I’ll go children who are dealing with domestic violence. with her to rehab, I’ll back her all the way. But There are waiting lists at all those shelters now, that decision has to be hers. It won’t work till she and women can get beaten up or killed while decides it’s time.” they’re waiting. Tossing her long hair and fingering the beads at Shasta concludes, “I know we’re not going to her neck, Shasta stares out the window at people get a better deal for unhoused women by standing lining up for lunch at Sisters. “Each woman makes around and wishing for it. We’ve got to get the the best decision she can, for where she is in her Homeless Bill of Rights through the legislature. life,” She says. It’s up to each one of us to figure We’ve got to advocate for better programs for out what she wants. I’m not here to tell anybody women and fight for them. We’ve got to keep anything. I don’t give advice. A woman on the talking about what women need, and we can’t give streets is vulnerable in particular ways.” up. And while all that’s happening, I’m going to be Shasta pauses to hug a woman who has come to right here, walking the streets — talking to Sisters to get a meal coupon and tells her, “I have a new journal for you in my bag. Wait a minute and women, listening to what they have to say. I’ll be right here.” I’ll get it.” Shifting her attention back to this interview, Shasta continues without missing a K en da ll is a photographer, beat. writer, listener, and retired “Sometimes women with mental health issues college professor. She was on need a journal to pour their heart into. Sometimes the Occupy Portland media they need music, and I may download a song that team. H e r work includes will put a smile on somebody’s face. Maybe on “S in g in g Away the Hunger, ” by that day I’m the only person that woman met who M pho Nthunya, a nd many had something to offer her.” stories o f people on the m argins Some women are intimidated, not just by men, o f society who prevail against but by the difficulty of living in the street, Shasta impossible circumstances. L Repping the Roots I n m em ory o f N ic k G efro h. R .I .P . By Marlon Crump Smile with energy Ignition to your engine Make not a sound wearing a frown Holding a stack of the latest edition No turbulence in the air quality We flock to each other, a community With equality All “Hater Clubs” closed! Upon our creativity Community Is unity True “quality of life” love led to the light Supporters, not consumers Powerful presence of sound, body, and mind. Patience! Proactive with all! People! All good and bad blanket us within a matter of time Never measured by money! Only by movement, body, and my mind! THE MAGIC IS IN THE HOLE! Z Z sw 3RD & B U R N SID E SUPPORTING STREET ROOTS SINCE 2 0 0 3
