🐦⬛ Welcome to A Gentle Landing!
a poetic playground for restless dreamers.
Hello, gentle-people,
You do not have to fall on hard times alone.
You do not have to push through with the strength of rugged individualism. The exhaustion you carry, mixed with heartbreak, does not have to drive you toward suffering in silence.
You can choose softness. Slowness. A more tender way. A way that honors the pace of flourishing.
My name is Rose J. Percy. I write essays and poems. My words are shaped by womanist theology,1 Black aliveness, and a commitment to honor the vocation of softness.
Within the longing for equilibrium between work and rest, I ask:
Can “a gentle landing” be re-imagined through our care practices?
Can we imagine an understanding of vocation that looks at life beyond production?
How many feathers does it take to soften the fall?
A Gentle Landing is a publication that offers poetic and essayistic ponderings alongside “landing tracks” for reflection. Through my poetry and prose, I hope to honor the subtle and ordinary moves toward liberation found in daily acts of survival.2
But let me be clear about what A Gentle Landing is not:
→ It is not a search for euphemisms to ease the passage of difficult truths for those positioned in power and privilege.
→ It is not a soft life blog. I write about what it means to embrace a vocation of softness, where tenderness as a part of our full humanity influences how we work and rest.
→ It is not a substitute for clinical therapy, pastoral/spiritual counseling, or community support—though you are welcome to take a landing track with you into any of those spaces.
This space is a living archive, best experienced at your leisure. So take your time here and let every feather soften the fall.
—Rose J. Percy
🐦⬛ a lil preview:
I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.
—Toni Morrison
🐦⬛ a lil about me & my writing commitments
Hello gentle-people,
My name is Rose J. Percy (she/her). I am a being becoming. This newsletter is an invitation to bear witness to what that means for me. This is a place to join me in my study of vocation or call/calling.
I am a poet, theologian, artist, teacher, facilitator, musician…I am someone who can often be found doing a lot of things. I am a Black woman, a Haitian immigrant, living in a body familiar with periods of disablement, lapses of burnout, and persistent traumas.
I am called to be contemplative. I practice contemplative noticing by minding the language(s) I use to describe my reality—I have a strong preference for words that flutter in the wind like a lace curtain. I honor slowness and seek an unhurried life. I often meander, preferring presence over productivity.
I am called to question. I have questioned my way in and through three degrees—a B.A. in Religion, a Master of Divinity, and a Master of Sacred Theology. I bring a womanist/Black feminist approach to questioning what is normalized and normalizing what is questioned by the status quo.
I am called to archival devotion. This is a term I coined to describe the kind of spirituality I hope thrives in and through my scholarship. A spirituality that nurtures my softness by emphasizing the preservation of my body (of work) as a living archive. Drawing from the Adinkra concept of “sankofa,” which is often translated as “go back and get it,” I refuse burnout from a culture shaped by the urgency of now. This how I make sure I am still here in the future.
I am called to be a Lucille Clifton scholar. I bring my noticing and my questioning into a Cliftonian approach to reflection on ordinary life. That is to say…I cannot stop talking about Lucille Clifton’s poetry and how it changed my life. I read her poetry often and reflect on the themes of her work and explore the implications of those themes in many of my posts here.
Where to find me online:
Substack is mostly where I communicate with others online. This link here can lead you to my social media links, website, and Bookshop (where I share the books I am reading/recommending). You can also find me co-hosting a podcast called Black Coffee and Theology with my colleague in softness, Robert Monson.
a rule of life for AGL
A Gentle Landing begins with me: I am a human and not a machine. I am also not beholden to a posting schedule and can rest when I need to. I can share from a space of abundance and not scarcity when I know what I offer here is received by those who understand: I write generously to be read generously.
A Gentle Landing is for gentle-people: We are human and not machines. I think about my friends when I write. I think about those I want to be in solidarity with—those who come from various marginalized/majority world, queer, and disabled identities.3 A Gentle Landing can be for anyone who needs to be reminded of the possibilities found when we lean into our humanity. If you have more privilege in the world, perhaps, you can also lay more feathers on the ground for the rest of us.
A Gentle Landing may require communal, reflective, somatic, and creative responses: Look out for the “Landing Tracks” section of most posts for ways to engage actual movement towards A Gentle Landing through a variety of grounding expressions.
postures of engagement
🐦⬛ “perching lines”
(available to all subscribers)
A “perch” is a light rest. I have been feeling a need for this space, which is called A Gentle Landing, to be..well, a little lighter. While most curated posts of poems and thoughts on what I am reading will continue to be free and public for two weeks. A few posts will remain public here, such as this one:
🐦⬛ “stay sensitive” all subscriber chat
(available to all subscribers)
Connect with me and other gentle-people through weekly-ish reminders to “stay sensitive.”
🐦⬛ “at your leisure”
(for paid subscribers, $8/month or $75 a year)
When someone sends me something and says engage “at your leisure,” I can release whatever urgency I feel to follow a sense of time that honors my body and the space and energy I need to absorb what has been offered.
“buy me a feather”
Can’t commit to a paid subscription right now? You can still support my gentle landing dreams through a one-time contribution. “Buy Me a Coffee” is a website that allows for one-time giving. My campaign on there is called “Buy Me a Feather” because every feather softens the fall.
🐦⬛ Check Your Email…or the App
Now, don’t let my messages go to spam. Also, this app is great, in part for listening to audio when I do have them embedded in a post.
Womanist and Black feminist ideologies shape my views of salvation and survival. Alice Walker’s definition of womanism has especially influenced how I have set up this newsletter. For the full definition, click here. Womanist theology, beginning with the work of Delores Williams, saved me. Her book Sisters in the Wilderness shapes my work heavily.
“daily acts of survival” - boom, that’s Delores Williams’ influence right there. But also Audre Lorde. And others. So many others. We can explore them together here.
As a general guide for how I write, listen to how Toni Morrison responds to what she calls a “racist question.”
