Welcome to May: Season of Blooming — Rooted in Resistance
Our liberation does not rush. It roots. It resists. It reaches.
As we enter this new month, we welcome you into the Season of Blooming. Not blooming as the world sells it—glossy, perfect, performative—but blooming that comes from soil. From shadow. From the resistance of seeds cracking open under pressure.
We remember: growth is not always graceful, but it is always sacred.
This month’s theme—Rooted in Resistance—asks us to move beyond surface-level progress. It invites us into the kind of growth that’s deeply uncomfortable and deeply necessary:
Growth that requires boundaries.
Growth that honors grief and release.
Growth that isn’t centered in individualism, but rooted in interdependence.
Growth that resists extraction, resists performance, and resists the myth of self-made liberation.
In a world that tells us to bloom for its benefit, this season teaches us to bloom on our own terms.
In this Season of Blooming, we (re)member that growth is not always loud, not always pretty — but it is always sacred.
This is the month we ask: What does it mean to thrive in the midst of systems designed to bury us? What becomes possible when we root into truth, connection, and clarity instead of performance or perfection?
This month’s theme — Rooted in Resistance — invites us into a deep reckoning: with the boundaries we need, the nourishment we deserve, and the radical joy that blossoms from collective care. And woven through it all is our new integration framework: the R.O.O.T.S. Method™ — Reflect, Observe, Own, Tether, Set — a grounding practice for building sustainable, liberated lives.
This Month’s Invitation: The R.O.O.T.S. Method™
Before anything grows, it roots. And if we want to build sustainable, liberated lives—we must be willing to go beneath the surface.
This month, we’re introducing the R.O.O.T.S. Method™, a decolonized framework for grounding your resistance, healing, and growth practices.
R – Reflect:
What have I been taught about blooming, growth, and success? Whose stories shaped my beliefs? What am I ready to question?
O – Observe:
What patterns, environments, and systems are affecting my ability to thrive? What am I tolerating that I no longer need to?
O – Own:
What am I responsible for in my healing? What power is mine to reclaim—and what is no longer mine to carry?
T – Tether:
Who and what am I rooted in? Ancestors, spirit, land, values, community—what keeps me grounded?
S – Set:
What boundaries, rituals, and intentions do I need in place to protect this sacred blooming?
Each Saturday, our Liberation Lessons will guide you through these steps with reflection prompts, somatic practices, and gentle invitations into action. These lessons are for paid subscribers, so if you want to walk this path with us in community, now’s a beautiful time to upgrade your subscription.
What to Expect This Month
This season is slow. Intentional. Sacred.
Here’s what we’ll explore each week:
The hidden labor of blooming (and why it matters)
How boundaries nourish resistance
Why joy is a political act
What it means to release what won’t grow
How to root yourself in a legacy of liberation
You can view the full May Editorial Calendar below
Monday Free Articles (With Invitation to Subscribe)
May 5 – Every Bloom Begins Underground
(Before we ever rise, we root. The hidden work of resistance is the foundation of liberation.)
May 12 – Blooming Requires Boundaries
(You cannot bloom where you are constantly being uprooted.)
May 19 – Not Every Storm Means You’re Failing
(Learning to trust the process even when liberation feels messy.)
May 26 – Blooming is a Form of Resistance
(To thrive, to exist loudly, to live joyfully — these are revolutionary acts.)
PAID ARTICLES (Wednesdays & Fridays)
These exclusive offerings include deep insight, shadow work, actionable practices, and soulful integration tools.
Week 1: Root Systems & Hidden Labor
May 7 – Root Systems: How Resistance Grows in Community
(Exploring the unseen networks of mutual support, solidarity, and collective thriving.)
May 9 – The Myth of Self-Made Liberation
(Dismantling individualism in our bloom stories: Liberation is communal, or it isn’t liberation at all.)
Week 2: Boundaries, Nourishment, and Reclamation
May 14 – Resisting Extraction: How to Protect Your Energy in Activism
(Building sustainable cycles of giving and receiving in liberation work.)
May 16 – Nourishment Over Sacrifice
(Choosing thriving as an act of resistance against grind culture.)
Week 3: Storms, Grief, and Sacred Timing
May 21 – The Bloom is Slow: Honoring Divine Timing in Liberation
(How rushing mirrors supremacy culture — and how patience roots us deeper.)
May 23 – Grieving What Won’t Grow
(Honoring the necessary losses along the liberation journey.)
Week 4: Joy, Legacy, and Rebirth
May 28 – Joy as Rebellion: Cultivating Radical Celebration
(How joy becomes a political, spiritual, and communal act of resistance.)
May 30 – The Legacy of Our Blossoming
(What we root now becomes the liberation pathways for those who come after us.)
SATURDAY LIBERATION LESSONS
Rooted in the R.O.O.T.S. Method™ — available to paid subscribers
May 3 – What Does It Mean to Bloom in Resistance?
(Introducing the R.O.O.T.S. Method™ and grounding your liberation work in sacred reflection.)
May 10 – What Am I Rooting Myself Into?
(R = Reflect)
(What do I believe about growth? What myths about thriving need unlearning?)
May 17 – Where Am I Overextending?
(O = Observe)
(What patterns, obligations, or inherited beliefs are draining my energy?)
May 24 – What Am I Being Asked to Release?
(O = Own)
(Where am I ready to take accountability for what I’ve held onto that no longer serves?)
May 31 – What Legacy Am I Planting?
(T = Tether, S = Set)
(How do I root into ancestral memory, spiritual clarity, and collective purpose? What intentions will carry me forward into the Season of Expansion?)
A Sacred Shift: What Comes After 100 Days of Community
On Monday, May 5th, we complete our 100 Days of Community.
One hundred days of showing up.
One hundred days of truth-telling, breathwork, shadow work, sacred laughter, and collective witnessing.
One hundred days of remembering that community is not just a concept—it’s a practice.
To each of you who joined, listened, commented, breathed, wept, or simply allowed yourself to be seen: Thank you. You were part of something sacred.
And now, we pause.
From May 6–May 18, we are taking a two-week restorative break to honor the cycle we just completed. This is your invitation to integrate, reflect, revisit favorite sessions, and rest with intention. We don’t bloom continuously—we bloom in rhythm.
What Comes Next
Beginning Monday, May 19, the podcast will return on a new sacred rhythm:
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 9:30 AM EST.
This new cadence reflects our shift from intensity to sustainability.
From daily presence to intentional pacing.
From initiation into embodiment.
These episodes will still carry the heartbeat of liberation, community, decolonization, and healing—now rooted in Season of Blooming: Rooted in Resistance and beyond
Integration Invitation
During this pause, here are some gentle ways to stay connected:
Revisit past episodes and journal what shifted for you
Read companion Substack articles tied to your favorite days
Begin the R.O.O.T.S. Method™ Saturday series launching May 3
Rest as resistance. Rest as integration. Rest as love.
This was never just a project. This is a movement.
And we are just getting started.
This Month’s Soundtrack: A Sacred Playlist for Blooming
Last month, I began to weave in new mediums—sound, movement, and layered storytelling beyond the written word. And the feedback from you, this sacred community, reflected what I already felt in my bones:
We don’t just think our way to liberation—we feel it, we dance it, we remember it through rhythm.
This month, I’m curating a special Season of Blooming playlist to accompany our reflections. It’s a soundscape for your walks, your altar time, your tears, your breakthroughs, and your becoming.
A Note for New Readers
If you’ve been walking this journey with us as a free reader—welcome. You’re already part of the ecosystem.
But the deeper layers of this work—the Saturday lessons, the midweek practices, the integration prompts—are lovingly reserved for paid subscribers.
If this space has poured into you, consider pouring back. Subscriptions start at $8/month $80/yearly $120/equity partner and help sustain this sacred work of liberation education.
I belive in practicing my praxis and offer a yearly comp for those who simply state their needs. Please email me at: Scholarships@DesireeBStephens.com
Keep Blooming
To bloom in resistance is not to bloom in spite of the world.
It is to bloom in honor of it. In memory of those who couldn’t. In service of those who will.
This month, may you bloom without apology.
May you root without fear.
May you resist with tenderness and fire.
We are in this season together. Let’s bloom wildly, beautifully, and without permission.
With you in the soil and in the sun always.
In solidarity and liberation,
Desireé B. Stephens, CPS-P
Educator | Counselor | Community Builder
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen
New Agreements, New Systems, Deeper Connections
Writer of Liberation Education
Where Reflection Meets Transformation
Looking for the Live. Next time!