melanie gin
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Melanie Gin

Melanie Gin

118 posts •

Bringing my values to the workplace as an Engineering Manager

My mission is to build empathy and wellbeing into engineering teams. How can I create the conditions to foster belonging, wonder, integrity, and contribution in the workplace?

15 February 2021 2 min read

The world I'm building

One day I want to build a company without borders, one where an Arab and an American and a Chinese can gather in a virtual space and build a better, more peaceful world

7 February 2021 1 min read

old woman on the hill

Old woman on the hill Just a five minute drive away now but Continents and conflicts separating our ancestors Pogroms in eastern europe chasing your parents to hollywood Poverty and opportunity calling my

15 January 2021 1 min read
Welcoming this body to 2021

Welcoming this body to 2021

An annual love letter to myselfDear one, It is time to lay your body down to rest. Offer your torso and legs a bed of wildflowers, your head a soft pillow of grasses.

3 January 2021 4 min read

letting go

November 28, 2020 Abbas, Thank you for showing up, if only to reflect and say goodbye. And thank you for your honesty and openness this past Tuesday. I have taken the past ten

28 November 2020 5 min read

I come for myself

1- I come for myself, not you My pussy is my own My body is my own How dare you tell me That you were imagining a future for us I saw us

21 November 2020 1 min read

Your camper van house

all the things I'll never need to know againYou invited me into your tiny house and taught me its secrets: The water pump needs to be on to flush the toilet One shower

20 November 2020 2 min read

groceries

(what you've left behind)Just last week you walked through my door with Arms full of groceries, filled the fridge with my favorite zucchini, Kombucha, leeks, huge portobello mushrooms (which you claimed Are

20 November 2020 1 min read

Crafting a Memory of Wellbeing from the Car Crash

I was in the forest with a notebook and pen, listening to a message from the trees. The energy was easeful, spacious, curious. I wrote and listened and breathed in the slightly smoky

27 October 2020 11 min read
The message from the trees

The message from the trees

Not long after requesting a message from the trees, I slammed into one going 15-20 mph in my car. The tree stood strong. My head slammed into the steering wheel twice, leaving me

27 September 2020 3 min read

Crumbling the Walls of Separation

In Israel and Palestine, where I lived from December 2018 - March 2020, there is a vast concrete wall separating Jerusalem from the West Bank. The wall is unsurpassable for many: it is

9 September 2020 5 min read

Red sky

Wildfires are raging across California. The sky is burnt red orange grey. Ash has settled on my stationary car, the bare earth, the leafy trees near my window, my moving body. Ash signifying

9 September 2020 2 min read

ease and encouragement

I give the ease in my body space to enjoy the bird calls coming from the three pines. A plane hums overhead. Genmaicha in my cup. The air is cool and wet and

17 August 2020 4 min read

sand

I send off my grief like sand spilling through my fingers settling like silt at the bottom of a river salty with tears I'm sorry, J for not asking more of your suffering

8 August 2020 1 min read

kickboxing and joy

Today a friend and I were both feeling down, so I proposed we do yoga together over Zoom video.   Can I be honest with you, Melanie? They said. I don’t want to

23 July 2020 1 min read

Constriction and space (3 ways)

1Constriction is in the furrowing of my brow, visible to only the sharpest observer running in line from my third eye to throat to belly button a sharp arrow on the war path

20 July 2020 4 min read

Goodbye letter

Dear John, I do not want to be in this committed relationship anymore, I am sorry. I am dreading having to tell this to you in person and to see that I am

19 July 2020 8 min read

to my hungry ghost

Dear hungry ghost deep within my body Welcome to this new day of existence in this 30th year of life Please come, blinking into the sunshine, for this moment, Sit down beside me

6 July 2020 1 min read

Roasted Sunflowers

Post-revisionIn this Japanese Chinese American skin color of roasted sunflowers after a long laze in the sun I breathe on behalf of those not here – My grandfather, whose very hands labored in liquor

6 July 2020 2 min read

basket of water

I set down the burden of grief at my feet It becomes the cushion on which I rest Touching the earth with head bowed I am capable of carrying this burden now, Learned

1 July 2020 1 min read

Sit.Walk.Listen: Bringing "collective awakening" to the streets of San Francisco

This past Sunday June 14, I sat crosslegged in front of San Francisco’s City Hall, letting the words of the poet Langston Hughes flow over me, a vast and powerful river connecting

17 June 2020 3 min read

Roasted sunflowers

Dear one In the midst of this suffering I give you permission to feel joy Joy for no purpose other than Sinking into the crisp wind ruffling your Exposed hands, the sharp summer

8 June 2020 2 min read

On race, privilege, and inclusivity in practice space

Dear Thay, dear sangha, I feel moved by a Native friend’s email thread and by the recent police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis to look deeply into inclusivity in our sangha,

29 May 2020 7 min read

I wanted to complain and go home

Arriving at this little white house Through the forest, past the river I’ve come for four days of quiet retreat Knowing I’ll cook for myself I wanted to cook tom kha

22 May 2020 1 min read

For you, John

I open up slowly, like a flower unfurling her petals Letting go of the fear of being seen, relaxing into the Sweet cascade of your fingers skimming over each Region of my body,

19 May 2020 1 min read
melanie gin © 2021
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