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Tanya Turton (Ta- Nya)

@trapmystic

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World building at the intersection of narrative & care.
Author | Storyteller | Founder
📖 #jadeisatwistedgreen
@adornment.stories | @niazamar

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

#collectivecaretips ~ “This form of care moves away from traditional nonprofit and medical engagement because it believes in solidarity not charity- this form of care moves away the dichotomy of the helper and helped… Collective Care depends on the belief that we are all in need of care and will occupy both roles, therefore the hierarchies and sympathy often imposed on those in need of care are counter to the actual process of caring. Many of us have been indoctrinated into the belief that those who provide care are experts and morally superior. Collective Care requires relinquishing this colonial framework while acknowledging the importance of ethically engaging with the power we do have.” (Tanya Turton, P. 241)

Thank you to my mother who is the architect of care in my life and my first teacher. Shoutout to the aunties who visioned the kind of care that would save our lives and liberate our communities. Thank you to my @niazamar community who sat in workshops and my chair for a decade during my earliest practices. Deep gratitude to the @adornment.stories community because I get to not only theorize but actively engage with each of you. Thank you to the #disabilityjustice #healingjustice #blackliberation and #Queer community, scholars and activists who have languaged and practiced before me, so that my process could be possible.

It is never lost on me that while I get to language my experience and document my process I am writing because of the collective wisdom. Shout out to my ancestors who advocate for me daily. May my words be a true reflection of your guidance. 🧡

#TanyaTurton #blackwriters #queerwriters #collectivecare #traumahealing #truamainformed #narrativetherapy #blackmentalhealth #blackmentalhealthmatters #jadeisatwistedgreen
#nonfiction #blackscholars

Ps. I don’t believe liberation will be found in academia, but many of us will pass through those halls craving to write authentic bodies of work while we are there. The academic works of bell hooks SAVED ME when I needed to say what I knew while citing my sources. I know for a fact this text book will be used within a class at Dal, I hope a student who needs it finds chapter 13. by @trapmystic

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2 years ago

#jadeisatwistedgreen ~ @festofauthors recommended my book. They know books. Trust them and get your copy if you haven’t yet!

I will be reading and doing a Q&A next Saturday at @adfrntbooklist , please buy your book from them! Thanks!! 💚

Thank you for the spotlight @festofauthors , the continued support is appreciated!!

#canlit #blackauthors #queerbooks #readcaribbean #jamaicanwriter #TIFA #author #bookrecommendations by @trapmystic

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2 years ago

When we imagine self-care and collective care it’s important we remember that our communities have historically and consistently had tools for care. Care has been co-opted by capitalism but is not linked to and does not need to embody capitalism. Often the care that truly brings liberation is connected to our ancestral practices for wellness. #Collectivecare

#Blackwellness #ancestralhealing #Blackjoy #Blackmentalhealth 🧡 taken in Halifax, Nova Scotia by @trapmystic

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3 years ago

#motherhood ~ I’m new to the neighborhood so don’t take anything I say as advice please. No, for real… I’m here with complete humility and gratitude that my mother did this 3 times before me and was courageous enough to allow me to arrive as her forth… because I know by the time I got here she was exhausted. Folks would always tell me how young my mom looked when she picked me up from kindergarten… imagine me realizing she was in her early thirties 🤯… I hope they tell my child the same when I skip over there in my forties…

Anywho, I came here to say: I am a creative. I Create. I vision. I see what does not exist and take the steps needed to make it possible and do it well… you would think that is the perfect skill for motherhood and some days it is, but on the day I was birthing I realized that my ability to plan is lovely but more often I am leaning on my capacity to pivot. I planned my birthing experience. I bought the things, got the doula, went to pelvic physiotherapy, did the exercises and yet still… surrender was all I had in the moment. As I said, I am new here and don’t have advice but I will say it’s been a whole lot of surrender with a healthy dose of planning to keep my mental health intact.

Also, a few throwbacks of life with my bump.🤰🏾 by @trapmystic

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The parents ~ when I met @dani_publiclyspeaking she shared this poem with me, here we are practicing parenting 🤯

“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.” - Kahlil Gibran

PS. Imagine you and one of your besties get to be weeks apart! 🥹🥹🥹…. More on this joy later. by @trapmystic

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16 days ago

“Mother my children and write” ~ I remember seeing this video in 2024, and it resonated so deeply it provided me a clarity I needed.

I think we are often encouraged to find a life’s purpose, to decide what we have to offer the earth… when I was younger I thought a lot about how to be of service: what can I give? But as I continue on, I find myself leaning towards my own joy, self-actualization and spiritual fulfillment. Is joy enough of a reason? I am finding the things that bring joy can also be beautiful and impactful. … Because when I make my long list it seems complicated but it’s simple. Only a few things call to me so deeply that I must continue to pursue them. #tonimorrison by @trapmystic

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22 days ago

Motherhood ~ In 2019 my wife and I decided we would like to have children and actively tried from 2019-2025, thankfully our little one joined us earth side in 2026.

Many of you know that journey included a devastating loss in the second trimester in 2021, but as you can imagine it also included trying again and facing negative tests, spending lots of funds and processing what felt like rejection.

On this journey one of the biggest misconceptions that I wished were different; is the societal belief that our bodies just do this. To often as an affirmation I have heard “our bodies are meant for this”, but that’s not quite the same for everyone. Some of us have to work hard to get pregnant, we also work harder to stay pregnant, labour is also difficult and may not go as planned…. Don’t forget breastfeeding, because it is not true that milk just flows. Making milk is HARD AF. Some of us work for it.

I build things from scratch for a living. I create things that don’t exist and give them life, I do this as an entrepreneur, writer and Director of Mental Health services…. I am good at creating. BUT BABY! Let me tell you, creating life is the hardest thing I have done. It brought me to the edge of sanity multiple times and brought me back again. A human being. Wow. It was worth the effort.

I became a parent intentionally, which means I read, prepared and discussed endlessly with my wife. yet I can say I have learned so much I didn’t know and evolved to a new being…. But I will elaborate in another post.

For now, this is my declaration that some of us work at it and give our body, mental, spiritual and financial self to the cause and that’s okay too… Because we still get to love a little human being who picked us to come through.

Shout out to those of us who it didn’t just happen for, our bodies still came through in the clutch. I am here. Baby is here. We are healthy. Being able to say this, that’s the blessing. 👩🏾‍🦰🤰🏾🤱🏾👩🏾‍🍼🙆🏾‍♀️

#IVF #caesareanbirth #gilmoreturton #blackmotherhood #blackqueerparenting by @trapmystic

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25 days ago

#TIFA2025 ~ it’s almost that time again where I get to read new books and ask questions that I hope are fun to answer.

Currently waiting on this year’s selection in the mail. 📚

I attended a discussion on Black speculative fiction last year that I really enjoyed… I have been working on my second novel for sometime now. Similar to my first it’s been a long process of thinking, writing, not writing, living, writing, considering writing and finally writing. It’s speculative fiction… different than my first but still my style.

My current challenge is when I started writing I didn’t imagine how quickly some of my dystopian ideas would manifest themselves, thus making them less speculative.

The gift of my first novel is…. Editing. I wrote before the book deal with playfulness, but afterwards I edited with intention. While I share my current challenge I can confirm that it will get sorted in the wash… the wash is the outline and the editing that will happen many times before it manifests itself.

Authors:

Nathan Harris author of #Amity
Patrick Tarr author of #TheGuestChildren
Terese Mason Pierre editor of #AsTheEarthDreams
Speaking in video Chinelo Onwualu contributed to #astheearthdreams by @trapmystic

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25 days ago

THE SWEET SPOT ~ Thank you for allowing me to be one of the early readers of #thesweetspot and taking me on this beautiful publication journey with you. Congratulations again @thechiedza 🥳

Shout Out to @whitneyfrenchwrites for bringing this to the world with @hushharbourpress

This night was beautiful. 🧡

#blackfeministliterature by @trapmystic

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a month ago

If you live long enough you get to be on both sides ~ I have heard this saying many times, and today I am thinking about all the times I thought I knew something. I thought I knew myself well enough to know what I would or wouldn’t do. I made proclamations based on the experiences I had at the time… but life has a way of providing us the opportunity to find out. Sometimes we do exactly what we said we would, other times we find out that we didn’t have enough information to make a proclamation.

Why is it that the more I learn about life, the more comfortable I am saying I don’t know? I feel less called to establish myself as a person who can speak with certainty, more often the only thing I know with certainty is that I am still figuring it out. More experiences seem to lead to a more confident version of myself, not confidence in what I can do or know… but confidence that I can and will survive not knowing.

When I look back at older pictures, that’s what I want to tell myself. You have no clue, but you will survive that too. by @trapmystic

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a month ago

#AILEY ~ my wife asked why I take pictures never to share them… so in no particular order I will be sharing.

No pictures of the show was taken, you had to be there. by @trapmystic

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a month ago