Hi, I’m sumi! 👋🏽 I am writing and healing in my neighborhood.

My work is inspired and informed by things like:

• How every flower has energetic medicine (flower essences*)

• Generally, that plants are willing to heal and feed us

• The annihilation of caste in India and beyond

• Building a grocery store in my childhood bedroom—stocking it, shopping at it, and being the clerk

• When Audre Lorde wrote about her first menstrual cycle saying, “within that basin was a tiding ocean of blood beginning to be made real and available to me for strength and information,” and I felt that

• Therapy that supports me to not just think different but do different

• One million experiments of community-based safety

• Finding belonging with astrology (i.e. how the sky lives in us)

• Like Water for Chocolate, the book and the movie, and the notion that we cook our feelings into food

• Cutting up clothes and doing "80s fashion” as a youth, only to see Gen Z do the same with…Y2K

• My neighbor-friendships with people, animals, and plants <3

• Large tropical cats, hyenas, and dogs, especially my favorite dog, Karuna

• Love

I created sumistreet to offer healing resources and facilitation, inspired by daily rituals. Each offering nurtures community leadership, well-being, and safety, beyond the state.

I am a writer, facilitator, herbalist, and cooking class instructor. Based on Occaneechi land, also known as Durham, NC, sumistreet is my neighborhood healing practice.

I write about politicized healing and work with individuals and groups who seek personal growth, conflict transformation, accountability, and transformative justice (TJ) facilitation and coaching.

My work is often paired with and inspired by astrology, herbalism, cooking, and other daily rituals.

current offerings

Why a neighborhood practice?

When I imagine what collective liberation looks like, I notice it first in my immediate surroundings. The lushness of the green things. The belonging and connection I would feel when stepping outside my home. The knowing that everyone in my community has what they need.

This imaginary abolition land might come from a heavy dose of Mr.Rogers and Sesame Street during my childhood. (And for the astro-heads, my Mars is in Taurus in the 3rd house.) Luckily, I live in a time with teachers who often remind me that liberation isn’t a “one day in the distance” thing. We can find it in what we do everyday.

And I do. From identifying medicinal plants on my daily walks, to organizing people through door knocking, I thrive when I’m showing up as that spunky neighborhood person who is curious and resourceful. Not through one big healing event, but with a thousand little ceremonies.

It’s in that spirit that I call these offerings a neighborhood practice.

Some previous (free) work of the practice:

• a queer love column called love school with sumi which focuses on healthy relationships for a just world

• a workshop on how to give an apology

• a newsletter on neighborhood herbalism

• a cooking and healing course on who ‘haunts’ us in the kitchen (and the food we make)

• a strategy sesh on how to turn our resilience practices into organizing strategies (i.e. practical magic)

• a free medicine box

• facilitating conflict transformation spaces for organizers

• culture change facilitation for organizations + coalitions

*for example, hibiscus helps us heal sexual shame + false cultural expectations

Copyright 2024 sumistreet