Rape Culture, 13 Reasons Why, & the Mental Health community

May 8, 2017 By gwynn

They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.

~Louise O’Neill, Asking For It

I’ve read many criticisms of the graphic portrayal of suicide in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. I’ve seen posts and articles railing against the “irresponsibility” of Netflix to “glorify” suicide and countless comments from mental health professionals (i.e. my colleagues) about how now there will be an epidemic of suicides across the country and how the show doesn’t once mention mental illness as the “real” cause of suicide and other towing the line statements and declarations.

With every criticism, particularly from therapists, social workers and psychologists, I became more and more irritated. I disagree with there stance and opinions, yes, but my reaction was more visceral, more intense than a simple professional differing of opinion. I was furious. I was rolling my eyes. And at one point with one discussion I was literally shaking.

It took a conversation with my own therapist, being in a space to talk without interruption or needing to defend my opinion and reaction, to understand why so much rage was coming up with these comments and “professional statements”.

Where I came to was this:: Not a SINGLE therapist or counselor mentioned in any way, shape, or form the depiction of rape culture and how it contributed to Hannah’s suicide.

Not one.

No where.

(I did find a single site when researching for this article originally, written by a therapist, talking about depiction of rape culture in the show.)

As I continued talking in my session, I realized how I believe many mental health professionals miss the mark when it comes to discussing topics like anxiety, depression, and suicide and their root causes. How they ignore the impacts living in this culture has on all of us. How the interconnections and intersections of our own lived experiences, our culture, and our ancestral history affect us. How living in a culture where women and girls are only seen as valuable when it comes to the male gaze. How sexual assault and harassment take their toll on our mental and physical health – DAILY – whether we have personally experienced either or now. How witnessing rape and or being raped impact us to the point of considering and for some attempting suicide (According to the National Center for PTSD, it’s estimated that one in three women who have been raped contemplate suicide, and one in 10 victims attempt it.) How culturally it is more important to us to protect rapists than the person who was raped. (Remember how Brock Turner received an incredibly lenient sentence because the (white male) judge didn’t want to impact Brock’s precious future?)

These are not discussions we typically have within the mental health community. It is only in recent years that any discussion of how our greater environment (including our culture and ancestral history) impacts our mental health. We, mental health professionals, seem to want to pretend that a person lives in a vacuum and that our mental health has nothing to do with our daily lives or outside forces. That it is all in our heads. And while there is acknowledgement that childhood experiences can and do impact our mental health, we don’t talk about the systems that create and allow those experiences to exist and how they impact us and compound things.

I’ve said it before and will say it many times more:: We live in a culture that hates women.

And frankly the professional “outcry” (and absolute lack of outcry in regard to rape culture) around this Netflix series only emphasizes this truth.

If we (mental health professionals) think for one moment that living a world where we (girls and women) are considered less than human, where we are unable to earn an equal wage, where what we wear and where we choose to walk or socialize are up for dissection when we are assaulted raped, where our bodies are mentally dissected and compared and contrasted with others… if we think for one moment that none of this impacts our mental (and physical) health, then we should absolutely give up our licenses and find another line of work.

Because if we don’t believe these things impact us, we doing far more harm than good.

Because if we don’t believe these things impact us, we are being complicit to a culture that causes great harm.

Because if we don’t believe these things impact us, we are being compliant and doing harm to our clients, friends, and family members ourselves under the guise of being “professionals” and “authorities”.

Rape culture is real. It is part of this world each of us lives in. It impacts all of us, in varying degrees. It causes harm. It can cause depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and attempts.

These are facts.

And.

Those who experience rape and sexual assault (in any or all its forms from being touched without consent to being placed on a “Hot or Not” list to having rumors spread about us) are not the only ones who are victimized by this culture either.

The people who perpetrate the rapes and assaults are victims too.

Because they are given the message, over and over and over again, that it is acceptable to objectify women and girls. Because they are given the message over and over and over again that no doesn’t really mean no. Because they are given the message over and over and over again that it is perfectly acceptable to take what they want, no matter what. Because they are given the message over and over and over again that they will not be punished for their crimes. Because toxic masculinity goes hand in hand with rape culture.

I am not saying that rapists and abusers are not responsible for their actions. They absolutely are. AND. They are also pawns in a system that subjugates women to a role of only being as valuable as the male we are attached to.

Bryce (the rapist in the series for those of you who have not watched it) is a victim. Not in the oh-the-poor-boy-and-his-future-Brock-Turner way. Rather in the way that he lives in a world that says there is nothing wrong with what he has done or continues to do. Because he was not taught about consent and boundaries from an early age. Because he was not taught that silence DOES NOT MEAN COMPLIANCE. Because he was protected and defended by many different peers. Yes, he is responsible for his actions, as is every rapist and abuser, and we are responsible, due to our own compliance and complicity in this culture, for his actions too.

I am irritated (again) with my profession. I am irritated with the “outcry” that has been targeted against this show (and also the lack of outcry). I am irritated at my profession for not addressing rape culture. I am irritated at the world for not supporting victims and instead re-victimizing and victim-blaming them over and over and over again.

She shouldn’t have gone to that party.

She shouldn’t have gotten in the hot tub in her underwear.

She shouldn’t have drank so much.

She shouldn’t have worn that.

She shouldn’t have had her hair that way.

She shouldn’t have talked to him.

She shouldn’t have expected to NOT be raped.

She shouldn’t have expected anyone to stand up and speak up for her.

She had mental health issues.

It was all her own fault.

It was meant as a compliment.

She’s being too sensitive.

What a bitch.

She was asking for it.

If you won’t give his name, you just have to deal with it.

Are you sure that is what happened?

Fuck. All. Of. That.

It is time that we as a culture start to name these behaviors and insinuations for what they are:: complicity in rape culture. It is time we stop victim blaming and gas lighting. It is time that we stop avoiding difficult conversations, including our own compliance and complicity in a culture that harms other humans.

It is time my profession pull its collective head out of its collective ass.

It is time we begin to understand how living in this culture impacts us, especially women, people of color, the LGBTQi community, the differently abled, those who live or have lived in poverty… the list could go on and on. It is time we stop blaming victims and gas lighting our clients. It is time we begin to understand how deep the wounds and scars of cultural and ancestral trauma run.

It is time we stop causing the harm ourselves.

In rebellious solidarity, always.

xoox

This essay was originally shared in my weekly love letter on May 6, 2017. If you’d like to read more essays where I breathe fire and talk about the intersections of the personal and political, the social and singular, the communal and individual, you can sign up right here.

Resources and References

13 Reasons Why Shows the Deadly Impacts of Rape Culture

US Veterans Administration Center for PTSD (Sexual Assault) Public Site

US Veterans Affairs Center for PTSD (Sexual Assault) Professional Site

13 Reasons to Make Violence Against Women Unacceptable (tons of resources at the bottom)

13 Reasons Hits Hardest When Depicting Rape Culture

The Truth Behind Rape Culture

Psychological Analysis of ’13 Reasons Why’: People’s Feelings About Hannah Say a Lot About America’s Rape Culture (the only article I could find by another therapist on this topic)

Consent, Boundaries, & Trauma :: Consent

January 12, 2017 By gwynn

On a good day, at our most stable mentally, emotionally, and physically, consent is a complex topic. And when we add in the realities of the stress of our day to day lives, the impact of trauma, and the truth of living in a misogynist patriarchal culture… well the topic of consent can become mind boggling to say the least.

Often we think of consent in very dualistic terms: either it is yes or no, it is given or not given. Yet life isn’t so simplistic as that neither is our consent. Our consent is a living entity that can shift and morph and change given any variety of circumstances. Add to this parts of us can give consent while other parts of us may not. This is often the case, for example, when we choose to have surgery, a surgery that may even be necessary for our survival. Our mind consents to this surgery and perhaps even our spirit, and yet all our body knows is that it is frozen (thanks to anesthesia) being cut open and likely having metal implements stuck inside it and pieces of it, our body, being torn away and taken out. And so, even after having given consent with our mind and spirit, our body may have a trauma reaction post surgery, as a response to what it just went through and doesn’t understand was okay.

For these reasons, the very complexity of consent, it can be challenging to fully understand it. When we add to this that we are raised in a culture that tells women our consent isn’t relevant, it is no wonder that we are often left wondering if we didn’t indeed ask for it or feeling like it doesn’t matter if we say no so why bother?

And yet.

The truth is that our bodies, our beings, our minds, our spirits are OURS, and ours alone. These bodies we each walk around it, these bodies we live and love and grieve and rejoice in, are our birthright. And as such it is our right to say yes or no or maybe or to change our minds a million times in the process.

Yet often we are so disconnected from what we want, from our boundaries, from our bodies that we don’t fully understand what consent even means on any given day.

This disconnection isn’t by accident or any sort of indication of our own character. This disconnection is by design. It is intentional. It is the way our culture controls us, keeps us obedient, compliant and complicit. It is how the patriarchy gets away with treating us as less than human, as objects.

And so. I deeply believe that part of our own journey to understanding our consent is coming home to our body. To moving from a place of disassociation to a place of embodiment. To learn to sit in the discomfort and pleasure of being present in our body, in each moment.

To learn how to be in our body so that then we can actually choose if we want to be in it or not. So we can have the power of decision. So we can be fully informed and take back our consent instead of having it taken from us.

I talk about consent even more in this 18-minute video below. I hope you enjoy it.

This essay and video series is in part to share with you the topics we’ll be unearthing, examining, dislodging and embracing in the six month circle Body of Consent. We begin on March 1 (the video says February, we changed the start date to March). If you are interested, you can learn more and register right over here. xoxo

Or if you enjoyed this and would like to read more of my essays, you can subscribe for my weekly love letter right over here.

Patriarchal wounds and boundaries (and why I won’t use the term “Mother Wound”)

December 7, 2016 By gwynn

patriarchal-wounds-and-boundaries Boundaries and our ancestors and patriarchal wounds. These things are so intertwined.

At some point in our human history, we, especially us women, lost sight of our boundaries. We lost sight of the separation between us and others. We lost sight of our needs and wants. We lost sight of us.

I believe there was a time in our history when we were deeply connected to our Self. A time when we lived in an egalitarian culture. Then something happened or likely many things happened and over time patriarchy arose and with it came all the wounding: shame, misogyny, no longer defending our boundaries, or speaking up or out, or breaking any rules, for fear of torture or death. (Anthropology seems to back me up in this.)

We, women, did what we needed to survive. We still do. We play the game, we follow the rules as best we can, until we just can’t any longer. Some of us never reach that breaking point. Many of us do.

Our mothers did the same. And our grandmothers. And our great-grandmothers. And so on back through our womanline for a few thousand years.

These women who came before us, they wanted us to survive too. They loved us, their daughters. They were terrified for us being in the world they brought us into.

So they trained us. They taught us to obey. To be deceitful so we can get our own needs met, and in this deceit we learned to not trust our sisters (or mothers or grandmothers). To play by the rules while still finding ways to hold onto our Self or to let go of our Self completely. They taught us how to survive in a culture that didn’t consider us fully human, that considered us property, that saw nothing wrong with raping, beating or murdering us.

The ways they taught us to survive equated to playing small, to being silent, to being obedient and docile and doing as we were told. It equated to not speaking up or out. It equated to serving others, particularly men, with little to no regard to our own exhaustion or needs.

This training, this wounding, is often called the mother wound. I’ve used that term, as recently as a couple months ago, and although I’ve used it, it has always bothered me.

It bothers me because it places the blame of our wounding, seemingly, on the surface, on our mothers. On all mothers.

Because we as mothers don’t already carry enough of the responsibility of the ills of the world. Hello Eve and Pandora, just to name two.

The truth is, this wounding isn’t from our mothers. Our mothers, all our ancestral mothers, wanted us to survive. They loved us so deeply and wholly. And they were terrified for us.

How do I know?

Because I am terrified for my own daughter and the world I am sending her off into. And this world I’m sending her into is much tamer and gentler than the world our ancestors, including our own mothers, sent their daughters, including us, off into.

So I have an issue with the term mother wound. Because these wounds we carry, aren’t really about our mothers. They are about trying to survive in a culture that hates women.

All women. Yes, some women more than others, absolutely. Yes, the color of our skin and our socio-economic status and how high our education goes all play a part. And whether we’re married or mothers or how many fathers we have for our children and what color skin our partners have and and and…. Intersectionality is vital in the work of unraveling all of this.

And.

All women are hated in our culture. Matters of degree make little difference when we look at the statistics on rape or interpersonal violence or murder by boyfriends or husbands. Those numbers cross all skin colors and classes and education levels.

This is not to say that we don’t carry wounds from our actual lived experiences with our mothers. Of course we do. We feel betrayed by them for trying to break us so we could live. Our pain and wounds of our lived experiences with our mothers are valid. And need to be processed and healed.

And.

While we need to heal our own micro-lived-experience-wounding, we need to remember the macro of the issue at hand.

It is our misogynist, patriarchal culture that is at fault.

Yes, our mothers are responsible for their actions. Yes, many of them did not do their own inner work so that they would not pass on this wounding and instead taught us healthy ways to survive and still feel comfortable in our own skin. Yes, they screwed up. Yes, they are human.

And by placing the blame fully on our mothers and our womanline, by putting them at the center of our wounding, we are continuing to be complicit and compliant to the misogynist patriarchal culture that created the environment for this wounding to even occur.

So I’ve decided to stop using the term mother-wound. Because it’s not entirely accurate. It’s misdirecting. It only feeds our internalized misogyny instead of helping us dislodging it from our bodies and being.

This is actually part of my own boundary work. Making the distinctions between what is mine and what is someone else’s and what is culture. Unraveling the stories and training that my ancestors have passed down through word or action or DNA (or all three). Learning to listen to my own body and knowing and getting to the root of something when it doesn’t feel right or feels off or doesn’t sit well with me.

This is part of connecting to our intuition yes, and it is also part of connecting to our boundaries. Of acknowledging when something, particularly a commonly used or “known” something, doesn’t feel right to us. Of saying no when that not right feeling comes up. Of doing different so not to pass on something that doesn’t feel right to us in the first place and only causes more wounding and damage.

Boundaries are more than telling someone you aren’t going to let them take advantage of you again. Boundaries are about more than our relationships with other people (though, in truth, a lot of how our boundary work plays out is in our relationships with others).

Boundaries are also about saying No More to a culture that hates us.

Boundaries are about saying No More to passing on the training and wounding of our culture.

Boundaries are about knowing our Self, so wholly and deeply that we don’t question when something doesn’t sit right if that off feeling is valid or not and instead we dig into the why so we can understand ourselves better and then do different in the world.

Boundaries, I believe, are at the base of our ancestral healing of our patriarchal wounds. As we learn more and more about our own boundaries, we heal the pain of our ancestors who weren’t allowed to have their own boundaries due to risk of torture or death.

As we lay claim to our bodies, to our minds, to our spirits, we are defining the distinctions between our own Self and the Self of others. We can know intuitively and immediately when someone is projecting their “stuff”on us as opposed to some critique of our behavior having merit.

Boundaries are how we connect to our Whole Self. Because without boundaries, we cannot define who we actually are.

As we do our own boundary work we learn that boundaries are not rigid nor are they static. They are flexible and have an ebb and flow depending on the people, places, time and events that are invoking them. We may have a more rigid boundary with one person than with another. We may need more physical space from some people than others. And even these boundaries may shift depending on what all is happening in our lives, sometimes needing firmer boundaries with those we generally are pretty easy and loose with.

Even with this being true, that boundaries are more of a fluid thing than not, we must be able to sense these boundaries in the first place.

And, you can probably guess, I deeply believe we learn to sense our boundaries by deeply connecting to and embracing our bodies. By inhabiting them. Feeling them. Knowing on a visceral and deep level what exactly embodiment means.

So we can feel our boundaries and know immediately when they have been breached. And honor and defend them, as we deserve to be honored and defended.

It is deep work and messy work and there is much unraveling and untangling and dismantling that must happen.

And it is so deeply and truly and wholly freeing.

Our boundary work is all a part of becoming our own version of the Unleashed Woman. It is another layer in taking off the leash that was put on us at birth by our culture. It is another layer of coming home to our Self.

And isn’t it time to do that? To come home to our Self? To take off this patriarchal leash? To become our own Unleashed Woman?

xoxo

Did you enjoy reading this? If so, I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter which includes all kinds of goodies right over here.

Consent, complicity & rebellion (the complexity of consent part 3)

November 30, 2016 By gwynn

The topic of consent has shown up over and over for me recently: in Isabel Abbott and Bronwyn Petry’s course The Body Contains Multitudes; observing All Souls Day; in my work with my own therapist; in my ancestral work unraveling what the women and men who lived before me passed down to me and what is me and mine; in my constant work of dislodging and dismantling my own patriarchal training and doing all I can to not pass this training on to my own daughter (and failing, and doing better than my own mother did… sometimes progress is terribly incremental).

Consent. The complexity of it. How there is so much in our lives that we don’t consent to. How so much lives in our own bodies that we never consented to–not only what we didn’t consent to in regard to our own lived experience, but also what our ancestors passed down to us, what lives in our cellular memory and our very DNA.

And while there is so much that lives within our bodies that we did not consent to, it is still ours to manage or heal or dislodge or unravel. We have a responsibility to it, to ourselves, to understand all these parts and where they live and what messages they may have for us that are helpful and what messages they give us that are harmful.

We have a responsibility to untangle the web of stories and training and wounding and strengths that we did not ask for and are within us all the same.

Our bodies store it all. The pain and pleasures of our own lived experiences. The memories that our mind doesn’t want us to remember. The longing for freedom and truth and justice and love that our spirit cries for. The trauma and oppression of our ancestors. Thousands of years of gaslighting from our culture.

All of it. Our bodies hold it all.

Sometimes it’s hard to get past all this. Sometimes the experiences and memories and longing are too much and we need to move out of our body, out of our being, out of our Self in order to escape the chaos and dissonance and get through our days.

That’s okay. We each need to do what we need to do to get by.

And.

Sometimes, we do need to connect to it all. To hear the stories. To know the truths. To sense the injustices of our own lived experiences and those of the people who came before us. To believe that we aren’t just making it all up, it isn’t all in our heads, it is, in fact and truth, very, very real.

This connection doesn’t have to look or feel or be big. It doesn’t need to happen all at once. We don’t need to dive in so deep that the weight of it all crushes us.

We can move into this work of connecting to our bodies, slowly, quietly, peacefully. We can get curious and quiet and give space for our bodies to tell us what they need to. We can listen.

This is the work of re-membering our body.

Of putting all our fragmented pieces back together.

Of coming home into our Self.

Of becoming our own Unleashed Woman.

This is the work of reclaiming our bodies. Or, perhaps really, claiming them for the first time. Taking ownership of them.

This is the work of being able to say wholly, fully, confidently: No or Yes or Maybe or No then Yes then No again.

This is the work of acknowledging all the ways we never gave consent. We never gave permission. We never consciously or in any informed way agreed to the disconnection, the dismembering, the disowning of our own Self – of our physical and corporeal and flesh and blood body.

And neither did our ancestors.

Lack of consent is part of how our patriarchal culture works. Those in power don’t need to ask, and those without power don’t get to say no.

This is as true today as it was 100, 1000, 2000 years ago.

We, you and I, never gave consent for trauma to live in our bodies the way it does. We never consented to the disease or disorders. We never consented to our DNA being altered by the trauma and oppression our ancestors experienced.

We did not consent to the anxiety. The depression.

We did not and do not consent to the constant messages of how we are not enough, how we are too much.

We did not consent to the shame that is instilled in our psyches and being from birth. From before birth.

We did not consent to having our boundaries disregarded, ignored, torn away from us, over and over and over again.

We did not consent to being told that we have no value, no worth.

We did not consent to the disconnection from our Self or our sisters or our community.

We did not consent to the gaslighting or torture or murder both we and our ancestors have experienced.

We did not consent to having all this patriarchal training living within us, burrowing so deeply into our blood and bones and being.

We did not consent to unconsciously and unintentionally passing on this training.

We did not consent to being complicit in this culture that hates women.

We did not consent because we were not informed.

We were not told we had a choice.

We were not told there was, there is, a choice.

We were told, taught, indoctrinated with the idea, that we have to follow the rules. That we must play small. That we should strive to achieve that never ending To Do list.

We were told, taught, indoctrinated with the idea, that to rest is to be lazy, weak, proves our worthlessness.

We were told, taught, indoctrinated with the idea, that we deserve all the pain we endure. Because Eve. Because Pandora. Because all the “evils” of the world are our fault.

Psst… I wanna tell you something…

THEY FUCKING LIED.

xoxo

We do have a choice.

We have the choice to say No more.

We have the choice to say, No, that isn’t correct.

We have the choice to use our voices. To access our power. To demonstrate our strength.

We have the choice to stop following the rules, to stop passing on the rules, to stop being complicit in a culture that wants us gone.

We have the choice to do and be different. For ourselves. For our daughters and nieces. For our sisters. For our mothers. For all our grandmothers, long forgotten in our conscious memory yet still living within our cells and being.

And not only do we have a choice, we have a responsibility.

Now that we are aware of this training, now that we are unraveling all the ways we have been lied to, tied down, leashed, we have a responsibility to continue in this unraveling, in finding our truth, in taking off this leash that has choked and silenced us for generations.

We have a responsibility to do and be different. For our Self. For our daughters and sons and nieces and nephews. For our mothers and fathers. For all our grandmothers and grandfathers, long forgotten in our conscious memory yet still living within our blood and bones and being.

We have a responsibility to break the rules. To defy this sick normal. To tear it all down, burn it to the ground, and build new.

New. Different. Creating a time and place where all of us are free and equal. Where we no longer feel shame. Where we embrace our sisters. Where we find deep connection with our Whole Self, with our community, with our world.

This responsibility can feel heavy. It can sometimes feel like a burden. We may sometimes want to put it down and wish we were not aware of the oppression, the hatred, the inequality.

That’s okay.

Even Jesus had moments of doubt.

And.

We can do this. Together. In community. With each other.

Together. Always.

Now, let’s go smash this shit to bits.

xoxo

The text of this essay originally appeared my weekly love letter on November 5, 2016 and has been slightly edited and modified to appear here. If you enjoyed reading this, and would like to read more like it, you can sign up to receive my love letter right over here.

Isabel Abbott and I have locked arms and joined minds and are offering a six month circle unearthing, exploring, dislodging and embracing our consent and boundaries. If you’d like to learn more and possibly register, click right here.

Because if we don’t believe these things impact us, we are being complicit to a culture that causes great harm.

These are facts.

Fuck. All. Of. That.

It is time we stop causing the harm ourselves.

Resources and References

Yet often we are so disconnected from what we want, from our boundaries, from our bodies that we don’t fully understand what consent even means on any given day.

It bothers me because it places the blame of our wounding, seemingly, on the surface, on our mothers. On all mothers.

The truth is, this wounding isn’t from our mothers. Our mothers, all our ancestral mothers, wanted us to survive. They loved us so deeply and wholly. And they were terrified for us.

And.

And.

It is our misogynist, patriarchal culture that is at fault.

And by placing the blame fully on our mothers and our womanline, by putting them at the center of our wounding, we are continuing to be complicit and compliant to the misogynist patriarchal culture that created the environment for this wounding to even occur.

Boundaries are about knowing our Self, so wholly and deeply that we don’t question when something doesn’t sit right if that off feeling is valid or not and instead we dig into the why so we can understand ourselves better and then do different in the world.

Boundaries are how we connect to our Whole Self. Because without boundaries, we cannot define who we actually are.

Even with this being true, that boundaries are more of a fluid thing than not, we must be able to sense these boundaries in the first place.

And it is so deeply and truly and wholly freeing.

And isn’t it time to do that? To come home to our Self? To take off this patriarchal leash? To become our own Unleashed Woman?

All of it. Our bodies hold it all.

And.

This is the work of re-membering our body.

This is the work of being able to say wholly, fully, confidently: No or Yes or Maybe or No then Yes then No again.

Lack of consent is part of how our patriarchal culture works. Those in power don’t need to ask, and those without power don’t get to say no.

We did not and do not consent to the constant messages of how we are not enough, how we are too much.

We did not consent to being told that we have no value, no worth.

We did not consent to having all this patriarchal training living within us, burrowing so deeply into our blood and bones and being.

We were not told we had a choice.

Psst… I wanna tell you something…

THEY FUCKING LIED.

xoxo

We do have a choice.

We have the choice to use our voices. To access our power. To demonstrate our strength.

And not only do we have a choice, we have a responsibility.

New. Different. Creating a time and place where all of us are free and equal. Where we no longer feel shame. Where we embrace our sisters. Where we find deep connection with our Whole Self, with our community, with our world.

Even Jesus had moments of doubt.

We can do this. Together. In community. With each other.

Now, let’s go smash this shit to bits.

Gather around the table