Meet Leaf Seligman

Q: Why this book?

A: During the height of the pandemic, I wrote several pieces that felt significant. In the last year I focused on restorative teaching. When Sarah encouraged me to write another book, I realized I wanted to explore the broader idea of being restorative.

Q: Why now?

A: As more people are becoming acquainted with concepts related to restorative justice and practice, I want to invite folks to think more expansively, asking “How do we move through the world in a restorative way?”

Q: “Doing versus being” is a common phrase in Being Restorative – how do you balance the two?

A: The being informs the doing.

Q: Okay, then how does one practice the being?

A: One way is to cultivate practices that center our connectedness with all beings. Practices that help us remember our well-being is bound to each other’s. Being restorative means embodying tenderness, recognizing we all exist on a continuum of harm and healing. We are all more than our worst acts, and our best ones. Valarie Kaur, the wonderful Sikh activist and writer invites us to “see no stranger”— to understand in her words, “that you are a part of me I have not yet met.” Cultivating joy is another way to engage in the practice of being restorative.

Q: How do you define restoration?

A: A restorative worldview is expressed and embodied by Indigenous cultures across millennia so it isn’t new. The world, as most of us experience it, is shaped by a dominant paradigm based on hierarchies, structures, and systems that disregard planetary well-being. There’s a concept, a phrase in Judaism called tikkun olam which means repairing the torn fabric of Creation. The restoration I speak of refers to re-centering right relationships based on reciprocity, cooperation, wholeness, respect, accountability, and compassion.

Q: Did you have a plan, an outline, for the book from the get-go?

A: Not really. I had several essays I found useful. I had notes for other ideas I wanted to explore. As I was working on a new essay on accountability, I thought of some writing from my maternal grandmother’s journal and from my own journal in response to hers. As I revisited what I had written back in 1997, I thought about the ways in which trauma moves through the generations and I realized I wanted to incorporate that earlier writing into this book. And then, this winter, as I participated in learning circles at the jail, I felt compelled to write about that. The final essay in the book arose when a friend asked what a restorative response to war would entail. The book evolved over several months as I worked on it.

Q: You mentioned that you started this book with pieces that you’d written during COVID. Do you think there’s a tone difference between what you wrote then and what you’re writing now?

A: Not a difference in tone so much as a wider frame of reference. During the most intense period of the pandemic, I listened to many podcasts and heard voices new to me that informed my thinking and writing.

Q: You’re originally from Tennessee. How have your experiences in New England compared to those you had back home?

A: My childhood experiences and context shaped me in formative ways, so even though I’ve been in the Northeast, far longer than I ever lived in Tennessee, the arc of my life follows what began in childhood. Here, people are more reserved and this area is quite racially and culturally homogeneous which feels like a loss of radiance. I miss the cadences and energy though not the heat and humidity. I grew up in a rural area so I am grateful to and for all the trees here.

Q: This interview is to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Bauhan Publishing. How has your work with a local, independent company like Bauhan impacted your publishing process?

A: It has allowed me to concentrate on the integrity of what I write. Bauhan Publishing’s dedication to producing beautiful books that amplify voices and perspectives that might not gain the attention of larger companies sets this company apart. I deeply appreciate Sarah’s commitment to publishing words that matter in a world filled with chatter.