photo by emily delameter
i’ve come to know myself through illness narratives. some of my own, others of my making, and a few that began long before i was born.
these are the stitches of my story.
they have accompanied me throughout my journeys from islands to India, and all the many rooms in between.
but also writing.
there has always been writing.
stories have become my process to heal.
growing up, i was always the “sick kid.”
diagnosed with asthma + scoliosis.
just to name a few.
disease and discomfort became my shell of separation, the only space i knew to embody.
i came to believe i was broken and needed other people to fix me, to take care of me.
sometimes it is only through darkness, that we come to know ourselves, and learn a new way to breathe…
the practices of yoga and writing became my path.
to entrust my body and establish my voice.
to be fierce, not fragile.
to turn my seeming stumbling blocks into my greatest stepping stones.
to find my words, through pose and prose.
it’s taken me a lifetime, but this is what i’ve learned:
a diagnosis isn’t the end of the story, it’s merely the beginning of naming oneself.
rather than having a doctor take our history, we can allow our experiences to become the invitation to inhale deeply, and feel the cold press of the stethoscope against our chest. we can probe the story, and get to know what is wound within our wounds.
to find our capacity to heal.
to receive ourselves in wonder.
i’ve tugged and teased my narrative threads and rather than be my unraveling, these stitches have become a gracious weave.
to recover through story
from breath to pen
to be just sew | sarah e webb
~
recent • upcoming
aligned flow Y O G A | 4:30-5:45pm | every Monday @ TRU YOGA Rochester, NY
close to home: blurring the boundaries of gender a narrative medicine workshop series for caregivers to transgender youth February 20, March 5 + 19 REGISTER HERE
2024 retreats
September 18-22, the faraway nearby: stillness, story, sea
selected interviews/conversations/exhibitions
Writing in Company: From Wounds to Wisdom
Let Your Life Speak Interview: Losing and Finding Myself
Youthful Older Yogi Podcast: Uniting Passions
Sharing Sensitive Stories: Making Narrative Medicine Happen with Sarah E Webb, Columbia University
unspoken: a collection of abortion stories, curator
Instruments of Memory: A Singular Woman
Blissful Balance Podcast: Writing the Body, from Mat to Page
Sarah E. Webb’s path consists of many stitches, but at heart, she is a storyteller. From the artist studio to the yoga studio, her multi-disciplinary approach considers both spaces as creative, contemplative sites of corporeal process and practice. Sarah weaves her critical, visual, and perceptual background into a unique environment to map and make meaning of one’s individual stories and experiences from breath to pen, mat to page.
Sarah is the co-editor of Singular Women: Writing the Artist, UC Press, a regular contributing writer, editor and curator for the online publication Instruments of Memory: Conversations with Women in the Arts and Blue Raven Gallery, Rockland Maine. She sits on the Board of the Monhegan Artist’s Residency(MARC), and was a member of the 2020 Listen to Your Mother cast, Rochester, NY. Her writing has appeared in 585 Magazine, Ronnen Fine Art: Collecting in Context, and The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art, Demeter Press. For over fifteen years, Sarah has led international yoga retreats and teacher trainings as well as mentored + coached students in the practices of writing and meditation. She received her MFA from Visual Studies Workshop, is a certified Yoga Alliance E-RYT trainer and Yoga 12SR facilitator, and completed her CPA in Narrative Medicine, Columbia University. Her recent curatorial project, unspoken: a collection of abortion stories, considers the connection between story, healing and the ways writing can be integrated into the interdisciplinary arts. Sarah offers 1:1 writing services, and specializes in ghost writing artist and curatorial statements; she teaches in partnership with the Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative and facilitates writing and meditation retreats in the Finger Lakes and on Monhegan Island, Read her writing on Substack: Narrative Threads: From Breath to Pen
Sarah lives in Rochester, NY and on Monhegan Island, 10 miles off the coast of Maine.