ACROSS THE RIVER, ACROSS THE METRO: HOW TWIN CITIES WELLNESS COMMUNITIES ARE HOLDING EACH OTHER THROUGH GRIEF, FEAR, AND CARE
ACROSS THE RIVER, ACROSS THE METRO: HOW TWIN CITIES WELLNESS COMMUNITIES ARE HOLDING EACH OTHER THROUGH GRIEF, FEAR, AND CARE
By: Melissa Honkanen
TRENDING
In moments of collective trauma, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul often move like a single body; sometimes tense, sometimes trembling, but rarely disconnected. While Minneapolis has been the epicenter of national attention following the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the reverberations are deeply felt across the river in St. Paul and outward into the suburbs. What emerges, again and again, is a quieter story of care: practitioners holding space, neighbors watching out for one another, and communities choosing service over spectacle.
In St. Paul, that care looks intimate and immediate. Amy DePoint, an acupuncturist and mother living in a diverse neighborhood describes the past weeks as a movement from shock into a kind of weary flow. “We’re exhausted,” she says plainly, “but we’ve also found a rhythm in the community.” That rhythm is punctuated by fear that feels too close to home. ICE vehicles idling near schools, neighbors disappearing from daily routines, children instructed to run to safe houses if something goes wrong. The contrast between what residents witness on their own streets and what they hear on the news is jarring. “What’s being said doesn’t match what we’re seeing,” she explains. “It’s not agitators. It’s moms and grandmas texting each other, saying, ‘They’re staking out my neighbor’s house! Can you keep eyes on it?’”
Care also extends beyond clinic walls.Through networks like Acupuncture Without Borders, practitioners across the metro, and even from out of state, are quietly organizing pop-up treatments, ear acupuncture kits, and in-home support for people sheltering in place. The emphasis is on safety, structure, and sustainability. “If I get followed or detained, I can’t help anyone anymore,” she notes. So roles are distributed. Some patrol. Some deliver food. Some offer bodywork behind closed doors. Showing up, she says, looks different for everyone. And that’s the point.
“…roles are distributed. Some patrol. Some deliver food. Some offer bodywork behind closed doors. Showing up, she says, looks different for everyone. And that’s the point.”
-Amy DePoint
Her studio has long been trauma-informed in practice, if not in marketing, and right now that shows up as familiarity rather than novelty. Teachers lean into repetition, silence, candlelit rooms, what one instructor called “yoga as comfort food.” The goal isn’t commentary; it’s containment. “Our job isn’t to narrate the news,” Nicole says. “It’s to give people something steady when everything else feels chaotic.”
Service, however, is where the suburban response reaches outward. The studio has mobilized support for local and Minneapolis-based food shelves and partnered with grassroots organizations DHH Church delivering groceries to immigrant families afraid to leave their homes. A recent donation-based Himalayan sound healing event directs all proceeds to a Colectivia Bilingue, a bilingual shared relief fund providing emergency rent assistance and housing support. “If you’re going to make a statement about your values,” Nicole states, “you have to put service behind it.”
-Nicole Byars
Across the Twin Cities, that ethic of care is threaded with a deeper awareness. What’s happening now is not new for many communities of color, even if it’s newly visible to others. There is anger in that realization, and grief. But there is also resolve. Monarca Rapid Response Line is providing nonviolence training rooted in the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi are circulated alongside somatic practices and sound baths. Singing protests and candlelit yoga classes coexist. Fear and hope sit side by side.
Minnesota has been here before, thrust into the international spotlight with the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The state was forced to grieve publicly and compelled to organize quickly. What feels different this time, many say, is the infrastructure of care already in place. Mutual aid networks. Wellness practitioners willing to step beyond their job descriptions. Studios and clinics that understand healing as communal, not transactional.
From St. Paul kitchens where neighbors keep watch, to Plymouth studios quietly filling with breath and movement, the message is consistent: the Twin Cities are holding each other. Not perfectly. Not without exhaustion. But with intention, humility, and a fierce love of neighbor.
