Giving Thanks:
These ARE MY PEOPLE! {{ grateful }}
Soyinka teaches a workshop: how to be a living altar piece to alter peace ... we make BIBO candles "BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT" as a reminder she gives to do just that, deeply. She leads us through her RACE DANCE curriculum -- a practice in dance/movement and meditation, stillness and breath, a visual, living installation to name the barriers perpetuating and the assets needed for addressing racism & injustice...
Cynthia has an artist's studio: overflowing with sacred visualities, tangible altars she's made (they feel like dreamscapes) ... an outpouring of her spirit trained up to see all the textures, and invite us to touch them too ... to make shiny red take-away boxes that remind us there is always mystery, grace (grace, grace) of physicality ....
Phil lights so many flames: with the stories he tells, the {genius} bodywisdom he culls and curates... the hilarity he finds in the ridiculously-obscured and most-stuck-places, which he cracks open for all ...
13 other participants from India, Canada, Australia, across the US: adorn the studio space with their unique voices and visions for social action that ignites our bodies, minds, transnational collectivities .... Agnotti who leads so fluidly through the light/dark spots -- linking the Constellations of what we must know, Sukhmani as most nuanced clown there is -- traveling the world to bring laughter and curiosity to dampened hearts, Kristin as dancer of thresholds/honorer of all possibility, Robert as Mississippi nourishment-justice and freedom-curator, Candice as the masseuse of souls -- listener to inner-rhythms of the disenfranchised from Berkeley to Delhi when no one else can/will, Libby as Brooklyn Poetess of Embodied Vibe, Arpita as love nymph who decorates the crowns of each head -- no exceptions -- with dignity, Rebecca as Australian cultivator of confidence and gentle-ease among the communication-vulnerable, Jason as the Boston Globe Master-Carrier of every art form there is, Mindy as queen of re-framing embodied compassion, Owen as keeper of the best-hidden hilarities, Marie Bryce as wild-hearted storyteller who finds entire forests of freedom-songs, powerful clear Janina who strings your dreams -- right before you -- onto strands of golden paper cranes.
Stacy Grove plays: the outer-most edges of singing bowls, they hum with the love of all who have sent us here through HeartSpace Spiritual Resources ... her table of instruments buzzes, resonant with investments in people-power and collective recalibrations of what it means to be ill and well, in communicative generativity ...
Kimberley Korb and my mom and I's women's circle -- among the larger community who've supported this trek to train in InterPlay and research health justice / healing economies: show up everyday, in new ways ... reminding with prayer and surprising bits of poetry to "awaken the creative energy body" ... especially when it hurts, or is undone enough to open to new angles, intuited clarities ....
