main offering
VIDEO COMING SOON
The main offering is about fifteen sessions, which can be done weekly or biweekly. In between, fifteen to twenty minutes a day of meditation, journaling, and micro-reparations will deepen understanding and strengthen new habits.
The following is an approximate outline of the content, although it will almost always be adapted to meet the client where they are. Interested? Book a free consult and let’s discuss if this a good next step for you in your antiracism journey.
what do we do in the main offering?
Like everyone else, we have the capacity to be engaged in communion with the earth, with ourselves, and with all humanity. Instead, we are often disconnected — but we can become more human(e). In the main offering , we will work to heal those connections, recognize and mourn harm done, and develop our ability to stop ourselves from causing future harm. Throughout and following the course, clients will be invited and encouraged to engage in action toward amends, reparations, and liberation for all. This work is deeply rooted in the work of many Black, Brown, and Indigenous teachers such as Resmaa Menakem, Sonya Renee Taylor, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kai Cheng Thom, adrienne maree brown, Lama Rod Owens, and ancestors Audre Lorde & James Baldwin.
re-membering our (white) bodies
In the beginning, we establish our intentions for the work and commit to the journey. We practice connecting with the body and being okay with discomfort. With the body as our ground, we explore how we have been taught to relate to whiteness, and how we harm others as a result. We do this work alongside learning practices of self-compassion and mourning, which will support us throughout our journey. The mourning practices are deeply informed by the teachings of Lama Rod Owens.
connecting with the earth
Guided by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s teachings, we return to our ancient roots and practice engaging with the land in reciprocity. Instead of thinking of land as someTHING to own and dominate, we practice communion. This practice supports us in becoming more human(e) and also strengthens us for our journey.
connecting with other sources of wisdom, support, and deep love
Next, we practice seeking connection with and support from beings, elements, teachings — anyone and anything that helps us feel awake, wise, and very much loved. We connect with their love and seek their support on our journey. This is loosely based on the “homecomings” teachings of Lama Rod Owens. Clients will explore what helps and supports them most in the challenges of this work, and call upon these supports in all following sessions.
your home: Indigenous genocide & survival
Held by the land and other sources of wisdom, we turn to face the truth of our geographical location’s inheritance of white supremacy.
- How did it come to be that we, non-Indigenous people, live where we now live?
- Which Indigenous people were slaughtered and exiled to make space for our home?
- What Indigenous ways of knowing have white people tried to destroy in building the colonized world where we live?
- Where are the descendants, the rightful people of this land, surviving today? How are they doing?
your home: geographies of racial terror
- Were Black people or other People of Color excluded, threatened, or killed so that they could not or would not move to this neighborhood?
- Are we in a suburb due to a previous generation’s “white flight”?
- Did we choose our own neighborhood due to “good schools”? What does that mean?
- Or do we live in a neighborhood that isn’t majority white?
- Are we part of a gentrification trend?
- If so what does our presence mean for us and our neighbors?
uprooting white supremacy from the body
We begin the process of transforming aspects of white supremacy in our bodies and minds, also known as decolonizing ourselves. Tema Okun’s work and the core mantra support us in noticing:
- how white supremacy manifests in the body
- how it hurts our own humanity
- how it can be felt arising as impulses that lead us to cause racial harm.
- how we can practice identifying these impulses and catching them before we cause harm.
We begin to move away from the violence of domination and control, toward collective vision, collaborative action, humility, and listening to the guidance and wisdom of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
there is no “good” & “bad” in whiteness
Next, we will look at a few specific past atrocities, to try to understand how these white people’s actions were possible, and most importantly, to connect them to ourselves. We have, in us, the perpetuator of violence and the bystander. How do we disavow these impulses while remaining in communion with all of humanity? As we do this work, we will return to our sources of support, our mourning practice, and our core mantra.
harm you have caused / witnessed / shared in / been silent about
We will take multiple sessions to explore some of the client’s personal experiences with having caused, witnessed, allowed, or remained silent in the presence of racial harm on an interpersonal level. We will practice:
- patience and openness to our own feelings when we realize/are told of the harm.
- metabolizing these feelings internally so we don’t cause further harm.
- feeling into the bodily conditioning toward white supremacy that created or allowed this harm.
- a different mode of responding to these bodily impulses
- moving away from superiority, control, and separation
- moving toward communion and connection
- grief & mourning
- amends (where amends would not be harmful)
- transforming shame into vigilance.
committing to a lifetime of work for liberation
We will identify systems of oppression all around us and the client will commit to concrete ways of ending complicity in and beginning disruption of these systems. This will mean something different to each person, but the client will commit time, labor, energy, and/or other resources toward collective liberation in the short and long term.
Lifelong
Community Accountability & Collective Liberation
Those who have completed the sessions will have the option to join an accountability community where we bring our questions, our mistakes, our confusion and help each other sort it out. We will continually challenge each other to engage more fully with the liberation struggle in ways that do more good than harm. We will continue to support each other in practicing communion with the earth, with all humanity, and with ourselves.
Those in this community will have the option to join:
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