Gatherings | Connections
These are interesting times. COVID-19 is obviously disrupting our daily lives, forcing many of us to work from home in what can feel like isolation. For those of us impacted in this way, it’s important to find ways to stay connected. We want social distancing, not social isolation. For this reason, we are putting together numerous ways to support people in finding ways to:
stay connected and engaged
process the challenging emotions and experiences we are confronted with these days
tap our individual and collective wisdom, care, and support for greater “ground” and resilience
We believe and repeatedly experience how turning to one another and being with each others humanity can renew and sustain us. We need each other to get through these times as well as to use this crisis to create a more life-giving world. We can do it.
We recognize that there are many folks who don’t have the opportunity to work from home or are without jobs (temporarily or permanently) and are feeling isolated and scared all the same.
Please know — all are welcome to join our online gatherings and we hope you’ll invite others. We want to reach as many as we can because we want no one to be alone right now.
Relationships are the key to finding ones way through challenging times.
And for those of you who have to physically go to work, be you a health care worker, a hospitality worker, a grocery store clerk, or any of the other numerous critical roles in our society, we of course welcome you, and we also offer our deep gratitude for the work you are doing to support our communities.
See below for our offerings as well those we offer in partnership
Working Alone Together
Finding Our Way Back Together
Men Connecting
A Human Workplace: Working Alone Together
Work needs to be more human now more than ever. That means giving ourselves and each other the space and support to be with the emotions, needs, and hopes (yes, even now in our COVID 19 world) that are present in all of us. We are loving how Renee Smith at Make Work More Human is helping support this via virtual gatherings and we are honored to be co-hosting some.
You can learn more about dates and registration by clicking the button below.
Understanding Whiteness Deep Dive with Holistic Resistance
Over the past 8 months, we’ve held separate circles for people around Understanding Whiteness. A total of 36 white-bodied people have been in these spaces, designed to explore this challenging area while minimizing the possibility for judgement, as well as harm.
We’re now inviting people who have completed our Understanding Whiteness programs to come together in a 3-hour “Deep Dive” with us and our teachers and mentors at Holistic Resistance.
Coming together into this mixed space adds the complexity of gender to our ability to hold one another’s stories as white folks. Our ability to hold each other’s stories directly impacts our ability to hold Black stories, a critical component of being involved in anti-racist work. This Deep Dive is about just this – how do we deepen our capacities to stay in the charge of conversations about race, when our gender material is also present?
Together we will explore how our abilities to tell and hold each other's stories – across gender and race and other aspects of our positionalities – inform the strategies you use to hold and hear African heritage stories.
SOME INFORMATION
In order to support these challenging conversations, this Deep Dive will be limited to 12 participants (with a minimum of 4). Having a small group can slow down how we see, hear, and reach for each other. The team will consist of Greg and Shannon, one African heritage facilitator, Aaron Johnson of Holistic Resistance (HR), along with his two HR team members and white support allies, Jennie Pearl and Dylan Wilder Quinn. You can learn more about the Holistic Resistance team here.
Our goal will be to balance out the space as much as possible, currently holding six spots for those from Greg’s programs and six from Shannon’s.
INVESTMENT
We are offering this program on a sliding scale, asking you to make a contribution that is within reach for you but that feels like an investment (i.e. it feels like a bit of stretch). The suggested range for this 3-hr Deep Dive experience is between $150 and $650. Those who can afford to pay higher rates help make this experience accessible for everyone and sustainable for the facilitators.
If the above range is out of reach for you, or you want to pay on an installment plan, please let us know – we want you to be there. Together, we will find a way to make it work. Please email Greg or Shannon to register or if you have any questions.
Please know that the Holistic Resistance team will be paid first. We acknowledge the labor that they do as a team, as Black and Queer folks, and want to make sure that they are compensated for their time. In addition, while Porsha Beed from the HR team will not be able to join us, as part of supporting Black women resting, the HR team will ensure she is receiving a portion of the contribution.