“Blame, shame, and guilt come from being unable to express our grief properly. How can we pretend to be happy, peaceful and loving when we have so much pain and grief? I believe the future of our world depends greatly on the manner in which we handle our grief. Positive expressions of our grief are healing.”
Sobonfu Somé was a Burkinabe teacher and writer, specializing in topics of spirituality. Her village elders sent her and her husband to the West to share the practice of grief ritual.
“Building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual.”
Grace Lee Boggs was a community organizer and elder in movements for racial and economic justice. She was inspired by the daily struggles of the oppressed and shifted away from revolution towards "solutionaries."
“There is a future that I see for you my Loves I do believe.”
Amanda West is a singer-songwriter, recording artist, music teacher, and community song leader
“And we will care for each other, as the world around us unravels. And we will tend to the spark of hope that lives within our grieving hearts.
And we are here, now in this present moment, lifting our voices and hearts. And we are here, we have come together, we are tending the spark of hope.”
Heather Houston Heather is a community choir director, vocal coach, song writer, and community weaver.
“Fear comes from the heart. If ever you feel overcome by dread of some illness or accident, you should inhale and exhale deeply, slowly, and rhythmically several times, relaxing with each exhalation. This helps the circulation to become normal. If your heart is truly quiet you cannot feel fear at all.”
Paramahansa Yogananda, known also as Swami Yogananda, was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West.
“We are realizing that we must become the systems we need — no government, political party, or corporation is going to care for us, so we have to remember how to care for each other. We must reclaim interdependence, resilience, and the ability to live and grow together. We must learn to yield and adapt, while staying rooted in our deepest values. This is how we survive, this is how we thrive. Small is good, small is all. The large is a reflection of the small. Trust the fractal. Trust your part.”
adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation.
“Trees grow slow and trees grow strong. And trees sway with the wind their whole lives long. And trees hold the ground as they reach for the sky. And fallen trees still feed the seeds they cast before they died.”
Laurence Cole is a community elder, grief tender, and song leader on a mission to re-acquaint people with their birthright and natural ability to make beautiful and meaningful sound together.
