Queerly Beloved Intensive
A somatic practice group for Queer and Trans organizers and practitioners t0 bring more choice, agency, connection, pleasure, and power into our lives and communities. This is an in-person intensive from November 8-10th in Durham, NC.
Previous Somatic Offerings...
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Location: Durham, NC and Online
Dates: March 5 - August 13
ONLINE: Tuesdays 12:00pm
The fight for Palestine is a fight for all of our aliveness. We cannot afford to be numb. The ongoing colonization of Palestine and current genocide we are witnessing can feel unbearably devastating. And yet, we must keep feeling so that we can keep fighting. As Jews, our trauma has been weaponized as a moral cover for genocide. And as people in the belly of the imperialist beast of the U.S., the government counts on our numbness as we implicitly consent to billions of dollars being sent to the Israeli apartheid state every year. We must keep feeling. We must keep resisting. We must keep transforming.
In this group we will:
-Disentangle from Zionist propaganda
-Root into anti-Zionist histories of resistance
-Explore inter-generational trauma
-Connect with queer, Jewish, and anti-fascist ancestors
-Workshop difficult conversations
-Debrief organizing experiences
-Tell stories as an embodied practice
-Create space for our collective grief
-Co-create a transformative environment through popular education and applied practice
Join this group to connect with our bodies in strengthening our resolve to organize for our collective liberation.
~Registration Open for Spring~
Spring Session February 22 - May 9
This is a small, intimate practice group setting (4-7 participants). We meet each week, most weeks of the year with the opportunity to join, or take a break each season. Registration re-opens every three months.
We are always practicing something. With intentional practice, we can align our lives with our values and commitments. It takes 300 repetitions of a practice before we understand it as an option, and it takes 3000 repetitions before it becomes our embodied move even under pressure. In this group we will engage in practices that bring more choice, agency, connection, and pleasure into our lives.
Each session will begin with opening practice and check-ins. There will be suggestions and invitations towards practice but it will largely be shaped on what participants are bringing. Each season of practice will generally follow a somatic arc of transformation: developing commitments, pleasure-based resilience, exploring our automatic responses, practicing new ways of relating, centered accountability, and closing with practice around embodied endings. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies, histories, and commitments and benefit from the wisdom of embodied collective healing.
~Registration Closed~
Guest Facilitators: Sumi Dutta, Bex Pattowitz, Yashna Maya Padamsee
Dates: August 1 - September 12
Time: Tuesdays 12:30-2:30pm EST
Location: Peoples Solidarity Hub, Durham, NC
We are in a collective phase of healing where many people are learning to set boundaries for the first time - this often looks like a pendulum swing to put up impermeable walls as we are nascent in learning to protect ourselves. While this kind of boundary is an important option, it can also reproduce harmful dynamics of individualism. We need to be able to set boundaries in a range of ways including ones that maintain safety in connection; boundaries that are permeable and allow for a deepening of intimacy and growth in relationships. We need this in our organizing relationships, our romantic and/or sexual relationships, our familial relationships, our relationships with land, and all the other beings with whom we share space. In this series we will examine the roots of individualism in our bodies and histories. We will learn how to cultivate reciprocity and mutuality – to feel for our interdependence while also finding our edges in differentiating ourselves.
The series will include a range of embodied methodologies with local guest teachers coming in every other week. Each session will have a combination of somatic practice, political education, and group discussion. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies and histories as well as feel less alone in our healing and transformation. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will work to center the experiences of queer and trans people, BIPOC, organizers, frontline workers, and cultural workers.
~Registration Closed~
Co-facilitated with Nazbah Tom
~This is a registration form for a three month somatic practice group series. Your participation will be confirmed once a deposit is paid or a different agreement is made~
In this practice group we will focus on using drama based embodiment practices and politicized theater as a healing approach to practice feeling power in our bodies, running anger and grief through our systems, noticing immobilization of overwhelm, and moving towards a place of choice, agency, and action. This group is designed to support the application of these collective practices in our respective communities, and build on our “constellations of co-resistance”*. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion.
The series will draw on practices that cultivate a space of playfulness, creativity, care, vulnerability, and courage. We invite all the feelers, healers, and organizers to join this group as a way of being with the immensity of the conditions we are in together. To identify what's possible when we move into our power, our shared vulnerability, and build a world where healing is how we make kin.** By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies, histories, and landscapes as well as feel less alone in the collective impact of these times. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers, BIPOC communities, frontline workers, and cultural workers.
*“‘Constellations of co-resistance’: constellations that affirmed life and world-making in a time of acute racial violence.” Rehearsals for Living, Robyn Maynard quoting Leanne Betamosake Simpson.
**Inspired by Joshua Whitehead’s writing in Making Love With the Land
~Registration Closed~
Dates: January 10, January 17, January 24, January 31, February 7, *BREAK*, February 21, February 28, March 7, March 14, March 21, March 28
Location: People's Solidarity Hub, Durham, NC
Time: Tuesdays 5:30-7:30pm EST
Pleasure and despair can be compasses in our lives; guiding us closer to our deepest longings. Through embodied practice, we can build awareness of our emotional landscape and the longings beneath them. In this practice group we will focus on somatic commitments, contradictions, mutual alliances, and pleasure based resilience practices. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion.
The series will follow a spiralinear pattern moving between practices centered around pleasure and play alongside grief and despair. I invite all the feelers, healers, and organizers to join this group as a way of being with the immensity of the conditions we are in together. To identify what's possible when we move towards our longings, our commitments, and our movements. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies and histories as well as feel less alone in the collective impact of these times. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers, frontline workers, and cultural workers.
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~Registration Closed~
Co-facilitated with Yashna Maya Padamsee
Have you been longing for ways to break through the isolation of pandemic times? To generate a sense of embodied safety and connection amidst despair and hopelessness? We will explore the ways shame, trauma, and internalized oppression live in our bodies and use somatic practice to transform towards more pleasure, joy, and ease. The series will follow a somatic arc of transformation: developing commitments, pleasure-based resilience, exploring our automatic responses, practicing new ways of relating, and closing with centered accountability and transitions. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies, histories, and wisdom. You are welcome to join with any level of experience with somatics.
~Registration Closed~
Dates: July 14, July 21, July 28, August 4, *BREAK*, August 18, August 25, September 1, September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29
Time: Thursdays 5:00 - 6:30pm EST / 2:00pm - 3:30pm PST / 4:00 - 5:30pm CT
Pleasure and despair can be compasses in our lives; guiding us closer to our deepest longings. Through embodied practice, we can build awareness of our emotional landscape and the longings beneath them. In this practice group we will focus on somatic commitments, contradictions, mutual alliances, and pleasure based resilience practices. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion.
The series will follow a spiralinear pattern moving between practices centered around pleasure and play alongside grief and despair. I invite all the feelers, healers, and organizers to join this group as a way of being with the immensity of the conditions we are in together. To identify what's possible when we move towards our longings, our commitments, and our movements. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies and histories as well as feel less alone in the collective impact of these times. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers, frontline workers, and cultural workers.
~Registration Closed~
“Once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of” Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic, 1978.
Dates: April 26, May 3, May 10, *BREAK*, May 24, May 31, June 7, June 14, June 21, June 28, July 5, July 12
Time: Tuesdays 5:30pm - 7:00pm EST / 2:30pm - 4:00pm PST / 4:30 - 5:00pm CT
Pleasure and despair can be compasses in our lives; guiding us closer to our deepest longings. Through embodied practice, we can build awareness of our emotional landscape and the longings beneath them. In this practice group we will focus on somatic commitments, contradictions, mutual alliances, and pleasure based resilience practices. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion.
The series will follow a spiralinear pattern moving between practices centered around pleasure and play alongside grief and despair. I invite all the feelers, healers, and organizers to join this group as a way of being with the immensity of the conditions we are in together. To identify what's possible when we move towards our longings, our commitments, and our movements. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies and histories as well as feel less alone in the collective impact of these times. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers, frontline workers, and cultural workers.
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~Registration Closed~
This group is a continuation from the Fall cohort and will run from January - March 2022. There will be a mix of new and existing participants as we expand our collective practice together. We will explore the impacts of internalized shame, trauma, and oppression through embodied methodologies. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion. The series will follow the somatic arc of transformation beginning with developing commitments, then moving to practices to regenerate a sense of safety, releasing what no longer serves, cultivating mutual connection, practicing centered accountability, and ultimately embodying new ways of being that help us align with our personal and political commitments. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies, histories, and commitments and benefit from the wisdom of collective healing. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers. You are welcome to join with any level of experience with somatics.
~Registration Closed~
In this practice group we will explore the impacts of internalized shame, trauma, and oppression through embodied methodologies. Each session will have a combination of political education, embodied practice, and group discussion. The series will follow the somatic arc of transformation beginning with developing commitments, then moving to practices to regenerate a sense of safety, releasing what no longer serves, cultivating mutual connection, practicing centered accountability, and ultimately embodying new ways of being that help us align with our personal and political commitments. By doing this work in a group setting, we have the opportunity to learn off of different bodies, histories, and commitments and benefit from the wisdom of collective healing. This group is open to anyone who is compelled to participate and will center the experiences of queer and trans organizers. You are welcome to join with any level of experience with somatics.