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Fractals are a core element of emergent strategy, the big in the small

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Our Story:

We are a growing circle of humans who first met via the Embodied Social Justice program. We are from Singapore, Switzerland and across 3 time zones of the United States.

We are journalists, therapists, shamans, artists and educators and somatic practitioners. We came together to engage in our shared belief that the false dichotomy between social justice, and climate and environmental justice not only weaken the movements for each, but also create mental, emotional, physical and spiritual schisms in all of us, that inhibit our wellness and our work. We must come WHOLE to the practice of justice. For us, the foundation of that wholeness is our connection to the earth and our more-than-human kin. Just as one should not have to specify that all social justice is embodied, one should not have to explain that all social justice is deeply interwoven with the web of  "all our relations," an indigenous understanding of the interdependent network of kin, of which humans are the youngest members.

The circle has become the basis of our gatherings and our practice.

Each time we gather, the circle takes us on a new journey. So far we have journeyed into the natural landscape that surrounds us, the underworld where we have been guided by a shaman's drum to meet animal guides, the inner sensations of taste, as we have met rasa, and engaged our creative and imaginative flows to begin to map some elements of our identity.

Our approach is inspired by:
1. adrienne maree brown's "emergent strategy"
2. The Environmental Justice Movement, led by primarily BIPOC leaders for decades
3. The spiders
4. The wolves
5. The trees
6. The waters
7. The deer, jaguar, alligator, and all the creatures who join us, whose call we have heard
8. All our teachers in the ESJ Program, in particular Dr Sam Grant, Nkem Ndefo, Staci Haines, Dr Kesha Fikes
9. Indigenous concepts and practices as articulated by Sherri Mitchell, Robin Wall-Kimmerer

We maintain that energetically, the virtual circle has power to unite us from our far-flung locations on planet Earth. There are worldwide webs of support of living and non-living terrestrial beings. "Virtuality" is not only the domain of the internet and digital space, it is the living, breathing ways we move together in dream space and dream time. We know that in order to build a future, we have to feel into and envision the healing required, to commune in the below realms and the above and within realms, of earth, spirit, and energy.

We commit to listening, deeply, to ourselves, to one another and to all our kin. This is our path to the action that will come from wholeness.

We are sharing and building a repertoire of practices for this circle, to which we will eventually invite others. Focusing now on gathering resources and finding clarity around our ways of working together, we intend this circle to include and impact others seeking wholeness in their approach to justice, wishing to ground embodiment in the body of the earth.

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"Kin is a wild category that all sorts of people do their best to domesticate. Making kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to, godkin and genealogical and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually responsible. Who lives and who dies, and how, in this kinship rather than that one? What shape is this kinship, where and whom do its lines connect and disconnect, and so what? What must be cut and what must be tied if multispecies flourishing on earth, including human and other-than-human beings in kinship, are to have a chance?" (Donna J. Harraway, Staying with the Trouble)

In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall-Kimmerer suggests a "grammar of animacy," in which the pronoun ki/kin could be used to refer to all beings, whom indigenous cultures already recognize as tree people, and frog people, and understand water and stones as alive. We humans are the youngest, and have the most to learn from our other earthly kin.

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In our third practice session, I (Michele) introduced the group to the concept and experience of rasa, which I believe to be a key source of vitality and an experiential connector between the human body, the natural world, performance social justice and other forms of activism.

"rasa" is a Sanskrit word meaning juice, sap, essence, or flavor. In Ayurveda, one of its means is taste, which include salty, sweet, bitter, sour, pungent, and astringent. Rasa is associated with the element water, the tongue and genitals, and the function of reproduction. The juices of foods, when mixed with our saliva, produce rasa, which in turn has an effect on mood, emotion, and mental state.

In classical Indian aesthetic theory, "rasa" is the emotional flavor that is savored by partakers. There are 8 basic emotional states, which also correspond to specific archetypes, characters and stories in the classical cannon. They are recognized universally: shringara (love), raudra (anger), karuna (sadness), bhayanaka (fear), adbhuta (surprise), bibhatsa (disgust), hasya (laughter/the comic), and vira (courage/the heroic). A ninth rasa, shanta, was added. It means "peace," and is associated with mindful or meditative states.

Physicalizing these states through breath, shape, facial expression, sound, and so on, we can revitalize for healing, art-making, or activism, we can make contact with the varied emotional life we must integrate as we face the ravages of climate change, displacement of humans and other beings. We can bring balance to ourselves and communities, and invigorate our work with the flow of the full range of emotional energies.

Key terms and aspects of embodied experience/support/integration:

Juice

Pleasure

Motivation for Action

Emotion

Vitality

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Who is listening-Are we listening-What am I not listening to today

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Ceremony of all Beings -Full Moon, Switzerland

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Ceremony of all Beings -Full Moon, Switzerland

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Sometimes they want to be quiet Sometimes they want to be rude Sometimes they have other concerns Sometimes they don’t understand Sometimes we don’t speak the language Sometimes we don’t know the appropriate gift

(Graham Harvey – An Animist Manifesto)

On the Full moon of July 2021, we held a healing ceremony with a group of 14-15 human people.

We spent time the day before connecting with nature spirits, we went on a walk to call in a spirit who would like to come and say something during the next evening ceremony.
The second day, all morning was dedicated to mask making. The afternoon we decorated the mask. In the evening we gathered in Circle and called the spirits for our ceremony of possession.
We charged the masks with strength to animate them and we put them on. We called spirits and the ceremony began...

Everytime a spirit wanted to talk, the person would stand up and come into the center so everyone could hear the message channeled through her/his/their body.

We embodied the Nature Spirits and we invited them to talk through us.

A storm started and lightnings were giving a rhythm to the spirits appearances.

It is a Healing to be washed by the rain.
This ceremony is a "whole relations" healing.

You find 2 testimonies of the ceremony here on the padlet, in french.
Thank you-Merci

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The universe is in me as I am in the universe

That's my favourite explanation and my felt sense of the mantra, "Ong So Hung", which translates literally as, "The creative consciousness of the universe, I am That". The certitude that this translation exudes is something that I am still working on embodying, and maybe that's why I prefer the above interpretation.

Life's mission for me, currently – should I choose not to resist it (again) – is to allow magick and the more-than-human world into my reality, and to invite ALL who I come into contact with to open to this possibility as well.

It's not been easy, or rather, the second part hasn't. As a recent example, I couldn't overcome my judgement of my other group members from a concurrent Environmental Social & Governance Reporting course (for lauding the plastic recycling efforts of a global beverage brand and glossing over its labour and human rights missteps) to invite them to the two outdoors, full moon gatherings I held in the month that we worked on our project together. And yet.. these are the "good" people, right?

Being in Singapore is part of the challenge too. After all, the Singlish phrase, "kia su", which means afraid to lose in Hokkien, has jokingly – but not really – been used to describe our local culture. And it is often accompanied by "kia see", which translates as afraid to die. With an environmental crisis in the offing, maintaining a zero-sum, continual growth mindset while pledging to halve carbon emissions from the 2005 levels by 2030 seems like it would take a (most likely technological) sleight of hand... Or perhaps some serious magick to bring about a softening, relaxing and slowing down to realise that it is possible to consume less, experience discomfort and inconvenience, and still thrive.

As a member of the majority Chinese ethnic group (70%), I'm aware that kia su and kia see, though part of the Singlish lexicon, stem from a Chinese dialect and may not resonate with the worldview of our Malay (indigenous) and Indian ethnic groups. Who knows? With the sea level rising around a low-lying island, to survive, we may one day have to seek the knowledge of the indigenous people, the Orang Laut (literally People of the Sea in Malay), who were assimilated or pushed further north to the sea around Malaysia in the 1970s.

For the last decade since I left my job as a crime reporter at a tabloid newspaper, I've had one foot in the gift economy, the other still treading the waters of the capitalist system. Since 2000, I've been volunteering with children, youth and adults in New York, Singapore and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Israel), including as a teacher, researcher, caregiver, counsellor and facilitator; I also co-organised Ground-Up Initiative's kampung campus opening, the Singapore Eco Film Festival, and the Emergence Convergence gathering in Singapore as part of the Global Ecovillage Network Oceania and Asia.

I write, edit and research on a freelance basis when I'm not playing with and learning from my niece and nephew, who know the value of hugs, origami animals and colourful stickers.

~ We play to heal. So much gratitude for the worldwide contact improv and ecstatic dance community for our cosmic, intimate movement medicine, beyond all words and logic ~

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Ong So Hung ओङ्ग् सो हुन्ग - 26 May 2021 Vesak Full Moon Eclipse

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adrienne maree brown and emergent strategy

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adrienne maree brown and emergent strategy

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Principles of emergent strategy:

Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.)

Change is constant. (Be like water).

There is always enough time for the right work.

There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.

Never a failure, always a lesson.

Trust the people. (If you trust the people, they become trustworthy).

Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass--build the resilience by building the relationships.

Less prep, more presence.

What you pay attention to grows.

(brown, adrienne-maree. emergent strategy, pp 41-42)

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We are an ecosystem. May we practice deep relational care.

Once again, with this bio, I’m asking myself who I am in a way that can be put into words. I’m evolving, queering, and seeing beyond the physical world more and more.

In this body, my ancestors appear to come mostly from the lands currently known as England, Wales, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. And I can feel that my ancestors, siblings, and Self are also the trees, microbes, fungi, critters, and energies of all sorts. I am an earth creature and spirit being, and in 2021 am 42 years into being racialized as white and benefitting from false hierarchies even as I work to unlearn this socialization and support movements centered on collective liberation through healing and re-balancing power in ways that embrace our diversities and celebrate honest, authentic relational care.

At this time, I live on the lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute, and Sioux peoples and nations known colonially as the Denver, Colorado, USA region. Many consider these lands unceded due to the coercive, illegitimate nature of the treaties.  I practice and seek ways to shift into right relationship with the indigenous stewards of these lands, with the land itself, with my own ancestors, and with the more-than-human world.

My lived experiences include being a racialized white, genderqueer, neuroqueer (neurodivergent), relationally queer, mixed-class, trauma survivor who is letting go of old stories, aiming for relational honesty, and nurturing a revolutionary imagination that is so powerful that we can start integrating it into our current relationships right now.

At this time, I work as an interconnectedness therapist, facilitator, and consultant focused on providing care that attends to both personal and collective liberation. In addition to individual healing and empowerment sessions, I facilitate “Interconnectedness Practice Circles” in partnership with the human and more-than-human participants that join these circles. I have found that healing and empowerment work is most expansive when facilitated in partnership with Nature/Spirit.

Given my specialization in working with complex trauma with a transpersonal lens for over a decade, I’ve learned that honestly attending to systemic and relational power dynamics is key to our transformation individually, socially, and collectively. I’m grateful to be a part of the Embodied Social Justice program and this small group project for the past few months, as I believe learning and growing together is key to our ongoing transformation.

Here are some of the words that continue to flow through me (and deep thanks to all the beings and energies that support this flow and join in practice):

"We are an ecosystem. May we practice deep relational care."

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Deer came to me in the drumming ritual with Red. She brings to the circle:

Gentleness, stillness, the ability to turn on a time, change course, communal wisdom, powerful legs that allow them to clear whatever obstacles lay before them. I have been trying to heal pain in my foot, leg, hip and pelvis for some time. I believe there is medicine for me in studying deer.

I look in her eyes and am surprised to see no fear, of predators, or of death. In their book, Medicine Cards, Jamie Sams & David Carson tell the story of Fawn, who felt called by Great Spirit. She goes up the mountain, and discovers a terrible demon. She is unafraid, and asks if she may pass. Her gentleness melts the demon down to nothing. When I meet the doe who leads me through the forest in the underworld, she is also unafraid. Awake, and balancing perfectly in the present moment.

Deer inhabit the boundary, between woods and clearing, between the wild and the human world. They eat hundreds of species of plants, and are extremely adaptable.

Deer do not see very well during the day or in bright light, but their other senses are acute, especially their sense of smell. Their time is early morning and late afternoon, that is when they feed, and when their vision is clearest.

The places I inhabit, in Maryland, Long Island, and North Carolina, are full of White Tailed Deer. I gratefully accept their medicine, the unique medicine of fawn, doe and buck, and their presence as a reminder of the great power in gentleness.

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TEMOIGNAGE 1# full moon ceremony switzerland

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TEMOIGNAGE 1# full moon ceremony switzerland

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How to be in Intimacy with life and self.

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Intimacy is to belong.

*The French philosopher Baptiste Morizot, for his part, describes this experience as a “ homesickness without exile ”: a form of “nostalgia for a home that is nevertheless very present, but which leaks underfoot, without having left an instant ”.

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In our second practice session, WE experimented a drumming journey to the lower world to connect with our power animal.

WE shared visions and teachings after the journey.

WE took this journey to the non and more than humans world, in the invisible world, to meet with an animal form WE have intimacy with, WE are bound with.

This animal spirit can support us to manifest greater vision and give us guidance and strength.

If Social Justice and Climate Justice are one same justice, there is a tremendous gift in the possibility to shape shift and embody the animal spirit energy to guide us in a more integral perception of our world and reality. WE can FEEL the interconnectivity and right relationship.

If WE want to extend our perception of justice to all the Living; clouds, rocks, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, tree people, 4 legged people, 2 legged people, all people, without grabbing what is not my language neither my culture, WE can surrender to a greater mystery that animate all there is and journey in dream land, spirit realm, to dream with the animals, the plants, the soul of the world.

Those dreams, shared between species, are important. They allow us to keep the conversation alive. If this conversation dies, we die with it, as all is one and all is connected.

When we go in a time of deep changes and transformation, the world becomes unstable, what was once stable is no longer behaving as it is supposed to. Polar bears, ancestors of the land, rain, sun, fire, they suddenly turn into wild instability. WE call it the mythic time of unstable form of reality.

It is a time where it gets difficult to go dream with the rain or the polar bear, because they no longer do what they have been doing since ever- since the world stabilized. Now great transformation is happening. WE are not sure how the conversation is evolving, all is changing, this is why it is so crucial WE keep going to the meeting spot, where realities and worlds are penetrating one another, in the in-between space of queer nature, in the space of the undefined and all potentiality, this is where WE feed the conversation.

On that day WE met several animal spirit helpers and guides.

As Emory M Moore said in his session, sometimes a lack of justice or a lack of resources to make happen a better justice is a lack of spirituality.

Land based, Nature based, Eco based, spirituality might be key to support and guide us for this Time of great turning.

Michele notes form our meeting:

Meeting #4:

Deer: Gentleness. Agility. Joy. No need to fear predators.

Spider: Weaving

Bear: Introspection

Alligator (a substitute for Crocodile): Integration

Jaguar: Integrity/Impeccability

Carine’s animal: Wholeness, bringing the whole self to practice, process, etc.

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Carine Red Roth. I am a shamanic practitioner rite of passage two spirits guide.

I am white, swiss, living in a town not too far from the mountains. I think my ancestors were the indigenous people of this land i am walking.
Switzerland is a strange country with many languages and a History where war never happened.

I’ve been traveling and working in Usa for the last Years. I'm still working in a newspaper as a picture editor but i now spend most of my time guiding rite of passage work or doing shamanic counselling with clients.

With the pandemic, i feel I am questioning all those activities…

Climate change is here, the crises is going to be hard and painful, we are not ready. I don’t know if I want to withdraw or get more involved and help or at least find how to participate… So much is dying and changing… There will be no Climate Justice without Social Justice, for humans and more than humans. This is the circle I m looking to create and nourish.

How can I, we, unlearn, heal. To allow a better world to emerge from the pain and despair.To not run but slow down, to look into the darkness eyes, to open hands and heart to what is here now and wants to happen through me, life.

Life is wild. It will never be tamed

"I am the source, the angel and the facilitator of my own liberation" (from a Rev Angel Kyodo Williams live talk)

"What would change if we took seriously the consideration that the world is alive, that we derive our being from a never-static, ever-changing field of entanglements, and that we are not the center of the universe?" (BAYO AKOMOLAFE)

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Who am I?
I sometimes ask myself this question, and depending on the moment I can find very different answers. There are not enough minutes to write an autobiography for you today; the question to frame my words is: “what could I share with you about myself to give you a sense of me?”
I am white cis-gender queer disabled pagan woman. I'm a Pisces Sun, Aquarius Rising and Taurus Moon. I love the Earth. Despite my best efforts, I make mistakes, alot. I practice moving through life with grace, and sometimes it works out that way but, if you are like me, you know life works out without grace a lot of the time.
I came to embodiment originally as we all did - some mysterious arrival of spirit into body at birth, or however you envision this process of becoming a tiny human being. As a very young person I experienced a variety of traumas, perhaps more than a fair share. And as a child I found deep support in Nature. As I grew slightly older I found a love for soccer and cats and gardening. All of these loves have informed my development in profound ways. Soccer helped me develop both physical and intuitive knowings in my own body, and as part of a social body (my own team and the other teams too). Soccer gave me an outlet to channel some of the fiery energy that I had inside and turn it into goals. True Joy to play on the field with my team and a ball.
Due to a head injury I don't play soccer anymore. This head injury has impacted a lot of the ways I used to experience life and the joys in life. My invisible disabilities are complicated mild traumatic brain injury and acquired anosmia, the loss of ones sense of smell. This sense is unseen and - often - under appreciated by people. Adjusting to life without scents has been challenging. My experience is that the sense of smell is very grounding and helped me be in my body every day; it constantly built unseen connections to myself, others and my environment. I did not know this so clearly before my loss, but in hindsight I can see how it supported me every day. I am very sensual and am so glad that did appreciate smelling things everyday when I had the ability to smell.
At this moment in my learning, I understand that there is an entire landscape in each of us. I believe that if we can find ways to be with these lands, this very act will guide us. It can help lead to our individual & collective liberation. The studies that began with my personal healing journey have more recently crystalized into the idea of supporting others. As one feels, hears and senses their own body, that is where some magic happens!

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I am a white, cis-gendered, pansexual 30-years-old woman of predominately Irish, Scottish, and English descent. I live in the unceded territory of the Nisenan people, which is also known as Sacramento, California. I am currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Community Development with a specific focus on environmental justice and exploring how spiritually based practices can help individuals and communities reconnect to nature, social justice,  and engage in environmental justice activism. I joined the Embodied Social Justice program to learn more about practices to help myself and others embody social justice.

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Michele Minnick (PhD, CMA, RSMT in training) She/ki. Based in unceded Piscataway land, colonially known as Baltimore, MD. Originally from the land and waters of the Montalk and Shinnecock, on Eastern Long Island.

I bring to the circle: My identities as a white-bodied, American, queer, mostly cis-gender female, neurodivergent trauma survivor, artist, educator, scholar, and healer. Many years of practice facilitating groups in the creative process for theatre making, collaborating on community-oriented arts-based projects, somatic practices including Rasaboxes, Laban and Bartenieff approach to movement, Body Mind Centering, Yoga, Vipassana and Insight meditation, 23 years of teaching theatre and movement history, theory, and practice and English as a Second Language, from K-12, graduate and undergraduate students and professionals, white-bodied anti-racist group facilitation, and a 100% commitment to bridging the divide between social, environmental and climate justice in senses and arts-based ways. My current life/art project, Vital Matters, is a mobile laboratory for building community around the human relationship to the more-than-human world, particularly in relation to environmental and climate justice.

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TEMOIGNAGE 4# full moon ceremony switzerland

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TEMOIGNAGE 4# full moon ceremony switzerland

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Group Brainstorm, a response to the question, What should we call ourselves?

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Group Brainstorm, a response to the question, What should we call ourselves?

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Notes from 8-13-21:
The circle as a container to explore the intersections of climate justice and social justice
Meta: how do we do the doing? How do we hold space for one another and for what wants to enter in.
Cathy: not having sense of smell. How do we create inclusive space? Not to flatten… what is hierarchical structure within?

What is the Name of our Group/our project?
Who speaks for the wolf?
Who speaks for the wild?
Fungi network… mycelium
Lorax: Who speaks for the trees?
Living and non-living
Nuance of listening
Listening as strategy
“Decolonizing is not a metaphor” – from Cori’s Decolonizing gender and sexuality course.
Land back movement.
Learning how to listen. What does the land want?
The call to listen
Embodied listening, listening from the body, embodied social justice
Listening to the quiet voices. The vibrations, the pulsing
Animal and plant listening. What is their response to our call, our listening?
Unhomed people in Parable of the Talents, speaking without speaking, below radar of hearing
Our capacity to listen and communicate on different levels
What reciprocity is there?
The shaman’s drum
The gift of disorientation
Listening with the wholeness that we are, and sensing into the interconnected web of life that we are a part of.
Fractals of We/Oui
Going beyond the physical senses
Slowing down as a response to crisis/urgency (Bayo Akomolafe)
Letting go of/ stepping out of/ dissolving the trance of separation
The land belongs to itself. We belong to the land
Becoming indigenous (Robin Wall-Kimmerer)
The shadow side in connecting to the earth – the earth loves my anxiety. How do you know what is your anxiety? What is the earth’s anxiety? What is the other’s anxiety?
Who is listening? Are we listening? What am I not listening to today?
Getting into right relationship with the land/ more-than-human realm as foundation for social justice